Captivation.. thats a good word isn’t it Children?

Captivation…… It’s a very captivating word don’t you think?

I’m a very inquisitive type of a guy, nosey, interested in others. My family all think I should have been a detective, “Asking questions all the time”. It is true about 90% of my conversation an any one day is a question. Truth is the answers always seem to leave me with more questions.

As you will no doubt be awear, I am surrounded by women in my life, Sister, Daughter, all the girls in my offices and then there are my friends, almost all of which, both virtual and in real life, are female.

So the combination of my questioning demeanour and females has brought me to a strange realisation. One which I am kind of ashamed to admit. In recent times I have been chatting with a lovely lady,I like her a lot, she demonstrates many similar qualities to myself and many qualities I like in women, she is funny chatty for the most part, open and honest, I enjoy our exchanges, I find her Captivating! But that’s not my admission. She seems to have gotten, very quickly I might add, under my skin. Any how, back to my admission,it appears , over the last couple of days, that I have lost the ability to speak to women, to say nice things or compliment them without them thinking I’m teasing or just being light hearted? perhaps its my fear of rejection? Perhaps I’m nervous, god knows my confidence deserted me for a while or perhaps I really have just lost the ability to speak to the fairer sex?

I fear if I don’t sort it out I’m going to “Blow it before it gets started” …………..not this one imparticular just any in general?

 

Just like the aurora dances across the sky,

so you dance through my head,

Leaving me with more questions than answers,

as pieces of me are splattered on the walls,

I wonder if my life will ever be that good again?

as I empty my lungs to breath you in,

I open my eyes and see you there,

I touch your face and kiss your lips,

hoping you understand me?

will we be lovers? I want your body,

Skin next to mine naked and raw,

Passion rises our chemicals mix,

explosions between the sheets as we create a unity,

Arrival together but now where? 

 

 

Just a little rant…..

“Smile it could be worse” some one said, so I smiled and yes things got worse……….

I’m not the kind of person who complains that I don’t like Mondays, but today I will make an exception. Today has been an Epic fail, but in the kind of way that lots of little things have irritated me beyond belief.

In fact it started yesterday; I found myself driving to Blackpool, some two hours drive away, for what was basically a one hour meeting and a flat white from Starbucks. To add to my annoyance, I decided I would have a bag of chips, a simple enough thing, a small fancy. So why does every “Chip Vendor” in the Vegas of the North insist on using horrid, cheap, frozen chips? Perhaps they have forgotten the recipe??

So two hours drive home with a face like a bull dog licking piss of a thistle………….

Then this morning… well to be honest, I can’t really be arsed going over every little annoyance and hassle that has put me in a paddy.

But as a fully paid up non believer, today I find myself praying.

Dear God,

Please provide me the strength to ,

accept the things I can’t change

change the things I can’t accept

have the wisdom to know the difference

and grant me the serenity and willpower

not to beat the living shit out of everyone that has pissed me off today

because I would not know where to kick them to keep them alive.

Amen.

I’m now going to go home, probably at brake neck speed, go to the gym to work off some aggression and then have a bath……..possibly a drink or three, and yes I know its a school night , but hey , DILLIGAF?

Sorry for the rant, thanks for reading my ramblings and enjoy the rest of your day….

unless you have pissed my off today in which case go fuck yourself!

A week in the life….cont…

You will remember that in my last post I said there were two things that had made me feel I was getting back to my old self?

The first was my aggression and passion for my work, that is confirmed as well and truly back!

The second is a much softer more relaxed association with my old self; my ability to recall my dreams.

Regular visitors to this blog will know, from previous posts that I am, or was, an avid dreamer, and have always had an interest in them and interpreting them.So imagine my feelings when, for the first time in many months I had total recall of a dream, and no there are no prizes for guessing the nature or content of the dream!

