write.as/jonbeckett

After several weeks of preparations, and a manic weekend trying to juggle everything involved in a major birthday party for my other half, sixty guests, caterers, music, and then a day of reversing that entire process, I'm running on fumes. Staying up throughout Saturday night probably didn't help – I tried to stay awake, but found myself almost falling asleep on my feet on Sunday afternoon. I went to bed for an hour, and slept for three hours. Go figure.

The funny thing though? Today I am racing between tasks, wondering what to do next – I think maybe you just get used to running flat-out, and then when you don't need to any more, it takes a while to realise you can afford to slow down, gather your thoughts, read a book, and maybe write a blog post or two.

Of course I'm at work right now, so this isn't the long rambling blog post you might have expected – but maybe there will be one soon.

In other news, I wrote this post at lunchtime, and it's been sat in a browser tab for the last three hours. Maybe the world isn't slowing down that much after all.

It's half past 10 in the morning as I sit down to write this. I've been up since about a little before 9am – showered, fresh clothes, and a relatively clear head. It's miraculous really, because I didn't sleep.

A certain person isn't in such a good state this morning – how she managed to walk home is a mystery and a half. I stayed up to look after her. She will be fine, and anyway – her birthday party was brilliant.

(five hours pass)

I'm still going. Still plodding along. I've been back to the party venue twice to retrieve various items left over from the party – table decorations, jars filled with penny sweets, and numerous presents. We now have an embarrassing number of Prosecco bottles in the wine rack (the rack has had two bottles of mulled wine in it for the last two years).

While going through the various bags from the party this afternoon I found some of the photo booth photos, and all sorts of memories from the night flooded back – catching up with old friends, drinking just a little bit too much, and laughing until our faces hurt on the dance floor.

We got home at about 1am, after walking through silent streets. While walking with a wonderful friend, I realised how lucky I am to count so many great people among my circle of friends. I've never really thought of myself as having many friends, but the party made me realise that I really do.

Anyway.

Now I'm wondering about either having a couple of hours sleep now, or pushing through until late evening, and catching up on sleep tonight.

Nearly everything is now in-place. The hall is ready – tables covered – table decorations done – balloons filled – stage set – sound system in-place – lights ready to go.

The party we have been preparing for happens tonight. In half an hour I turn the oven on, and make us all pizza. Something quick and filling to eat before getting changed, doing hair, makeup, and walking into town – arriving half an hour early to meet the caterers, and put the final decorations in-place.

I have been on my feet all day – I looked at the health app on my phone while walking back towards home for the couple of hours in-between everything, and saw the ticker pass through 10,000 steps.

My feet already hurt, but I'm kind of looking forward to getting to the end of the first hour of the party, making my way to the stage, turning the sound up to 11, and starting the first proper playlist. And yes, the Beegees are up first.

The playlists will take the party-goers from the 1970s, through to the modern day. We tested the sound system earlier, and oh-my-word it sounded awesome. There's something about proper concert-size speakers and power-amps that hits your senses in a way that a hi-fi or headphones never will. You can feel the music.

I'm almost looking forward to the end of the party too though – for the last fifteen minutes we have a number of 'last song at the school disco' tracks. Hopefully we won't fully recreate the school disco experience though, with a girl crying outside, and another having a stand-up argument in the corridor.

And yes, I will be hung-over tomorrow.

It's my other half's 'official' birthday tomorrow – the party is on Saturday night. I just bought her 'official' birthday present from me – a subscription to 'Bookishly'.

Bookishly is one of the many subscription delivery services that have become popular in recent years – this particular subscription will deliver a used classic paperback book through the post along with some nice tea each month. We talked about which subscription might be best – this one won through because (a) we'll be helping recycle old books, and (b) second hand books smell wonderful.

Oh, and I ordered the mug too, because they totally saw me coming.

After tipping myself out of bed at 6:30 this morning, having a shower, putting some coffee on, and cooking a round of bacon sandwiches for the kids, I wondered why Miss 18 had not shown her face.

She is off work again. Conjunctivitis this time. This is apparently the penalty of working with small children – she just started her first job as an apprentice at a pre-school. I think this morning she was worried about calling in sick again, until her supervisor started laughing, and told her to expect to be continually sick for the first few weeks.

I remember when the children were at infant and primary school, we were routinely sick for several weeks each year – catching colds, coughs, and so on. Of course you don't get to have any time off at home, so you just soldier on – squirting 'first defence' up your nose, taking tablets until you rattle, and forcing down orange juice, chicken soup, and whatever other supposedly helpful substances you can dream up.

