So, after what feels like a lifetime chock full of business tasks fuelled by a combination of bizarre decisions and downright ineptitude, we’re mere hours away from another Apprentice finale. And even though I don’t feel that I’ve been as invested in the candidates as I might have been in previous years, I cannot wait!
This year’s finalists are gym owner Rachel Woolford and pie company boss Phil Turner. And it’s anyone’s guess who’ll win out. Unless you’re Lord Sugar of course, who I reckon won’t just guess who he gives £250,000 to.
Even in the interviews it felt like a bit of a lottery in terms of who would make the final. However, once it emerged that Tre didn’t have a business plan or really, a product and that Paul had chosen the wrong plan and that you or I knew just about as much as he did about scrubs, then the field was kind of narrowed down. In fact, given what happened in this year’s interview episode, I’m considering just turning up myself next year with some ideas scrawled down on a crumpled piece of paper titled, ‘Why I need Lord Sugar’s £250,000′ by Graham aged 53. I reckon I’d still have a bit of a chance of making the final.
Of the two finalists, it’s perhaps inevitable that we might look on Rachel as the favourite. Not only has she shown a fair amount of business acumen, hard work and determination throughout the series, but she’s up against Phil! Phil! The very same Phil who lost all of the first 9 tasks and seemed to be in the boardroom fighting for his life every other week. But then again, he’s in the final for a reason. We have to presume that Lord Sugar and his people have spotted something in him, surely. None of us has much idea what it might be though!
Last week, Phil added to his Apprentice legacy by revealing in the interviews that he hasn’t seen a set of accounts for his business for about a decade. OK, I’m exaggerating there, but the bloke literally sat and told scary Mike Soutar that he hadn’t seen his accounts for a couple of years. I’m no business viking (as no doubt someone must have referred to themselves over the years), but that feels like me not looking at the fuel gauge in my car for a fortnight and just hoping that I’ll keep getting to where I’m going.
Both candidates seem to have successful businesses and both just want to make them bigger. Fair enough. Rachel wants more gyms – and while we continue to obsess over how we look on social media then we’ll always need more gyms! I mean, where else would the country’s vain halfwits find mirrors big enough to pose in?
Phil, on the other hand, wants to expand his pie business after admitting that he didn’t have the vision to take it any further. And after he made a truffle flavoured vegan cheese that didn’t really taste of truffle…or cheese for that matter, in the last task, you can possibly see why he thinks he lacks vision I suppose.
Conspiracy theorists will have you believe that Phil is being set up to win. I mean, I certainly can’t remember a series where someone failed so spectacularly every week and then still made the final. Some have also pointed to the fact that in his win or bust task – the vegan cheese one – he was given the strongest of the other candidates on his team. But then, some of these people probably still think that the Earth is flat.
So, get yourselves set for an exciting final. There’s no clear favourite, but definitely an underdog. But, with the help of some, if not all of the other candidates from the series, there will be one last task to get through before Lord Sugar decides who he’s going to invest in. And of course, there’s my favourite bit of all; where the two successful candidates have to walk into the room for their pitch, usually down one of the longest walkways or staircases in the modern world. It has to be one of the most awkward TV moments of the year and every year a little bit of is secretly hoping for a trip!
It’s the Easter holidays and as I’ve got some time on my hands I decided to sit down and try and write something for the blog. Other commitments have been getting in the way of late and so my blog has been very much neglected.
So, with not a lot in mind to write about, I thought I’d trawl through some notebooks and accompanying scraps of paper in order to see what poetry I have knocking about. It turns out that there are quite a few that have either been started or simply finished and then just left and so, after quite a bit of reading I decided to add this one to the blog. It brings back a lot of memories and I really like it.
Willow
As the spots of rain get heavier and begin to change the colour of the roads and pavements around, you scramble for the familiar shelter of the giant old weeping willow.
Everyone is out, the house locked up, but you chose friends, football and the top of the hill Wembley of a pub car park over the visit to family, and now that team mates have chosen bricks and mortar for cover, solitude in nature is forced upon you.
A mass of leaves and sagging branches provide ample sanctuary, so you position yourself so not to be seen from either road or the neighbour's house, shift your knees up to your chest and enjoy this place where there is no shouting, no conflict and no storm of any kind.
The willow tree in question here is the one that we had in the garden of my childhood home. Everyone else regarded it as a nuisance because of its sheer size and mass of leaves that would be shed in autumn and litter the surrounding area, but I loved it.
I’d play in it as a small child, inventing games and characters and swinging on those branches. As I got older it became somewhere to hide and just be on my own, away from what I remember now, rightly or wrongly, as a lot of shouting and anger in our house. Sometimes, as in the poem, it was just a convenient shelter of a different kind as the rain just didn’t seem to get through it. As I got older, I’d often stay at home when my parents went across to see family, but would rarely remember to take a key. These things got forgotten when there was a game of football about to start! And so, I’d end up just sitting under the tree to escape the elements.
In later years, after we had moved out, the tree was cut down. I still kind of miss it to this day.
Well, it would appear that we’re well and truly right in the throes of Spring! The weather is largely warming up – although we stood out in hail while volunteering at ParkRun this weekend – and the days are getting lighter all round. There’s colour in the garden and I’ve also been able to get some washing out on the line, which always makes me feel a bit more optimistic about the time of year…I don’t really know why.
Today though, I thought I’d write a little bit about my morning and the sights, sounds and the feel of Spring that I got to experience. Let’s just say that none of it really stuck to the stereotypes!
