Category: Life

Hi folks, mums funeral passed off on Thursday 20^th September. It all went just as we wished it to. There were no dark clothes nor gnashing of teeth or rending of cloth and no professional mourners. The church was packed and almost every one wore light and colourful clothes and for those who did wear black, outlandish ties compensated. I wore a light coloured jacket, my Pink Panther tie and my leather cowboy hat, the service was brilliant and the minister and reader injected as much humour as they could into what could have been a sombre occasion.

From the church we went to the crematorium and as we all filed in, Monty Pythons “Always look on the bright side of life”, boomed from the loudspeakers. It was hard not to smile and as we filed out we were treated to a rousing rendition of Vera Lynn’s “We’ll meet again”. The wake was held at a nearby club and by 7pm those who could still stand came back to Château Ghastanbury where we had a final bonfire and a barbecue in her honour. It all ended in good humoured chaos at around 2am. I feel sure she would have been proud of the send off we gave her.

Today has been spent attending to all the official details such as paying for the funeral service and suchlike. I attempted to find the building society that the mortgage was held with only to find they have closed down and the solicitors I used for transferring names on the deeds have moved. It has been a frustrating day with lots of leg work and little to show for it. Attempts to ring banks direct were met with call centres and I experienced many accents I did not understand

Ok what happens next I hear you say? Well life goes on and I have decided not to make any decisions for at least 12 months. I don’t want to take any rebound action that I might regret for the rest of my life; however I am going to start travelling again next April when my holiday allowance and my finances are both up to the strain of it. I feel fairly certain that within 2 years I will have sold Château Ghastanbury and will be moving on somewhere else. For now the traveller is going to Belize in November to check on some things that we both think are too good to be true. I would be going with him but I don’t have many holidays left. Depending upon what he finds I may fly out there in April to check things out for myself and start globe trotting again.

It has been a busy time with friends, family and well wishers stopping by to express condolences and share memories. Chateau Ghastanbury is awash with cards and the phone lines have not stopped ringing. The funeral arrangements are; service to be held on Thursday morning the 20^th September 2007 at 10-30am at St Chads Church followed by a short service at Landican Crematorium.  In memory of a wonderful and colourful lady her family respectfully ask that no black is worn. We have no wish to mourn Elsie’s passing but would rather celebrate the eventful life she has lived. I feel 100% certain she would not want to see people in mourning or for them to be sad at her passing. For as long as I have been able to recognise when mum was sad, I have very few memories of her actually being so. She was a cheerful and colourful lady who lived life to the full as much as she was able.

Indeed she had seen many things that no one else will ever see. For example she was born during the Great War, lived through the depression of the thirties, was active in the Second World War with the land army, saw, the first atomic bomb, the rise and fall of the Berlin wall the first man on the moon, lived through a century and saw the birth of a new millennium. During all of this she got married had two sons and managed to outlive her brother and sister and travelled extensively. She was one of the happiest people I ever knew and was a wonderful mother and an even better friend. I have placed an album of photographs within the main gallery and this album will be added to over the coming weeks.

For those of you who cannot attend the funeral service would you please raise a glass and drink a toast to Elsie, The Marchioness of Ghastanbury.

Mum pased away peacefully in her sleep at 23-10 on Wednesday 12 September 2007.  Myself, BC and several of mums friends had gone in to see her prior to her demise at approximately 19-00 hours and we left at around 20-15. At that point she genuinely believed she was getting better and coming home. I am glad that she went peacefully and in the belief that nothing was drastically wrong instead of being frightend because she was connected to tubes and machines and fearing the worst. The hospital rang at 23-20 to inform me of her departure and I went back to the hospital to see Mum and gave her still warm body a last cuddle and a hug and said my final farewells. This mainly consisted of telling her how wonderful she had been and how much I would miss her.

I will be writing a tribute and eulogy at some point over the next few days and a selection of photographs will be posted in the gallery. For now the flag is flying at halfmast over Chateau Ghastanbury. Details of her funeral and wake will be posted as soon as I have made the arrangements. Until then I hope that there is a God and she has genuinely gone to a better place.

