Looking Way Back, Feeling Like It Was Yesterday

By way of documenting what has been my life thus far, I have of late been thinking more than a little deeply about some of those critical moments in our lives - in retrospect, naturally, since we seldom see them as critical at the time - when we make decisions that go-on to become far more crucial and potentially far-reaching than we realise. For those moments that can go-on to almost seal our fate, if we allow them to, we seem to pay nowhere close to the attention that they warrant - we are young, of course, and with youth comes the inexperience of not having been on the planet quite long enough yet.
A lame excuse if ever I've made one, since 'being young' hardly held me back from anything I ever did, truth be known, once I was 'old enough', which wasn't all that old at all, really.
More on that another time.
I should mention that I feel, immediately, quite aside from a little hopping around, to and fro, that this particular blogging effort of mine is highly unlikely to be hugely amusing, although I shall do my level best to make it so - the topic and it's very nature, in it's essence, is a factual one, and whilst not so very many humerous things happened to me during my early youth, ie zero to, say, 14, the time frame I will attempt to cover in part, well, it was hardly Dullsville.
Let's see how it all goes - at any rate, it will be as accurate as I remember it to be, and no poetic license will be taken, I promise, purely to Guild the Lily to make things anecdotally funny and/or interesting in any artificial manner - of course, it would have been far easier for me to simply say "It was what it was".
So going back to these life decisions we make, and my first few of significance and some consequence..........I think I knew full-well the outcome, even then, of the decisions I made, and I could go-on to blame all manner of things and/or people as to why I made the choices, but in the end, it's always down to us, even at the tender age of 15 or at the even more tender age of 10, as we shall see.
We know pretty much what awaits us, at least in some abstract way, just as my own 15 year old daughter knows the consequences of working below her potential, which is immense, provided that she has the same level of belief in herself that I have in her - just in case, though, I shall keep on telling her, lest she is going through one of her selective deafness phases, which thankfully only ever happen on days that have a 'Y' in them.
No, it's not that we don't know we are so completely wrong, that the choices we make and the way we elect to prepare ourselves and our lives will very much influence so many things...........we just don't like to think about that side of things, since it detracts from the fun we're having, whatever that might be at the time, but which is almost always nothing of any real importance or magnitude at all.
Or, if you prefer, and in brief, we do tend to fuck around, metaphorically, much too much, and always at the expense of the important stuff until we realise, usually a little late in the day, that the clock is indeed ticking, quite fast now and rather loudly in our shell-like ear.
No one told us when to run - have we missed the starting gun?
And as for Fun.....was it Fun? - Well, some of it is way more than fun, or was for 'lil' old me in very large doses, but that's for another extract, or we'll be here all day and then some.
Lets start at the very beginning - A Very Good Place To Start
I was raised by my Grandmother after being just a few days old.
My mother was a tender (no, hardy tender.......let's just say 'young')16 years old, and not in any way, shape or form, was she capable of raising a baby, on so many levels - on any and all levels. She had fallen pregnant to a US pilot, stationed in my home town, as so many US servicemen were, back then in the 50's. He was, and still is, a man I know very little about, save the few details as mentioned and those that now follow. He truly did want to marry my birth mother, to do the right thing, and he did love her very deeply,  asking her, nay begging her to return with him as his bride to America. She flatly declined - clearly grossly insufficient bubble gum, tootsie rolls, chocolate and nylon stockings had been offered-up as the dowry, and he was a good 10 years older than she, which may not seem like a lot or any big-deal, but at her age, and back then, in the mid 1950's, of course, it really was. (It was just as big a deal for a 15 year old young woman to be 'with child', and when it was 'my time to come-out', my birth mother was obliged to have her baby at a place that was always referred to simply as 'The Home', a small hospital/birthing unit way out in the countryside - one went there with a big tummy and came back with a baby, and that's all anyone ever needed to know)
He (my Father) finally had to return to the USA, and she remained there in the East Midlands of England, or it may have been a very different BoxxyMary talking to you now. As it was, and as it still is, I have not one clue as to who he is, or was, having never seen even as much as a photograph (I was told none were ever taken......sif!) and later, by Grandma, that 'it was all done in the name of 'protecting' me' and, that no one knew anything....and in any event, 'why was I concerned' and so on it went, this sweeping of all and any information under the carpet so completely. I really wasn't so interested as much as simply curious - I never, ever really pushed further for any information, wasn't ever truly bothered, always, at that time, seeing myself as fortunate enough to have love all around me in more than sufficient quantities - it really didn't seem to matter. 
Now, of course, as has been the case for quite some time, even if it ever did matter one fine day, there's not a soul left alive that I could ever ask.
My partners over the many years have been far more interested in this than I ever have been, so much more curious than I to know what he was like, if he was still alive etc........perhaps it's only now that the tiniest spark of interest jumps in and out of mind occasionally, but it is hardly the case where it ever does. It was only ever an issue at school sometimes - well, lots of times - kids can be such cruel bastards. I can't recall anyone else, back then, in Primary School especially, who didn't have the full complement of parents, which made me stick out like the proverbials. Endless teasings of 'so what did you say your Daddy does' and similar made things a little difficult at times, to the point, occasionally, where I would lash out at the offender. There was a very brief period, at around age 11yrs, I think, where I was very angry at the world, asking lots of questions and declaring how very unfair it all was that I only had a Grandmother whilst everyone else had a Mum and a Dad. Once I setled down from the foolishness & began to look around me, I saw my peers, all of whom had Mothers and Fathers, and many who had major issues with same, often being beaten or worse - at the very least, they weren't at all happy, or always seemed much less happy than I. My phase of being angry didn't last very long at all, and I refocussed, seeing abundantly clearly how incredibly lucky I was to be as surrounded by love, and slowly just beginning to see just how special my Grandma really was, giving and sacrificing all things so that I could have a life. There was never a lot of money, not at any time, but I went without very little and wanted for nought. No one could have had more love than I, and once I could see this, could focus upon it, all of the anger and bitterness left me and has never returned.
