Ticket booking with First Great Western – step two

A couple months ago I blogged some feedback about the new First Great Western online booking system. I also blogged about one particular member of their staff who I felt had dealt with me, and my fellow tweeters, particularly well – Ollie. Since then I have received lots of tweets and comments from fellow train users, I’ve learnt about the background of the booking system, had it inferred that I’m a simpleton, moron and indeed zombie, and also been promised a new upgrade to the system in April that will make it easier. Check out the comments on the first post for more of the picture.

So imagine my frustration when I went to book a ticket to Gatwick airport for later this month. Strangely trains seemed to run every hour but the FGW site didn’t allow me to book the 10.32 train direct to Gatwick – it would allow me to book two separate journeys – to Reading and then again on from Reading, at higher cost of course, but the 10.32 isn’t given as an option.

So, I trundled over to the trainline site and yes it’s available, if I’m prepared to stump up the booking fee:

Reg, on the FGW twitter account today, replied to let me know that they all use the same booking system so it shouldn’t be any different – which is what I’ve been told before. I’m partly writing this post to share with Reg to provide evidence that there’s a gap between what *should* happen and what does happen. I’ll wait to see if this changes but in the meantime I’ll be taking my zombie arse down to the station to book in person later today and will have to hope the price hasn’t escalated in that time.

There’s nothing like technology making life easier, and more efficient….not.

Ticket booking with First Great Western #feedback

I had a moment this evening, a little one, where my frustration peeked when I went to book my train tickets for next week. I try not to book with The <insert mode of transport>line because they are explicit in their charges of a booking fee and a credit card transaction fee. Of late I’ve tried to book with First Great Western, the train provider on my route. I’m not completely sure that it ever works out any cheaper, my hunch is that they sometimes roll the associated fees into the fare and hope you won’t notice, but I used to give them that because their booking process just felt cleaner than the other service.

Except relatively recently FGW redeveloped their website booking system. I’d been very fortunate until the end of last year to be in a position which afforded me Rachel, an angel sent from heaven, who was employed as my shared PA. It took me a while to become truly dependent on Rach but eventually I gave in to my inner-working class guilt and decided to allow her to organise my life, and she was great at it. No longer did I have to worry about booking train tickets, or finding the best fare (because I’ve got an almost compulsive obsession when it comes to finding cheap travel), this was all looked after for me. Right now I’m cursing that I allowed myself to indulge and develop such dependency, and I’m also cursing First Great Western for their changes. I offer you the background in case it is just me being mardy, and to legitimately allow anyone to call me on being precious if I am the only one with issues!

So what happened I hear you ask….the following screen grabs indicate what happened (don’t worry you don’t need to be able to read them, although if you click and zoom you probably can, they’re just indicative):

1. Nice front page, clear form, pretty pictures – seriously it’s good and even warns me about upcoming work at Reading. So far, so good.

2. Enter details and you’re presented with this screen. The top boxes are possible fares, the bottom boxes train options. Given I specified a time I think two or three train options, four at a push, would suffice – there are only three options within two hours of the time I specified.

At this stage I now know (from talking to awesome Ollie who mans the FGW twitter account) that if I select the fares I’m interested in the fares according to each train will be displayed.

3. Taking Ollie’s advice this is what show’s up.

However, having no Rach in my life, and until this evening no Ollie either, I have simply selected the train I wanted – after all I’m motivated by getting to London in time for work. So let’s start again:

4. Bizarrely on this occasion when I went to book a return it only gave me one window to complete (as though I wanted a single) – I suspect this is a minor bug because I returned to the booking page from within the programme. Anyhow I enter my details having hit refresh to fix that.

5. This is what happens if you pick by train – the only indication of what fare is available is the feint grey line around the box – none of the pink colouring used earlier, and it’s not easy to spot.

6. This was the screen once I’d checked out – this is really just to draw attention to the overlapping frames, minor, but again not the sleek experience I’d hope for.

All of this is intended as feedback for First Great Western because I don’t think it’s possible to make clear in a tweet. At this rate I may just go back to the other provider, depending on whether my feedback is acted upon, a gauntlet thrown down by @JamesMB.

Ollie who was on the @FGW twitter account was awesome, and James was quick to acknowledge how good he is too, so let’s see if the rest of FGW respond with the same customer facing skills. Watch this space, I’ll keep you posted!

Life after Bobby: the first 100 days

It’s 101 days since Dad died today, I’d been thinking about this (non)-anniversary all week and was fully aware of it yesterday but couldn’t bring myself to concentrate long enough to write this post then. I’m confident Dad would appreciate the quirk of it being 101 days anyhow. So I’m going to keep this short (I tried…it didn’t work, sorry) but share some of my reflections on life after Bobby. I did a few posts in the immediate weeks following Dad’s death, one after a month and another after two months, but I’m hoping the passage of time will make this one slightly more considered and reflective.

