(no music) #1055 - Freinds - Let Me Bore You To Sleep (29th November 2023)

Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. My name is Jason Newland. Videos under the table moaning.

Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. My website is jasonnewland.com. I hope you're well. So what are you doing? So I'm up here in my home.

Vinnie's under the table. Logie, the other dog that currently is living here now, he's on the set of your sleep. And I'll just just let you know, at the very beginning of this recording, I'll tell you what's basically happened.

So you might want to skip, skip through a few minutes. But I decided to talk about friendship. In this recording, just want to call it friendship.

Okay. And the reason I'm looking after the dog from downstairs is because my friend from downstairs passed away on Friday. So he's pretty much my best friend.

And I see him virtually every day for the last eight and a half by nearly nine years, really nine years in April. So I don't know how many, how was it now, end of November. So yeah, so I'm not gonna I'm not going to talk about that situation.

Because that isn't what these recordings are about. They're not, you know, these, even if I don't uplift you or make you feel better, hopefully, you do feel a bit better when you listen to these recordings. I'm not here to bring people down, you know, so that's my own stuff I need to deal with.

But it's got me thinking about friendship, friendships I've had over the years. So I guess that's what I'm going to talk about today. So I won't be talking anymore about the situation, I might mention my friend Luke.

But I'll only be talking about positive things. Okay, so all is good. Don't worry, I'm not going to be getting all sentimental or anything.

So I, it's been weird, because I kind of wasn't really sure. There was a part of me just didn't know what to do next, you know, as far as making recordings and that. And then I just thought that I'll just make a recording.

I'll just do it. Just do it. It's one o'clock.

Wednesday afternoon on the I think it's the 29th of November today, 2023. I've got a cup of tea. It's actually cold, but it's okay.

I've got food delivery coming in about an hour. So and I've got the two dogs, I took them both out for a walk about half an hour ago, 45 minutes ago. So they, they're okay.

But it's hard work because one of them is really big. And the other one's really little. And one is really friendly for other dogs, like Vinnie, loves other dogs.

Logie, not so much. He's had some experiences, I think in his youth, he's an old man now with dogs. So when he when a dog comes running up towards him, if the dogs are if the other dogs off the lead, then Logie goes into attack mode.

It's defense mode, but unfortunately, it doesn't end. It doesn't go so well. So I'm going to have to try and find a way to get him a really, really strong muzzle.

I did buy a muzzle for him for my friend to use, but I don't know where it is. So I'm gonna have to try and do that. So it's kind of weird.

As part of me, you know, I put the feelers out, see if anybody would like to take him in. My friend actually had two dogs. And within like a couple of hours, one of the neighbors took the other dog.

But I think the other dog was a bit more appealing because she was young. She was only like a year old or something. She was very, very friendly towards everybody, including dogs, just loves everyone.

Very jumping up at people so needs a bit of training. But my friend rescued her because my friend downstairs, he rescued her probably about two months, three months ago, because she was being kept in a cage, he said. And she wasn't house trained or anything.

So he kind of, it wasn't really anyone's fault. It was just a situation where I think the person that was looking after the girl was unwell, so she couldn't really look after her. So it wasn't anyone's fault.

So my friend took her in. And Logie didn't like her. That's weird.

Something really weird just moved the other side of the mice arm back. Blimey. Mind you Vinnie, he'll have a lovely time with his mice here.

Something just crinkled. I got a massive bag of food. The other side of the room and it's for the big dog because he just eats so much.

He inhales. The amount of food I give to Vinnie, I'm getting all these different names Andre, Vinnie, El, Logie. El was my friend's ferret, which was Andre's uncle.

Anyway, these are names that you may not recognize. So I won't go into details. So I've got this big bag of food.

And it's quite cool because I went over to the pet shop, I think two days ago, or Friday, Monday actually, because it was two days ago, isn't it? Monday. Or it might have been Saturday. Monday, it was it was a day anyway.

I think it was Saturday actually thinking about it. And I, because they came over and said, we need some, you got any food for her? They didn't have any food for her. So I said, well, okay, take some food here.

And I'll go and get some food tomorrow. And I'll cover the food for the week. Because they weren't prepared for a dog.

They didn't know they were going to have to feed a dog. So I said, I'll get a bag of food to last a week for her. And then then it's up to you what you do, you have to sort of sort it out yourself.

So I go to the pet shop, and I'm looking at these bags of food. And they're like 50 quid each. But the big bags, some of them are 37 pound 45 pound, you know, big, big, proper.

I don't know how much they weigh. But you know, you you really need a car to get them where you going. You know, if you if you're any going any kind of distance.

So I go into the pet shop, it's a pet food shop. And I said, I explained the situation. And I really upset because I knew it knew my friend because he's been going in there for longer than I have, in fact, like probably 10 years or so to get food first of all for his ferret and then for Logie who's had for about eight years, seven or eight years.

And I said I need to get some food. I got a couple of bowls, food bowls for the other dog. One for him here.

Big bowls because the little dessert bowls or the breakfast bowls I use. It just instantly just disappears. It almost just instantly disappears.

Because it's just not enough doesn't hold enough. And I was using one of those for water. And I was I was emptying or filling emptying.

I was filling the water bowl, probably seven times a day. Now I've got this huge water bowl. And I have to fill it maybe twice or three times a day.

So it's, it's amazing how much he drinks. Anyway, so I go into the pet shop, the pet food shop, and I explained the situation. And she said, how much do you want to pay? It's straight away I'm thinking that I didn't realize what she was saying to me.

But I've heard that before when I've gone into a shop said how much do you want to pay? It's usually someone trying to rip you off. But she wasn't it was the opposite to that. She basically gave me 50% discount on the food.

