#598 Let me bore you to sleep

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. So I'm doing this recording at a different time of the day than normal.

It's the 19th of February, Friday. It's 7.41 in the a.m and the television is on mute and cheers is playing. And it's a Halloween episode.

I watched one episode of cheers. I watched two episodes of Mike and Molly whilst I was eating my breakfast. I watched one episode of cheers and I thought I felt the urge to go back to bed.

So I thought you know what it's a little treat. It's a little like let's try something different. Instead of going to bed let's actually do something.

So here I am doing something. This is me doing something. Let me put my other glasses on so I can do a couple of announcements.

Oh dear. I'd like to say thank you to someone who sent me a Paypal gift a few days ago but I tried to send an email from Paypal but they won't allow me to do it for some reason. And I was having trouble logging into my email account.

So I want to say thank you to Annika. So thank you. It says so grateful for what you're doing.

That's from Annika. So thank you very much. And that's in.

I'm not going to read the address obviously but I don't know where that is. Is that Scotland? Oh a bit sniffy. That's a horrible sound isn't it.

I wonder what the contents of his nostrils sound like as they're being moved around the different passages. So I shaved my head a couple of days ago. I did it in increments.

So I did it. What was it? What's the day now? No it's Friday isn't it. So I probably shaved my head on Sunday or started to shave it using the OneBlade.

The Philips OneBlade which is really more for shaving and beard control and stuff like that. Beard control. Yeah.

Pest control. Beard control. So yeah it's kind of.

They're expensive. They're at £10 per blade and they're supposed to last for probably you know three months. If you shave twice a week or three you know.

It's supposed to you know they're supposed to last a while. But a good way to blunt them is to actually shave your head when you've got a full head of hair. They're going down the sides like the right in the middle.

Going all the way down. It cut through easy. But then the hair on the top.

Especially at the front is. It's not as thick as the hair at the back. Which is what I really found out.

And the hair at the sides as well. Anyway. This is interesting isn't it.

Blimey. This is probably the most interesting story I've ever told. Anyway.

The battery kept running out because it's rechargeable you know. So I've done part of the hair and I've done parts of the sides. Trimmed my beard.

It is a beard but it's a very little beard. It's kind of stubble that's grown enough. So I sort of shaved my neck and made it look you know sexy.

You know how it is. And I bit by bit over about two days I was trying to shave my head. And I ended up with this patch on the back of my head.

Which I couldn't shave. The razor which was even fully charged was not making a dent. And I kept hacking away at it for about another two days.

Until eventually on Wednesday night my friend brought his trimmers up. You know the clippers. And just got rid of it.

And the weird thing about it right. Is I only asked him if he'd just. So I've ordered some clippers now.

Or some like equivalent on the catalogue. So they should be here in a couple of days. Because I think I'm just going to keep my hair short from now on.

But I want to keep the beard. I can't be hairless. I need to have hair somewhere.

So I think to have a beard. Maybe a nice clean beard you know. Not a crazy one like I've had in the past.

But short. Short head. A short head.

A skin head I suppose. You know. And the good thing about that is there's no greys.

And there's no baldness. Even though it is bald. But also you can see that I'm not bald.

Because you can see the shadow. And you can see the hair. So it's kind of.

Oh you can see that I've chosen to do it. Not that it makes any difference really. And I think it's nice to have a choice though.

When I used to shave my head back in 2002. I started. Or was it 2003.

But anyway I started shaving my head. And I did it for years. I shaved my head.

Completely bald. And I used to kid myself. Well not kid myself.

But I used to like to say to myself. That I was shaving my head. Because.

Well partly it's because I was really. Really into Buddhism at the time. And shaving your head doesn't.

It doesn't have to have to do with being a Buddhist. Unless you're a Buddhist monk. Or a trainee monk.

Then they shave your head. But you know. I wasn't.

I wasn't living in a monastery. But it's kind of the equivalent of getting rid of your worldly goods. It's a. It's not the equivalent.

But it's a. Like a. A gesture. Especially for. I suppose like a young man.

I was fairly. I was only 22. No 32.

But to shave your head is. We were quite attached to our hair aren't we. In.

