Snow (Cos I'm An Original Bastard)

So yeah. it's snowing here.

Snowing when I went to bed last night, snowing when I got up, snowing when I left for work and snowing when I arrived.

I hate snow.

Our yard at work is under a cover of the stuff, and when we arrived w found the manager (God knows what time he'd gotten in), shoveling away like a little trooper. Of course, being a shirt and tie walla  he wasn't having much  luck, and we came to his rescue. An HOUR later, we cleared a moderately decent car parking area, then we gave up.

Since then the coffees have almost reached double figures and I'v read a good chunk of my book. Other than that...

Yeah, I hate snow.

Why hast thou forsaken me?

A lot of posts on here have focused on my Primary School education and it seems that someone up there likes them because every time I think I've exhausted that particular avenue something else comes up to keep me waffling away on that very subject. Case in point;

Remember when I had a sudden batch of memories that I couldn't reconcile with the story of my life? Yeah? Well I've had another one.

At some point after I left Langley Park Primary School; an event which coincided with the end of my parents marriage, and which I remember well, I returned there for a brief time. The thing is, I've no memory of living in Langley Park again, or indeed of when this might have happened.

You see, when my parents split we moved in with my Aunt. From there we moved into the worlds friendliest street (TWFS). And from there; in a development that the blog hasn't reached yet, but probably will soon; we moved to the next town up the road and the house that would be my home for the remainder of my childhood.

I have no memory of any breaks in that timeline.

I'm going out on a limb here and saying that it must have happened around the time of the shift from the Aunts house to TWFS, but that's pure guesswork on my part, based on the fact that I distinctly remember the head teacher, when we were in his office on our first day back at Langley, telling my mother off, in quite stern tones, about moving us from school to school on a whim. That to me tells me that it must have been fairly soon after we had left. I may be wrong, but it's all I've got to go on.

Anyway, the timing of the event doesn't matter; I just thought it was interesting to point out how utterly incompetent my memory is. No, the point of this post is that the over-riding event that stuck out when this period floated to the top of my memory recently, was embarrassment.

I had a friend, who has been mentioned on MoaN before, during the Langley Park years. His name was Peter and in my very early years he was, most certainly, my best friend. So when we returned to LP School, I immediately started to hang around with him again. In my mind, we were still best friends.

In fact, another of the crystal clear incidents was of us getting on the bus to go for swimming practise and me rushing to sit next to him; one of the adults on the bus saw this and asked me if we had been friends when I was at the school before. "Yes Miss", I exclaimed. "We're best friends!" The look on his face when I said that made me cringe.

It was the same at break times. I would hang out with him and his group of friends; a group of friends that he hadn't had before I left. One day, one of them asked me why I always hung around them and told me I should go away and play with someone else. My reply was a rather plaintive "I don't know anybody else, though."

I should have taken the hint. Inside, I did; I knew full well that he had moved on and was not nearly as invested in our friendship as I had been. On the outside though, I kept pretending I hadn't noticed. The truth is that after we left LP the first time I always still thought of him as my best friend. I always assumed that we would go back one day and he would be there and we would pick up where we left off. No-one that I met at my new school came close, in my eyes. So to think that he had just... forgotten about me, would have broke my heart if I let it.

The brief stint back at LP Primary was exactly that; brief. Soon it was all change again and back to Chapel Street Primary, and a reunion with the Brancepeth Boys. A reunion I have no recollection of, if I'm honest; there's that shitty memory again.

Remembering this tiny little moment in my life; one that I had perhaps repressed all these years; has actually shone some light on one of the most long lasting of my personal 'not a real boy' quirks. That being, my inability to assume that I'm welcome anywhere.

When I was at Comprehensive School, I always ate my lunch with the same person (Chris); if we arrived at the dining hall together, or if he arrived after me. You see, if we arrived together we'd stand in line together and get served together and go to our table together and... you get the idea. If he arrived after me, he would get served and then he'd look around and find me and join me at my table. Simple. If I arrived after him though...

I'd get served, look around for him, see him sitting at whatever table, with whatever people, and... head in the other direction, pretending not to see him. Because after all, he was talking to those other people, so why would he want me to interrupt? I knew that he sought me out if he arrived late, so obviously wanted to sit with me, but for me to instigate it... wasn't gonna happen.

Even now, in my adult life, I can't sit down next to someone I know on a bus, or walk across to someone I know if I see them in the street. I'll go over if they see me and beckon me over, but I'm never gonna be the one to instigate contact. I just don't have it in me. At least now I know the roots of that particular social inadequacy; only 97 more to go.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's the same old shit on the blog.

Well, I'm back. Took December off from most of the blogging stuff that I do and last week, well, last week was New Years week and who can be bothered, right? So it's been a while.

