Gloves Off

Gloves Off

Winter snow came in one heavy fall in Southend on Sea this year. Sufficient for the youngsters to play and Dad to get his bad back again towing sledges with mum onboard. Revisiting of course a time long ago when both had embarrassed themselves in much the same way as their children do now. The kids of course have long turned away in total denial of any family connection. Further away on the six foot high bank (well it is Essex), the ‘hill’ supported the youth of the neighbourhood, upping the scale of available testosterone, stupidity and fitness. Oblivious to any Health and Safety Requirements and Risk Assessments, ski ramps for the more adventurous were built. The basics of flight, weight and balance seemed to be of little concern as each consecutive launch seemed to culminate with a cranial thump or a heavy winding as they landed from a quite respectable height! Respect, and blue lights! Best of all was the fact that the snow had fallen on a Saturday night. No school next day..excellent!

So why am I talking about winter when the sun is shining and it is presently a glorious day in Essex? FISH...yes I said FISH! Pond fish which don’t eat when the water temperature goes below 10 degrees.

The snow was soon cleared from the roads to provide access for ‘Mum’ in her 4x4 to practice her driving skills to school at 10 mph with Dad still desperately finding out from the manual how to engage the most manly of driving aids... four wheel drive. And all whilst the kids are bemoaning the injustice of missing out on a further day of fun. I too had to venture out with the youngest son in the car, protesting as we went that he needed to go on a sicky (by the way, there was a 99% turn out at his school that day). He would have so landed me in it.  Anyhow, back to the Fish. I parked up that morning on an errand for some friends. For sure the side roads around Southend were a little more demanding with the snow than the main routes and it was fun to park on the invisible double yellow lines hiding some 6 inches below in the snow. With the errand completed I returned to the car and the usual hunt commenced. With extra winter coat pockets to contend with, looking for keys, wallet, phone and gloves became a major operation. All was accounted for minus one glove. Well, I don’t know about you guys but I had to find it. After what must have been hours and a MacDonald’s coffee later I reluctantly gave up the search, mourning the loss of half of my favourite pair of gloves. One glove is so useless unless you are Michael Jackson. Over the next two days, with the thaw well underway, I returned to the likely scene of loss rather sadly, in the hope of finding a soggy mess lurking in the gutter. Finally I gave up the search and, ever the optimist lay the other glove in a drawer...just in case.

FISH...for Gods sake get to the bloomin fish!

My garden pond has been taken over this summer by lily pads and I felt it was time to attend to a little aqua pruning. When we first inherited the pond with the house, some friends bought me a spectacular pair of waterproof gauntlets which pull right up to your armpits. Now, I’ve mentioned before that fish don’t eat when it’s cold, they lay in the warmest place, being the bottom of the pond looking soulful and passive. So you can pretty much be lazy and ignore them for the winter as feeding can upset their metabolisms. Fish then become three season ‘pets’ and I would certainly have no use for my gauntlets to swirl around the pond, disturbing my fishy charges in their freezing slovenliness and apparent boredom. I still haven’t got to the point have I? Armed with a knife and large bucket this sunny summer’s day, I prepared for my duty of care and husbandry and took my gauntlets out of the garage. Left hand/arm...right hand? Something soft and hopefully inanimate was forming an obstruction by the gauntlet fingers. Perhaps it was a hapless mouse having sheltered from the winter months, dying as he lay confused in his new bed? A piece of cloth perhaps from the garage? No...my blooming glove!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   WHY?...WHY?...WHY? I just can’t even go with the whole rationale of it all. Nothing, just nothing could lead to this.

                                                         AND...

I had thrown the other glove away last month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                      *^$*””:>  !!!...so to speak.

Told you there was a fish connection somewhere. My most tenuous connection yet?

Do you want part of the ‘Original’Blog now?

