What I’m watching – Dexter

I’m the kind of person who misses out on watching trends by virtue of the fact I never think I have time to follow things, or I get too easily distracted. It’s rare I agree to sit down and watch a film, and I couldn’t follow a TV series week by week because I’d end up missing an episode and losing track.

Besides, everyone knows that the best only way to truly do justice to a TV show is to binge watch it.dexter

The husband and I have talked about watching Dexter previously; although he denies all knowledge of the conversation, which is why he started watching it one day last week when he was home alone. This forced my hand to get involved too, as in truth I would probably have put it off if he’d suggested it. I’d only missed the first two episodes so I did a quick Wiki search to avail myself of the plot and joined in on episode 3.

So glad I did! It’s brilliant! Michael C.Hall plays Dexter so well; a perfect blend of menacing at times, socially awkward, bemused and geeky. As a blood spatter expert in the Miami forensics department his job is to investigate murders and contribute to the case evidence around them. It just so happens that he’s also a serial killer in his spare time – albeit only killing “bad guys”. Almost a moral cleansing exercise, if you will!

The final two episodes of season one were as well written as anything I’ve ever watched, with genuine gasps and shock from me as the story and characters unfurled. It’s measure of how brilliant it is that we finished the whole season in less than a week, and immediately started season two with no break.

The best part is, that by missing out on the show for the entirety of it’s TV run, we have a whole glorious 8 seasons to binge on. Perfect for those long dark nights curled up on the sofa.

What are you watching right now? Any recommendations? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks, as always, for reading! x

5 things I have been genuinely baffled by this week

There’s a lot of crazy, stupid, daft and inexplicable stuff that goes on in the world – stuff that genuinely makes you think “huh?” But there seems to be more of it around lately than ever, like there’s a big full moon sending everyone a little crazy!

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Here are 5 things that have made me despair this week.

US politics
Wow. What a mess. What a huge, great big, bloody mess. A playground hotbed of name calling, he said she said, finger pointing awfulness. Where’s the coverage of actual policies? The only thing I’ve picked up from the media is Trump’s racist xenophobia and plans to persecute non Americans based on the behaviour of a minority. I couldn’t tell you what Clinton stands for or what she’s lobbying about – everything seems to be geared towards the personal behaviour of both nominees. Which, by the way, is appalling. Of all the intelligent, knowledgeable and clued up people in the US, how the hell did the Presidential race come down to these two? More importantly, how in anyone’s mind, ever, is Donald Trump a good bet for becoming the leader of the free world? He’s a misogynistic bully with an overinflated ego, a lack of morals and a questionable understanding of being a human being. Plus his hair is beyond a joke!

New Royal yacht
The news that UK parliament were debating between building a new Royal yacht or recommissioning Royal Britannia made me want to laugh and cry in equal measures. Either option seems pretty bloody unnecessary to me when you look at the cost of it and the bigger picture. Our economy is in a post Brexit mess and the powers that be want to spend £100 million on a fancy boat? Do me a favour! How about spending on the NHS, to make up for all the fabled EU costs that the Brexiters lied about during their campaign? Apparently Britannia helped to secure £3 billion in trade deals in her lifetime and so a new yacht will boost our economy. How??? I call bullshit.

Killer clowns

This is both stupid and dangerous. Anyone who thinks it’s just a bit of fun needs to look up the definition in the dictionary. It’s only a matter of time before it escalates – someone will have a heart attack through shock. The worst thing is, if a person did genuinely get scared and run over a clown with their car, or hit them with a bottle, they’d be the ones in the wrong. A criminal record in response to a bit of “fun”? Childline has reported 120 calls in a week from kids who are scared they’re going to see a clown in their daily life. Nothing fun about terrorising children.

Honey G
How is this silly bint still in X Factor? More importantly, who’s voting to keep her and why are even the judges coming round to her? It makes a mockery of the show and a mockery of real talent. Great singers got sent home so she could have a place. It’s laughable.

Ross is the favourite Friend
I find this one possibly more crazy than the rest of them put together. In a vote on who is the favourite character in Friends, Ross came out on top? What? He’s the most annoying! From his over gelled hair to his gormless face to his “we were on a break” excuse. No. Just no. Chandler was robbed (although I’d have settled for Joey in first place too).

Any craziness that you’re struggling with right now? Things you can’t quite get your head around? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks, as always, for reading! x

The bad end of the Twittersphere – the Ched Evans rape case retrial

This isn’t a post to get into the whys and wherefores of the Ched Evans retrial, or the subsequent acquittal and not guilty verdict.

