Sunday 20th February 2011

Ok, so in my blog entitled “Friday 18th February 2011” I said I was in a bit of a downer but couldn’t put my finger on why?  Cat and I had a full scale blow-up this afternoon, mainly because I was being an arse.  I’m not going to get into the details of it but the upshot of it was that I ended up in floods of tears for what I thought was no good reason.

As we were sitting in the living room in the aftermath of my explosion, Cat and I talked through the possibilities for why I was so pissed off.  We ruled out the house, the cats and Cat herself, but then she put forward a suggestion.  Was I missing dad?  Did I want to be able to talk to him, and have him see our new flat and so forth?  It might sound strange, given that this year marks the fifth anniversary of his death but she was so spot-on it hurts.

About 10 days ago I was going through an old expanding file that I had, and throwing out some of my really out-of-date paperwork.  I’m a horrendous hoarder and there was stuff in there from at least 10 years ago, stuff that had no sentimental or other value so I was merrily binning it.  Then I found two letters, both written to me by each of my parents. 

This is a bit hard for me, so bear with it.  I’m not sure if I’ve told this stuff before so if I have then please forgive me.  When I was married, there was a lot of bad blood between my then-wife and my parents.  Most of it was a clash of personalities but there were a lot of nasty things said on both sides.  I was torn between retaining a healthy relationship with my parents, and defending my wife.  I also tried my best to make sure that both of my parents saw my baby son, despite my wife’s efforts to make sure that didn’t happen.  Long story short, I was spineless.  I should have been a lot more forceful in defending the relationship that I had with my parents, and in making sure that they had as much access to my son (their first grandchild after all) as his other grandparents had.  Anyway, I don’t remember the exact details that prompted my parents to write these letters (one from each of them incidentally) but as I read them the other day I wished, perhaps for the thousandth time, that I had some sort of time machine so that I could go back to when that stuff all started and either stop it from happening or at least be more of a man about the whole thing.  As I read dad’s letter to me, I could hear his voice narrating it and I could picture him sitting in the dining room with his word processor as he typed it. 

This afternoon, Cat suggested that I talk to dad.  I think the suggestion from her was that I could do that out loud and probably fill in the blanks in the conversation.  Probably good therapy, but the trouble is that I wouldn’t hear his voice.  The only time I’ve heard his voice in my head was last week when I read back that letter.  By rights, the letters should all be destroyed because they point to an episode in my life that I’m not in the slightest bit proud of.  The thing is though, I’ll keep them so that I can hear dad’s voice.

In case you’re wondering, when my now ex-wife and I split up, I went back to my parents’ house with my tail between my legs and was welcomed with open arms.  I was never judged or criticised, although there were times when dad and I would have heated discussions about what had happened.  I said “sorry” on more than one occasion, but always wish I could do more to express my regrets. 

I’m not really a religious person, but if there is some sort of afterlife to look forward to, I hope dad can see the life that I’ve made for myself with Cat, and the home that we’ve bought and be glad that I’ve finally got something right.  If the afterlife involves reincarnation, perhaps this time he’ll have a better son.

Sorry dad.

Saturday 19th February 2011

I love Saturday.  I think it must be absolutely my favourite day of the week for a number of reasons.  Unless I’ve had some sort of mental episode and arranged to be doing something very early, there’s never an alarm going off while it’s still dark outside.  I don’t need to rush around the house and get ready, even if the kids are coming for the weekend.

My Saturday started properly at about midday.  For those of you that think that’s lazy, you’re right but I would refer you back to my opening paragraph.  Cat was going out shopping with her mum this morning and had arranged to meet her at half nine.  When she told me that, I think my response was something like “well, go out quietly then”.  So I got up, faffed around for a little while and then made some coffee.

People that know me think I drink too much coffee.  For the record, I disagree.  When I’m at work, I will generally drink my way through 2 cafetiere loads each day which equates to about six mugs.  I also have a cafetiere in the house but I got sick of drinking cold coffee so I invested in a coffee machine just before Christmas.  I say “invested”: Cat and I used to do all our shopping in Sainsbury’s and had managed to amass about 18,000 nectar points, so I used some of those.  Now I’ve got a coffee machine that will keep the coffee hot for 2 hours, which is plenty of time for me to drink the contents of the jug!  Even if the machine does go off, the jug holds the heat for quite a while so it’s all good.  The point is though, I don’t have trouble sleeping (sometimes have trouble waking up though) and I don’t get the shakes, so am I really drinking too much?  Ironically, I can’t abide espresso – it’s way too strong for me, in fact to me it seems like consuming those 3 mugs of coffee in a single small cup.  One thing I will say is this: if I go a full day without a single cup of coffee, I risk a full-on migraine.  Last Friday I was off work, so I got up early and went to the gym after dropping Cat at work.  By the time I got home it was gone two, so I sat down to watch TV.  Next thing I knew it was 7 o’clock.  I’d caffeine crashed, and lost the afternoon on the couch.  So maybe I am an addict.  There’re worse things to be addicted to in my opinion.

So, I drank my first cup of coffee and was about half way through the second when Cat came in with her mum, and a box from IKEA.  I knew she was going to buy a chest of drawers, but the bedside cabinet I didn’t know about.  Anyway, Tina stayed for about an hour and then we took her to the station.

