Heading South for Winter

I had a really blocked nose this week .

I tried inhaling menthol crystals over a bowl. - but I put in far too many. They didn't succeed in unclogging my nose but my eyes were STREAMING. I went to wipe my eyes and I must've had some menthol-water on my fingers... I couldn't bear to open my eyes, the pain was unbearable.

At the same time my wife sliced her finger, big time, in the kitchen. I was bumbling around blind going 'are you OK, honey?'. It only needed the kids to have fallen down the stairs at this point and the Golden Comedy Moment would've been complete.

This was also the day that I was let down by our lorry driver for our imminent Isle of Wight move ('Uh, I didn't realise that having a camera put in your knee was a big operation...') and by our guarantor for the flat ('If the shop burns down we'll liable for EVERYTHING!') and we really really didn't think it was going to happen after all, that we were going to end up homeless and jobless and stuck in the Midlands forever.

But *touch wood* it is currently looking like the Big Move is Actually Going Ahead , despite everything, and my major concern at the moment is getting rid of lots of furniture.

We have advertised several items in the local paper and today I had a posh-sounding lady ring up about a cabinet. This cabinet was trapped in an end corner of the middle room. I had to squeeze and clamber and leap like a spawning salmon up a waterfall to get to it whilst the lady fired me all sorts of Cabinet-related questions. Then she asked me about the dimensions of the cabinet and I hadn't measured it. So I climbed out to get a tape measure and crawled through back again, all the time sounding like a complete out-of-breath idiot on the phone. Then I pulled down the tape measure to see how high the cabinet was and the sharp metal edge of the tape measure sliced deep into my thumb. So I had to continue trying to sell the item to the lady, all the time spraying blood all over it.

She agreed to come and look at it- or more likely it was out of curiosity to see what this bizarre Panting Idiot-man actually looked like. Anyway, this means I had to quickly wipe the blood off both me and the cabinet, singlehandedly move lots of wardrobes and other heavy items of furniture as well as dozens of boxes of books and stuff before I was able to drag it to the front door, just as the lady arrived. I sold it for £10 but I don't believe she fully appreciated the effort I had gone to.

Tomorrow, somebody's coming to collect a sofa...

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Monday 23rd Nov

With the sofa now gone, House Jenga is now a little easier. Some blokes from Sense came round and just took our coffee table and computer desk, turning their noses up at everything else. Charity shop doesn't want my stuff? Well, that's a surefire confidence booster! Huh, since when did they start getting all picky? Hmm... so we STILL had a houseful of furniture. Second Chance couldn't help us but they gave me a number for House Clearance. But that way would cost a fortune we didn't have so we had to resort to Plan H: Smash the lot up with a big hammer.

Lots of sheving and chests of drawers were broken up into teeny tiny pieces and taken to the tip. Not the way I wanted to do things.

But if you throw an old wardrobe down the stairs it will explode most impressively.

Tuesday 24th Nov

Half our stuff now in splinters, miraculously, everything we wanted to take with us fitted into the removal van. Our problem now was making sure we had a guarantor sign the form - we could still get down there and find that we are unable to move in! Not till next morning do we discover that it had already been signed and nobody from the estate agents had told us!

Wednesday 25th Nov

We did it! We moved into a flat above one of the many expensive sailing wear shops in Cowes Town Centre. This is the start of a whole new life for us and hopefully this next year will be be a little kinder and gentler to us all than the last.

I'm Dreaming of a Wight Christmas... x

How I Got Into This Mess

2009 has been a crazy bastard of a year and I think I need to do a brief recap of it about now in order to explain why my wife and kids and I are currently living with my inlaws ( or Compo and Norah as they don't know that I like to call them) and to tell you about my Costliest Joke.

After Jude died in January we came back from Birmingham to Nuneaton and had to deal with all the usual crap from Tax credit and all the usual idiots who send you made up bills with random figures on them (Thanks guys, much appreciated ).Then I returned to work and found that everything had changed...