This culture. I'm going to be a much bigger dealer for women shaved their head. Because.

It's just there's more men with shaved heads than there are women. It's. It's yeah.

It's just the way it is. But maybe not in other places. I don't know.

I've seen quite a few documentaries. In Africa where. Both the men and the women shaved their heads.

So it's you know. And China. And Russia.

No Russia. Men. Women.

Men and women. Women and men. Women.

Humans. I don't know. I don't care.

I think. I think some people look good with shaven heads. Some people not so much.

I don't feel I look. I don't really look good any. Whatever I do.

So I've kind of got nothing to lose. I look tidier. If I have short hair.

Like either. Like it is now. Or.

As I said with a beard though. Doesn't work without a beard. Or if I have.

A bit of hair on top. But short. Once it gets a little bit longer.

You can see how much I'm receding. Also you can see the grey bits. I've got grey.

Grey clusters. On my head. But I'm probably.

You know I've not talked about this before. I'm very much. I'd say still about 75 percent.

Non grey. Yeah. I'm pretty.

I'd be surprised if I was even 10 percent grey. I'd say probably 8 percent. Probably.

It's no grey at all. No grey at all. Now I have little clusters.

And a bit of the side. But. Because I shave my head.

Quite regularly. Well. A few times a year.

I tend to. I tend to. I look through it.

And. There's a lot of it. Which is just dark brown.

And. I'm mentioning it again. As I did.

Perhaps the last recording. Because I'm so excited. So if I was so excited.

How come I'm shaving it? That's a good question. The thing is. My friend.

He shaved the back of my head. And then. He had to shave the rest of my head.

To get it to the same length as the back of my head. Because. It had grown so quickly.

In about 3 days. 4 days. And my hair grows very quick.

And now it's all the same length. So what I might do. Is shave it.

Maybe once a week. The weekend. It doesn't really matter what day really.

I guess. But. Maybe just shave it once a week.

And then it's done. And trim my beard. Keep it.

I don't know. It's. See I liked having a huge beard.

Like there was a while. I don't know if you remember. I did post some pictures on Facebook.

I think I even made a couple of videos. And I had huge. In fact the videos are on Facebook.

Yeah. Because I. Let me have a look. No I won't bother.

The Facebook videos. Always stay. So I never get rid of them.

They just. They. You know if I upload something to Facebook.

It just stays on there. So there's a couple if not more videos of me with a big wild. Wild wild beard.

And it's a much greyer beard than my hair is. Especially around the sides of my jaw. Very grey.

And so it's kind of a mixture of being ginger and grey. That seems to be kind of how much how my beard is when it gets long. So I've got the ginger gene you see.

I've got the ginger gene. So it's in my family. It sounds like it's some kind of disease.

And it's obviously it's not. It's I think some of the most beautiful women I've ever met have been had red hair. Ginger hair.

I used to date a girl at school that had ginger hair. So I've always been partial to a to a ginger girl. Or a red red head girl.

It's weird. But then I'm partial to it. I'm kind of not that fussy really.

It's one of those things I counted out and I felt dated about eight ginger girls. I didn't mean to. It just happened.

Or when I say date I mean I've sort of been romantic with you know whatever that means. And so there's one at school. Then I dated a girl when I was 17.

18. No 18. 17.

18. Yeah it's 18. Another one when I was another one another girl 21.

No it's 20. I was 20. And then I dated another ginger girl when I was 24.

And then so it's only four isn't it. I was sure it was obvious. One two three four.

One when I was about 36 or 35. Another one another one. Another girl she was a nurse.

That was when I was probably about 30. So that's six. So at least six then anyway.

So it's not not a lot but six. Any other six. It's like an auction.

I've got six. Any any. You got five.

Six. Six. Any anything higher than six.

Six more. Six gingers. I've got seven gingers.

So some of you shouldn't say gingers. That's derogative. Well it's not.

I'm just telling you that I've dated six ginger girls. Don't do something like that if you're prejudiced. Against people with ginger hair.

You don't date them. I see the ginger gene is in my genes because my I've got three cousins that have got ginger children. Again I shouldn't call them ginger children.

