» Beautiful Moments, Part Two

The last day I saw my first dog
Obligatory wavy lines...

When I was a wee lad (say of 7 or 8) we got a Bedlington Terrier and called him Jay Jay (after initials of me and my dad). He was the runt of the litter and was plagued with illness after condition after illness throughout his entire life, however as much as he felt rotten inside he loved fifty times more.

Dad was the master, I was the brother and we got on like a house on fire. Jay was the friendliest, child-safe and faithful pooch anyone could ask for - you'd only need to glance at him and he'd jump on your lap. Our Burmese cat (McCavity) was very much the boss until his sad death some years later but Jay remained ever chirpy and willing to lend his chin to your knee.

He came from pedigree stock which meant he was due to leave us around the age of 10 and with all his problems he would probably only see 6 if lucky - he lasted (we like to think out of pure devotion to us and us to him) until 13. If you're still with me then we're about to reach the main story point now.

Still with me? Lovely!

I moved out a year before Jay was diagnosed with leukaemia, this was surely going to be the swift end to our old friend. Our vet gave him slim odds but offered us an experimental treatment to try and buy some more time, we took it. Maybe we shouldn't have since it led to as many bad days as there were good. He'd often go a day or two at a time a springy young chap with attitude but then would suddenly be utterly unable to move out of his basket for an equal or greater amount of time.

My mum looked after him like a trooper, watering him with a droplet and making sure he stayed clean, I'll always thank her for that. I went round a fair bit in his last couple of months to make sure I saw him often. Then the last day happened. It was a bad day.

I popped round to say hello and before I left I went to his basket and he couldn't even lift his head to look at me he was so weak, I was told he'd been like this for a few days, longer than usual. I gently lifted his head and ruffled his fur whilst saying 'Goodbye mate', placed his withered head down and went to walk away.

I managed about four steps before hearing his clawless paws tapping on the kitchen floor, he was standing there with his head held high looking right at me, tail wagging and his body shaking with pain. His puppy spirit won through and we had a little gentle play before making another goodbye and placing him in his basket.

We lost him the next day.

He knew he was on his way out as I was making mine.


Length? Being the runt is a good excuse for not mentioning.

EDIT: Still have his collar hanging on my fridge door, respect Jay!
(Fri 6th Aug 2010, 5:56, More)

» The Boss

Vengeance pie
My first boss was a proper cunt, the type of wannabe-squaddie waste of meat that you would gleefully throw off the edge of a cliff and add your own silly sound effects.

I worked for him for just over a year until he informed me that I was gonna be let go but with the consolation that I would be able to contract from him for even more dosh. Result, thought I the idiot.

So last day he checks that I've got all the assets I need to carry on my projects at home, this included source code of projects and some databases, one being a massive database containing sales information on a popular fast-food chain.

I spend a couple of weeks finishing off my work and even travel the 40 miles to the new office to work on site for a day despite not being a driver. (Fuck trains, fuck buses, fuck em all!) All this worthwhile thinks I as it's for way more money then I was on before.

Then it happens, he fucks me over. I come home that night I come home to a nastily worded solicitors letter informing me I'm about to be legally raped for stealing source materials and client data from the company. Cunting fucking cunt fuck.

I call him up the next day and speak to his partner, funny that eh twatface not being around, who informs me how he's going to bitchslap me into bankruptcy and discredit me over the better parts of the industry (this chap was a squaddie cunt too btw).

Long story short, he falsely led on that he would give me contract work and just screwed me out of two weeks full of contracting hours, at a fucking cheapo rate too! I lost about 800 quid worth of business reckons I. We settled up by me saying to his partner 'oh I just took it to learn, I'm an idiot, dunno what I'm doing, so sorry guys, love you, blah blah'. the most bitter pill I've ever had to swallow. I was a young idiot of 19 though.

Anyhoo, couple of years later I get a job at a proper company where he ironically works as a senior technical manager. I play nice, don't call him names he deserves, even make him a cup of tea or two. Only when I pop out to the local bakery and the cunt asks me to pickup a pie do I realise that my time of vengeance had arrived.

I manage to secure him a pie that came directly out of the oven that's set to about 400 degrees C. Now don't think I'd settle for simply legging it back to the office to watch him strip the flesh off his tongue, I went one better.

Popped into the lavvies when I returned and proceeded to churn out some of the most potent man batter that side of England had seen and after smearing it all over the pie to give it that 'fresh cooked glaze' do I re-wrap it and drop it on his desk.

Cue a thumbs up later from the dick whilst he says that's the nicest pie he's had in years.

All is right in the world of the idiot.



For the length you have my apologies, finally popped my cherry with a semi-rant that's bugged me for the last 8 years.
(Mon 22nd Jun 2009, 17:33, More)

» Beautiful Moments, Part Two

Connie, my nan
Think I've opened a flood gate with my previous post and apologies for another long'un.

My other beautiful moment involves my Nan (Connie).