So, this morning, seeing that we were going to have dry weather until early afternoon, I took the opportunity to give our back lawn its first cut of the year. It’s always an arduous job as by the time the weather is good enough, the lawn has always grown to a good few inches in length and is soaking wet, meaning that it will take hours to get through. In truth, I despise having to do it!
At this point, I’ll introduce my neighbour. Now, don’t get me wrong, he’s a lovely, well meaning elderly gentleman who’d do anything for us. He’s also very hard of hearing and loves to chat. The job of listening to him generally falls to me and believe me when I say that sometimes this can be even more arduous than cutting the lawn as he never really hears what I’m saying and has a tendency to repeat a lot of what he’s already said to me!
Anyway, having got the mower out of the shed and put it back together – it’s over 10 years old and very much on its last legs – I started to mow, kind of knowing exactly what would happen next. I was still surprised by the immediacy though!
After no more than 20 seconds of mowing I heard the click of the neighbour’s gate – one of the first sounds of spring round these parts. And when I looked up, there he was. My neighbour. He didn’t really wait for me, just set off talking. So the mowing got delayed for a while!
Our back garden is bordered by houses on both sides. My aforementioned neighbour’s garden runs parallel to ours, but on the other side, the end of two gardens back onto us. One of these neighbours has a terrible habit of clearing his throat and nose, very loudly. He seems to save it all up for the moment he sees me in the garden as well. It’s not something I hear much of through winter as I’m not outside anywhere near as much. However, this morning just as I’d reached the end of the first couple of strips of the garden, there it was. Another delightful spring sound. A wonderful hacking of the throat and nose sounding like it had been played through Glastonbury’s PA system, all the way from inside his house to the middle of my garden. And every time I stopped mowing, there it was a again! This must have gone on for about 10 minutes! So, no nightingales singing, just the sound of phlegm!
I had the wonderful Spring experience of clearing fallen blooms away too. We have an enormous camellia that gives us an abundance of huge bright pink flowers from February. It’s genuinely stunning. However, the downside is that by the time I come to cut the lawn, hundreds of flowers have fallen from the plant and litter the garden. And I get the job of having to pick them all up, as if I mow them they splatter all over the place. In turn, picking them up gives me the wonderful sensation of soaking wet flowers in my hands and also quite a few slugs, who seem to find the flowers far too good to resist. I hate anything on my hands, so this genuinely makes me feel queasy.
Later, sounds included a really annoying crow, some girls walking along the footpath that borders the back of my garden and swearing loudly and my neighbour’s wife asking if he wanted a cup of tea – she didn’t extend the offer to me. I also managed to unearth some cat poo in the long grass, before sliding through it a little later and suffering the stench of it every time I went near!
Finally, the sounds of spring reached a wonderful crescendo when my neighbour came to talk to me twice more; once to rant about the price of the new England football shirt and the modifications made to the flag of St. George on the back of it – capitalism, mate – and then to talk of something that seems to be uniquely him!
He’s a keen gardener and tends to order his plants off the internet. However, I swear that every time he does, they seem to mess up his order. And then, when he complains, the companies always seem to send him more than he needs. This isn’t just restricted to plants; he’s had plant pots too. And he always offers us his cast offs, which is nice, but even when we politely decline he just doesn’t listen and brings stuff around anyway! This happened again today, which given that we’ve only just started ‘garden season’ is quite some going! Anyway, to cut a long story short, despite turning them down we’re due to get a load of free mystery plants in a few weeks. Lord knows what we’ll do with them!
So, Spring has indeed sprung. But round these parts there’s no delightful birdsong or the smell of budding roses; no, just elderly neighbours, coughing and sniffing of Olympic proportions, wet and dirty, slug laden hands and the feeling of almost pulling a hamstring as you slide through hidden cat poo!
Reader, I hope your Spring is going better than mine!
I’ll confess that I’d forgotten about The Apprentice this year. And if I’d have remembered, I probably would have been reasonably adamant that I wasn’t going to watch it. Same old fame hungry, obnoxious parade of fools, same old Lord Sugar wisecracks and same old tasks. Somehow though, when we realised that our series link on Sky was taping it, we found ourselves drawn to the familiarity of the whole thing. So, what did I find in episode 1?
In short, it was the same old fame hungry, obnoxious parade of fools, the same old Lord Sugar wisecracks and the same old tasks…and yet, I was gripped throughout!
I missed the first few minutes – busy with hunting down less than healthy snacks, I’m afraid – so if there were the usual claims of invincibility, possession of the world’s greatest personality or superhuman sales powers, then I wasn’t there for that.
I joined the candidates – not literally – in the boardroom where Lord Sugar introduced us to this year’s two tables full of business jesters and it felt like his pre-written ‘off the cuff’ jokes about the candidates were more obvious than ever. Mind you, he had everyone chuckling loudly along; but then what else are you going to do when your fate lies in his hands? I mean, imagine the year when someone pipes up with an unexpected comeback…
One candidate had listed himself as a combination of brains and beauty on his CV, to which Sugs added “and bollocks”. And it’s wit like that, as well as a wonderful gift for alliteration that keeps us all glued to the screen, isn’t it? That said, this bloke was hardly George Clooney, so maybe our resident Lord was just being accurate, rather than funny.
This year, there’s a twist; the first task is the corporate away day task, rather than the finding items one and while I’d been my usual cynical self to this point, now even I’m taking a sharp intake of breath. I mean, this can only go wrong, surely. Thankfully – spoiler alert – wrong is very much the word here.
