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.

The Hard Road Still Takes You Somewhere Beautiful

Karen's mum's funeral took place in Amersham on Wednesday - a rather beautiful part of the UK and evidently affluent. It went as well as funeral's go. I think we did her proud. The general feeling from most people was that her death was a blessed relief. Her strength of spirit and ferocious will was acknowledged by all. Funerals are always a paradox. An acknowledgement of loss accompanied often by personal gains. I think Karen's gains are a slow reconnection with other members of her family who, for various reasons (all tied up with Karen's mother) have been distant up till now. We came away with about three invitations to come and stay with people in places that ranged from Shrewsbury to Skye. I hope we'll soon be a position to take advantage of those.

Of course, now the admin of the funeral is done and dusted the grief starts properly. It is a slow process, not always "in your face". Often it works quietly at the back of your mind and heart and rears its head at the smallest, often seemingly inconsequential moments. To say I feel protective of Karen and my boys is an understatement.

The real heart of this post though is this: the last few weeks have been difficult and traumatic. Karen, the boys and I have had to gad about quite a bit, trying to sort things out and jump through all the correct legal hoops that death, without ever meaning to, throws up. Society likes its forms to be filled in and good form to be followed. On the surface it's been stressful. But underneath I cannot deny that I have enjoyed being with Karen and my boys. Maybe it's the sense of adversity, the way a shared grief bonds people but I can almost see myself in years to come looking back on the adventure of the last few weeks with a curious sense of joy. Almost a sense of stolen holiday. Does that sound wrong?

We were together. We doing stuff that was out of the ordinary. And even through all the heart heavy sorrow and stress there were most definitely good times and good moments.

Almost as if in the midst of death life was determined to be loudly affirmed.

It is a strange, almost guilty, comfort.

Funereal

The last week has been a blur. Karen and I are still only just starting to make sense of it all. To cut a long story short Karen's mum died last week, late on the night of the 11th. We knew it was going to happen but the speed of it took us all by surprise. However, she had stayed fiercely determined to exercise her will to the very end and had refused all water as well as food. Hence, the speed of her decline. She also requested that nobody visit her in her final hours, preferring instead to be left in peace. As with so many elements of her life her control over her own death was absolute.

For the last 6 days Karen and I, accompanied by our boys, have made numerous forays into Berkshire to meet with doctors, solicitors, registrars and the like to ensure all the paperwork is tickety-boo and that the myriad hoops of death administration have been leapt through at the right speed and the precise angle. Hopefully the gods of bureaucracy are satisfied with our efforts.

We now have the funeral and the wake to arrange, people to contact, an empty house to sort out - not to mention the small matter of dealing with quite a big family death and all its attendant emotional strains. Karen's mother was not an easy woman. Even those who considered her a friend describe her as being "difficult". The grief will not be easy too.

There is, however, good news. The solicitor spoke to us on Friday and, despite being convinced otherwise due to previous wills, it seems Karen and the boys have been made beneficiaries. It would be distasteful to go into detail here and besides which we only know the theory for sure rather than the exact practicalities - the solicitors need to do their thing and press buttons on their calculators, remembering to deduct their own fees naturally - but on the face of it (though I am afraid to say it out loud in case I curse it) it looks like things might get a lot easier for us in the future. Bizarrely we are more shocked and disbelieving of the good news than we were previously instantly believing of the (potential) bad.

But on some level despite the all pervading glumness that abounds in such matters there is light and, dare I say it, relief. We are all numb. But also hopeful.

The D Word

Not a great week.

Certainly not conducive to producing posts of scintillating literary value. So finally I have an excuse for not doing so.

First off, my best friend's mother died suddenly last Sunday. I don't have all the details yet as Dave is understandably maintaining radio silence but I can imagine the immense emotional run-a-round he and his family are currently going through. Dave's mum played quite a major role in my life in my twenties and early thirties. I was at her house most Saturday evening's visiting Dave and have fond memories of firework's nights that seemed to last forever and watching cable TV before it was quite so commonplace. I was geeky and awkward when I was younger (much more so than I am now) but Dave's mum had an easy laugh and a constantly sunny disposition. To meet someone who laughs at all your feeble jokes at a time when you are desperate to build up your confidence is a real boon. I was made to feel part of the family and was ribbed as such - but in a way that made me feel safe and included. That she is gone now seems unnatural and impossible. She always seemed larger than life and irrepressibly vibrant. My thoughts are with Dave and his family for their huge loss.

