Dogs n Stuff

Micah has Brylcreem in his head hair to protect it and stop the plaits matting.




FUNNY

A Dog is for life, not just Friday nights.

I saw it on a t-shirt and it made me laugh out loud and caused other people to stare at me. Another older one I saw which I thought was clever and funny was 'if you think I'm a bitch you should meet my mother'.

SWIMMING

Well, I managed only 70 laps today. The water was cold. Deliberately because they are holding a gala tomorrow and the water needs to be cold for competitive swimming. It didn't make me faster at all, the opposite in fact. It hurt. My muscles and bones do not do cold very well. No swimming tomorrow or Monday as Monday is a public holiday.

VISITORS

Yesterday, Paul and Fiona came up from Havant to show me Micah's litter. Very nice they were two. A boy, Hugo and a girl, Lara will be run on. I just realised that we didn't photograph them! Still we did picture the others. My favourite was a tiny little toy poodle named Ellie. She was a real character. Not my type of dog at all but she won my heart in about a minute. I'd have had her. She weighed about 2lbs I would think. A real show off and a future champion I am sure.

CLOTHES

I have bought 4 new jackets recently, all in a 42R (UK size i.e. inches). I have had to take most of my other jackets and clothes to the charity shops. I also have another waistcoat and two new bow ties. Now I have several different outfits to show my dogs wearing. I may have to start taking two pairs of trousers to shows, one light and one dark, as Micah is golden and Whitney is black.

HOW WE ARE

I am sure you know that we see the world how we are and not how it is. We see the world through the filter of our brains. We do not see it as it is but how our brains interpret it to be. There is much we do not see as our brains are not equipped to so.

The same can be said about each other. We don't see others how they are but how we are. We react to others according to how we are, not how they are. One person may feel compassion for another, whilst that same other person may elicit anger in someone else. You and I may feel very differently about the same person. We may not understand this is so, so we are caused more discomfort when we discover that people we might consider bad or worthless are not considered by others. Adolph Hitler was loved, (and was lovable), by those close to him. This makes many of us really uncomfortable. It makes him human, which of course he was, though that thought makes us even more uncomfortable. Again, not because of who he was and what he did but because of who we are and the meanings we have created.

Don't misunderstand, no one is saying that this man did not do evil things, but that we see him and his acts according to how we are. There are those who, because how they are, see him as a hero. We who see him differently do so because we are different and have created different meanings.

These thoughts spring from the understanding that children are abused(or adults for that matter) not because of the way the abusee is but because of the way the abuser is. A child is not battered because s/he is naughty but because the adult is deficient. A woman is not raped because she wore provocative clothes but because the man was deficient. A child is not molested because they were pretty, or because they had already been victimised, or because they craved love and attention, or because they asked for it. They are molested because the person doing it is deficient.

WEIRD

I went to Simpson's for my dog supplies on Thursday. I was chatting to Jackie and during our conversation, I told he of my blog. Her response was to say 'well, that's your legacy isn't it?'. I was astounded by her comment in light of my post the other day! I hadn't said anything at all to her about my blog or about my feeling of not having contributed anything or being remembered.
It is stuff like that makes leaves one awestruck. Why would she say such a thing, out of the blue like that? I bet she isn't even aware that she said it.

I was thinking about what I wrote the other day and realised that
1. I was tired and in pain.
2. not feeling brilliant in my mood and
3. buying into old programming that taught me that a man is nothing without a job and nothing if he doesn't pass on his genes. Bollocks of course. (Old family voices are not always easy to quiet and whilst one would love to be rid of them for good, it is not likely to happen.)

SHE'S FUNNY, IS GOD

I have thought for many years that God, if She exists, has a sense of humour and sense of when to quit. My parents had three gay sons. No daughters. I think that God suits God's sense of humour, or at least mine at any rate, and makes damn sure it really does end with this generation. We will not be passing on our crap to any other children. So it is both funny and sensible to me.

KNITTING

I have got very close to finishing off those socks I keep going on about! At least I know have aname for them. Tirol.

A Bigger Splash

I have been and done my swim. 80 laps this morning. I didn't want to get up either but the dogs don't let me lie in. I have increased my laps because 64(a mile) had become much easier to do and faster, without me trying to increase speed. In fact, speed is not what i want but endurance-better for my heart, my joints. My left arm went to sleep more or less as soon as I started this morning and it is still not right now. It'll wake up at some point, it always does. It feels strange though until then.

I also went to Tesco on the way back from the pool. They are refitting it and there is very little disabled parking out the front now and many of those spaces are taken by non disabled badge holders. Not only did I find a space out front but the store was actually stocked!

I bathed Nechung yesterday, much to her disgust. Shameless is being groomed daily and has 20 days to go now, though probably only about 17 as mine tend to come early.

I am dying to show off my new twisted stitch socks but will not until they are completed. Almost there. I am also on the final sleeve of the sweater I buggered up by doing raglan sleeves for a set in body!

I am eyeing some cashmere/viscose I have in a deep purple/blue. I think I shall turn it into a plain raglan sleeved sweater with a roll collar.

I am still hoping someone out there is going to offer suggestions as to what to do with my 16 machines and tonnes of coned yarn. Anyone interested? Is ebay the way to go? Whatya thunk?

A Just World?

I have given much thought to the subject of justice. It is apparent to me that we do not live in a just world. 'The wicked prosper and their young frolic like dear', to quote Joni Mitchell in her 'Job's Sad Song'.

There was a time I thought my brothers and father (my mother is dead) did not mean the harm they caused me and would be horrified to know they had caused me so much pain. I know now that it is not true. They have made a conscious choice to do as they have done and are doing. How people can live with such wickedness I have no idea.

If we have free will and there is justice, the only way i can see that being so is if we chose to come into this physical world. In other words we exist before we are born and decide to be born and decide the circumstances we are born into. I do not believe we decide the events of our lives before hand. This is of course a pretty big IF.

There are those that say life is a gift. I don't see that. If it was a gift, it is a gift I'd rather have done without. No, I do not have a death wish, far from it. I enjoy what I have now but that is because i have done the best I can with what I had. I am just still of the opinion that I would rather not have had my life at all.

I fail to see life as a gift when babies are born into war and famines and pain and disease.

We are so obsessed with this idea of life being a gift that we allow people, human beings, to die in agony rather than show them compassion as we do animals. In this country at least if we allowed an animal to die the way some people do, we would be prosecuted and rightly so.

There is nothing that can be done to give me back my youth, my childhood, my mental capacity, the use of my intelligence, the freedom that was taken from me. The years of which I had to spend surviving instead of making a career for myself, perhaps as a vet. Yes I was lucky, I met John and he kept me out of the gutter. I am profoundly grateful for that. I am profoundly grateful I was not born in a prison camp, an aids baby or any number of worse situations. However, none of those considerations alters the fact I had what I had and will leave this life having taken much from those who helped me survive and given very little. I won't be remembered and rightly so. I have contributed very little. I am somewhat surprised this means so much to me but it does. I please myself, I have the freedom to do as I wish (within financial constraints) and that is an enviable position, I know. yet I have gone from being so f'd up that I couldn't function and therefore needed help to now being not so f'd up but now physically f'd up so that I continue to be in the debt of others.

Whatever it is, it isn't just. I don't know what is. I am not of the opinion that vengeance and punishment serve any purpose. None at all. There is nothing I can do to anyone that will make it okay, that will recompense me, that will wipe it clean. Nothing.