RIP Elsie Born 22-06-1916 Died 12-09-2007

I have been to the hospital this afternoon to see how mum is doing and its clear she is not doing well at all. Her heart is not capeable of coping with the excess fluid and heart failure is imminent. The doctors have told me that they will make no attempt to resuscitate her or restart her heart when it finally stops as it would be kinder to let her go. I have also been told that she wont be coming home again which is what I suspected earlier on in the week but I could not get anyone to confirm this. In short its the beginning of the end.

Regular readers of this blog will realise that there has not been a regular update for some time. Allow me to explain and jog some memories. Some time shortly after Ghastanbury in June, mum was moved down stairs as she was no longer fit enough to climb the stairs each night. A fortnight ago my brother came to stay with me and together we went to see her GP. He was able to tell me that due to a fluttering heart condition and low blood pressure there was nothing they could do to reduce the fluid she was retaining. Each medication had a different form of side effect that she was unable to cope with.  

Her deterioration since, has been swift and she is now in hospital having entered last Thursday with blood loss.  Her lung capacity has been greatly diminished by the fact that her lungs are filling up with fluid due to the failure of her kidneys. She has oxygen and is on both a saline and a blood drip. I spoke to the nurses this evening and asked them if she was ever coming home. The nurses declined to comment and referred me to the consultant who I have yet to make an appointment with. However I am mindful of what her GP said about this being as good as it was going to get.

I asked him at the time how much time she had left and he said “how long is a piece of string”. I asked what the worst scenario was and he replied something along the lines of, If she is lucky she will pass away painlessly in her sleep having drowned in her own fluids. It may be some time before I can post another entry but I will try and keep everyone updated as much as I can.

Our politicians and even our police appear to have admitted defeat in the battle to control our streets. The last week has seen an abundance of highlighted cases of upright citizens trying to protect property and life and being viciously attacked and even killed in the process. What has the law done? Well almost nothing as it happens and even when people are sent down for crimes they are seemingly given unjustly lenient sentences. It would appear we have learnt nothing at all from the Tony Martin case. Just to refresh your memories, Tony Martin was a Norfolk farmer who shot and killed one of two intruders trying to break into his home. He was duly sent to prison and the surviving would be burglar attempted to sue Tony Martin for damages on a number of occasions. The background was that Tony had had his farm burgled several times before and did not receive any help from the police when the incidents were reported. Feeling that the police were not interested in him Tony decided the only way he could protect his property was to develop a siege mentality and take up arms. My point is this, if the police had of acted when the first incident of burglary took place a second and third incident may not have happened. Secondly the burglars had no right to be on his property in the first place and it was they who, in my eyes at least were in the wrong.

This highlights the case that if you try to protect your property or kith and kin then the police or justice system will not afford you any protection. With this knowledge in mind is it any wonder that record numbers of Brits are selling up and moving away from this country. Last year over 300,000 Brits left to take up permanent residence in other countries. Among the top reasons for leaving were, feelings of not being safe, taxed too highly and benefits for not working outweighing the benefits of working, our borders are not secure and its too easy to walk in and claim benefits for doing nothing. I found it hard to believe, but it’s true, that if you are from the EU and working over here then you can claim child benefit for your children even if they live another EU country! Our economy is being drained by money being sent overseas. If this sounds bad I am sure the new EU constitution, which is not a constitution by the way, just ask Gordon brown or any of the labour politicians who are refusing the give the British public a referendum on the subject, will make matters much worse and law and order and common sense will go out of the window completely. No wonder I can’t wait to get to the airport and fly out for good. Just think if we all voted with our feet and money then our politicians might even take notice of us.

