Gone

He woke up with a jolt, bolt upright in the bed, alone, too early, too quiet.
He listened for the usual sounds, nothing! Something is wrong, everything is wrong. A strange feeling of foreboding.

He jumped out of the bed, pulled on this track-suit bottoms and ran to check the other bedrooms. All empty.

His heart was thumping in his chest as he took the stairs three at a time.
Silence.
Through every room downstairs, all empty. Something was very wrong.
That's all that kept going round in his head, 'something is wrong', on a loop.

His phone. He found in on the bedside locker. Hers was the last number he had dialled, he hit the redial button, almost convinced there would be no answer.

'Hi hon', she said, 'how are you?'

'Is everything..... alright' he could barely speak, 'is everyone ok?'

'Of course, are you ok? Did something happen?'

Silence. The emotion was choking him.

'Are you still there? Can you hear me? I'm coming home', she said, 'I'll be there in 15 minutes'.

'No', he eventually got a word out. 'I'll be ok, it must have been a bad dream, stay at work. I thought you were all gone!'

'I thought I was all alone.'

Heart On My Sleeve (So I'm Told!)

Usual Thursday Night Shite.

It's Thursday, you know the score.
Map & Paul (the plumber) go for pints.
Talk shite.

I was telling him 'bout how I put a picture of a certain presidential canditate on FB and how I was mocking him and how some people didn't like such!

Paul is, well, very, how do we say, Nationilist!(That's not even a word, is it?) And wasn't a bit upset about my joshing of this other canditate. He did however get quite irate when I set the same jocularity on his fave choice as our first person. (I love 'rising him' as we say here!)

To be honest, I think this election is a joke, as are ALL the candidates. The Irish President has absoloutely NO power. The Irish President is no more than a symbol.

Even so, we don't want an asshole representing us abroad, so we gotta vote, and whadda we got?

Well, one of them won the Eurovision Song Contest, and the rest???

I Know Where You Live

I was a quiet lad, music my only interest.
It seemed to me, looking back, that it was his lifes purpose to make mine a misery.

I recognised him immediately he walked in the bar, the very air changed. Even Herself noticed. He was a teenager the last time I layed my vengeful eyes on him, a younger, bigger lad than I, with a wont for proving his manliness by lording power over the slighter lads on the street, always accompanied of course by his band of followers, a cackle of weak upstarts, afraid of said power, afraid of him, and so surrendered to their master, always at his back, his army of pawns.

He however did not know me from the proverbial Adam as he sat his fat arse and rotund middle, not to mention a skull that was never designed , (unlike my own), to be bald, six inches from where I was having my usual Sunday night date with Herself. He had done well for himself (I later learned from my brother), making a small fortune in a local tackle & bait company. I presume his first marriage had failed as I'm quite sure the young girl with the eastern European accent was definitely not the girl he married thirty years ago.

Though I kept my back to him, I could feel his cold cowardly voice go through my brain, as it had done all those years ago. I stuck it out for a couple of hours, but I could not settle, could not even take in the words coming from the mouth of my love. It was time to leave.

"I'm off to the gents" says I to Herself, "and we'll be off".

I knew he recognised me when I walked back into the bar.
I ignored him.
Wouldn't catch his eye.

He actually poked me in the back to get my attention!

"You're Stewart, aren't you?" he smiled, "You don't know me do you?"

I buttoned my coat as I looked him in the face.

"I know exactly who you are" I said as I put out my hand to shake his.

His girlfriend smiled back as I said goodnight.

I turned back as we left to see him read the note I had slipped into his hand.

The End Is.........

Nigh?

It's up to you.

LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR

Martin Anthony Patrick Stewart.
This is who I am.

I might be a little naive at times, and maybe too trusting, perhaps even foolish to put my real name out there.

But this is who I am. And besides a little foolery on my previous post, I have never claimed nor pretended to be anyone else, real or make-believe. (Though I am honoured to know this 'other'!)

Nor would I ever, as some believe, purposely use anothers feelings for 'fun'!

Food, Friends, Family & Fun.

Saturday night and no gig! And though I would prefer to be working (and earning!) it was a Saturday night off so I invited baby bro Eddie and his lovely Val over for dinner. They are, apart from meself & Annette, probably two of the most easy-going people we know, so dinner is always casual, and fun.

I had the main course cooked (Thai red curry with chicken & vegetables on basmati rice with a sprinkling of lime juice), but cooked the starter (King prawns, pan fried in butter with sweet chilli sauce, served on a rocket & cherry tomato salad) when they arrived, whilst we were all having drinks in the kitchen.
Dessert was Eton Mess (with organic strawberry yoghurt instead of cream).

Drinks followed, except for our Eddie, who is on meds for a back injury! I introduced Val to Lime Vodka, I think she like!

I cook every day, I do almost all of the cooking for the family, it's something I love doing, and I love it when I see bare (or almost bare) plates at my table of an evening! And I was pleased tonight.

But apart from the food, the four of us get on so well, we laugh, chat (no subject is out of bounds!) sing, be merry. At one stage we all had tears of laughter recalling an old story of a mutual friend, a story that may never be told on a blog! (Let's just say the story is about a 'shit-stick'!) The two younger daughters were watching 'X-Factor' in the adjoining living room and even had the sound turned down so as to listen to our stories!

A good night was had by all. ( I should have taken some photies of the food?!)

Enjoy the rest of the weekend my friends.

I'm Here, I've Beer, Get Used to It!

I'm watchin' Amy Winehouse on one of the music channels, 'Rehab'.
And only yesterday saw the vid for her duet with Tony Bennett. Exquisite!

I remember being a young teenager, thinking I would never be 21.
Why would I think that?
I sure as hell don't remember why I had such thoughts back then, I just remember that I did.
And I remember it was not a good feeling.

I also remember being a happy teenager, but mostly, well, I would not like to re-live those years.

I remember when I split with my fiance (at the ripe old age of 21!) feeling like someone had stuck their big pointy finger right into my heart and twisted and twisted...

And then I remember rediscovering music, via some of my (now) oldest friends.
And I became me.

We were making (in our opinion) some fantastic music.
We were gonna be huge! (This was before Simon GOWL!)

We never did become huge, but we did keep doing what we loved.
And some of us still make quite a decent living doing just that!

Fame?
I'm gonna live forever?

I love what I do, where I am, so maybe this is where I'm meant to be right now.

Unlike every other kid these days, I never craved fame, especially not the instant fame glorified today in shows like X-Factor/Idol. I truly believe these shows screw with the minds of so many kids!

As for Amy, I believe she was a true talent, fucked up, but a talent none the less.
And she will be remembered for quite a long time.

I, on the other hand, at 50 years of age, one who could never dream of having a gift such as hers, am still here.

And I intend on being here for quite a while! Slainte! :¬)

xxx