Once we got back up to the house, I lifted the chest of drawers out of the car and set about building it.  If you’ve never built IKEA furniture before, it can be a nuisance to do.  If you’re over 25, you might remember what a nuisance MFI furniture way.  If you’re not, ask your parents.  To me, IKEA is just MFI for the 21st century, the only difference being that instead of giving you instructions in very poorly-written English, they give you diagrams that don’t really help.

Halfway through building the chest of drawers, I broke one of the struts.  Not badly, but enough to render it useless so I had to jump in the car and get a replacement.  Little did I know that the replacement she gave me wasn’t exactly the same.  Bugger going back there though.

In the event, we now have a chest of drawers and a bedside cabinet.  Next  month, we’ll buy another one of each so we’ve got one each.

This evening I’ve found a pub.  Being fair, it’s not difficult.  Not sure if I’ll make it my regular but if I want to go out for a pint in Airdrie, I now have a location.  The staff and regulars seem nice, as did the girl hosting the karaoke.  I mean really, how long did you think it would be before I found a karaoke place in Airdrie eh?

Friday18th February 2011

Hi

I had a better day today.  Maybe part of that was because it’s Friday: even though I’m on-call this weekend and can’t therefore get up to any sort of mischief (not that I could afford to anyway), there’s a lot to be said for the knowledge that no alarm is going off at 5:45 tomorrow morning.  Unless I get called that is!

I managed to sort out one of the things that pissed me off yesterday.  I’m still not going to bore you with the details of why I was having such a bad day – all of the things that annoyed me were trivial, not to say petty.  Some of them were also my fault which actually makes them worse – I could have avoided spilling coffee down my new silk tie on the train yesterday morning by being more careful, or just not taking the damned coffee on the train in the first place. 

Some of the things that pissed me off yesterday were people, some of them based in the building I work in, some of them not.  Oddly, the guy in my building that pissed me off is easier to avoid than the girl that works 400+ miles away.  The girl that annoyed me yesterday did it again today but this time I had a word with someone who had a word with someone else and just after lunch I received an email apology from her.  So it’s over, at least for now.

I still can’t put my finger on why I’m in such a downer right now: we’ve got a new flat that we’re really pleased with, two new cats that are just adorable (see yesterday’s post for pictures) and I’m engaged to an amazing girl who’s completely managed to u-turn my idea of marriage.  We don’t have any reason to go anywhere or be with anyone this weekend so there’s no pressure and I’ve also got a boss who’s adamant that despite my horrendous workload, I shouldn’t be working any longer than absolutely necessary in order to get a job done.

To say I can be a moody bastard would be an understatement, although I’ve been known to deny it when other folk have said it.  It’s true though: I inherited a lot of genetic similarities from my late father and as I get older, I can spot more and more of them.  The biggest ones that I seem to have picked up are moodiness and a ridiculously short temper.  Not violent, just noisy.  I always knew dad and I were temperamentally very similar, but it frightens me sometimes just how much. 

I’m skating around the D word, because as soon as you start talking about being depressed, people start substituting depressed for depression which in turn means you should be taking some sort of medication.  I am depressed, but I do not have and never have I had depression, even in the darkest periods of my life.  So there!

I can’t even claim to be badly off, although I CAN claim to being rather strapped for cash this month.  Yet again I’ve managed to get through the horribly long month of January without being too bad for money, and yet the shortest year of the month saw me skint by the 10th.  How does that work exactly?

Companies on my List

The Permanent List

I’ve decided to start a new feature.  Every time I write this column I’m going to “out” any companies that have annoyed me enough to make it onto my List.  There isn’t an actual List you understand, but believe me you don’t want to end up on it.  Just to get the ball rolling, be aware that certain companies retain honorary lifetime membership of the List.  They are:

• BT – anyone who’s ever found themselves trying to get money back from these people when they’ve been overcharged will understand how frustrating it is;
• TalkTalk: I got a phone call from one of their call-centres one Saturday afternoon about a year ago.  On my landline which is unusual because I never give that number out.  When I explained that I wasn’t interested, the guy told me that I should listen because (and I quote) “I know where you live buddy!”.  I’ve never dealt with TalkTalk but I did make the mistake of giving my landline number to their parent company (The Carphone Warehouse) when purchasing a mobile phone contract.  Last time I’ll do that!

The Temporary List

I went out in Glasgow two weeks ago for a night of fairly heavy drinking with friends, believing that I could get a bus back home to Airdrie at closing time (midnight).  I believed this because the website of the largest bus operator in the city told me this.  What it didn’t tell me was that I’d have to wait for two hours for a bus to turn up, only for the bastard driving it not to stop to pick anyone up.  Even when I ran down the street after him (always a clever trick in Caterpillar boots) he wouldn’t stop.  So, First Bus, welcome to my List.  You’ll need to do something really special to avoid being promoted to the Permanent List.  Bankruptcy should about do it!

New Beginnings

I’m sitting here at my desk (at home, not at work) at 10.30 on a Thursday night in February.  I’ve had a properly crappy day today.  If you’ve ever had the kind of day where by 8AM you’re wondering why the hell you got out of bed, that’s been my day today.  I’ll not bore you with the details.  Just take my word for it that today has been shit.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, time to explain tonight’s title.