Never fear though, because I'm all set and raring to go now, for another year of embarrassing confessions, knee jerk rants about things I don't understand and of course, everyone's favourite; horrifying glimpses into my depressing childhood.

Easing us back in gently; and by us, I mean me, because I always struggle to start this shit again after I've had a break; by-product of my chronic laziness, I suppose, for which I have an official Doctors note, so you aren't allowed to tut tut at me; I thought a quick bit of waffle about what I got up to over the break would suffice.

Christmas

What did you get up to over Christmas? Eat too much? Get drunk? Course you did, no need to deny it, we're all friends here. I, of course, didn't do those things, being both a contrary bastard who refuses to participate in societally mandated 'fun' and afraid of alcohol, which doesn't agree with me.

Instead, I hid myself away like the emotionally stunted hermit that I am and attempted once again, as I do every year, to sleep through the whole wretched affair. Didn't succeed mind you, because I never do, but one day...

Why didn't I succeed? Family of course. No matter how much I protest, they will insist on including me in their nonsense and this year was no exception. So, I was picked up and ferried down to the scene of the festivities, went to sleep until the food was cooked, ate the food, made mindless small talk when I had to; which wasn't often, because I went to sleep again once I'd finished eating; and then got home in time for Doctor Who, which is the important thing. Obviously.

Oh, and this happened




New Year

Slept through it. The end.

There you go, a relatively painless first post of the year I think; although feel free to tell me otherwise in the comments if you want to, because if you don't tell me when you think I'm shit, I'll never impr... hahahahaha... I'm joking, I'm never gonna improve. You can still slag me off in the comments though, I don't mind.

I'll be back next week. No idea what I'll be writing about, but I'll be back. Until then, Au Revoir, mon, er, reader people.

Fat Lads Are Good Lads

Howdy y'all. Welcome to another edition of 'Paul's defective memory vomits forth some random occurrences from his youth in no particular order.'

This week my memory is jogged by something I wrote last week. After mentioning Buckshot George; the older boy we hung out with/harassed; being somewhat on the larger side, something went ping in my head and I was suddenly awash with thoughts of a lad in my class that I was quite good friends with for a brief period there. His name was Sam (it wasn't), and I'm a little ashamed that I've never thought to mention him on here before, and also that it took thinking about 'fat' kids to make me remember him at all.

Anyway, let me tell you about Sam...

There are two major things that I remember about Sam...well, actually there are three, but we won't go into the feelings I had about his older sister.

The first, is that we had, for a while, an arrangement where every Monday night we'd go to each others house for tea. One week I'd go to his, the next he'd come to mine, etc... I remember that whenever I went to his, there would be a huge meal laid on, and when he came to mine it'd be beans on toast or bangers and mash. At the time I thought that his other was going to special trouble because I was there, and my own mother was letting the side down by not reciprocating; now I realise that that was just how the two families ate.

One weekend, from out of the blue, my mother announced that he wasn't to come up that Monday, or any subsequent Monday for that matter. No explanation was given; he simply wasn't welcome. Now, I was completely at a loss as to why this lad was my friend at all, so I was convinced that my telling him that he wasn't welcome at my house any more would send him scurrying away. Plus, what would I actually say? How do you tell someone your mum doesn't want them in your house?

I went to school that Monday, and I put it off all day but as home time rolled around I knew I had to say something. Little hands sweating rivers I took him to one side, not wanting to be embarrassed in front of anyone else, and told him. He took it well, so well in fact that you might almost think he didn't really care one way or the other, the swine.

Next day though, he had a message for me. If he wasn't allowed at my house, I wasn't allowed at his.  Fair's fair, I suppose, but I did have a little moment of sorrow that I wouldn't see his sister any more.

The second major thing I remember about him was the time we were preparing for Christmas at school, and each class was assigned a certain piece of the decorations to make for the hall. We were instructed to create giant cows, to hang up in the 'maids a'milking' section. Easy enough you might think; especially since we were provided with the huge cardboard cutouts and all we had to do was paint them.

WRONG! Some of the sights we came up with were like something from an Italian horror movie from the 80's. Which, considering this was happening in the 8-0's, is probably appropriate, when you think about it.

Here's the thing though; his table produced a cow that's spots were... well... I basically told them that they had painted a cow with measles. Which was funny. Once. The 2nd time, not so much, the 3rd time not at all, and by the 10th time I'd made the cow with measles joke the frustration was ready to boil out of their nostrils. So of course I kept going.

That breaktime, he threw me up against a wall, backed into me with his not inconsiderable bulk, and started pulling on my arms over his shoulders. Am I describing that right? He was crushing me and stretching me at the same time. God knows what any adults passing the fence must have thought of this scene of torture, with one boy screaming in agony and the other yelling that 'my cow doesn't have fucking measles!'

