Not just fading high of being away but the return to a cold empty house.
The feeling that you have indeed reached middle age. Where, before, you used to do a quick turn around and off to the pub, hills, gym or footy, you now just want a bit of peace and quiet.
Having returned, made my feeble contributions to dealing with the laundry, sucked all the desiccated insects that were decorating the floor into the swirling vortex of death that is Mr Dyson and settled back into sleeping in a real bed, Sunday was to be the quiet, relaxing day I craved. The last day before I returned to the circus. A chill out.
Big, lardy breakfast – sausage, eggy thing, bacon, black pudding, tattie scones, fried bread.
Lashings of fresh, hot Italian coffee.
The Sunday papers and some sounds.
The only thing spoiling it was the slightly dubious quality of the weather.
Life is good.
Mid afternoon my girls announced they were making chocolate chip cookies.
Whey Hey.
Life is good.
Let’s get some more of that caffeine buzz going – stick on another pot.
One slight flaw in the cookies plan was that they weren’t able to mix up the ingredients properly but hey, this is what parenting is all about (at least that’s what I’m told – ‘get out of that bunker and be part of this family’, or something along those lines, is nearer the truth)
Anyway, in my surrogate comfort zone, the kitchen, I’m trying to be a casual observer, making sure they don’t need any help.
Picture the scene of domestic bliss…
I’ve my two little darlings spreading sugar, flour and cocoa powder all over the shop.
I’ve got Jersey Girl thumping out of the iPod dock and I’ve got…
No f4cking chocolate chips!!!
“Why didn’t you check first?
Can’t you use something else?
What about smarties or M+Ms?
Did you check in the bottom unit next to the sink?”
“Lets have a look in here. Mum’s always got some chocolate smuggled away in here...
Aw shit! Who put the burst bag of cereal in the cupboard -
And what’s all this little black stuff …”
“Oh f4ck!” We have an uninvited guest.
An unwanted, rodent flavoured resident.
Kids, go and get the mousetraps back from your granny.
As I renew my acquaintance with Mr Dyson and set about disinfecting the entire kitchen, I hear a loud bang behind me.
I look behind, hoping that maybe granny or mum has spotted said rodent and splatted it with a shovel but no, nothing.
Hmmm...
Back to the cupboards.
Then, in come granny, grandad, mum, kids and the moustraps.
“Ah coffee”, as they view what was to be my second pot of the day.
“milk in the fridge?”
“What’s all this brown stuff in the fridge?” someone asks.
“Surely the rat faced little bastard hasn’t got in there too”, I think as I go to investigate.
Being the only person in the household capable of dealing with abstract concepts, I do this alone, with every one peering over my shoulder.
“Aw shit!” I think, once again.
Because our fridge is a crap product designed by someone who has never had to use a fridge before and has no idea of the concept that it is designed to hold beer, coke and left over curry, the moulded Perspex shelves have long since shattered or split and have been discarded in favour of 6mm thick Perspex sheet strong enough to hold a crate and a half of Coors. Unfortunately, with the mounded shelves went the lip that stopped such items touching the back of the unit where it gets all frosty.
Now, a can of coke has rolled against the back of the freezer, frozen, expanded and exploded, covering everything in its path with a semi frozen, brown gloop. It looks like Mr Frosty have puked in my fridge.
I shut the door and return to my exercise in pest control inwardly wishing I taken a more active part in the laundry. Surely I’m being punished by some superior being.
Needless to say, my efforts ran into the making of dinner and I eventually surfaced around 7.30 but at least we now have a sparkling clean fridge and kitchen cupboards.
Also, the cupboard under the eaves gets the same treatment and my mouse eaten rucksack goes for a long hike in the wheelie bin.
Eventually after dinner, I get to the bunker about half past eight thinking 'I must upload at least a couple things for next week'.
All is quiet. The kids have gone for showers. Then, the sound I was dreading.
“Da-ad” goes my youngest
“Da-ad” goes my eldest
“Daaaaad” go both of them in unison
Oh what the f4ckin' hell have I got to do to get some peace around here?