The teams are split into girls and boys and if they’re given a witty business name, then I don’t catch it. Tonight, they’re off to the highlands of Scotland and so when Virdi volunteers to be project manager and then says he’ll treat the clients to some bhangra dancing, it’s a bit of a surprise. I’d innocently expected something a bit more traditional, but maybe that’s why I’m still an English teacher rather than a business titan.
As both teams plan their ‘experience’ it’s hard not to use your foresight and spot where it might all unravel. Especially tonight, when every plan sounds fraught with danger and the chance of throwing money away. On the boys team someone promises to ‘bring the pardy’ – yep, not ‘party’ – and I’m immediately wondering if perhaps his last pardy was for his own 5th birthday. Meanwhile, the girls decide that the world class highland games athlete isn’t needed for their own mini highland games, so they’ll just do it themselves. I mean, it’s only throwing tree trunks and boulders about, so what could possibly go wrong when you don’t really know what you’re doing?
Over on the boy’s team they’d decided that offering a welcome drink of a glass of water to their corporate clients was a good idea and – hands up if you can see something going wrong here – the team running the activity had told the team doing the food to have it ready for 2.15, on the dot. Don’t anyone worry though; these are young titans of business, so someone’s absolutely sure to be keeping an eye on the time.
Speaking of food teams, there’s something not quite right about the fishcakes that the girls are making for their client’s dinner. And at the same time, the mix for the rhubarb crumble has gone missing. I mean, they couldn’t have, could they? Turns out they could.
The editing on The Apprentice is always brilliantly done and cut together to make sure that the narrative fits together in a way that means you’re never quite sure who will win and where the next point of tension will come from. In the opening episode we get just enough of a tease about the crumble fishcakes, followed by no further reference to them until right before they’re being served up. As a result, the tension was palpable as they were served up, with no one sure of what was about to happen. I have to say that the slow reveal of the client’s facial reaction as the sweet fishcakes hit their tastebuds was a thing of beauty! But the unwitting candidates reacted well, with Sam pacifying them the promise of a dessert that would be to die for, which it turns out, had the eaten it, they almost certainly would have.
As we wondered what the client was going to eat, we left the girls camp to head back to the boys, where ‘surprise, surprise’ the activity had run over. Cut to the kitchen and the food is out, but 2.15 has very quickly become almost 3pm! The result? In a staggering display of not actually grasping the gravity of the situation, Asif and Tre pretty much blamed the kitchen staff!
And when we then saw the clients tapping the sausages off the plate and heard the accompanying ‘clang’ it was hard to argue about where the blame should lie…unless you knew about the 2.15 deadline, that is! Again though, the story here – and the comedy – is in the faces of everyone involved. The poor hungry clients who’ve paid hundreds of pounds for a bit of a walk, some bhangra dancing, a toe curling episode where Virdi does some horrendous MCing and genuinely asks the client to ‘make some noise’ not once, but twice, followed by some toad in the hole, are horrified!
Amazingly for the entertainment offered up by the boy’s team, the best is yet to come and in fact, will be offered up in instalments in what remains of the episode. And the first instalment, there’s not long to wait as despite the enormous levels of sheer disaster about the whole day, Jack still has the sheer brass neck to ask if anyone would like to give a tip!
In the boardroom, I’m fully expecting a history making multiple sacking, with Lord Sugar’s pointy finger working overtime. Both teams have to give refunds, but despite the girl’s making a measly £122 profit, it’s the boys who lose after a 52% refund turns their profit into a staggering loss! The comedy reaches its peak when one of them initially claps and whoops a bit, explaining that he thought they’d made £300 profit and won. The silence is deafening. This guy is not being given a quarter of a million pounds of Lord Sugar’s money!
In then end, despite organising surely one of the worst corporate days out in history, project manager Virdi is saved for ‘having the balls to step up’ according to Lord Sugar. Or was it just because here is a man who has only given the tiniest glimpse of his capacity for entertaining the nation? We’ll find out in the coming weeks.
For now though, it’s Oliver who’s fired, seemingly because he just looked a lot more gormless than the rest of the lads, which is an achievement in itself.
I can’t promise a review every week, but I can promise that The Apprentice is sure to serve up some classic comedy in the coming months. If only that was the remit…
I’ve not written one of these types of blogs for a little while. It’s not been a case of everything being terrible during that time; more just being incredibly busy. And anyway, who really needs a blogger telling them that Christmas makes them happy?
I went into January purposely telling myself to be positive. It’s not a month that I’m a great fan of and I decided that if I just forced myself to be relentlessly positive, it might make it easier to get through. And while I wouldn’t say that it’s been a resounding success, it’s definitely been helpful. This attitude did mean that I actively sought out reasons to be cheerful.
So, what’s made me smile this month?
The tidy Welsh mouse. I loved this and I couldn’t stop watching the accompanying video. It’s a BBC report about a retired postman in Wales who was baffled by the fact that bits and pieces kept getting tidied away in his shed at night. Seeking an answer to this mystery, he set up a night vision camera on his workbench. When he watched footage back he was greeted by the fantastic sight of a mouse tidying stuff like nuts, bolts and pegs away into whatever container had been left out.
And it got better – Rodney (our retired postman) then started experimenting by leaving different types of objects out, but whatever he left got tidied away! The only disappointment was the name that he gave the mouse; Welsh Tidy Mouse. I mean anything would have been better than that! Anyway, you can watch the little fella on the link below. The mouse that is, not Rodney.
Newcastle United winning the derby. If you’re not a football fan or just have no knowledge of Newcastle United and our derby match, allow me to fill you in. Our closest geographical rivals are called Sunderland. However, we haven’t played them in a long time due to being in different divisions. Well, this all changed when we were drawn to play against each other in the FA Cup in early January.