I just checked the calendar at work – I've had one day off sick in the last year. The year before that I had two days off sick. I'm not sure if I just don't get sick very often any more, or if I'm better than most at just carrying on regardless. It's that whole 'putting one foot in front of the other, and keeping doing it' thing, isn't it.

Earlier this year I holed myself up on an internet island of my own creation for a while. A respite of sorts from the avalanche of conversation that tends to thunder past no matter where you might stand while navigating Twitter, Tumblr, Wordpress, Facebook, or wherever else.

Although I have tentatively stepped back towards the raging river – following one or two old friends – I still haven't really 'returned' to the social media madness. I'm not sure I ever will.

I can count my posts to Facebook over the last few weeks on the fingers of one hand. The same is true of Twitter. I still post to Instagram whenever I have something interesting to share, but even those 'somethings' are becoming sporadic at best.

I'm not sure I have a point to make. I'm not sure there is a point to make. A little voice in my head tries to tell me that putting one foot in front of the other will ensure that everything turns out alright in the end. I'm not sure I believe it.

It's Wednesday the 20th March 2019. I'm sitting at my desk in the office. I've been half-watching my email in-box all morning. I've made two cups of coffee for everybody so far, and I've already eaten the packed lunch I made for myself. I have no idea what I'm going to write about, but let's see where this goes.

(an hour and a half passes)

This browser tab has been open for the last hour and a half, and I've got no closer to writing anything. Perhaps this is how the universe attempts to tell me that I really shouldn't try to empty my head when there's not much to share.

(another minute passes while I try to think if there is anything I might share)

I think the battery on my Amazon Kindle is dead. I charged it up the other night, and noticed it didn't charge to 100% – then once disconnected from the power, started dropping like a stone. It is about four years old. I still have the Fire tablet to read with, so it's not a disaster, but it has made me think twice about buying electronic books again. Although the Kindle is convenient while travelling, I've always preferred paper books – probably always will. There's just something about sitting with a real book in your hands – I'm not sure if it's the weight of it in your hands, or the smell, or what.

I looked briefly at the the new Kindles on the Amazon website, and then caught myself – thinking 'do I REALLY need one?'. Of course I don't. I find myself thinking this about a lot of things at the moment.

I guess I should get on with some work. Or maybe another coffee for everybody.

I didn't plan on working from home today.

It all began when I was cooking bacon for the children's breakfasts at 7am this morning. Miss 18 wasn't getting up, and my other half went to check on her. A few minutes later she returned, with stories of a swollen eye, and calling the doctor to make an appointment. They left on-foot towards the doctors shortly before I left the house – while gathering my things together I noticed a mobile phone on the kitchen counter, and wondered which of the children had left their phone behind.

When I got to work (about three miles through the morning traffic mayhem), I was about to take my coat off when my mobile phone erupted into life.

'Hello ?'

'Hi Dad – can you come home again?'

I don't know why, but I absolutely knew what Miss 18 was going to say next.

'We've locked ourselves out. Our keys and phones are indoors'.

I started swearing – my t-shirt was already drenched in sweat after fighting a headwind all the way to work – I could foresee myself having another shower and changing my clothes when I got home.

'Sorry!'

'It's ok – I'll be about fifteen or twenty minutes – depending on traffic'.

And that's how I ended up home again a little while later – except I picked up my laptop from the office along the way – with no intention of returning a second time. I had the second shower too.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some urgent work coffee to get on with.

It's been a bit of a morning so far. My other half is out for the day at some sort of arts and crafts course, leaving me to shepherd Miss 15 to rugby. We caught the first bus out of town this morning, then set off towards the rugby club. I gave my daughter the choice between getting a bus all the way to the rugby club, or walking through town via McDonalds to get a breakfast wrap. She started walking almost immediately.

After realising we might not make it to the rugby ground on time, we DID end up catching a bus – thankfully the pitches are adjacent to a busy road that many bus routes pass along. After waiting at a nearby stop for a minute or two, a bus swept into view, and we jumped aboard. Quite how the driver didn't know about the existence of the rugby club is a mystery to me – thankfully I knew the name of the bus stops near the NUMEROUS rugby pitches alongside the road, which he did know.

Another little thing that made the journey a little easier – our local bus services have upgraded the ticket machines on all vehicles to accept contact-less payments from debit and credit cards. I'm beginning to wonder when or if I'll ever need cash in my wallet again – it's disappearing from general use at a pretty impressive rate.