There is a standing joke between Michelle and I that when Enya is playing her depressing music, to keep all sharp objects away from me for fear of self harm.­­ At this time however I have another song  that I have irrationally come to find beyond irritating. Forget Enya, this is far worse. The commonly known term for my condition is to have an ‘ear worm’. This mental occurrence has been extensively studied and reams of information are on the internet which includes references to Sponge Bob Square Pants. Therefore it must be correct. In brief (no pun intended, but worth keeping in) “ear worms” don’t physically exist. They are the result, or cause of THAT song you hear which bugs the hell out of you without reason. It goes on and on throughout the day and night in your head driving you to distraction and irritation. Evidently we mentally try to fill in the ‘gaps’ that we perceive are missing from this audio nightmare... This particular song has burrowed itself into my subconscious, banging on... “All I think about is you’ ......Arghhhhh!    It’s been haunting me all night, unforgiving in its torture. Try it yourself on YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK0l3MYsyF0   and share my discomfort.

Ok, so that wasn’t my original blog opening of course, when is it ever? “...all I think about is you”.

The standard excuses apply for being late with this blog but this time I have a valid, sort of, excuse. I have recently been in hospital for a week. The usual trick that Copley plays is to overstress himself in the belief that time waits for no man. If it’s difficult to do, do it again. The only event to ignore when time is considered (eat your heart out Stephen Hawking) is when the decorating of the hall landing and stairs comes up in conversation. This then is the ultimate and definitive waste of time. Talking of stairs, I can get tired like most people climbing stairs which seem to be my particular downfall (get it?). I’ve known athletes that can’t do them.  I seem to get to the top of my house ’Everest’, with the equivalent results of an equal mountaineering task. Ah, that’s a lack of fitness me cries...so I do more and eventually feel the combined effects of drugs and of course age. Whilst unable to reason away my fatigue I had a surprise visit from my GP, armed with advice from the Royal Marsden Hospital that I was to have a holiday provided by my local NHS Hospital for rebuilding. I guess chronic fatigue was the reason for admission and bags of potasium and glucose the answer. Six days later I was out, having also been given loads of Brad Pitt’s blood. Well, that is what I ordered from the disappointingly small catalogue. Never an option, it was sweet. Daniel and Chris (sons) both wih my blood group, wanted to donate an armful each and then no doubt make some obscure claim of ownership of their fathers soul and wallet. So forward thinking...makes me proud to be anemic.

I’m obviously out now, feeling fine, not exactly bursting with energy...but that's acceptable.We're going on holiday in a couple of weeks and I am apparently succeeding in topping up Daniel’s driving lessons whilst in his own car without any father/son ‘discussion’ ...so far! ...'clutch'!

Right, that’s your limit no doubt for my wordy stuff.“...all I think about is you”.

Look out for:

• Electronic ageism.
• When is diabetes not diabetes?
• The coolest student transport yet!
• The end of the 23kg Samsonite ‘bag drag’ when going on holiday (or work)...now that we’re flying ten minutes down the road from Southend Airport...joy.

Take care all.

Richard

Chickenpox and Grapefruits

Update 37

Chickenpox and Grapefruits

Just like a real writer I have sat down in front of the computer looking for inspiration for this latest blog. Let’s see how fast I can pick up the pace.  I’ll begin with my  accident at Fenchurch Street station when I gouged a nice slice out of my right shin whilst exploring the effects of gravity on the human body. I fell down a wet flight of steps.

Fifteen weeks later my wound is still there. Red, sloughy and larger than when I first fell down the stairs, it refuses to heal and has to be dressed at my GPs twice weekly.I have had eight goes at various antibiotics, two x-rays and a close encounter with one of the two things that can cause death (so I’m told). Take your pick from the two offerings above. One is more likely to occur than the other, and one is a controlled substance managed by Sainsburys. The xrays were to check that my infection hadn’t passed to the bone which would make it a bad day. So there I am sitting in near isolation in A&E because of my immune system problems, dozing of course and I overhear a nurse advising a mother with her young daughter, to go and sit next to ‘that man because chickenpox is contagious’. BLOODY HELL!  there are only two things that can make me seriously ill, you’ve got it, CHICKENPOX and believe it or not GRAPEFRUITS. Through my slumber I managed to convey my predicament to the nurse  about my severe intolerances and that it could kill me if I caught the chickenpox bug. Kind of dramatic I know, but I was half asleep at the time. Death was averted on this occasion!