I find myself bare foot on a sandy beach by some large rock, it is dark but the moon is full and giving off a Strong light, it is so low in the sky I could almost reach out and touch it, it looks to be hovering just above the water, and then she appears beside me and takes my hand. I can’t make out her facial features but I know her, who she is, why she is here.She grips my hand tightly, but does not speak, her hair blows around in the breeze as she walks away, leading my down the beach by the hand, this feels right, good. I am aware of the cliffs to our right, capped with grass, rising larger out of the ground as we walk gently together down the beach. Her dress is blowing in the wind, I can feel the soft fabric brushing against my bear leg , the sand is warm beneath my feet.

She stops in the Shadow of the cliff and turns to me, she places her right hand gently on my left cheek and pushes her lips to mine and we kiss, her tongue probes inside my mouth and mine hers, she lets go of my hand and slips her hand into my shorts, taking hold of me, with purpose, with intent, then as only can happen in a dream, we are making love, still on the beach, I’m lay on the sand her thighs astride me, I am deep inside, her dress covering our lust, her hair hangs around my head as she kisses me, kissing my hard as she pushes back with venom, she want this as much as I, her cries of pleasure now audible on the breeze , she gets louder as she gets closer, her tide is coming in……….and then…….

I have never been unhappy to hear Chris Evans in the radio, but this morning I am. I want to be back on the beach.

The good news is I am recalling many more of my dreams now and she has visited me more than once, one day, maybe in real life?

We live in hope and we NEVER say NEVER.

A week in the life…..

” I think it’s half full” said the optimist ” well I think it’s half empty” said the pessimist ” well while you two were arguing over it, I drank it” , that’s me, the opportunist .

I’ve had what you might call a ” rough” twelve months, but two things happened this week that made me feel that life is returning to normal.

The first was work related. While I’ve been ill, my team, who are pretty awesome by the way, have tried to hold things together best they could. But my prime contractor decided to put a “caretaker ” in place, this was fine until I returned full time. She decided that she was going to try & take my business off me & squeeze me out. I have hid in the long grass and waited for my opportunity to Re-Stamp my authority on the business and show both her and my team just why I’ve been at the top of my game for over a decade; on tuesday such an opportunity presented its self. I’m not going to bore you with the detail if how and why , but the general upshot is this; I pride myself in being professional at all times in my business life, she was nothing short of a 40 faced, lying, back stabbing, unprofessional fool. She made an error of telling a very influential person a lie about me; what she hadn’t counted on was that person, the first thing they did was call me! So we hatched a plan, this individual, at my request asked for confirmation via email, which she duly did. This was the first time I had anything I could use.

So Wednesday arrived, I woke with that strange anticipation you get when you know something is going to happen, but you don’t know if that something is going to be good or bad?
I arrived into the office quite early, after taking the early train. She arrived at 9:30, late even by her standards, she had a very smug look on her face, my right hand man said he knew there was something going on? We danced around the business of the day & I gave her as wide a birth as possible for the best part of the morning, then I called the team together at 11:30, telling them I needed a quick update before lunch.

The guys tool there seats around the table I sit at in the board room, me sat on my old church pew at the top of the table, I kicked the meeting off by saying there was only one item on the agenda.

I handed each of them a printed copy of the email she had sent the previous day, simply saying ” this was sent to one of my BEST friends yesterday, please read it and let me have your thought; I removed my wrist watch & placed it on the table so I could see it without moving my hands & just places my hands impassively in my lap.

Silence followed for what seemed like an eternity, it was actually 11 minutes, the team sat with dropped Jaws, she held her head down & I now had the smug look on my face.

The following twenty minutes are a blur, but one thing I can confirm, as ever, I never raised my voice once, I didn’t swear, but I didn’t stop speaking , a member of my team tells me she was crying three minutes in to the twenty.

When I finished I stood up,ask my PA to bring me coffee and walked over to my office. I felt no emotion at the time, this was a return to the old ” business” me.