Needless to say, we made it to the rugby club with five minutes to spare. Quite why we broke our backside getting here on time is a mystery though, because of course we arrived first – meeting the coaches on the corner of the pitch. Miss 15 proudly claimed that she had walked all the way before I pulled the rug from under her ('don't you mean all the way from the bus stop to the pitches?'). Over the course of the next few minutes a steady stream of teenagers arrived around us – all looking like they might have been reluctantly dragged from their beds a few minutes before.

I'm now sitting in the club house, perched on a high stool by a window, looking out over the rugby grounds. I've just finished a cup of tea, and have an hour to myself. I will wander down to the pitch side towards the end of training and accompany Miss 15 back to get herself a cup of tea before we begin the journey home.

When we get home later today I'll no doubt be met by Miss 13 and Miss 18, both announcing they are bored and hungry. There will also be a sink full of washing up, and a kitchen strewn with the remains of whatever they have scavenged from the cupboards during the morning. It will not have occurred to either of them to clean up after themselves. If I question them, I will be 'going on at them, as per usual' – and if I question their tone, they will make comments about spending the weekend with Miss 15 'as per usual'. Two parents into three children doesn't go – and the older they get, the more barbed their comments become. We'll ignore that they are plenty old enough to find their own entertainment, go grocery shopping, cook, wash up, and tidy up after themselves – because the argument really isn't worth having.

This is where I stop this post from spiraling any further. Enough with the negativity. This is life – at the moment – and is a very similar life to lots of other families with teenagers. I guess in some ways I should be happy that I'm still involved in my children's lives – I see lots of our children's friends essentially living their own lives by their mid-teens – completely independent of their parents. That our kids know a world where dinner is always on the table, where we catch up with each other's day over our evening meal, and where the house is always festooned with fresh laundry – these are things I should hang on to – things I should be thankful for. Being thankful doesn't feel like the right sentiment though – because we actively make these things happen – they are about hard work, and modelling an example we might wish the children to continue.

Postscript – I stood next to a wonderful Mum for the last twenty minutes of training, and somehow got into a conversation all about the books we have been reading recently. Now I really DO have to start making time to read, because she will ask next time I see her...

I didn't write a blog post yesterday. I'm not entirely sure why. I always write a blog post – every day. Even writing those words sounds like a lie now. Life just seems to keep getting in my way at the moment – no matter how hard I work, or what I try to do, I either end up where I started, or slightly worse off than I had been before. Meanwhile everybody else seems to be slowly making progress. I'm sure it's not true, but it often feels like it.

I caught myself looking at Facebook the other day. I can't really kill my account because of childrens and community groups – and I suppose that's how they get you. At least the various algorithms that govern the timeline absolve me from seeing the political, bigoted, racist or ignorant posts from people I used to know or go to school with. It's not all of them – far from it – but it's more than I'm comfortable dealing with.

Today has been filled mostly with chores – at least until lunchtime. We haven't had a chance to go grocery shopping this week yet, so I walked the mile-or-so into town to buy soup and some bread for everybody. We've been reduced recently to buying only for the next meal – partly because of money, and partly because of time.

Somebody remarked a couple of weeks ago that they can't understand how I'm always washing clothes. Let's do the math.

We have two daughters still in secondary education. They have several sets of school uniform, two of which will get worn during the week. Our youngest also has swimming kit, and a full PE kit. Our middle girl has hockey kit, rugby kit, and PE kit. I put on clean clothes every day, because I cycle to work – without doing that, I would be a smelly mess within 24 hours. My other half probably gets through three sets of clothes during an average week. Now Miss 18 is working, she gets through seven or eight pieces of clothing in a week. Then you have towels for showers – the kids all shower or bath perhaps three times a week – the same for my other half. I shower every morning, and again when I get in if we're going out anywhere. Can you imagine how many towels we get through? And bedding? Five beds remember.

We live in fear of the washing machine erupting into flames. We have piles of clean folded washing EVERYWHERE, and we tell ourselves that this is normal. We have a rotary washing line in the garden that is always festooned with clothes – it has actually buckled under the weight of the clothes in the past, and been repaired.

If you made it this far through the blog post, you probably deserve a medal. A chocolate one, like they have next to the counter in coffee shops. I wish I was in a coffee shop right now – writing about the people sitting nearby – wondering what their lives are like. I bet their dining table isn't completely covered in folded clothes...