I could quite easily atribute that the ways that some parts of my life have gone could well have been influenced by lack of parents - in many ways, it would be wrong to do so, and likely incorrect, but that I have been married so many times, and have found life to be so unsettled for me so often.....it's very hard to say with any absolute certainty that there are or aren't any root causes there - there would have to be some, I feel sure, but I cannot say there was any lack of love - there has never been any lack of love at any time throughout my life, but there was none evident during my early childhood - I was loved to bits, and so I feel I can almost put to bed entirely any notion of blame - I have made my own beds and have had to lay in them, as is only right and proper.
Of course, none of this ever really stops me wondering about it all, trying desperately to seek some sort of Holy Grail that will go-on to explain why my life has taken the twists and turns that it has - nowadays, though, I refuse to beat myself up about it quite so much (I use other stuff instead!) - but seriously, I really don't have that luxury any more, having far more things that life has thrown my way that I need deal with....Such Is Life.
And now, after our short intermission and digression :
As for my birth mother, and as I was to go-on in my own life to 'mirror', almost, she was having far too much fun to trouble herself with the likes of education, let alone marriage to a US pilot. She certainly was in no state of mind, nor emotionally able to handle the complexities and demands of a newborn baby and, really, I've never really blamed her for this (certainly, through my work as used to be, young mothers are something I have dealt with time and again,
Most all of them are simply not ready emotionally, and it's just a case of them being physically able to reproduce having arrived quite some way ahead of their abilities to properly cope with a child, still being a child themselves)
No, with my 'mother' - it was simply who she was - she enjoyed a good time, lots of boyfriends and a little later, enjoyed far more of the good life than was good for her, by continuing the high life, sitting on bar stools in her favourite pubs and bars, getting drunk.
I can't say we ever bonded, though she did try, more through those feelings of obligation we can have than anything, once I was around 7 or 8 yrs old, by having me over to cook me a roast dinner on a Saturday, giving me a little pocket money and so-on - later, I would go-on to despise the woman that she was, though not through any part of her abandoning me, but for being a drunk and an embarrassment to me. My Grandma was always protective of me, and would always remind me that she (my Grandmother) was my mother, and that was certainly the case - my birth mother was what one would refer to as the 'Black Sheep' of the family, I guess one might say, and it was for this, for who she was, that I distanced myself from her.
I couldn't ever feel love for her, no big surprise, really, since I didn't know her - I was here in Sydney, Australia, when she finally died, in the UK, at only 54 years of age, and not at all pleasantly, of cervical cancer, and after never having had what could remotely be called a 'good life' for more than a fleeting moment - one riddled with chronic back pain and so much suffering, I felt sorrow only for her and the suffering that she had endured.........deep compassion, but no more compassion than anyone else that has ever been in my care over the years in similar circumstances.
It didn't feel at all wrong - there was no guilt and there still isn't.
In contrast, when I received news that my Grandmother had finally passed away, no matter that it was expected, I cried more deeply than I've ever cried, weeping uncontrollably - I still do - more at what was never said........I did, though, fly her over here twice, once to Sydney and again to Townsville, and made a point of telling her what she had meant to me most clearly, but there is always the deep lamentable feelings of not having said enough........something so many people go-on to experience and something that everyone can learn from.
Anything & Everything can all be taken from us in a Heartbeat, and we must shower those we love with Love, always, always, Always.
Back again now :
When I was born, my Grandmother stepped-in very swiftly, after one day, with me only days old, my birth mother had become involved in a decent session on the Gin, followed by her going-on to breast feed me a little too soon afterwards - my Grandma later would recount often to me that I slept very deeply for almost 2 days, without waking for feeds or anything, clearly as pissed as a fart for the very first time, yet unable to celebrate and enjoy it, being so young, immature and all.
My Grandmother became my Mum, in all and every way, in an act of pure love the true depths of which I was not able to fully understand or truly appreciate until much later in my life, as aforementioned. Mum was what I always called her, and thought of her as, always. It was pure good fortune for me to have had so much love - I knew then, and know even more now that she's gone, just how very deeply I was loved, more than she ever loved her own children.........I was her favourite, and she loved me this way forever and always, until she breathed her last.
Try as she might, and she did try as best she could, when it came to my education, my poor Grandmother couldn't get me to see the sense of staying-on at school. I was a reasonably smart kid, but to state that I didn't really know it well enough then would be a huge understatement.
I would even go-on and get the 'Golden Ticket', winning a scholarship passage through to what was then, a 'new' kind of school that had opened, one that could offer far greater things than the Secondary Modern School I was at - an all-singing, all-dancing 'Comprehensive' school was it's name. There were only 4 of us chosen from the entire school, for this special 2nd chance at getting a better foothold in life......those precious few of us that had missed the 1st boat, that had been wrongly 'streamed' following the dreadful 'Eleven-Plus' exam that kids sat in their final year at Primary School. (this I.Q.-based form of measurement was thought to be, at the time, the very best way of determining how to stream children - those smarter and capable enough of passing the exam would go-on to one of the city's 2 Grammar Schools, and all others to their choice of Secondary Modern School - it has since been proven to be a dreadful example, amongst others, of sorting good and able from less-good/less capable, but back then, streaming of children was de rigeur, or the dog's bollocks, should you prefer)
Here's just how smart I was at age 11, though, as I sat in the examination room sitting my own Eleven Plus examination, determining my own future with great accuracy. I could answer almost all of the questions, and easily, but doing so would thwart my cunning plan - in brief, all of my friends were 3-4 years older than I - ever since being 7 or 8 years old, this was the way of things. It was where I felt at my most comfortable, amongst people I could relate to properly, and would be something that continued on throughout my teens. I was what one might call 'very emotionally mature for my age' or whatever else one might call such a state of affairs.