I decided to start this blog about 8 months ago for a number of reasons.  When I was a teenager I harboured ambitions about becoming a journalist.  There used to be a drama series on television called Lytton’s Diary starring Peter Bowles.  I don’t remember a whole lot about the series other than that Peter Bowles was a Fleet Street-based journalist who seemed to hold himself accountable to a greater moral standard than other journalists of his day.  I’m not saying that this drama series was the reason for wanting to become a journalist but at the age of 14, it seemed like a good idea.  My father was trying to steer me towards a job with the Customs Service which didn’t really appeal to me and I knew from my teachers that I was pretty handy with the English language.  So, I made my subject selections based on advice that I was given and dug in.  By the time I was 16, I had qualifications in English, French, History, Office Studies, Maths and General Science.  I failed Technical Drawing, mainly because I found it terminally dull and boring.  However, by the time I was 16, I had also lost all interest in becoming a journalist having found that I liked computers far more instead.

Before anyone asks me, no it didn’t occur to me to combine computers and journalism.  Hey, I’ve never claimed to be clever!

Anyway, to get back to my reasons for starting this blog, I’ve always felt that I had more to say.  I’m very strongly opinionated (not always an endearing quality) and I have something of a tendency to rant about stuff that pisses me off.  Looking at other people’s blogs made me realise that perhaps everything that I want to say can be said here: people don’t have to listen to me banging on about stuff – they can dip in, read what they want and then leave.  The trouble that I have at the moment is that, in the words of the masterful Pink Floyd, I thought I’d something more to say….

The reason for tonight’s title is very simple: I’m at a time in my life when I’m experiencing a lot of new beginnings.  I want to share some of those with you, but I also want to add a new one to the list.  I DO have more to say, I just need to get my finger out and get it said, right?

Anyway, here are some of the new things that are happening with me right now.  Some you’ll know about, some you won’t.  Before I go into that though, let me give you a little bit of my more recent history.

In July of last year all four tyres on my car were slashed at some point between me parking outside my flat at about 7.30 at night and going back out to the car at 5.30 the following morning.  As per usual, nobody saw anything and I was left with no option but to spend nearly £200 putting four brand new tyres on my not-yet 3-year old Vauxhall Corsa.  I didn’t know who had done the damage to my tyres but I’ve always been of the opinion that if you have a problem with someone, take it up with that person – don’t take the coward’s way out and damage his property.

Time passes and at the end of August we start toying with the idea of trading the car in.  She’s nearly 3 years old and there are some great deals going on brand new cars, mainly because the economy’s in the tank and the dealerships are panicking.  So we settle on a beautiful little Citroen C3 – a slightly bigger engine than we had in the Corsa but still small enough that the road tax isn’t a big expense.  Of course the insurance hurts a bit because I stupidly decided to claim for the Corsa’s tyres on my insurance.  Won’t do that again…

For a week or so we’re decadently running a two-car household.  I had decided not to use the Corsa as a down-payment on the Citroen, believing that I could get a better deal if I sold it myself.  Cat’s driving licence was out of date so I couldn’t insure her to drive the Citroen on the 7 days’ complimentary cover anyway so I drove the Citroen and she drove the Corsa.

On the 19th of September, we heard a hissing noise coming from outside.  Given that we’re 3 storeys up and even allowing for the fact that the living room window was cracked open, it was quite impressive that we heard anything.  Imagine my horror when I look out of the window and a guy with a hoodie on is walking away from my car.  Yes, we’d been done again only this time, I know who he is and where he lives because my living room looks into his, and my girlfriend had the unfortunate pleasure of witnessing him assaulting his girlfriend one Saturday night.  Suddenly, things start to make sense.

I’ve never been physically violent but If I could have got my hands on him that night, I’d probably have killed him.  I’ve never in my life thrown a punch at anything more solid than a training bag – not for any particular reason other than that I tend to try and avoid trouble and also because in my mind’s eye I look vaguely ridiculous when I punch things.  Regardless, if I’d got my hands on him, he’d have gone down.  While I was running down 3 flights of stairs to confront the guy that did my tyres, Cat was on the phone to the police to report the incident as she had done the first time.  When the two officers arrived, they already knew about the first tyre-slashing incident and expressed a high degree of sympathy with us.  However, they were at pains to point out that they couldn’t go and arrest the guy on the basis of my say-so.  They were also keen to request that I not go and try to confront the guy in the street, although they did agree that they’d probably have done much the same in their position.  Anyway that’s another £200 up in smoke and this time it’s out of pocket, not on the insurance.  When the mobile unit turned up the following day to replace my tyres he commented on what a shame it was to be taking away four ruined 3-week old tyres.

By now we’re fed up.  Clearly it’s a bad move leaving the car outside my own (albeit rented) home so we start looking for places within range of the flat that we could safely park the car overnight.  Luckily the area we lived in had quite a lot of security cameras around so we became pretty adept at parking the car where it would be seen on-camera.  The thing was though, it was now the end of summer and after about a week of sneaking around like that, I was starting to get pretty fed up with it, particularly because the girl across the road had provided her boyfriend with an alibi for the night when I watched him walk away from my car.  So we decided it was time to move.