The only defence one has left is to not drink of the poison of hatred. Instead let go and live. Justice will perhaps come after death or if death is it, then it will not matter a jot anyway. It will all have been for naught.

There is so much more to life than we understand. Life is short and painful and certainly far too short to grow enough in one life time. God forbid there be more than one life time though :-0

Or maybe it is just as we see it-it ends and that is it.

A Thousand Faces

I'D RATHER BE HATED FOR WHO I AM THAN LOVED FOR WHO I AM NOT.

I first came across this saying a few years ago. It resonated with me then but today I really understand how true it is for me.

If I recall correctly, it was originally a reference to coming out as gay. In other words, I'd rather take the shit than not be who I really am.

To me it means far more than this.

In an ideal word, I would have loved, and still would, a family that loved me and accepted me. I never had that and I never will. The only way I could have a semblance of one is by me becoming someone else. I say a semblance of one because of course if I have to not be me in order for them to accept me, then it would be a big lie.

I would have to pretend that my childhood didn't happen. I would have to pretend that I had kind and loving parents who always treated me well and taught me self love and not self hate. I would have to pretend that I had two brothers who were loyal and moral. In short I would have to deny myself totally. I have spent almost 50 years in the battle to preserve me and I will not give that up for anything or anyone.

I spent much of my life being whatever I thought those around me wanted. I was different things to different people. I never succeeded. Certainly as regards my family, no matter what, I'd end up battered and hurt. I could never figure it out. I could never be what they wanted me to be nor could I figure out what they wanted me to be. I just knew I wasn't good enough for them. I realised eventually that it wasn't about who I was but about who they were.

Being liked used to be very important. It was my priority. It meant safety to me. If you liked me, I was safe. You wouldn't abuse me. Being liked meant not being killed.

The need to be liked caused me to behave in ways I don't like, that I consider wrong. It caused me to not speak up when I ought to have, to not do what I ought to have and to do what I ought not have. It caused me more and more shame. Inside I knew I was not enough. I had been taught this well. I certainly was not enough for my father and mother or for the Church or any other form of religion I was exposed to. I had to earn love and safety. I had to not be me.

In class once the teacher was going around the room asking each of us what we wanted to be when we grew up. We were all about 14 I think. The answers were varied, anything from a doctor to a teacher to a mechanic. When it came to me, I answered 'I want to be someone else'. The teacher found it easier to assume I was being smart.

Today, I do not want to be anyone else. I am happy with who I am. I no longer pretend. I no longer try and earn anyone's like or love. I have people in my life who love me as I am. They know the real me, not a me I pretend to be. I am not liked or loved because of what I do for them or because I agree with their world view or because I flatter their ego. They like and love ME.

Carly Simon wrote a song (with Jacon Brackman) on her second album, Anticipation, called The Girl You Think You See and this song is about being what you think others want you to be.

Tell me who you long for
In your secret dreams
Go on and tell me who you wish I was
Instead of me

*******************************
Who cares what I might be for real
Underneath my games
Ill let you chose from a thousand faces
And a thousand names


Even back when I was 15 and first heard this, it made me uncomfortable. I was not fully conscious of why back then and wasn't to be until recently.

This freedom I feel is breathtaking. It is new. It is scary. It is weird. I have to remind myself a lot that I am free now. I am not awaking with dread in my gut daily. Sometimes I do and I just have to tell myself that I am safe, not a child , my family are not around, and there is no school today.


I hated school from 12 onwards. I was bullied on a daily basis. Spat on, punched, kicked, nicknamed 'shit', called, queer and pansy,mocked, and treated like I didn't matter. Not just by pupils but my teachers too who either were just as nasty or ignored my plight. To me, it was all just confirmation of the opinion my parents had of me and an extension of their treatment of me. Like a good boy, I never truanted either. I went and faced it daily. I never ran. I never defended myself. Instead I disassociated and went somewhere else inside me when the bad stuff was happening. I never showed any emotion at all.


I thought for many years that my peers treated me like that and name called because they knew that I was involved sexually with the paedophile teacher. That is how I saw it. I didn't know I was being abused. I also didn't understand that I had no choice. It did not occur to me then, because I had been taught so well, to not do as I was told. If I had said no to this man he might have done what my father did when I was not obedient and I was too sacred of that.


Besides, I wanted to do I was told, to be a good boy. More than anything I wanted to be a good boy. This man treated me well, so I thought. He didn't hit me or shout at me. He spoke nicely and touched me without hurting me. He hugged me, something my own never has never done. He didn't look at me with disgust. He didn't tell me I disgusted him. He didn't tell me how stupid I was, or how useless I was. In fact he treated me the opposite of the way my father treated me. And I fell for it. The fact I would not have dared not do as this man said didn't occur to me. I didn't see the price I was paying. I didn't see the evil in what he was doing. I didn't see how I was being lied to.


I was in my 30's and telling my therapist about one of the few people who had treated me kindly and I was telling him about this man. As I was telling about him, it dawned on me that I had been abused. That this man who I had thought had loved me in fact hated me. In fact didn't care for me at all. I had been conned. It broke my heart. Again.

SKC

I got back from the SKC show in Scotland at 1am Monday. I had been up 24 hrs by that point. I will not do that again. I'll stay the night and before and the night after with my friend or in a hotel. I shall also have to think seriously about attending the Scottish shows. Yesterday, I was fit for nothing, not even knitting. However, I did much sleeping and resting and this morning have done 74 laps of the pool.

Micah was 2nd (again!) in his class and Whitney was 3rd in hers. This was her first show and she qualified for Cruft's 09 with this placement. She is the 10th dog I have qualified for Cruft's. 8 Lhasa Apso that I have bred myself, 2 I didn't breed and two Mini Longhaired Dax that I bred.

Whitney was such a good girl, she showed her heart out. Like another I use dot have, at training school and home she didn't really do it and I was concerned that she wouldn't at the show. However, she knew when to 'switch it on' and did so. Funny how they know this. The other one I had, like Whitney, flatly refused to 'show' unless she was at a show. How they know I do not know.

Micah always shows well because he struts at the shows. whenever he is around other dogs, he thinks he is going to get lucky!

I had heard many complaints about the judge over the last few years. My feeling was it was sour grapes and I trusted that this man knew his stuff. He did. however, the complaints are well founded! His manner and apparent attitude left an awful lot to be desired. Still, it is principle before personality with me and so how he is is not important but his knowledge of the breed and his fairness is what counts. Those that want to bitch needn't enter. they do of course and continue to bitch!

Scotland

I am off to Scotland today. Or rather I am off to Hartlepool as I will sleep with my friend Linda tonight and we will go together to Edinburgh in the early hours.

As it was last year, it is going to be cold so I will wear my tights and sweater. I will still dress as I normally do in the ring-hat, jacket, shirt, tie etc but will still need to keep warm when not in the ring. I already started to dose up. I hope I don't fall in the ring as I did at WELKS. no harm done to any dogs or to me but it does reinforce the need to make sure I rest enough before going in the ring and that I take my time and do not try and do things as if I am not disabled! Silly really as the stick sort of gives it away and my gait....

I am taking Micah who is already bathed up and ready. I am also taking Whitney. She is exactly 6mths old and this is her first show.

A Civilised Nation?