All of my then freiends were at a certain school - a Secondary Modern School - and naturally, I wanted to be there with them, no matter that they were all at least 3 school years ahead of me and would go-on to leave almost as soon as I arrived - this part seemed to elude my thinking, somehow........I think you know what's coming
Yes, I really did intentionally fluff my Eleven Plus, and then some, answering a good 30% or more of the questions intentionally wrongly, and omitting to answer entirely plenty of the others, making sure my plan would work perfectly - I would fail my Eleven Plus - who wanted all that extra homework, better & more qualified teachers......what kind of tool wanted to go-on to be a fucking Doctor, Lawyer of Architect anyway, earning huge sums of money and all that comes with that?
Not I, obviously.
And so........Success!!!
It had worked a treat, my cunning plan, and that was that, at least for the moment.
It wouldn't be the last time I used my skills and cunning, as quite clearly, my being one of the 4 chosen from the entire school of over 1000 pupils still didn't get through to me that this offer of a lifetime, this chance to amend the earlier mistake I had made at age 11 by being given a place at the new school was something I should grasp with all 4 limbs, my teeth, my dick and anything else I could reach-out and grab.
It would have given me a bagful of A Levels and a place at University - almost certainly into Medicine, and I won't go into how many times I kick my own arse, and have kicked it over the years, as to just where I might have gone, how high I could have flown had I only done the clever things.
Oh yes, I was smart alright.
Hindsight is always such a wonderful thing, though - without doubt, I was monumentally stupid, for a smart young bloke, that is, and not taking this most special of opportunities to go to the all-new school, I left at 15 years old - and left with nothing at all in my pocket by way of papers, CSE Certificates as they would have been at the Secondary Modern joint....O Levels and A Levels as they would (and should!!!) have been at the other one - a much more powerful tool to weild.
I had absolutely blot-all in my pocket as I proudly walked out of school and waved goodbye to it for the very last time.
Like one of my older friends, I wanted to be a Bricklayer - something that still astounds me to this day, but that's what I thought I wanted to do with my life, tender 15 yr old that I was.
It would, as I saw things, allow me to pursue, much more ably, my weekend pastime of drinking lots of beer down at the pub, something we did back then whenever possible. Now, as I look back, the landlords of the 2 or 3 pubs we used all knew that I was a few years under-age, but since we were always well behaved in the Loungerooms, Bars or The 'Snug'-Rooms of said pubs, I was always served and became an accepted local. Now, a working man, I could pay my own way, too, and not be as dependant upon my older peers with an income, who would always shout me most of my drinks from kindness and friendship beforehand. I could now have as many pints of Bitter, Brown Ale or Brown and Mild Ale mix as I wanted, which was usually about 8 or 9 pints per session back then.
My pocket money of $2/week hadn't been able to buy too much beer, although it did buy a surprising amount, still - but now, with my first wage of a whole $4/week, I could even have a bag of chips and a few games on the fruit machine/one-armed bandit, too, and still enough for fish, chips and peas on the way home.
It enabled many a very full weekend down the pub, and this all seemed so idyllic at the time - this was really living.
I was now an apprentice, training to become a Bricklayer over 3 years, and almost completed 2 of those years before the bitterly cold days, and my smashing my fingers with the Brick Hammer or squashing a pinky between 2 breeze/besser blocks once too often began to make me see a little sense.
I was cut-out for better things than building.
Had I remained, even, I feel sure that once again great fortune would have made me a pretty damned good builder, since I was placed alongside the construction company's very best Master Builder, who we shall call Harry, but only since that was his name.
Harry could build anything - his workmanship could be seen all around the city - an amazing man, close to retirement (and soon thereafter, sadly, to develop advanced lung cancer) who cared for me and taught me all he knew. He was devastated that I wanted to throw it all away, and for some weeks afterwards, wouldn't talk to me - later, of course, I could understand that he really had given all of his skills and time to me, only for me to fuck-off - rubbing salt into wounds and showing great ingratitude.......I would have been much more angry in his place.
It was now time to move-on - my Grandma was beginning to get just a little bit tired, anyway, of finding so many pairs of panties inside my lunch box when I arrived home, most days, which the guys on-site had carefully put there towards shifts-end. This, along with hammering several 6 inch nails inside and through the soles of my steel toe-capped boots, into the tea hut floor.....well, they were a fun-loving bunch, bless 'em and this was like an ongoing initiation, and really all pretty harmless - Harry did get the shits one day, though, after it had taken me almost half an hour to prise the nails out of my inner boot soles, making me very late on the job.
The boot nailing stopped henceforth, but the panties continued - some of them were really rather classy, too, always as frilly and colourful as could be found....I never did ask about their origins.
There I was, still short of 17, and now bound for one of the city's largest factories, a hydraulic brake manufacturer, initially as a drilling machinist, on 'piece-work', where there was the potential to earn 100 pounds per week if one really went crazy-dangerous, and after just a few months, when my 'talents' were discovered, over to the staff side proper, as a wages clerk, where the money was just as handsome but now I was salaried and the fingernails so much cleaner.....I had my own office, my own calculator, pretty girls calling in for coffee and a chat, and things were really looking-up, at least for a while.
Now, at 17, I rekindled thoughts of the thing I had always really wanted to do, yet had kept it hidden inside, even from myself, for the most part - I now wanted to actively pursue what had always been a fascination to me - Medicine - and I wanted to care for people who were too sick to care for themselves.......I wanted to become a Nurse.
It was only now that my folly of leaving school so stpidly early became so glaringly obvious, and it would go-on to be a full 4 years before I would be able to realise my dreams.......years filled with All Kinds of Everything.
So, if you're still there.............well, there really is so much more to follow, hopefully things of much more interest and fascination.
It'll be worth hanging around and waiting for, I promise - you'll gasp, you'll sigh, you'll laugh and you'll cry.
You might even pay the gas bill :)