(for anyone not familiar, or not in the UK, Evans is a footballer who was accused of, and jailed for, raping a drunk teenager in a hotel room. He has been in prison since, but appealed and has now been found not guilty)

If you want to read more about the background to the retrial, the Guardian does a pretty good job of outlining some of the very questionable methods used in the “justice” system.

But this post is about something different. I just want to put this out there as an example of everyday sexism, vileness and male entitlement that exists on social media.

I shared this tweet following the not guilty verdict. I stand by it.

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My tweet was picked up by a complete stranger, who wanted to get into conversation.

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He’s entitled to his opinion, as I am to mine.

What he isn’t entitled to is to say things like this:

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I appreciate that social media – especially Twitter – is a platform for people to express their opinion. I respect that. I don’t think everyone should agree with me, and discussion and debate is healthy.

What isn’t healthy is the growing trend for strangers to be rude, aggressive and threatening to people because their opinions differ. This isn’t an “I think you’re wrong and here’s why” response. This is an “I’m trying to intimidate you and threaten you and make you feel like rubbish” response.

Why? What possible enjoyment can this lowlife have got from being an obnoxious, vile, ignorant person?

Not content with that, he expanded his hatred further:

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Now, if not wanting to be raped makes me a feminist then yep, guilty as charged. That would also make every woman on the planet a feminist.

And why is that such a bad thing? Why is it used as a dirty word to insult women who care about themselves, each other, and women’s issues?

I love social media, with a passion. I think it’s amazing for connecting people – friends and strangers alike. But I also believe it’s contributing massively to a decline in society, attitudes and morals. There is no excuse for belittling sexual abuse or sexual abuse victims, or using rape as a threat or, more disturbingly as is the case here, a measure of attractiveness. Bonehead is trying to tell me I’m not attractive enough to be raped. Well, thank fuck for that, eh?

It’s alarming that people feel suitably empowered to say such disgusting things without fear of recrimination. That they’re willing to put their face to a level of vitriol they would probably never say in a face to face conversation.

And it’s alarming that the social media generation will grow up seeing such behaviour and believing it’s acceptable.

Thanks, as always, for reading. x

Signs from…somewhere?

It’s been a month today since my Dad died. Those words…they hurt. Some days I can say them quite matter of factly. Others, not so much.

On the day he died I couldn’t see as far as the end of the week, let alone further forward. A month seemed a lifetime away. But here we are. We’re surviving. Adapting. Doing him proud.

I wanted to share with you a whole host of things that have happened in the wake of Dad’s passing. Weird things. Stuff that, on it’s own, might seem just a coincidence. But, together, it seems much more. I’m not at all religious, I don’t believe in heaven (it would, after all, be so over populated by now!) and I’ve never truly believed that anything really happens after death, although I do struggle with the idea that someone can live a life full of laughter, memories and experiences and then it just ends and becomes nothing. Maybe that’s because I don’t want my own life’s work just to be snuffed out when the time comes, and I don’t want to think that my Dad’s character and zest for life just completely disappeared as he took his last breath.

I wouldn’t say that the things I’m going to tell you about have changed my views. But they’ve certainly made me think slightly differently.

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As you know if you’ve read this blog for a while, my Dad had cancer, diagnosed in May 2014. It was already inoperable by the time it was detected and we’d been told the end was not far away back in August this year. He was starting to deteriorate quite rapidly and was due to go into a Macmillan hospice on the day he died. Early that morning he had a massive stroke and was rushed to hospital. I received a call telling me I needed to get there urgently.

Dad struggled on during that day, much longer than we all expected, right into the night time, sleeping or dosed up on morphine. All the family were there, in a private room with a big window. During the afternoon we heard a dull thud at the window and saw a tiny pretty bird bounce off the glass and land on the flat roof below. Rather than fly away he just sat there, looking at the window. He was like nothing we’d ever seen, certainly not a common bird, with red and orange markings on his head. He sat there for quite a while, before flying at the window again. The next day my Dad’s sister sent us a message saying she’d identified the bird – it was a zebra finch, known as the bird that sings while it sleeps. Weirdly, my Dad’s wife realised she had them as pets when she was a little girl.

