I Honestly Love You

As my partner held me while I cried my heart out over the death of my all-time favourite singer, Olivia Newton-John, I said to him , “Is it normal to cry when a celebrity dies?” He said, “Is it normal to cry when your parents die?” I said, “That’s different. We have an emotional connection to our parents.” He said, “You have an emotional connection to ONJ, so …”

He’s right. I invested myself emotionally in her music and her loveliness. I love every word she sings. I know all her songs by heart. I loved watching her perform and do interviews. She was funny and sunny and so personable. She was the artist I listened to the most for years. To me, she is so much more than just ‘Grease’ and ‘Physical’. I absolutely love all her early stuff. I’ve still got all my albums, cassettes and CDs. I can’t bear to part with any of them, even though she now blasts out of my iPod.

So as I cried I told my partner about how, when I was 16, I had a boyfriend who loved ONJ as well and he had albums. Albums which I borrowed and practically wore out. When we broke up, he asked for his albums back. Giving them back was more painful than the break up! When I got a bit of cash, I went out and bought my own copies.

And I told him my favourite memory – when my Dad and I saw ONJ in concert. I think it was about 2005/2006, somewhere around then, and she was at the Entertainment Centre (in Adelaide). The day tickets went on sale, I was straight on the phone and scored us front row seats!! So, so happy!! On the night, we rock up, take our seats and when she came out, I literally cried. I was so overjoyed to see my idol in the flesh. And, I kid you not, she stood directly in front of me and did most of the concert right there!!! Not a little to the left, or a little to the right, but DIRECTLY. IN. FRONT. OF. ME! At one point, she wandered randomly to the other side of the stage and stood there for a couple of songs and then she came back and resumed her place in front of me. I could not believe it. I had the best seat in the house.

But the most magical moment of the night was when she was singing one of her lesser known songs and, because I knew every word of every song, I was singing along and she looked at me, saw me singing, and gave me the most beautiful smile I have ever seen. I’ll never forget it. Her amazing smile lit up my world.

That smile! Unforgettable.

The beauty of music is that it remains forever and I can sing along with the ageless, timeless, beautiful Olivia until I float off into the ethers. Brief as it is, I wrote this because I could not let ONJs impact on my life go unacknowledged and though there is so much more to say, I really just wanted to share my concert experience because it was a moment that took my breath away and made me feel special because a woman and artist I honestly love gave me a piece of her sunshine.

So, to you, Olivia Newton-John, who brought so much joy to my life, I quote from one of your most beautiful songs, “I stand here in grace and gratitude and I thank you.”

A Rock N Roll Love Letter

My BFF Linda messaged me this morning to tell me Les McKeown, lead singer of the 70s sensations, The Bay City Rollers, had died. He was a mere 65 years old. I guarantee you, millions of hearts broke just a little bit this morning; the part of the heart that is reserved for the bands we loved when we were tweens and teens. We grow up, we move on, our musical tastes change. But we never, ever forget the intense love we had for certain artists and the level of sheer joy they brought us.

Linda and I were 11 when BCR were hitting their stride. ABBA were also a growing force and I loved them the most. Linda, and my sister Angela, loved BCR the most. Particularly Leslie. I eventually got on board and loved Leslie and the lads as much as they did.

It’s fun being a tween or teen in love. Imagining being kissed by the object of your affection. Imagining that they’re singing every song just to you. Imagining them surprising you by dropping by your house because they know you are their number one fan. The fantasy is a huge part of the charm.

Oh the hours Linda, Angela, and I spent making up dances and singing along to the BCR albums on repeat! For Christmas one year, I received a record player with a microphone. There are no words to adequately describe the thrill of that gift. It was karaoke heaven at least a decade before karaoke even became a thing. Now we were able to sing along with the boys with our warbling blaring out of the speakers.

