Now We Are Three

My gorgeous, clever, artistic, funny, lovely wife, Karen, died on 19th July 2019 at Warwick Hospital. She'd had a successful breast cancer operation the previous month in June (only a small lump so surgery was not too invasive) but after 5 days at home recovering an infection had flared up that the best attempts of the ICU team at the hospital could not get under control.

I won't go into detail here but it was the worst two weeks of my life and I daresay our sons, Ben and Tom, will tell you the same thing. Right up to the last few days none of us had any indication of just how serious things were getting and we were all hopeful that Karen's return home was imminent. It was not to be.

9 months later I am only just coming out of shock and starting to deal with her loss and what it means for me and the boys.

The three of us are all well and safe and financially secure. Because Karen was smart she had set up various policies and insurances when we had first married that have saved us from life becoming much harder. Karen told me about them at the time - I have vague recollections of not really listening because (a) I didn't want to think about such hardline eventualities when we were just setting out on our lives together and (b) I'm crap with that kind of thing; Karen's being an accountant meant that, in my mind, this area was her domain and I was happy to defer all details and organization to her. I'm glad that I did; she did us proud and it is a comfort to know that even now she is looking after us. 

It is a bitter-sweet thing to revisit this blog and re-read the 1000+ posts published here. Karen was always very supportive of my writing and this blog in particular. Despite the many film and book reviews and attempts at comedy writing that are contained here, this blog was essentially a family archive - an online diary of our lives together. That is certainly how Karen viewed it and, rereading my posts now, I can see that inadvertently I captured much of our lives together even when I had not consciously meant to or had been writing about other things.

I recognize that by the very act of writing several posts a week I was savouring our lives together and appreciating being in the moment by celebrating much of it online. For that reason alone I regret letting this blog fall into disuse as we, in the real world, fell (like we all do) into dull unthinking routine. I know it is hard to do but, by God, seizing the day sometimes just means feeling the moment! None of us do it enough. But in this blog I had a bloody good go at feeling as many of them as I could. I am thankful for that.

Within these hundreds of posts I also recognize a happiness and a contentment in my writing that had never been there before. The source of that happiness, of course, was my relationship with Karen and our boys and our very happy home life together. I don't think I will ever have it in me to write like that again. This was a special time. A one-off. As cliched as it might be, Karen and I were soul-mates and when we were together my soul finally realized it had a singing voice and couldn't help but sound forth joyously. I had expected and hoped that it would last forever. Certainly for the rest of my life. Karen and I often daydreamed about what we would do in our retirement together... none of it very grand (a bit of travelling, days out, mostly mooching around the antique shops of Stow-on-the-Wold which had become our special place) but it would have made us both very happy.

It is hard to wake up each morning now and know that Karen is no longer here with us. It is harder still contemplating that I may have another 40 years on this earth without her. She was only 52 when she died. 2 days before our 14th wedding anniversary and a few weeks before my 50th birthday. To say last summer was a steaming pile of horseshit of galactic proportions is to put it mildly. Like I said, I'm only just now coming out of shock; the grief has moved from a hazy, dream-like pain to a sharply focused agony as the permanence of this horrible new world sinks in. 

Karen had suffered a horrific childhood. A physically abusive mother, raped horrifically when she was 3 years old... just one of those things on its own would have been enough to give someone PTSD for life. Karen had a double dose and for much of her adult life battled with the debilitating effects of it. She put an immense amount of work into getting herself "sorted out". Counselling, therapy, self-help... everything. She was incredibly brave and courageous. Some people never recover from such an awful start in life and slip into drug and alcohol abuse and worse. Karen didn't. She clawed her way out of it, determined that her relationships and any children she had would not be scarred by issues caused by her traumas. It was a long, tough, constantly uphill fight. But she did it. Anyone who knew Karen will tell you what a strong, warm, kind, wise and empathic person she was. She was the most honest and truthful person I have ever met. And, if I am honest, the only person on this planet that I can say without equivocation that I trusted 100%. I knew I could trust her with my soul. 