I don't mean they've got ginger hair. And that comes from the family. Obviously it wouldn't we wouldn't have it in cousins if it wasn't genetic.

It's obviously it's a genetic gene. And my grandmother's brother was ginger. In his younger younger days.

I never met him then. When I met him he was pretty much grey. We were bald.

But I nearly dated another ginger girl. She worked in the the pharmacy around the corner from where I worked. We used to call them chemists.

Just like we used to call snicker bars marathons. You know unfortunately we have to go along or we're supposed to go along with these changes. To try and fit in with.

I'm just gonna stick my tennis ball in my back. Try and press it against the nurse to loosen my back. I used to because I stopped smoking and I started using the cigarette gum.

I think it was you know. So this would have been 2000 January 2000. And I'd go in there every day just to see her.

So I really liked her and I talked to her and chat to her. And in the end she. Well in the end we kind of liked each other.

And decided to meet up. But so there was an attraction between both of us. But then it never nothing happened.

So she was a seventh but nothing happened there. But there was definitely some a bit of feelings there. A bit of you know.

I'm sure there was more. Oh yeah there was a one I married. There was a one I married.

No I didn't. No I can't remember. So many.

So. Sometimes I look in a mirror and I think. Surely I should be a virgin.

I mean look at me. How did that ever happen? But yeah it's weird. It's just.

I used to be younger. I mean there was a time. In the comedy club where I was doing a lot of exercise.

I was doing press-ups and sit-ups. And I started off doing as many as I could do with you know comfortably. So I started off doing probably about 20 sit-ups and 20 press-ups.

And then the next day I did an extra one. I added one every day. And every day I added one.

And it was easy to start with. And then it got harder and harder. But I would do the press-up.

I would do the sit-ups. The press-ups first. And then I'd do sit-ups afterwards.

And I ended up doing it up to about 110. So I did quite a few days. You know I did it for about 100 days.

That in the process my body got into a really good state. Which is weird you know. I mean admittedly at that time I wasn't.

I didn't have any fat on me anyway. Really. I just.

This was toning me up. I was slim and. But I put some muscle on.

So my chest. My shoulders. My arms.

And you know my stomach. I guess I probably had the closest thing to a six pack. I don't think.

And I'm not sure if it was a six pack. But it was definitely close enough. If you know.

To me. And I bought these tight clothes. Which I'd never done before.

I always used to wear loose clothes. Because I was embarrassed about how skinny I was. I used to buy loose shirts.

But I was kind of pleased with how my body was. I said I'd put some muscle on. And I was.

Yeah. I was looking fairly good. And this.

I mean this would be probably about 1999. 1999. As I bought this.

White. This black top. Skin.

It was literally clinging to me. And you could see my biceps. Every time I move.

You could see my biceps poking out of it. My shoulders poking out of it. And it was really tight.

So you could see how slim I was as well. And these trousers that were clinging to me bum. Might sound a little bit weird.

Because it's not how I am now. At all. But I. You know it didn't last long.

This period. Because at the end of 99. I stopped smoking.

And I put on about 2 stone in about 4 or 5 weeks. So you know I put on. I just gained weight.

Kind of straight away. But during that time. For those.

For that summer. Let's say. For you know.

Probably about 6 months. I was looking good. And it's the only time.

That I had. That physical confidence. Really.

It's not the only time. But it's among the only time. Even before that.

I feel you know. Even like. 98.

And even afterwards when I was. You know doing pretty good. With.

I was. With dating. Let's say.

And. There was confidence there. But not.

Not physically. Where I would. You know I would have actually happily.

If my shirt. So if I was picking the tables up. And putting them away.

Ready for the disco. And my shirt would pull up. Showing my stomach.

I wouldn't pull it down. Because I knew my stomach was muscly. Now in the past.

I would have pulled my t-shirt down. Or the shirt down. Because I was so skinny.

And I hate. I would not want anyone to see that. And afterwards.

Because I was fat. So. Literally.

So you say. Oh yeah. You're showing off about how good you look.

Well. Why shouldn't I show off about how good I looked. 50 years.