The Land Of The Free?


Hopefully, those who do believe in equal rights and treatment and opportunity under the law will hold sway.

Ouch! Pardon? Snip! Suck and Saved

OUCH!

I have discovered something which I suppose should have been obvious. Yesterday I felt capable of walking the dogs. I have to do it in two rounds as I can't handle all of them together. Between rounds i took pain killers as I was limping badly after the first round. The pills did their job. I had no impinging pain the rest of the day. I remembered to take another dose before I went to give my talk and demonstration. I knew to do this as last time I had to sit down after only a few minutes into my work. It worked well and though I was tired when done, again no impinging pain.

That is until this morning! I awoke and was in pain. I couldn't get out of bed immediately. I laid there annoyed and thinking to myself that I would not be going swimming. I didn't go. I got up an hour later than usual, after I had figured out how to launch myself out of bed. Lui had already announced by his barking that it was time I was up! This encouraged the others to join in the call for me get up. I politely yelled at them to shut the **** up. Nechung chose this morning to be all lovey dovey with me and made it harder for to get up.

The long and short of it is I stupidly thought that as I was taking meds I could do as I wished and my body would not react. I really didn't expect to have the pain associated with what I did once the meds wore of. So today I will do nothing except the essentials. I need to be fit for Scotland this weekend.

PARDON?

I received an email from a person who truly believes that the Church ( I assume the RC) is and has been a staunch supporter of the rights of women and children and slaves and that they have been at the forefront of bringing education to the masses and also at the forefront of the discoveries made in science. The Church has also always stood up for Jews.

I wonder where this person went to school and by whom she was taught.

I have no trust at all in people whose faith involves damnation for disbelief. Having such a belief can only bring heartache and evil. World Trade Centre? Killing in the name of their God. Committing evil acts because to do otherwise would bring personal damnation. Rejecting ones own children for ones God. The list is endless of what these people will do in order to preserve their meaning structure.

It is wise to bear in mind though that if one is taught such a belief from the cradle onwards, it is very very difficult to free oneself from that mindset. It is imperative that one does though. It is imperative, for the sake of peace on this planet, that one does so.

SNIP

It is widely held, at least here in the west, that the circumcision of women is an evil thing to do.

Yet very few stop to think that is just as wrong to circumcise a man. Or rather a male child for it is usually only done to those who have no choice. It is a mutilation, an abusive act perpetrated on children. It reduces sexual pleasure in that it desensitises the head of the penis. I think it is one reason why it done though it would be denied of course.

Now if an adult man wishes to have the snip, that is up to him. Obviously in the rare of case of being medically necessary, then sad but so be it.

I am uncut but Iknow of a person who is and sees the act as having been a crime committed against him. I agree with that.

You know, in New York, a court case ensued form a religious ceremony where a baby boy's penis was taken into the mouth of the attending official and his foreskin was bitten off. This was an old religious ritual of this particular sect of well known religion. The case ended with a not guilty. Anyone else would have been found guilty of child abuse but due to 'religious sensitivity' this abuser was let off, given the seal of approval by the court to continue abusing in this way.

I saw a TV program which showed a circumcision ceremony. Relatives were gathered whilst this toddler boy was brought in, had his penis pulled out of his shorts and had the end cut off. The relatives smiled and clapped. I was appalled.I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed. i couldn't believe that these people were participating in an evil act and they could not see it. Such is the strength of the abuse of young minds. Give me a child till he is seven and I will show you the the man. So true. had these people not been indoctrinated from the cradle, they would not have been able to suppress/repress their horror nor would they have been able to stand by and watch and smile and clap as a child was objectified and abused.

SUCK

Our new Dyson just arrived. Nothing sucks like a Dyson does. The old one gave in after 9 years. John seems to think that such items ought to last forever. They don't. Our Indesit washer dryer is also 9 years old and never been trouble but I fear it too will quit in the not too distant future. I have already been forewarned though that they don't make them like they used to and was recommended a different brand like Miele or Bosch.

SAVED

I thought the other day about how upset I would be if my blog crashed and it disappeared into the ether. I just spent a couple of hours saving it all. Unfortunately the comments are not saved. Unless I went through the blog page by page and as there are over a 1000 of them......

Being A Man

As far as I am concerned, the only requisite for being man is having the physical/biological attributes that delineate sex.

I once said to a bully who was asking me why I had 'women's dogs' (he was with a Stafford) , That 'I did not need a dog to tell me I am a man'. It worked and he went away.

Anyway, my father never thought I was man enough. It would appear though that his definition of manliness was being able to bully, frighten, and hit young boys. I was very well aware from the earliest age that I was not what my father considered enough. Not masculine enough, too sensitive, not obedient enough. Unquestioning obedience was what he wanted and expected and when he didn't get it, he flipped and bashed one silly. Oh, he was not a spanker. Nothing so bad as that! No he used his fists and he like to throttle. He also thought a good hard clout to the head was a sure way to gain respect. He didn't gain mine. In fact the more he treated me thus, the less respect I had for him.

When I was about 10, he threw a case of books at me. Why? Probably because I didn't jump high enough or quick enough. Not that I did, but even if I had told him to f**k himself, there was no excuse to justify what he did.

This book case (like a small suitcase which we used for school) hit one side of my head, smashing the other side of my head into the head of an ornate bird head which graced the corner of the coffee table. I was stunned. Literally. My mother laid me down on the settee and put a cold compress to me head, soothing me and telling me how bad I was and that if I behaved, he wouldn't do such things.

At that point, I knew I was on my own here. I knew they didn't love me. What I didn't know was that they didn't love me because of what was wrong with them, not because of what was wrong with me. I was fine as I was. They just couldn't accept that. They wanted a different child. My not understanding that it was them and not me casued somuch suffering to me. I spent most of my life until now trying to someone different, someone worthy of their love. I don't think that now, at the deepest level, I know I was always loveable. I also know it is they who do not deserve mine.They have it anyway in that I wish only peace for them.I just don't wnat them near me for they are the same toxic people they always were.

This incident was one of many-all around the same time. I know it was the same time frame because of the country we lived in at the time. My memories are anchored by where we we were living at the time. Another time, he screamed and bullied and hit me whilst he was helping me with my math homework. I was too stupid, of course, to understand the math, hence his hitting and screaming and bullying. This of course was a very effective way of teaching math to children. I was just too stupid to get it. The more he hit and shouted the more stupid I became. The fact I might be very stressed and upset at this bullying and gross mistreatment which is why I was having difficulty absorbing the math would not have entered y father's head. My father has always been right. Never ever wrong. 'Sorry' or 'I was wrong' are a foreign language to him.

During this same time frame he lost it with me at the dinner table.He was so angry he broke his own dinner plate? Why? I didn't like what my mother had made. A very rare thing as I adore food, always did, and still do. This one dish I found detestable-the rice had the look and texture of maggots. He forced me to eat it. Eating disorder, anyone?

The night of the day he the the bookcase at me, I stopped kissing him goodnight. The fool took this as sign that I was becoming 'a man'. It was no such thing, but he wouldn't have known that because he hadn't done anything wrong had he? To this day, this man seems to think I ought to love him and respect him and be thankful I had such a good upbringing. Dream on.