This woman was happy to close me down & put my 38 employees out of work, without a twinge of guilt, all for her own ends, but all the while smiling & laughing with them , talking about their kids and loved ones & trying to befriend them, I find this cold & calculating and I find it unacceptable.

My prime contractor, my team and that bloody woman are left in no doubt at the close of play today, I’m back , back on the money with my head in the game and for now my business is safe, I say for now because only a fool underestimated their enemy & the lengths they will go to bring you down…..

The second thing you will have to wait for………….

*apologies for any errors in spelling or grammar, I wrote this on my phone sat in the car 😉

Out of hibernation

Well it’s been a while but here I am.

I’ve been a little ill & if I’m honest I have really struggled to deal with it. But next week , the 13th oddly enough, sees me back with the specialists to talk about what happens next?

Because I didn’t know how to deal with it I did what I do best , went into hibernation.

Some really good friends have been there all along, helped me through, supported me & even given me a kick up the arse when it was needed, but they were there and I love them greatly.

So what now? Well because of the time I needed to take out, my business is on a knife edge, there has been a lot of stuff in the press about my industry, not my company, but because we spend public pounds we are being looked at & because I’ve been out of the business it has suffered, it may or may not survive?
But worse thing happen at see so they say.

The big thing for me now is to return to normality, I can drive again & I’m hoping to get the all clear to fly again, hope so any way I have a flight booked!!

But there is one more, big pressing issue , the magnitude & gravity is unparalleled , I cannot begin to tell you how much I need to get laid …. Not the nicest term but I really need to get back into the swing of things…. So I must be getting better lol .

Hopefully it won’t be so long before my next post 😉

Live long and prosper people

Here’s Hoping….

Well its been a while since I brought you all up to speed with my drivel, been a bit lax with the old blog post, several reasons.

I have been struggling with, well pretty much everything really, what to write, work, friends, love and life in general.I have even contemplated deleting my twitter and blog all together.

Why? Well to be honest the last few months have been rubbish all round, as I have mentioned in previous posts , if it hadn’t been for the love and support of a couple of really good friends I’m not sure I would have made it this far. My love life, or lack of it , has been rubbish, I have very little to do with anyone in my family and more recently the one thing I thought I could rely on has gone a bit ” Pete tong”, Work!

For the last 15 to 18 years I have lived for my work, maybe that’s why my love life is so shit? I have built up a business and reputation within my sector that is unparalleled , even though I say it my self. I have been invited to work with groups linked to foreign governments and have advised on public sector policy making at a national and local level.

But in recent weeks I have seen how the ” Pack” can soon turn against you if you don’t comply and not complying is what I do best, it’s what I’ve always done, it’s what I do best and what has earned me my reputation and standing in my chosen area of work.

This, coupled with my recent health issues, has made me start to question who I am or more to the point where do I fit in the grand scheme of things?I’m wondering if it’s time for a total change? Change of job, change of scenery, change of me?

I have read back over some of my old posts and it is obvious to me , reading them , I don’t recognise “me” any more and what really frightens me is how quickly it’s happened.

Some one famous once said ” Life’s to Short” and you know what? they weren’t wrong.

An ex-girlfriend of mine died from cancer last week, well I say ex-girlfriend, we grew up together, she really was the ” Girl next door” funny, pretty and innocent in her own way. We went on a few dates, one particular sticks in my mind, I can remember vividly what she was wearing, the things we said and did……. It didn’t work out for us, but we were always great friends even after, she was a year younger than me, she leaves husband and two children, her dad will be there to see her buried……..

None of us know the minuet, it the bullet has your name on it you can’t dodge it.

I seem to have woken up with an inflated sence of morality and for anyone who knows me in the real world, that will come as a shock, largely because I have spent the last 30+ years doing things that kill people, or at the very least stack the odds against them, jumping out of and flying planes and helicopters, rally cars, motor bikes, diving, rock climbing…. and anything else that got me high on life, but now……?

