A Sad Day

It’s a very sad day today with L’s brother’s funeral. We visit him at the funeral parlour in the morning and then the service itself is at the crematorium in the afternoon. Then afterwards everyone heads to the Great Northern pub.

He is cremated resplendent in his Rammstein t-shirt. Sadly his beloved Rammstein don’t make the playlist for the funeral elbowed out by another of his favourite bands the more socially acceptable Queen and he is played in by Bohemian Rhapsody.

All the family are of course gathered for this, along with plenty of old friends of his and even his old teacher. 

(Wednesday 5^th October)

Respect

I didn’t know whether to do a post for this day or not. Perhaps just leaving the entry blank as a mark of respect would have been the best thing. However, here goes.

Sunday 25^th September was a very busy and traumatic day. The Nottingham Half Marathon was in the morning and the race goes very well although it soon starts to pale into insignificance as the events of the rest of the day start to unfold.

My morning as a fully paid up VIP goes well with tea/coffee laid on pre-race and two dedicated toilets for all the VIP crowd which includes the Elites. Ok, so that bit wasn’t so good and I opted to join the standard loo queues with the masses because it was quicker.

The course itself runs ok despite my misgivings about the organisers cutting out the University and adding in two dead turns instead. L, the dogs and my father are all at Crown Island so they get to cheer me past twice which is much appreciated. The second time I’m desperately trying to hang onto the coat tails of the 1:30 pacer which I fail to do. However my time is still good as I clock 1:43, which I’m actually thrilled with, on what is a well hilly course.

In the VIP tent afterwards there’s plenty of food, drinks, a massage and I get a free race photo as well. So overall it’s quite a good deal if you want all that.

By the time I finish L has already departed for the hospital with my father giving her a lift there. I head over to join her as soon as I can.

Sadly at around 7pm her brother passed away with his family around him. He was just 36. As ever I try and look for the positive in things no matter how hard that can sometimes be. He could have died in 1986 when he was just 6 but he received a donor heart that would enable him to enjoy another 30 years of life and for everyone to enjoy that with him.

A few odd things spring to mind at times like this. I first met him when I met L in 1996 when he would sometimes baby sit for her as I attempted to wine and dine L in an attempt to persuade her to spend the rest of her life with me. We had to pay him obviously, as you do with brothers, but he helped me get the girl.

He was famed for his taste in music (Rammstein anyone?) but it is a Marilyn Manson gig in late 2009 that I will remember him for. This was apparently his first gig and it was also notable for L getting all vamped up in blue hair dye and blue nail varnish. It was also bloody brilliant and he loved it.

Then of course, of late, there was his dogged refusal to give up on life even when everything seemed stacked up against him. That you really have to admire. He will be missed greatly.

When Daughter hears she gets straight on the next train over from Manchester and we pick her up from the station. When we get home we toast him with red wine, lemon cake and Bombay Bad Boy pot noodle. Some of his favourite things. RIP mate.

(Sunday 25^th September)

We've Been Around

Four days in a row on the bike and a dodgy thigh for my troubles but at least the calf is fine.

Shock number one. L enters the Great Nottinghamshire Bike Ride. She says she’d rather do that the Grimsthorpe Half Marathon that is on the same day. Hang on, rewind. She’d rather do the cycle... did I hear that right? I best get her bike serviced then.

Shock number two. British Gas ring and say they’re coming tomorrow, to fit the long promised filter. Result. A result for perseverance after taking the intransigent position of demanding a Saturday appointment after they'd already wasted two days of L’s time this year.

Of course there's no guarantee that it will happen, we’ll believe it when we see it. Their record isn’t good and if they do turn up, will they bring the part? Well, they’ve got less than twenty four hours to lose it.

For our cosy Friday night in, I turn up sweaty from my cycle while L turns up sweaty from her run and we put the delightful Rammstein on the TV whilst I cook. Romance eh? I tell L to shout me if anything bursts into flames. That’s on the TV, not on the stove.

Then we dig out some old photos and reminisce on past skiing holidays, going back first to 1999, when we were all a touch younger. Daughter was just five! It’s an interesting reminiscence night over a bottle of wine. Although it should probably have been over a wheat beer and a Jagertee.

‘We've been around’ L says. Quite.

(Friday 23rd March)

Pyrotechnics

I’m on the bike again today, as it results in less coughing than running.

L regales me of a tale of a poor young girl she passed this morning who was being made to run up the evil steps near L’s work, do six star jumps, then run down the steps and lift weights at the bottom. Whilst her personal trainer stood nearby drinking a Costa Coffee. This reminds me, I really must get on with becoming a personal trainer. It sounds such fun, especially if young girls are prepared to pay handsomely to be tortured. It must pay handsomely, if he can afford Costa.

L isn’t initially keen on tonight’s gig, which she’s going to with her brother. Unfortunately I’m washing my hair, so I can’t take her place. Rammstein don't even sing in English but apparently they do go all out with their stage show.

L, as it happens, has a whale of a time despite the singed eyebrows. There are a lot of pyrotechnics including guitars, keyboards, microphones and possibly Zimmer frames on fire. The keyboard player used a Zimmer frame mounted keyboard at one point, that was when he wasn't on his treadmill or in a saucepan. This review is secondhand by the way, but I think it's generally accurate.

I may have quite liked the crowd surfing in a rubber dingy bit, that sounded quite cool but I’m not quite so sure about some of the other stunts. Such as the lead singer putting on a dress and walking his band mates around on lead nor the gay sex scene but I guess it would all have made a good blog.

I stay in, dog sit and have my own pyrotechnics as L insists I build a funeral pyre for some rather threadbare handkerchiefs that have been called up as reinforcements following my recent bout of whatever it was. It’s sad, some do have sentimental value, but I do concede that a few perhaps need retiring. I organise a short ceremony.

(Friday 2nd March)