Sunday Windy Sunday - A Good Day For Washing The Clothes & Remininiscing

Ahhhhh - the sun is out, the sky is blue, there's not a cloud to spoil the view, but it's raining.......raining in my heart.
Nah, course it's not.
That was just Buddy, 'Raving-On'
My heart is ticking away in full, resplendant Sinus Rhythm, at around 78 beats per minute, or 'normally' should you prefer - sure, there's just a little heart-ache present, but I'm only human.
It is, though, as windy as a bastard here in Melbourne's SE burbland, and the washing machine is on it's 2nd cycle already, with clothes on the line from the first all but dry after what has been only 30 minutes. There's sure to be a 3rd on the way.
One simply cannot complain about that - it really is a good washing day.
My wonderful wife does love to wash clothes, and it's so much more than simple home duties that's going-on here. It's close to an addiction, and one I've seen several times before in others.....but one I see as quite harmless, this compulsion to wash clothes, and to derive massive pleasures from doing so - harmless, for sure, and all part of the 'nesting' instinct we all have (well, some of us have) once one has factored-in things like exponential rising power and water costs.....it'll only take laundry powder to rise in price and we'll be shafted good & proper.
It'll be back to the old dolly tub and wash-board, or down to the river, thrashing the clothing upon the stones.
Amongst other things, and in another life, I can picture a scenario where I simply grab a new pair of Calvin Klein jocks every few hours and throw the old ones in the bin, no matter that they are only a few hours out of the packet, and maybe only farted-in once, David Beckham-Style......   all of this post lottery win, of course.
How amazement, to simply thow away the shirt once it gets a little grimy, or change the Ferrari once the ashtrays begin to fill-up a bit or the colour of the full-grain leather interior begins to bore one a little.
I could instead, though, be married to a woman who had no time or desires for such mundane tasks as washing clothes or good housekeeping, and I was, once - if choices needed to be made, at gunpoint, I would stay put on the washing side of things and on many other levels, and never allow myself to forget that I am an extraordinarily fortunate man to have my family as it stands - to have my amazing wife and daughter. I only need a bit of reasonable health, a relocation to Port Douglas (yes, yes....a recurring theme) and a few bob, and I'll have the set. Is it really to much that I ask here? (Rhetorical for the most part - although I do, sometimes, think that it is too much that I ask - do I really need to say, again, that all I want is a better life-style for those that I love - maybe it's simply my own dreams and aspirations, not necessarily those of my loved ones, and this is where the truth lays - of course, only a short sojourne to the Far North will put this sucker to bed properly. I may be stupid, but I'm no fool )
Like the enjoyment of having a few coffees, I am quite wrong to expect others to derive the same pleasures as I - if only it didn't leave that little bit of disappointment that they don't - something I must learn to live with, but I digress.
For the moment, my beautiful wife is on the phone to a friend, a Chinese one, since the words are all meaningles to me and in Mandarin, and this may well take some hours, as they discuss the merits, benefits and downsides to the likes of Elephants & Toothpaste, the fighting in the Middle East and Julia Gillard's ever-tenuous grip on the top job here in the Land Of Oz.....wait a moment, now she's on the phone to another for more of the same, followed by yet a third......busier than a one-armed cab driver with crabs, and one mobile phone is barely enough, it seems. I hope to God that this latest research into damage caused by mobile use is erroneous, for many of us.
Away from the dark and forboding stuff though - soon enough, and in true Sunday-Style, the sound of the Dyson will break the peace, as it thunders through the entire home, waking-up the sleeping daughter as ridiculously early as mid afternoon, and sucking-up all in it's path as strongly and as efficiently as a sucking-up thing. My gorgeous wife at the helm will see to it that no bit of fluff remains, no speck of dust hides skulking under the sofa. She is, in fact, far and away the absolute cleanest woman I have ever known, squeakily so, and on every level I can think of - I feel sure our daughter will follow in her footsteps, once the boys start to visit our home, those that get past me waiting at the door with a big bat....and I don't mean the bats with the obscenely large 'much more than they need & then some' genitalia that enjoy eating fruit and masturbating a lot, either. A good friend, who knows full-well who he is, has a genuine riot police baton from his days as a man of the force, a black, compact thing of immense beauty that flicks-out to full extension so rapidly, and is as heavy as all buggery - a real damage inflictor of the finest kind, and I can see now, very clearly, my close scrutiny of the impressive X-Rays of anyone in it's wake, with collarbone shattered beyond repair plus or minus a depressed skull fracture just above the ear as said baton came crashing down to 'do the double'........and I may well be asking him for a lend of it if ever that long queue of acne-riddled young men start to form down the street, as can happen where very attractive young and sexually eligible young women are concerned.