 I am naturally on first name terms with the three nurses who are still amazed at the fact that they can probe into my wound, below my sloughy mess to my shin bone without discomfort...well, they’re comfortable doing it but it hurts me like hell! To be honest they are very attentive and professional, and it has only been fifteen weeks since I injured myself. That to me means the cancer drugs are working because they are doing an excellent job in stopping any cell from entering the recovery process. If it is that powerful, bring it on. I have photos of various phases of ‘recovery’...but they might freak you somewhat. Slough by the way, is the yellow gooey stuff.

Seeing as we have stumbled into health issues I received yet another tablet a few days ago. More of that later.

Now, whenever I see a new Doctor at the Marsden (they only last 3 months),  I am greeted by the inevitable adolescent in possession of a medical degree holding an ever increasing sized manila folder with my name on and which rarely gets opened in my presence, but outwardly shows a degree of personal professionalism. It is getting to a size that a porter will soon be required to cart it around. The doctors greeting,  ‘How are you?’ can be mistaken for ‘How are you?’, which could be a social greeting or a medical enquiry. I so like to ask which was intended to break the ice, I use it time and time again with a new audience every few weeks. Pathetic I know. I’m only recycling after all...isn’t that socially responsible not to waste a good quip?

Digress time!! Well, you knew you were going to get it!

I’m now sitting here in an orange overall I last wore 35 years ago. It bears testimony to my various painting and car mechanic adventures from my very own adolescent, spotty youth. The red paint adorning my right midriff is somewhat concerning as it marks my incision to remove my kidney but that would be stretching coincidence a little too far. Perhaps it is the paint from my wardrobe doors? The white would be the ceiling, the brown being an ill conceived early seventies attempt at being cool, the grey patches of oil from my first cars’ early mechanical trials (yes kids, we could do our own mechanics getting our hands dirty).  The elasticated waist (thankfully) orange overalls themselves have a story to tell coming as they did from a petro-chemical  Supertanker. Other sets of green overalls tell similar stories from parachuting to MoD trials. Retired from active service they now serve other memories and are a powerful testament of time... and body weight! Oh, the reason for the fancy clothing is that I’m painting the front of the house. Today however it is windier and colder than my virgin white legs can stand whilst wearing shorts. When I did venture outside to my local hardware shop yesterday, adorned in said shorts I was complemented on my hardiness by the lady servers. Embracing all complements from the obvious hard of sight, I had to come clean...I was simply too fat for my normal decorating trousers and had no choice but to embrace the draughts up the Trossachs. Having said all that, I can’t avoid the evil decorating deed any longer. Onward we must go...well, after a cup of tea of course!

Still digressing. After my last blog on the repeating occurrence of  ‘2’ in my life I now have type 2 diabetes. Its presence is nothing more than another side effect of my medicinal cocktail. Nothing to do with my diet or lifestyle, just another drug induced pain in the butt. No needles are involved thankfully.  I have to take so many different drugs I constructed a spreadsheet of them all. Twelve tablets in total are recorded along with dosages, time of day to take and side effects from the last month (the whinge list).  I give the sheet to my child prodigy Marsden Drs to evade the inevitable question ‘remind me Mr Copley, ( have encouraged them to use my title to no avail, not even a Sir) what drugs are you on?  They may be excellent doctors but their admin is awful. Yes I know I have far too much time on my hands...the ironing can however can still wait!

 Damn! I finished the painting early...I’ll put some rubbish on the TV that doesn’t require sound or attention i.e. some Border Control  fly-on-the-wall with  Asian old people smuggling in live crabs, seeds and assorted fruit. Info: Did you know that bound and gagged crabs are stored like Lego bricks in a fridge? No, be reasonable, they weren’t trying to smuggle in a fridge. It would be far too heavy and the power lead much too short!

Ironing here we come... hisssss!

Subjects not covered this month:

• Do the Americans ‘seed’ the air to make contrails (aircraft vapour trails) with mind controlling drugs? Lucius and Orville from Alabama believe so. Sorry pilot people...it’s nuts, but a conspiracy theory is always fun.
• Details of the fancy dress which directed me to the Muppets and the Swedish Chef. I made all of that fancy dress stuff! I’m sooo proud of myself... ‘hoodie, boodie um tum tum...’.