When my Nan received a call to get to the hospital, that same morning, she noticed a white feather on the wedding photo she has of my Dad and his wife. When she got in the car to drive over, there was a white feather on the windscreen of the car. The morning after my Dad died, when someone came to visit, we found a white feather on the floor in the lounge. Most of the family have had feathers just appear to them, including three that fell in the garden and caught Dad’s wife’s eye while she was in the lounge with Dad’s Mom and his sister (one feather each), and one that was perfectly placed in her bed when she pulled back the covers one night. Even my Mom, who divorced my Dad many years ago but spent time with him a few weeks before he died, had a white feather appear on her lounge floor when she got back from holiday.

After Dad died, when we left him at the hospital, we went back to his house in the early hours of the morning. His wife originally said she wasn’t going to let anyone know immediately, then changed her mind and sent some texts to friends. A guy my Dad worked with about 20 years ago, who is now a hospital porter, text back immediately to say that he’d been called to take my Dad from the ward to the mortuary, and that he’d looked after him professionally and personally. Of all the people and wards in the hospital, the chances of that are pretty slim. It was a great comfort to us.

On the day we went to register Dad’s death, the registrar turned out to be a lady that Dad’s wife used to work with, who she hadn’t seen in years and didn’t know her whereabouts. The first thing she said was “I remember you, you married (my Dad). Who’s death are you registering?” Her face fell when we told her.

As Dad got more and more poorly, he asked me if I would like one his watches to keep. I kept putting it off, not wanting to face the inevitable, thinking there was plenty of time to have it. A few days before he died he told me to fetch the watch and insisted I have it there and then, which I did. I wore it on the day he died, and for the next few days after that, before noticing it had stopped, at some point, at 10.55. Dad died at 10.40. Maybe just a coincidence, albeit a close one. Then we realised that on my Dad’s wife’s watch it was 10.55 when he died. She’d noticed earlier in the day that her watch was fast, and not altered it.

(to add more significance to the watch story, my Dad had his own Dad’s watch in a draw for many years after he – my Grandad – died, and decided to wear it on his wedding day. It hadn’t been looked at or touched for years, so he took it out in advance of the wedding in order to replace the battery. The watch had stopped at the time he was due to get married, and on the same day (5th). He took that as a sign and didn’t replace the battery, wearing it as it was).

On the day of the funeral, a multitude of things happened.

I wore the watch my Dad had given me, that had stopped. I hadn’t worn it for over a week, and noticed it had crept forward a few minutes, in spite of me not replacing the battery.

Not long after we left home, I was saying hat I thought there would be a lot of donations from people at the funeral (we requested donations instead of flowers). One of the charities we chose to support is the Retiired Greyhound Trust. My Dad won a lot of money on greyhound racing over the years and owned lots of different racing dogs. As I said it, we saw a man walking a greyhound down the road. The husband had never seen a greyhound being walked as a pet before.

We went to my Mom’s house first, and I told her the strange coincidences that had already happened. I was talking about white feathers and how it seemed I was the only person in the family not to have received one. I realised I’d forgotten to put earrings in, so my Mom suggested I see if my little sister had some. As I opened the jewellery box, there was one odd earring – a dangly white feather. A coincidence, or a sign? Either way, it made me cry!

Finally, as I mentioned, my Dad was very into greyhound racing. A lot of his friends from the track were at the funeral, and at the wake in the pub afterwards. They all sat together and had the local race track streaming on their phones, betting and enjoying themselves as my Dad would have wanted (and as he’d have done if he’d been there!) Late afternoon they called me over and said there was a race coming up where they had a good tip, on a dog called “Bonny Lass”. Quite a few of them were betting it, so a few of my family got involved, as did I, betting £25. The form was that if the dog came out of the trap well, it would win. It didn’t, it came out poorly. A couple of the guys actually said “it’s got no chance”. But that dog came from behind, bearing in mind the race was about 30 seconds long, and it weaved through it’s race companions and it only bloody won! Photo finish, but it won! I won £100, the husband won £100, family members and friends won, it was amazing! Not only that, at the end of the race a beautiful full rainbow appeared over the racetrack, and also outside the pub we were in. It was like my Dad sending us all a win, and a big smile to let us know what he’d done.

Am I bonkers for thinking these things mean anything? Maybe! If they were happening to anyone else, would I think they were significant? Perhaps, perhaps not. And I don’t think any of these things mean my Dad exists in a parallel universe or is in heaven or anything like that. But it’s nice to think that somehow, some way, it’s a continuation of the energy he exuded in life letting us know that he’ll always be with us, even though he can’t be.

I miss him so much.

Thanks, as always, for reading. x