Missing him

It seems that the normal timescales for grief and grieving suggest that we should all be a little raw still, given how soon it is since Dad died. I’m not claiming I’m out the woods, but mostly I feel like I’m doing ok. The grief is there but it’s almost like a washed pebble, it’s like a lump that’s present around and within me, but it’s by no means raw and jagged. I wonder if part of that is because we had so long to come to terms with Dad’s illness, I’m confident part was due to the amazing support from the Rowcroft Hospice team when he was dying – it was almost like our grieving started when they arrived in with us, and they were phenomenal in that regard.

Don’t get me wrong, I do miss Dad, there are loads of occasions where I’m stopped in my tracks at my sense of missing him. I’ve had an almost visceral response on a handful of occasions, the most recent was when I was strolling around the Vasa Museum and I was thinking how much Dad would like it, it hit me like a ten foot wave, Dad would *have* liked it; past tense. I thought I was alright with that until I turned to remark aloud Dad would have liked this and the words stuck in the back of my throat, hard to form without an extra gulp of air or two.

On the plus side I’ve learnt that it is possible for anyone, even me, to cry Cheryl Cole tears. You know what I mean, simple beautiful diamond tears cascading down a cheek and deftly caught in a tissue, as opposed to the full on, red bloated face, tear avalanche accompanied by full on shoulder shakes that was the hallmark of my grief in the very early days. It’s not so much a learnt behaviour, more a necessity. If you find yourself thinking of someone you’re missing on public transport (I’ve learnt I do a lot of my thinking on trains) the you can’t afford to make a spectacle of yourself!

Moving on

When Dad died I changed my facebook profile pic to one of him holding me as a baby. It was in some way a marker and virtual acknowledgement of the role he’d played in my upbringing, but on a very factual level it also served as an alert. Most of my friends knew Dad had been ill for some time but I hadn’t actually told many he was dying so having a new avatar meant people looked and very soon found out that Dad had died – this cut back on my need to contact people and let them know individually. In addition Dad had an epic beard which was an awesome talking point. Here, take a look it was this photo:

The avatar was also a bit of a comfort for me over the past 100 days. Every time I looked at it I’d smile at Dad’s beard as a starter, but also at the memory of his chest! I spent hours looking at his chest the week that he died, he’d take every opportunity to get his chest out in the sun, famously stringing an extension line into the garden so he could iron in his shorts in the summer (once a matelot always a matelot). One of the advantages of him being at home was that he didn’t have to wear full on PJs as he would have felt obliged to do in hospital, so that chest is scorched in my memory, in a good way.

What has that got to do with moving on. Well this weekend, encouraged by a throw away comment on twitter and a new hair do, I changed my avatar back to a photo of me. I’d been wanting a reason to do it for a wee while, I didn’t want to change it too soon and I was worried that I’d feel like I was erasing Dad in some way or moving on to quickly, but hell it’s what he’d have wanted and my barnet won’t look this good for long, so it’s back to me!

Remembering reality

One of the joys of Dad’s death and dying has been the excuse to reminisce and share stories. There have been lots of words about Dad over the past 100 days and I’ve caught myself occasionally glossing over the bad bits and just focusing on the good, turning Dad into an almost virtual saint! Anyone who knew my Dad would laugh at that, he was all manner of goodness and had a true heart of gold and would give anyone his last penny, but he wasn’t no saint. Catching up with Mum this weekend it felt good to acknowledge as much, to discuss the good but also some of the more irritating or less favourable bits.

The most striking bit for me is the sense of freedom I feel now Dad has died. It’s not that I actually think Dad would have judged me, all he ever asked was for us to be happy, and yet in some way we didn’t often see the world in the same way. We were quite different people and I maybe it’s completely natural for all children to want to please their parents, but it feels a relief to know there is only one left to have to please! I guess this is wrapped up with a growing realisation of how full-on and demanding Dad’s illness was at times over the past five or six years, not to mention how demanding my relationship with work had grown (I quit my job in September, just before Dad’s health seriously declined and was working my notice period when he died).

It certainly feels good to be free of some of those residual pressures, and it similarly feels good to speak freely of them.

Getting back on the social media donkey

When Dad was dying I received a lot of support via social media, it helped me no end to know that people hadn’t forgotten about me, despite my absence. I lurked occasionally, ignored it a lot and really questioned how futile a lot of the interactions were once I returned. It felt like everyone was moaning on and being negative, and the last thing I needed was negativity in my life. I worked hard to stay patient with it, to remember that it’s not all about me, to respond to the virtual invitations and connections offered, and to force myself back into a space that has provided me such support over the past few years.

I keep using the analogy of learning to swim with social media – you can’t really ever understand it, get it, or do it until you jump into the water. You can read, you can watch, you can study, you can question, but until you get in the water you won’t fully experience what it has to offer. When Dad was dying I spent a lot of time at the edge of the virtual pool and it took an immense effort to trust myself to dive back in and commit to it, it would have been easier to just stay close to the edge, or to give it a little time but then walk away, after all a lot of the interaction was so futile.