One night, we decided to pretend we were at a BCR concert. We put on an album and screamed into the microphone – LLLEEESSSSLLLLLIIIEEEEEE. We did this for hours!! The poor old guy in the house next door thought we were being murdered lol!

Linda and I love to reminisce about those tween/teen times that were so joyful and always, always, the best memories are of us singing, dancing, and being in love with a super spunk. 

I still have all my BCR albums and Linda and I have BCR on our iPods. We never stopped loving the music and the star-struck girls inside us never stopped loving Leslie. We loved him then because he was gorgeous but now I appreciate his actual talent. The man had a great voice. He could really sing. And there are some excellent BCR songs that I think have stood the test of time – ‘You’re A Woman’, and ‘The Way I Feel Tonight’ are gorgeous and for showing off your 70s inspired dance moves, you can’t go past ‘Money Honey’, ‘Rock N Roll Love Letter’ and ‘Saturday Night’.

It’s such a shame bands like BCR drop out of favour as quickly as they rise to dizzying heights. One day you’re hot. The next you’re not. How brutal must that be for the artists? Lauded one minute. Shit-canned the next and as time goes on, you become a bit of a joke and a footnote in musical history. It’s not fair that it happens. But bands like BCR appeal to a certain demographic and, inevitably, their fan base grows up and no longer lives in the fantasy-land of innocent yearning. Artists want to stay relevant, but trying to keep your post-pubescent audience interested, and even gain a new audience, is no easy task. Past pop idols like Leif Garrett and Shaun Cassidy know that. Appeal is intense, but finite.

My memory tells me it was Thursday and Friday, 8th and 9th August 1985 that BCR came to my town. (I remember the dates because the girl I worked with turned 21 on the 9th.) They’d gotten back together and were touring. They stayed at a budget-priced motel and played at a local pub for two nights. No stadiums and penthouse suites for them this time around. Not like when they came to Australia in 1976 at their peak.

Spunky Leslie, 3 months shy of turning 31. Woody in the background on keyboard. Photo taken Friday 9th August, 1985 at The Old Lion, Melbourne Street, North Adelaide

The crowd singing along. That’s Ian on guitar and Woody again. I had dozens of photos from the night, including shots with Eric and Derek but in my infinite wisdom, I culled them! On reflection, not a good move! I don’t think Alan was on the tour.

Linda and I dusted off the tartan, got together a group of fellow devotees, and attended the gig, both nights. The first night was THE. BEST. NIGHT. EVER. The crowd was small so we stood at the back and relived that night in my bedroom where we screamed Leslie’s name. Over and over. We were twelve years old all over again.

Of course we got Leslie’s attention. Impossible not to. The band and the crowd were, luckily, amused by us and after it was all over, our group snuck backstage hoping to meet Leslie. He came out with his lovely wife by his side and we immediately lost all sense and tittered like school girls. He came up to me, poked me in the shoulder and said, in his lovely Scottish brogue, “I saw you.”

He saw me. HE SAW ME!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t remember what platitudes we gushed after that, but there were plenty. My over-stimulated, over-excited brain went into a tailspin. Realising the ambition of meeting an idol 9 years on from the height of their fame was pretty significant to us. It may have been the briefest of encounters, probably no more than a minute or two, but it is forever etched in our DNA.

Even today, when I think of that night, all the joy just rushes back in. It was the best fun we had ever had on a night out. I screamed so loud I couldn’t speak the next day but we went back again that night and stood at the front of the stage this time and danced and sang and swooned! We were much better behaved! And we got a special mention from Leslie for being back again. He said something along the lines of that we must have plenty of money to come both nights and then they launched into ‘Money Honey’. Every girl there turned and looked at us!

The unbreakable bond Linda and I share comes, in part, from the hours we spent immersed in a world of pop music and our love for singers and bands. Music connects us and transports us to a time and place where the memories are good. Hearing of Leslie’s death has made us so sad but it’s also brought the good memories flooding back. He played a significant part in our childhood and we are so glad we got to shout his name and, hopefully, for a moment, transport him back to a time when the world was his oyster. A bit of fun goes a long way. But a lot of love, whether it sits quietly in your teenage heart, or is shouted from the dance floor, lasts forever.