Click: Ctrl and Enter or cut and paste into your browser for my Muppet inspiration:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7UmUX68KtE&feature=endscreen

Is that enough for you all? This Blog is just over my thousand words limit tolerance...

 and evidently yours!

‘ Ordy puperdy dorm’

Richard

Just a Number?

22 3 1985   First Private Pilots Training flight!

24 3 2007 2 days after flying for exactly 22 years, was destined to be my Last flight!

2 6 1987 Assistant Flying Instructors Rating achieved

I was born on the 2nd

Michelle was born on the 2nd

We have 2 boys

Eldest son was born on the 22nd

Youngest son was born on the 19th...so is obviously not mine!

Oh,I did have 2 kidneys!


Richard

Another Gripe or Two

Another Gripe or Two

(and yes, it’s 3am)

All will be Explained

Sorry, not much health stuff to report. Hope I don’t bog you down too much with my ‘other stuff’. 

Days ago, probably inspired by Radio 2s coverage of a 500 word story competition for children, for which famous children’s writers from J.K. Rowling to Jacqueline Wilson and David Walliams were interviewed as they explained just how to construct a story. Whether a novel or a short story for children they each had their own techniques.

I got out of the car on one of these days with a powerful first gripping line or two which began like this ‘I knew it was going to happen the signs all pointed to just one thing...’ Now three or four days later...can I remember what ‘I knew was going to happen’? Can I heck. I’ve been racking my poor tired and now knackered old brain for that elusive start, now absent from my consciousness. Was it a medical revelation? Perhaps a religious intervention? Winning numbers for the Lottery, or just me messing with a minor thought to ‘sex’ up a boring blog? Whatever the case, I now have my opening paragraph...you’re reading it...job done!

However, it is still soooo bugging me!!!

“No... leave the dark chocolate digestives alone” says the voice of reason as I now gravitate towards the box instinctively. Don’t worry, that was only my first thought as I made a coffee to settle down here with, in an attempt to write this blog... not my ‘inspired and explosive’ first line re-surfacing in a burst of ethereal energy (although I have done worse). Just watch the rubbish intake Copley...steroids are upon you once again like little devils gnawing away at your reason. Moon-faced, water retentive, pot bellied...you’ve heard it all before. I’ll be out of the four - sized range of wardrobe/loft designer clothing soon. DIGRESS ALERT! Hey, shoulder pads really are coming back. My old flares undoubtedly wouldn’t fit and for those serious hippies amongst you back in the sixties I guess the loons would be out of the question (google ‘loons trousers’) Man-bags are even in M&S! Whatever fits I’ll have to wear. That would unfortunately be my Speedos or my last Pilots uniform or both together for that overly comfy feeling with an interesting walk when visiting Sainsburys. Either way I would be mentally sectioned within days. I wonder if my uniform hat does fit...it never did any harm under my armpit anyway, regardless of size. Having started writing all this rubbish, I may as well tell you that none of my crash helmets fit when I lose weight. Not just too large, but also extremely lumpy in places. No...not those sort of lumps. I guess the manufacturers never expect bikers to lose weight... It’s the leathers that normally shrink with time!!! 

Well that’s it for now, I’ve finished my coffee and I’ve got to do some research into why National Express c2c Railways Fenchchurch Street Station have no passenger First Aiders or facilities when they have 15+ million passenger movements per year and every one of those movements involves multiple stairways and invariably hustling crowds. (arghh, the graphic now makes sense!) More on that and Virgin Holidays Cruises later.

Health stuff under the new medication is comfortable with no new side effects. I’d even go as far as to say that there are less, with a significant improvement to my hands and feet a fortunate beneficiary. As long as they are doing their job I’m happy. There is little else really to report unless you count the fatigue. So we all plod on regardless.

Just noticed the word count mentioned previously. 503 words is more than the story competition wants. I haven’t finished whinging by then, let alone write a story. Oh, and I’m over 13 (source: M&S collar size, or is that Chris’s?)

It’s a serious competition for those who have kids.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/500words/2012/ for those young at heart.