Yet it’s not, it might look like it is from the edge, but the very real and genuine connections and support I’ve received from a number of different people has reignited the value of social media for me, and I’m back there swimming lengths with the best of them….now if only that would translate to an actual swimming bath

Future

Finally I wanted to reflect on the future. I’ve been really keen to raise awareness of the fantastic support we received from our local hospice, Rowcroft, and particularly their Hospice at Home service. To that end an extract from one of my blog posts features in their latest newsletter and on their website. I hope that by sharing our experience people will realise what is available to them, will find comfort and hope for what may lay ahead for them, and members of the local community may even dig into their pockets and provide some monetary support.

I’ve also been taking the time after Dad’s death to consider my own future and what it might look like. I’ve created a Pinterest board titled Work Less, Live More that includes my quasi bucket/to-do list. Take a look and let me know if you want to join me on any of the activities and please do feel free to suggest others.

101 days without Dad has sharpened my focus and enabled me to address issues of balance in my life. I’ve not felt as optimistic about life, or as creative or energised for a long time. Life will never be the same, but I have no intention of ‘getting over it’, rather living with his memory and tuning in occasionally to his voice in my ear, encouraging me to stretch myself, take risks and enjoy life to the full. I’m finally learning to Let it Go.

When time is limited

When someone is told (or they decide) that their time is limited, at somewhere or something, I’ve observed an almost primal attempt to do more, fit more in, go further or faster, squeeze maximum effort into the remaining time; that or an almost instantaneous acceptance that time is limited so there’s not much point trying now, accompanied by an inevitable decline in performance/enjoyment/participation*.

One of my most recent personal examples of this was when I decided to quit my job. I had a three month notice period, within that time there was leave to use up and in the end some compassionate leave, but when I resigned I had anticipated, and seemingly most other people had also anticipated, that I would feel an instantaneous relief, that the pressure would fall off and life would gradually return to a more balanced state over the following three months. As it happened my Dad died during that period as well, so I’m well aware that brings it’s own pressures but I quit some months before that and the work pressure didn’t fall off instantly as I’d naively hoped. I’ve been thinking about this period a lot and it seems to me that at the point I resigned, the pressure started to climb (from a level that was already demanding more than I’d routinely hope to give to work, and had done for some time), before reaching a newer, higher peak and then what would have normally been followed by a decline was replaced by more important matters, for me at least, of my Dad’s death.

The simple fact was as soon as my time was limited not only did I attempt to perform most of the duties I’d already been doing (granted I relinquished a few but my workload did not drop considerably at the point I resigned). I tried to finish others that had sat out of reach for some time, I prepared handover and context notes, I met with people who needed reassurance/confidence in the future, I negotiated, brokered and contributed to new business and new bids. I did all of this while trying to support a staff group who were perhaps unsurprisingly delighted for me personally, but with some reservations of the impact for them, and I also wanted to give my time and attention to an exit interview process to ensure learning was captured for other colleagues/the organisation’s benefit. So the pressure and demands just kept growing.

I think I was unlucky in the timings in some way, that I didn’t get to also experience the gradual winding up process, instead that was replaced by family business. I cleared my office out one weekend shortly after Dad’s funeral and then took some time out for a holiday before Christmas. I’ll do more holiday posts in due course and Christmas probably deserves a post of it’s own. It wasn’t a bad one, and I’m not the world’s biggest Christmas fan at the best of times, but there was definitely a Dad, and Grandad shaped hole left since last year. A subtle, but constant reminder, that life is short and our time is limited.

So what I hear you ask. I’ve been so lucky with the support I’ve received from my friends and family, in real life and on social media. I can’t tell you how supported I’ve felt by the contact, the tweets, DMs, messages, the cups of tea, the promises of cake – the people who have not ran in the other direction but have stayed put and gently encouraged me to (re-)engage with life. My blogging has suffered over the last few weeks, I’ve just not been feeling the love for it, or for twitter; two avenues for my energy that have always felt so positive in the past. I think part of the challenge is that I was brought us along the lines that if you couldn’t say anything positive, you shouldn’t say anything at all….and I’ve not really been feeling the positivity (yet). I’ve also not been seeing too much positivity in my twitterstream, lots of people moaning and complaining about life/politics/each other/new business/old business/health/religion/anything else you can mention.

Overall I guess I’ve been feeling a residual pressure, like I’m on high alert. I’ve discussed with a few people the cumulative effect of stress and pressure, from work and my family situation, and the impact that has on your performance and health over time. I’ve spent quite a bit of energy trying to understand where I’m at, I’ve felt quite directionless, lacking drive or energy for most things. Until yesterday, when I fell upon my latest theory, the one at the top of the page about time being limited and it’s impact on performance (and perhaps preference). If my theory re work is in anyway accurate (and let’s be clear it’s my theory scribbled on the back of an envelope, and isn’t very subjective at all), but indulge me, if we go with it then I wonder whether the last few weeks have been my self trying to re-establish an equilibrium. They’ve been about recovery, and regrouping, and observing and identifying what it is, or where it is, that I wish to put my energies next. Almost to be expected really, so I’ve no idea why it’s so surprising.