Still, I'm sure it brightened up their day.

Those are my two most enduring memories of 'Sam'. We stayed friends through all of Primary School, but when it came to Comprehensive School he was one of the 'friends for a while out of habit but just another face in the corridor after a while' group. I'm a little saddened at that, now that I'm thinking of it.

Anyway, no idea what I'll be talking about next week. You'll have to click on to find out. Until then, don't forget to eat plenty of cheese.

Losing Touch, the Comprehensive School Way

Hiya! Still waffling about my school days. Have a read, if you like. I don't really care to be honest; if you're seeing this I've already got the view statistic, so you've exhausted your usefulness to me. Mwahahahahaha.

Ahem...

Last week, I spoke of my induction trip to my future Comprehensive School, from my final year of Primary. I focused on the embarrassment of being locked in a confined space with a bunch of people with only me knowing that I had burglarised said enclosed space a few scant weeks earlier. There was another aspect to that trip though, that I never talked of. The sadness factor.

I started at Chapel Street Primary in the second year of Juniors (Year 4 to you modern types) after my mother left my father and blah blah blah; read about it here if you like; and when I did there was a lad in 4th year (Year 6, and that's the last time I'm doing the conversion for you) who was, to put it bluntly, fat. Does that seem unduly harsh? Well, that's because it is. It's true though, and though it brings me no pleasure to say it, we made much mockery of him.

The mockery was meant, however, in good humour. We liked him; in large part because he was pretty much the only one of the untouchable 4th years who would give us the time of day. Admittedly, the time of day he gave us was usually filled with us attacking him and attempting to wrestle him to the ground. Because he was large. Do you see? Of course you do.

I've often wondered, looking back on this big boned fellow who made such an impact on my life as a youngster but whose name I can no longer recall; let us call him Buckshot George, for 'tis a good name; whether it's more likely that he enjoyed our company, and the constant wrestling matches at every break and lunchtime, or that he just took it because he felt he had no choice and was crying on the inside. Who knows?

Of course it's also possible that he knew we weren't being deliberately malicious, and chose to accept our 'friendly' mockery because the people in his own year were not quite so well meaning in their treatment of him. I certainly think that had he had many friends his own age, he'd probably not have been so willing to spend all his time with us.

Anyway, regardless of whether he genuinely liked us or he hated the very bones of us, the fact was that when we came back for 3rd year and he was gone; whisked off to the dreaded Big School, we were gutted. Now what would we do with our breaktimes? So when the time came for us to go on this trip to aforementioned Big School, I got all excited. I would see Buckshot George. Yippee!

You know where this is going right? We got there, we did our tour, I served my sentence in the interrogation chamber/made some cupcakes in the Home Ec. labs, and when it came time for lunch in the big fancy cafeteria I saw him sitting at one of the tables and made sure to catch his eye as we went past and... he looked at me like I was, well, it wasn't distaste or disdain in his eyes, it was incomprehension and confusion. Basically, he didn't have a fucking clue who I was.

That, my friends, will rip your guts out.

Of course, we all know that that's what happens when you go from Primary to Secondary education. It's the line from Stand By Me, about (and I'm paraphrasing) your best friends become just faces in the halls. Sad but inevitable.

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm quite reluctant to move on to my secondary years on this blog. It's because I genuinely don't want to leave the Appleton Crescent/ Chapel Street Primary/ Brancepeth Boys years behind. They don't sound like much when I describe them on here, but they really were the best years of my life, and remembering them for these posts has brought many a smile to my face.

So in that vein, next week I'll tell you a tale of another friend of mine from Primary. 

Guilty Conscience

I don't know how it is in your country; he says, in a blatant attempt to have an excuse to mention his mahoosive* audience in the US, Germany, and the Ukraine; but in the UK, when you near the end of Primary School (age 11), you are taken on what is called an induction visit to the school you will be attending for next, and final, five years of compulsory education.

Or at least, that's what happened when I was a lad. It's probably all changed now, most things have. Anyway, this is the tale of what happened when I went on my induction trip. Enjoy. Or at least do your best to fake a fair approximation of enjoyment. For me, yeah?

It had been decided, via whatever arcane sorcery is used to decide these things, that the school I would attend would be a little place called Parkside Comprehensive School. Now Parkside was a little bit unique (I KNOW THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE DON'T SHOUT AT ME) as Comprehensive schools go, in that it was split over two separate locations; not a few streets away or even on opposite sides of town, but in two separate towns.

The first two years would attend classes in one town and then years 3-5, or 9-11 as we were constantly told we must refer to them; this being just about the time that that whole new numbering system was being implemented; would attend classes in the larger complex in the other town.