And I had 6 months of looking good. Why shouldn't I brag about it. To stuff you.

In fact. It's probably 3 months. In reality.

But before that. I don't think anyone else thought I looked bad. I just.

Hated being skinny. And even. Though.

Even when I went to the gym. I kind of was. In 96.

I went through a period when I was going to the gym. And drinking protein shakes. Trying to eat every few hours.

To put a bit of muscle on. And I did. And that's when I was a security guard.

So I was. I felt quite good about my body then as well. But I was purposely.

Working on it. If you know what I mean. Which I guess I was that time as well.

And I hadn't done that. I hadn't purposely worked on getting my body nice. Since I was at school.

But I was just. It was almost. It was hard.

Because when I was at school. Again I was so. Damn skinny.

And. I was doing karate. Karate.

So. Twice a week. I was going to the gym.

Probably. Twice a week. Maybe three times.

I had. Weights. Punch bag.

All that stuff. And I was practicing karate in the garden. So I was.

A lot of exercise. Lot of sit ups. Press ups.

All that stuff. But. I. I was little.

The reality is I was little. And. I think the problem is people didn't realize I had a good body underneath.

So I did have a good body. At that time. So when I was like fifteen.

Sixteen. So when I kind of yeah. When I reached sixteen.

I did have a fairly good body. Six pack. I was just muscles.

But I was little. So I was very slim. And I remember.

My boss at the chip shop saying. How skinny I was. And he was flexing his muscles.

I said I've got muscles as well you know. He didn't believe me. So I got my arm out.

Because it was. It was in my bag. And I showed him my biceps.

And he was surprised. He was laughing as well. So I don't know if he was being serious.

But. He. I did have muscles.

Because I was working out all the time. But my body was tiny. It was just really slim.

It's not fair. It's not fair. And then I got.

There was a time in 2004. 2004. So I was thirty three.

And I was doing Wing Chun. Kung Fu. And I was also a vegetarian.

Pretty much. And I was drinking zero alcohol for the entire year. And I wasn't smoking then either.

So I was living a. Bloody boring life. And. I was doing Wing Chun twice a week.

And my body got really good. I was doing Wing Chun twice a week. Plus.

Leg spar on a Friday. So basically that was sparring but just using your legs. And you do it for like a couple of hours.

And you just swap partners. So you'd be blocking with your legs as well as. It was amazing really.

So you'd basically. Everything would be with your legs. As far as I remember.

You probably can block with your hands as well. But it was. The idea was to also block with your legs.

So if someone went to kick you. You block it with your legs. I don't know why I keep repeating myself.

And. And. Yeah.

Definitely. I lost a lot of weight that year. I think it's because I stopped drinking alcohol.

And I was eating food that didn't stay inside me for long. Because it was vegetarian. And.

Yeah. I definitely slimmed down. To.

I slimmed down to eleven and a half stone. That's the weight I got down to. And I was skinny.

Well. I was slim. I wasn't skinny.

But I was slim. Like waist wise. The rest of me was.

A good size. And you know. But.

My stomach was slim. And I didn't realize how slim my waist was. Until I got a job in an office again.

I got a job in insurance. And I hadn't worked for a year. Well not a year.

Probably eight months. Nine months. I was working part time in a gift shop.

A Buddhist shop actually. But anyway. I. I was.

I went. I got this job. So I was wearing my trousers again.

That I was wearing at my last job. I think. Unless I bought new trousers.

But anyway. I remember I was standing up. Shortly after I started working there.

And I realized that there was a gap. I could actually fit my hands down the front of my trousers. It's not something that I should have learned.

Because I was. That's all I ever did. I could fit my hands down the front of my trousers.

While I was standing up. There was that looseness. And I don't remember ever feeling that before.

In my life. It was the first time ever. Hey.

Guess who I've got in my arms. It's Andre. Andre.

How you doing darling? Are you alright? Oh sorry. How's my beautiful little boy? You know what he did earlier? Right. This is a couple of hours ago.

I've been up for ages. He was running between. Under.

Underneath the chair. The other side of the room. To underneath the chair that I was.

My chair. This side. Trying to avoid me.