Nana was the only grandparent I ever knew and we sadly lost her wonderful personality with Alzeimers when I was about 10 years old where she was then looked after in the nursing home my dad ran. It would be when I was 22 when we would lose her completely.

My dad has an older and younger brother (Geoff/Phil), there was another younger brother called Bobby who didn't survive a meningitis infection when he was only a few years old. I freaked out a couple of members of the family when I started to grow an expression on my face, I was utterly like Bobby.

My nan had an oil painting of Bobby before he died above her chair for decades, it could well have been a painting of me. This similarity resulted in a unique connection with my nan, nothing could touch it. Where my parents would give up nan would step in and sort me in 0.2 seconds flat. I loved her to bits.

I was a coward for many years, I didn't see her in the nursing home despite it never being more than a 3 minute drive from my house. I couldn't see her like that, it hurt too much the first time and I know how much of a mistake it was now. Fortunately this was a mistake I would be presented with an opportunity to fix.

I lived in Brussels for several months in 2005 and the weekend I was home I was told she took a turn for the worst and my dad and uncles had gone to see her. As soon as I exited the taxi at my house I was in my car and there in 60 seconds.

When I arrived I ran upstairs and found her sons around her, everyone knew, my dad especially that this was the night she would leave us in body. She hadn't spoken in years and had a heart-breaking vacant expression for longer, the same expression that I was terrified of.

I joined the group and stayed with her for a short while before something quite magical happened, she looked up. She engaged eye contact with each of us, looking at her sons and me, no words, nothing spoken but contact was made. It was when she gazed at me that I realised how beautiful a moment it was, I was there not only for myself but for Bobby as well.

After she returned to her vacant state I had to leave, I barely made it back to my car as the tears were thundering out of my eyes. I later found out that she died as I was going down the stairs. Once I had driven round half the north west and returned home I settled and told the now-ex.

Her funeral included a beautiful eulogy by my youngest uncle, chronicling her selfless life, without her deceased husband, for her family until she was played out by Wind Beneath My Wings. Another beautiful moment, two for the price of one nana, good show.

Before moving out to Australia in June I had a nice long chat with her in the graveyard.


No length, just manly tears.
(Fri 6th Aug 2010, 9:12, More)

» Crappy relationships

Thoughts buried deeper than those miners
My temptation here is to shower you all with an array of spiteful comments about my cheating ex of nine years. Instead I'm going to show a bit of backbone and reveal some reasons why I made it a crappy relationship, going for the cathartic angle.

Met her when I was seventeen, we broke up in May 2009. We have lived together for eight of those years and owned a house together for the last two. During our second year she cheated on me with an internet fling, they met up under the subtext of her visiting her parents. She tearily confessed to me just over a week later not out of guilt as I thought back then but because it was only a couple of days after her mother ripped her father off and ran off with a con artist! My list of mistakes begin here. I forgave her.

I say I forgave her but in actual fact I engaged in some crafty self-deception and simply buried all that shit in the back of my mind out of fear. I feared losing her, feared the thought of being alone. I was pretty convinced that I wouldn't be able to find somebody else, I still haven't now but that's out of not looking. Understand, my self-confidence has always been in short supply, often masked by false bravado, so I figured if I lost her either by kicking her out or her simply leaving that I would not be able to replace her.

In a rare moment of personal honesty it all blew up a couple of years later when I was due to move overseas for business for six months, we broke up the night before and reconciled hours later. Out. Of. Fear. Scared, yet again, that once I lost her I wouldn't find anyone else, ever. Fresh cement was laid down on top of the feelings and we proceeded on as ever. The entire time my trust in her was diminishing and my longing to connect with her was failing.

So I'm a coward. Even up until the point of her leaving. She was seeing some random prick who was happy to be a third wheel behind my back, I knew it was going on but said nothing. It was then that she pressed the self-destruct button on "us", she asked me about marriage and proposals. Like the night before I left for Brussels I was cornered into a bout of personal honesty, that honesty being me in complete silence when she asked me if I wanted to marry her. A week later we separated with civility, I even helped her move out to her new flat down the road, even gave her stuff that I bought with my money. Not fearing that I'd lose her this time but still scared of what she thought of me, I couldn't dare be nasty and tell her just how I felt. I still suffer from this problem.

We had plenty of good times like most bad relationships do but ultimately it should never have gotten past that first train wreck, I'm sure most of you will agree.

So there's my confession. I'm often terrified of what people think of me and I have the habit of burying the emotions that are most important and the worst part is I don't know if I've learnt anything yet from this. It's been nearly 18 months and I've yet to pursue anybody else and if I suspect somebody thinks badly of me I pretty much break out in sweats. Having recently moved to Australia from the north west of England I'm hopeful that such a radical move is evidence of some sort of change. I just hope that I'm changing myself and not simply my location.

Length… approx 10,400 miles.
(Thu 21st Oct 2010, 16:01, More)

» Beautiful Moments, Part Two

May as well post a third
Seeing my home planet from space, for the first time.
(Fri 6th Aug 2010, 9:33, More)