Second, Karen and I seem to be heading into the above territory for ourselves. Karen's mother, a long time sufferer of Lupus, after strokes and other debilitating side-effects, announced on Wednesday that she's finally had enough and "cut her peg". Basically, after living the last couple of years taking only liquid food by tube, being unable to walk and talk, she has now decided - quite understandably - that enough is enough. She is refusing all medication, all food and as much water as she can comfortably do without. She's made up her mind that this is the end and there is little anyone can do about it. I believe she has been psychiatrically assessed though don't think the results have been announced yet. However, having seen her yesterday it is evident she is very clear about what she is doing. She is after all a qualified doctor herself and very intelligent. She is aware more than anyone around her of the direct consequences of this course of action.

The visit was hard going. Karen's relationship with her mother is difficult to say the least and not my place to detail here. Her mother is frustrated by her inability to communicate as fluently as she'd like, she's uncomfortable, in pain, tired and not entirely satisfied with the nursing home they moved her into on Friday - but she's aware that, after her shock announcement, remaining at home was going to be an impossibility.

Anyway, the visit went better than Karen and I had thought it would - she was in better condition than we imagined but, of course, this will deteriorate as the lack of food and medication begin to bite. Nobody likes to ask "how long" but that is the question that is never far away. We took the boys and they coped admirably with, what must be to them, quite a scary sight: a very old human being who looks both human and not, who frequently groans out loud, not from pain, but from anger and frustration and who is unable to reassure them about what she is going through. It is a scary situation for anybody - and I worked 10 years in a nursing home for the elderly so am reasonably used to it. We said our goodbyes - unsure if they were final or not; unsure of how many more we could reasonably expect - and then tried to make the best of the trip down to Cookham by taking the kids for a walk along the Thames before getting fish and chips and heading home. Karen and I will try and head back down in the week unless events demand a more immediate response.

So that was the week that was but that I wish was wasn't. And why I haven't been so alacritous with updating this blog. Bear with me, people, this is a bumpy ride.

Nadgers

There’s going to be a lot of hyperbole written about Rik Mayall over the next few days. Some of it will be ball-achingly official, most of it will be deeply personal. This will fall into the latter camp.

To oafishly paraphrase Shakespeare: "Alas poor [Yo]Rik… Where be your gibes now?"

The answer is everywhere: all over the internet; all over YouTube; in boxed sets in every entertainment store up and down the country and, most important and most relevant of all, on the lips and in the minds of everybody who ever loved “Bottom”, “Blackadder”, “Man Down” or any of the other amazing raft of comedy adventures that Rik Mayall indulged in.

My good friend Dave and I have been indulging in “Bottom quote tennis” since we first learnt of his death yesterday. And we’re still going strong. An endless rally where every return is still somehow an ace.

For anyone who loved “Bottom” these quotes are pregnant (oo-er) with meaning:

“My, that’s  a smashing blouse you’re wearing.”

“That’s £1.20 you owe me – I bought you that drink in good faith!”

"I'll just pop upstairs and scrape off the sheets..."

“And I promise Lord that I will come to church every day… you do still do that thing with the wine and biscuits, don’t you?”

“They’re all doing it and doing it and then sitting back and having a fag and then doing it some more… oh Eddie why won’t anybody ever have sex with me?”

And there’s hundreds and hundreds more. I could fill the entire post with them.

I never liked “The Young Ones.” I freely admit that. I never watched it when it was first broadcast but a kid at my school, Richard Saul, was plainly an early devotee and would come into class the next day and basically re-enact the entire show, word for word, and add in his own especial brand of teenage obnoxiousness (I’m sure he matured into a truly lovely man). I confess it ruined it for me and I avoided the show like a plague afterwards. I finally caught up with it years later after being indoctrinated into the world of “Kevin Turvey”, “Filthy, Rich & Catflap” and “The Dangerous Brothers”. I thought I’d give it a go but “The Young Ones” just seemed…very amateurish and, worse, unfunny. I could see its anarchic approach was ground-breaking but the comedy was lazy and very hit or miss. For me it mostly missed.

But hey, everybody has to start somewhere.

“Bottom”, however, did it for me. Down-at-heel, tawdry, disgusting, puerile, childish and obsessed with body parts, body functions and sex. Everything I look for in a wife. Wife? I meant to say sit-com. Honest. “Bottom” came along at the right time of my life. I was a late teen. I had a filthy sense of humour but no appropriate outlet for it. And I was a virgin and likely to stay that way forever. Or so it seemed. To say I identified a little with Richard Richard is to under-egg the milky pudding immensely. The best thing about “Bottom” was that it was gloriously un-PC. I lapped it up. Oo-er again.

After that I was into everything Rik did. “The New Statesman”, “The Comic Strip” – especially the “Bad News” episodes – “Blackadder”.

