Yesterday afternoon we went for a stroll along the beach (Dysart to West Wemyss).

As per usual we picked up lots of pieces of glass (I’m collecting them in the hope that one day I might start making pictures out of them) and we also got a few stones for Amanda’s Dad (he likes to be able to “feel” Scotland, even though he’s never been here).

The tide was starting to come in by the time we got to the outcrop near West Wemyss so we had to clamber over some of the rocks to get to the beach by West Wemyss, but we thought it would be worth it because the beach was clear and open, and there would be lots of pieces of glass there.

Amanda headed off up the beach while I edged along the top of the waterline, dodging the incoming water, when I suddenly realised that there was a bird flapping away in the surf.

I called Amanda over and managed to pick it up from the water.

It couldn’t stand up properly, and its neck was twisted so its head was on the ground all the time.

Neither of us had our phone with us so we couldn’t call anybody for assistance.  The only thing we could do was to rearrange everything we had collected and put it in one of the carrier bags we had with us and take it home.  This meant a really difficult rush up over the hill along the coastal path, and my back was giving me hell climbing the steep steps, but “Sammy the Seabird” was more important than worrying about that.

When we finally got home Sammy was put in the bath with a little water while I found the number for the Scottish SPCA and called them to send somebody out.

In the time it took them to arrive poor little Sammy seemed to get a little bit stronger, occasionally trying to stand up.  At one point, after he had done a nice squirty poo, he even managed to stand up almost properly, although lifting his head was still difficult.

When the guy from the SSPCA arrived he told us that Sammy was a Guillemot, but also gave us the bad news that his neck was broken because he had flown into something (apparently they do it a lot) so there was no hope for him.

Sammy was put into one of their brown carrying boxes and taken away by the nice SSPCA man who would put Sammy out of his misery.

Sleep tight Sammy.

I don’t know if this is what Monk meant in his Creative Writing Exercise #2 but….

“I discovered the zenith of pain when it became evident that an infinite amount of wax was liberally jammed in my ear.”

(well, it’s a start…)

Well the simple answer is “I don’t know… yet”.

The principle seems like a good idea, raising money for charitable causes just by adding a widget badge to the right sidebar of my blog, but at the moment I’m not even sure I have the thing set up properly !

I would have liked to be able to support Headway through this, but they aren’t yet on the list of organisations that are supported in this way, so I’ve selected the World Wildlife Fund because the animals “out there” can’t help themselves against the damage that we humans are doing to the planet.  The WWF is raising funds through this to raise awareness that we need to reduce our carbon emissions to help protect the animals.

If you would like to help WWF just by following a link and viewing a trailer for “Three Rivers” on CBS, then please do “click away”.  I don’t think you have to part with any cash yourself along the way, at least I hope you don’t, (confirmed) although I’m sure they will be very grateful for any donation you may be inspired to make !

Will maybe add my own follow-up comments on this as I find out more.

(Edited 09.09.20)

Friday 21st August 2009 would have been Pop’s 100th birthday.

I don’t know what he would have done by way of celebration.  No doubt it would have been something that no centenarian should have been doing.

For his 89th birthday my then partner and I gave him a flying lesson (the first time he had ever been off the ground).  He was trying to decide whether to go again for his 90th, or maybe try wing-walking instead !  Unfortunately he never got the opportunity.

So who was he ?…

You will probably not have heard of him.

He was born in Reading, Berkshire, UK and lived there until the last couple of years of his life.  His working life was spent with Reading Corporation (the Council) until he took early retirement at the age of 60 “because he couldn’t fit work into his busy schedule !”, there were too many other things taking up his time.

One of the earliest “Radio Hams”, (G2BHS), he was into gadgets in a big way.  I cannot tell you how many things were “liberated” by him over the years, but if somebody was getting rid of something and he could see a use for it…..