There were a few catalysts this weekend to remember that time is limited, and that this is no dress rehearsal. There were three articles/blog posts that stopped me in my tracks:

1) Crossword master Araucaria reveals in puzzle that he is dying of cancer - I don’t even do crosswords, I struggle on easy ones never mind cryptic, but as I sat yesterday reading the comments on this article I couldn’t help but feel that what really matters in life is what you give, and you might never know what that is. I’m sure that the Rev John Graham knew he had a talent, and knew he had a fan base, but I very much doubt that he knew before his announcement the way in which he had touched so many people’s lives and given such pleasure.

2) Back for Good from Helen Fawkes – I’ve followed Helen’s journey with cancer for some time now, this is her third diagnosis and she writes an incredibly humbling blog sharing the news and ends with the following I know how I’m probably going to die and roughly when it’ll happen. It’s weird having a likely expiration date. I really hope my Best Before is at least 2023. But you know it’s not the years in your life that matter; it’s the life in your years. Once I have my affairs in order I’m not going to dwell on the dying, I will soon have a new list and a whole lot more living to do.

3) Sad News – Alice Pyne became an online sensation when she wrote her bucket list when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and started raising money for charity. Her mum wrote yesterday: Our darling girl, Alice, gained her angel wings today. She passed away peacefully with Simon, Milly and myself by her side. We are devastated and know that our lives will never again be the same, Vicky. 12 January 2013 #nightnightAlice

All of these reminded me that life, and our time, is limited. Why should we wait until we are told we are likely to die to think about how to spend our lives. Why do we get so readily seduced into thinking that life is what we squeeze into weekends or holidays. Number one priority on Alice’s bucket list was to get people to join a bone marrow register, I’m already on it, if you are healthy and wish to join to you can go here and get a spit pack sent to register, simples.

Alice’s second priority was for everyone to have a bucket list. I’m working on it, going to give it some more thought and start compiling. After all, we all have one life, if ever I was aware of that it’s now. I feel like I’ve an opportunity to consider really what I’d like to achieve/see/do and start doing it now. Watch this space….all suggestions very welcome!

* This theory may fall short on a number of occasions, such as when exercising or studying – however once the finish line is in sight, nearly every half marathon/10k runner/undergraduate/teenager I’ve ever seen picks up the pace for the absolute final burst

Cologne – holiday stop two

After a day ambling around Brussels we took an evening train across the border to Germany, our journey ending in Cologne. Wow, just wow.

The shared feeling we got when leaving the train station at Cologne was one of ‘….and relax’. I’m not sure whether it is the comfort of German efficiency, the slightly less chaotic sense to the station, the cold bight to the air, the beautiful Cathedral that hits you as soon as you walk out from the train station, or indeed the fact that we were inching ever further close to our end destination of Sweden, but something felt different to (and for me calmer than) Brussels.

Of course it could simply be a trick of the mind, in that now we were at a second destination, and one with snow, my brain no longer thought at a residual level that this was some sort of work trip with all the fun and games of British trains and missed deadlines.

In stark contrast to my experience in Brussels (which I fully acknowledge maybe a conclusion drawn too hastily), there was something that felt just right about Cologne. I know that I’ll return and I suspect that you could spend a decent period living or working there and still not get easily bored. There was some sort of character to it, a visceral one at that. This was only heightened when peeking out the window after a night’s sleep there had been about a foot of snow. We only had 24 hours in Cologne before one of the planned highlights of the whole trip (the sleeper train north) and so we decided to focus on the christmas festivities. We didn’t set foot inside the Cathedral or any of the museums or cultural activities, instead we ambled around the Christmas markets, soaking up the atmosphere, sampling the Glühwein and generally mooching.

We stumbled across a carol performance at the Cathedral Market by a choir called Art&Weise. Since coming back from holiday I’ve found their facebook page and website where you can get more info and listen to some samples, but I have something else to share with you – an audioboo of their performance of Halleluja. It was tingly good, in a snow covered temporary christmas market, on day two of a much needed holiday – spine tingly good.

I hope you enjoy it, the audioboo comes complete with the hustle and bustle of the sounds of people shopping, drinking and joining in. If you get the chance I’d recommend a visit next year, but for now you can listen to ‘Weinachtsmarkt Köln – Hallelujah’ on Audioboo by clicking that link. Enjoy.

Brussels – holiday stop one

It’s been a month since I’ve blogged about anything other than Dad, death or dying. So I thought it was time to share some other random experiences and some photos from my holiday.