Things went quiet for a long while. There was Rik’s horrible quad bike accident. The “Bottom” movie – “Guest House Paradiso” seemed a bit flat and the 3rd series of “Bottom” felt like it had been a struggle though the Halloween episode is still a classic.

And then last  year Rik resurfaced in “Man Down” as Greg Davies’ dad. It was a performance of utter genius. Pure Rik Mayall. Filthy, cheeky and full to the brim with blue-eyed, manic-smiled malevolence. The wife and I were desperately looking forward to the second series.

And now Rik is gone. Just like that. Out of the blue. It feels surreal. I’m shocked by how deeply it’s affected me. Rik Mayall was hardly “cuddly” and yet there was just something about him that was loveable. He was naughty. Very, very naughty. And ultimately, I think we all like a bit of naughtiness. We admire those who get away with it, those who push things a little too far and then say, “Oh tish” when some pinch-mouthed puritan inevitably gets their knickers in a twist over it.

Rik Mayall exuded comedy. Actually, that’s too passive. Given his high-octane, high-energy performances he projectile-vomited comedy all over the audience, all over his fellow actors and production teams and then hawked up a couple of big juicy lugies or two to act as comedy chasers. To watch Rik was to be utterly immersed in his performance. He was the ego sublime.

And now that he’s dead all I can think to say is, bollocks.

Utter, utter bollocks.

The Return Of The Doggy Hat

This post comes with huge apologies fitted as standard.

You may remember (those of you who are not chasing the dragon or hooked on crystal meth) that, back in August, I launched a global interpol-approved appeal to find my youngest son's doggy hat (please see the picture above). I described Tom's distress at the loss. I described how we'd retraced our steps in the hope of relocating a much loved item of head attire. I told how all our sleuthing efforts had been in vain.

The hat was gone and gone forever.

Some callous, unfeeling person must have half-inched it from where it had lain helpless on the pavement. Probably Keyser Söze - if you look carefully in the final scene in The Usual Suspects you can see Tom's doggy hat hanging out of his back pocket.

Or there's the one armed man in The Fugitive. He could have it too. Because just before he shoots Harrison Ford's wife (no, not Calista Flockhart) I saw Tom's doggy hat hanging off his prosthetic hook-arm-thing. It could have been a hankie but I'm pretty sure it was the hat.

And then we saw Tin Tin the other day and I was flabberghasted to see Captain Haddock wearing the doggy hat in the motorbike chase - only briefly. Blink and you would have missed it.

In short I was seeing the damn thing everywhere.

Never mind that I'd made you lot trawl the streets and the internet for a replacement. Never mind that Tom had finished with his grieving and had moved on. I just couldn't let it go.

And then during a bout of Autumn cleaning I found the blessed thing behind the sofa.

It had been there all the time. It had never been lying, abandoned in the street. It had never been stolen by persons callous and unknown. It had never made it into Speilberg's latest CGI animated extravaganza.

It had been brought back safely into the house and tossed nonchalently behind the sofa by an individual who, knowing not what he did, shall remain blameless and unnamed for all perpetuity. *cough*Tom*cough*

Apologies for the panic, people. Please stand down and go about your normal business. Situation is green once more. Abort fighter jets. Do not press the red button.

As you were.

Raiders Of The Lost Doggy Hat

It's not often I post requests for help on this blog. It's not often I post an all-points bulletin in such a global fashion. But the snooty people at BBC news have refused my request to borrow their satellite link-up and Claire Marshall for a few hours to advertize my campaign.

So I'm desperate.

I'm having to utilize this space on this here blog of mine to send out a request for help.

Shit. I don't even know if it'll work. I don't even know if you guys will be able to help. There's so much stuff going on in your lives right now - personal shit, work shit, financial shit, looting shit and (for those of you that did the former) prison shit - this request of mine might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. It might be a bridge too far. Or even just a metaphor too far.

It's my boy, you see. My youngest son, Tom. He used to have this doggy hat. You can see it in the photo above. We're not sure where it came from. It was given to us and, well, Tom and the hat just kinda bonded. They went everywhere together. They were inseparable.

Well. Inseparable apart from the occasions when Tom would hoof doggy hat out of the pushchair at passing traffic but I'm pretty sure doggy hat was complicit in these al fresco outings.

One day the inevitable happened. Doggy hat made like a Frisbee while mummy wasn't looking and he got left somewhere. Abandoned. Lost.

Now, whenever the wife and I find lost but plainly cherished items in the street we tend to leave them where they are. Our reasoning being that whoever lost said item will retrace their footsteps in the hope of finding it again.

We therefore retraced our footsteps but doggy hat was gone.