On another, you could not make it up, note, Wirral Borough Council have decided to invest 300,000 pounds on a monument at the start of the M53 to welcome visitors to this peninsular. All well and good until you realise that the money is an awful lot and then see what they have on mind as a monument. Worse still is the news in the Daily Mail that the monument may even be plagiarised. See this link for details.
COPYCATS?
Now you would think that the designers would have checked that something such as the design they had in mind did not already exist wouldn’t you? Well apparently not. See its not just national politicians and national government that are incapable of giving the people what they want and using rational and logic thought, it extends all the way down to regional and local level as well. On yet another, you could not make it up, note, The Mathew Street festival in Liverpool has been cancelled. Well not exactly cancelled but due to the Elf ‘N’ safety Nazis there will be no outside concerts this year due to the amount of building work going in the city at the moment in readiness for the European capital of culture 2008. Now you would have thought that some one would have foreseen the problems that all of this building work might have caused and made arrangements to have the concerts held somewhere were this isn’t any building going on, right? WRONG! I tell you the UK is going down the TUBES and you could not make this stuff up.

Well it seems like my post really rattled the sisterhood if my inbox is anything to go by and 24 hours have not yet passed.  One of my female colleagues said I can’t really be serious about a tyre and asked me what BC’s favourite stone was. I said its Keith Richards and her favourite Stones album is Let It Bleed from 69. This apparently did not go down well and merely showed my ignorance to be truly staggering and of almost imbecilic proportions. She calmly told me I needed to think like a woman so I said aha, heels, seams, Basque, nipple rings etc, but I don’t understand the sizing system as I have pointed out. This was met with a stare that Medusa would have been proud of and she promptly turned on her heels and stormed off. Other people said why not take her away and I said fine, are you volunteering to look after my mum while I cavort around Paris for a day or two? Remember mum is housebound, needs lots of care and cannot be left on her own for more than a few hours at a time.

Some one else asked what were my favourite gifts and could I not draw inspiration from them? So I thought about the best things that had ever been bought or given to me over the years. In no particular order of importance they are; a genuine Swiss army knife from BC, a copy of lord of the rings from my brother, a tattoo paid for by my mother, a fob watch from the Tiler engraved with “Beck’s mate’s” on the back (no its not a spelling mistake we are both into Beck’s beer) a watch from my dad and a ring with a guitar engraved on it. I looked at this lot and thought she wont be impressed with a Swiss army knife, she has Lord of the rings, she doesn’t wear fob watches and she has loads of rings, she would need to grow more fingers if I got her one. I am not sure about the tattoo but thinking about it this would not be a surprise and I am pretty sure she would have to agree to it anyway. Then in a flash of inspiration I realised she does not have a barbeque. Now she really does need one of these, even her sons keep telling her to get one and if any one knows about barbeques its me. Couple that with a bunch of flowers and a soppy card and its job done, back of the net, sorted!

The last week has seen a lot of celebrations and news about the independence and separation of India and the birth of Pakistan. The one thing that has stood out in my mind after watching many programmes and documentaries on the subject has been that it’s all about religion. I gather rival religious groups killed 1 million people and the greatest forced mass migration in human history took place in the name of religion. Its nothing really new, the Romans slaughtered Christians centuries ago, the Christians took up arms against the Muslims during the crusades. Rival factions within the same religions have killed each other, witness the protestant and catholic uprisings against each other. Rival factions with the Muslims are still killing each other with Sunni and Shia in Iraq bombing each other back to the Stone Age. I was brought up to be religious but lost my faith many years ago when I discovered other religions and thought to myself they cant all be right but I did believe it was not worth killing some one for. Today I am an Atheist with agnostic aspirations and the more I hear about countries torn apart and whole communities wiped out in the name of religion, the happier I am to be an atheist and not a member of this worldwide murderous club. It would be nice to have some faith and to think that there was something out there, possibly an afterlife in which people were actually nice to each other. Hey if such a place actually exists there might even be women there who like football and dream of nothing more romantic than receiving a barbeque for their birthday. Any religion that could promise that, might be worth looking into……

I finally managed to kick the Black dogs arse and he has disappeared back over the horizon for the time being and I eventually pulled my socks up. With this mind I swung into action and cleared a load of jobs around the house and then set about thinking what I would I get the Bean counter for her birthday. Its always a difficult one this. I mean what do you buy the woman who has everything? Being a practical fellow I dismissed anything that might gather dust such as ornaments and suchlike and decided not to think of anything that might contain calories. Always a dodgy one that, calorie laden goodies that will cause more guilt after the event than the enjoyment before. Gift vouchers always seem so impersonal and besides it shows how much you have spent making you seem either ruthlessly mean or perilously extravagant. Hang gliding lessons or a parachute jump are out because she is scared of heights. Buying clothes is never a good idea unless you have any sort of clue what a size 12 actually means and would what ever you buy be the right colour, the current season (what exactly does that mean? come on girls help me out here) or the right material?