Thanks for the music Leslie and lads. Your songs made me, and still make me, genuinely happy.

So, let’s get the tartan out and remember the good times.

Michael J Fox asks, “Can you be an optimist and a realist at the same time?” Well, let’s see …

I’ve just finished reading ‘No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality’. It’s the latest tome from actor Michael J Fox. He’s a self-professed optimist. The titles of two of his other books – ‘Lucky Man: A Memoir’ and ‘Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist’ leave you in no doubt as to the veracity of his sunny outlook.

In this latest book, he details how 2018 was his ‘annus horribilis’ and how the struggles with his body were so great he felt himself slipping into depression. Gone was the optimism, replaced by feelings of despondency and boredom with his situation.

During his slump, he stops and takes a good look at the actual real difficulties of his life and how, in reality, with the unstoppable progression of his Parkinson’s, things are going to become more difficult for him. There’s no way back to good health and to the life he once knew. This is when he asks himself – “Can you be an optimist and a realist at the same time?”

An optimist is a person who is hopeful and confident that things will turn out for the best. They expect favourable outcomes. A realist is a person who accepts and deals with things as they are; who understands what is possible in a particular situation.

The challenge becomes how can he keep his head above water when he understands full well that there are no favourable outcomes for him?

Not enjoying feeling sorry for himself, he resorts to comparing his lot in life to those in the world who he considers are doing it much worse. It gives him perspective and helps him realise the reality of his good fortune. He finds his way back to his usual upbeat frame of mind. The last line of the book is:

“With gratitude, optimism becomes sustainable.”

A great sentiment, no doubt about it.

Now, I love Michael J Fox. I really do. Just ask my family, or go back in time and see his posters on my bedroom wall. So the following is in no way meant to diss him and his sunny disposition. He’s an amazing human being with the best attitude and he offers hope to millions. It’s just that when I’d finished the book (a fantastic read, by the way. Highly recommended. In fact, all his books are excellent), I was left wondering how he would cope if he had to live his life on the other side of the fence. The side where the grass is a touch browner. The side that lacks the distinct privilege he enjoys.

Yes, he had a terrible year health-wise. The on-going, degenerative nature of Parkinson’s is enough to deal with on its own, so to throw delicate spinal surgery and a shattered humerus into the mix is bound to blacken any mood. But if you put his health aside, the rest of his life, in general, is great. Surrounded by a loving, supportive family and friends. Golf with his rich and famous buddies. Holidays at his home on Long Island. Getaways to Martha’s Vineyard. Flying home to Canada on a whim to see his Mum, no doubt enjoying his first class surrounds. Ski holidays with the rich and famous.

He’s got a PA who takes care of the mundane day to day stuff so he can focus on the things that interest him. There’s his agent who calls him with job offers – cameos that are especially created for him or roles that are adapted to suit his physical limitations. He’s got a lawyer. An accountant. A publisher. A doorman at his prime-location New York apartment. He’s a Hollywood sweetheart – with a star on the Walk of Fame. He’s got multiple different entertainment awards lining his shelves. His Parkinson’s Foundation is thriving and lauded. His personal wealth is in the mega-millions which allows him to be answerable to no one and gives his family the freedom to do whatever they choose on a day to day basis. And, if ever needed, bucket loads of money can be made in the blink of an eye just by cashing in on his celebrity.