I have never felt hatred. Nor malice. I have been very very angry, rageful, but I don't wish anyone any harm. In fact the opposite-I wish nothing but peace for anyone regardless. My family, the paedophiles, the teachers and pupils of my high school in Oz who bullied me mercilessly. My nick name there was 'shit'. I hated school. To this day, I cannot walk past a school without fear. On the days I can walk, I walk the dogs and am sure to not be doing so at break time during term.

Anyway, back to my point about hatred. I have not only not felt it but never seen the point of it. I knew that to feel such would make me as bad as those who objectified me and treated me so badly. My younger brother says he wished for me to have a painful death and that he would go and dance and spit on my grave. I was shocked. Not hurt. Just shocked that he would harbour such vileness. When you consider that his feelings are misplaced, meaning he blames the wrong person. Such is the nature of denial and self preservation. He can't face the real the source of his pain so he displaces it onto someone else, me, an object, who doesn't have feelings and doesn't matter.

All I have ever wanted was an acknowledgement of the pain and suffering I endured at the hands of my family. Nothing else. What possible good would revenge bring? How would revenge be even possible? No the only 'justice' that makes any sense to me is that they find peace and that can only come with the truth. That would make me very happy. Their suffering would bring me nothing.

Ultimately, my lack of hatred and or malice is selfish. Neither will bring me peace. Someone said that to hate is to drink poison and expect someone else to die. Of course as a child I did not know these things, yet still I didn't hate. Another reason for me to have scorn heaped upon me.

Among the things my younger brother accuses me of(violence toward him is one-which is true) is that I 'showed him pornography'. I was 16 and he 14. I had no access to such things then. It transpires that he got hold of my copy of Fear Of Flying by Erica Jong-a boring big hit of 70's which was about casual sex but was not porn. This accusation of abuse is so desperate as to be laughable. What did I do? Tie him up and make him listen as I read to him? Did I hover over him
and force him to read it, whilst holding a dagger to his heart?

The violence was real enough.I was violent toward him.This was druing the years that he told me I was not worthy of God's love, that as a homosexual I was evil and possessed by demons.The onslaught of his words was never ending. He'd quote me stuff from The Watch Tower and the Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible, all confirming that I was wikced and no good. I htink what really really got to him was when I flipped and believed I was possessed by demons and flew in terror to the Kingdom Hall and burst threw the doors, interupting their meeting and begging them to release me from the demons. This must have mortified him.To this day he does not see how he brought this about and how he also brought about the violence. I was not an adult, I was highly disturbed.Evemn when i wa solder, an adult in years, late tenns, I wa sunder th influence of neuroleptics whcih made my beahviour even mor volatile and erratic and increased my suffering a hundred fold. They are vile drugs. Vile. The side effects are awful It is why they are used to troture people by wicked regimes. I deeply regret the violence, of course I do.

Me thinks my brother is trying very hard to hang on to his story of our past, which puts me in the role of the Devil. Good luck to him. I wonder if the incongruity of his treatment of me, his vile words expressed in emails, and his position as a family healing guru ever strikes him? It would seem not.

I know his suffering has been enormous s has that of my older borther. I am not responsible for it.

You know, I have never felt so free. Now I know that they are reading, or have read, this blog, I have lost the inhibition I felt. Our family motto was 'never tell anyone what goes on at home'. I can tell my story in it's entirety and I shall. In bits though otherwise these posts would be very long. Too long for me to write and to long for anyone to read.

Machine Knitting Stuff To Sell

Just to make it clear, I am NOT giving up machine knitting.

I am cutting back on my machines and the coned yarn.

So if anyone out there is looking for something, ask me, I might have it and then we can think of cost.

In Bed With Me And A Dog

The new memory foam mattress still feels strange when I first go to bed. I sit on it before lying, and it is that part that feels odd as it is not as high as the previous mattress and without all the extra layers on top-double duvet folded on to top of a memory foam topper-I'd sink in as this mattress is very firm.

It was the best thing to buy for me. Most definitely. I sleep well on it and am in much less pain when I wake up.

I have also confirmed to my satisfaction that the pain I get in my ribs at the back is not acid at all but to do with the spine problem and muscle problem. I know this now for sure. It started up whilst I was on my left side, and it was in my left side. I moved and it stopped immediately. Later, I was on my right and sure enough so was the pain. It too stopped the second I moved. The great thing about this new mattress is that I can lay on my back which I have not been able to do for years.

Nechung seems to like the new mattress too. Either she has stopped snoring or is doing it more quietly because she has not woken me up with it.

The swim this morning took more effort than usual and I felt it more, despite taking Tramadol first thing. The pool was almost empty when I arrived-only two in there. Most unusual. I really do enjoy the swim as it sets me up for the day. Even if I am too pained to do anything else, I have at least done my swim. I have swum 4 days in a row and hopefully will swim the next two days also. I will not be swimming Saturday or Sunday as I will be going to a dog show in Edinburgh, Scotland. Although I will get back here Sunday night, I will need to rest on Monday.

Tomorrow night I have another demonstration to do. Not far away, 18miles. I enjoy working this particular hall. The atmosphere is excellent and the evening usually goes well.

I am pleased with my new socks so far, a twisted, travelling stitch pattern in the burnt orange yarn I bought in Ghent, Belgium.

Shameless is over the worst of her morning sickness and is eating well again. She is 5 weeks gone today and technically has 4 weeks to go but my girls usually come 3-5 days early.

Today is going to be a lazy day. Nechung must get bathed but other than that, nothing I must do. I shall do as I feel.

Letters from My Brother

As I have said, I am trying to clear out stuff hoarded over the years.

I have found two letters written by my brother dated September 22nd 1995. One of the letters is to me and the other is a copy of a letter he says he sent to my parents.

Not only does he deny ever having written these (I asked him in 05 in our email exchange if he still thought what he wrote was true and he denied ever having written it. I am thankful I kept all of our email correspondence!)) but as far as my family is concerned, the accusations he makes in these letters were made by me! How that came about I have no idea.

Yet again I was blamed for something I did not do and scapegoated.

I quote from the letter to my parents:

'My therapy is now centred on assisting me to heal the pain caused by the horrifying trauma of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. I am helped to deal with the deep and lasting scars that have had a grip on my life as a result of experiencing being raped by '
(here he names my father and two others). These sickening and repulsive crimes were also committed against my brother Colin, and not only did I witness these crimes, I was also subject to their loathesome savagery.'

He goes on to be rather graphic in detailing the abuse and also to write:

'i also remember having a mother that witnessed one of the crimes and then chose to be silent instead of protecting the children she claims to love.'

The above are extracts from his letter copied to my parents and my other brother.

To me he writes:

'My heart weeps not only for myself, but also for you. My heart weeps for your years of torment and rejection, and for my years of silence. Please find it in your heart to forgive me for my silence.'

'Please, please show these letters to your therapist.'

'If you cannot find it in your heart to release me from your anger and to accept where I am at this moment, rest assured that i will pray for you and will send you you my love and light unconditionally.' You, like myself, were a beautiful little boy who had his dignity, heart and soul ripped away from as an innocent child. I am determined to reclaim my divine right to live with dignity, peace and love and I wish the same for you.'

At the time of receiving these, I did not believe him and still do not. I was angry. Angry because my father was a bully. Making such far fetched accusations would allow him to ignore his bullying. After all, if the sexual stuff was not true then nothing was. That is how I saw it. I might add soon after receiving these letters, my brother was on the phone calling me all the evil names under the sun.