He and Mum were married in the mid-thirties (their late twenties).  He was drafted into the RAF in 1938 because his radio experience was seen to be of use, and the war then got in the way of their early years together.

They adopted me in 1955 (poor sods).  For a couple who were, by then, considered by so many organisations to be too old to adopt a toddler they certainly gave me a wonderful childhood and an excellent start in life.

Not what you would call large of stature, Dad was liked by everyone.  You always knew where you stood with him.  If he disagreed with anything that somebody did or said then he would give it to them straight.  But if you needed a friend, he was first in line.

Today, though, seems to be the end of an era.

Although sad, putting somebody’s life into perspective seems easier soon after they have gone.  There are start and end lines that their life fits in between.  But today it is as if… that is it; the graph has run out, the edge of the paper has been reached.

We are inclined to say that people from history lived in the “such and such” century.  Well the “Century” in which he lived has come to an end, and I’m not too sure how to cope with that.  I wasn’t expecting it.

Since I had my accident nearly 3 years ago I could really have done with having the chance to talk to Dad about the problems and difficulties that I face every day.  He was such a good listener, and I always knew I valued his opinion and could trust his advice.

Now, as he is lying there looking up at the hill that he enjoyed seeing so much over his last few years, I hope he knows that I miss him and love him so much.

Leslie Arthur Hensford  1909 – 1999

R.I.P.  Dad

You and Amanda would have had such fun xxxx

Ok, so I wasn’t really concentrating just now having put the Open Golf on the TV, but while referring to Paul Broadhurst I’m sure the commentator said, …

“That’s a very heavy, worring moustache.”

Paul Broadhurst doesn’t appear to have a moustache !

Hmmmm….

Nor, for that matter, is “Herge’s Adventures of Tin-Tin”.

These little nuggets of information may not appear earth-shattering to you, but they did come as quite a surprise to Amanda.

“How ?”, you might ask…

Well, quite simply Amanda thought as she had grown up with both of them that they must be Chinese and not some form of “import”.

She has just gone back to Nanning and will be coming over again in September, but the above is linked to a conversation we had one day when one of those “Anniversary” documentaries about Apollo 13 was on tv and I was struggling to get her to show any interest in it.  I was surprised that she had virtually no knowledge that man had ever been to the moon.  (Be gone, all you doubters and “humbuggers” !)

“Why would they want to do that ?”, she asked.  ”There is still so much we don’t know about the Earth.”  (Good question, but one that’s much too far-reaching for this blog post, so let’s not go there…)

From that the conversation developed and I discovered that her family had not even owned a tv set until she was nearly 20 years old !  The first colour tv she had was after she first got married in her early-to-mid twenties.

This brought me to the realisation that life in China has changed even more dramatically over the past few years than I had even imagined.

Modern China is a place full of bright lights and consumerism.  Modern(ish) China, the parts away from the big towns and cities, is a vast population which (probably) yearns for all the mod-cons that the wealthier elements of society take for granted in this “new” world.

Some in the remoter parts are already on the bandwagon…  I know that on “Asia Friend Finder” some of the local people caught up in the devastation of the earthquake last year were blogging their tearful stories about what had happened to them and how frightened they were.  The fact that us in the “outside world” were able to send them messages of support only serves to prove that the 21st Century is spreading right across China.

But 25 years ago, when Amanda was growing up, tv was not even commonplace in large towns only 100 miles from Hong Kong.  Is it any wonder that so many Chinese women want to try to find Western husbands and move away to where all of these things are not only part of normal daily life but are also, comparatively, much less expensive.

Anyway, as usual I have digressed a little….

It turned out in other conversations we had (prompted by things that came up on tv) that Amanda not only knew the tune of “Auld Lang Syne” but that it is so well known in China, and such a part of the culture there, that she had always thought, without question, that it was an old Chinese song.  I actually had to look it up on the internet for her to prove that the original words were Scottish.  [Rabbie Burns (1759-96)]

Then, when there was a news article about Tin-Tin being turned into a movie she was again astounded to dicover that Herge (with an accent) was Belgian !  Again, the books were so much a part of her growing up that she had never questioned it.