Most of the rest of the world don’t live like this. An average person works all manner of hours and days for a wage that just about stretches through to the next pay day. This system ensures we have to keep turning up for work if we want to eat and keep a roof over our heads. We do the same job, day in day out, with little to no variety in the role. We are answerable to our employers. We have to ask their permission for a day off, or for vacation time. If we’re sick, we have to advise them. If we just feel like staying home, we can’t. (Unless we ring them and fake an illness.) In essence, they are the boss of us not just at work. We run and manage our own lives, book our own appointments, organise our own schedules, all with no assistance. We sacrifice our ‘me’ time for chores. We save up all year to take a holiday, which is generally a once a year treat. We travel cattle-class. We live where we can afford to live, whether we like the area or not. And if we need bucket loads of money in a hurry … well, bad luck. Option: take a second job.

And premium healthcare? That comes with a premium price. A price a lot of people struggle to meet. 

Would MJF truly have been such an incurable optimist if he’d been an average guy who worked an average, unfulfilling job for 20 years barely scraping by with little room for indulgences, got diagnosed with Parkinson’s and had to fund the cost of his meds and treatment on minimum wage, all before eventually losing his job and, therefore, income? Life with money woes is a truly miserable and stressful existence. How does one cope in those circumstance? How does one keep on keeping on? How does one feel gratitude?

And what about when Average Mike urgently needs surgery for a tumour on his spine? As an ordinary working-class stiff there’s no top spinal surgeon from Johns Hopkins for him; a surgeon who rallied a team of other top surgeons to assist him with Actor Mike. Average Mike gets whoever the system assigns to him. I’m sure his surgeon is brilliant, as surgeons often are, but some people are considered THE BEST in their field for a reason.

Post-surgery physio follows for as long as his health insurance allows, if it allows, and when he’s discharged home, he’s on his own, relying on family and friends for the extra support. No 24/7 home care on his budget.

Things were tough before but with all the medical bills coming in, the financial challenges are getting worse for Average Mike and then, to really test his resolve, he falls and shatters his arm in the worst possible place – the humerus. Odds are pretty good that he won’t be privy to the best orthopaedic surgeon to pin it back together again. Odds are also pretty good he won’t have his own personal wheelchair pushers to get him from A to B while he can’t use his arm. Again, that type of support falls back onto family and friends. Too bad if they’re not available at the drop of a hat because they have work and life commitments of their own.

So to answer the question Michael J Fox posed, “Can you be an optimist and a realist at the same time?” I think that really depends on the reality you’re living.

Actor/philanthropist Mike has got it all and the means to keep it all. His life situation allows him to be in control of his choices and decisions. Anything he needs becomes possible, and available, for him. When he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, his life didn’t shrink, it expanded. For everything the disease took away, it was replaced with something new and meaningful. His life changed. But not necessarily for the worse.

Average Mike is not faring so well. His needs are not so easily or readily met. His choices and decisions are likely dependent on what he can afford. Sure, he could be an optimist, after all it’s just a state of mind and each of us have total free choice in how we think and feel and view our lives. Every day could be precious to him and he could find a million things to be grateful for. But, I think, when Average Mike contemplates the overall quality of his life thus far, sees all the places it’s potentially fallen short of youthful expectations, sees the things he has lost, all the struggles ahead, especially financial, and understands all the ways his life is limited and becoming increasingly so as his disease progresses, coupled with the added stresses this places on his loved ones, he’d be very hard-pressed to stay cheery or hopeful. 

Gratitude may well make optimism sustainable but I rather fancy the last line of Average Mike’s book would read:

‘With privilege, optimism becomes sustainable’.

Fur The Love Of …

My sister Jo is a vet nurse and this morning, just behind a block of units near her work, someone dumped a mother cat and her 6 kittens. Just left them in a cardboard box. Sigh.

I could weep. I really could.

Mumma Cat

Her Kittens

Why dump these sweet kitty cats? Ffs, take them into the vet. Or take them to an animal shelter. Be decent. Be thoughtful. Be caring. Be considerate. Be kind. Surely it’s not that hard?

The human animal can be such an unpleasant creature. I feel deeply ashamed that we are not a better species; that we can be truly vile and cruel. These cats deserved better. One, because they are living, sentient beings and, two, we made them our responsibility.

