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On The Road Again

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Just a quick one today folks.

Hope you’re all having a great Monday so far. I know, I know, it’s the worst day of the week but seriously I hope you’re all having the best one you possibly can. As for me, well, I’m not having such a great time today. I’ve had a screamingly violent headache for 4 whole days now and it’s starting to wear a bit thin.

I know what it is – too much screen time and a badly overdue eye test. I’m a fool to myself at times.

However, I am in something of a good mood because Ange and I are officially back on the road again. Yes, we have a new car and we love it.

We had to sell our old car, Zebedee (don’t ask) a 2010 Renault Scenic after it got to the stage where the cost of repairs far outweighed the value of the vehicle. Basically, we needed to spend over £800 to get it fixed and the value of the car was less than £300. Just good economic sense at the end of the day.

The saddest part is that we loved that car. It was an absolute trooper of a machine and having a 1900cc diesel engine it mocked even the steepest of hills. A handy thing when you live in the Yorkshire Dales. But in the end our heads had to rule our hearts and we sold her to We Buy Any Car and got a measly £278.01 for her. Where the penny came from I still haven’t worked out. It’s a strange thing isn’t it?

That was in late March and since then we’ve been reliant on taxis, public transport, and the kindness of others where our transportation requirements are concerned. Thank you to all those who helped us out during that difficult time – you know who you are.

Fast forward to last Tuesday and we took possession of our new ride and we’re delighted with it. It’s an MG ZS, 24 plate, 1500cc, in burnt orange, and it’s got more gadgets and gizmos than I have ever known on a vehicle in my life. I’m starting to get my head around some of it now though.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, that is a picture of said new car at the top of this post.

We all love it when we get a new car, come on now, you know you do, and we’re just the same. But it’s not just that new car feeling that we’ve got. On a personal level it is a great boon for yours truly. It’s got more head height and more leg room than old Zebedee plus the leather (heated) seats provide a level of driving comfort I’ve never known before. It’s like sitting in your favourite armchair as the world zips by. And speaking as someone who has a physical disability let me tell you that is the best part about it.

I’m also loving the reversing cameras. I’ve not had a car with it before and what a smashing thing it is. It makes parking almost effortless.

I’ve even gone and bought one of those hand-held vacuum cleaners that plugs into the charging port so that I can keep it as pristine as possible. Honestly, I’ve never been that precious about keeping a car clean. I suppose the reason for that may be that now Ange is officially retired we need a nice, clean motor and not a workhorse. Our other cars were used to carting about sacks of coal, Calor gas bottles, and all manner of things that we required during our time boating on the canal.

The MG though, I fully intend to maintain to a high standard. That means there will be no flaky pastry sausage rolls, sugary doughnuts, or MacDonalds eaten in it. Not that we eat those things now anyway but it’s the principle that counts.

So, just wanted to let you know what we’ve been up to. We’re mobile again and I have a four-day old headache that feels like an imp is behind my eyes and trying to kick them out of my head with steel toe-capped hob-nailed boots. Other than that its business as usual.

I’m hoping to make a start on the next thrilling Joe Wilkie adventure soon. Beastie hasn’t made the splash that I’d hoped for and if you recall I was thinking of jacking it all in at one point. But I’ve decided to press on and build up the Blessham canon as it were. So expect Joe Wilkie 6 some time next year. It’s going to be nuts – literally!

Sorry to crow a bit about the car but I can’t even begin to explain what a great blessing it has been.

Pain Stops Play

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It’s a sad state of affairs but I’m afraid I must utter the F word again. No, not that one, I mean the other one. The one I get sick and tired of uttering…

Fibromyalgia!

Yeah, that one.

Its gone and got in the damn way again this week and I’m annoyed because prior to this flare up things had been going relatively swimmingly. I’ve got a new novel out in BEASTIE and I’ve been promoting the blessed thing as much as possible with the limited energy that I have and, furthermore, there’s been a few sales on the horizon (see what I did there – sales, not sails).

And now… well, its all ground to a juddering halt.

We spent last weekend on the boat (Friday to Tuesday) and I’m sorry to report that the physical nature of boating life has rendered me fatigued and in mortal agony. In addition, being absent minded, I forgot to charge up the new massage gun and so the pummelling I was hoping to unleash on my biceps and calves today never happened.

I’m sat here typing this to take my mind off it while it goes through its three-hour charging cycle.

It was a lovely long weekend in many ways. We caught up with a lot of old friends and spent quality time with our epic granddaughter and we imbibed a glass of vino or two along the way. And then, on the last morning, we had to get rid of our rubbish and take the cassette toilet to be emptied. Anyone familiar with canal boating will readily tell you that it’s not so easy as it is in a house.

You can’t just put your bin bags out for those nice chaps in hi-vis from the council to collect and likewise, one can’t just jettison one’s leavings any old where but instead the foulness you have collated over several days has to be taken to something called an Elsan Point and deposited hence.

It’s labour intensive and, in our case, involved a fairly lengthy journey on foot with a rickety festival trolley and an overly anxious labrador.