No doubt as time goes on more surprising little revelations will come to light, and I wonder just how much of her “Chinese” life Amanda will discover was “imported” from the west ?

In the meantime I am missing her so much already.  I can’t wait for Sept 21st when she will be heading back to me again.

How I wish I had given her more hugs while she was here……

Today is a sad day.

After my beloved “Royals” (Reading Football Club) last chance of promotion finally disappeared in the play-offs last night, Steve Coppell announced that he would be leaving the club.

I would venture to suggest that this comes as no surprise to anyone.

Reading F.C. owe Steve a tremendous debt of gratitude for everything he achieved with the club during the five and a half years of his managership. He is a gentleman in the true sense of the word, a man of tremendous integrity and someone who is almost universally respected throughout English football.

Thank you Steve for taking us to heights which many of us thought would never be achieved. May you be happy and contented in whatever you decide to do in the future.

Right, now the niceties are done with it’s time to get down to some serious talking…

Unfortunately Steve had been showing signs of strain over the past few months.

When the transfer window was open he said that Shane Long is unique within the squad and that he tells him just to go out on the pitch and “be himself”, saying that he wouldn’t want to try to train his abilities out of him… the next moment he is saying that he has re-signed Dave Kitson on loan because “all our strikers are too similar in the way they play” !  Huh ?!

Dave Kitson’s biggest contribution since his return has been to present the ball to the opposing side as often as he possibly can by continually fouling the opposing players and giving away needless, stupid free kicks.  If you and an opponent are both going for a loose ball and you go in fairly then you increase the chances of your own team winning posession either from where the ball then goes or by getting a free kick yourself.  Of course being a yard short of pace now makes a difference too, and Kitson is definitely slower than when he left.

Anyway, from then on it just seemed that, unfortunately, Steve was getting tired of the daily grind.  He had stayed on last year mainly, it would seem, because the supporters and the Chairman had been so united in their wishes for him to stay whereas, in his heart, he probably knew that he should have called it a day.

The final sign that all was not well in the Coppell camp came after Burnley’s first goal last night.  Now 2-0 down on aggregate there is nothing to lose so you might as well go all-out attack…. fine.  So why take off a playmaker like Marek Matejovski and leave Brynyar Gunnarson on the pitch ?!  Gunnarson is the second worse player to have donned the hooped shirt this century (the worst being John Oster).  When you need “all hands to the pump attack” the last thing you want is someone running (I use the word loosely) around in meaningless circles in the middle of the park like Gunnarson does !  Ok, so he did get one goodish ball across from the edge of the box in the first half, but my late grandmother would make a more positively effective contribution to the cause over 90 minutes.

Let’s not get misunderstood here though.  I don’t deny that everyone in the squad has given their all as far as effort is concerned, it’s just that in some cases the ability just isn’t there and it is covered up by other players in the side.  When those covering players get injured then the weaker players are exposed.

Reading have struggled, and will continue to struggle, to find a singular replacement for Steve Sidwell.  Matejovski and Cisse together are able to able to do the job, but that is one player too much.

There have been many positives this season in the way some players have developed, and I think that SC was probably right to give Simon Church his chance last night.  Rosenior, Kebe, Karacan, and others have all done well and, perhaps surprisingly for me, I think the Duberry – Bikey partnership at the back has worked well.

But overall there do need to be changes.  The side that set the Championship record points total did so by turning defence into attack in an instant and then attacking with pace, skill, numbers and accuracy.  An overall tactical change has come over the side since the promotion to the Premiership, a much more “let’s not be too brave” approach, and that is what has hurt us.  The flair has gone.

I cannot really see Doyler, Steve Hunt and Shane Long staying.  There are others who will be got rid of, some who will seek pastures new.  Some may even retire.