And you know what I think he does? In his head. Because he's playing. He pretends that I'm a monster.

That he has to avoid. That he's trying to avoid. Like I'm going to hurt him.

And I know he's playing. But I think he. He believes what he's doing.

I do. I think you believe it Andre. He gets so into the playing.

That I think he's like actually scared. Aren't you? Like you're going to be scared of me. Huh? You weirdo.

You're a weirdo. You're a weirdo. Yes you are.

Give Daddy kisses. Oh. I didn't say sneeze in my face.

I said give Daddy kisses. No? No? He's staring at me. Give Daddy kisses.

Give Daddy kisses. Kisses. Oh thank you.

Oh. You are beautiful. Yes you are.

You're the most beautiful little boy in the whole wide world. Yeah I know that sounds weird. The most cutest ferret.

That probably sounds weird as well. Right he's gone. Right let's moan about him now.

Bugger. So. That's weird.

So he's now playing with. You can probably hear him in the background. A big bit of.

It's like a polystyrene filling that came out of his mouth. A box. But it's not polystyrene.

It's almost really hard foam. In fact I think I'm going to film him. Oh dear.

So there's a little bit of a gap there. A little bit of a break. I just filmed him.

So he was playing with that. Then he had enough of it and he went and had a drink. What are you staring at me for? I've started giving him his food in increments.

And he's a little bit confused by it. Because he was getting through two packets of food a day. Which ain't an issue.

I'm not bothered about how much he eats. He'll only eat as much as he wants. I'm not going to stop him from eating his whatever.

But. He would eat half of it and then leave the rest. And it would go off.

And he wouldn't want to touch it. And he'd want fresh food. So I'd open another pack.

So what I've been doing is giving him half a pack at a time. And then when he wants more. I'll go and get another pack.

You know and I'll empty it. And he's probably still getting through two packs. But it's not going off in between.

So you know he's. I guess in some way he's probably getting to eat more. Of the fresh food.

Sniff sniff. But. What is he trying to.

He's back at it again. I've got the vacuum cleaners there as well. He's basically blocked himself from being able.

To eat. Honestly. Sometimes when he's like this he can keep going for hours.

Yeah I see you. I'm watching you. You've definitely got my attention young Andre.

Yes you have. And what's amazing is I'll buy him a toy. And like in fact on Christmas.

Well it wasn't a toy. But I got him this. It was like a cat bed.

So it's got a cover in. It's got strawberries on it. Or no.

Ladybirds. Ladybugs on it. It's really comfy.

If it was human size. You'd want to get inside and you wouldn't want to get out. It's really.

It'd be like the most comfortable bed you'd ever be in. He won't touch it. Yeah the filling of a box.

Just to keep the you know the plastic or foam. He loves that. Or the box itself.

He loves boxes. I mean that's just I guess that's a child thing isn't it. Children.

Toddlers and stuff. They'll prefer the boxes to what's inside the box. They might go wow every time they see a present.

But they're not. It's just because that's every time they say wow the rest of the family smile and laugh and cheer. And they think oh I better keep saying wow then.

Not quite sure why. But I'll keep saying wow. And he's a bit like that.

But with boxes. He loves his boxes. Wow.

Daddy. He didn't even pretend to be interested in the bed that I got in. £30 that cost.

To be fair I didn't pay for it. It was a paypal. It was a gift.

So someone sent me some money and said get Andre a present. So I did. But that's besides the point.

You know I told him it was from me. And I'm not interested. But he did get some stuff sent from my wish list.

And it's tubes. Like these tubes that he can climb through. And he loves them.

Very happy. So you know. He has I think anywhere that he can go that I can't get access to him.

Easily. He likes. He doesn't realise how I could get to him if I needed to.

Because he's there. Because I never grab him out of the tubes. So I think he thinks that he's safe from me.

You know I can't get to him. And he likes that. He likes being left alone.

A lot of the time. Not all the time. But a lot of the time.

He likes to be left alone. To just do what he wants to do. Be asleep.

Does not like being disturbed when he's asleep. Which I find out when I go to bed. And he's already on the bed.

And he's stretched out. He's laying in the middle of the bed. Stretched out.