“Spiiiider” goes the united cry from upstairs.
Living where I do, on the very edge of the city, we get all sorts of things in the house.
The predators that would normally keep the balance in the wild aren’t quite ready for the suburban lifestyle so, given the histrionics from upstairs, I am expected to play predator. Judging by the noise, I’m expecting something resembling a nest of f4cking tables (maybe it was a f4cking nest of tables, I’m not sure) with a body like a zeppelin.
For the third time in a single day, I equip my self with Mr Dyson and trudge wearily up the stairs.
I’m greeted by the two kids and their mother babbling incoherently about babies.
As I square up to my prey I see a mother with lots of little baby spiders running around her.
“I CAN’T KILL THAT. That’s genocide”
“Just get rid of it,” I’m told.
Even mini St Francis is clearly a bit freaked.
Now, feeling like a mass murderer, I know I have no option but to suck the whole lot into the Dyson in the hope that they survive the vacuum and the dust long enough for me to empty them outside.
This teaches me absolutely f4ck all other that, if there is a supreme being at work then he isn’t really too bothered about the mice or the woodlice or the spiders but if I get a little peace and quiet and some time away from work, he sure as hell is gonna call in payback time when I get home.
I think little Jerry mouse has now gone to meet the spiders and the pill bugs because, having successfully defeated the humane traps I set on three successive nights, he has also been partaking of the poison I set.
I see the humane traps are now undisturbed and I feel a little uneasy about it.
Middle age is making me soft.
I never did get my coffee or my cookies. I guess that's what I deserve but at least I'm not at the stage where people sympathetically say "...you look good"
To the music...
the magical Tom Waits in brilliantly humourous mood, cracking some great banter between songs...
Tom Waits - Rats And Angry Flowers
http://rapidshare.com/files/131970912/Rats_And_Angry_Flowers.rar
...the genius of the Go Betweens together alone and in concert...
Robert Forster & Grant McLennan - Radio B2, Munich, 27 May 1999
http://rapidshare.com/files/131962116/Radio_B2__Munich__27_May_1999.rar
...to another great antipodean genius...
The Triffids - Live at Alabama Café
http://rapidshare.com/files/132018204/Live_at_Alabama_Caf_.rar
The Triffids - Australian Melodrama
http://rapidshare.com/files/131978009/Australian_Melodrama.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/131984499/Australian_Melodrama_2.rar
...and another...
Nick Cave - iTunes Live London Sessions EP
http://rapidshare.com/files/132035471/Nick_Cave_-_iTunes_Live_London_Sessions_EP__2008_.rar
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The First Born Is Dead
http://rapidshare.com/files/132040914/Nick_Cave___The_Bad_Seeds_-_The_First_Born_Is_Dead__1985_.rar
ex Alarm guitarists solo album...
Dave Sharp - Downtown America
http://rapidshare.com/files/131997229/Downtown_America.rar
and ex Pistols, PiL, Skids and Slik members in what was surely the original Casbah Club or Dead Men Walking...
Rich Kids - Ghosts Of Princes In Towers
http://rapidshare.com/files/132002147/Ghosts_Of_Princes_In_Towers.rar
...the genius that was bird house in your soul...
They Might Be Giants - Here Comes The ABCs
http://rapidshare.com/files/132006391/Here_Comes_The_ABCs__2005_.rar
and the voice of son volt and uncle tupelo...
Jay Farrar - Sebastopol (2001)
http://rapidshare.com/files/132013114/Jay_Farrar_-_Sebastopol__2001_.rar
As promised, first of a few The The related boots...
Matt Johnson - Melkweg, Amsterdam - 01-25-2000 http://rapidshare.com/files/132031135/Melkweg__Amsterdam_-_01-25-2000.rar
and finally, going out with a bang...
The Godfathers - Birth, School, Work, Death
http://rapidshare.com/files/131989923/Birth__School__Work__Death.rar
and another...
The Clash - London Calling (The Vanilla Tapes)http://rapidshare.com/files/132024279/London_Calling__The_Vanilla_Tapes_.rar
More at the weekend.