Now you would think that since the point of an induction visit is to get you acquainted with the world you're about to enter, we would visit the complex that took first years. However, the teachers were boxing a bit clever, and in what I'm sure was just an attempt to save on bus fuel it was decided that all of the local Primary schools would take their pupils to whichever complex was nearest. Which meant my class would go to the larger complex. Which meant I shat my pants.

Now, the idea of going somewhere I'd never been, to meet people I'd never met, who would essentially be controlling my life for the next 5 years, would have been anxiety inducing enough to have me waking up in the night in a cold sweat for weeks in advance; which meant I really didn't need anything else to worry about on top. I had it though, in the shape of a little thing called 'oh shit, what if I give the game away paranoia.

You see, the school we were about to visit was this school, and the events in question were still very much fresh in my mind. The whole thing was doing my anxiety no good at all.

The big day arrived and we all trooped from one school to the other; single file, teacher at either end of the train, hold hands to cross the road, stop sniggering back there boy; and when we arrived we were met by one of the most intimidating figures I've ever known. He was the Head, whom I shall call Mr J, and I can't tell you why we all felt such instant fear when we met him. He was tall, dressed really smartly, had a head of silver hair, and was incredibly well spoken, so perhaps we thought he was a Bond villain, but I don't recall him doing anything particularly nasty or strict. In fact, I don't recall much of anything about him, because he was always a big fan of delegation, leaving his Department heads and heads of year to do all that awful 'dealing with kids' malarkey.

We were split up into groups and told that each group would only be touring a fraction of the school. This boosted my spirits somewhat; what were the chances that I would be in the group that...oh, home economics you say? And that's...cooking, right. So the kitchens then? Brilliant.

They've knocked down and rebuilt huge swathes! Didn't recognise the place. That's the spot though.

My arse has never been clenched so tight in all my days. We went through the doors and my eyes went straight to the spot where we'd taken the microwave (it had been replaced) before swiveling to the window we'd come in through (it had been repaired) and then, in a fit of panic, to the teacher doing the tour to make sure he wasn't looking at me (he wasn't).

You see, in my head, this was all too much of a coincidence. The fact that we had come to this school rather than the one we'd actually be attending, the fact that I just happened to be on the group that came to this particular section of the school; I was convinced it was some weird, elaborate sting operation to out me as the great microwave thief of Olde Willington Towne. Nonsense, obviously, but the mind will play tricks.

We spent half a day in those bloody kitchens, baking cupcakes. Now I liked cupcakes as much as the next pre-pubescent boy but I couldn't quite get into the spirit of the exercise. Can't think why.

And that's the tale of what happened to me when I went on an induction visit to a school I wasn't even due to start at for another two years. I hope it wasn't too boring. And if it was, keep it to yourself, yeah? There's no need to hurt anyone's feelings. Tata for now.

*Given that non-English speaking readers are probably relying on google translate or similar, I should probably tone down the made up words, eh? Although when you think about it, aren't all words 'made up'? If they weren't, we'd all be pointing at trees and saying Ug, am I right?

The Beginning of the End

As much as I enjoyed the bulk of our time in the worlds friendliest street there were, of course, occasional bad times, due perhaps to the rest of the world being jealous of our idyllic lives and conspiring to ruin our fun, out of pure spiteful malice.

One such occasion was when the wasteland which acted as our playground, and which we so cherished, was cruelly ripped from us by the Dread Lords of property Development Hell. Yes, it was sold. To be built on!

Outraged, we were. Outraged, and vocal about said outrage. Also, 10. Apparently the desire of a bunch of delinquent youths to play on some condemned waste ground did not trump a development deal worth hundreds of thousands. I know, I was shocked too. Still, whining made us feel better.

May possibly have had a more worthwhile cause than us. Slightly.

Of course, as anyone who was ever a mischievous imp (badly behaved little shit) will tell you, there are other ways than verbal to register disgust. Like, and I'm just brainstorming here, wholesale vandalism. As the nights drew in we would sneak from our homes (say we were going out), approach the building site with all due stealth (run across the road) and bring down the mighty wrath of the righteous (tear open a few bags of cement before getting bored and playing Somme in the foundation trenches). Oh, as covert resistance went, the Maquis had nothing on us. Of course we didn't couch it in those terms, being uneducated louts.

Besides, The Next Generation hadn't even started on BBC2 yet.*

After a while a night security guard was assigned to the site. I'd like to tell you that it was because of us, but since we did about as much damage as a gnat trying to bring down Chessington World of Adventure, it seems far more likely to have been something to do with the older kids getting drunk and trying to hot-wire a jcb.

 

Our resistance movement had failed; the building work continued apace and soon enough, the wasteground was gone.

It may seem a small thing, but looking back at that time now, it's obvious to me that that construction project was the beginning of the end for that sense of community we all loved so much; the friendliest street in the world was doomed.

*Eh? Eh? Because Maquis. Oh, suit yourself.