Someone - some opportunistic little thief - had said "finder keepers, losers weepers" and doghat-napped doggy hat for themselves.

Doggy hat was never seen again.

Tom was distraught. We were upset.

We figured he'd get over it, forget it, move on. But here we are, nearly 8 months later, and Tom still talks wistfully about his doggy hat. He wonders where it is. We've told him some kindly people are looking after it for him. He wonders if doggy hat will ever come home again. We shrug, swap furtive looks, and say that we hope so.

We're living a lie, goddamnit.

Today, things progressed further. Tom woke with tails of Mr Tree Branch tapping his window in the night to tell him that he'd "taken doggy hat up into the sky".

I can't take it anymore. I can't let my son go on thinking that doggy hat is... is... dead. It's too much.

So this is a request - a cry for help - does anybody know where we can buy another one of these blessed doggy hats? Does anyone have one that they'd be willing to sell?

Please.

We just can't take it no more.

Now We Are 5

The letter from the local Funeral Services came last Wednesday. Out of the blue. Without warning. I think Karen and I reacted pretty much the same. Shock. An initial inability to process the information contained within.

It's been 5 years since we lost the baby.

Even now we are no wiser as to why or what happened. The post mortem could find nothing wrong at all. His death at 20 weeks was simply put down to unknown causes. It's at that point that you realize that, despite the huge advances made in medical knowledge, the biological act of bringing a child into the world is a patchwork of unknowns and unexplained. The doctors and nurses, the scientists don't have all the answers. Things happen and they are at a loss to prevent, interfere or in anyway explain them.

Life is a chancy thing.

At the time the emotional impact was something like a world destroying meteorite. Karen and I were numb. Our emotional atmosphere flattened out under the weight of this colossal rock of misery that the universe had dropped onto us. Our time in the hospital was a weird blur of camaraderie and fear.

At 20 weeks Karen had no choice but to go through an induced labour. It was both smooth and horrific. And unutterably sad.

Even now I can't go into too much detail about the process. Only that my biggest regret was not looking onto the face of my son because I was too scared about what I might see; what condition he was in. Karen felt the same. It was too much to bear. We were too scared. Our emotions already pulled too tight to cope with being loaded with another tonne of grief.

We weren't able to take in all that the nurses said. I can remember they gave us the option of sending the foetus away for post morten to try and establish the cause of death. I remember this because I still have my half of the form that I had to fill in. We agreed to it. It seemed a good idea. It was a good idea. To try and rule out any congenital problems that might cause any future miscarriages. As I said the results proved nothing either way.

They may have offered us counselling. I can't remember. All I know is there was an implication that once the lab had finished with the post mortem they would dispose of the remains respectfully. The nurses may have given us more information about this; I don't know - my mind is a blur so I'm reluctant to throw blame about here.

So Karen and I left the hospital the next day carrying only our loss. We laid some flowers in a place that is special to us and dealt with our grief. Life was kind. We conceived Tom a couple of years later and now have a very rumbustious little boy on our hands to go with an even more rumbustious 9 year old.

And then the letter from the Funeral Services arrived last week. Would we like to collect the cremated remains of our baby? Or would we like them to hang onto them for a while longer or scatter them for us? All very respectful but a bolt from the blue nonetheless.

We had no idea our son's ashes were lying in an office storeroom somewhere a mere 10 minute's car drive away. No idea at all.

Karen and I didn't have to consider a response. We picked up our son's ashes a couple of days ago. They came in a box so tiny it was obscured by the formal letter that came with it. That was something of a body shock. Even smaller still is the little bag of ash contained within the box. Tiny. So tiny. The box is all of the weight.

Karen and I have decided to buy a tree that we can keep in a beautiful pot in the garden. We shall place the ashes there and keep him with us.

It is good and right to have him home.

Ours.

Us.

Family.

Elegantly Idle

How do you write with feeling about someone you have never met?

How do you write with feeling about someone you have never met who has died?

The internet is a curious thing. For decades hippies have wittered on about the global village, about global consciousness.

It all seemed like pie in the sky. An example of yoghurt weaving as it is known around these parts. How can people feel the same sense of connection with people hundreds if not thousands of miles away that they feel with their closest neighbours? It’s just not possible. It would be wonderful if it was but it just isn’t.

And then the internet happened. And social networking. And blogging. And for all the bad things they bring – yes, they can be as shallow, small minded and abusive as, well, people basically – they have also undeniably connected people at an emotional level.

We’ve seen it on the big scale. Revolution in Egypt. The outpouring of support for the disaster in Japan. People talking, responding, connecting. Caring. Suddenly we are all close neighbours.

It happens on the small scale too and the effects are just as big.