The boys and I feel like we have been robbed; that life has cheated us. 16 years together (14 married and 18+ months dating before that) is not nearly enough. We all deserved more. Karen deserved so much more. So there is pain, and grief, and sorrow and anger. But there is also thankfulness. I was lucky to have found someone like Karen. So lucky. Luckier than I probably deserved to be. 

Each day now is painful. Because every day without Karen feels like an utter waste. I don't want to move on. I don't want to forget or the memories to become faded and dull. I don't want life to close in around her absence and callously continue without her. 

And yet here we are.

Our boys need me. Ben is now 18 and Tom is 12. Both too young to have lost their mum. They keep me going. I mean to do them proud and to do Karen proud. But beyond that I have absolutely no fucking idea what to do or what I am doing.

Anyway, I won't bore you with that... whoever you are now. It's been quite a few years since I last updated this blog. At the time I had built up quite a good readership but like all things... nothing lasts forever. I doubt anyone will read this really but for the sake of completeness I needed to write this one last post. To say goodbye and to say thank you. I hope whoever stumbles across these posts takes some pleasure in them... even if it is only a small chuckle at my stupid jokes. I hope mostly though that a few of you are moved enough to go home today and give your loved ones a big hug. 

Because you always think you have enough time to do it later. To say all the important stuff later. 

But you don't.

Karen and I told each other we loved each other every single day - no word of a lie - and yet still, still, I regret not saying it more.

And I would gladly give up the entirety of the rest of my life just to have 10 more minutes with her. I would consider it a bloody good bargain.

I love you forever, gorgeous. I miss you.

It All Turns To Shit When I’m Not Here

No, it’s true, honestly.

I don’t know I how I do it but when I’m here things are calm and reasonable. When I’m not all hell breaks loose and the agents of chaos roam free over the landscape doing whatever it is agents of chaos do. Unpredictable stuff. Wearing odd coloured socks. Driving their cars upside down. Forming coalition governments. Whatever.

Take last Friday. I take the day off. It’s my wedding anniversary. 6th if you must know. I’m not at work. Karen and I spend the day in Stowe-On-The-Wold and Moreton-in-the-Marsh (basically we like places with hyphenated names – it’ll be Horton-in-Ribblesdale and Langwith-Whaley-Thorns next year, mark my words).

We have a lovely time freed from the whip-crack and joy-ruin of work. We mooch, we shop, we eat and wonder why we can’t spend every day like this for the rest of our lives... curse you, mammon and the need for mammon!

When we return home I – as I often do – log into my work emails.

I’m not sure why I do this. Why I give up my free time to connect with an environment which over the years has become anathema to me. But I do it. I think I just want to be forewarned of any impending trouble before I return. Give myself loin-girding time. Because I have learned from experience that whenever I am not at work shit happens. Worse shit than would normally have happened had I been there to shit-manage it. (Are you noticing all these rogue-hyphens?)

So I log-in wondering what could have befallen the old girl this time (my place of work that is).

Will it be a flood again as has happened on previous occasions? Will it be a bunch of hoodies steaming the crowds in the foyer and having to be kettled off the premises by the local constabulary? Will it be an amorous couple of tramps in the public toilets getting passionate together and deciding to mix-and-match their fleas in the most intimate manner possible?

No.

This time in my absence there was a fire. On the boardwalk at the back of the building that allows passersby to admire the River Leam. It seems that a bunch of daft school-leavers thought it might be a jolly jape to make a little pile of their now-obsolete school books on the wooden boardwalk and set light to them.

Some kind of ritual cleansing of their school days. Alma mater immolated.

Cue the bods in the office wondering what the smell was and assuming that the laminating machine had been left switched on. Cue black smoke coming in through the windows. Cue the fire brigade turning up and hosing down and cutting out and heading off, leaving a small black edged hole in the boardwalk right outside a ruddy fire escape.