The lead up to the game was tense, to say the least and there was the usual back and forth about who would win between the two sets of fans. It’s an intense rivalry, to say the least.
It’s a game I really don’t enjoy and the nerves are horrendous. Suffice to say, come the day of the game I was unusually quiet and felt very sick indeed. I needn’t have worried though, as we wound up winning the game fairly easily (3-0) and it was an absolute joy to behold. Football eh? It’s only a game and yet somehow, it’s really much, much more than that!
Making plans for a bit of a meet up. I live a long way from both of my childhood best friends. One of them, I see a few times a year as he lives in the town where I grew up, so a visit to see family will always take in a meet up with him and his family.
However, the other spends a lot of his year living abroad as part of his job. We haven’t seen each other in a good few years, so when we were exchanging messages a few months back we came up with the idea of a meet up. It’s something we’ve often floated in the past but it just never seems to happen.
This time though, things are looking good and the provisional idea is that we’re going to meet somewhere that is reasonably equidistant to our houses and go for a hike. It might be in the Peak District, which also happens to be one of my favourite regions of England. We’ve not quite got anything concrete planned as yet, but I’m right in the middle of planning and for once, it looks like we will actually see this one through. Definitely a reason to smile.
Some good news on the running front. Regular readers of my blog will be familiar with my love of running. People who are new to the blog, forgive me; it’s something that I never tire of banging on about and I’m probably very much a running bore!
Anyway, so far this January I’ve managed to get myself entered for two 10k races – one in March and one in May – and my training is going fairly well. I’ve not pushed myself too hard, but have still been regularly going out and running between 5 and 6 miles a week. And as of yesterday, I learnt that the 10k I’m taking part in this March will also feature several mates from work, which is always good fun. It’s always lovely to see people at these things, not least because they’re all incredibly encouraging.
I still get incredibly nervous at these things and nowadays am always worried that something will go wrong and that I’ll have another episode with my heart, however unlikely that might be. So, when I’m getting ready to run, I know that I’ll probably bump into someone that will ask about my health, my pacemaker and just really help to calm me down. And that, dear reader, will at least make me smile a tiny bit.
Yoga. Several years ago and with more than a hint of cynicism, I was persuaded to give yoga a try. I was sure it wouldn’t be for me and sure, given the fitness I thought I already had that it’d be a breeze. I quickly learnt that it was very tough going indeed.
However, I loved doing yoga from that very first session and although it confirmed my lack of flexibility, I was keen at least! Sadly, with the pressures of work and having a young family we ended up giving it up after about 6 months. We always thought we’d start again fairly soon. That didn’t transpire though.
This January my wife suggested we try again and given that I seem to be constantly training for something or other, I was quickly in agreement. We started about three weeks ago and have been doing a couple of sessions per week. We’re not attending classes, just using the YouTube app on the television to follow the regime of one of many yoga instructors out there, but it’s working.
I have to say, I’m loving it once again. Yoga is generally tough, especially when you’re as inflexible as me, but it helps me to relax and I know that in another few weeks I’ll start to reap the benefits. So, when I’m stuck in some ridiculous position, every sinew straining, my body probably wobbling a bit with the pressure of that particular pose, you can be sure that a smile won’t be far away.
If you’ve never tried yoga I can definitely recommend it!
This is a relatively new poem, written about one of my grandfathers. I barely knew him, but a while ago I got one of those DNA kits as a Christmas present and as a result started to research my family tree. At the end of it all, not only was I disappointed to have no sign of any Viking ancestry, but I felt I knew my grandfather even less.
It’s always been something that held an interest to me. Both my mam and dad come from big families and so, growing up, we were surrounded by aunties, uncles and cousins whenever there was some kind of ‘family’ occasion. However, for any number of reasons I never felt that I really knew them that well. Being quite a shy kid probably didn’t help.
We lived in a different part of Newcastle to the rest of the family and so didn’t see them on a day to day basis and then as I got older I was busy with friends and different interests. Going away to university didn’t help my cause either; if anything, it made me stick out like a sore thumb! When I finally moved away from the North East entirely, I pretty much drifted away from all but immediate family.
The relationship with my grandparents on both sides was difficult, to say the least. With this grandad, he died when I was very young and there always seemed to be a reluctance on my parents part for them to take us to see our grandparents. If I’m honest, it doesn’t look like they were at all interested in us and I literally can’t remember ever meeting my grandma. However, I do have one extremely vague recollection of my grandad which is where the poem comes from.
'The old tyrant'
If I close my eyes, I still see him from exactly the same vantage point, every time. A dot of a man, his appearance betraying every terrifying snippet I'd ever heard. Brown shoes, dark trousers, midnight blue raincoat and a black trilby hat, shadowing his features, making those eyes even darker, so that it felt like he looked straight through me as he crept closer, a shining silver coin grasped in bony fingers. The childcatcher had come, bearing gifts. Then, with a pat on the head, he was gone.
Everything else is mystery, legend, even your name uncertain. "The old tyrant", my mam would say with just a hint of a smile, "a villain", but maybe an entertainer, singing and dancing on the West End stage, if that was to be believed, the cold, hard presence passing your distance through the generations, many leads to your life, but never a final destination, many strings to your bow, but barely a finger print of recognition left behind, the untraceable ghost, continuing to haunt despite the fact that none ever really knew you at all.
When I was very young my parents ran a business. As part of the business we had a shop and a market stall, I think. My dad would be away buying crockery – plates, cups, bowls etc – in Stoke-on-Trent for the business (that’s what we sold…everyone needs stuff to eat off, right?) and my mam would be running the shops. As I was a poorly child (yes, heart nonsense even at that age!) I’d often find myself in the shop.