Now, having arm muscles that are about as much use as a drum kit in a library and legs that quiver and tremble with only the bare minimum of exertion, I found our mile long walk to the Elsan somewhat challenging to say the least.

In fact, challenging doesn’t really do it justice at all. Crossword puzzles can be challenging, what we endured during that hellish hour and a half was something akin to a forced route march at gunpoint. And I must be completely honest when I say that my lovely Ange did the vast bulk of the work. I held onto the anxious lab until my back couldn’t take anymore of his pulling on the lead and I had to stop at one point and have a quick blast of GTN spray to calm my pounding heartbeat. There was a brief moment when I honestly believed that an ambulance might be required.

Thankfully, I pulled through and with a gargantuan effort on both our parts we ascended Five Rise Locks like Hillary and Tensing summiting Everest. The fact that several elderly ladies with strollers and a small child on one of those pedal-less bikes with stabilisers attached overtook and got up there before I did is not something I am particularly proud of.

But praise be to Almighty God, the café at the top of the locks was open and we were able to refresh ourselves with sandwiches and drinks. That was quite pleasant, for a while, until the picnic bench seating we were sat on came up to meet my weight on the other side and my back end felt like it had been kicked all the way we had come. In short, I was in a mess.

How on Earth would I get back to the boat?

The solution was a simple one.

A taxi.

Ah! You may say, why didn’t you get a taxi up there in the first place? The answer to that is obvious to me. It’s hard enough to get a taxi in Bingley that will accommodate a dog but to get one to carry a plastic box full of sewerage is another matter altogether.

But with the cassette now empty and thoroughly cleansed it wasn’t too bad, although Ange and I had to take separate cabs due to said labrador being an absolute nob. But that’s a story best kept for another time.

Needless to say that our mission was a success. A slow, painful one but a success none the less. Then it was just the small matter of getting home and I really don’t want to go into details about that journey because I’m rather miffed about it. Again, perhaps a story best left for another time.

And so, we’re now into Thursday and I’ve done bugger all since that monstrous climb up Five Rise except take Bella out to do her business while her mum, Val, was out for the morning. I wanted to write yesterday, I really did. Unfortunately both the spirit and the flesh were weak in this one and I pretty much spent the day feeling terribly sorry for myself. The sheer effort of emptying a chemical toilet has left me stiffer than a vagrant’s underwear and even composing this blog post has felt like a struggle.

Oh I’ll be back, I know I will, but for now I just have to accept that my arse is being rudely felt by fibromyalgia and I desperately need to stop now and have a hot milky drink and a brace of tramadol. In fact, I’ve felt so physically horrendous that this morning I forsook asking Alexa to play some progressive rock in favour of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. That’s how bad it is!

See you all anon and don’t forget to check out BEASTIE or any of my books; they’re all thumping good reads.

Fool Time Score

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Fool, now there’s an interesting word. As a noun, it means a person who lacks judgement or acts unwisely. An idiot, basically. As a verb, it means either to deceive or trick as well as to waste time or act foolishly.

I think I’m guilty of being both the noun and the verb recently.

I’m a fool to myself, speaking of the noun. I keep setting time targets for myself and then broadcasting it either via this blog or Substack. And then I look like a total berk when I don’t make good on those targets.

Take my blog post from the 9th June. You may recall it; it was titled Switcheroo. It was a well written, little piece that fizzed and zinged with positivity, that I concocted in a mood of joie de vivre. I was feeling triumphant from writing a whole chapter of my next novel in one day and became so full of exuberance that I made all sorts of claims and promises in that post that I was going to get the novel finished in the space of a few weeks.

Foolish of me.

Here we are several weeks later and I’m just on the cusp of finishing chapter 7 of that book. Nowhere near what I had crowed about on June 9th. Nowhere even remotely near.

Now, I’m not saying that the writing itself has been a struggle as I am convinced that this is going to be one of the best Joe Wilkie books yet and I am enjoying the writing process immensely. I truly am having so much fun with this one.

It’s just that I haven’t gotten all that far with it. Life, as you know, has a habit of getting in the way of things and my life is no exception to the rules. Yes, I could blame poor health, yes I could blame commitments and yes I could blame my own reticence and idleness at times. The stark naked fact is that I simply shouldn’t have made those claims in the first place.

Because now, I look like a fool for saying them.

As a verb, it’s even worse!

I feel like I’ve deceived my readers by making such bold statements. I’ve fooled people into thinking they’re going to be reading Joe’s next adventure in the near future when in reality it might not even be this year.

I mean, I’m doing my best and I’m hopeful it’ll be released before Christmas but the truth is I just can’t promise that and I shouldn’t have given people the wrong idea when I said it would be ready by Autumn.

Ok, it might well be ready by Autumn if I get my foot down but then again it might not. I just can’t say for certain.

And to think, I convinced myself and all of you that I thought it possible that I’d write three chapters a week. I’m a fool whose fooled.