I had worked since November 2003 as a bookseller in Coventry. I ran the Children's Book section and I had found Ottakar's a lovely company to work for, one that cared about it's staff and customers and of course, books. I worked damn hard, wrote many reviews, was a key player in judging the Children's Book Prize and I was held in highly regard by Head Office. It wasn't to last however.
W*t*rst*n*s, a company who don't give a flying fuck for any of it's staff, customers or books, just the Pursuit of Making as Much Money as They Can, bought out Ottakar's and in just over a year managed to squeeze all the life out of the company, stamping on it like a Grim Reaper in Giant Hobnailed Boots. There were a third of the staff that used to work there and the job was constantly being updated to be made much more complicated and stressful. When I returned, everyone's jobs were unstable as devastating changes to the contract were being put into place, the final nails in the coffin for many a longstanding bookseller.
As a few managers themselves testified to The Bookseller magazine, they were being told to 'Get Rid of Staff- By Whatever Means Necessary'. As someone who was unafraid to speak out against the cliqueness, bad decisions and general double-standards within the store I was prime target.

I often doodle on newspapers or add funny comments and this became very popular with other members of staff. When a colleague brought in a copy of the Daily Mirror and left it on the staff room table I couldn't resist. The picture on the front was of Barack Obama meeting the Queen and Prince Philip, the latter looking decidedly uncomfortable. I thought it was hilarious so I drew a speech bubble coming from Prince Philip's mouth and wrote the words 'Hands off Darkie, She's Mine!' in it. I thought it would have been obvious to anyone with half a brain that I was satirising the Duke's well-known xenophobic attitude.

The following Monday (the day when the rules were changed to make it easier to sack people in these matters!) I got hauled into the Manager's Office and I was treated like a sack of shit. I was told I was suspended for Gross Misconduct, that they could sack me. That I was a Racist. I told them that was absurd. That I hated racism with a passion, that the joke was anti-racist, that I lived in the middle of a large Asian Community and got on very well with everybody, that my best friend (who I'd known for 28 years) was Moslem, that if they wanted me to explain to the anonymous person who took offence then I would do gladly, and that this was an unnecessarily underhand way to deal with the situation. I pointed out the irony and hypocrisy of someone getting offended by a word who worked in a bookshop, who was surrounded by millions of 'bad' words , hundreds of shocking pictures or potentially offensive opinions. That it was utterly mad that a word should be deemed so offensive that ANY usage of it whatsoever was wrong.

I was told no, we don't care. It's Racist, that's that. I was told I couldn't talk to anybody about it, couldnt go on Facebook, couldnt have any contact with other members of staff, that I couldn't even go to a birthday party ffs! (all complete lies). I was then escorted out of the building - after I'd ask to leave and they wouldn't let me!

I spent the next few weeks seething, not sleeping and making a huge file full of reasons why their accusation was complete and utter bullshit - examples of Racist jokes/drawings by other staff members, Duke of Edinburgh quotes, similar gags from HIGNFY, what my friend Mohammed thought of it, other people's views on the D word and its use in literature etc -
But at the hearing in Birmingham they didn't want to know about any of it. My thoughts were irrelevant. The person conducting the hearing - close friend of both the manager and the person I believe made the complaint - was acting as Judge, Jury and executioner.

I scraped a final warning. You could tell he was annoyed that he couldn't get enough of a confession out of me to sack me outright. I could go back to work - but then How the Fuck can you possibly go back to work after that? Your manager wants you out, another staff member wants you out - and they can make your life a living hell and if you put a word out of line they can sack you. Everyone else had been interviewed for their jobs. I had to have an interview even though I was selecting Redundancy - even though I would've lost half the points by being on a Gross Misconduct charge. ( They still made me sweat it out wondering if I still had a job though, Fuckers)

Luckily I only had to go back to work for 3 days before I had an operation on my foot (to remove ganglions) By the time I was recovered I no longer had a job and I was finally free of the Evil Empire. The two other original Ottakars staff at the store left at the same time.