Just for dissuasion, you understand - I'd never use it, unless I needed to.
Having already had the discussion with my daughter re: this potential for tragedy, she has, in principal, agreed to withold her virginity until at least her mid-30's, to go some way toward averting these menacing issues that lay just around the corner. It's good to be able to talk with my daughter about such matters, and not simply current affairs, her math homework or how she needs to work as hard as she possibly can....the usual stuff. Sends a real shiver down my spine just thinking about it all, notably how close it all is, the boy thing. (that said, she seems to have developed a crush on Viggo Mortensen, via his portrayal of Aragorn in Lord of the Rings - could this be the 'most girls want to marry their Daddy thing at work - Pffft.....I wished. Apparently, Viggo insisted upon doing all his own stunts in the movie, and is a far healthier specimen than I've ever been)
Thinking back to my own youth, along with queueing - I don't ever recall having to actually queue for it.....au contrere.....and you'll think that I'm simply boasting and having a lend of you all here, but 'It' used to queue for Me - one of the better perks of being a grossly heterosexual male nurse back in the early 80's, living amidst a nurses home chock full of hundreds of women, most of whom were extremely attractive along with the added bonus of being grossly not in the slightest lesbian - mostly.
Nothing whatsoever related to my endowment, I hasten to add, since I fall right in the middle of 'Average European Male' in that particular department.
I have not had a single complaint, though, hand on heart, in spite of the obscene numbers involved, and I really do say, with some regret, that they are obscene - more on that to come.
Shooting fish in a barrel as a reality, not an analogy, would have been very hard by comparison. There was only one other male nurse in the entire city - back then, males would tend to go into Psychiatric Nursing - the pay scales were better and promotion ladder much faster - it was a minefield to try and do what I did, be a male nurse in a female dominated to bits profession (and more of that in another story, too) - the other male was the proverbial as gay as a handbag full of butterflies, and so I was very much alone with my heterosexuality - it was all rather novel for the system to have Me in there - it was essential that I stood out, worked extremely hard and got myself noticed for all of the right reasons, and I did, at least at first. I over-learned, became a super-knowledgeable uber-nurse of excellence - it sat well with most, but of course, not with all.
But back to me.....now divorced and living-in at the nurses home, 1984-ish
I had a mate back then, who would come over to visit me in my room at the nurses home occasionally, for a beer and a smoke or several and some good music, and I can see him now, sitting on the floor, spliffing-up and shaking his head in complete wonderment, smiling in semi-anger as we got more and more stoned, as he stared longingly and with increasing disbelief and envy at the young and very attractive woman in her night-wear - a student nurse - draped on my bed behind me as I sat on it in front of her, with her waiting there patiently until he and I had finished whatever it was that we were doing. This was an almost weekly occurence, his visit. It was almost always a different young lady each and every time he came over - only ever for a couple of hours, until, at the behest of said lady on my bed, it was indicated that it was now, very much 'time for him to leave'.
I remember these days with so much fondness but also, surprisingly, with more than a little sadness - why the sadness, I hear you say, with wall to wall beautiful women on-tap?
Well.......To give you more of an idea, paint even more of a vivid picture, there would be very few mornings indeed where I would not stir to find a woman climbing into bed with me, one who had just come-off night shift at the hospital - it didn't matter, either, if there was one already in there with me, as she, quite often, needed to go off for the morning shift in just a little while - this particulr incarnation was usually when I was on my rostered days-off, or was working some sort of odd shift etc. It wasn't always for outright sex, just for that closeness, the skin on skin that feels so wonderful, warm and comforting, and to fall into that most blisful of sleeps with someone in your arms. It was love in it's mildest form, openly shared without any more committment than the willingness of the act and of the participants that did it - it was such an incredibly beautiful thing, this side of it all, something I still think of and treasure. Many times, this was all that was needed by both she/they and myself, and 'she' was one of at least 8 or 10 that come immediately to mind. There were many, many more than this that my mind has forgotten the names of, so many more........whilst at other times, it was total debauchery, including but not limited to threesomes and other variants - the only common factor was that I was the only guy in the equation......it was the height of gorgeous, sensual pleasures and a truly amazing 18 months or so.......and I really was in Heaven, for the most part.
Who needed parents?
I was well liked, and extremely well-loved in every way, emotionally and physically, but something was wrong, very wrong.