And I've never. How can a ferret. A little ferret.

As small as he is. Take up pretty much the whole of a double bed. It's ridiculous.

So I'm kind of moving the covers to try and move him closer to the wall. You know closer to one side. Try not to disturb him.

And in the past I found myself lying and sleeping right on the edge the edge of the bed. I'm balancing. And then I'm thinking.

Wait a minute. What's wrong with this picture? There's something wrong here. Why should I give my bed up to a ferret? He doesn't give his bed up to me.

He's got about six different places where he sleeps. Where he loves sleep. He's got one, two, three, four, five, six.

More than six places. Probably seven or eight. But six that I can think of straight off my head.

One, two. Yeah. I mean there's three places in the bedroom.

One in the kitchen. And there's one, two, three. Three places.

Four. One, two, three, four places in here that he sleeps. Five because sometimes he sleeps behind the sofa.

And I think sometimes he sleeps underneath the chair as well. And he also sleeps in a hallway near the radiator sometimes. And if he can get into the kitchen, into the bathroom cupboard, he'll sleep in there.

So I remember I lost him one day. And I'd been in the cupboard getting something, probably a toilet roll or something like that. And then just closed the door.

Not realizing he'd gone in there while I was doing what I was doing. Came in from, I'd been out for a couple of hours, couldn't find him anywhere. I mean literally, I wouldn't even think about looking into the cupboard of the bathroom.

In the end, I thought he's hidden somewhere. But I searched all of his places. And I started thinking, oh, he didn't run out when I left.

Because in the past, he has run out of the front door at the same time as me. And if I'm distracted by another person, then, you know, I'm keeping, I like to focus on what I'm doing. So that I make sure that he's safe and he's indoors.

Now humans are very distracting, I find. Someone will come to the door or someone will start talking to me. It's almost, I know they're not meaning to do that, but it's a distraction from my routine.

And a couple of times he's got out. Or I let someone else leave and close the door, and they're talking to me with the door open and he's out. Because I'm focusing on that person, I'm not thinking about him, you know, Andre.

It's annoying. So I don't let that happen anymore. I'm always very vigilant with him.

But on this occasion, I couldn't find him. I really started to think the worst. And for some reason, I thought, you know what, the only place I haven't checked is the washing machine cooker and that cupboard.

So I checked the cupboard, the oven and washing machine first, of course. And then there I saw him fast asleep. And he looked up at me and he went back to sleep again.

He was happy. He made a nice little nest. He was happy as anything.

But no, no worries. Because the thing is, if I got into that cupboard, it is a tall cupboard, but there's shelving. So if I got in there, my head would be touching the bottom shelf.

So I'd be squashed. He's in there. It's like being that big.

He couldn't have him being in this room, probably because he's so little. Because when he's curled up, because he does when he's normally, when he's asleep, he curls up. Apart from when he's in the tubes, he stretches out a bit, I think.

So that's why I think he likes being in the tubes, because he can stretch out, but no one can touch him when he's stretched out. When he's on the bed, he stretches out as well. I mean, he doesn't always sometimes he curls up.

But sometimes he does, he stretches right out and he'll be on his back, you know, his belly showing. I guess that's quite a, as you know, he has to feel safe to do that. It's, it makes us all very vulnerable if you just lay there with your belly out.

And I think he feels safe in his go. He's, he's known nowhere else. This has been his home for over five years.

He knows every inch of this place, probably better than I do, in fact. You know, it's, I know it's weird. I mean, it's probably weird.

It might not be, I don't know. I just really hope that he's happy. Is that strange? I mean, does anybody think that way about a ferret? I hope my ferret's happy.

I hope he's happy within himself. You know, that he's enjoying his life. Because I do think it must be boring for him, living with, let's face it, the most boring man on the planet, which is I. I am the Mr. Boring Man.

So to live with me, he's never going to have any kind of excitement. He sleeps most of the time. And during the cold weather, he's not got to go out for walks either.

And it's not through, well, there's no point. I take him out, he wants to come straight home, or he wants me to carry him and put him inside my jacket. Which is pointless.