What I really do not get is how it came to be that it was ME who got the blame for these accusations? How it was me who was never spoken to again? How it was me who was not told of his mother's death? How is it that it is me who is blamed for it all?

And they wonder why I want nothing from them or to have any of them in my life now? They have given me nothing but pain. My father made me feel worthless. He hurt me deeply with his physical violence and his verbalised disgust of me. 'You disgust me.' He did not show me love in any way whatsoever. And now they think I am the one who is mad and bad?
My brother came from the same family. I have very mixed feelings about him and his continued abuse of me. (by his scapegoating and lying now.) I am aware that he must do what he needs to do to keep his 'story' together so that he doesn't have to go thru what I did and really feel his feelings. It takes courage.

I only wanted to know if my father was still alive. I had no reason to believe I would be told. Instead this f***ing shit gets opened up again.

I have received nothing but hatred from these people. Not love at all. Only an insane person would want to have anything to do with them.

Oh and just like I did before, I shall be certain to keep these signed letters just so that i cannot be told they were not written or sent. you know, that is a huge part of their game and a huge part of why I was so ill for so long: I kept being told that what I knew happened did not. In the end I had no trust at all for own self or my own perceptions. Wonder why I was so ill? It is very common for people who are constantly told that their perceptions and reality are false to fall apart. Thank fully for me, there was always a part of me, deep and hidden but there, that knew, and kept me from losing it altogether.

My father was physically violent and cold and verbally abusive. As was my mother. I was sexually abused outside of the home-by a stranger in Singapore. I told my mother, despite being warned not to, when something happened to a neighbours child. I though I had better say what I knew. My mother slapped me and called me disgusting and told me it was my fault. She also never stopped my father from being violent and could have.

I was also the victim of a child pornographer in Australia. He was one of my teachers. Of course I said nothing. Past experience taught that was dangerous to do. Besides, by that time I believed I was evil and this man treated me a lot better than my father did so I was unlikely to blab.(I have a deep concern that these films and photographs of me might now be on the net-but there is nothing I can do about that. Oh and in 94 I was contacted by Interpol and then interviewed for 2 days by detectives with regard to this teacher. It was dreadful. I had to be specific. Only to then be told that because I had been in a psych ward, my testimony could not be used as I was not a 'reliable witness'. I didn't matter and as far as I know the case was dropped)

How I feel now? I emptied myself of all the grief, all those years of loss and pain. I want to be left in peace. I have no wish for anything from family. I wish them nothing but the peace I have found. I don't believe nay of them are evil, just in a great deal of pain without the courage to do right by themselves or me.
Long gone are the days of hoping for love and acceptance. I love and accept myself which is all that matters.

I live my life well. I live with my past and with my present. I live with 24/7 physical pain and my disability. Yet I enjoy each day, have good people in my life whom I love and who love me. I have my dogs. I am not the worthless shit I was taught I was. I am me and those who I let into my life love me for that. They don't expect me to change to suit them. And they know ALL of me, I don't pretend to be what i am not. I spent most of my life doing that and it nearly killed me.

The thought of my family still inspires fear in me and perhaps it will always be so. The difference is that whilst I feel it, I understand there is no need of it now. Old habits die hard.

Drunk again

Yesterday was an odd day. My balance was crap. Don't know why. I fell getting out of the pool and I had almost fallen whilst getting in. Fortunately, as always, one of the guards, this time John, was waiting to hand me my stick and his reflexes were fast. Only my stick ended up in the water. Later, I stumbled about 3 times more, once at home and twice out. My speech has been odd too. Yet I am having a better period pain wise. I only took pills yesterday so I could sit still to watch a film.

John and I had gone str8 to the huge Tesco at Serpentine Green when I picked him from the station in Peterborough. He said he wasn't tired but I thought he looked it. My wheelchair was wobbly and we noticed that one of the wheels looked like it was coming off. So we used one supplied by Tesco until we got home. Even though Tesco couldn't get their act together though - they had run out of all sorts of foodstuffs. Typical. John slept in the car on the way home, at home in the armchair and all night too. No he wasn't tired.


Last night was watched Le Vie En Rose, a French film about Edith Piaf. It was a very well made film and I found it moving to say the least. I felt rather melancholy by it's end. the performance given by Marion Cotillard in the lead role was astounding. No wonder she won the Oscar for it in 07. The first ever given to a performance entirely in French. If you do not object to subtitles, this is a film well worth watching.

Further to my post about the knitting disaster, I can't use those sleeves for anything because whilst the sides of the sleeve head were decreased as if I were doing a raglan, the top was not!

I finished off a second sock still left over from when I was knitting one sock at a time. Now I knit both at the same time to save this happening.

We took a car load of stuff to the tip yesterday and still my rooms upstairs look hardly touched. I have still to throw out so much.

I am going to be selling my coned yarn, not all of it, but a lot of it. So if you want anything, tell me and I will see if I have it. ALL my yarn is unbranded top quality natural yarn. Many different fibres, many different weights from 2/60 to 2/6.

I also will be selling off machines, punch card Brothers mainly, maybe a Silver fine gauge punchcard and Passap parts and possibly an MB75 motor.

Oh and my Dr reckons I have hay fever. Never had it before. However, my nose is running all the time and when I return from the pool, I can barely keep my eyes open, they sting and stream. I wear goggles swimming so not that. Sunlight thru the car window makes my eyes really run and sore. Weird. My eyes recover more or less half an hour after getting home, and my nose might take all day to stop being runny. Annoying more than anything else.

Experienced Knitter ?

I have some lovely green merino/angora yarn. I have used it two fold to make myself a set in sleeve sweater using my own design and the garter carriage.

I washed and tumble dried each piece as I knitted them.

Tonight, I eagerly set about sewing it up. As I sewed in the first sleeve top, or rather when I had reached the shoulder, I noticed that I had knit a raglan sleeve head for my set in sleeve body.......

It's bad enough I made such a mistake after all these years, worse that I didn't notice after the first sleeve, nor the second, but only when I ran out of body to sew said sleeve head to!

No,I don't drink. Maybe it's the new medication? Maybe I am just getting old? Maybe I have lost half my IQ somewhere along the line?

Thankfully, I have just enough left to knit two othjer sleeves. I can't rip back to the two i have already done because I already washed and pre shrunk the pieces.

Note to self: make sure you knit body and sleeves of same ******* sweater next time!

This, That And The Other

I heard so much negative stuff about Vista that I was loath to buy a PC with it on it. However, that is what i did having considered the options. I don't see what the fuss was about. It seems fine to me. Yes, it is different to XP but I like the changes so far.

Re my post of last night. I was feeling somewhat vulnerable knowing that family are probably reading me, at least that is what the email from my father implied. Baring all to such people is rather daunting. However, it's done now,I shall continue to be myself.

Strangely, or maybe not, over the last week I have had several emails from people who I have not heard from before. These emails have been either sharing the writers pain with me which is a great privilege that they should trust me enough to do that. Other emails have been from people telling me juts how much my writing has been of positive help to others. I say strangely, because these emails arrived at a time when I am feeling vulnerable and feeling less like revealing myself here.

I am up an hour earlier than usual this morning as I set my clock incorrectly last night. I was tired when I went to bed, having fallen asleep whilst watching a film, Stardust. So despite the hour earlier, I am still rested and will leave for the pool soon.