Ok, let’s go to my Virgin Cruises issues very very briefly...bulleted here;

• Virgin made a huge error last year and sent the family on the wrong cruise. However all of the paperwork reflected the cruise we had booked and naturally expected.

• Virgin had fought the possibility that they could be wrong, until they saw their own damning paperwork laid out in front of them.

• Score 1 – 0 Copley. They have now offered to refund the cruise price but not the flights to Miami in order to repeat the ‘correct’ cruise, which is unacceptable.

• ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) are actively guiding my case, and with Virgin having already admitted liability for the cruise fiasco it should now progress fairly and logically. So my presentation is off my hands and into those of the Law within the legally binding Arbitration Scheme.

So you think I just sit here and type blog nonsense and create graphics? My case against Virgin Cruises I believe is a thing of ‘Rockstar’ damning beauty...and so much fun every 14 to 28 days as Virgin and I cross literary swords. Theirs may be a bigger one to bludgeon me...but mine is small and finely honed for slaying giants...well, irritating them at least! 

The moral for Virgin

Don’t mess with a man who doesn’t sleep, is over fifty, with a computer to hand, and the taste of blood on his lips looking for the kill having been ‘dissed’ (google it Dad). Besides, it’s immense fun and largely free for us crotchety old guys to point out the stupidity and injustice that is so prevalent! Now who can carry my soap box (with a height restriction unless you have a hand rail. source HSE). Da! 

Only 1000 words, damn...I’ve blown the writing competition in so many ways!

....but we all lived happily ever after.

The End

Richard

Another Day



...just another day

There are moments when you are relieved and thankful for your own weaknesses and mortality.