In terms of context, I finished work shortly after Dad died (a month ago), and the overwhelming feeling was one of exhaustion. This quickly gave way to the realisation that I had a newfound freedom, a lack of responsibility, very few stressors, routines or preoccupations to worry about. We had been hoping for a holiday in October/November but once I’d resigned and knew that Dad’s health was on another decline any plans of travel were shelved. We decided to grab the opportunity of a commitment in Stockholm to build a holiday around and bought interrail tickets the same week as Dad’s funeral, which took place on a Thursday with us leaving the following Wednesday. The next few posts will document some of the highlights so far, but in a nutshell we’ve trained our way around Europe managing to sample the Eurostar, Belgium, German, Danish and Swedish trains. There’s been loads of snow, culture, christmas markets, hostels, adventures, and photos.

First stop was Brussels. I’ve wanted to travel on the Eurostar for years and it was quite exciting and completely seamless. Brussels itself was kind of meh! Don’t get me wrong it had some good bits, the Comic Strip Museum was well worth a look at and the waffle was super, but I wasn’t really feeling it. That could have been nothing to do with Brussels but it sort of added to my stress, didn’t remove it. It felt quite haphazard as a city, which is normally something I quite like, but it felt like it was missing a magical something. I suspect that Brussels would grow on me but it didn’t grab me.

There were a couple of highlights in our 24 hours, one was the restaurant we found out in the district were our hostel was and the other was a parade we stumbled across. The restaurant was really out of keeping with the area, it was a complete lucky discovery courtesy of a 4 square check in <the next time someone asks me what the point of #4sq is I’ll be offering this culinary example>. We’d been for a couple of beers and had been struck by how revolting bars are where people still smoke. One of the bars sold pot noodles as their food offering, the other peanuts – you get the culinary level we’re talking about, then out of nowhere there was this lovely French restaurant Chez Soje. We were the only customers, I don’t think Wednesday night would be their busiest but the food was amazing. If you’re ever in the area then it’s well worth a try.

The next day we went for an amble around Brussels, visiting our first Christmas market of the trip, spotting an impressive Christmas installation in the beautiful square:

Then we had to swing by the peeing man, Mannekin Pis, who was dressed as Santa – a tiny bit surreal:

and it just got a little more random as we walked past what google suggests was the St Nicolas/Sinterklaas parade – which to all intents and purposes looked like a bunch of students having a carnival and drinking in the street, while the police closed the traffic down and ensured they did so safely:

and the main man himself:

Next stop was Cologne so keep your eyes and ears peeled!

Life after Bobby: Month 1

It’s four weeks since Dad died. Four of the longest, and simultaneously fastest weeks of my life.

I’ve blogged a few times and am very conscious that I don’t want to turn into someone who just blogs about death and dying and loss…. and yet that’s sort of what I start typing when faced with a keyboard. I could have blogged about so much this evening, leaving work, holiday, Christmas markets, hope, life, job searching…the list goes on and yet I start typing about Dad (again). I’m not sure if it’s a natural reaction to keeping his memory real and alive, whether it’s just a habit that added purpose and meaning to his illness that I’m trying to transfer now, or whether it’s just the easiest thing to blog about…verbal emotional blog diarrhoea doesnt take too much thought (although I do *always* have to check how you spell diarrhoea).

It feels like there are so many words, words of thanks and acknowledgement, words of memory, words that need writing/typing/capturing, yet despite having so many words I can’t really describe how it feels. We knew that Dad was dying for a number of years, of course you know that you won’t really be prepared for it, but in some ways you are. I had imagined what life would be like without Dad, I had thought about speaking at Dad’s funeral – not planned it but mused a little about things and hoped I’d pluck up the courage to ask him if I could do so, is amazing where your mind goes when you’re sat in hospital waiting rooms and we spent a hell of a lot of time waiting.

I’m still pretty exhausted and I guess I feel relieved but I don’t really feel happy. In some ways it was a relief when Dad died, physically having barely slept properly for the fortnight that preceded it, and emotionally feeling that there would now be some certainty. Despite visiting numerous Christmas markets in five different cities in the last week, I still don’t feel at all christmassy.

Kate Granger wrote an excellent blogpost today about her emotions knowing that she is terminally ill; she had just got the news that her cancer was stable and she says this:

So you’d think I would have been over the moon. Not so. In fact I was on the verge of bursting into tears for a few days and remain a little on the emotionally labile side even now. I feel completely irrational about feeling this way. I should be happy. But in my mind everything was getting worse and there was a path to follow even though that path was not going to pleasant. Instead I am left hanging in limbo, a state I have existed in for months. It feels a little as though the rollercoaster has broken down with me left hanging upside down. How much longer is my reprieve going to be?

In April I wrote a blog post The cancer rollercoaster: living with the unkown when I returned from a week away to find Dad had been admitted to hospital as an emergency:

It’s been quite an immersion, not that I ever really escaped it on my week away, but it’s a real reality check as I sit on their sofa banging the keys trying to make sense of it, or share the lack of sense in it with you (assuming as the eternal optimist I am that someone has read this far), and think about how all encompassing living with not knowing is. There are so many unknowns and so little certainty, the immediate reflection is that it can feel overwhelming at times. It’s like a constant faulty rollercoaster ride that you can’t get off, occasionally it slows, in fact sometimes it stops just long enough for you to feel rational/balanced/normal again then it’s like it flies off again, throwing any sense of equilibrium out the side of the ride with you.