John Madejski is unlikely to make such an inspired appointment in replacing Steve.  Not many people do strike gold twice.  But whoever gets the job (please NOT Pardew) I hope they reflect as well on the club, the town, and the people of Reading as Steve Coppell has, and that they can mould a new side that will once again grace the Premiership.

Just my opinion.

Firstly I must say that I am only making comparisons between Chrome and Internet Explorer. This is because I have never used any other browser (other than Firefox for about a week, some six years ago… so that doesn’t count).

It is quite possible that the things I like about Chrome are available elsewhere. I would bow to the readers’ greater knowledge.

Likes:

• Compared to IE, goes like poo off a gardening implement (not a difficult achievement, but this is impressive)
• The Most Visited option when opening a new tab is a neat idea
• The fact that what’s going on, rather than just ticking over somewhere nondescript at the bottom left, appears in a “foggy” box down there which catches the eye, so you are likely to notice that something is going on, especially if you weren’t expecting it.
• Much cleaner and less cluttered screen
• The Incognito window is useful, especially when you don’t want to “pollute” your history.
• Show all Downloads is particularly useful for somebody like me. Having downloaded something I will invariably forget where I saved it to. Show all Downloads brings up a list of everything you have downloaded and then lets you look at it in the folder you saved it to. Neat.

Dislikes:

• The most obvious thing is that Chrome doesn’t (at least yet) allow one to automatically transfer to a new tab which is being opened.
• Some of the obviously preferable options are not set as the default so one has to change them. Can’t remember which at the moment, and it was only slightly annoying. Actually having to “go find them” was a useful tutorial exercise anyway.
• I know I shouldn’t really complain, but Chrome is less tolerant of outdated (deprecated) HTML. This is a little annoying for me as, (due to my short-term memory problems) I am struggling to keep up with the latest incarnations. Some of my favourite sites are apparently not fully up to speed either, so they could look a little better. But, hey, I’m all in favour of progress when it’s warranted.
• The extended History takes a while to get used to (for me, for some reason), but has an annoying quirk. The visits for today run backwards in chronological order, but once one reaches the turn of the day everything is ordered by time of day, not date ! This means that a site you visited months ago at 23:59:59 comes before the last site you visited last night. Arrgghh !

Oddity:

• (and this is wierd !) The display quality of some fonts is a little “fuzzier” than when using IE….. but some graphics are clearer ! That one I really don’t understand….

So there we are, after a few days of normal (not geeky) usage all in all I’m pretty pleased. I still haven’t decided whether there are any security issues involved. Reading up on it before I took the plunge there seemed to be some concerns among the more technical boffins, but I took the plunge and I’m glad I did.

There will probably be follow-up reports from time to time.

Thanks for listening, and it would be good to hear what others think.

… but it is ironic that I used Internet Explorer to download Google Chrome. That’s a bit like handing a gun to your executioner !

I know it’s early days (well, about 30 minutes actually) but all the claims about speed were certainly true. Wow!

Here’s hoping that it’s stable enough to continue to use (not much competition there ! ), and that it doesn’t give me any security issues.

Have had to download the Adobe Flash Movie Add-on in order to see my stats here on WordPress, but that seems only a minor irritation.

So far I like what I see.

Haven’t posted for a while on here because I’ve been working on my other blog, the one that explains about my head injury.

Click on the link above if you’re into the “real” me and the reasons why an intelligent guy in his early 50’s suddenly becomes confused, disorientated, has no sense of time, and can be too “off this planet” to be able to cope with day-to-day living.

On the other hand, if you couldn’t give two monkeys about that and just want to gaze at more pictures of my beautiful wife… watch this space

Well Amanda had a good day on Thursday… not only did the Official Wedding Photos arrive, but she got her new visa too. Yes, A full 2 year, multiple entry visa which gives her the freedom to come and go as she pleases.