This morning I learnt of the death of a blogger whose writing I loved, dearly. I’d never met her. Never spoke to her. Never even Tweeted, Poked or Skyped. It was all in the blog.

Always archly funny, witty, pithy, Kaz’s words were always elegant, clever and incisive. A fiercely poised and intelligent lady. It was an honour when Kaz visited my blog and left a comment; when she took the time to express a feeling of connection.

She did so less as her illness took hold. She posted less on her own blog. Posted less words. Her energy was waning. Never her will. She knew what was coming. There were no sentimental “what if” posts. No wistful words published for posterity. The tagline of her blog still reads, “Even Idler”. I have no doubt that wherever she is now, she’d be finding that absolutely hilarious.

For those of you that frequented Kaz’s blog, I think today we will all be connected in our sadness, connected in our regret that the light of a real diamond has gone out. For those of you that didn’t, well, her blog is still there. A wonderful testament to an amazingly bright mind.

How do you write with feeling about someone you have never met?

The internet, this global consciousness, is a curious thing...

When I Am Brown Bread...

One of my favourite bloggers, Löst Jimmy, recently wrote a blog post about honouring the funeral arrangements of a friend. A friend, I hasten to add, who isn't about to shuffle off this mortal coil anytime soon (at least I hope not anyway) but it got me thinking about that subject which we must all think about at some point in our lives but which we would much rather not think about at all if we can get away with it.

Our own funeral. The wake. The 19th hole. Our great launch off into the unknown. The elevator door closes and you wait to see if you're going up or going down.

I am minded that when my grandfather died a couple of years ago my entire family kicked itself for not having paid closer attention to the various requests he had made over the years for what hymns he had wanted sung and what music he wanted played on the day we all saw him off for the last time. In the end we did him proud but the thought always stuck in my mind: was this really how he wanted it?

It's made me realize that, whilst I certainly don't want to tempt fate by booking Westminster Abbey and a hemp weave eco-coffin right now, I would like you all to be prepared and fully instructed in what I require when the nation mourns my eventual passing in approximately 250 years from now ('cos we just know that our industrious scientists are right on the cusp of cracking the aging gene conundrum, don't we?)...

So. To business.

Whilst I wish the nation to have the chance to play its last respects at Westminster Abbey and whilst I appreciate the 8 billion strong signatures on the petition to have my glorious body interred in Poet's Corner I would actually like my final resting place to be somewhat more spiritual, esoterical and ecologically sound than a great gold lined stone coffin housed in one of London's most famous landmarks.

It is my wish that a fully working Viking long boat be constructed by authentic craftsmen from the Netherlands and sailed across the North Sea to this green isle ready for the day of my funeral. I wish to be dressed in the garb of a Viking clan chief, complete with sword, dagger and horned helmet (please ensure the horns are of a suitably eye-watering length and girth) and then laid to rest on a specially built pyre of sweet smelling woods arranged on the deck of the boat.

I will then be launched down the River Avon as each of you fire flaming arrows into the specially primed and oiled pyre (please note: charcoal briquettes are available quite cheaply from B&Q all year round). You might all want to enlist for archery lessons now - I don't want my funeral to become a blood bath, after all, this is my big day, not yours.

I wish to have a posse of chief mourners comprised of Keeley Hawes, Katie McGrath, Julia Bradbury, Alice Roberts, Kate Bush and Christina Ricci. All are to be dressed in black cocktail party attire - short skirts, high heels and perfumed décolletages, please ladies. Any bloggers out there wishing to join this troupe may do so provided you are suitably attired. My wife will of course be the queen mourner and will conduct you all in a rendition of "You were the wind beneath our wings..." provided, of course, she hasn't cashed in my Life Assurance Policy early and isn't holidaying at Brean Sands with the milkman.

Once my flaming bower is well aflame and has become a danger to shipping in the Bristol Channel you may ignite a smaller pyre beneath the freshly spitted hog killed for this especial purpose and you may all enjoy partaking of a suitably hot and spicy spit roast in honour of my good self. You may quaff wines that foam, substances which tittilate and read aloud from the many good works that I will undoubtedly have published by this time. The choicest extracts from my autobiography, "You Shall Not See My Like Again, Weep, Weep, Weep Ye May..." will be read by my sons whilst the pivotal moments of my life with be re-enacted by a Punch & Judy man recruited from Brighton Pier.

Long after my ashes have mingled with the mud flats at Weston-super-Mare you may then erect a permanent statue of me on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square. Built entirely of Lego it will tower over the occupants of the other three plinths and act as a staunch reminder of my humble and modest greatness and will I hope offer you some small comfort in the pointless and dreary existence that life will undoubtedly have become now that I am no longer in this world with you.