One day, when both parents were there, my grandad paid us a visit. I was perched on a stool in a corner of the shop, like some gaunt, pale kind of mascot and he came in, spoke to my parents a little bit as far as I can remember, and then made his way across to me.
As the poem says, he just came over, pressed a coin into my little hand and then left. That was the only interaction that I recall. No talking, no affection. He might have smiled, but I can’t remember.
Growing up, I picked up nothing but negativity around him, which comes out in the poem. Apparently, he wasn’t the greatest dad – although times were very different back then – and was very tough on his children, one of them my dad. When it came to seeing his grandchildren, he just didn’t seem to be interested. Well, not in this one anyway! So, I’d hear the types of descriptions that come up in the poem, labelled at him time and again.
When I came to research my family tree, he was just as big a mystery as ever. I’d been told that he was ‘a dancer and singer’ on stage in London by my dad when I was a kid, but there wasn’t much evidence of that. In fact, what he actually did remained a mystery and I uncovered bits of evidence that he had possibly led a bit of a double life a times. I won’t go into it because it’s obviously quite personal, but also because it left me no closer to knowing a great deal about the man!
So there we go; my grandad, man of mystery and little affection or it might seem, any kind of feeling whatsoever!
For the last few months I’ve been trying something a little bit different. It started with just giving my son a lift to where he was going and then curiosity and trying to be a good dad somehow got the better of me. Now, I seem to be a fully fledged volunteer!
In actual fact, the whole thing really started around a year ago. My son had decided to do his Bronze for the Duke of Edinburgh Award and as part of his challenge he had to do 6 months worth of volunteering and so, following in his sister’s footsteps, he started helping out at a local Parkrun. For the majority of the time there were four of them, all friends, doing this. But then occasionally it’d just be him and so I got involved and stood marshalling with him on various parts of the course. Often cold, but always bearable!
When he decided to then do his Silver D of E award we thought he’d change his volunteering to something else. But he didn’t and so here we are again!
For the first few weeks I would just drop him off and then go for a long walk around the country park that the run takes place in. After all, it wasn’t me who was taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh award and besides, I saw my Saturday morning hike as good recovery time, as my heart operation was a few months previous. The exercise combined with that early morning solitude was blissful!
Then, one week my son asked if I fancied joining in and doing some marshalling with him. Having done a few weeks scanning the barcodes of the finishers he fancied a change and so of course, in my quest to be dad of the year, I said yes.
There are loads of different roles that you can volunteer for at a Parkrun. I had a look at our latest roster and that told me that there were 15 different jobs to choose from. You can fulfil various roles at the finish, as well as tail walking with the last participant, be it a runner or walker. And in marshalling alone, we have 11 different checkpoints to fill. So, there’s a lot of variation in what you can choose to be doing in supporting the runners.
As a marshall, all we really do is watch the runners come past our checkpoint, keep an eye out for any problems, answer any questions and make sure no one walks across the course as the runners approach. Oh, and clapping. We do a lot of clapping and encouraging.
Of course, it’s been winter and so the conditions have been cold, to say the least. The standing around doesn’t help either and in fact it can leave me in a bit of pain as my back and my feet don’t seem keen on just standing. A couple of weeks ago we were soaked to the skin, despite wearing heavy coats, as the rain was just torrential. But the race went on! It made me look forward to Spring and the weather being a bit warmer though!
Volunteering always leaves me in a good mood. For a start, there’s the sense of pride that you get in just being able to help out. It’s nice that lots of the runners will actively thank us as they go round. I always think it’s nice to be appreciated, even though it feels strange to be thanked when the runners are the ones exerting themselves! But at a time when my mental health hasn’t always been good it’s a welcome boost.
It’s nice to feel like part of something too. There’s a friendliness and a sense of community amongst both runners and volunteers and although I’m quite quiet and don’t really talk to too many people, it always feels like we’re welcome and very much appreciated. And of course it’s good to spend some quality time with my son too, despite the early mornings!
In the future, perhaps in retirement I’d like to do more volunteering. We’ve talked about helping out at one of the RSPB reserves as it’s something that’s been of interest for a while. I’d like to volunteer with the homeless too. I think that given I’ll have a bit more time to play with once I’m retired or at least semi retired, it’d be good to use that to help others.
In the meantime, volunteering is something that I’d actively encourage anyone to try. It can get you exercise and undoubtedly helps with your mental health. The fresh air alone is really important to me.
If you’re thinking of volunteering, there are over 1200 different Parkruns around the U.K. It’s easy to do, even if it is quite early on a Saturday or Sunday morning and the rewards are great. I can’t guarantee the weather, but it’s something that I’d definitely recommend. Give it a go, it might just make a really positive change in your life!
So it turns out that last week had a number of big days. Huge, in fact because last week marked a year since I had my pacemaker fitted.
I remember it well. Of course I do. At the beginning of that week I had realised that I was seriously ill. Even then, I didn’t know what the problem was – but it had been going on for months – and when I was admitted to hospital I still just thought they’d keep me in overnight and send me home with some tablets that would miraculously make everything alright again. My heart wouldn’t keep me awake at night. There would be no more listening for it and wondering if it had stopped.
The morning came and a lovely cardiologist disappointed me with his lack of tablets, then stunned me with his talk of a pacemaker. Despite protesting – “those things are for pensioners, man” – I was very quickly put in my place. “Put it this way, your heart stopped for over 4 seconds last night.” The other option was not to do it, but to lose my driving licence and then start worrying about my job. After all, it’s not normal or safe to be blacking out left, right and centre and I was told that this was likely.
“I think we’ll fit that pacemaker then!”
I laughed about it but I was crying inside. I was far too young for this. And I didn’t have a clue what it actually meant. At least I felt safe in the hospital, but it was a lot to take in. Still is.
The next day, just after 11am, I was wheeled down to theatre, talked through what was going to happen and then they just got on with it. The whole place was calm, jovial even. I was terrified. But do you know what, the more people singing along to the radio while performing your heart surgery, the more comforting it gets!
Later, back on the ward, there was the kind of drama that you never expect to be involved in, as my pacemaker failed and my heart monitor set off every alarm within a five mile radius. At least it felt that way. My heart decided it was time for yet another episode and the palpitations started with a vengeance. Doctors and nurses crowded around my bed, assuring me that help was on the way while I watched a monitor until my heartbeat hit 209bpm. At that point someone took the sensible decision of moving the monitor out of my eyeline.
It turned out fine. Someone from the cardiology department fixed it all online and in as much of a matter of fact way as was humanly possible. While I felt like I was quietly awaiting the grim reaper or a lovely warm light or whatever death looks like (various deceased comedy legends welcoming me ‘home’ and saying they’re my biggest fans?), him and his machine had “a chat with” my pacemaker. It worked.
The next day I was released back into the wild, not really knowing what awaited me. In truth, I didn’t really know if I could make it to the car without stopping for a rest. I imagined though that it might mean a couple of weeks off work. It was four months later that I finally went back.
It’s been a weird year. In some ways I feel worse than ever. It definitely did something to me, mentally and I do find it difficult to motivate myself. On the other hand though, I’m running regularly and actually feel fitter than ever. There have been three 10k races in the last 6 months or so and I feel like I’ve proved a bit of a point to myself. I’m still not quite convinced though.
I can feel my pacemaker every day. When I put on deoderant or have a wash, it’s there. Sometimes, I catch it a bit and it hurts. Occasionally, when I’m carrying a box or something of any decent size, it might rebound on to my chest and boy does it sting! The wires sit there, just above my scar and the pacemaker and they’re right there, just underneath the surface of my chest. Place a finger there and it’s almost like you could pluck them out with a little bit of effort. Not that I’m encouraging anyone to try! I think this is a consequence of me not being very well built; another reason to curse my body! And if you look closely, through my lustrous chest hair, you can actually see the outline shape of the pacemaker itself. How attractive!
There have been no more scares though. No more lying awake at night listening to my heart and wondering what it’s doing. So, the pacemaker is actually a comfort. My heart works which is rather nice.
For a long, long time I was fatigued. I felt like I’d never get better or feel like myself again. My body seemed to take an age to come to terms with what had happened. Coming off beta-blockers helped, but didn’t solve it. From my third day back at home I was going for a daily walk. At first, it was just 10 minutes, but being as bloody-minded as I am I worked that upwards as quickly as I could. But I’d be capable of very little else once I was done and days would simply drift past. Months later, when I felt capable to run a short distance, it would take the rest of the day to recover. In short, for months I just felt terrible. My body ached and I generally felt exhausted. I’d be out of breath easily and immensely frustrated by this.
It’s really not an exaggeration to say that this last year has been a real battle. I’ve felt incredibly low at times – and still have periods like that to this day – and I’ve had to work really hard to keep myself going. I’ve suffered with terrible bouts of sadness, that I didn’t imagine would be possible for me; not just feeling sorry for myself, but genuinely feeling sad, tearful and lonely about life and how things were turning out. The pacemaker made me angry and in truth, I still can’t get my head around the fact that I have to have it.
I regularly remind myself of how lucky I am though. It’d be too easy to just sort of give up and feel sorry for myself. I was almost discharged from hospital before I’d even got to a ward. Only a last minute check showed any kind of problem and only when a senior cardiologist had looked at it all properly was it decided that I had to have a pacemaker. I was actually minutes from going home, so who knows what could have happened? Clearly, I’m lucky though. I’m still here, my quality of life is good and although there are still one or two flutters with my heart now and again, I’m fairly confident that my pacemaker has it all covered!
What I’ve learnt over the course of the last 12 months is that it’s going to take me a while to recover fully and to feel like I’m back to my normal self again. I was ill for months before I got treated – my own fault because I hid what was wrong. But I think that has taken its toll. As I said earlier, I still struggle mentally but I don’t have as many low periods as before. Normal life with work and everything else has helped. But I’ve learnt that I really do have the strength to come back from adversity. Maybe, in another year’s time I’ll have consigned pacemaker diaries to the back of my mind. Maybe.
Hopefully, the future is a bit happier and healthier! Maybe I’ll get to change my tune and write about that instead!
Last Sunday, the 8th October saw the second ever Morley 10k race. It marked a quite significant date for me personally too though, as it was almost 11 months since I had the heart surgery to have my pacemaker fitted.
It’s been something of an eventful (almost) year. Sadly more downs than ups too, but all of that has been well documented in other blog posts throughout the last 11 months. However, when I was in hospital I made a vow that I’d complete at least three 10k races by the time my one year pacemaker anniversary came around. Sunday was the third and it was significant because it had also been the last one I’d done before everything went wrong for me in October and November of last year. Here’s how it went.
I felt sick with nerves as I stood on the start line. My family were a only few metres away on the pavement and on more than one occasion it crossed my mind to go and join them and tell them that I couldn’t do the race. People felt too close, it was too warm and the hill that we were starting on looked as daunting as hell, even though I’d ran it countless times before. The day before I’d been genuinely excited about it, but now, around an hour and 10km away from the finish line almost everything was telling me just to walk home.
