I was glad of a few days with nothing planned this weekend.  The last few weeks have been a bit non-stop.  Early in the year I bought a whole new load of camera kit but hadn’t had much chance to take it out for fun and play with it through January so, on Valentine’s day, I packed up my backpack and headed off to shoot the silent disco in The Scoop at More London.  I was expecting it to be a reasonably busy event with plenty going on to photograph.  Unfortunatly that wasn’t the case.

My trains arrive into London Waterloo which is just a few minutes walk away from the London Eye and South Bank.  Once on the South Bank you can walk along the Thames path right down to Greenwich (in fact the path runs 184 miles from near the river’s source, according to the National Trail website).  So I decided to walk from the station to City Hall, quite a nice walk I’ve done plenty of times before with a full kit bag.  What I failed to factor into my journey was how much heavier my new kit is when compared to my old kit, and how out of practice I am at walking with it after winter (in fact quite probably how out of practice I am at walking at all since I started using my bike for local journeys just under a year ago).

Once I reached The Scoop I was disapointed that there weren’t many people there, and it wasn’t much of a sight.  I couldn’t even easily get close to the edge of The Scoop because they had security barriers around it.  There were pretty friendly looking staff around (one of the young ladies gave me quite a smile as I walked past, actually) and I’m sure, had I asked, they would have been quite accomodating, but I wasn’t really in the mood having walked all that way, so I just stomped past, around the other side of City Hall and flopped onto the stone seating / steps for a rest and to decide what to do. For some reason I chose to walk a bit further.

I wandered across Tower Bridge, in front of the Tower of London and along some of the roads in the City. I didn’t take any pictures.  I had half an idea to walk to St Paul’s, but didn’t make it that far.  I came back down to the north side of the Thames by St Magnus the Martyr (who were ringing their bells at the time) and walked back up to Tower Bridge.  By this time I was starting to hurt; my feet and legs were the worst. I crossed back over the river with the intention of seeing if things had hotted up at the disco, but they hadn’t so I decided to head home.

By this time my shoes were feeling really quite uncomfortable and I was limping slightly.  It felt like my sock had shifted slightly aroud in my shoe and the feeling of it moving against my foot was starting to annoy me, so I stopped to sort it out.  Unfortunatly it wasn’t my sock, it was the skin on the ball of my foot which had blistered very badly.  I hobbled on to London Bridge tube and back to Waterloo where, thankfully, it wasn’t much of a wait for the train.

I continued to suffer for it the next few days.  While my feet felt a little better after a good night’s sleep my legs decided to start aching more.  I think perhaps I was a bit ambitious (albeit not intentionally) on my first outing of the summer, but at least I know now how much practice I need to get in before we really hit the summer events season…

To be honest, dispite a promising start to the year, I didn’t do very well.  I suppose, thinking about it, I didn’t really go out of my way to find anyone.  I think I kind of hoped one would find me.

This plan obviously didn’t work.  So to this years resolutions…

I’m in about the same situation as last year in that I’m sure I thought of more things I wanted to put, but can only remeber one — the same one as last year.  Granted, last year was more successful in the romance stakes than the previous year (in fact I feel it was more successful in a whole range of ways), but I’m still not there yet.  So, once again, I’ll kick off this year’s resolutions with finding a nice young lady to share my time with.  And while we’re at it, why not clarify that: actually put some effort into finding a nice young lady to share my time with.

As ever I’ll keep you posted.

We talked about this in the restaurant and it started off a very interesting conversation between Miss D and I.  At the time I thought about wanting to write it down – it revealed a lot about both of us, including confirming a few things I thought about her relationship with Mr T.  Unfortunately I didn’t then write it down.  And now thinking back to it I’m struggling to remember what exactly was said.

We talked about how, in a relationship, both parties have to get about the same amount in return for what they put in.  This lead to me trying to dig around to find out what she thought she got from being with Mr T.  Although she didn’t say directly (I don’t suppose that’s much of a surprise), it did re-affirm my theory that it was more his family which she got the most out of.  She’s a long way from home and her family, and having a family home she can go to at the weekends seems to be important to her, even if she doesn’t realise it.