Amen.

Have you all got that? Good. Feel free to bring some food to the party but none of that cheap crap from Lidl please. Donations to the Stephen Blake Benevolent Fund For Unrecognized Writers will be gratefully received and spent wisely (unlike the dubiously apportioned funds from WikiLeaks).

Until this great day then, folks... make the most of me. Just in case, you know, the scientists balls it all up...

The Betrayal

It feels wrong but you do it anyway. After all, there is no other way. It’s unavoidable. It’s just the way life is.

Most of the time Tom is fine about being dropped off at nursery. On the whole he really loves the place and has been as pleased as punch to have moved up to the pre-school group. He’s a “big boy” now.

But then there are days like today. Days when he’s just a little boy who’s a bit under the weather – not seriously ill – just a little bit cuddly and wants to stay at home and have his mummy and daddy stay with him.

And I know how he feels. It’s Monday morning. I don’t particularly want to go to work. I don’t particularly want to be one of the “big boys” myself. But that’s just how life is. The bacon has to be brought home or nobody eats.

So we take him to nursery. And he won’t let go off my hand. He clings to my leg like a Koala bear clinging to a tree. He wants a “big cuddle” (this means a proper lifted up cuddle). He shows no sign of wanting to wander off and play with the “big boy” toys in the pre-school class room like he normally does.

I try persuasion. I try cajoling. I try leading him into the room and expressing an over-egged enthusiasm for a big red plastic fire engine. He likes fire engines.

But not today.

He grips hold of my index finger and won’t let go.

I bend down and give him a hug. I try and reason with him. Give him the grown up argument. Daddy has to go to work. Daddy doesn’t really want to go to work either. Daddy loves him very much and would love to stay at home with him but can’t. Daddy has to go and earn some money so we can keep our nice home.

All true but it rings hollow.

If I love him why am I putting work first? If I want to stay home too why don’t I just do that? I’m a grown up after all; I make all the rules – why don’t I just change them? I know Tom doesn’t think in those terms but the look he gives me tells me this is where his little heart is today.

In the end one of the nursery staff pick him up and carry him over to the toys. She’s being lovely to him – a big hug, lots of coos – but all I can hear is the wail of despondency; all I can see is the mouth turning down and those big brown eyes looking at me imploringly. “Daddy!”

Karen and I hurry out. Out of sight. It’s the best way. Cleanest cut, soonest healed. To prolong it only makes it more painful and more upsetting for Tom.

Out in the corridor, giving ourselves a hug, we can still hear him crying. He doesn’t usually cry for this long. A cry that squeezes the heart painfully. Bless him. He’s under the weather... not seriously ill... I’m so tempted to go back and get him. Tempted to take a sickie and bring him home.

But I don’t. I can’t. If I do that now then Tom will expect me to do it every time he doesn’t want to be left at nursery. Pretty soon I’d end up losing my job. So Karen and I head outside. Back to the car.

He’ll be OK. Within 10 minutes he’ll settle and will have forgotten all about it. The nursery is a good one and will ring us if he becomes really poorly.

I know all this. We’ve done the right thing. The only thing. We have to go to work. It’s unavoidable.

But it feels wrong.

It feels wrong to abandon my son; to walk away when he is distraught. To pull away when he gripping hold of my T-shirt, my fingers, anything he can get hold of.

I wonder if he will remember it. Remember what he is feeling in these moments. Spend time when he is a little older puzzling why – in what seem like to him random occasions – when he was upset and needing his mummy and daddy we walked away and left him. Will he think that he did something wrong? That he was being punished?

All the way to the car I fight the urge to go back and get him.

And that feels wrong too. It goes against my instincts as a parent.

Who am I betraying more, I wonder? Tom or myself?

What kind of world have we made for ourselves when being a parent is at odds with plain ordinary living; plain ordinary survival?

When I eventually get to work I have a sudden yearning for a big red plastic fire engine. But I am glad that Tom has it.

Stalking

I fear that unless I summon up and exert all of my will power I am in danger of becoming a stalker.

Not for me the telescope through my neighbour’s curtains to catch a glimpse of her camisoles (why go to that expense when I can see her knickers on the washing line every day? Note to self: probably better to edit that line out later). Not for me the surreptitious car chases or, coat collar up, following someone to and from their place of work on foot, hoping to catch a glimpse of a shady décolletage.

No. I’m stalking a house. A red cube of bricks and mortar.

I couldn’t resist walking by my grandparent’s house yesterday lunchtime. Although, of course, it is not really their house any longer. A new car had parked itself on the drive. Dark green. Unkempt looking. With horribly filthy hubcaps. My grandfather would never have allowed that.