You know, there's no point to that. So he hasn't even had the enjoyment of going out for walks, which he does enjoy in the summer. In the spring, I mean, if you can hear the birds singing, we're in spring.

It was winter yesterday, now it's spring. That's how this country works. In America, wow, I don't know if it's Texas or something, they had proper snow, really, really a lot of snow.

When they were talking about it on the news, we don't normally, I mean, we're obsessed with weather in this country. It's the most interesting topic for English people, the weather. Honestly, I don't know why.

It's just a national thing. We don't normally hear about the weather in America unless, we don't hear about any weather in any country unless it's a negative, you know, unless it's causing problems for people. So, and in my memory, it's normally like New York and sort of in America usually that seems to have the worst snow.

And then, you know, Russia and places like that. And we hear about the weather locally, like we, you know, sort of France, Germany, those kind of places. I'm not sure if Belgium has weather.

And yeah, I think Texas had really, I mean, I thought Texas was in a desert. So, maybe it's unusual, maybe they never had snow before. And that's why it was on the news here, because it was such a shock.

And they don't normally get it, maybe. I'm not sure. So, anyone from that part of the world who's having problems with snow, I hope that, I hope that you have what we had, where we had some snow, and it was, yeah, it was fairly, quite a fair bit.

But we had the, so we almost like had the big freeze. And then we had the big thaw. So, literally overnight, so the night before, it went from the snow to ice, and the pavements, it's really, really, really icy, thick.

Because I tried to break the ice up on the pavement outside the front door, the communal door. And I had a stick, like a broomstick, and I was smashing it against the ice, and I could get some of it off, but a lot of it was so, so thick and strong, I would have needed a hammer really to do it. And that would have involved bending over, and I didn't want to do that.

So, I thought about pouring boiling hot water, as opposed to boiling cold water, boiling water onto the path, because that would melt it straight away. But then, you know, I was thinking, what if it freezes over again, and it might make it even slippier. So, yeah, I just, I left it.

And then, overnight, it went from being freezing ice, to literally not a drop, not a bit of ice to be seen. No white, no snow, nothing, gone overnight. The temperature and rain mixed together, warm temperature melted, and the rain melted everything overnight.

So, I guess hoping that those in Texas, or wherever the snow is, or wherever, anyone listening, if you've got some problematic snow, I hope that you get the big thaw that we had. Because this snow seems to be, I mean, ultimately, quite often, a part of the world, that we just share the same weather, it moves along, doesn't it? And it gains momentum, or loses momentum, depending on where it's going. So, you know, a wind of 300 miles an hour, might end up hitting here, and being 70 miles an hour.

Still problematic, but not a typhoon, or not a hurricane. And then it might move on, and gain momentum, and become stronger, and end up in Turkey, and being 100 miles an hour. So, we all share the same weather, don't we really? But not, just different versions.

And one of the cliches in this country is, you'll hear this every winter, oh, it's too cold to snow. It's too cold to snow. Well, does New York know that? Does Russia know that? I mean, Russia goes down to like minus 30, or something like that, and it's still snowing.

New York, minus 17, still snowing. I'm not saying New York's that temperature now, but New York, proper gets cold. And this is only from what I see on the news, by the way.

Too cold to say, it's, it's, it's too warm to rain. It can rain any time. We are never, we are never more than three minutes away from rain in England.

Always close to raining. Or sometimes it rains. There's this, this, I don't know where they even come from, these sayings, these cliche sayings.

What is it when it's spitting? It's not raining, it's spitting. It's like, what a horrible term, really. But when it's just a little bit, a little bit of rain, you know, it's just, you can feel it, but it's not proper rain, it's spitting.

Another term that I don't hear so much these days, and it was like about the temperature, the air quality, the temperature. It's close, isn't it? It's very close. It's very close.

What does that even mean? It's close. Close to what? It's very close. Yeah.

Very, very close. Okay. There's definitely a, I don't know, maybe, I guess the weather's so volatile in the UK.

Volatile as we don't have, we do have extreme weather, but we don't, our extreme weather is often, you know, really small compared to other countries. But that doesn't change the fact that it affects us. You know, we had a lot of flooding in this country, more than I ever remember hearing about when I was younger.

