I was on a train one late afternoon waiting for platform space just outside Cardiff Central when my daughter pointed at a hotel, looked at me and said, "Building burnt down."
I corrected her and said, "Nah, no, it's not burnt down. It's just derelict and in a state of disrepair."
She looked again, pointed to it, turned to me and calmly said, "Building burnt down."
I tried again. "It's not burnt down. It's just old, empty and broken."
She got a little tetchy. "Building burnt down!"
"Ya, okay, whatever."
That night the building burnt down.
Having said that, I was visiting an animal farm with her when she pointed at a lop-eared goat, looked at me and said, "Dog."
I corrected her and said, "Nah, no, it's not a dog, it's a goat."
She looked again, pointed to it, turned to me with raised eyebrows and emphatically said, "Dog."
I tried again. "It's not a dog. Look at the black bits in it's eyes. They're oval, not round like a dog's."
She got a little frustrated with my stupidity. "Dog!"
"Ya, okay, whatever."
As far as I know, The goat didn't turn into a dog over night.
Say someone has a traumatic experience, like losing a child: if that person could brush it off and not be burdened by the loss, would they be ideal relationship material because they have no baggage?
This concept of 'baggage' is an odd one.
It's meaningless, possibly because it's perceived out of context.
There are a variety of skills people might have, or develop for dealing with trauma, or life's difficulties. If someone has the ability to work through life events and evolve, then a relationship may develop, or deepen as a result of that process.
It's perhaps not 'baggage', not distress, that is the issue, but developmental skills.
It's at it's most noticable when I'm in a quiet place on my own. I like being in quiet places on my own, so I associate it with having time out from work, or raucous, demanding dogs and grandchildren. It's like, "Phew! I can hear my own tinnitus."
I have a whole cacophany of noises, but I can see the noises in colour inside my head. That's pretty cool.
I also listen to 'pink noise' weather videos when I want to drown out my tinnitus for a bit.
I'm hearing impaired, but like many have tinnitus.
There is no peace and quiet, ever.
I think perhaps unless you experience a loss of a sense, it's very difficult to conceptualise the pros and cons and the types of losses.
I have some hilarious misunderstandings at times and have developed useful skills as coping strategies.
I'm very slightly long-sighted and now need reading glasses. I find that far more frustrating than being a deaf old git.
When I got my first hearing aid, I kept having flashbacks to being 7 years old, so I suspect that may have been the peak of my hearing ability. Perhaps I became a visual person through gradual hearing loss which is why I find it less frustrating than needing glasses.
I remember the privilege of being allowed to stick the Green Shield Stamps in the book, but having the honour swiftly removed because I didn't place them perfectly in the marked squares.
There were no wonky Green Shield Stamps tolerated in my family and I brought shame to the serious business of the cashier flicking through the book to check for empty page cheating.
It seems a neat and complete book was a measure of social respectability, but I came from the posh end of the council estate.
Aah, you're too young to remember the heyday of promotional tokens and stamps.
I suppose it relied upon delayed gratification, having little enough that 'free' crockery, music and plastic figurines were a significant asset and having little shame about picking up weathered litter from the street like it was panning for gold.
I can't say my mum was happy about the litter thing, but she collected apple cores she found in the gutter that had been discarded by the American soldiers and washed them off under the outside tap so Oma wouldn't see.
Is the current version youtube channel competitions and giveaways?
I'm sorry to hear of your experiences, but remembering a highlight in the form of exchanging tokens for the Bay City Rollers does not necessarily imply a utopian childhood.
Yes, it was much more rewarding when you could rummage through a packet of cereal like an eight year old food pathogen with hands to find a plastic toy. I seem to remember prefering toast once the toy had been retrieved, so maybe that didn't work any better as a sales boost than the Jesus feeds the 5,000 with rice pops approach.
Embassy coupons? Cigarettes?
I remember Tetley Tea Folk cards now you've prompted me, but getting too many disappointing doubles for my mother to continue to bravely stomach the altogether way too English tea brand. She made German tea which didn't have the strength to get out of the pot without a stern talking to.
I was sipping wine from a blue-green 1960's 'Esso glass' when I saw that MissCellaneous had posted a video of the Bay City Rollers' hit 'Bye Bye Baby'.
It reminded me of Smith's crisps having a promotional offer in the 70's where you could cut out greasy tokens from the packets and send off for hit singles.
My dad was rather partial to a bag of salt 'n' vinegar with a piece of cheddar, so I think I had the whole collection including Bye Bye Baby.
The records were made of such fascinatingly thin, floppy plastic, I think the crisp packets may have been more substantial. Fortunately, my Esso tumbler is made of sterner stuff.
From Green Shield Stamps to tokens on breakfast cereal boxes, what do you remember collecting and sending off for during this era?
Here's Castell Coch (pronounced Cast-eh- Coh- ) meaning Red Castle for you instead.
The original parts of it are nearly 1,000 years old, but it was rebuilt as a summer house by the third Marquess of Bute after he inherited it in 1848. He employed William Burges as the architect.
My daughter is dyslexic so I got away with telling her that 'Barbie' (the doll) actually said 'Bimbo' on the box for many years. One day she was sitting in the trolley as I pushed it around Aldi, when she spotted a bargain bin of these cringe-worthy abominations.
"Look Mam!" she yelled in her most uninhibited volume, "Bimbos!", much to the amusement of my fellow shoppers.
I suspect as a revenge attack and much to my horror, after my daughter was promoted to the role of matriarch, she gave my granddaughter a colour change Barbie mug for her birthday. Fortunately, my granddaughter wasn't all that impressed with it; unfortunately it became a part of my mug collection (of two mugs) out of necessity/crockery laziness.
Being quite a large mug I tended to give that one to my Northern English friend when he visited simply because one can't serve a Northerner tea in anything less than a half pint mug without jeopardising the friendship. He suggested using a permanent black marker to write above the name 'Barbie', so when it colour changed from black to pink, the name 'Klaus' would be revealed.
There's not enough information to make any realistic interpretation of this apparently incongruous behaviour, but it could be something like depression.
Work has a self-motivating schedule: you know that at a certain time you have to get up and do your thing to get paid.
Motivating herself to clean her home and take care of her support system (pets/guests) may have required more emotional and physical energy than she had.
I've known people to lose their children because not even the threat of losing them can overcome the de-motivating effect of inadequate dopamine levels.
There mght also be an addiction element where work activiity and the status/worthiness which it brought not only increased dopamine levels, but acted as an escape from from her own mind, her own emotional pain.
Are you aware of any history of abusive relationships? I'm just wondering if there is any connection with the her relatiionships you describe her as having - pets, and yourself as a gay man, none of whom are likely to be hitting her, or hitting on her.
jac_the_gripper Forum Posts (5,363)
Coh- 
) meaning Red Castle for you instead.
RE: Engerlaaannnd!!!
I can see there's not much point at the moment.I'll resign myself to beer, snacks and debriefing curry duties for now.