So I’m sorry everyone. I’m not going to make any more bold promises or set myself time-based targets that are just unrealistic and unfeasible. Instead, I’m going to knuckle down and write my ass off as and when I can and instead of focussing on the release date I shall focus on producing the best book that I can. Quality over quantity must now be my mantra when it comes to the daily word count.

I think, as a writer, I should be aiming for more mystique and less foolishness.

Incidentally, a fool is also a kind of pudding. It’s pink, fruity and not very healthy. Now, who does that remind you of?

The Power Of A Chat

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The amazing and wonderful woman I am proud to share my life with (Ange) has been having some reflexology sessions as part of her recovery treatment from breast cancer. I must confess that I don’t know an awful lot about reflexology and may have perhaps dismissed it in the past as quack medicine. But minds can change and mine certainly has towards reflexology. If it helps the woman I adore then lets crack on with it.

The reflexology session lasts about an hour and so whilst Ange is in there I go to a place called the Sound Bar, which, if you’re interested, is situated right next to the bus station in Skipton. I like the Sound Bar although I do think it’s trying a little too hard to be cool. It really doesn’t need to.

It’s called the Sound Bar because…

  1. It is a bar
  2. It sells music in both vinyl and cd formats

Also, they have regular gigs and performances there and they play some pretty decent music while you’re having a drink or a vinyl/cd safari. Plus, the walls are decorated with all manner of Rock n Roll memorabilia. It’s kind of like stepping back in time to the early eighties so it is extremely retro in that respect.

Anyway, I like going in there and it’s a very rare occasion that I don’t come out of the place with at least one new record in my hand; often several.

And so, last Friday I found myself in there again.

There were only a few people in at that time and so I bought a pint of Guinness Zero and had a quaff before perusing said vinyl. There was a lady seated at the table next to mine, maybe in her early seventies, holding a Yorkshire terrier and drinking a latte. I smiled and said, “How d’you do?” to be polite and then I took a generous swallow of my non-alcoholic stout.

To cut a short story even shorter we began a conversation about music and we discovered our tastes ran along similar lines. We talked of bands we’d seen and whilst I name dropped Wishbone Ash and Uriah Heep, she countered with Hawkwind and Smile. For the uninitiated, Smile was Queen before they were Queen. Wow!

We talked of many other things; grandchildren being one, and I felt quite proud to tell her that Erin at 19 years old is rather fond of Fleetwood Mac. We also talked about dogs and pets in general. I had a Yorkie/Jack Russell cross many years ago (Suzy) and so we found another shared interest.

When I’d first sat down I noticed that there was a certain air of melancholy about her but as we talked her mood seemed to lift. I finished my pint and excused myself as I wanted to look at the records.

My vinyl safari lasted about fifteen minutes or so and I came away with a copy of Foxtrot by Genesis in excellent condition. Feeling rather chuffed I bought another Zero and sat down again. The lady was still there and was now drinking a glass of lager; it being after midday I suppose.

We got to chatting again and she asked me about my walking stick. I gave her a potted history of my health problems and then she told me something that really stopped me in my tracks.

She told me that very recently she had been diagnosed with dementia.

I didn’t quite know what to say at that juncture. Here was a total stranger telling me that basically life is about to get a lot worse for her but still saying it in a chatty and conversational way. Now I knew the reason for her melancholy countenance when I first arrived but the thing is that without us having that chat I wouldn’t have known about her condition as she was so talkative.

Now, I think I realise what was going on.

She was unburdening to me about her diagnosis. Having formed a sort of connection through a shared interest in music, grandkids and dogs she had felt able to tell me about dementia affecting her life. And the amazing thing was that even though she’d told me that she did seem a lot happier than when I’d first met her a mere half hour ago. Relieved almost.

We chatted a little more about Led Zeppelin and Genesis and then she said that she had to go and meet her daughter to whom the little dog belonged. I said something like, “See you later!” which is a bit phatic really. Unless she’s in the Sound Bar the next time I’m in there it’s highly unlikely.

I wish I’d told her that I hoped she would be all right or given her some words of comfort and encouragement instead of those three vacant words I had employed. I was cross with myself to be perfectly honest.

However…

Since then I’ve had a different opinion. It didn’t matter how we finished the conversation, what was more important was the fact that we’d had one in the first place and it had made an improvement to her day. And that, I suppose, is the moral of this story. We should never shy away from engaging with our fellow man or woman. A bit of a chat about music, dogs, art, literature, football, gardening, tea bags, bog snorkelling or whatever the hell else you have in common can make a massive difference to that person’s day.

I realised that our little chat had been a powerful thing and, even though I never even asked her name nor she mine, I like to think that I made a bit of a difference to her.

Ange arrived about ten minutes after the lady had left and had enjoyed her reflexology session immensely. I told her that this woman I’d never met before had confided her dementia diagnosis to me and part of me wished she had been there at the time as she is the most understanding and sensitive person you could ever hope to meet and would have been a much better sounding board for such things – I’m not a great conversationalist at the best of times.

But I’m going to try and do better in the future. I need to make more of an effort with people and take the time to chat with strangers. We all should. You just never know what it might achieve.