Cheers
Hooli
7 comments:
Back with a bang, Hooli! Great to see more Triffids and Godfathers. Don't suppose you've got access to the Godfather's 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' promo cd by any chance? That would make my entire year. In fact it'd more than make that letter I'll be getting from my ISP worthwhile...
Keep up the good work and don't let the buggers... etc etc.
Oh, and welcome home, by the way...
If only for the Dave Sharp album. I will be eternally greatful.
Don't suppose you have his first album?
Back with a bang indeed! Hope the family holiday was a success! You're a braver man than I! My thanks for the 'Nick Cave' and, of course, 'The The'! I still get Matt after all these years!
Hope you don't mind if I add another long comment! But you only have yourself to blame...
On one of many forgettable/unforgettable nights back on the road, some years ago, after some gig or other, a friend commented, over one or three vodkas too many, "We've become the people our parents warned us about"! We laughed and, no doubt, had another drink...I met that same guy on a recent trip back to Ireland, he introduced me to the wife, two kids and another on the way! Later that evening, he mustered up a few more friends from back in the day and all seemed happy to show up, sit down and talk about the old days - though I discovered later that most of them see each other on a regular basis! Apparently my visit was just the impetus they needed for a trip down memory lane! Of course, as the evening went on and the drinks flowed, the hints of regret started to come thick and fast! All are married now, with stable jobs, all have kids, or kids on the way. This particular topic, kids, seemed to draw the biggest groans. When they all turned to me to ask for some similar story to re-connect me to them, I could only offer up that my last girlfriend was 23! Needless to say, the evening didn't progress much past that comment! My point, apart from wallowing in my good fortune! - Had I remained back there, I would no doubt be towing that particular party line, wife, kids, the medical practice my parents always dreamed of before my "damned music" came and took me away! Obviously, I'm not condemning parenthood or remaining close to home and what you know. It just wasn't for me! And music opened the door for me, gave me a chance to escape not only that present, but that future too! And it's my music, my fountain of youth, cheesy though it seems, that keeps me...relatively young...but always hopeful!
So thanks again, for another stellar post and sorry for another lengthy comment...oh, by the way...you look good, man...
Guys,
Thanks again for the comments.
No joy on any of the requests I'm afraid. As ever, I'll keep looking.
I will post some more Godfathers sometime soon but all this stuff takes ages to upload.
Letters from the ISP? Don't get me started!
Cheers
Hooli
Boz
The very words I was dreading...
I suppose even if it is a sympathetic lie 'you look good' still sounds better than 'lookin' like shit today dude'
Relatively young and hopeful, now that is good, depending on what you're hoping for and also what youth is relative to.
Regardless, it's better than being genuinely young and hopeless, a trait of much of todays twenty somethings.
I'm thinking here of the two female passengers who got so pissed up the crew refused them any more drink. They then decided to open the door of the 737 they were on so they could get some fresh air - at 30000 feet - assholes!
At the end of it all, we do what we do.
Good or bad, right or wrong, we all either end up as worm food or scattered over the Cairngorms or such like (hopefully I won't end up in a little urn on the mantle piece).
I guess your mates were jealous of your freedom but would they actually want to cope with your life any more than you would want to cope with theirs.
Maybe not but whatever their misfortunes, they had a choice.
Personally, I have no regrets about marriage, kids or anything I have done in life (well almost anything).
What I do regret are the things I never did or the things I never said.
Despite joking about middle age, being around the mid 40s mark, I know that age is just a number. It's the one I get when I subtract 1962 from this year (clever eh! - you can see who's the brains in my family).
I worked that one out as a little aide memoire for when I get aul' timers disease but until then, I'm with you, music is one of the things that keeps me going.
My definition of youth...
Freedom of mind and spirit will let you do things you want to do within the framework of your life.
If you can't flick off the maturity switch and free your mind, it's gone but remember...
The fountain of youth is a mighty strange place.
I drank from it once and I didn't like the taste...
Cheers
Hooli
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