Anyway, now you can see why I was so starry-eyed that day ….

My beautiful Amanda with her new husband

My beautiful little wife

Hello you ! .... Kiss ?

This is Amanda's favourite picture

Words fail me

Beautiful and happy

All pictures copyright A&TH

Okay, so here are some more pictures of us on, or around, our wedding day.

The two of us at an office dinner	Getting ready to go in	Getting the paperwork done
Saluting the flag	Yes, Mr & Mrs !	Double Happy - Job done

The official photographers have said that they will need around 50 days to get the proper pictures ready.

I dread to think how much “air-brushing” they need to do of me …

Nervous moments

Double-checking

It's time for the rings

The photographer spoke in a monotone voice the whole time, and yet with a certainty that was apparent even though I could not understand a word that he said, except on the occasional times when he broke into his limited English. 

As the sessions continued I became more used to what was required of me, and gradually his utterances of “Sir” and a hand gesture became easier to understand.  He smiled and said “Oh yes!” more often.

All the while his assistant busied himself with the task of positioning us, our hands and our clothes. His favourite expression seemed to be “Okay, Sir, take a break” whenever my involvement in a sitting was complete.

Sometimes there was a degree of confusion but, on the whole, things went fairly smoothly. 

Amanda acted as translator for us, passing on the instructions from the pair of them, and the instruction I enjoyed hearing from her the most was “Look at your wife”.

I looked at the beautiful face so close to mine. 

I looked into the eyes of my Amanda who was radiant as I had never seen her before.

She was happy, delighted, and delightful. 

I looked into the eyes of my beautiful Amanda and wondered how life could ever be better than this.

Amanda in her 'Wedding Dress'

“Look at your wife”…. MY wife… My beautiful, darling wife of just 24 hours.  I looked at my wife, and every time I did my heart sang.  I floated on clouds of love and wonder.  What on earth had I done to deserve these moments ?

The most beautiful sight one could ever wish to see.  My beautiful Amanda, my beautiful wife, looking simply perfect… stunning !.

I floated on air whenever I heard those words…. “Look at your wife”.

Once the pictures are ready you, too, will be able to look at my wife as she was on that perfect day, the day we spent at the photographers the day after we had been married.

In the meantime, and as a little taster, you will have to make do with this collection of snippets from those two days.

Amanda, my darling, my beautiful little Chinese wife, I love you so much !

I originally began blogging on one of the FriendFinder dating sites.  I had never understood before what it was that people saw in blogging, but I had a look one day just out of curiosity and there seemed to be some happy, friendly people chatting about all and sundry so I thought I’d give it a try.  From that, and my new-found need for more facilities, came my eventual expansion onto WordPress.

I have a profile on FaceBook but I rarely (if ever) go there because I don’t like it, and I’m not on BeBo, MySpace or any of those “youngster’s” sites.

So why am I writing this post ? …

Well there are two reasons why I am going to be reducing my input on the AsiaFriendFinder blogs.

Firstly (and most importantly), as can be seen from previous posts on here I don’t need a dating site any more.   I have my beautiful Amanda now, so I have no further use for AFF other than to keep in touch with the blogging friends I have made there.

Secondly, there are so many people on there who just seem to want to argue about anything, so much back-stabbing, that it just gets out of hand.  And if you say anything in your posts which in any way criticises AFF itself then the company blocks the post and suggests that you edit it.  Go screw yourselves !!  If somebody writes a post that moans about the fact that you have put bugs into the system what should you do ?  Censor them ?  No, you morons…. read my lips…. F I X   T H E   B U G S  !  !

That’s the thing about sites like the FriendFinders, they offer a blog facility (of a sort) but at the end of the day they are into making money, not offering any sort of service or decent support.  The only time I ever contacted the support team I never even got a reply… so stuff you !

Give me a proper blogging site ….. WordPress for example !

