I actually hate being sick. It’s normal to dislike it, I know, and most of the time I ignore it and carry on with what I am doing until it goes away.
What I hate most is when I am too sick to carry on with what I am doing and yet not tired or lethargic or whatever enough to be content with doing nothing. It sucks.
On the other hand, at least I don’t get throat infections every year, now that I have grown into my tonsils.
So. Came back from two weeks in Malaysia.
You’ll notice I don’t really talk about going away before I go away. That’s so no one comes round to burgle our house. Not that I’m paranoid.
Malaysia was great though. Got to see most of the family, ate out lots, watched my mum buy many many pairs of shoes, ate some more, carried a lot of shopping and generally had good times all round. I still don’t understand how anyone can just buy 8 pairs of shoes over the course of 10 days. The idea just boggles me.
I’m not much of a shoe buying person. I buy shoes when I need them, not just because they’re on sale and because of the exchange rate/cost of living…they also are really really cheap. I don’t get it.
One thing that’s annoying about Malaysia is the difficulty I have buying clothes there. I do understand that one though. It’s because I’m twice the size of most of my female relatives and they’re pretty much the average size of ladies in Malaysia. Meh.
Last month it was two years since my Dad passed away. It’s hard to imagine that so much time has passed, when at the same time it feels like so little. Sometimes it still feels like he could be sitting downstairs listening to his music with headphones on and it feels a little weird when I do go downstairs for whatever reason to find that it’s dark and he’s not there. Plus, of course, if he was listening to music on his headphones? I would have been able to hear it upstairs.
I don’t think it really gets any easier, but you just get used to it more.
There are so many things that have happened in the last two years that make me think of my dad – like going on holiday with mum and thinking that he would have liked to see those places. Or going to see bands! I really got into The Gaslight Anthem a few months after he passed away and whenever I listen to their music, I am stuck every time by the thought that he would really have liked it. He would have enjoyed going to see them live with me (rather than gone to a gig and thought they were merely “OK” like with AFI). I’ve considered getting a tattoo for the last like… ten years (it’s the kind of permanent decision I won’t rush into) and my dad always said to me “When you go and get one, let me know and I’ll come get one too.” This won’t even happen now but I’ve thought about it a lot recently since I’ve mostly likely settled on what I’d like etch indelibly on my person now.
I’m getting used to it yeah, and it feels more real, but it’s never going to be easy.
Just a mini-gig for various competitions winners for the album launch so started pretty early and finished pretty early but the songs were rockin’ and definitely convinced me to get the album.
Fenech-Soler do remind me a bit of Head Automatica – not just for the vocals but sort of generally too. Not in a bad way though as I love Head Automatica.
While I was listening, thanks to having listened to a radio program about the whole fade-out thing on Classic FM last week, I noticed that all of their songs fade out. None of them just end. Which (and I noticed this there also) can make it difficult to tell when a song is over. Gaslight Anthem do the other trick of a fake almost ending before the actual ending.
I am such a nerd.
Aside from being weaksauce at keeping this blog updated in any way other than being the latest version of the software….I’ve been busy. Going to gigs mostly, although not really that often when I think about it.
Last night was Alkaline Trio, who I saw at the Slam Dunk Festival and at The Roundhouse earlier in the year. Slam Dunk was fab and I was only really there for the Trio and got bonus Against Me! AND caught Your Demise, whose guitarist I went to primary school with*.
The sound at the Garage was WAY better than at the Roundhouse – I think the acoustics there just didn’t work for it. Generally they were amazing, especially since they’d just hopped off the plan from the US in the morning.
Can’t remember the setlist, I never do, but they played Sadie, Radio…and looking on last.fm has found it for me.
I less than three Dine, Dine My Darling big time – mostly for it’s morbid sentimentality I suppose, and it was epic. Radio and This Could Be Love got the usual massive singalong. All round it was fab.
The support were rockin’ too. Loved The Exposed who were on first – definitely going to check out more of their music and probably actually buy the album I didn’t want to spend my emergency just-in-case tenner on last night.
Off With Their Heads were ok too – jetlagged but funny. Just wasn’t feeling their music as much as The Exposed’s though.
*It’s weird, that. Really weird.
Renegades last night were AMAZIN’. They’re a sort of Feeder side-project and a tiny bit ramshackle, what with playing new songs and getting it wrong occasionally. Only makes them move lovable I say. 
I rocked out so hard, I hurt today. Or maybe I’m just getting old!
The support, the Cherry Break Wells were wicked too, should try and find out if they have any CDs out.
I could do with going somewhere interesting right now.
However, I will have to console myself with studying Wales instead.
They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor time condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them.
Please keep my mum and I in your prayers and if you want to do more, please consider making a donation to the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal. My dad was a member of the British Legion and was very much in support of the work they do for serving members of the armed forces, ex-servicemen and women and their families.
Funeral Arrangements
So. Today is polling day. I will, of course, be voting.
The only problem is that the candidates that I get to pick from for my ward all kind of SUCK.
Aldenham West
Caroline Boydell – Green
Sandra Huff – Labour
Simon Patnick – Conservative
Out of these three, only Simon Patnick has bothered to get a leaflet dropped through my letter box and he does seem to have made some comment to the Jewish Cronicle. Caroline Boydell doesn’t seem to exist on the internet other than as a “Representatives of the Green Party were not immediately available for comment.” note on the Borehamwood Times website. Sandra Huff, I suspect, does things in Aldenham, but again, I can’t seem to find any kind of comment from her anywhere.
You see my dilemma. Vote for a candidate who I have heard from, but whose policies I don’t really agree with and whose leaflet was full of boring personal details that I just don’t care about. Or vote for someone I know nothing about.
Augh.
On a more fun note:
Every year, ever since I was born, my parents and I make a pilgrimage to Walsingham, in Norfolk.
Which is where we went today and while I was there, among other things, it occurred to me that I should make some kind of video tour of Walsingham and the shrines there. Partly to share with my family, who mostly live in other countries, but mostly to share with my friends – most of whom will probably never step foot in a church, let alone visit a Marian shrine!
Randomly, I seem to be unintentionally named after the woman who built the Holy House at Walsingham and my parents would take me there and make the pilgrimage in thanksgiving for my birth. And really, they still do. It’s just that I’m old enough to conciously appreciate going there and everything that goes on there.
So, I guess next year I shall be writing to the various people in charge of maintaining the Anglican and Catholic shrines there and asking if it’d be ok for me to video stuff there and if there are any areas that they would rather not have a camera poking around – certainly it’s a bit rude to be filming in the middle of Mass or while the sprinkling services is going on by the well and I wouldn’t dream of intruding while people are deep in prayer.
It’s certainly something to plan for and to do well in advance of my next trip there.
image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace
