Translate

Wednesday 6 January 2021

Third worst, different from the first.  No it wasn't, only joking to keep the Ramones theme going.  It was just the same as Monday and Tuesday and not a lot different to every day for the last 9 months.  Then again, three quarters of the working week down is never a bad thing.  

Have got to finish early tomorrow night to take Shamila's dad for his Covid jab.  Probably shouldn't really be doing it but what the hell are we supposed to do, the fellar's 90 years old.  Hopefully the police aren't reading my pronouncement otherwise there might be a bit of brouhaha.

Eh, you never know?  I remember about 10 years ago I was getting about 50 views a day and sudden it went up to 5000. mostly in L.A.  It spooked me a bit actually especially when the views went back down again.  It was a bit suspicious you've got to admit?

We'll just have to see what tomorrow brings.

Peace?

Tuesday 5 January 2021

Day 2

Second day, same as the first (to the tune of Beat on a Brat), sadly no deliveries today though. I'm only joking - of course I had a delivery.  It was a flyer for a new mobile phone contract from Virgin.  Duly noted and memorised.  

Anything of note happen?  Nope.  Genuinely can't remember if we've gone into lockdown yet.  It feels like I've been in lockdown sine last March to me.

Eez a little number.  


Monday 4 January 2021

Scrooge - Reflections of Christmas past

Reflecting quite a lot at the moment and expect to continue for some time.   

 

First day of 2021 at work went as well as could be expected.  Got up as normal at Shamila's in Billingham. Sham prepared my breakfast cereal and toast.  Took my morning tablets, sat down and flicked through the news on my phone before driving to my house in Acklam where I work for HMRC.  I sit there on my own all day.  I send and receive a few emails/messages from colleagues and my manager and attend the occasional team meeting.  Obviously, what I do is of national importance and top secret so I can't divulge in such a public arena but ring HMRC with a tricky tax problem tomorrow and you never know.

 

Today was a bit more exciting than normal because I had a wardrobe delivered.  Juggling my work around the odd delivery is just one of the perks of working from home during a pandemic.  Actually call it singular perk that I've enjoyed loads of times.  I've had a lot of workmen in since the beginning of September, so I've saved a stash of leave (that's what us posh Labour lot call holidays don't you know).  Anyway there's a big unsightly scratch on the front of one of the doors so I guess they'll be back to sort it.

 

I digress.  So today was my 42nd new year return to work since I started my first (and only) job in 1978.  


And what are my recollections of that time? 

 

I was 17, a bit shy, very awkward socially, very immature.  I used to blush all the time, still do actually. I was so self-conscious.    I felt pressure to get a girlfriend but hadn't the faintest idea how to get one.  And of course I thought it was just me.  I almost certainly wasn't.  I'd left all my school/college friends behind and was like a fish out of water in the 9 to 5 environment of 'real work' with adults.  

 

It doesn't sound long now but I'd been working 3 1/2 months up to Christmas, it seemed like an eternity.  I was losing my confidence, not that I had that much to start with.  I remember being conscious that I had to make friends and it felt like I was running out of time. God knows what I thought was going to happen.

 

The Christmas holiday with my brothers and mam and dad must have been great, they always were.   Obviously presents and that and the New Year’s party round our house and the Freeman's 2 doors away.  Our mam and dad loved New Year’s Eve and they let me play a couple of my records. I remember playing First Time by The Boys (terrible song) and our mam and her best friend, Edie Freeman trying to dance to it.  A great memory,  probably my last memory of being a kid at Christmas.  


I have strong memories of resenting going back to work after Christmas,  jeez, I'd only had a week off.   That's all wrong, I don't think I ever properly got over to having long school holidays off. Then again I was loaded, picking up about £30 a week.  After giving our mam £10 I still had £20 to spend on records. It was more cash than I needed.  Lots of regrets about the holidays not unpaid college mind.

 

Our parents were what now seems to me relatively youthful. Our mam was 41 and Dad 46 and although our grandads and nana/grandma were no longer around most of our blood uncles and aunties were.  Uncles Joe, Jack and Alec and aunties Madge and Pauline.  

 

Sadly that was as good and serene as it was going to get because our mam's younger sister Pauline died of a heart attack in January aged 40.  Little did we know at the time but the heart thing had already become a family thing and still is.  I remember us being notified by phone and Kenny next door driving me and our mam 'round to our uncle Alec's in Thorntree to let him know.  I thought my head was going to explode.  Jeez.

 

And I just went to work the next day.  I was shell-shocked but I didn't know how or what to tell my work colleagues, so I didn't tell anybody.  


Not sure where all that came from or where it's going so I think I'll leave it there for now.



Sunday 3 January 2021

We move on.

I'm back at work tomorrow so it's officially the last day of my Christmas holiday and I have butterflies in my stomach which is just normal.  I've always felt like this after Christmas, even when school was work.  I thought it was just me being soft and sentimental but it turns out SAD Syndrome is a real thing and lots of other people are prone to it as well.  I do feel vindicated mind but it's more consolation than actually making me feel better.


My usual approach nowadays isn't rocket science either.  I hammer the gym, I socialise as much as I can.  I go to the pub with friends, go to gigs even if I’m not that interested in the artist or band.  I make a few New Year resolutions knowing full well I’m not going stick to them for very long.  Anything to focus my mind really until I wake up one day and the blues have gone.

 

Without question most of my usual tools are not there for me this year.  I’m far from convinced  some of the simple socialising we took for granted will ever be available again. I’ve thought about doing the couch to 5k but I’m wary about the weather not to mention my terrible balance and general clumsiness.  Even the simplest things like reading and listening to music have become problematic for me, I find it increasingly hard to concentrate  – a quick Google of course shows it’s not just me.  At least some consolation.

 

So …………  

 

1 Gym - No

2 Couch to 5k? – Will start tomorrow, weather permitting

3 Pub – No

4 I drink too much at home.  I don’t even like it (that much) so less drinking at home 

5 Gigs – Obviously not 

6 Listen to more music.  For some bizarre reason I lost interest in music last year.

7 Less aimless browsing on social media and on-line news

8 Less aimless watching tv

9 More listening to music, more reading/learning

10 Continue with my blog for now

 

So I guess my resolutions are 2, 4, 6, 9 and 10.

 

Okay pop music, let’s go!


Saturday 2 January 2021

Reflections and Happy Birthday

On 2 January 2006 Boro played Newcastle away in the Premier League in front of 52302 spectators.  Hasselbaink came off the bench to score in the 87th minute to put Boro in the lead 2-1.  Alas Lee Clark went on to equalise in the final minute and the match ended 2-2.  

Imagine that? In 2006 Boro were so good that Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink couldn't get into our starting line-up.  Since that day our then manager Steve McLaren, the most successful manger in our history left Boro to manage England to disastrous effect.  Our captain that day also went on to manage Boro before getting the sack after we got relegated to the Championship.  Since the he's been manager of England since September 2016.   They say football is a funny old game.  More funny peculiar than funny ha ha I guess.

Today, 2 January 2021, Chuka Akpon scored the final goal in the 81st minute to make it 3-1 to Boro away to Wycombe Wanderers in front of 0 spectators.  We now play in the second tier of English Football and today's win moves us just outside the play-off positions and that's pretty good.  

Could we get promoted this season?  I personally doubt it and if we do we'll almost certainly come straight back down.  We're just too poor to compete.  Our chairman, Steve Gibson whilst obviously still a very rich man is no longer the financial big hitter he was way back when. Those heady days of big money signings under Bryan Robson and Steve McLaren (1994 to 2006) are history. 15 to 27 years ago doesn't seem that long ago to me but maybe it all happened in the 'olden days' we used to talk about when we were kids.

Anyway lets not be downbeat. So in other news on 2 January 2006 I started my blog on Livejournal so this cakes for me.



It's ok, I'll save you a piece.  

I know my posts have been sparse over recent and not so recent years but I still tell people I've been doing a blog for 15 years and in the words of Gary McCabe aged 10 at Ladgate Juniors if you don't believe me you can go and fart.  Alternatively you could have a flick through the archives on Blogger and Livejournal 

On that bombshell in a new regular feature on Goffafromtheblock on Saturday night here's my song for Saturday night - Friday I'm in Love - Kate Rusby


 


Sleep tight.


Friday 1 January 2021

New Year - old/new start

 It all feels rubbish to be honest.  No point trying to kid myself.  

As I said last night a lots happened in the last 9 months.  From a practical point of view selling the family home was a no brainer really.  It was a window of opportunity to move. I'm not getting any younger and it was probably a case of it now or never.  The area is currently very quiet and nice but it's full of rental properties and it would only take one bad household to totally destroy the tranquility/ambience of the neighbourhood.  That looks awful reading it back but please don't judge me too harshly for saying that. Think I've done my time.

So me and Ian decided to sell up at the beginning of April. Me and Shamila (mainly me) did some minor repairs and decoration work and we put it up for sale in the middle of June.  We agreed a sale 5 weeks later and completed the sale in the middle of September.  All done in 3 months. Bop, bop, bop.

So after nearly 60 years the Spences no longer have a base in East Middlesbrough.  There were lots of tears from me and my close neighbours (think they were probably more worried about who they might get as their new neighbour) at the end and I still miss them all terribly 3 months on.  I guess I could go back and see them from time to time and in truth I had to just before Christmas but I simply don't like seeing somebody else living in our house.  Hail the Spences, 25 Kirkstone Road, Berwick Hills.


A very proud man. 

So I'm back in my 'Acklam house' which it's become known over the last 10 years.  You know with me being such a property tycoon and all that.  

Ha ha, don't think so, I just fell into being a landlord.  I never planned it at all.  It just came about because of the financial crash in 2008.  My mam was going to come and live with me but due to the property crash she couldn't sell her house so on a whim I decided to rent my house out and move back in Chateau 25.  It was ok. Actually it was brill while my mam was still alive and it brought me a few bob which meant I could go part-time at work.  That said the cash I received didn't really compensate me enough for the dreaded phone calls from the tenants or even the fear of receiving them. I hated ringing round for tradesmen to do repairs and doing my Tax returns was a drag. It was all terrible, I mean apart from the rent obviously.  Does that make me a bad person?  

I don't think so and my tenants loved me.  Shamila said I was too soft and I can now admit I was.  I only put the rent up once and I pretty much let them do what they wanted with the house.  To say it looked a bit tired when they moved out was an understatement.   

Hey ho, it all worked out. Me and Sham have totally renovated it (in fairness think Shamila did more work than me) and its now looking the best it's ever looked. It's all worked out.  Anyway here you go, here are a few photos think Shamila took.