I don’t intend to sit around maudlin and worrying about life, but right now I am lost, I don’t know what to do , where to go, who or what  to turn to.

This might be my last blog post, I’m still undecided on what to do,but thank you all for taking the time to read this and all my other posts, thanks for the support. ” delete or not delete that is the question”, and then again I might wake up in a weeks time and be the old me, here’s hoping!

What is “Normal”?

I think I’m damaged. There I said it.

I’m an awkward and difficult individual at the best of times. But being unwell really hasn’t and doesn’t suit me.

You can count on one hand the amount of ” real” friends I have. My best friend , a guy I have been trough a lot with, was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, the second time in eight years! So I wasn’t comfortable dumping my shit on him when I found out I was ill.

All of my other ” real” friends are female. This isn’t a problem, some of them I know ” well” others I don’t ……… Yet. But they too all have problems of Their own. My best female friend has been a real help and support to me, she cares without being over bearing, she probes when she feels she can and doesn’t push me when she feels I don’t want to talk, she is almost the perfect friend. I say almost because of one small floor; she lives in America and , although I swear the love she sends me is a tangible entity even over the ocean, sometimes I just need a real, physical Hug, I need a human touch.Again this lady has, herself a life in turmoil, much personal torment , but she’s my friend and I love her.

So why do I think I’m damaged?

It’s been said of me many times that my intuition or what ever you want to call it, is always spot on. I can work people and situation out and I was always ” the problem solver”. Over recent years, for reasons I will not go into now, I started to think that I might have some kind of mental infirmity. I refuse to use the term ” mental illness” because it’s not an illness and anyway , what is ” Normal?”! I have alway held strong with the saying ” birds of a feather flock together”, as I look around me All of my closest friends suffer some kind of mental infirmity, my behaviour mimic many of there’s .

But over the last few weeks , after my hospital encounters, people have noticed changes in my character and many of the behaviours appear to gave been exacerbated. Doctors tell me that this, like the memory issues, may be temporary, but my memory , despite the odd black spot, seems to have rectified it’s self . I have changed, my character is different, my energy levels are not the same .

But the real reason I’m writing this at 11:06pm on a Friday is two fold, firstly to let everyone know, I’m not there yet , but I’m getting there and the one thing that will never change.. I’ll never give up hope on me or my friends and second but most importantly, to say a missive thank you to ” her” my very special, beautiful, wonderful , almost perfect friend, I don’t think she knows or realises just how important she is to me.

Thank You , I love you

*See last blog post……..

If you haven’t read my last post, this might not make any sense?

one evening last week , whilst trying to sift through the fog in my mind and remember ….well…. anything worth while, I had a visitor.

A lady. A lady who I know fairly well, but what happened over the next couple of hours surprised me, because I realised that she knew ME more than I thought.

We sat and chatted over coffee and she told me that the purpose of her visit was to help me remember!? Now this lady is no doctor or specialist, she is just a very nice lady who I happen to know and have done for a while.

She went on to tell me that , a good few years ago now, she had been at a small gig where I was playing drums in a band I used to be a member of, reminding me of some of the covers we used to play; continuing that over the following years we had been at many gigs, not together, but she had spotted me or I had spotted her and how we had chatted and got drunk together on many occasions, we had a laugh during this conversation and looking back she obviously tapped a nerve with me because we chatted for a long time and I had total recall about everything she said, but there was more to come.

She went out to her car after about 90 minuets and returned with a guitar, putting it in my hand. About six or seven years ago I decided I would take up guitar ;she asked me to play a tune, one of my favorite song, “Hysteria” by def leppard, she told me about a gig we had been at and we had danced together to this song , I obliged , but please stretch your imagination, I’m no Vivian Campbell or Micky Moody, but it was recognisable as the song, It brought a tear to my eye.

We continued chatting and as we did I started to play some of my CD’s and looking through my Ipod.