Now, maybe it's because it wasn't publicized. TV news decided not to talk about it because there was no internet. So I imagine that, excuse me, the news channels are swayed by what's online.

So if there's thousands of videos on Facebook of flooding, then the TV channels, the news channels have to, I guess, take notice. They can't ignore it when perhaps they would have done in the past. I don't know if that's true.

Maybe it's because a lot of housing, housing estates have been built on flood land, land that wasn't supposed to be used for homes, specifically because it got flooded. But for whatever reason, that was ignored. And the government or councils or whatever, built houses there anyway.

That's got to be, oh, just can't even imagine it. I've never, I've seen flooding locally in this town a couple of times. There was a time where the whole park flooded.

Massive part of, not the whole park, but a big part of the big, the main park in this town flooded, proper flooded. And just excess rain and the river goes through it and it just overflowed. I got flooded in a park where I live, just, I don't live in a park.

I live in a third bush on the left. No, there's flooding in the grass. So again, I'm thinking that that area was probably just marshland and they, let's make a park.

Yeah, great. There's also flooding around the corner for me. And when it rains hard, they've got these ditches, which is to take the excess water away.

But when it really, really rains a lot, the ditches overrun, which floods the entire road. I remember I was trying to get through it and it wasn't deep at this point. And my friend was walking through, he had boots on, I had shoes on and I slipped and I kind of went up to, not my knees, but I got, you know, I was soiled.

My feet were, you know, completely soaked through. And then this woman says, oh, you can walk through our garden if you want. Which would have meant I'd be able to avoid the puddle.

It wasn't a puddle, it was flooding, but you know, a really big puddle. And I thought, okay, well, perhaps, thanks. You could have offered that before I tried to manoeuvre my way through it and you're watching me do it.

And there's all these people just standing there watching. It's only when I fell in that they said, oh yeah, you can walk through our garden. Because all the gardens, the front of the gardens, the driveways were sort of connected.

So they sort of, they let me walk through, like, thanks. But as I'm squelching through, what about, you could have done this earlier. Could you not have done so? Hey, ho, diddly-do.

Anyway, I did a recording yesterday. Made a video as well. I'm thinking of making more videos.

I'm thinking of doing videos for every recording. But, we will see. I can't be a bit stutter sometimes when I use the S word.

See, honestly, it's not, I'm not even playing around. I go, we will see. We will try.

And I kind of, I don't, and it is a stutter there. And I've noticed it. Maybe it was always there and I didn't notice it before.

But it's like, it's like my, it's weird. But it's like my mouth does a weird movement. You know, strange.

I don't know why. Well, what again? Sometimes I kind of stutter, but then do like a little laugh. Like, why? It's like that the words just doesn't come out.

I'm joking. How strange. I don't know.

It's not like a bad stutter, but just, it's, you know, it's not like, you know, it's debilitating. It's not affecting me. But I do notice a little bit sometimes.

A little bit of struggle to get a sound out or a word. Sometimes, just not all, all the time, but sometimes. And I guess I notice it more because I'm talking, you know, talking for an hour.

It's more noticeable to me. And as, as I, as I focus on it, it becomes harder. So I want to stop focusing on it because it's actually, it makes it harder.

Wow. I don't think I used to have a stutter when I was a kid. I don't think so.

I don't know. I've, I've had friends that have had stutters and the, the one thing I noticed is the stutter, they got worse when they were anxious, when they were nervous. But when they were in a good mood and relaxed, the stutter, you know, was hardly there.

But then I knew another person that had a stutter and he was a comedian and he, he was, um, he's, his stutter was the, uh, the, I don't want to say worst because it's, but it was the worst that I'd seen or heard. Uh, and he was a performer, very, very successful performer, but he used the stutter as part of his act, but he had less stuttering. When he was on stage, he didn't stutter as much, but he, he still did a bit, but not, not as much as he did when he was off stage.

Didn't stop him talking though. Um, anyway, that's the end of this recording. Thank you very much for listening.

So take care of yourselves. Remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love.

Do something nice for yourself today. Bye.