And then I had a flash of inspiration… She needs a new tyre for her car, this would be used every day, would be practical and not frivolous and as it’s a Rover 600 running on Pirelli’s would not be cheap either and into the bag its her car not mine so its exclusively for her. You cant get better than that; it ticks all the right boxes. Also I know she needs a new memory card for her digital camera, again practical, solely for her exclusive use and I wont have to worry about the calorie’s, dust gathering, impractical new Mac in the wrong size and colour, personal shopping vouchers or tickets for a dangerous sporting activity that might give her a heart attack. I rang LMS and excitedly told her what a brilliant idea I had come up with and how pleased I thought BC would be when presented with this well thought out token of affection in honour of her birthday.

For a moment I thought there was a fault on the line as I could hear nothing and then finally in her very own sweet dulcet tones, “Are you having a fucking laff”? Expletive after expletive followed as I was subjected to a verbal barrage about how thick men are and especially me and how could I possibly buy my girlfriend a bloody tyre for her birthday. I tried explaining about the calories and the dust gathering thingies etc and then I applied what I thought would be the coup de grace about it being a Pirelli. As LMS is into formula one even she would see this was a good idea I thought. More silence and then after shouting “hello, are you still there”? She answered in the slow and loud tones of one speaking to the very old and hard of hearing or in this case the stupid and senseless. “Would you like it if some bought you a spare tyre for your birthday”? I thought about this and then replied well yes actually and for all the reasons I have explained to you and burbled excitedly that I would be made up if some one bought me the new Liverpool European away kit but I didn’t think BC would be best pleased if I got her one. The phone went dead.

Devastated that hours of thought had gone into that plan only for it be dismissed so cruelly after conception and yet before gestation and finally birth, I sat and thought about the vast differences between men and women. Had we of both been in our 20’s giving her something she had not already got would be relatively quite simple. However would giving her vouchers or tickets to go to a health spa not be the same as giving her vouchers for a face-lift? I mean it’s akin to saying listen your unfit go away and come back slim and trimmed in much the same way as vouchers for a face-lift is like saying your ugly go and get sorted. A short break away with a friend might be seen as look go and get lost I need the break more than you do which is why I am sending you away. Presents for women are an absolute minefield unlike presents for men. A case of Carlsberg and a ticket to the next home game to most men I know would be greeted with gratitude and promises to hand you the soul of their first born.

As Jack Lemon exclaimed in the film Some Like it Hot, women are a completely different sex. I suspect it’s a subject I will come back to every now and then, meanwhile the birthday looms ever closer and I still have no idea about what to get her.

So much has happened within the last three weeks its hard to know where to start. My internet is back up and running, I am able to post again and my head is bursting with so many posts that I have not been able to make I will probably have forgotten them by the time I have time to write them down. Just as a taster the celebrations of India’s independance and the great partition have been in the news so much that I wonder if religion is worth following at all. The difference between men and woman can be summed up in attitude to birthday presents. The lawlessnes of this once great country can be seen when innocent men die protecting their kith, kin and property, have we learned nothing from the Tony Martin case? My own battle with the Black Dog and the demands of modern life and duty have led me to reach deep into what ever mental resources I have and call on the help of some very close friends for whom I will ever be indebted to. You all know who you are. Until the next post and there will be many, I am Busy busy busy but rest assured normal service won’t be far away and I will soon be on top of things.

Those litle darlings at the offices of my ISP have finally gotten around to providing me with a full on connection. How long this will last is any ones guess but for now I am up and running…