The dental work went very well yesterday. Bobbie, the woman who does it, is very nice and gentle and takes great care not to hurt me or make me feel uncomfortable. I need different physical support whilst in the chair and they are very careful how they move that back and I have a cushion thing in my lumber region. It is not an unpleasant experience at all having her work on my teeth.

Shameless has begun to eat better now but not as well as was. Nothing I can do. She won't starve herself. My hunch is that she is carrying a large litter.

John called me from his hotel in Washington DC. He flew out in the upstairs part of a jumbo and his room is more than we would pay for if we went!

I loved my 97 road trip in New England and would really like to go to the USA again, with John this time. However, as I think I have mentioned before, the last time I flew I was petrified. I wasn't before that flight, I used to love flying. Now the idea makes me very nervous indeed. I am pissed off about that. I am not too pleased either with the fact I can't knit whilst on a plane because of not being to take needles on board with me. In case I knit someone to death I suppose.

I spent two whole days not knitting! I did a little last evening though and have come up with a new sock design, I think. Plain colour with texture. I haven't knit enough yet to know if it will work out. I just didn't wan to knit another variegated colour ribbed sock, even if I do love them.

Next weekend, not this, I am going to the SKC show in Scotland. It will be Whitney's first show. She is a little madam and up to now she has only consented to behave and show off in an orderly fashion occasionally. I have a feeling she is going to be one of these that will only do it when she has an audience. I hope so anyway. Fortunately, she only has to do it for a short while. It isn't that she doesn't like the dog club or the other dogs and people. Far from it. She is very pleased to meet them all. She just doesn't like not being in charge!

Danger

I am nervous about writing on my blog now that it appears that people who do not have my best interests at heart,and never have, are seemingly reading it. Yes I know they have no power over me now but it still I feel very uncomfortable. I put noting past them, they have already shown just how wicked they are prepared to be in order to preserve their fantasy. Though I guess things are very different now in that I no longer accept their role of villain and am beyond their reach.Still, to know they the same as they always were makes me shudder.

It is just a blip I am sure. Nothing can take away from me all that I have gained. Nothing. How good it is to be in my position, free and honest, no story to desperately keep together.

Somehow, I sense their fantasy is unravelling thus the desperate attempt to see me still as their scapegoat. Without me in the game, they are in danger of having to see themselves.

Hoarding

John is away in Washington DC. He will return on Sunday.

Yesterday was another beautiful day weather wise. I did my swim of 70 lengths instead of 64 as I just felt like it. Recently, without trying, I have shave 8minutes off the time it takes me to swim a mile, 64 lengths.

I spent the rest of the day on the new PC. It does so much more than I realised. I love the widescreen HD screen, now that I have got the pixels right.

The search facility is good too. I am going through and deleting many files I don't need or have multiple copies of, stuff I saved 'in case'.

I am doing the same in the house. With John, I sorted through a whole load of jackets and shirts that are too big for me now. Also shoes, some 20 years old, hardly worn, but no longer my size. All kept 'in case'. They have gone.

We are going to do the same with my yarn and machines.

The room I am in now, my PC and knitting machine room, is just a tip, so full of stuff. I have started to clear it up. Just a little corner at a time otherwise it just appears overwhelming.

I was sorting through dvd's last night too, to see what was recorded on them. It is time consuming and not always easy to keep track of which ones have been checked. I then realised that as they have sat in a pile for years, they don't contain anything important. So they went in the bin. A bit more junk in my life gone.

Whilst swimming yesterday, I was thinking about how so many don't realise that love is a verb.

Love is not a just feeling but action.

Many people wonder if they are loved by whoever. If we just looked at how we are treated by a person, we know if they love us or not by how they treat us.

The trouble is some of us are treated very badly by people who say they love us or it is assumed they do(parents). Therefore we can take a long time to realise that love is not being treated badly.

I have been with my John for almost 27 years and I know he loves me because of the way he treats me. I didn't used to know this. In fact I found him very confusing for a long time. He never shouted at me, he never hit me, he did things for me I didn't even know needed doing. He was kind and gentle with me and still is. I thought he didn't care about me! Then when I began to see he was treating me well and that maybe he loved me, I thought he was deranged because I already knew I was not worth loving. If he knew what I was really like, he wouldn't. After a while, and I knew he did know me, I then thought he must be a man with a secret - like he was serial killer or something. Seriously. I just couldn't get my head around the concept that he was a good a a sane who person who saw ME and loved me.

I don't have people in my life who don't love me. Oh, there are people I speak with, say hello too, and spend a little time with but those I am close with treat me with respect. They show show how they feel about me by their actions. They don't say and don't act it. They know, like I do, that love is a verb. It is expressed in our actions.

Today I have a dental appointment. I am so excited about that. I have dogs to groom and bath and plenty more clearing out of dross to do. I did not go swimming today.

On Saturday, I am speaking at an eating disorder convention. My first time. I have spoken at smaller meetings before but not at a big do.

Power

I received an email this morning from my father.

My brother has proved yet again that he has no respect for me at all for it was he who told me father how to contact me.

My father's email showed that he is the same man he always was. Not by what he said but what he didn't say. One couldn't say it was nasty email, it wasn't. However, it was one written by someone who feels no remorse or culpability at all and that speaks of my mother's death as if it would have no effect on me. He could have let me know at the time of her death 4 years ago and chose not to.

At first I was shocked and afraid when I saw the email. I read it. I went to make myself a coffee and forgot how to. I was shaking. I was no longer a man in his 50th year but a boy.

Not for long.

I talked it out with someone and thru some well thought out questions, I realised I had power here. Over myself. I need not give that power away. I have no intention of doing so.

It is the task of the adult me to take care of and protect that vulnerable part of me. When asked directly what the adult me would so, I knew instantly that I would protect me and keep well away.

Fortunately for me in this instance, the last few months of letting go last year, the feeling of all that I felt, is still very fresh and so I cannot pretend to myself it would be wise for me to back into the lion's den. It aint going to purr!

I have fought a long and excruciatingly hard battle, one I came very close to losing, to gain a life and sanity. I am not about to risk it for more of the same.

Those people have never treated me with respect, let alone love. If they were not related to me, no one would expect me to have anything to do with them. I have been nothing but a source of great shame and embarrassment to him and the pain he caused me almost destroyed me.

Let him and the rest of them carry on thinking that I am mad and bad.

Denial is a very powerful force, but not insurmountable. Either the man has forgotten how cruel and vicious he was, how I never got anything but his fists from him (and money - for appearances sake), or he still doesn't think he was wrong. He could be completely unaware of the terror he caused me. He maybe doesn't care. I only know that he doesn't acknowledge it.

Many years ago I did confront them about it. The result was total rejection by all of them. Today it has been engineered, deliberately I think by my brother, so that it is me who does the rejecting. Why? So they can say in truth, sort of, that I won't have them in my life.

So be it.

I value myself far too highly to allow my life to be put at risk now. There is nothing to be gained for me now. Nothing at all. It doesn't matter.

I won my battle. I survived.

You will be aware how I wrote last year, December I think, how I had a sudden tearful realisation of forgiveness as far as my father was concerned. I still feel the same way. I want nothing but the best for him and if he were a different, remorseful, man that might include having me in his life. .

My first duty is to myself. I spent years neglecting me, bending over backwards for acceptance and love. It nearly killed me or had me locked up for good. I give give acceptance and love to myself now.