Start lines of races can be funny things for me. Sometimes, I stand there feeling genuinely intimidated. Everyone seems fitter and younger than me. They’ve got much better trainers. And when I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself, none of them have health problems like me, either. Stupid really, but that’s how it can be. On other occasions, you get the feeling that everyone wants everyone else to have the race of their life. The excitement is palpable and the atmosphere is infectiously positive.
Thankfully though, I talked myself out of any silly decisions and got myself across the start line bang on 9am!
It’s a hilly course and while I won’t talk you through every step, there’s a lot to talk about and almost all of it involves running. Firstly, quite a few of the town came out to show their appreciation of the nine hundred and odd of us who thought it was a good idea to be up and running so early on a Sunday morning. Perhaps they were a bit bewildered by it all and who could blame them, but I really hope that the event grows and grows and becomes a staple for both runners and residents, because it was genuinely lovely to see people out cheering us on and from a personal point of view, it’s a real boost. I still don’t believe the stewards who shout out stuff like, ‘You’re looking good!’ as I pass, but by God their positivity helps! For the record though, I generally look like a tall, skinny bloke whose head has been replaced by a sweaty red balloon when I’m running, so cheers to anyone who puts a positive spin on that!
On Sunday, it quickly became apparent that my legs weren’t feeling too powerful. If you’ve seen them, you’ll know why! But I’d put the training in; plenty of runs, lots of hills, lots of 10ks and lots of other exercise. So, it was a bit of a puzzle, but I just put it down to my mood more than anything else and tried to relax as best I could.
Having got through the first long climb, we turned right and ran through Morley town centre and then down the hill towards Morley Bottoms. The flat and the downhill was much appreciated and gave me the chance to gather my thoughts a little bit, as well as picking up a little bit of pace. By the time we came to another long climb I was well into my running and it felt like I was coping well. It helps knowing the route so well, although I hadn’t ran it this year in preparation, but I’d had plenty of practice at hills as it can feel like that’s all Morley is at times!
Once we’d climbed said hill it was time to double back on ourselves and the race takes to the other side of the road and back down again. By this point several of the leaders had long since passed us as well as probably a couple of hundred others who all looked like they were coping better than me! I opened my stride a bit on the downhill section and, realising that we had at least a mile of downhill or flat sections, decided that it was time to start finding a bit of pace. Halfway back down the hill I spotted something on the other side, still climbing the hill that spurred me on even more – someone running in a T-Rex suit! Dodgy heart or not, I was not being caught by that!
I knew that picking up the pace could be a risky strategy though. I didn’t feel quite right and was wary of simply running out of steam by the end when, surprise surprise, you head up a really steep incline to the finish. That said, I knew my family would be waiting anxiously at the end of this section, given my health issues and so I felt it was better to get to them sooner rather than later.
Morley Bottoms on race day is fantastic. Just a wall of noise and smiling faces. It felt great to run through and although I couldn’t see my family for a while, I spotted them eventually and gave them the thumbs up as I actually wasn’t feeling too bad. Shortly after passing them was the halfway point and knowing the route, it felt like the end was almost in sight.
My plan from the start was to try and run around 55 minutes, but it wasn’t long before the pacer had passed me. However, by the time we’d got to around 4 and a half miles I’d caught him again. Sadly, as we began to climb another hill, I lost him once more! I stayed optimistic by reminding myself that the T-Rex still hadn’t caught me though!
By the time I got to Morley Bottoms for the second time and almost the finish, the place seemed to have got even louder and more enthusiastic. I was feeling genuinely sick though, so the noise and the fact that a couple of people – cheers Steve and the lass that I didn’t recognise! – called out my name, which again was a timely boost. I was almost there.
The hill up from Morley Bottoms turned into my own personal Everest! It’s so steep! Virtually all strength drained away from my legs straight away and it was a case of just keeping moving. I almost convinced myself to stop and walk, but kept going as there was so much encouragement and I was utterly relieved to reach the point where it evens out a bit.
As we passed the town hall I heard my family before I saw them and again it provided a timely boost. Bizarrely, it prompted a sprint finish from me too, something I didn’t realise I had in my locker any more at my age. The heart didn’t matter, the tired legs and aching body were of no concern and by the time I crossed the line I was catching the few people in front of my having gone past one or two in the last hundred yards!
I thought I’d be emotional, but wasn’t. I was just elated. The time wasn’t quite what I wanted, but it wasn’t half bad for a bloke with a dodgy heart and pipe cleaners for legs. And anyway, when everyone looks so pleased and the whole town is out cheering you on, it’s kind of difficult to start crying in front of the post office!
So clutching my medal and my bag of sweets – they’d ran out of water, apparently – I scanned the crowd until I found my family again, reassured the kids I was ok, had some photos taken and then we all wandered off happily back down the inevitable hill to go home.
Big thanks to Morley Running Club for everything they do to put this brilliant event together. Same time next year?
So, the summer holidays are almost upon us and parents everywhere are facing up to a big shift in their routine. Soon, you’ll no longer be packing the kids off to school before finally finding some time to breath in a morning that’s probably already felt like it was an entire day. Soon, those kids are all yours again for a hectic 6 week period!
So, what can you do to fill those long hours? Well, I might just have some useful and hopefully affordable solutions.
My children are both a bit older now and so we don’t get to go to some of the types of places that I’ll list, but the first one is still popular, despite my eldest now being 17.