It hurt. This I freely admit. It hurt seeing signs of other lives going about their business inside those walls. It hurt realizing that I can no longer go inside a house where I was, without fail, always, always welcome. I found myself craning my neck to see through the net curtains (still my Nan’s), noting that no furniture had yet been moved inside, that the bird muck on the patio windows was still there and visible via the light bleeding through from the back garden.

I did two walk-bys feeling furtive and fugitive. I caught a glimpse of the back garden fence – the boundary that, when blowing bubbles as kids, my sisters and I would delight in sending our little soapy missives over. Amongst the hundreds of photos rescued from my Nan’s possessions is one of me in a yellow romper suit, barely 12 months old, being held by my Nan on the back lawn.

I have stood on that very spot a few times in the lead up to the sale of the house marvelling sadly at how fast, how coldly time seems to fly by.

I’m steeling myself to stay away for a while. To try and come to terms with it all emotionally – and I am sorry to be going on about it yet again here (how boring for you all) but I am shocked at how difficult I am finding this new reality.

It feels wrong. For as long as I have been alive that house has been my Nan’s. I’m pretty sure they were the first people to move into it and in my mind it is forever associated with her and my granddad. It feels like a huge chunk has been bitten out of the world. Or I suppose a better analogy is that of an amputated limb. I know it’s not there anymore but I can still feel it.

In a bizarre kind of way I feel suddenly shut out of my childhood.

The one positive from all this emotional upheaval is the sheer number of memories that have come flooding back to me. Helped along by the mass scanning project I have now begun to back-up all my Nan’s old photographs, I have remembered things I had completely forgotten I remembered (if you see what I mean). I will no doubt record some of them here over the coming months to save them from falling into the abyss of my mind once more.

In the meantime, please bear with me people. I’m going to put my binoculars away. I’m going to shred my little notepad of comings and goings. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Wayne’s World

I had to make an emergency dash to my grandfather’s house on Monday to rescue the old hunting horn that hung over the stairs from the hands of the house clearance people – not that my grandfather ever hunted or particularly blew the horn except on Christmas morning to annoy my Nan (which is another story for another time). The horn always reminds me of my granddad and always makes me smile. There was no way it was going to be consigned to the black hole of the auctioneer’s warehouse.

The house clearance people had been primed of my imminent arrival and had set the horn aside for me. I imagined that going into the partly eviscerated house would be painful and shocking. And in a way it was. The banging about upstairs by strangers. The boxes being carted outside to the van. The furniture moved and strewn around the sitting room ready for removal. But they had put my granddad’s old radio on and the noise – any noise at all in fact in a house that has been horribly quiet for 6 months – was comforting. And somehow right. It made me feel better about someone new moving in.

But this isn’t why I am writing. The visit was still emotional. Still upsetting. Another acknowledgment in a whole line of unwanted acknowledgements that the time is nearing (is already here in fact at the time of writing) when I will no longer have access to this much loved house. So I was rather mournful as I meandered home again. But having time to myself was what I needed. A bit of head space. A bit of heart space.

As I neared home all I wanted to do was get inside, shut the door and have a quiet moment or two.

However, when I reached the house my way was barred. Wayne, our friendly neighbourhood window cleaner had his ladder propped up over the front door and was cleaning the window above. I briefly thought about walking around the block until he was done – I really didn’t want to talk to anyone – but in the end I decided that I was just being silly. A quick nod and a hello and I’d be in. I could even pay him on the spot and save him having to call round and disturb my evening meal later. So I approached the house.

As I did so Wayne spotted the horn and, quite naturally I guess, asked if I did much hunting. I explained the situation and by way of explaining revealed that my grandfather had died 6 months ago – the last of my grandparents.

Did I believe in God, Wayne asked.

Hmm. I should have picked up on the warning signs here but instead answered truthfully – I was no longer sure.

Over the next 20 minutes, ignoring my obvious distress and desire to get away (how loudly do I have to jangle my front door keys for God’s sake?) Wayne, our window cleaner, did his best to proselytize me into his own personal religio-political worldview.

Did I know that the laws of the West are based on Canonical Law? The Ten Commandments? Did I know that the West was falling? Falling not to Islamic Fundamentalism but to... (and here’s one from the back of the closet) communism? It has been creeping in for decades. The powers that be know about it but are lying to us about it. Because they are not really in control. The true leaders are hidden and secret.

Alarm bells were really ringing now but I could not escape. Even though mentally I was swearing at this man to shut the eff up and go away all I could manage were monosyllabic replies and grunts, still in emotional shock I suppose, desperately trying to inch my way to the front door that was held prisoner beneath his ladder.