I have good friends who love me and a man who, despite all odds, has loved me and stuck by me through what has been a very difficult ride, for almost 27 years now. His name is John. You have 'met' him here and some of you in the flesh. John showed me what it was to love, to respect, to be loyal, to care, to have compassion. In short to be a decent human being. I am profoundly grateful for him.

I would not have survived without him. I could not have healed without him. I could not be where I am today without the support he has given me and the space he gave me to be me. Indeed, the encouragement he gave me to be me. He has never, not once, told me or made me feel I was not good enough, that I was lacking. He saw me at my most vulnerable, my most dark moments and he was there accepting me and holding me. He never tried to fix me. He never told me what to do. Never called me stupid, useless, pathetic, embarrassing. He saw the man I was and loved me for me. He didn't want me any different. He just wanted for me to be happy. He got his wish.

I am happy.

New PC and stuff

I replaced my old PC which I had not realised was quite as old as it is!

I bought an HP Pavilion Elite. I can't believe how fast it is. I was not that impressed with Broadband. Now I know why. My old PC was slow and hence that limited the broadband.

This has 1TB of disc space (500gb internal and a removable 500gb drive). It has 3gb ram its an Intel Quad Core and ....now I am lost...lets just say it is fast and running smoothly. It means I can do more than one thing at a time which was very slow or not possible on my previous Pavilion.

I did not sleep at all well last night. Kept waking up and was in bed 5 hours though as I said kept waking up. I know this is because of the new PC. Strange as it may seem, until this new pc is settled and I have all my stuff on it, I won't feel settled. I have yet to figure out how to get my links and address book from the old one to this one. It is possible I know. I think I shall ask Michael next door to help me as he is a computer whiz.

For now, I did not buy a new monitor. I will as this one will be use don the old one, which I shall keep for now a sit has stuff, like my knitting design software on it and other stuff.

I also need desperately to sort this computer / knitting machine room out. It is a mess to say the least and it has got to the point I can't find stuff or move around easily!

The weather is sunny and warm. We have had a rather long and dull though not especially cold winter.

Shameless is at the point of her pregnancy where she has morning sickness and is not keen on eating though she is still eating some. It will usually pass after a week.

Socks n Stuff

This pair of socks is knitted with OnLine Beach colour number 942. The composition is 45% Cotton, 40% Wool and 15% Nylon. 380m per 100gm Knitted on 2.25mm needles, one circular pair, at the same time, each on it's own needle. I used 3x3 rib. I knit 208 rounds in total(not including heel turn), over 66 sts. I knit from the toe up, used my Andersson Heel Mach 2. Same recipe as my Tundra socks tho a different gauge - 34sts and 48 rws to 10cm (8.5sts and 12rws to inch).

POLICE PEOPLE

Yesterday we went to Springfields (shopping mall-outside) to exchange a pan and buy two new Titanium pans. What we did not know was that there was the annual Flower Festival on in Spalding and the parade was starting at Springfields. I pulled up by the road closed sign to ask the policewoman what I could do. Before I had a chance, she started mouthing off at me and told me to move NOW! I was rather pleased to find I did not scurry away but held my ground and just kept repeating 'will you listen to me please' until she did.

A policeman came along and they decided to let me thru. We were stopped at the next roundabout by two more policepeople who were even ruder and we were forced to do a U Turn.

Well, now I was really annoyed. First off, have these policepeople forgotten that they are there to serve us and that we are not there to serve them? I didn't give in. I went around what I guessed to be correctly, the back way.

I came across another policeman who indicated me to pull over and I did. I opened my window and, held my hand up and asked him to listen to me before he started shouting. This policeman was very pleasant. Even though I had been forceful to him before he had a chance, he did listen and saw my predicament. He said he couldn't help me though. I asked him how far I was from Springfields and he replied I was 5-10minutes away on foot. I explained I would be using a wheelchair. During our chat, I noticed a parking spot beyond the barrier. I asked him nicely if he would allow me to park there. He asked me if I had a Blue Badge (disabled drivers parking permit) and I pointed to it on my dashboard. He said I could park there but not to tell anyone he had told me so.

So we parked and wheeled thru the crowds which was a mixture of very pleasant people who were helpful, some overly so, and those who were downright ignorant or complete wan**rs.

John had wanted to turn around and go home at the first policeperson. He is very British that way, don't make a fuss. Not me. I will not be doormat. It is this 'don't make a fuss' attitude that service here is so awful and why disabled people get treated so badly. I made a fuss, firmly, no swearing, no threats. I got what I wanted which was to be treated with respect.

OH BOTHER

One negative consequence of the weight loss is that most of my clothes do not fit me. None of my light weight jackets, a lot of my Bavarian shirts and a couple of the jackets. I am really disappointed. Not by the weight loss obviously! I really though they would still fit me because My shoulders would stay the same. No they did not. Even my sweaters are too long in the sleeve now.

BRACES

I wear braces all the time now. The trousers I wear are a size larger than I need but they feel more comfortable when held up by braces. I have been doing this since the IBS got bad. I don't like anything tight around my waist or hips. The braces are really so comfy and I am not forever having to rearrange my bits every time I sit down or get up.

More Stuff

I have spent something like 6 months wondering if I ought to write to my brother to find out if my father was alive or not. As you can see from the post below, I did.

I do not regret doing so and I do not feel as bad as I thought I might do. It has of course brought up all sorts of sh*t.

His final response to me (at least I hope it is final) clearly shows me that he is still in denial and still holds me responsible. He can't do anything else. His whole life is based upon this lie. If he really saw me, and saw what happened, then he would have to accept that our parents were what they were and not what he sees them as-good parents who had the misfortune to have a rotten son - me. He can't do that.

I detest how he makes his money. It is a con. He may also be conning himself, and therefore not realise he is conning others too.

He didn't speak up all those years ago when I was locked up in a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed as Paranoid Schizophrenic because my telling the truth was seen as lies because my family denied it. My brother, did not tell the truth and he knows he didn't because I had a weird phone call from him in 94 which was to beg my forgiveness for him not speaking up. In the second phone call he was back to his hateful blaming of me.

I was forced to take neuroleptics. These drugs are dreadful. An animal died at my hands whilst I was on these. To this day it breaks my heart to know this. No matter how I tell myself I was not myself, it hurts like crazy and haunts me today.

These drugs make one extremely anxious, cause tremors, shuffling gait, and can cause permanent muscle damage. Not only do they not help, they cause tremendous pain and anguish and hallucinations etc. In short, they are evil and I am sure are probably used by torturers. I'd die before I would take these again.

Imagine being held down by a group of so called carers, psych nurses, having your trousers pulled down and having this stuff injected into your bum.

For a few years prior to this, during this, and after this, my brother was constantly telling me how evil I was, how God hated me, how I was possessed by demons, how wicked I was for not Honouring My Mother and Father as commanded to. How homosexuals stood no chance or being loved as we were hateful evil people. (He is gay too but I didn't know this. My elder brother is also gay but he never helped me or even told me he was. He left me to take all the sh*t from our parents.)

My two brothers are like my parents who never considered anyone other than themselves. Part of the reason my education stopped was because they decided to move, they did not have to, from Australia to here right in the middle of my most important school year. I never did recover from that. My official education finished there.