New Home

Cat and I spent quite a bit of time looking at the possibility of renting a place in  Glasgow or even buying something affordable.  The problem is that when the higher salary earner has quite high monthly outgoings (child maintenance etc) and the other salary earner is effectively classed as a student, and you’re living through a recession, you’re options tend to be a bit more limited than they might otherwise be.  To make matters worse our flat in Govan was a Housing Association property.  Such so-called “Social Housing” needs to be affordable because it has to be available to some of the more vulnerable members of society.  Whilst this was great when we were starting out in 2006 because it meant we were paying around £200 in rent, it meant that if we were going to make the jump from Housing Association to private landlord we would see quite a hefty jump in rent.  If we bought a place, it would be even worse.

First things first then: we decided to investigate the property market, which meant a visit to a mortgage advisor.  We had decided that because Cat is classed as a student, we’d be better to get the mortgage amount calculated on my salary and outgoings.  After about a fortnight’s wait, the mortgage advisor came back with the maximum amount that we could expect to borrow from the bank.  In the meantime we’d seen a 3-bedroom property in a former Housing Association block that was going for a very low amount, probably as a result of the mortgage lender having repossessed it.  If you’re not already aware of this, repossessed properties are sold by means of a ballot – all interested parties submit sealed bids, and the property goes to the highest bidder.  The problem there is that you have to do all the legal stuff (and therefore pay the solicitor) without having any guarantee of a set of keys at the end of it.

When we went back for the second viewing of that property, we discovered that the block was scheduled for demolition within a few years, so it would only be a temporary home for us at best.  We ran away screaming!

Slightly dispirited, we started casting the property net a bit wider.  Cat and I both loved living in the city, not least because we could have a night out and be able to get home quite easily.  We both grew up in Helensburgh, where a night in Glasgow either means the last train home or a painful taxi fare.  However, we realised that we could move a bit further out and get more property for our money.

I have to tell you, some of the properties we saw were hilarious, and not in a good way.  We lined up a bunch of viewings in Cumbernauld, which is just outside Glasgow.  It’s a post-war New Town and one which has (deservedly in my opinion) been voted the worst place to live on a number of occasions.  We saw one place that appeared to have been vacated in a hurry and would have seen a second were it not for the fact that it was in the process of being burgled at the time.  Again, away we ran!

Against my better judgement, Cat persuaded me to look at properties in Airdrie.  Airdrie is set in the heart of Lanarkshire and used to be part of a thriving coal mining community which has long since shut down.  Nowadays its a commuter town, being only 30 minutes on the train from Glasgow.  I say “against my better judgement” because deep down, I wanted to stay in Glasgow.  Regardless, Cat set up some viewings.

One of the viewings that we attended in Airdrie was of a top-floor three-bedroom place.  It was owned by an elderly couple who had lived in the block for about 30 years but now needed to move because the husband had some form of illness that meant he couldn’t breathe properly and was therefore largely housebound.  We left, telling the estate agent that we were interested but would need to think it through.  That was a lie: we fell in love with the place.

To try and cut this very long story a bit shorter, Cat and I moved out of the flat in Govan on 26th November and into that 3-bedroom property during the worst snow seen by Airdrie in a long time.  So, we’ve now lived here for nearly three months, we’ve met some of the neighbours and we can park the car outside the house without any fear of damage being done.  Much as I hate the guy that slashed what I now believe was both sets of tyres, I think that the bastard did me a favour by galvanising us into action.

New Relationship Status

As you may be aware, I’ve been married before.  When Cat and I got together I was pretty adamant that I wasn’t doing that again – in a drunken moment at my sister’s wedding I may have made the mistake of telling someone this in front of Cat, which wasn’t really my finest hour.  Anyway, since Cat and I got together we’ve attended four weddings and eventually I’ve come around to the idea.  So much so in fact that when we were in the USA just before New Year, we decided to get engaged.  Not a formal proposal, not down on one knee, no asking her dad for his daughter’s hand in marriage, just a conversation had over a couple of beers at the end of 3 days’ of hectic travelling from Glasgow to New York via London, Chicago and Washington DC.  Last of the romantics me!

New Animals

Cat and I always wanted to get a kitten.  However the problem with the flat in Govan was that it was just too small.  And I’d seen some of the cats living in our street – no way I was having a kitten going outside and becoming a home to as many fleas as that!

Four weeks ago, Cat was in Helensburgh visiting her parents.  Because I was on-call that weekend I opted to stay at home, rather than risk being called.  On the Saturday, Cat called me to say that she’d called into the local SSPCA shelter in Dumbarton and had seen a couple of gorgeous cats.  So, I agreed to take a look at them, on the understanding that nothing was being decided there and then.  Yeah, right!  I fell in love with the two of them, and we collected them two days later.  The house now has two litter trays, scratching posts and umpteen cat toys, as well as two of the cutest cats you’ve never seen.  They’re sisters, and are about 12 months old each.  They were handed in to the SSPCA because their elderly owner was going to into a care home and couldn’t take them with her.  Because of this, they seem to be happier with Cat than they are with me, although they do let me stroke and play with them sometimes.  They even let the kids play with them, although they’ll accept Laura more than they will Tony.

Rosie (at the top) will do absolutely anything if you wave a ball of wool in front of her.  To a certain extent Minnie (below) is the same although she prefers it when I get the laser pointer out – she goes nuts for that little red dot!

The Future

In the next six months or so, Cat and I are going to be completely re-decorating the house.  Don’t get me wrong, the place is in good shape and doesn’t need decorating.  The problem is though: it’s not our taste and style.  It’s decorated after the taste of the elderly couple that we bought it from.  No doubt there’ll be updates on here as the work progresses.