Cue me laughing my dyed-in-the-wool socks off that something else stupid and mad has happened yet again the one time I am not on the premises to deal with it.

I swear I do not know how I do it. Some kind of morphic field manipulation perhaps? When I am here I exude a field of relative calm and order that envelopes the entire building much like the protective charm that the professors put around Hogwarts in The Deathly Hallows Part 2. The agents of chaos find themselves dissuaded from entering and causing havoc.

My pheromones have Zen-like qualities. All breathe deep and be at peace.

And in... and out... there. Feeling any better?

Either way I think my employers ought to review my fiscal remuneration in light of my chaos-soothing qualities or I might decide to take them elsewhere. I mean, I’m sure BP would pay a fortune for a guy like me that could greatly reduce their propensity for unplanned-for foul-ups. Even BSkyB would benefit from my becalming influence.

Now all I have to do is pay those bloody kids off. Sodding “hush-money” indeed. Right avaricious little buggers kids are these days, I’m telling you. We’d have set fire to stuff for free in my day...

Racist? Or Just Minority Interest?

We have a long running detective drama show in the UK called Midsomer Murders. It’s been running for donkey’s years and the format never changes. And neither does the plot. Basically each episode runs like this: a quaint, idiosyncratic, stereotypical English personage of a certain age who on the surface has their roiling emotions constrained by their stiff upper lip suddenly goes on the rampage and murders another quaint, idiosyncratic, stereotypical English personage of a certain age with something profoundly incongruous like a Black & Decker hedge trimmer or a Moulinex hand blender. Cue police investigation led by grumpy, cranky genius detective who solves the crime just in time to enjoy a cream tea at the local cricket club with his bridge playing wife and university graduate daughter. Cue titles.

Do feel free to take me to task (those of you who are fans of the show) if I have missed out any important plot points; I don’t think that I have.

The show’s creator, Brian True-May has, this week, got himself suspended by ITV chiefs for comments he made along the lines of “Midsomer Murders is the last bastion of Englishness” and he’d like to keep the cast all white as he feels to bring ethnicity issues into the show would change what the show is about. Basically he sees the show as being a fictional representation of an England that, if we’re honest, has never really existed. It is a stereotypical view of what we (the English) and more likely what others (the Americans) would imagine is a traditional English village. Cricketing whites, tea and scones, old boys clubs, war veterans with walking sticks, toffs with chips on their shoulders and Mellors the gardener nobbing one of the posh ladies of the amateur dramatics society behind the back of her boorish husband.

It ain’t real, folks, and it’s never been real. But this is the show’s very successful shtick. It has after all been running for over 14 years and been sold to 231 territories around the world (I wonder if any of those are Indian or African?).

The question is: is Mr True-May being racist in his adherence to a formula that has earned those very same ITV chiefs an awful lot of revenue over the last decade and a half. Is Midsomer Murders as a concept, racist?

‘Cos the backstabbers are coming out of the ITV executive director’s office with their knives of righteousness gleaming and freshly polished. They are “appalled” by his comments. An “investigation” has been launched. The story has even made the papers and the internet – no mean thing when it’s hardly been what you’d call a slow news week.

I’m going to stick my head out here and say that, in my opinion, neither the show nor Mr True-May are racist. Not on your nelly. What he and the show are being, however, in non-representational. But that is very different from being racist. But – and here’s the rub – the show isn’t meant to be representational. It’s a work of fiction. It taps into a stereotype of middle class Englishness and runs with it. Metaphorically the show is like drinking a cup of tea with your pinky sticking out. Chin-chin. Fancy a game of croquet?