Two good things happened next - I discovered the therapeutic properties of Twitter (where there were lots of lovely people and I could make all the jokes I wanted) and we took a much-needed family holiday to the Isle of Wight (my wife's favourite place and the kids have fallen in love with it too).

When we returned, we had an Electric inspection . The house had faulty wiring, water pouring into the hallway, dripping bitumen under the stairs, there were lead pipes, cracks along the bath, electric circuits that were 30 years out of date... It wasn't safe. The landlord had took the majority of the winter getting the lounge gas fire fixed. We had to move out fast. A friend had a property she was willing to let and we moved... but we didn't. We had too much stuff! It would've been impossible for us to fit in - (Plus it is pretty disgusting and there always a fresh dog poo outside the gate ) so we left our belongings in the friend's house and decamped to my in-laws. Which brings us just about up to date.

Except to say: we're off again! My wife has got a job in Southampton and we're moving into a flat above a shop in Cowes in two weeks time (without seeing it! ) It is furnished so we have to downsize and dejunk furniture pretty rapidly . The next few weeks are going to be Hell on Earth but after that... I think that life is heading us all in the right direction.

If Jude hadn't have died, or if I hadn't lost my job, we'd never have done it. We'd have always thought 'Oh, that'd be nice' but never actually done anything about it. And we'd have been caught up in a loop and life would have gone on the same for years, day-in. day-out. But now, with nothing to lose, nothing to leave behind we have been cornered into making some big life-altering decisions. Hopefully, it'll turn out to be a good fresh start for the family.

Auntie May

My mother in law's sister, known to everyone as 'Auntie May' comes round on Tuesday afternoons and stays for hours and hours and hours. This is both a joy and a pleasure - for all lovers of mindnumbingly bumachingly tedious conversation, that is. It is hours of 'yeah, yeah' 'hmm, hmm' and 'that's it ain't it?'. There is endless non-debate about the manners of the youth of today and how terrible things are now and also constant surprise and wonder at the weather's ability to change from rainy to non-rainy and back again.

This weeks highlights were "That new store has just opened and so and so bought a packet of Whitworth's stuffing Mix for 17p" and "There's a really nice front door down the street. A brown one"

I have been entombed in the house with my Living Dead In laws for too long now. Even the bleeping , whistling electronic-sounding feedback from my (tone deaf) M.I.L. 's hearing aid, which makes her sound like R2D2 with a flannel has just about stopped being funny. I need to escape.

Which is why when my wife had a job interview yesterday on the Isle of Wight we were all very excited indeed. This was it! This was our big chance! This was all we'd dreamed of for so long! Escape from the Zombie Hotel and moving miles away from miles and miles away for a fresh start for all the family. It was a blinding interview and it got down to the last two candidates and it would've been just perfect and.. and... and... she didn't get it. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Oh well, I Wonder what Auntie May will talk about next week?

Jude

My son Jude was born on 15th August 2008. He was a little purple and blotchy at birth but otherwise fine and we assumed that some babies were just born like that, just a little bit bruised during delivery. It wasn’t until the next day that one of the midwives became concerned and blood tests were done. When later we were ushered quietly into a side room ‘for a little chat’ we knew that the news wasn’t going to be good. We were told various technical blah about blood counts and platelets and white cells, but the only word I heard at the time was ‘leukaemia’.

Only 2 babies are born each year with leukaemia and one of them happened to be Jude. Being so little he only had a 10% chance of survival. We were given the opportunity of taking him home to die. We said no, that 10% wasn’t 0%. It was the kind of stuff that you heard about that happened to other people but this time it was happening to us. Jude was taken to special baby care, we were shifted discreetly down the hallway into a private room for the night and the next day he was taken by ambulance to Birmingham Children's Hospital.

When we registered his birth we had to ask for a book of Baby Names as the original choice for a middle name -Luke -now felt inappropriate. We decided that ‘Lewis’ was a better choice as it meant fighter and that’s what we needed him to be.