That brings me onto the other thing I wanted to say, which is really more of a promise.  I’ve been pretty hopeless at keeping this blog going: I’m certainly not as devoted to it as other people I know who blog every week.  The thing is though, I want to try and get better at it, so be prepared for the over the coming weeks.

In Memory Of….

Dear friends this is just a quick note.

By the miracle of modern technology in general and Facebook in particular, I’ve recently been able to get back in touch with people that I went to both Primary and Secondary school with. 

A few days ago somebody that I went to Primary School with posted our Primary 4 and Primary 5 class photographs and tagged as many people as he could remember names for.  This then led to those of us that he’d tagged proceeding to chip in and tag or name others that we remembered.  It was great seeing those pictures from our childhood, over 25 years ago.

During these back-and-forth exchanges with people I’ve learned some very sad news which is that two of the people in those pictures have passed away.  For that reason I wanted to dedicate this blog to the memories of not only Andy and Mariyam, but also the other people that I’ve been privileged to know over the years who are no longer with us.

Rest in peace dear friends & family

Friends & Family

Sorry I’ve been absent for so long dear reader, but August has been a bit hectic one way or another. 

This story’s going to ramble a bit I’m afraid.  Stick with it though – like the late bus home from the pub at three in the morning, I’ll get you there eventually.

July 2005

At the beginning of July 2005, I decided to join one of the gyms close to my office, since at the time I lived 25 miles outside Glasgow.  As a smoker, you might think this slightly strange or unusual – my parents certainly did.  I had a motive though: I wanted to give up smoking and felt that being a member of a gym was the best way of guilt-tripping myself into doing that.  I also had another more serious motive: in early 2005 my father (a pipe smoker) was diagnosed with throat cancer and was receiving regular bouts of both chemo- and radio therapy.

At the risk of straying off-topic slightly, if you’re looking for a good chain of gyms run by a well-known company, I honestly can’t speak highly enough of Virgin Active.  Anyway, as usual I digress.  When I first joined the gym, I had an induction with one of the personal trainers.  We talked about my goals, my lifestyle etc and I told him that I was a smoker, and that I wanted to get fit.  I told him that at the present moment, I couldn’t run for a bus!

A couple of months later, I hooked up with my girlfriend, and instantly had another good reason to quit smoking: she’s asthmatic and the smoke used to affect her quite badly.  At this stage, I was staying with my parents and decided that I would no longer smoke in the house.  Dad had quit smoking pretty soon after he was diagnosed, so it seemed a bit insensitive to smoke in the house, and it made life easier for Cat when she stayed over.

Now, I discovered two things about myself in the months after I joined the gym.  The first one was that I actually enjoyed physical exercise.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to turn myself into some muscle-bound iron-pumper who spends all of his spare time in the gym.  That said, I did quite like how I was starting to look, but anyway.  The second thing I discovered was that I actually have very little shame or guilt, therefore using the gym to shame me into quitting smoking clearly wasn’t going to happen.  So, time to go speak to my GP.

Zyban

Time for another diversion: about 11 years ago I got my doctor to give me a prescription for a new Nicotine Replacement Therapy called Zyban.  The company I work for provides a lot of smoking-cessation counselling services so I'd had access to most of the available information about the product.  I’d also heard one or two horror stories, and been treated to someone lecturing me on how the drug didn’t actually beat the addiction or break the habit but merely fiddled with the parts of the brain that control addiction yada yada yada.  So, I spoke to the doctor and he gave me my first prescription.  For those of you who don’t know, the way the drug works does indeed meddle with the serotonin levels of the brain.  My limited understanding of biology leads me to believe that addiction is triggered by low levels of serotonin in the brain, which Zyban helps to raise.  At this particular stage in my life, as readers of my other blogs will know (see Helensburgh and taxis) I was working two jobs and holding down a part-time college course.  That was all fine but the problem is that because Zyban was originally developed as an anti-depressant, you have to be very careful to make sure that you follow the dose.  A single course of Zyban lasts for about 30 days, and is taken at a rate of one tablet per day for the first three days, and then two tablets per day thereafter until the end of the course.  To make it more complicated, the two tablets should be taken a minimum of 8 hours apart.  I could handle that fine, until Saturday night came around – I’d be out working and suddenly realise at one or two in the morning that I hadn’t taken the tablet the previous night.  To cut a long story short (oops, too late), I eventually went into melt-down, and went ballistic at my then wife in front of my young son.  So, the tablets got dumped and I ended up back on the cigarettes.  You might be interested to know (if you don’t already) that when taking Zyban, you don’t actually make an effort to quit smoking- it just happens believe it or not.

The GP Visit

When I went to the doctor in October of 2005, I asked her for a prescription for Zyban, having already spoken to the people closest to me and warned them of the potential side effects.  The doctor started to explain the various ins-and-outs of the drug, but stopped when I told her all I knew about it, including how I understood that she had to check my blood pressure because of the small risk of pressure increase as a result of the drug.  So, she checked my blood pressure (120/80, go me!) and gave me my first prescription.  I’d told her that I was going to be going on holiday, so would start the course when I returned which she approved.