What, then, made it a bad thing?
Well, one cannot continue to do this, no matter the many never-ending pleasures, for with pleasure can come pain, and the pain of it all, for me, was that I was something of a male whore...that is, I was beginning to feel, in my mind.....No, that's a complete joke.....I was much, much more than 'something' of a male whore.
Sure, these women really did love me, and loved me for who I was, taking pleasure from my company in many other ways than simply the physical, sexual manner, but in the end, I was starting to feel a deeper and deeper sense of my being simply 'available' for the pleasure of these women.
I really do know how very stupid this all may sound, especially to any male, but this was the way of things, such as they were. This seemingly idyllic existence had a price to pay.
I did go-on to tell the aforementioned mate this stuff, but it did little to appease him from feeling that life had cheated him of his fair and equitable share of shagging, whereas I had been given some kind of very large, leader of the pack 'lions share'.....his share and several other men's share, as well as my own.
He wasn't entirely wrong, but he simply couldn't see the down side, just as you may be struggling to see it right now.This feeling became so intense for me eventually - that I was being 'used'.....and I really was, ultimately. Also, I had gained something of a reputation within the hospital for this side of my extracurricular activities - it wasn't easy in any event to be a male nurse back then, unlike now where there are many, many more, gay and otherwise. My professional abilities were called into question - those at the top with real power made my working life difficult.....possibly jealousy at work here, and a great many of those responsible for this were, in fact very high up the ladder nurses, who had only arrived there due to never having married and/or had children etc........yes, folks, they were lesbians.....and before you go saying I am bigotted or discriminatory etc, some of my very best friends have been gay or lesbian (and now I see a very different picture being built-up in your minds!!)
Needless to say....I was a very excellent Staff Nurse - a 'Mister Sister'.............running a very busy acute Children's Medical Ward but running rapidly out of respect amongst the elders at the top with real power within the system - I couldn't fight them, there were too many of them, and they wanted me gone.
Something had to be done.
The debachery, the sexual overkill, it's pleasures and it's pains, along with the constant and ongoing attacks upon my professional integrity, in the end, caused me to leave it all behind & relocate, to change tack a little.
I also very much was beginning to feel the need for one person with whom I could bond completely - as free and liberated as my life has been, from what was a very early age for losing my own cherry (a tad over 14), I have always, really, only wanted one, special person in my life......it's been finding The One that has been my own Holy Grail, but that's another story entirely, for the most part.
As for my then predicament, back in 1984 - It was not to be the last time that I would need to 'run away' and reboot my life.
This next part of my life journey was to take me to the Home Counties, a spit and a stones-throw to London.....to Hertfordshire and a beautiful little village called Cuffley.
It was 1985.
I appplied for and succesfully gained employment with an outrageously wealthy German family. They lived in what was a huge mansion, with wood panelled walls throughout, walk-in fridges, and suits of fucking armour, huge broad-swords and all manner of medievil artifacts (all of them the genuine article, not replicas) all over the place, on the wood panelled walls etc - the home was huge, gigantic and a mansion in every sense of the word.
I had my own room and the freedom of the joint, indoor pool and all, but more of that later.
My role was to take total physical and emotional care, additional to being a companion and friend, 6 days a week, including on-call night-time duties if needed, of their 21 year old son, who had broken his neck whilst at the wheel of a motor car way too powerful for such an inexperienced young man as he.
As is still so often the case with young men and, increasingly & tragically, young women these days, he had wrapped it around a very large tree at high speed. His family's wealth and their consequent spoiling and ruining him to bits had been his salvation, saving him from certain death and 'Goodnight Vienna'.
Airbags were not quite so commonplace back then, and that's an understatement, but his Mercedes was equipped with one or 2, and it was this that had saved him, albeit paralysed as a paraplegic with no use of anything below the belly button ever again, at the tender age of 18.
He was very amply built, now 20 years old, a good 6 feet 6 inches in height, and whilst not grossly overweight, was very stocky and heavy. I was now his full-time nurse amongst other things - I had to quell my natural and very British instincts of disliking 'The Germans', and just get-on with it, since I was surrounded by them through every fault of my own - through my choosing, in fact.
It was to become a very full year of very hard and demanding but rewarding work- a very different and new kind of life, and one I shall describe as completely as I can next time......if you're still there.
But let's see if that second load of washing is dry yet.

