Some Pertinent Information

I don't know if anybody reads this.  More to the point, I don't know if anybody I know reads this.  Does it matter?

Regardless, I shall continue, if only for my own benefit.

In November of last year I came home to find Diane, my partner & mother of my child, dead on the kitchen floor.  I had received a last text from her at about 4.45 pm whilst I was at work and had attempted to contact her without success. I just thought she'd dropped her phone and couldn't get to it due to her bad back........

The vain attempts to resuscitate her, the surreal 999 call, the house being invaded by paramedics, then Police, being taken to the station for a statement..................  All are indelibly etched in what passes for my soul.

A blood clot killed her.  A combination of a hereditory pre-disposition and lack of movement due to a back ailment.  There were symptoms, but neither of us recognised them, so we went on our merry way.  Diane would come off breast feeding so she could take more than just Ibuprofen & Paracetamol, get moving again and all would be fine once more.  

Yeah.........

Diane was my................ well, I'll leave you to fill in the blanks.  It's nobodies business and I'm not into emotion porn.  She was my whole life and you don't feel that until you've lost someone.  It's the tragedy of all relationships if you're emotionally stunted enough............

I have Calum to look after now, and he's an irascible wee beastie.  He's almost 10 months and nearly walking.  Needless to say, he's my best mate.  Friends and family have made sure he wants for little, apart from maybe a few Duracells for dad when he comes in from work and the kind, loving soul who carried him for nine months and nurtured him for the first months of his life.

Ewen

Spatchcock!

In what circumstances might one find a grown man appearing to kick a pigeon across a busy main road? What would your reaction be to such a sight? Would you intervene?

It's certainly behaviour consistent with a mental patient on day release.

Unfortunately, this was the pickle I found myself in at about half past five today. As you know, pigeons are everywhere in cities. Some are lovely looking creatures, like the chap pictured in the post below. Others are scabby beyond belief, defying nature itself to somehow exist as dishevelled, flea bitten mono-pods. The pigeon in question certainly had the look of one who had been through the wars. It wandered about around the pavement in front of me, before following me to the edge of the kerb as I crossed a side street. On closer inspection, I decided I couldn't tell if it was a juvenile or just malnourished. Not that I know what a juvenile pigeon looks like right enough........ As I walked on, I turned back to see it amble aimlessly into St Georges Road, attempting to use it's wings, but unable to get off the ground. A row of cars came out of the Charing Cross junction and I hoped one of them would catch it with a wheel, finish the job, nice and quick.............

Instead, the unfortunate creature just went under the chassis, between the axles of the car. The gust of air as the car passed blew it over, and for a second I thought it had been caught, maybe by the exhaust pipe or something, but it seemed to right itself and got into a huddled position, waiting for it's next brush with death. A few more cars went over the beast without hitting it. One driver even had the reflexes to swerve and avoid it..................

I had made my mind up. An ad-hoc rescue attempt would be made, just as long as I didn't have to pick the pitiful specemin up.

..............and so, this was why, at half past five on a Tuesday evening, I could be found, so it appeared to any onlookers, to be kicking a recalcitrant pigeon across St Georges Road.

I sort of shoo-ed it across into the gutter of the pavement at the other side of the road, and there it lay, as if exhausted by it's experience, and looking to be in no mood to go anywhere.

I have no illusions, it'll be dead by now. Either through starvation, fatigue or as the title of this post suggests, flattened to fuck after attempting to re-cross the road. I just couldn't, for reasons of utter feeble minded sentimentality, leave it hanging there, maybe getting clipped and bounced around the road for half an hour before something came along and struck it a final, fatal blow.

A rational re-evaluation tells me I should have left it to it's own devices. Nature gave this particular creature the middle finger, theres no reason to believe that it would have found many more favours once I'd walked away. That said, theres nothing wrong with being a silly sod once in a while....................

A Sea Of Shrunken Yellow Men Crawling Out Their Cots And Calling For Mother

My Grandpa's in hospital. Nothing too bad, just a chest infection, anemia, polyps in the fundament.......

he's survived worse...........

Hospitals put the fear of God in me folks, I don't mind admitting that. It doesn't matter if it's some Victorian rabbit warren or some ritzy new death hole, I always leave feeling vaguely unwell and with the desire never to return.

I think it's the smell, the sick, 40 watt lighting, the bedlam like atmosphere......

I have no problem with going to see old Jimmy. He's deaf as a post and lives in a world of his own. My type of guy basically. I also think it's why his surroundings don't bother him too much.

It's a bummer going on family visits though. My mum sits at his bedside and clucks around him a bit while the rest of us talk amongst ourselves. He's used to it I think, between his late wife, his daughter in law and my mum, it's generally all he's known and he seems comfy with it. Still, I'd actually prefer to go on my own, then we can just sit and talk about football and all the stuff that's been going round in both our heads that day................(consults bus timetable for Springburn)

The geriatric ward at Stobhill is like the seventh circle of hell, two long lines of beds full of the confused and the dying. In the case of the manic old lad with the unlit fag in his mouth it's probably both. The fag was still in his gob when we left an hour later, still up in his bed gumming away, no words, just noises, the ability to articulate long gone. Another shouts a name repeatedly, maybe he's still swimming in the fog of the morphine. He could be calling anyone, but the name is female................You join the dots as you wish.

Grandpa's bed is at the bottom end of the ward. He lies across from a couple of sprightly looking lads with newspapers and a TV set. They're the short-termers, the tourists. They'll be out again in a week. Maybe it's true what they say about being nearer the door.............

As we walk out, an old gent smiles at me from one of the office like side rooms. I don't react quickly enough to wave at him or smile back, just a kind of impromptu grimace of acknowledgement before he melts back into the ward behind me. I silently wish him better health as I leave.

They provide handwash before you enter the ward. I leave wondering if theres anything attached to the wall that might aid the process of alleviating the feelings of grimness that cling to me as I leave.