The Tablets

Once I’d returned from my holiday (Tenerife in November is excellent for a nice quiet relaxing holiday) I started taking the tablets as instructed.  I also made sure that after the first three days, I always had plenty of alarms and things set to remind me to take the night-time tablet.

Christmas 2005

That Christmas was slightly unusual, in a number of ways.  My sister and future brother-in-law had suggested a few months previously that they would like to organise a big family Christmas, which would involve the two of them plus me, mum & dad and Iain’s parents.  I was on-call that year so I was happy to drive up to their place on Christmas morning, having seen my own children the previous night and delivered their presents to them.  Cat was having Christmas with her parents, since it was the first time in a while that her father had been home for Christmas – I should explain, Cat’s father served in the Royal Navy whilst mine served in the Merchant Navy.  Although they’re quite different, there are a number of similarities, them not being around for Christmas or other family occasions being just one.

Despite dad’s illness, Christmas day that year was amazing.  Christine (my sister) did all the cooking, despite numerous offers of help from both mothers.  We all just had a really nice day.  It’s the most sober Christmas I’ve had in a long time, but that wasn’t a problem.  We stayed with Iain and Christine that night, and drove back to Helensburgh the following day, which neatly coincided with me coming off-call.  Still taking the tablets, still great :)

New Years Eve

New Year’s Eve can usually only be described in one way here in Scotland – messy.  That year, Cat & I were meeting with friends and going out drinking in some of our old haunts in Helensburgh, a trick made slightly more complicated by the fact that a lot of the bars in the town charge an admission on New Years Eve when they wouldn’t at any other time of the year.  Anyway, we were out until the pubs closed, although Cat headed back up to her parents’ home just after midnight because she was finding the smoky atmosphere in the pub a little hard to cope with.  I think I staggered into Cat’s parents’ home at about three in the morning, absolutely hammered.

New Year’s Day

If New Year’s Eve is a messy night in Scotland, New Year’s Day tends to be a day of quiet reflection, usually caused by a large intake of alcohol the previous night.  The 1st of January 2006 was no different for me, and I think it was about 7 o’clock that night before Cat (and especially me) could face going outside.  By the time we did go out, it was icy cold outside and very foggy.  That didn’t stop us walking nearly 2 miles and ending up in a hotel along the waterfront in Helensburgh for a much-needed hot chocolate.  Ok, so we got a taxi home, who cares?  Now, it’s worth noting that I didn’t have a single cigarette from the moment I surfaced at lunchtime.  I did however have one at about 9:30 that night whilst perched on Cat’s parents’ front doorstep.  Cat still jokes that she’s never seen anyone turn green quite as quick as I did that night.  That was the last time I smoked a cigarette!  The tablets had worked, I just needed to finish the course.

They say that the first thing you regain after stopping smoking is your sense of smell.  I’m not usually much for what “they” say, but on this one, “they” are spot-on.  When I walked into my bedroom sometime on the 2nd of January, the first thing that hit me was the smell.  Bearing in mind that the room had been largely smoke-free for about four months, it was still rank with the smell of stale cigarettes.  So, time to get cleaning!  After a few days of concerted cleaning, and camping at Cat’s place so I could leave the bedroom window wide-open in January, the room was not only tidy, but odour-free.

March 2006

The weekend after my birthday, we had a sudden and (I think) unexpected fall of snow.  I’m not generally a big fan of snow – it’s nice enough to look out at if you’re standing with a hot beverage looking out of the window and thinking how pretty it looks, but I really am not a big fan of driving in it.  Anyway, on the Saturday morning we woke up to be greeted by a heavy fall of snow, and dad going nuts downstairs because he was unable to get out and about with his zimmer frame.  So, I went outside to start clearing the path and driveway so that he could get out, and I could go pick up the kids.  Incidentally, at this point Cat and I had been dating for six months and she hadn’t met the kids.  Dad was very grateful for my efforts, and the snow (and sledges that Cat produced) proved to be a great ice-breaker (no pun intended). 

August 2006

For the life of me, I can’t remember what I’d been up to on the night of Friday 18th August, but I know that there was an heroic quantity of alcohol involved, which meant that when my mobile rang at about 8:30 the following morning, I was always going to ignore it.  Once it had stopped, I checked it and made a mental note to call my sister back later on.  Just as I put it down again, Christine rang for a second time which is very unusual.  She told me that dad (currently in hospital in Glasgow) had taken a bit of a bad turn, so would it be ok for me to go home and run mum up to the hospital.

When I got home, mum and I had a cup of coffee and then I drove us to the hospital.  Mum talked for most of the way – I needed all my concentration for driving so I was quite happy to let her ramble, but I noticed that she was telling me stuff about how they’d first met which I thought was a little bit odd. 

Iain and Christine were already at the hospital when we arrived.  Dad was in quite a heavy coma, so there was no possibility of communicating with him.  After a short while, one of the doctors came out and asked if she could have a word with mum, so I accompanied them into a small office next to the ward.  I swear I never saw this coming, but the doctor told mum that dad was unlikely to recover, and it was now merely a matter of time before he lost his battle with cancer. 

Later that afternoon, George Henderson passed away, surrounded by all those who loved him.  He was 63 years old, but could have been mistaken for ten years older.