Of Coffee, Great Friends & Bizarre Memories

As with all emails, this one is brief, as sent to good friends of mine following a Saturday mid-mornings breakfast and coffees akimbo in glorious Beach-side Melbourne, Oz.
Saved for the posterity of it all, and as my 1st installment here.


Heya there you guys


As title explains, thanks so much for what was, in the end, once I'd desisted with my bleating and uncontrollable bawling and emotional fragility, a superb brekky with great friends - that The Pantry is in such a top spot, has superb coffee and that special ambiance that's increasingly rare to find (even in Melbourne The Great) merely tops it all off. It was lovely for us all to see D again, too, after what had been way too long. It's always so special for me to see the way D opens-up so warmly to M - something, I am sure, that constantly surprises M in the absolute nicest of ways. It's what makes D such a very special lady, and far more scarce than hens teeth (not to mention the likes of shit from a rocking-horse/as scarce as etc).


Well overdue, too, that we were able to get out at all and do anything more meaningful than do the food shopping, as is usually the case - M, in particular, is still getting used to the whole cafe scene, notably the doing of what Melbournians always do so well........just go out of a weekend and chill over some great food and coffee. She's slowly coming around to an understanding of it all, but there's still a way to go yet as to the whole why bother side of things proper - as with going-out for dinner, it's still so often about the eating being more a case of the purely functional - get it over and done with, pay the bill and go away again - and of course, this barely scrapes the surface of what going out for dinner, or just a few coffees, should be all about. It's a work in progress, and I won't give-up on it - not even sure if you can see through to exactly what I mean as such..........can be a case, possibly, of shopping time being wasted, sometimes, not always, by taking anything more than the necessary amount of time getting through the meal/snack/coffee etc maybe - this is more of a guess than any kind of absolute fact, mind you, and I still haven't worked it out properly yet.


It's something I enjoy so much, and always have, and I may have to accept that, quite simply, she may never get quite so much out of simple people watching and idling the time away over good coffee in a great spot as I do....in fact this is, to me, the most likely outcome, and I have to admit, it does sadden me. I lament the lack of sharing this most simple pleasure with the one I love the most......just one more thing to get all sad and weepy about for me, of course!


Don't touch that dial - stay tuned to this channel for more on these ongoing questions and others in the series 'My Missus & I'.


I think, too, that D (and yourself) do have something when you tell me I should write, quite aside from the complement you both pay me in feeling I can write well enough, and it really is a complement to me, for which I thank you both - there are a great many things I have, from the many and varied experiences from my life to write about, some truly as bizarre as it gets, some deep and meaningful, and yet more almost totally shallow and meaningless to all but me, perhaps?


No matter this, and even if all it ever does is get it off my own chest, then it would be mission accomplished from a cathartic standpoint.


It's even more important that I do something along these lines since I do have some issues in not being able to fully communicate as much as I would like with M - this is a far greater issue for me than perhaps I've let-on, though one I'm sure that doesn't come as too much of a surprise to you, and one which may go some way to explain why I sometimes prattle-on too much way too often - not at all to the point where she & I aren't happy, or even close, and it would never be the case to contemplate our not being with one another and so-on, not in any way shape or form.......just with me, as you may have noticed, I do think rather deeply about most things, often too often, and often to my own detriment.


At other times, as just mentioned, you (G) are generally 'It' when it comes to any major form of intellectualizing, since for reasons all my own, I have no other friends and, the aforementioned fact that I am married to a Chinese woman who has yet to master this language. Short of me mastering Mandarin, something which is rather unlikely, more due to the focus being placed upon M getting to grips with English being far more vital than an inability on my part to learn it (and not as much of a cop-out as you might think, this one!), of course, now being here in her new homeland, it is so vital that she conquers English to a certain point.


In this way, though, it could, to some, seem that we are far more incompatible than is really the case sometimes - to one another, I mean, when really, all it is, for the most part, is a lack of understanding, of comprehension, from either or both of us, of what's been said or is being said.


There is no better current example than this Port Douglas thing : more than anything else, M is resisting most of it due to the feeling that she has no choice or say in things - and truly, this is simply not true. Of course, I DO want us to live up there, and I genuinely do feel that it is one way of improving our 'lot' in this life that remains. Short of winning the big-one, simply uprooting and relocating did it for me last time in a very big way (although I do realize, completely, that I cannot speak for M, not until she has at the very least experienced the Far North for even a brief spell, but - I really DID love it those 10 years, and loved it in spite of the many difficulties I had, with my health and my being with the wrong person, Sue-Style (and ironically, my Italian wife of the time was also a Sue!) I may, though, in the end, have to accept - and I will, should it be the case - that M and/or MC may dislike things up there intensely, or dislike them enough to want to live there. I can't imagine why......well, other than the relentless humidity when it comes and a couple of other things, cyclones and the like!!


We've had the chat today as to 'utilizing' or otherwise the city, and one's need or not to actually need to live here, as amazing as Melbourne is. In so many ways, though, I feel to not use Melbourne is almost unforgivable, and we use it so seldom as to be close to criminal, in this way.