And then came the biggy. The national deficit. The global financial collapse. He explained that all this had come about because originally the idea of loaning money at a set and reasonable rate of interest had been laid down in the Old Testament – but all this was now being ignored. The interest rates were now designed to take more and more money from people, designed so that nobody would ever be able to pay it all back again. It was designed to keep us all servile and malleable. And the bankers... the bankers... they were all... Satanists. He looked me in the eye as he said this and nodded sagely. Yep, he said. Satanists. He genuinely believed that.

Great, I thought. A religious nut is coming to my house every month to clean my freaking windows. And he had seemed such a nice guy before all of this.

In the end I made some jokey closing comment that grated upon my own tongue and lunged for the front door. I got the key into the lock and turned it. Phew! I had made it. Wayne, however, was unrepentant (well, he has no need to be I guess) and was still going on and on... I’d be OK, he said. I’d be fine because I was on the right path. The path my grandparents had laid down for me... Blah blah blah.

I shut the door and fumed.

How dare he? He doesn’t know anything about me and certainly knows nothing at all about my grandparents. Both were Christian but neither forced any kind of religion down my or my sisters' throats. Their religion was a very personal thing – as indeed all religion should be.

The whole encounter left a bad taste in my mouth and I am still angry about it. Outraged in fact. Did Wayne really think he was spreading “the good word”, “the good news”? What an awful ragbag of pub lounge paranoia and twisted up personal bigotries. I’d arrived home feeling vulnerable and had been trampled on by someone who’s only interest was to try and recruit me into an ugly, ignorant doctrine of their own making and score some kind of self esteem point.

Far from helping me find my religion again it made me want to turn my back on all of them and keep walking.

What a git.

If eyes are the windows to the soul, I want Wayne nowhere near mine.

The Last To Go

I’m possibly being overly sentiment (and sentimentality is never a good thing) but today is the day my grandparent’s house is laid to rest (killed is too strong a word).

The house clearance people – a local firm of auctioneers – are already at work, possibly even finished by the time you read this, clearing out the furniture, the cupboard junk, the knick-knacks, the physical manifestations of over 60 years and at least 4 generations of family life.

All of it – the dishes we used at Christmas, the old ice cream tubs full of pencils and their smell of graphite, the suitcases of old knitting magazines that my Nan used to collect – will be loaded up into a van and transported off to some side street depot where the wheat will be sorted from the chaff. The good stuff will be put up for auction, the non-saleable stuff... well, God knows. Do they bin it? Recycle it? EBay it? I’d hate to think of my Nan’s old pots and pans taking up space in some landfill somewhere – her Wednesday beef stews were amazing. Those pots and pans should be on a pedestal somewhere. Alas, I have neither the room for them nor the pedestal.

So it’s time to let them go. Let it all go. I have said my goodbyes. I have saved what I can. But the bulk of it – the collected sum of all that makes up my Nan’s home – cannot be kept.

I think what I shall miss most is the smell of the house. The smell of each room. My Nan was a great one for putting a bar of Palmolive soap in every drawer so that all her clothes would smell nice. Those bars were still in the drawers last time I looked. And when I stood over them, closed my eyes and inhaled, it was as if I could almost smell the lives of the people that once lived there – my own life intricately and intimately bound up with them.

The house is like a member of the family to me. It has a personality and a place in my memory as beloved and special as those that are inhabited by my Nan, my granddad (or Bampap as we called him) and my Auntie Linda (not that we’d ever dare call her “auntie”) who all lived within its walls. All are dead now. All are gone. The last 5 years took all three of them. Only the house remains. A sad old friend. Its memory failing, its ear straining desperately for the key in the lock that will announce that its former owner’s are returning but finding always only silence.

The front door will never be opened by anyone from my family now. My family's 60 year and my 40 year association with the house is over.

The last few times I have been there have been bittersweet. The comfort of the familiar undercut by the sharp sorrow of the small but quiet emptiness that has settled over the entire house. I have felt like a ghost, felt like I have been haunting the house because my grandparents are not. A troubled ghost walking old rooms and staring fondly at old aspects hoping that they will never change.

Those hopes were always going to be futile. Change has come. On Wednesday the contract with the new owners will undergo “completion”. My Nan’s house with its horde of treasures that so fascinated me as a child will be dead forever. The last of them to go.

But unlike them it will undergo some sort of instant reincarnation. A new family will move in. Will put down new carpets. Put up new curtains and wallpaper. Will bring their own sounds and smells of life.

My ghost will haunt there no longer.

It will return to life. A new day. A new tomorrow, holding much loved yesterdays to its heart.

Is sentimentality such a bad thing? I hope not.

Goodbye old friend.