September 2006

Weddings are a time of great happiness, especially when you’re related to one half of the ceremony, and a good friend of the other half.  For all of that happiness though, this particular occasion was tinged with a lot of sadness.  It had dawned on me about six months previously that dad may be incapable of walking Christine down the aisle, and it had always been my intention to talk this over with him and tell him I was happy to step in if he couldn’t do it.  Well that conversation never took place, but I think I did what dad would have wanted anyway.  Oddly enough, a few weeks before Iain and Christine got married, Iain’s dad and I had a conversation one Sunday afternoon whilst watching Iain’s brothers band (Ernest) playing.  During that conversation, he offered to walk Christine down the aisle, if I didn’t feel up to it.  I politely declined because the offer was meant in no way other than a kind gesture.

So, the day of the wedding, I walked my beautiful sister down the aisle while Cat filmed it.  Later on, I also gave a speech in place of the father-of-the-bride speech.  Probably not my best speech, but I think the last time I spoke in public was at my own wedding ten years previously!  Give me a microphone and a karaoke backing and I’m fine, but I’m not an orator.

September 2007

In about June of 2007, I did a really crazy thing which was to sign up to run a 10-kilometre road race to raise money for The Beatson Oncology Unit, where dad had been treated and looked after so well.  Now, I’m not a runner, although at over 6ft tall, I probably should be.  So I trained, and I got sponsorship, and I don’t mind telling you I was more than a little bit pleased to finish the race in a time of 1 hour and 18 minutes.  I don’t remember much about the rest of that day to be honest.  I do know that there was alcohol involved though!

September 2010

Last August, Cat and I decided to purchase a couple of bikes.  We both live within four miles of Glasgow city centre, and our respective work places so it seemed like a good idea.  If I’m honest, I’m very definitely a fair-weather cyclist, so the bike didn’t really get used much between the end of last September and the beginning of April this year.  However, somewhere along the way Cat and I decided that it’d be fun to take part in the Pedal For Scotland event.  This annual event is actually three separate rides, one for families and youngsters, one for all-comers and one for keen cyclists.  Cat and I (and latterly my son Tony) have signed up for the all-comers event which covers 51 miles between Glasgow and Edinburgh.  Incidentally, if you’re interested in sponsoring us, you can either donate to Maggie’s Cancer Care, Alzheimers Scotland or the Scottish Association for Mental Health.

Conclusion

First of all, if you’ve managed to get to the end of this blog then thank you for sticking with this.  I want to finish now, but I want to make a few points before I do:

• Please cherish every contact you have, be it parent, sibling, workmate, close friend of even just drinking buddy.  I’ve lost various people in my life, some of them to illness, some to suicide and a few to old age.  The older I get, the harder I find it becomes to accept the death of a loved one.  It’s even tougher if you didn’t see it coming, and perhaps didn’t get to tell that person how you feel about them.  It’s been four years now since dad passed away, but I still find myself wanting to talk to him, to tell him how things are with me, talk to him about the kids, etc.  Don’t get me wrong, mum’s still around but I never really had a lot of father & son time with dad, and I regret that so very much.
• I’m never going to be the guy who sits and tells you that smoking is bad for you, or that sh*t will kill you.  It’d be hypocritical for me, a reformed smoker, to lay that one on anybody.  That said, that shit probably WILL kill you, so if you do smoke and I’ve struck a chord, you know what to do.
• If I, as a reformed smoker, can take part in a 10-kilometre road race or a 51 mile cycle, anybody can.  If you are thinking about doing it but think you’re unfit, or are daunted by the distance, you should stand up and give yourself a good shake.  I try and attend the gym regularly, and I enjoy my cycling but I’m still not some muscle-monkey for whom that stuff comes easily, so if I can do these things, anybody can.

Mostly for dad, but for me too.  Sleep well.

Alcohol

It may not seem like it, but tonight's blog actually has quite a serious point to it, and may come across as slightly depressing in places. If it does depress you, I can only apologise and hope that you can forgive me. I need to say what I need to say though.

I can honestly say that as a teenager, I never experimented with alcohol. When we were kids, mum and dad would encourage us to try whatever alcohol they were drinking, although it was generally red wine and I still don't like it. I never saw any point in drinking something I didn't like, so I didn't get into it at all. That is, until I accidentally got drunk on 4th July 1992, the year I was 19. Actually, I think I got drunk the night before, but I do know that I attended a barbeque for some visitors from the US with a God-awful hangover.

Ok, time for a quick diversion: I sat my driving test when I was 1 month past my 18th birthday and (for the record) passed first time, although I succeeded in stalling the car now fewer than 3 times and mounted the kerb whilst reversing round a corner. Anyway, I digress - you'll find I do that a lot, especially when I'm tired (as now) or distracted.

When I passed my test, I was suddenly introduced to a wonderful world of relative freedom. The year I passed my test, I started dating a girl I'd shared an entire secondary school career with but with whom I didn't hook up until after we'd left school. We drove to places like Edinburgh, Aberfoyle and Aberdeen within the first 18 months of me having my licence (and being able to persuade my mother to let me use the car). Anyway, the day after my first dalliance with the "demon drink", it dawned on me that I would have to be extremely careful if I was going to experiment with alcohol now that I had a driving licence, which posed no problem whatsoever.