We’re the species who took cats and dogs, amongst other things, out of their environments and habitats and placed them into our homes. We domesticated them for our own pleasure or agendas. We invited them in and encouraged dependence. We take the view that we ‘own’ them, therefore they’re our property to do with as we please and if that includes discarding them, then so be it. It’s our right.

While every other species goes about its own life minding its own business, we butt in everywhere and make choices and decisions about their lives, usually to convenience us. When’s the last time kangaroos called for a cull on humans because we’re in ‘unmanageable’ numbers?

We decimate populations, bringing them to the brink of extinction with hunting and culls and poison and viruses. We give no mind to what used to be a harmoniously balanced food chain by killing one animals’ food source and when they inevitably turn to another source for survival, we dare to get shitty about it. We destroy habitats without so much as a backward glance. We ruin homes and lives with a shrug of our shoulders.

I sometimes wonder if we feel inferior so we lord it over everything just to feel superior. You know, like a bully. For surely, only an inferior species that has the size/strength/weaponry edge on other species would get some sick thrill being abusive and destructive and power mad.

Look, I know that even when you take people out of the equation, nature at work is not all rainbows and pots of posies. Animals fight. They kill. They swarm. They steal. They abandon their young. They usurp land. They hunt each other for food. It’s tough out there. Everything wants to survive. Life is a brutal business.

But animals following their instincts and their intrinsic natures doesn’t make my blood boil and make me write blogs about mistreatment and gross selfishness. It’s the unfair way people interact and interfere with other animals that makes me take to my keyboard. We’re supposed to be an intelligent species; aware and enlightened. We’re supposed to be above base behaviours. We’re supposed to be better than we are.

So why do we continue to be so cruel?

Read Between The Line #2

March 23rd, 2021

The line goes – ‘God only gives you what you can handle’.

Just like the ‘Women have come a long way’ line featured in my previous blog, this one is also absolute bullshit.

The world is chock-a-block full of non-handlers:

People who commit suicide are at the top of the list. Closely followed by those who attempt it.

Then there’s drug, food, alcohol addicts. Whatever numbs the pain and removes you from reality for awhile.

Those who have nervous breakdowns or anxiety disorders.

Angry people who lash out at everyone and everything.

Fed up people who just stop trying.

Chronically ill people who just want to die.

People who cry themselves to sleep.

Bullied people who eventually find themselves with mental health issues.

People who can’t overcome grief.

Victims – in all their connotations.

And so on and so forth.

Organisations abound to help people try and handle stuff. Shit mental health is a chronic societal problem. And it gets worse each year.

Sure, people continue to function; getting from one day to the next looking, for all intents and purposes, like all is manageable. But make no mistake, just going through the motions is very different to ‘handling’ things. Handling implies you are successfully dealing, rising above, coping, going about your business unbothered and unburdened.

The line should be: There is no God and life sometimes gives you more than what is bearable.

Read Between The Line

March 22^nd, 2021

I’ve decided to re-start my blog. Let the ramblings begin … 

The other day this old chestnut popped into my head – ‘Women have come a long way’.

And it suddenly struck me what an absolute bullshit line that is.

It suggests that women, since time immemorial, have been lagging behind. We’ve been so very backward in every area of life and, only just recently, we’ve managed to almost catch up.

Lines like that drive me to the point of insanity. It’s not women who’ve come a long way – it’s societal attitudes.

Women aren’t ‘getting’ anywhere. We’re here. Always have been. We’ve moved at the same pace as men. It’s oppression and nasty attitudes that have kept the delusion alive that we haven’t. And it’s these attitudes that have thwarted our natural progress and denied us a more significant contribution to the shaping of the world in which we live. I wonder how life would look if we’d never been subjected to such flagrant abuse.

The line should be – Bad attitudes towards women have improved slightly. 