Miss D’s always hard to get information out of when it comes to talking about her feelings.  She just doesn’t want to talk about it.  While I appreciate that’s her choice, and perhaps I am being a bit nosy, sometimes it’s not so good.  There have been times she’s been upset and I’ve tried to find out why but she just wont say. That makes it very difficult for anyone else to do anything about it. Perhaps in these situations it’s because it’s something to do with Mr T and she knows I don’t like him. Perhaps she thinks I wouldn’t be much help, but I’d much rather know – and I can do sensitive when needs be – because there might just be something I can do to make her feel better. You never know until you try.

So my birthday passed off relatively uneventfully. The important people remembered and, even though Mr P did end up forgetting, his memory was jogged by something later on meaning he did manage to send me a message before the end of the day. I rang my parents to say thank you for the card, and although my dad didn’t realise what day it was, he’d not forgotten. It reminded him to de-flea the cat.

So now I’m 25. Next year is the last time I can renew my young person’s railcard (16-25 Railcard is the official name now, apparently). Maybe I should learn to drive before then.

In the last few days of her life my Grandma had been telling the staff in the hospital that she was a Salvationist.  She had been a member of the Salvation Army for most of her life.  Her parents were officers and she’d met my Grandfather at the officer training camp herself.  I’m not sure exactly when she stopped being a practicing member, but I do know that she’d started to get a bit mixed up with Christian Science later in her life (she had, in fact, told the nurses this was a mistake in her last few days).  My mum had asked the local Major to visit her in hospital just before she died.  I don’t think he made it.  So my mum decided, seeing as my Grandma had decided in her last few days that this was her true feelings, she should have a Salvation Army funeral.  Salvation Army funerals, as far as I can tell, are pretty much the same as any ‘standard’ Christian funeral, except the quality of the music and it being a celebration of the deceased’s life (in my opinion any funeral should be).

It was a small funeral (compared to her brother’s – he had died almost exactly a year before, but had been a professional footballer and international table tennis player!), with probably about 20 people at the Salvation Army hall.  After the service the immediate family carried on to the crematorium where we had a very short few words before committing the coffin to the crematorium oven (likely the queue for it, but it’s the symbolism which matters here).  After thanking the Salvation Army major and his wife, we headed back to my Grandma’s flat.

A few of her close family – her sister in law Molly, Molly’s children and their partners – had headed back there for a small get-together.  This was quite interesting.  We got out some of the photo albums we’d found the night before for them to look at, and to try to identify some of the people we didn’t know in the wedding photos and things.

Once they’d gone we started to sort through some of the paperwork my Grandma had built up during her life.  She used to teach accounting and was a secretary for a while and everything was sorted.  Literally everything.  Well over 20 year’s worth of stuff.  As well as all the bank statements there were some fascinating bits of history.  We found the details of her house in Southend-on-Sea from both when they bought it and when they sold it again, along with the receipt for the funeral of my Grandfather.  We also found the obituary of my Grandfather.  The thing which really struck me – I had to wander off into the spare room and have a little cry – was the line “he leaves behind a widow and 15 year old daughter.”  This was my mum.  I never knew my Grandfather, but I hadn’t realised that he’d died when my mum was just 15.

Another thing we found which I found fascinating was an email which Mr T, my mum’s cousin, had sent my Grandma a few years ago with some research he’d done into the family tree.  It wasn’t very complete and he’d asked my Grandma to fill in any information she had.  She’d written a few things, but nothing all that illuminating and a few of the notes were in shorthand which no one could read.  This did set me off on a very interesting path doing some research of my own.  So far I have got back to the 1840s with concrete evidence, but have some information which points to people dating back to the late 1700s.  There’s loads more I need to do but it takes time, and at the moment time’s not something I have huge amounts of.  All being well, work permitting, I should have more time to work on it again, and I’m going to do some while I’m at home this week.