A few months later I was given tablets for some medical condition or other, although I don't remember what that was. When the doctor gave me the prescription, I asked him what I was allowed to consume in the way of alcohol since I'd got into the habit of going out for a few drinks on a Friday night. The doctor's response was to limit me to a single pint of cider per day. With this in mind, my next visit was to the police to find out what the legal limit was for alcohol and driving. The police gave me a few generalities about quantities and strengths and so forth, but the message that I left with was that I shouldn't consume any more than a pint and a half of lager before getting behind the wheel. So far, so good.

I've now had my licence for 19 years, during which time I've had 1 speeding ticket. I've been stopped a few times, and I've had the odd accident here and there but that's about it. One thing I can definitely say is that I've always managed to be extremely careful not to exceed the legal alcohol limit. I frequently go out "for a pint" and take the car with me. Mostly that's because I'm on-call for work, but very often it'll be because I've got stuff to do the following day, or because I just don't want to need to rely on public transport. Either way, I don't mix drink and cars.

Now, I'm going to go completely off-piste here folks but please stick with me - it'll make sense when you get to the end of it.

On 27th of June 2003, I was going out for the evening with a girl I worked with. You could call it a date if you wanted but you'd be wrong - it was just two mates having a night out at a gig. The gig in question was a former colleague of mine who has formed a number of bands in his time and who was playing in Glasgow. I'd been talking about the gig for a while and had managed to persuade this girl to come with me. Because I was living in Helensburgh at the time, I'd opted to drive which meant I couldn't drink but that was fine with me.

When we left work that evening, we went into a pub just round the corner from work and had a single drink with another colleague who was waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up. We shared a drink, and then Suzanne and I went our way, and Stuart went his. We saw Mark's band playing that night and I then ran Suzanne home to the house she was sharing with her sister. We watched some of the coverage of that year's Glastonbury festival and then I drove home to Helensburgh.

To cut a long story short, after the weekend I walked into work on the Monday morning. After depositing my jacket at my desk, I walked into the canteen where one of my colleagues turned round and uttered words that I'll never forget - "Hi Ian, how's things? Bad news about Stuart eh?". As he turned around to walk out of the canteen I grabbed him and demanded to know what had happened. As Ross was about to explain, the Operations Manager walked in and asked me to accompany her to her office. When we got there, Mary closed the door and told me that she'd been trying to reach me all weekend but didn't have my mobile number. Now, the reason for this is because I was fed up of getting calls when I was off sick or on holiday, so I had my number removed from my record but that's by the way. Anyway, it turned out that on the Saturday morning, Mary had been in the office preparing to attend the funeral of one of our call-centre workers who had been killed in a house-fire. Just as she and the rest of the staff had been preparing to leave for the funeral, the police had arrived and asked if Mary could help them with their enquiries. They had presented her with an employee badge that had been recovered from the scene of an accident, and asked her to confirm that the owner of the badge was one of our employees. It transpired that the badge had belonged to Stuart whom Suzanne and I had shared that drink with the previous night. Mary had been trying to reach me to let me know what had happened.

What I later found out has made my blood boil ever since, because in my opinion this represents one of the major failings of the Scottish and indeed British criminal justice system. Stuart had indeed been meeting his girlfriend, but it was much later so he was fairly well oiled when he was picked up. However, on the journey home they were involved in a collision with another driver who was under the influence of alcohol, to the extent that when the police attended the scene and pulled the other driver from his car, he was so drunk he was unable to stand unaided. To make matters worse, it later transpired that he had already had his licence revoked for driving whilst drunk, and yet this particular night he had had about a dozen cans of Stella Artois (familiarly known in this part of the world as wife-beater) and had also had spirits, to the extent that by the time he left his boss's house he was heavily over the limit.

Stuart Campbell was one of the funniest and cheeriest men I knew. He had nothing bad to say about anyone, and could lift anyone's spirits with his cheeky grin and vibrating banter. He was also the same age as I was (30) when he was killed. To my mind, he didn't die that night but was killed. Perhaps worse was the fact that his girlfriend had two children who were robbed of their mother.

Now, you could argue that because he was so inebriated, the police had no problem pressing charges and the man in question did indeed receive a custodial sentence. And here comes the injustice of it all: for the manslaughter of two people, and the driving of a motor vehicle whilst over the legal alcohol limit, this man got four years in prison. Unfortunately, he also got time off for good behaviour which means that for taking 2 lives, he served less than 3 years in jail.

I don't want to get too much onto my soapbox right now, but I honestly believe that the criminal justice system needs to be seriously overhauled, so that people who go to prison for a set period actually spend that time in jail, with extra time being added on for any bad behaviour that merits it. Perhaps if that did happen, my friend would still be here today and those two children would still have a mother.

As a small aside, Stuart's funeral took place on Friday 4th July, a tremendously warm day across most of Scotland. Afterwards we all returned to work but after we'd finished we moved across the road to the bar in which Stuart and I had had that drink just 7 days before. The manageress of the bar had heard what happened to Stuart and had provided a full buffet for those that wanted it. I will never forget that night, of looking up at a bar full of my friends and colleagues, all of us united in our grief over the loss of Stuart, all of us telling funny stories about him and remembering all of the good times. It was karaoke night that night, and I almost broke down in tears as I sang "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" by Pink Floyd. I count myself lucky to have known Stuart, and still mark the 28th of June privately.

To Stuart: you were and always will be one in a million and you'll never be forgotten. Sleep well my friend.