Yes, I think I shall be spending more time on here now, reading better quality blogs (hopefully producing better quality posts myself) and, as ever, trying to avoid anything with a tag that reads “Politics”… haha

Watch this space (should you give a damn ! )

I like you
And I know why,
I like you because
You are a good person to like.
I like you because
When I tell you something special
You know it’s special
And you remember it
A long, long time,
You say,
“Remember when you told me
something special?”
And both of us remember.
When I think something is important,
You think it’s important too.
We have good ideas.
When I say something funny, you laugh.
I think I’m funny.
You think I’m funny too.
I like you because
You know where I’m ticklish
And you don’t tickle me there
Except just a tiny bit…
Sometimes.
Stop!
But if you do, then I know where
to tickle you too.
You know how to be silly.
That’s why I like you.
Boy! Are you ever silly!
I never met anyone sillier than me
Till I met you.
I like you because
You know when it’s time to stop
being silly.
Maybe day after tomorrow.
Maybe never.
Oops! Too late!
It’s quarter past silly.
We fool around the same way all the time.
Sometimes we don’t say a word.
We snurkle under fences,
We spy secret places.
If I’m a goofus on the roofus,
You are one too.
If I pretend I’m drowning,
You pretend you’re saving me.
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag,
Then you are ready to jump.
That’s because you really like me.
You really like me, don’t you?
And I like you back.
And that’s the way we keep going
Everyday……..
If I go away, then you go away.
Or if I stay home,
You send me a postcard.
You just don’t say
Well, see you around sometimes.
Bye.
I like you a lots because of that.
If we go away together
And if I get lost in Grand Central Station,
Then you are the one that’s yelling
for me:
Hey, where are you?
Here I am.
I like you because
When I am feeling sad
You don’t cheer me up right away.
Sometimes it’s better to be sad.
You can’t stand others being
so googly and goggly
Every single moment.
You want to know about things.
It takes time.
I like you because
If I am mad at you
Then you get mad at me too.
It’s awful when the other person isn’t.
Phooey!
They are just so nice and so hoo-hoo you
could just punch them in the nose.
I like you because
When I think I am going to throw up
You don’t pretend you are busy
Looking at the birds and all that.
You say: “Maybe it was something
you ate”.
You say: “that happened to me one time”.
And the same thing did.
If you find two four leaf clovers,
You give me one.
If I find four, I give you two.
If we find only three, we keep looking.
Sometimes we have good luck
And sometimes we don’t.
If break my arm and if you break your
arm too,
Then it is lots of fun to have a
broken arm.
You tell me about mine
And I tell you about yours.
We both are sorry.
We write names and draw pictures.
We show everybody and they wish they
Had broken arms too.
I like you because-I don’t know why-
but-
Everything that happens is nicer with you.
I can’t remember when I didn’t like you.
It must have been lonesome then.
I like you because-because-because-
It’s the fourth of July
On the fifth of July.
And if you and I had some drums
And some horns and horses and some
fire engines,
We could be a holiday
We could be a celebration
We could be a whole parade.
See what I mean?
Even if it was the nine hundredth and
ninety-ninth of July
Even if it was August
Even if it was way down at the bottom
of November
Even if it was no place in particular
in January
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again.
That’s how it would happen every time.
I don’t know why.
I guess I don’t know why I really
Like you.
Why do I like you???
I guess I like you – - -
I guess I like you – - -
Because I LIKE YOU

(by Sandol Stoddard Warburg)

I was standing around outside the office yesterday having a smoke break and I happened to spot a little creature wandering across one of the leaves of some dogwood.  At first I thought it was a spider, but when I looked closer I realised it wasn’t.

I peered closely at the little blighter for a minute or two and thought to myself… “Wow … you’re weird !”

Now I used to have an acre and a half of wild garden to look after, so I’ve seen a fair few of the critters that Britain has to offer, but this one was new to me.