Once again it is the early hours of the morning and the various concoction of drugs and inappropriate foods has kept me largely out of bed. I don’t always attack the computer though, never the tv or music or sit morose in the dark listening to the faintly comforting snoring from the bedrooms. Recently the mornings have been getting lighter and I am always conscious of the correct weather conditions for a spectacular sunrise at this time of the year. (Old photographic stem cells still live in the primordial sludge that passes through my veins). Opportunity could show itself on the school run as we drive toward Southend Seafront for the 20 minute silence that is the trademark of adolescents as they ‘plug in’ to their various music mp3 players to avoid a potential poisoning of the mind from Radio 2. With the weather I would often take note of various attributes of the day... then invariably disregard the photo opportunity for one of three reasons:
1. We are running late and you can bet that everyone is visored down in their cars, blinded by the rising sun or simply going arghhh at the rare sight....as opposed to my parental ‘ARGHHH!!! Move it *****’ ...some of us have a schedule and potential school attendance issues if we get held up. Thinking about it, we have never had a parental ticking off from the school Headmaster (No PC error here...he is a Master of the Old school!) for slack travel arrangements but I’m certain he has a 2000 word passionate defence of education at threat by the casual motoring trends of the 2000’s tucked away somewhere. I can see it now, but he is so good with words. Why use just 50 when there are so many out there?
2. It’s frankly boring without perfect conditions and foregrounds and backgrounds to anchor the seafront shot.
3. Thirdly...I have seen better. I had always seen better from around the world ...invariably on top of the world!
From the absolute blackness of the night the sun rises. At first there is a very subtle change of colour from where you imagine a horizon to be. Dark blue begins to bleed from the bottom of this view, domed and centred on the as yet invisible sun. As it washes the blackness out of the sky...the curvature of the Earth becomes spectacularly visible as the World awakes. Then the first signs of red follow the blue wash upwards. Now we have a blackness at the base creeping into reds and oranges, blues and again the absolute blackness of space. Just moments later the intense source of clean white light makes its orbital aura known as it too rises to join in this fiesta celebration of a new day.
Ok, enough of this waxing lyrical arty stuff!... Have you ever tried to look directly into a rising sun right in front of your maxed out tired eyes that have been accustomed to a peaceful ‘stillness for the last 8 hours or so? Forget the beauty of yet another new day,’ get the screens up...sunglasses on... wedged onto your burning eyes as you consider the safety implications of sticking a magazine or newspaper around your protective tin-can cockpit as the pain of unprotected welding comes to mind as your sockets begin to cook your eyes like poached eggs. Just another day, another dollar, another passenger breakfast offered and rejected (as if) and another imminent landing in the gloom of the UK where the sun hasn’t shone for the last three months. Yes... pilots do like to whinge!
End of this story so, a natural break is obvious. It is still dark. Do I risk getting dressed and driving to a good location for a photo?...Na...have breakfast and pray for rain and greyness to justify my decision. A quick check on this tired body and...we’re fit to continue this blog after a cup of tea and a fist full of drugs.
It’s Sunday and I think I would wake everyone if I got on with the hoovering. However, the gentle dull clang of a frying pan on the hob cooking bacon and eggs might be an option to entice movement from my family slumberers. Question? Why do we always want fresh croissant on a Sunday morning when Tescos aren’t open? 24 hours a day, 7 days per week...but not on a Sunday before 10!
Me digress? Mais non.
It seems a little late now but I have had such a laugh over the Christmas holidays. Daniel, my university freshman son took on the roll of Master Chef in charge for his friends at University. Having cooked  'just a few’ Christmas dinners myself in the past for large groups he asked for instructions from inception to washing up. Part of my advice was to check on the turkey wrapper to see if the bird had giblets (explaining what giblets are to a McDonalds generation just grosses them out). If they did have them ‘you must find them before cooking’ I advised.’ You may need to get up close and personal’. So, a few phone calls later, Daniel, confident that no such blue bag existed in the cavernous insides of a very large bird was willing to continue. Ok, so most of us have cooked the bagged giblets in the past and no one has died at my table, but that’s not the point. I have now got him doing an internal exam worthy of a medical college rather than the Engineering University he is at, determined to check into every orifice, sleeves rolled up for the illusive item. Triumphantly he texted that he eventually found them but only after he had turned this volumous bird upside down and violently shaken it with wings, legs and ‘drunken’ body mass flying everywhere resisting the bag’s detection.
I so wish I had been there or at least seen this group of 18 year olds on Youtube recording their efforts. I was in tears at the scene. Oh, and the Christmas dinner for eight?...Perfect! Good lad. You make your Dad so proud, complete with the slapstick. He! he!
And again that opening line to this blog...” There are moments when you are thankful for your own weaknesses and mortality”. Don’t worry, I have just had a revision of my cancer drugs and the new ones’ possible side effect list reads long and thorough. Actually they aren’t that different from the last set of scare-mongering possible conditions, but I picked up on the dry throat and croaky voice and thought ah oh! that’s me. That was until I blew my nose and proved that the contents were barely human like everyone else with a cold! Nasty mucous and flu like symptoms are about the only things not on the list of side effects. Here I am then, the happiest guy with ‘man flu’ you are likely to find. Out with the man sized Kleenex, here I come sniffing and coughing like normal people.
...and the other health stuff?
Most of you would have got a brief note at Christmas but I’ll elaborate a little.
My tumours/lesions are all mostly stable or missing. Yes missing! Three large cells (to me a golf ball size is ‘large’) in my back have disappeared! Yeah, we can’t figure that out either because last time around they had made an attempt to grow. So it would appear now that this Sutent drug of mine is doing what it said it might do on the label. That said, they have now taken me off it and replaced it with a more exclusive drug which had to be financially approved by the London Primary Care Trust as it is not available on the NHS...even if it is the Director of Medicine at The Royal Marsden Hospital putting forward my case. Professor Gore is a good man to know! He got it...naturally!
Afinitor evidently has a greater effect with a view to destroying my brain tumours whilst still doing the same job as the Sutent on the rest of me. So my least used organ is going to get a good chemical slapping before I get too much necrosis. Evidently we all have brain cells to spare...speak for yourself Professor! Unfortunately my family and friends are now on the lookout for odd behaviour...memory loss, mood swings and lack of errr...errr...concentration. Hey, I’m 51... it’s normal!!
Copley is functioning within normal parameters.

Once again, Happy New Year everyone and thanks for your support, no matter how you show it. It is very much appreciated.

Richard

Sorry for the delay, but Windows 7 email had decided to lose my group contacts.