Nearly 10 months and not a word …

So what happened? Why did I suddenly stop blogging? Especially seeing as I was attempting to blog every day. Well, on Monday the 17^th February, my 81 year old father was hit by a car and catastrophically injured. He’d gone for a walk to the local shops with a friend to buy some teabags, and it would be almost nine months before he finally made it home.

The 25-year-old driver, for reasons unknown, was on the wrong side of the road. My dad was not far from stepping onto the kerb but he didn’t quite make it. His friend was just ahead of him so she made a leap for it and was saved.

My dad was hit at 60km/h.

His physical injuries included a subdural haematoma, broken ribs, punctured lungs, shattered pelvis – open book, cracked L4, AC on his left shoulder, shattered fibula and tibia in his right leg, multiple cuts, bruises, and abrasions. The skin on the little finger of his left hand was abraded down to the ligament. The list is longer and his file is as thick as a phone book of yesteryear, but you get the idea.

I found out when my brother rang me at about 6 pm. He’d found out from his daughter when a friend Facebook messaged her that she was pretty sure her Grandpa was the person in the accident she’d just passed.

My brother rushed to the scene, which was only a couple of minutes away from his home. Dad was probably already at the hospital by then. Major Crash were doing their thing and they told my brother that we’d all better get there as soon as possible. I don’t think anyone held out much hope for him.

Word spread and we all raced to the Royal Adelaide. We found out later that when Dad arrived, the emergency teams were doing hand-over so he had two of the best teams working on him. Apparently his only pulse was in his groin but those amazing doctors worked their magic and brought him back from the brink.

He was critical but had regained consciousness and they took him up to ICU, where we were finally allowed to see him. At that time, he didn’t look too bad, considering. A bit beaten up but otherwise ok. He was confused, of course, and unsure about where he was or what had happened, but we were just grateful that he was still alive and that we could speak to him.

My brother and I stayed all night in ICU and the others came back the next day. This is when we discovered the extent of his injuries and that he needed surgery and that the 48 hours after an accident are the most crucial. A lot of people die within that 48 hour window. After the adrenaline settles down, the body realises what has happened to it and the injuries really take hold. It’s like when you give yourself a nasty knock on your arm, for instance. At the time it hurts but the next day it’s suddenly bruised and painful in a way it wasn’t the day before.

So the massive trauma of the accident was now making itself known. By some miracle, there were no injuries to Dad’s organs. If there had been, we doubt he would have survived. His body couldn’t have coped with that as well as everything else.

He was booked for pelvis, leg and skin surgery on Wednesday morning. The surgeries took more than 6 hours. His tibia got a rod and pins. They had a bit of trouble with the pelvis so they ended up doing external fixtures but the next day they weren’t happy with it so they booked another surgery for Friday, where they fitted an internal plate.

In ICU, he was hooked up to machines. He had a breathing tube, a feeding tube, a catheter, a thing in his neck to administer medications, wires coming from everywhere to monitor everything. His bruises and cuts had really come out and they looked worse before they started to get better. He was so doped up on pain relief that he could barely open his eyes. And we just sat with him, two at a time, holding his hands, silently willing him to be ok so we could all be ok.

For 3 weeks, we lived in ICU. We had family meetings with Dad’s attending doctors who would look gravely at us and shake their heads and basically try and prepare us for the worst. They kept giving him 48 hours and, somehow, he survived. Then they’d give him another 48. He met that deadline. By the end of week two, they started seeing evidence that he might just make it after all but they were worried about what would happen when they removed the breathing tube, so they wanted to wait until they felt the time was right and he had the best chance of survival. His chest injuries were so bad they weren’t sure if his lungs had the strength to do their job.

But in a Catch-22, leaving a breathing tube in too long is just as bad as taking it out too soon. It’s a fine line.

Waiting for that breathing tube to come out was agony. If his lungs failed him, they were prepared to do a tracheostomy – something they weren’t willing to do the week before. Again, by some miracle, when the tube was removed, he was put onto a mask and his lungs came to the party. The mask came off after a few hours and they put that little oxygen tube thing in his nose.

