Boxing day

Went to Big Town to see if i could get a book with Mr Lecture's book tokens. in the street someone said hello and paused in that , almost past but i want to talk, sort of way and as i hadn't identified who it was i stopped.It was Slef, on her own looking very thin and sort of grey. I wouldn't normally chat to her but she seems keen to chat. Way back over 20 years ago i was shown into my Student hostel room, and sitting on the bed was Paul, i saw him and thought "oh fuck im sharing with a punk. He turned out to be not to bad, a laugh in his own way, but incredibly mean and tight. I lost lots of weight as we shared our food costs and he would only pay out for a Tesco's min pizza a day and we eat half each. I thought he was joking when he complained that i should pay double for sugar for our tea as i took tow spoons and he took one....but he wasn't. Anyway, he took up with Slef and i took up with the wife.... and now Slef informs us from about four foot away on a crowded street that He and she were braking up....When we left collage were were close friends, shared a studio, started a biz at same time as them. But they drifted away, they made some money, we didn't. They took up with people who were useful to them, Paul caressed his accounts book with glee...Moved from their boat to a council flat, got paid to move when the council wanted to knock the flats down. Got a mortgage, sold house had biz making little "eggs safes" etc. He wore "Coal Not Dole" badges at collage, but in busyness he exploited the various crap Make work scams. Armchair over heard two of his workers saying they hadn't worked in such a bad place to work, in fact it was worse than somewhere they worked and the boss hadn't paid them!. They moved to a big house on the main road. Then we heard they had a baby and the biz went belly up in a big big way, tax....they had to sell thier house and move to rented...we did bump into them at the Village bonfire party. Wife chatted amicably them, i more or less ignored them. She had post natal depression bad and a miscarrage, i cant imagine he was much help... and now they are parting, she's been off work with depression for a year. Working in the council, he's some sort of middle bod, we saw a job aplication for a post under him and that was a reason not to go for it...

Christmas day

Well ive not been feeling very christmasy, in fact not a scrap christmasy. I just feel fatigued. Our son loved it though, getting up at five and swearing that he was Santa sleigh in the sky as it left after delivering his presents. yesterday a mum at the party said that one of the kids at school has been going round saying Santa dont exist. When asked why he replies that "he believes in god and if he believed in Santa then he would be clawed down to hell"....i fail to comprehend how a parent can do that to their child. His mum used to be a big wheel in the after school Kids Club but isn't now..its rumoured that she was asked to leave for being a Nutty Christian...fuck im knackered.

Monday

yesterday the lad knocked on the door, sans anyone in sight. He was here to follow up on a promised Pokemon swap with our boy. He didn't stay, lieing granddad was lurking in the car outside. What nagging it must have taken to get him here even for a few mins.

Yesterday also went to acquaintances xmas "do" just a light thing of mince pies and mulled wine. We sat feeling out of place amongst the horsey people.

I'm just back from another do , combined with a mums hubby's birthday. Felt slightly out of place and they are all Mutual friends friends. They are nice enough and son gets on well with their older girl, though their youngest seems to have a psychopathic streek. Mr Bullshit was there as he's the brother of the hubby. Competitive mum was too, still rattling on about how children gets points at school etc. She is nice though, a nurse at the minor injuries unit in town... That's two "do's" surrounded with normal people, people with real jobs real money and holidays, they go windsurfing in winter and skiing etc....it was quiet depressing to realise how dull i am.

monday

small empire building one, civilisation nil....the car park next to harrys school has banned al parents using it (its the car park of the "community hall and children's play ground) as they claim its against "Health And safety" ... so the road is deemed much safer. Tomorrow morning and afternoon should be fun, huge traffic jams on a tiny cul d'sac.... im going to beep just to annoy the residents who will then get on to the Hall Empire builders!

Friday

some family history...

As far as i know the family goes thus... Rare sir name, either Hugonout thrown out of Holland/ Belgium in 1712ish or closely related to a manga robot suit....first reported as Wheel wrights in sussex. Way back they were Church Organ fitters till Granddad got recruited to make Mosquitoes in the war (made of ply wood and organ fitters laminated wood all the time) He fire watched on Hadley Pages roof all through the Blitz, armed with a bucket of water (for high explosive bombs) and a bucket of sand (for "fire bombs"). And worked all day in the number one target for the Luftwaffe. And still found time to build his own bungalow, which was the first residential home made of reinforced concrete (at least in the home counties) Occasionally he was plagued by architects visiting and asking how he did it....back in Victorian times my great granddad was a fine upstanding Church Organ fitter who would every night get drunk and walk home, along the Regents canal to happily knock his wife about till bed time... one day he didn't arrive home, the wife didn't report anything amiss, then the coppers found his body floating, face down, and she was "asked a few questions" but released..! Grandma on that side is almost 100 now and was a maker of fur coats and previously a Taxiderists sewing person (yes she sewed up stuffed elephants and lions for the aristocracy and some of her works are to be seen in Tring arm of the Natural History Museum)

Mums side are farm workers from way back, Granddad worked at Mentmoor Towers (bought by George Harrison and given to the Maharishi) (his relatives were Bargies and Lock Keepers on the Grand Union Canal, his great Uncle was the lock keeper at "Three Locks Tring" where there is still a pub that he would walk out of and fall in the canal every Saturday night) He was the milk boy hanging off the back of a milk tanker pulled by a team of four horses until he joined up under-age in WW1 where he said for the first time he had a full belly and under ware! Oddly posted as a cook to a cavalry regiment he trained at the infamous camp where a week latter there was a HUGE mutiny (he did say one of his mates managed to fall off a plank and stick his bayonet in a red cap..) Anyway the Cavalry got slaughtered the first action an event he viewed with some humour. After the war he went back to the farms and was a champion hedger and ditcher, then worked at GEC probably sweeping up as he couldnt wire a plug. Mum had one "flighty sister" who went with Americans in the war and wore a rabbit skin fur coat with shoulder pads, two brothers, one was in the RAF in WW2 in North Africa and kept a small album of pictures of dead Germans and became a Security guard, and one who was handicapped as he was illiterate from begin left handed and the school clouting him every time he tried to write at school....in his spare time he was a skilled gunsmith bt he worked carrying frozen food in a ware house.

Saturday

Mt Lecture was down, so we went to town, typically as last time he aranged to meet on the train but he missed it. He's infuriatingly bad at time keeping, he turned up in his car soon after we got to town. We went on an endurance test of a shopping trip zigzagging at random over the town, hellishly crowded. He looked pinched in the face though not thinner in the body. he still jokes about his own demise, but looks worried tome at least.