At the time she was in a ward Middlesbrough.  The ward wasn’t the best place for her – there was nothing to do, she was getting bored.  Although she was ill she was still basically mentally fit when prompted.  Yes, she couldn’t always remember things very clearly, but she was a very clever woman and when we visited as a family and talked to her about things she enjoyed (we did the crossword together, for example), she was fine.  On that visit we found some photos from her first wedding in the cupboard and my mum took those with her on the next visit to show her, and she remembered quite a bit about it, although couldn’t remember where abouts in Leeds the photos had been taken.  So my mum kept on at the hospital to get her moved somewhere nicer, somewhere nearer home, to the hospital I was born in, the little town hospital in Guisborough.

A couple of weeks after my visit they found a bed in Guisborough and she was moved there.  The room she moved to, I’m told, was much nicer.  The whole hospital, my mum reported, was much more friendly, much more set up for long term stays.  She had her own television and the staff asked what she’d like to watch to make sure she didn’t miss it.  She even had her hair done by the visiting hairdresser.  This was an important point – when we’d visited her in Middlesbrough she’d commented on how it had got a bit flat because she hadn’t been able to see a hairdresser.  I can imagine, for a woman who’s always had perfect hair, this was a major concern.

My mum visited every weekend from then on and I kept in contact with her.  She told me that the nursing staff had heard her praying.  I think this was the point I realised that she’d decided that was enough.

She died not long after that, peacefully in the day with my mum there.  My mum had been to see her in the morning and she wasn’t really conscious, but she knew my mum was there.  Apparently she could move her feet a little if she wanted to acknowledge something.  My mum left her for a while to go into the town centre – she had a few things to do – and on her return she was greeted by the nurses who told her they were just about to call her.  My Grandma’s breathing had slowed, she was obviously pretty close to dying.

My mum sat with her and put the radio on.  My Grandma had always been very musical and played the piano very well into her old age.  Radio 3 were playing piano music.  The sun was shining brightly outside, and my mum read some sections from the bible.  Her breathing became slower until it finally stopped altogether.

My grandmother died peacefully on the 19th September 2009 in the same hospital I was born, almost exactly 25 years later.

So prepare yourself for the next few entries.  They will take you through October, November and December up to date.

And the best bit of all?  He demanded she ring him back.

I do wish advertising agencies would get these things right!

The Blood Bowl site is nearly complete — I should have it all wrapped up by next week — which is a relief.  It’s been more work than I was expecting in all honesty.  I’ve done most of the updates for the theatre school website, but failed to get a ‘quote’ to them before their last committee meeting as I promised.  One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest has been and gone (you can read a review here and another one here).  My dad’s starting up a company and I went to a meeting in York with him and my brother about their marketing and publicity.  Actually I had two reasons for going back up north that weekend.

My Grandma isn’t very well.  She’s 88 and has been getting slowly worse for wear.  The last year has been most noticeable with her mental health going a bit down hill.  She was diagnosed diabetic last year and had been given a whole range of tablets to take to help.  When she was being forced to take them she was generally OK.  She was keeping on top of things at home and looking after herself.  When she was left to her own devices, however, she didn’t take her tablets and got worse.  She claims there’s nothing wrong with her (I think this might be something to do with Christian Science, although I’m not totally sure), and so would choose to leave the tablets.  When she doesn’t take them her blood sugar goes haywire and she starts to lose her grip on the day-to-day running of her life.

A couple of weeks ago she was found, by the neighbours, in her night dress in the bath.  She was just lying there with no water in it, and when asked why, she said she thought she was in bed.  They took her into hospital in Middlesbrough.  After some tests they found she’s got cancer. (I’m not sure quite what kind, but it doesn’t matter.  They don’t know where it started or how long it’s been around, but it doesn’t matter.  They only found it by chance so it obviously hadn’t been affecting her very much.)

So, a couple of weekends ago, the whole family went to visit her in hospital.  She was bored.  Stuck on a ward with no interesting conversation and nothing to do (it even turned out that she didn’t have her glasses with her so couldn’t even do crosswords or anything!).  When we were there talking to her she was fine — she asked my brother and I what we were doing, and we told her about our recent activities (I told her about the set building, my brother about his involvement with some music event) — she kept up with the conversation no problem, and we even did a bit of the crossword as a family.  Of course they’d been making sure she took all her tablets when she should.