I feel quite annoyed at the unspoken suggestion that the show should suddenly acquire itself an ethnic family just to tick that particular demographic box. I can’t think of a more cheap, shallow and cynical reason to get a black actor onto the cast. And I’m at pains to point out here that I’m not a fan of the show. What I am a fan of though, is the freedom of writer’s to be able to write what they like without having to jump through hoops just to appease the politically correct brigade who are so scared of offending anyone that they feel the imperative to impose the same restraints on every single show until all shows tick the same tick boxes and everyone is happy but no-one is watching the bloody show in the first place because it lacks character or individual personality.

Maybe I’m wrong. Christ, maybe I’m being racist. Am I? If the show was about an Asian village and about Asian life and values would someone be demanding a white family move in? Would that argument even get aired? Maybe that’s over simplifying it – which is a bad idea as this topic is a bloody minefield as it is.

As far as I can see, the show is a cultural backwater. Literally. What sells the show is this fake, incestuous, closed-off Englishness that inevitably leaves little room for an ethnic dialogue. The show is not real and makes no attempt to engage with real life and the real culture of England which – thankfully – is wonderfully diverse and culturally rich. But that is this particular show’s selling point. I think True-May is right. To meddle with that formula – for all it does little to appeal to me – would kill it off and ruin it for those fans who wish to suspend their disbelief and wallow for a couple of hours in a dream of England that didn’t even exist in E. M Forster’s time.

Ethnic issues are well represented on other shows and in other dramas. Nobody is being hard done by. What is happening is that the fear of racism and the fear of being perceived as being racist is resulting in a good many Union Jack bloomers getting themselves tied up into a right royal twist.

Chill out, people! It’s a minority interest show! Doesn’t that tick a tick box too?

For those of you that are interested here is the opinion of a Midsomer Murders viewer from India: Ramana's Musings...

P.S. Thank you for all reading my 700th post.

An Easy Post To Comment On

Friday was the 5th wedding anniversary of yours truly and my good lady wife.

5 years! It feels something of a milestone, this half decade. So much has happened.

• Both my grandparents and my aunt died
• Karen and I lost two babies before succeeding with Tom who’ll be 3 in October
• I finally got my English degree
• Karen finally got her ACCA qualification
• I began this blog
• I wrote a novel
• We bought a house
• Karen totally renovated the garden to the point where we are now growing our own fruit and veg

And through it all Karen and I feel just as close as we always did. The magic is still there. Sure the magic might get buried occasionally under fatigue, work stresses, money worries, ill health, etc, but it’s still there bubbling away.

It’s funny to think that even just 10 years ago I would never have imagined myself as being where I actually am right now. Sure, I haven’t run a marathon, haven’t been into space or made a million with my home web design business but I’m still proud of what has been achieved and what has been survived over the last 5 years.

The ups have been up and the downs have been down.

I’m sure there’ll be challenges aplenty in the next 5 years but I can say with absolute certainly that I hope Karen and I are still together, working our way through them steadily in the not so far off year that is 2015.

And I hope to see all of you there too. Here’s to the next 5!

The Birds

Just to prove that amongst all the financial angst and budgetary gloom it is possible to have a good time without spending too much money... Karen and I, as part of our 3rd wedding anniversary celebrations last Wednesday, took the kids to Moreton-in-Marsh and visited a lovely falconry centre and arboretum whose exact name and location (somewhere outside M-in-M*) temporarily escape me.

If you’re a fan of birds of prey then this is the place to be. If talons and vicious beakery give you the heebie-jeebies then perhaps you’d be better of spending a day at ‘the mall’...

As for me, I was making like Alfred Hitchcock. And here are a few pics to prove it.

(Click on the pics to see a larger version...)

The day was rounded off with a kindly babysitter to take care of the kids while Karen and I headed off to Warwick and The Saxon Mill for a gorgeous anniversary meal. Naturally, given the theme of the day, I selected yet another bird from the Mill’s superlative menu – not an endangered one I hasten to add (though I doubt it had felt particularly safe at the moment of termination) – a spit roasted chicken. It was very satisfying...

Please keep any filthy comment to yourselves. This is a family show.

*Batsford Arboretum and Garden Centre