By now, though, after lying dormant for just over 2 weeks, he was extremely weak and his poor body was working so hard to fix everything that was broken or hurt. We did marvel at how quickly his cuts and bruises healed. Seeing that gave us hope that his insides were healing quickly too.

Slowly, tubes and wires were removed, and physio began.

But then, whilst still in ICU, he contracted CRE, which is a superbug. He was moved to isolation and we had to don gown, mask and gloves when we went in to see him. Then he got pneumonia. Which is par for the course, apparently! We had a new fear now. That the CRE would prevent the antibiotics from working.

Yet, again, even in his extremely weak and immunocompromised state, he managed to fight off the pneumonia. Once that had cleared he was moved from ICU onto a ward, where he stayed for another 3 weeks. So that was six weeks at the RAH.

His hospital time was up but he wasn’t strong enough to go home. He needed extensive physical rehab but because of his head trauma and subdural haematoma, there were signs that he had a brain injury. It wasn’t severe, but enough to warrant sending him on to Hampstead – which for the uninitiated is a specialised rehab centre that deals exclusively in brain and spine injury, and amputees.

Now, before I move on to rehab hell, I just want to say how grateful my whole family are to the wonderful professionals at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. They were brilliant and not for one single moment did any of them ever give up on our dad. They fought hard for him and gave him the best care. As one of his fantastic doctor’s in her lovely Dutch accent said, “We don’t like to lose.”

And a huge thank you to the first responders. The ambulance crew who were first on the scene who had to use their skills and expertise to stabilise our dad and keep him alive for that 20 minute trip, during peak-hour, mind you, to the city.

Each and every one of the people who worked so hard for our dad – in front and behind the scenes, are an absolute credit to their profession. We applaud you. Thank you.

47 of 365: Hockey – Street and Ice

I caught the penalty shoot-out of the Olympics Ice Hockey match between Russia and the USA. I quite like Ice Hockey. It’s fast. As I was watching, I remembered when my partner and I used to play street hockey. We’d pop on our roller-blades, grab our street hockey sticks and ball and just race up and down the road in a frenzy of bumping bodies, tangled limbs, clashing sticks, and knocking knee-pads. We lived in a dead-end street at the time so we didn’t have to stop for traffic.

It was some of the best fun we ever had. And it gets you fit too!

I got my roller-blades out of the cupboard a couple of months ago with the intention of going to our local tennis court for the purposes of getting some exercise. I’d love to play hockey again but my partner has had shoulder surgery and his left knee is a bit dodgy after a motorbike accident, so he can’t play hockey at the moment.

The roller-blades made it out of the cupboard, but not out of the bag. I look at them guiltily each time I go into the spare room.

But the Ice Hockey has inspired me. So maybe, just maybe, they’ll find their way back onto my feet!

46 of 365: Love them kitty cats!

45 of 365: Happy Valentine’s Day ♥

Love is nice. And setting a day aside each year to force people to celebrate it can’t be a bad thing.

We go through our days on auto-pilot, so it’s nice to get shaken out of our reverie every now and then. Our birthday’s offer the same break from dullsville. And we’ve got Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, New Year’s Eve. All good opportunities to feel the love and feel some joy.

I know that a lot of people moan about how Valentine’s Day is just one great big commercial enterprise that should be banned immediately because greed is bad and chocolate manufacturers are exploiting us. But we could say the same about every celebration. Someone, somewhere, is making sales. But isn’t that what makes the world go around?

We shouldn’t let commercialism turn us into a miserable, cynical lot. Love is never wrong. And if Valentine’s Day gives us permission to demonstrate it, then so be it.

My partner and I will be celebrating our love via the sharing of choc-chip hot cross buns. See that, we get two festivities rolled into one!

So to all those out there who love love – have yourselves a magical day ♥