Kate talks about her approach to dealing with the uncertainty being to try and restore normality and return to work. I read her post nodding along, painfully aware that I have no normality to return to. My last working day was two weeks after Dad died, so that option is no longer there for me. In fact I think the uncertainty and lack of structure around my future is almost certainly contributing to my sense of disorientation. It’s not that I’m not grateful, in some ways I’m hugely relieved that I don’t have to return to work and try to get on with normality, after all I’m confident normal will never be the same now Dad has gone; I’m really very lucky to be able to start afresh in life. I’m enjoying the first holiday in five years without any concerns for what I’ll find when I get home which is really quite novel.

I do feel in a way that I’m off the fairground ride. Perhaps I’m just in that dizzy, head spinny, not quite reorientated state, still a little wobbly having just got off a ride I was stuck on for five years – everything is a little blurry, a little out of focus, a little soft around the edges. All of that said I wouldn’t have missed out on that ride at all.

Life after Bobby: Week 3

It’s three weeks since Dad died, in some ways I can hardly believe it and in some ways it seems much longer. The two weeks between his death and funeral felt quite strange, it was good to be getting on with things, to be planning, organising and arranging. It was lovely to hear so many tributes, comments and memories about Dad and to get in touch with so many people who we’ve not been in touch with for a while. Lots of people were surprised that Dad had died, even though the majority of people knew he was ill, lots of people have also commented on the fact that he never really looked ill, he never complained and they hadn’t expected the news. We have had stacks and stacks of lovely, lovely comments, of cards (Mum has over 70), flowers, phonecalls, facebook and twitter messages and general sentiments and wishes sent from across the globe. It is a real comfort to know how much Dad was loved and respected, and also to hear of his quirks and foibles too, he wasn’t a saint after all.

Dad’s funeral was really special, it went completely without a hitch, as he’d have wanted it to. The Church was packed (my irrational fear was that not many people would be there – I really needn’t have worried), the cadet gang turned up in uniform (which I reckon Dad would have loved), the service was proper without being too Holy and I’m delighted to report that Dad’ s eulogy went well. I was giving it and given that I’m quite used to public speaking I wasn’t too worried about the audience (and lots of people had reminded me that everyone was on my side at this gig), I was confident about the content (you can read it here – in one way or another I’d had long enough to think about it) but I was concerned that I would be overcome with emotion.

Seemingly so were lots of other people! Contingency plans were put in place, practices were held to identify the trigger points that got me every time (1. Mention of my sister’s best mate/ Dad’s surrogate daughter since her own Dad died about 15 years ago; 2. Mention of Dad’s partner in crime Pete; 3. Mention of my nieces), I read it out load and tweaked it till I was almost bored with it – I’ve never prepared so much for anything. On the day the preparation paid off, aside from a brief moment where I went Welsh (it’s impossible for me to say bargain without using a Welsh accent) it went completely as I’d hoped. I held it together, spoke slowly, paused for emphasis and didn’t lose it until I sat back down. Afterwards everyone was telling me how proud Dad would have been, and I knew it and felt it. He would have loved his funeral service, and he also would have loved the cream tea we had afterwards.

The other thing I’m confident Dad would have liked was the Ikea pencils and the memory postcards we had for people. The postcards were designed to capture people’s memories of him so that we can look over them, and share them in years to come with his grandchildren and others who didn’t get to meet him. The design on them was quite simple – his letter boxing stamp and his details – we had a few left for us filled out on the day but we’re hoping that some will arrive back through the post in due course. Mum has also been able to send them with copies of the Order of Service and eulogy to people who weren’t able to make it on the day, we’re hoping that by sharing their memories, they’ll get to feel more involved in some way.

After the funeral we had a cream tea in the parish hall – the scones were from Devon Scone Company and they were an absolute bargain and really lovely! Check out their website if you’re looking for scones any time soon!

The immediate aftermath of the funeral saw time spent with family and friends who had travelled down to be with us. There was lots of reminiscing and remembering and lots of time spent with my nieces who are a great distraction. The most heart breaking bit was when my Uncle turned up (actually the day before the funeral) and Libbie looks up and announces to the room it’s Grandad – luckily my sister had already anticipated that this might happen and so we were somewhat prepped for it, they do look very alike, and in a way that only two year olds do she completely accepted that it wasn’t Grandad and got on with the rest of her day.