During his chemo we stayed at a flat in Birmingham. There was no landline, no computer access, no way for post to reach us, we were both off work – it felt as if we were cut off from the entire world. Ward 15 HDU (Oncology) was now our home. The girls started school at the hospital and I was called upon to paint Xmassy things on the windows in the ward. Ward 15 was a peculiar world of bright fish murals, chirpy nurses, stressed parents, hyperchondriac cleaners and lots of resilient, cheeky little bald kids. Oh, and lots of machines that go Bing Bing Bong (not sure what they were for exactly). There were also the peculiar rituals involving antibacterial wipes, using elbows to open doors and constant washing with handgel...always the handgel.

Jude was doing well, despite all expectations. The doctors were really pleased with him and he had turned into a really beautiful baby by now, winning over many hearts on the Ward. The nurses all cooed after him and wanted their turn at looking after him. The next big task was to find him a donor. It was discovered that he had a highly unusual DNA and this obviously made the task harder but eventually, some stem cells stored in a bank in Milan were found to be a perfect match.On December 2nd Jude had his bone marrow transplant. (Did you know that transplants stink strongly of sweetcorn? Due to the chemicals they’re stored in apparently) A few days later Jude spiked a temperature, he had an infection. Within minutes he had developed respiratory failure and his heart wasn't coping. He was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit, where he was put on a bi-pap machine to help him breathe. Things still seemed to be all right, and the doctors weren't that worried. It was just a little blip...

However they couldn't find the infection, and were treating him blindly. His heart was struggling and he nearly died several times. About a week after he had been admitted to intensive care his breathing got worse, he had to be fully ventilated. But the transplant had been a success, Jude didn't have cancer anymore and if he could get through this he would be OK.

Children’s Intensive Care at Christmas is a very disturbing place to be – especially at night, surrounded by all the cards and helium balloons!

Then the worst came. Jude developed Veno-occlusive Disease. This is a pretty horrendous liver disease that you can get as a side effect of the transplant. There is only one medicine that can treat it, and if you don't respond there is nothing they can do. As time went on we watched our son struggle, desperately praying that he would survive, but he was not responding to the medicine.

At 9.50 in the morning on the 7th January 2009 our son was taken off the ventilator and placed in our arms. He had fought so hard to live but in the end it was all too much for him to take. We held him as he slipped away, and he died at 10.00am.

His cause of death was later diagnosed as Idiopathic Pneumonia Syndrome. At the funeral we asked people to dress in their favourite colours, I read out a poem I’d written, there were songs from Winnie the Pooh & Toy story and we released 145 blue balloons, one for each day he’d lived.

We will miss him forever.

Catalogue Of Disasters Pt 1

I've just bought a new toothbrush. Yesterday I discovered my old one with a piss-filled incontinence towel draped over it, belonging to my tone-deaf, three-toothed, obsessive-complusive, mad-as-a-box-of-frogs Mother-In-Law...

Yes, I'm currently living with my dreaded In-laws in a small terraced house, alongside my wife and two young daughters. Although 'living' is possibly stretching it a bit, unless you add the word 'Hell'. This was never part of The Plan. It was obviously a kind offer (one we're all regretting )and I am grateful for somewhere to live but I can't wait to escape this House of the Nearly Dead, it's stinky grey bleach rags and it's constant Antiques programme re-runs.

As each day passes I feel like I'm slowly cracking up. It's like living with the cast of Last of the Summer Wine.

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Found another of those Granny nappies next to our bed. My eldest daughter Daisy found one on top of her Miley Cyrus book. My M.I.L. obviously thinks they are decorative objects. I wouldn't have been surprised had I found them strewn up around the living room on Halloween . They'd have been scarier than the pumpkins or plastic skulls.

Introduction

Well, it seems like the World has his Wife have started a blog now. (Marjory World's blog incidentally, is quite candid about Ron World's occasional population explosions) So in a bid not to be outdone, I have set up this tiny corner of cyberspace to talk shi- I mean, to further enlighten and elucidate my followers.