Farm parks are always a winner with kids. Obviously there are always plenty of animals to look at and at some of the parks you can even let your little (or big) ones pet the animals. Such is their popularity that lots of farm parks have expanded over the last decade or so and include a wide range of experiences for your kids to enjoy, like tractor rides, sheep racing, adventure play grounds and even mini golf.
Farm Parks are very much a growing industry and as such can be found all over the country. We have Cannon Hall Farm down in Barnsley, which is only about a half hour drive away and it’s absolutely fantastic for kids, making it very popular indeed. My daughter still insists we go every summer, even though she’s just turned 17 and my almost 14-year-old son always enjoys himself too.
A quick Google search showed me that there are enticing farm parks in almost every region and Trip Advisor lists some of the best as being in the Cotswolds, Essex, West Yorkshire, Stratford, Devon and Shropshire. There are plenty to choose from in both Wales and Scotland too.
Prices vary and a good tip is to visit on a weekday when many parks reduce their rates. Our local one at Cannon Hall only charges £6.95 for adults and children over 2 on weekdays, meaning a family day out for under £30, which is brilliant!
Den Building. This is something I’ve written about before and it’s always a winner with kids. It’s free too! Just get yourself along to your local woods, pick a spot to build a den and then get the kids scavenging for materials to build with. Make sure that you’re not breaking branches off trees though! Lots of places regularly trim their tress though, meaning that if you keep your eyes out there’ll be a ready supply of logs and branches to build with. Combine your den building with a walk through the forest and maybe even a picnic and you’ve got at least a fun few hours out for everyone. And if you’re not sure where to start there are some den building tips on the link below.
Picnics! The idea of eating outdoors – or just anywhere that’s not a table – is always exciting for children. So, knock up whatever your kids love to eat – usually some sandwiches, sausage rolls, fruit, juice and a few sweet treats for ours – and head to the park. You could fill a bit of time on the swings or even liven up your day with some games. I bought a plastic and foam baseball set (bat and ball) in Asda years ago and it’s provided hours of fun for us as a family playing a hybrid game of rounders and cricket. We still use it now when we head to places like Roundhay Park, in fact! All that fresh air and running around never fails to help them sleep and a decent picnic ensures full tummies too!
Plodging! Plodging, I hear you ask. Well, let me educate you a little bit. Plodging is in fact the art of wandering around in a body of water and kids absolutely love it. My two loved being able to get their wellies on and go in the streams of our local country parks and in fact, they awarded me a trophy not long ago and I reckon my role in their plodging history was what earned it for me.
The coveted ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ glasses case really is the big one in the dad awards world!
Obviously you have to keep a close eye on them, but it’s always fun. You can even go in with them, especially if they’re younger, but it’s about common sense, I suppose. Stick to the shallows and don’t let anyone get too adventurous! You could make things more interesting seeing who can find the shiniest rocks or best shells if you’re at the seaside or even come back out and try skimming stones. And don’t knock grabbing rocks, by the way; my son used to love doing this and amassed quite the collection as the years went by! I think he might even still have some!
Museums. Museums provide an excellent experience for kids. And many of them are totally free! The best bit is that the UK has loads of museums covering a wealth of different subject matter, so there’s sure to be something for your kids.
My home town of Newcastle has both the Discovery Museum and the Great North Museum, as well as Beamish, The Living Museum of The North slightly further afield, while where I live now in Yorkshire we have Eureka, The National Children’s Museum, the National Film and Photography Museum, the Leeds Museum, The Thackray Medical Museum, The Royal Armouries, as well as the Railway Museum in York and lots of others.
While doing some research for the article, I also discovered the wonderful Manchester Museum, the brilliant Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield, the Coventry Transport Museum, The National Football Museum in Manchester, The National Museum of Scotland, The North Lincolnshire Museum in Scunthorpe, The Blaise Castle House Museum in Bristol and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. The list could go on and on and we haven’t even looked at London!
Lots of museums nowadays are interactive and child friendly, so it’s not just a couple of hours of staring at objects in glass cases, which might well bore even the most patient of children. From descending down an old mineshaft in one of a surprising number of mining museums that we have, to riding around cobbled streets on a tram or old trolley bus at Beamish, there are a whole host of options to explore and there’s sure to be a fantastic museum near you.
The Beach. Surrounded by water as we are here in the UK, lots of us are lucky enough to have a beach somewhere that’s reasonably close. Living in Leeds, we’re very much landlocked and the likes of Scarborough and Bridlington are a good hour and a half drive away, so days out at the beach are few and far between. But we are able to recreate the beach experience at places like Bolton Abbey where we can sit at the side of the river and safely plodge, if needed!
The beach always has something to do though and it’s generally relatively inexpensive. You could dig holes, build sandcastles, go rock-pooling, play bat and ball or even hold a beach Olympics and it’s going to cost you very little, especially if you’re lucky enough to live close to the sea. Just make sure that you check out the weather forecast in advance!
Country Parks. Again, living in Yorkshire we’re blessed with quite a few of these nearby and they still provide a good day out with our kids, even at the cynical, moody ages they’re at now!
Many country parks have play areas, adventure playgrounds, trails to walk and other fun to be had, but really a day at the park is exactly what you make it. We would always take stuff to do; a kite, bats and balls, a football and even an insect hunting kit at one stage! Younger ones can even just be told they’re going exploring and they’ll enjoy the mystery of that…as long as you add some drama. The link below picks out some of the best ones in the UK.
So hopefully there’s a bit of inspiration there that helps you or yours out this summer. It can feel like a long time to be with your children day in, day out, but it can be made more than memorable with a little bit of thought. And as you can see, it doesn’t have to cost the earth either!
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