The emotional rollercoaster didn’t end there though. That weekend I went into my office to clear it out – I was officially on leave for the two weeks after Dad died but they were my last working weeks of my job, so I needed to empty/sort/handover things. A couple of hours, four black bin bags and six years of my life – done, like that. As I jumped in my car to drive home my immediate thought was that I couldn’t wait to ring Mum and Dad to tell them I’d done it, and then it hit me, like a four tonne truck in the chest – no can do. I couldn’t ring Mum and Dad, even though my mobile still told me I could it was lying, alongside the cheap trick of my subconscious, a nasty one at that – I rang Mum instead, but that was the first real time since Dad had died that I felt I was unprepared for missing him, and the only way I can describe it was that it was a full on force.

I’ve felt it a few times since, none as full on as that. On Tuesday I got my OU exam result (72%) and overall result for the module (73%). Even though nothing about that course was about the grades for me, I was chuffed and I wanted to share that with the folks. Mum was delighted for me, and was pleased with herself too – I can’t tell you how many times she had to encourage me not to drop out of that module, it really wasn’t the best six months to be trying to study, but I’m glad I did it. I’ll blog about that another time and may even write it up for my new work blog that you can read on my new website here.

The final thing worth mentioning since Dad died is the sense of freedom. It feels incredibly odd, massively liberating and if I’m completely honest a little scary being able to plan for the future without having to worry about Dad, or Mum. I’m able to book a holiday or arrange a weekend away, to look at potential jobs and consider moving to London, or further afield, I can have a drink any evening and not worry about having to be sober to drive to the hospital/parent’s house. I hope that the timing of Dad’s death will mean that my Mum and I will both be able to find a new path in life, one where we can remember Dad and celebrate his life, but also create our own again. I’ll keep you posted on how that works out but for now I’m grabbing the opportunity by the scruff of the neck and am holiday for a couple of weeks, touring European Christmas markets and sampling international festivities. I’ll worry about 2013 and the realities of the future once I’ve recharged my batteries and got through our first Christmas without Bobby J. It’ll be different but it’ll be joyous, just as he would have wanted it.

The momentum of hope

Four years ago today I was in Virginia, USA. I was on holiday in the States on my own, staying with one of my closest friends and her kids. In the days running up to the election the energy, momentum, hope and excitement were palpable. You could feel it, get drawn into it, in fact you could almost smell it; wherever you went, on the subway, wandering the streets, in the museums, on the bus, there was an over-riding sense of optimism and potential in the air.

(cc) Photo by farmgalphotos on flickr

For someone who derives considerable personal motivation from a belief in what is possible, not just the reality one finds oneself in, this was quite some experience.

I knew the election was due to happen when I was on holiday, in fact it had influenced my decision to travel at that time, but I hadn’t expected to get so drawn into it. Which was ridiculous with hindsight, the Obama campaign was so strong, had so many unique elements, was so engaged at a grass routes level, it heavily relied on social media so I was probably more exposed to it than I was anticipating, but it also drew me in because it was so positive. So full of hope.

On election day I went for lunch with my mate and a few of her work colleagues, having grown up not really discussing religion or politics with people you didn’t know well, it was a great lunch chat. There were a mixed group and boy did they get into the conversation. Young children and no babysitters on such a momentous night meant no all nighter down the pub for us but we took up residence on Sarah’s sofa and settled down for an evening viewing the show. And what a show it was.

The day after the election I caught the subway into DC and wandered the streets, soaking up the atmosphere and drinking coffee and chatting with people. What a day, everyone I came into contact with was in a good mood, there was a heady air of optimism, of belief and hope. Like the first day of a new school term, where everyone wants to be there and there’s a strong belief  in what great things lie ahead. Strangers were wishing each other good day in the street, coffee shops were buzzing and as a tourist it was a great day, as a complete stranger who was leaving shortly I still felt a part of it. I’d witnessed this historic change and, if I’m honest, I’d got caught up in the gulf stream of hope and optimism.

Fast forward four years and Obama is looking tired. His enthusiasm is muted, no less sincere, but lets just say he’s now more older Statesman than youthful Tigger.

Not that I can talk, I’m feeling tired, bone tired and my belief in hope and optimism (as a personal or professional strategy) has been sorely tested of late. Life seems more monochrome, more challenging, more about survival than hope. I take some comfort from knowing that doing good isn’t easy and finding your path in life is a journey, not a single simple decision; it’s more complicated than simply ticking a box on a ballot sheet.

I read an excellent blog post from @dcurtis that grabbed my attention yesterday, you can read it here, but this struck a chord for me:

…The truth is that, in order to make progress, you need to physically and mentally fight against the momentum of ordinary events. The default state of any new idea is failure. It’s the execution–the fight against inertia–that matters. You have to remember to go against your instinct, to confront the ordinary, and to put up a fight.

As America goes to the polls, I am settling down for my third night at my parent’s house with the Bobby monitor, not knowing what might happen, politically or personally.

The soup of anticipation, anxiety and hope is bubbling and while there are no guarantees of what the next four years hold, I for one am digging deep to recapture the potential that shone so brightly four years ago, to remember and relive the hope that was, to fight against the momentum of ordinary and unearth something special. I hope America does too.