In the early 80's my elder brother was in hospital. My parents visited him often as did my brother . I was in the same hospital seriously physically ill (liver damage from the psych drugs) and no one visited me except for my own partner John. I had forgotten this until he reminded me.

My brothers reason for hating me, he says, is that I was violent towards him. I was too. How else was I to react when full of psych drugs for a start and he was telling me over and over how evil I was and that I was possessed and just plain wicked. When he told me how he hated me for the violence, I apologised to him. I said I was sorry for any pain I had caused him. Of course to this day he does not accept he had any responsibility at all. ( might add that the violence was was not such that it caused breaks or bruises. In fact Idon't really recall what he says happened but I took his word for it and did my part in apologising. I meant it too. I would not wish to cause him suffering. ) Funny how he holds me to account but not himself.

Whilst I was in hospital, they all went off to Orlando, paid for my my elder brother because they needed a break from their mad and bad son / brother. Later, when I was with John, my partner, I was speaking to my mum on my Dad's birthday and I was casually informed that they were all going out to celebrate and I was not invited.

I was such a f**king fool in those days. Did I see what was happening? NO! Did I stop seeing them? NO! I still believed that I could get it right and they would love and accept me. I didn't know then that the problem was them and not me. I may not have been so humiliated had I known that then. I may not have wasted so much energy and shame and guilt upon people who were not worthy of me at all, who didn't deserve me, my love, or my time.

This is only a very small sample of the sh*t that went on in my family. As I re read what I have written, I feel proud of myself. Not only have I survived, I am LIVING, not existing. I am happy. I am at peace with myself and who I am and where I came from. I am loved. I love. I have a good life. I have a partner of 27 years, more than can be said about them. I am astonished really that I did survive all that and more. Maybe later I will give more details, a blow by blow account so to speak but I don't feel the need to right now.

(I don't want anything from my father-my reason for needing to know if he dies is purely for our continued research. For sometime, almost 2 years, my mother communicated thru various people at various churches and I had no clue. Yes, it sound like her but she was alive so it couldn't have been. So I thought. I could not believe she would die and no one would tell me. They didn't tell me. They could have. They chose not to. That speaks volumes about them.)

Edit: it is at times such as these that I am aware how therapeutic writing my blog is for me. It helps me process my thoughts and feelings.

Correspondence

My initial contact:

would you tell me how father is, please?

Colin

Response:

Dear Colin,

It took me a while to work out who this email was from, I strung together Lhasa Apsos and Knitting to figure it out, it ended up in my spam box.

I am currently in China, I've been here since last November. I sold my house in South Africa after having experienced a terrible ordeal in an armed robbery.

Dad has been living in London for almost two years now and my official address is his house. Dad has re-married, you may know that, and his wife is South African. They are considering moving back to South Africa later this year.

I am back in the UK as of 15th May and go to Argentina for several months in June in order to learn Spanish and to do some work.

How are you keeping?

You may want to see Dad before he moves again, he will be 80 this year.

love,
John

Thank you for your response. I would like for you to let me know if the situation with father changes. I would rather not be in the situation of ignorance again as I was with mother. (I thought he was 80 next year- Dec 1929 his birth). I received communication from mother via mediums which I rejected because of my ignorance.

I can be contacted at this address or you can contact John at:

(email addresses)

Dear Colin,

I find it rather odd that you are making a request from me and yet you fail to even address me as a real living person. Your first email was virtually anonymous, which is how it ended up being filtered by my system into my spam box. For some reason, I decided to check it today as a huge amount came in at once, so that go me curious. Otherwise, your email would never have been seen and without even knowing it, it simply would have been deleted.

You want something and yet you clearly show that you want nothing to do with us at the same time through your lack of use of names etc, or so it would appear. This is confusing to me.

I will of course inform you of any changes regarding Dad's health or presence with us. You may consider looking at an opportunity for healing in the here and now instead of waiting for Dad to pass over and having a conversation with him via a medium after the event. You must find your own way of course, only a suggestion. These things usually only beg one question - do we want peace or do we want to be right?

You are correct, Dad is 79 this year.
John

My Response:

You wrote:

I will of course inform you of any changes regarding Dad's health or presence with us.

Thank you.

Your concern regarding my peace of mind is surprising and unnecessary. I am at peace with myself and with life. You seem to not understand that it was my family that rejected me, not the other way around. I have come to terms with that. I am glad to be who I am and I see clearly who missed out here.

As for seeing you as living real person, I think that is projection on your part because you have never treated me anything like a person, but rather as an object that didn't ever matter. I know only too well that you are real.

This is all water under the bridge. For me at any rate. I thank you again for at least agreeing to let me know should father go over before I do.

I think it best that our communications are left to that. I have given you the benefit of the doubt twice, in 94 and in 05 and both times what started out promising ended with you spewing hatred out at me and, like you always have, blaming me. You might want to look at that, especially in light of what you do.

There has never been a bond between us. Never. You have never shown me anything but contempt, mockery and hatred. I fail to understand why you think there can be anything I want from you.

I know you won't believe it, because it won't suit you, but I really do not hate you. I do feel compassion for you. I know where you came from. I only wish the best for you.

I think maybe you can't get your head around the fact that I am whole despite my family. I survived, I survived well. I live, I don't just exist and I don't carry that filth with me anymore. I am free of you and hopefully you can find that same freedom.

If it was not for my own spiritual gift and the fact John and I attend church on a regular basis
I would not have asked this of you. I do hope you can keep your word. It is all I ask of you.

colin

Contact

First of all, I had a good nights sleep on the new memory foam mattress. It felt rather odd at first but how I felt this morning suggests this was a good idea and a good buy.

My swim went very well today apart from one silly sod who thought it was best if he swam width wise whilst the rest us swam length wise....

I have been wanting to know for quite sometime if my father was still alive or not. The only way I know to do that is by emailing my brother which I really did not want to do. However, last evening, I went to his website and emailed him and asked. I got a response telling me he was still alive.

I found out my mother had passed by stumbling upon a website for my brother. Much to my astonishment, he is some sort of new age guru involved in 'healing families' for a high fee. He has written and published books on this subject too.

You are probably thinking somewhat similar thoughts to those I have on this subject. I have kept his mail to me in 94 and in 05. The person evident in those mails does not match up at all with his 'job'.

Memory Foam

Today I am having a memory foam mattress delivered. Hopefully it will help my sleep. We were lucky. We popped into the shop, not realising it was a quality shop for a start and also not realising they were having an opening sale. We got a very good price on the mattress.

I didn't think about it until a few minutes ago, but with John not here, I shall be sleeping on a bare mattress tonight! I can't make the bed. 6ft by 6ft 6" I shall be fine, just throw the duvet over me.

This morning I was awoken by next door drilling in their walls! It was 5.30am. I laid there cursing them but as I became more awake I realised it was Nechung snoring!!!!! She sleeps on the bed. She is just over 9" tall, is 10.5 yrs old and has a very loud snore.

My swim went very well today. When I first got up I felt like a truck had hit me and I wondered if I would go swimming. However, 40 minutes later, after the drugs had time to work, I felt fine and in fact I swam my mile in 47 minutes instead of 55 and I was not going faster intentionally. It just didn't hurt so much.

My next show is in Edinburgh. I will go the day before and sleep with my friend Linda in Hartlepool. I couldn't do it otherwise as it 365 miles from my home. I think it is the 3rd weekend in May.