Very small, about 6mm long, generally dark grey to black with greyish wings on its back that were “joined” along the top of its spine while not in use, but with two very distinctive features…  firstly its head was red, or at least a reddish orange colour… secondly its front legs were dead straight but with a white band around the middle.  (Now OK, on reflection it is possible that these were antennae and that it actually had little front legs that were obscured from my view, but these antennae seemed to be performing the walking function.)

I have to be honest here and say that my drawing ability is probably something worse that of the little bug itself, but here is a representation of it….

What is this strange little bug ?

I would really like to know what this is because I’ve never seen one before and I can’t find anything similar on the internet.

Any suggestions please (other than art lessons) ?

On the other site I use, a mutual interest site where I seem to spend most of the time responding to other people’s posts, a guy referred to music as his “warm blanket”… that certain something that he turns to when he just wants to escape from the world for a while and be comfortable with what he knows and what makes him feel good.

So I picked up on that and put up a post asking other people what they considered to be their “warm blanket” and I got some intersting replies from around our little “group”, but now I’d like to hear from people I don’t know so well, strangers even.

What’s your “warm blanket” ?

What do you turn to when you’re on your own and need the comfort of “me time” ?

(Keep it clean, or e-mail me the pictures )

A police officer pulls over a speeding car.

The officer says, ‘ I clocked you at 80 miles per hour, sir.’

The driver says, ‘Gee, officer I had it on cruise control at 60; perhaps your radar gun needs calibrating.’

Not looking up from her knitting the wife says, ‘Now don’t be silly dear, you know this car doesn’t have cruise control!

As the officer writes out the ticket, the driver looks over at his wife and growls , ‘Can’t you please keep your mouth shut for once??!!’

The wife smiles demurely and says, ‘You should be thankful your radar detector went off when it did.’

As the officer makes out the second ticket for the illegal radar detector unit, the man glowers at his wife and says through clenched teeth, ‘DAMN it, woman, can’t you keep your mouth shut?!!!!!!’

The officer frowns and says, ‘And I notice that you’re not wearing your seat belt, sir. That’s an automatic $75 fine.’

The driver says, ‘Yeah, well, you see officer, I had it on, but took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license out of my back pocket.’

The wife says, ‘Now, dear, you know very well that you didn’t have your seat belt on. You never wear your seat belt when you’re driving.’

And as the police officer is writing out the third ticket the driver turns to his wife and barks, ‘WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP?!!!!!’

The officer looks over at the woman and asks, ‘Does your husband always talk to you this way, Ma’am?’

‘Only when he’s been drinking’.

Amanda in The Man In The Rock

Amanda on a sightseeing bus in Edinburgh

I arrived home this morning having taken Amanda to the airport.

As I put the kettle on the clock in the village struck seven.

This was noticable because everything in the flat was still and quiet.  There is an emptiness, the like of which I have not experienced before.

I can hear the clock in the kitchen ticking away, oblivious to the change that has taken place.

Apart from that, all is still and quiet… and lonely.

As difficult as it was for me to have someone else around for the past two weeks, trying to cope with “two minds” at work in such a confined space, it may be harder now to readjust to the fact that I have to be on my own again.

A part of me is missing.

I look around at static objects; the table, the pictures on the wall… the empty kitchen which so often contained my animated girl busily, and happily, preparing a meal for “her boy”.

Eveything which brought this place to life for the past two weeks (was that all it was ?) has gone.

I had become used to living alone.  I put my own life into this environment.  To me it resonated with my existance.

Perhaps, in time, it will resonate again; but it will never be the same as it was.  For now it seems like it is just holding its breath.

I should get a text message from her soon, from Amsterdam, to say that she has landed safely….  I can’t wait.

I will stay up late tonight to hear from her in Hong Kong… nearly home.

When I wake up in the morning I will call her to check that she is home safely.

And then the waiting will begin.  The eight or nine weeks until she returns and breathes life into these tired walls… this empty space… my empty heart.