This week she was moved to Guisborough hospital, incidentally the place I was born.  I’m told it’s a much nicer hospital where she has her own room with a TV and slightly more attentive nursing care (not that they weren’t good at the James Cook Hospital, but they were a little busier and so couldn’t pay as much close attention to each patient).

My mum visited her in Guisborough at the weekend.  She said she was very weak and isn’t eating much (when we were there she said she didn’t have much appetite).  I guess there’s no getting away from the fact she’s dying.  Of course it’s sad, but she’s comfortable and seems quite happy.  I guess she’s had a while to come to terms with it — she’s had friends die and her brother died last September — and it seems to me she’s pretty much accepted it.  The doctors have given her three months from the cancer, I suspect it’ll be less than that just from old age.

One of the things I’ve been doing which has been getting in the way of writing this is re-vamping a website for my brother.  He’s part of a group which run a large Blood Bowl league and last year I made a site which they used to manage the league tables and match reports.  They’ve grown a lot in the last season and now need the site to manage a lot more complicated things than it did previously.  This involves doing quite a bit of rebuilding of the output and processing side of things although at least I can reuse a lot of the back-end code.  I got the brief and some design documents a good few weeks ago and the deadline is the end of September.  In my mind that’s quite a while away, so I haven’t been too bothered about rushing with it (in fact it’s probably fair to say I did nothing for a long time, to be honest).  Occasionally my brother would give me a nudge about it, and I’d say something like “yeah, it should be ok” or “I did some last night, I’ll have something to show you soon”.  After a while I started to run out of excuses and had to do some work.  I worked late on the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night and then emailed him with a basic version of the site.  This seems to have worked — he did say something about being worried about the deadline in his reply — but at least it’s put his mind at rest that I actually am doing something.  I suppose I should do some more soon.  Maybe tomorrow and Thursday.

I can’t do any on Friday because I’m off to build a set with Miss T.  She rang me while I was out with Mr P and Miss C last night and we had a long chat.  I’m glad she rang — I’d been worried following a short conversation on Friday night.  I’ll write about that more soon, but Sunday’s conversation ended up with me offering to help her build the set for the upcoming Sedos production of One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest.  I think it’ll be quite fun — certainly better being with her than being stuck at home all bank weekend by my self (Miss D will be off at Mr T’s parent’s house) — if a little tiring.  I’m meeting her on Friday night in London and staying at her house so we can get a whole day’s work in on Saturday and Sunday.  I’m not quite sure what I’ve let myself in for, but I’ll let you know how things go.

Talking about art, I’ve been following the events up on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in the last few months.  The One & Other project is a living art installation consisting of a different person occupying the plinth for an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week through until October.  There’s a live web stream so you can watch and listen to the person up there from the comfort of your own home.  It’s been quite interesting.  Some of the people are certainly art while some I’d wonder.  I think, in general, it’s got better as time has gone on with more people being creative than just sitting reading a book.  Having said that it is supposed to be a reflection of the UK at the moment, so I do believe that sitting quietly is a perfectly acceptable thing to do… it’s just not very exciting to watch!  There’s a very interesting collection of photos building up on Flickr of the project.  I’ve also been following the project on Twitter.

Talking of Twitter, I’ve jumped on that band wagon.  All being well you’ll see the latest tweet at the top of the front page of this blog.  I find it’s quite good just to drop random thoughts on to — small thoughts I just want to put out there but don’t necessarily have anyone around to say them to.  I know a lot of people who have Twitter accounts — most of my friends are on there — but having connected it to this anonymous blog I can’t really follow them.  That’s a bit of a shame, I’d certainly be able to have more friends, but it’s a choice I made to carry on being able to write this blog without feeling restricted.  If you’d like to add me then please do — @CarregsBlog.  I might, at some stage, add another account as the real me (although all my normal usernames seem to have been taken, so I’ll have to come up with something else), but I’m not really sure what I’d write on that one!

I think that’ll do for now.  I’ve lots more to write about, but at least that gets some of it out of the way.  Sorry I’ve been so useless.  I’ll try harder from now on, at least for a little while, I promise.