I have spent every day since listening to music, and remembering…. in the same way that the smell of fresh-cut grass takes you back to your child hood, or that certain perfume reminds you of that kiss with that girl or guy, I have taken a retrospective of much of my life through music, because I have always loved music but it was this lady who realised how much, she saw something in me from afar and used it to my advantage, to help me.

Thank you, its friends like that we all need.

 

So … There it is…..

It’s been a while since my last post, largely due to me being not so well.

Over the years I have mused over a question, discussed it with many, lay awake and considered it, but now , think I might have arrived at the answer, well my own personal answer. You see I suspect it’s a question that we would all answer differently, even though there is only two possible answers.

Suppose I better tell you the question…..

As we all get older, would it be better ( if that’s the correct way of wording it) to lose you physical ability or your mental faculties?

I have seen many people go the way of
” loosing the old marbles” & I have several friends & relatives who have lost their mobility in one way or another, I suspect they would answer the question differently to me?

But, being ill , the way I have has and having spent some time in the hospital , and likely to be going back soon, I have been left, by way of an after effect of a ” procedure” , with a slight memory issue. They tell me it’s normal & it will get better, but it’s slightly more than annoying. It’s not a long term memory problem, nor is it a short term memory problem, it’s just like having ” Fog” , patchy fog, I can remember an event 20 years ago, I can remember what I had for lunch today, some very nice home made vegetable soup, but you? Who are you? It’s strange, funny and not in a haha kind of way and I don’t like it.

Some who know me may argue that I never had them, but “I WANT MY MARBLES BACK” .

So there it is… My answer.. I want to keep my marbles. I have avoided twitter & other social network because I don’t know any more, not sure who i am, what I’m like. I’ve read this Blog, read my web site & stuff the ” real” me has written, about my work etc, but I don’t get my character coming through? May be I was a crap writer & blogger? And fuck knows I’ve forgotten the password to my email, the only reason your reading this is because I’m permanently logged in so it would seem.

My stats tell me a couple of hundred people read this every month, so if I’m ignoring you or not replying to you ….. I’m not really …. Hope this explains

Cheers

The Times They are a Changing

My accountant once said to me ” smile things could be worse” , so I smiled and low and behold things got worse!

Last time I took that guys advice, and at least Dick Turpin had the good grace to wear a mask.

Life hasn’t really been that straight forward for me lately, earlier in the year one of my businesses went to the wall, I can make all the excuses I like, it did suffer at someone else’s hand, but the top and bottom of it was, I was spreading myself to thinly. My personal life has been ” odd” to say the least over the last couple of years, my marriage went tits up & I got a false start in a relationship, been a couple of ladies since, but, nothing gels for me and to be honest I’m starting to wonder if I can be arsed any more?

And then there’s my health, this is causing me great problems, not because I have a debilitating illness or only have weeks left ( although you never know) but because I don’t do I’ll! About 18 years ago I had a really bad accident, rock climbing in the alps, it took three to get over it and back to good health, since then, baring the obligatory cold and the odd ” tummy bug” strangely usually after a night with the boys, I haven’t been ill, I don’t know my GP well.

So, whilst I don’t want anyone to get a violin out for me & I certainly don’t want a fuss, I hate fuss, you can see I have rolled nicely from one mess to another.

All this going on and today I found out something I should have known, I should have always know….. Some people are not what they seem.

This has been my greatest self deception, the self deception that ” I’m a good judge of character”. My problem
Is that I’m open and try to be as honest as possible, if I don’t want to tell you something I’ll tell you plain & simple ” it’s none of your business”, but generally ask & I’ll share. So why is it, I always find out people true colours after I’ve given them the golden egg??

The answer is simple, in business & in my personal life I ” spread my self to thinly ” try to be every thing to everyone.

I toyed with the idea earlier in the year with heading overseas with my work, well that day has moved a step closer. I have a few health issues to our behind me, but there’s a change coming for me…., sooner rather than later