Reverse road trip

More years ago than I care to remember I went to Cardiff to university. No-one in my family had been to university before and I had no idea what to expect. I had some messed up mental image that the Halls of Residence I’d been allocated through clearing would be like some perfect combination of a boarding school mixed with an army camp (neither of which I’d ever stayed at – what can I say I had a vivid imagination). The upshot of not really knowing, and deciding at very short notice to goto university, was that as I travelled to Wales in the back of my parent’s car for the first time I was a mix of anticipation, nerves and excitement.

My parents also had no idea of what it would be like. I remember my Mum talking non stop as we travelled over the Severn Bridge, I think she was filling the silence in an attempt to mask her own nerves. My parents dropped me off and returned home, and years later my Dad told me that my Mum cried all the way home. We used to joke that my poor Mum suffered from a severe case of ‘empty nest syndrome’, our house had always been full and suddenly myself and my big bruv both left home within weeks of each other, with very little notice leaving just my little sister at home to fill the silence. Except of course in the holidays, and for some bizarre reason that I still don’t understand now, in the holidays of my first year at uni, I had to empty my room of all my belongings and take them home (and no they didn’t use the rooms for conferences, I truly have no idea why they did it) but it meant that my Dad would come and collect me and all my stuff.

We did this trip to Cardiff and back together four times during my first year, Mum came that first time but then it was just Dad and I. Dad and I are very similar, not in every regard but I have some traits I have definitely inherited or learnt from him – depending on whether I’m viewing them favourably or not they would be tenacity or stubbornness, determination and commitment or wilfulness, and passion or an argumentative streak. These shared traits meant that as a teenager Dad and I didn’t always see eye to eye and I really couldn’t wait to leave home, to leave behind dreary Torbados and move to the bright lights of a city. As soon as I left home I found that my relationship with Dad got better and better. It got to the stage when I really looked forward to those road trips, the time that Dad and I would share together to or from Cardiff. Don’t let me lull you into a false sense of security, it wasn’t all like a scene from The Waltons, as soon as we got home we’d regress into old habits, but those trips together became something I looked forward to. We would catch up, talk about what we’d been up to, I’d share news of my studies and the social, he’d fill me in on the local scandal or news and what was going on at Cadets. On more than one of those trips Dad arrived to find me in a state of disarray, never starting packing early enough, always distracted by a final night out, and Dad would swoop into action, skillfully packing boxes while I made tea and went looking for paracetamol. This all done on top of a full day’s work as a postman. He never once complained either.

This week I attended the wedding of one of my closest mates from university, in Cardiff and got to meet my new niece on the way home on Wednesday (she was born on Sunday night). When I was away Mum told me that Dad had been quite poorly, his haemoglobin level was down to 7.6 which I think is the lowest measure he’s ever had. He was given three units of blood and it felt a bit like an egg timer had been turned, once Dad gets a transfusion it has an almost instant effect on his energy levels, but it doesn’t last long. It didn’t seem fair that I’d got to meet Phoebe and he hadn’t when he’d been waiting for that moment for so long and had fought to stay alive for it.

I asked for Friday off on annual leave and decided that a reverse road trip was in order – instead of Dad taking me to Wales I would take him and the reward at the end, getting to meet his new granddaughter, would hopefully go some way towards repaying all the lifts and road trips and packing he did for me all those years ago. So Thursday evening Bobby and I set off on the path we took all those years before. We even ended up going over the old bridge because my sister and her husband live near Chepstow. We couldn’t have asked for a better trip, there was next to no traffic and we got up there in record time and Grandad got to meet Phoebe, something none of us had confidently thought was likely to happen:

Thursday night we spent under the uprights of the Severn Bridge in the Welfare House at camp and Friday morning we got to spend a couple hours with Phoebe and Libbie, her big sister. Libbie was beyond excited when her Mum told her we were coming and when we arrived she was in the doorway shouting ‘Grandad, come and meet my sister Grandad’. It has been a couple of months since she’s seen Dad, he hasn’t been more than half an hour from the hospital in months, but she was so proud of her baby sister and so delighted to see Dad. We all had breakfast together and then her and Bobby J had a full on session of Peppa Pig Sticker Album sticking.

An hour or so later we took a trip to the park (which is behind their house). Dad didn’t have his walking stick with him and so got to push Phoebe’s pram for support, and we got some fresh air and I got some great photos and memories. We got back to my sis’s for a cuppa and Dad was whacked. He was so pale and slightly breathless, nothing that a brew didn’t sort out though and we soon got on our way. I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic and I wanted Dad to get home if he was going to be ill. Luckily the bank holiday traffic wasn’t as bad as it could have been, although it still took us twice as long to get home as it had to get up there. Dad has been exhausted ever since but Friday was the best day’s annual leave I’ve ever taken. I’m so glad he got to meet Phoebe and we got to spend some time together on our reverse road trip.