Meanwhile, back at the Ranch...........Time ticks ever-onwards, in the meantime, as sure as I'll be fifty-fucking-five years old, ffs, in just a few weeks time - I wish I could simply switch-off the impending feelings of there being such little time left - in essence, of what is both increasing fear and the ever-certain knowledge of my own mortality...........and most of this is, I feel, very strongly, nay extremely closely & inextricably linked to my health (or lack of same). It's like my body is screaming-out, almost, to get, as quickly as is practical and possible, and fair & proper, back to where life really is a little easier, that bit more laid-back and, for mine, so very beautiful a place and an existence.........I am very much in love with the Daintree area and all (well, most) things Tropical......even with the relentless heat and humidity, and me being a man who is so intolerant of same.........boy, I swear, I miss it so much, and I always have, to the point of yet more sadness, lament and tears, many, many times.


For sure, and as you quite rightly state, much of the place is chock-full of all manner of blongs, almost wall-to-wall, but for the most part, I didn't need to interact with most of them, at least most of the time. Work, though, within the framework of a hospital could be, um....interesting at times, and tales of some nurse going-out bush with hubby, family & family dog in-tow, wild pig hunting, and the sadness - or what one would have thought was deep sadness - when the 'family pet/dog' was gored badly by said wild boar, then swiftly sewn-up with old bits of string, only to die on the way home, retold with great pride and followed by 'of course, we just went and 'got a new one' - disposable pets will not, I think, ever take-off down here to that same extent, even if the wild pigs cross the borders in their thousands.


Another one I clearly recall, was another nurse equally proudly showing me a photo of the 3 Taipans hubby had dispatched with the 4-10 shotty, now neatly pegged to the washing line by the head, with belly slit completely open along the full length of the once resplendent 'Joe Blakes' showing a dozen or more eggs inside 2 of them. Well, the bastard things were in the yard, behaving in a manner most menacing, as Taipans are apt to do - as is their job, in fact.


Enriolled Nurse whatever her name was could not have been more proud of things as they stood, photo in hand.


With time, one learns to smile as gently and as appropriately as possible, at the whole 'well, if the dog's not up to it's job, we'll get another one' approach to things that so many seem to have. The stare of disbelief was always met with an equal yet opposite look of perplexity from the blong in question, so best to act naturally, try to blend-in, I always found. I became a master of it, but my then wife seemed to struggle somewhat more, perhaps the Italian side of her not being able to cope with the disturbances of her ideas of 'normal'.


I tell you, it was sometimes so funny, I almost didn't bother going-on to injure my back and instead remaining there unhappily ever after, but the powers that be (Matron, or Sauron as she was sometimes known) clearly had other ideas that would rid them of the best fucking Clinical Specialist they had ever, or would ever see in their hospital, the poor sad bastards. Mind you, it saved my life, in the end, as Mr. Liver was by then more than a tad enlarged and rather fatty, according to the ultrasound, and very clearly heading towards cirrhosis, through my alcoholic punishment each and every set of days-off that came around - yes indeedy, it was that bleak and much bleaker. So much so, that I elected to stop both smoking and drinking immediately.


It was a mere 2 weeks later that I 'discovered' I had 'the entire set', the Holy Trinity, of Uber-High Blood Pressure,(220/135 for the record) a Cholesterol level so elevated it was almost off the chart, (10.7, when the max according to the WHO was 5.5) and the piece de resistance Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, all at once, discovered that one fine day. I went from taking not one single tablet to taking about 9 of the bastards. A real milestone was my 40th, the year my body said "fuck you, show a little respect" - life sure 'began' at 40 for me.


It was hardly the case of 'Looks like Shit, Smells Like Shit, Tastes like Shit.............................good job I didn't tread in it, eh?


Nope, I just didn't feel at all lucky for whatever reason, although not drinking or smoking was a real bonus that I hope will still go-on to pay dividends for some time to come


Tropical Heaven & Hell in very large doses - things were always going to end in tears, lots and lots of them, and I wasn't let-down.


Again, just for a change, I've used a thousand and more words to tell you something you are abundantly aware of - yes, folks, I really DO need to find a decent blog site where I can spare you of some of my rants and bleatings - some of them, at least, then you can elect or otherwise to read them, rather than having them force-fed to you, with these overly long emails, an oxymoronic state of affairs if ever there was one. I couldn't be brief if my life depended upon it, for whatever reasons.


I am open to suggestions, should you know of a decent blog site. I did, at one time, use 'Blogger', and it wasn't so bad - I blogged a bit back in the early Atomic days, no doubt all or most of it complete bollocks, I hasten to add, and all of which will now have vanished into the ether......at least I hope so, from my best recall of the nature of my rantings - possibly-maybe.


But we've spoken at some length of this only a few hours ago, and I should be blogging this rather than being in your very fine ear canal with this bilge now - I shall seek-out a blog post-haste........first-thing tomorrow!


And in conclusion, big guy and wonderful Db, and in all seriousness, thank you both again for a lovely couple of hours earlier today. I was so glad we were able to make it from the initial doubts of can we/can't we, and aside from my now being very sore and tired, it's been a really superb and very full day, the first for many a while.


I shall bid you a good night for now, and will attempt to spare you these epics in future (don't hold your breath mind you) - you've got better things to do with your time than trawl through my shite just to get to anything half-decent that may or may not even be there.


I shall fuck-off now or there'll be no stopping me at all


L, M & Mc
--
Nostalgia IS what it used to be (or so they used to say)