So I got two bags for the price and she gave me two bags. I needed one for Loki one for Kelly, who was the other dog. And not only that, she delivered it herself in her car after work.

And they don't deliver. They I think they use the post office or some kind of postal service to deliver food. I was like, wow, she went so out of her way.

It's amazing. And you might hear background sounds, because I got all the windows open. And there's people in the garden of the other side of the fence.

But you might think, well, it's not the end of November. It's five degrees outside. Why would you have the windows open? Mr. Farty pants over there.

Honestly, you know, he farts and they're really bad farts. Last night, I was in the bed. I was choking.

Because I both sleep on the bed with me. And the air, it's almost like his bumhole was sucking the air out of the room. And I had to open the windows.

This is like the middle of the night. So it's minus degrees out there. Probably minus, minus, minus, minus, whatever.

So I had to have the window open just to get some air into the room. And this is with the door open and everything. You know, I don't close the door.

But I just not never close it. I mean, sometimes I do close the door, because that's what they're for, isn't it? So I can never look out of a window. Well, sometimes I do look out the window.

That's why they have glass so you can see through them. But I also need neck curtains because I've taken the neck curtains out down. And base.

And that was Vinnie. Vinnie just fired then. He's copying Logie.

And he acts like nothing's happened. It just any low Vinnie hardly ever did a loud fart. Now he seems to be doing them all the time.

And what is it with dogs where if you want to say on your bed, they always have to face with their bum face to you. It's why? Anyway, can you hear that in the garden? Vinnie shush. Shush.

It's a weird place. By the way, if this is not very sleepy, because your dog's barking, I understand. Sorry about that.

It's it's quite early in the thing. So hopefully that it's not ideal. But he barks at the slightest things.

I don't know what they're doing over there. Some people just like to make noise that they just you know, I'm talking very quietly, by the way, don't want them to hear me. So was Oh, yes, I went into the shop and they gave me two big bags of food.

Half price and delivered it for free. And she said, Well, you know, you're both regular customers. And she lived on the estate.

She lives on the estate that I live. Not right where I am, but lie around the area. So it wasn't that out of her way to do it.

But it's still really, really lovely of her to do that. She nearly made it onto my Christmas list. So what else? Yeah, that was it.

That was the food thing. So I'm just thinking that I just got some food out of the bag and put it onto the floor for Logie. And maybe some of the bag the food was like moving around in the bag.

Even though there might be a mouse in that bag, because it is an open bag of food, which isn't ideal. Once you found a dead mouse, or more of a skeleton of a mouse in the storage cupboard. Because Luke's dad said he was coming down.

I spoke to him on Friday. I fought and I said, You're going to stay here. And he said, Thanks.

Now, he didn't end up staying there, but I thought he was going to. So I spent all Friday night cleaning this place up tidying it up all Saturday as well. And then I spoke to him Saturday evening and he he wasn't going to be staying there.

So in that process, I ended up cleaning the windows, getting rid of the neck curtains, because they were a different colour to what they were originally, nine years ago. And the storage cupboard, I've been going through that trying to sort of sort that out. And I had this plastic container, big, big old storage box, but didn't have a lid on.

And there was stuff in there. So I bought it out and I was going to just like go through it. I found this little mouse that probably been in there for years, maybe.

So I haven't actually seen any mice around here for a long time. But we used to just used to be overrun with them. Luckily, I've never been.

It's always only been on one and I catch it and then that's kind of it. But downstairs and some of the other flats, they really had it bad. The thing is with Vinnie, because he's a Jack Russell.

No mouse really wants to be coming in here because he'll have it. That's his that's what that's his thing in it. That's that's what they kind of were bred for in a way.

So why do people make so much noise? Do you ever wonder that? Vinnie shush mate. Shush. Ah, do you want me to take you back to the vets? He's never been to the vets, I don't know why I said that.

It's just, yeah, so basically, yeah, friendships got me wondering, just thinking, I'm gonna close these windows because or shall I put him into the bedroom? If I put him into the bedroom, he'll start howling, especially if Logie's out here and he's in the bedroom. He won't like it. Yeah, I think there's someone over there and I've got a dog.

So it's Vinnie hears the dog. Because we've got really good hearing, which makes you think we don't ever have to shout our dog because if the hearing is that good, surely we should be able to just whisper to them, like, stop, stop. But whispering doesn't seem to do the trick all the time.

Sometimes I really have to be quite firm with him. And he listens when I'm firm. But I do wonder, because now he's in a position where he's got the dog, the other dog, that generally is the alpha male between the two of them.

But Vinnie has thought that he's the alpha male over me. Now he sees that I'm the alpha male over Logie. Because Logie does listen to me.

And he does what he's told. That's confused Vinnie, I think. Why? You're the boss of me, yet he's bossing you and I'm the boss of him.

This doesn't make sense. So I think they're both a little bit confused. Logie's been pining, of course, Vinnie's been pining as well.

It's weird because when Logie went missing earlier in the year, a few months ago, he was gone for about three weeks, I think. And Logie for the first week pined for him. He was sitting at the front door, wouldn't come in, wouldn't sit on the bed, wouldn't come anywhere near me.

And he was just really, wouldn't eat. It was a proper pining for him. And then, because he used to see him so regularly.

And then they got that other dog. And Vinnie couldn't be in the same room as both the other dogs because they'd fight. Any time the other dog, the new one, there's too many dogs in this story, isn't there? Any time the new dog came over to Vinnie, Logie would warn her off, like push her out of the way or growl or, you know, they'd end up fighting.

So he's very protective of Vinnie. But the girl, all she wanted to do was play. She's quite rough because she's big, doesn't know how big she is.

And she's basically just like the way Logie was seven years ago. But I'm still not sure if I can really leave these two together for any length of time. Because Vinnie's been really playing up the last few days, pushing his luck a little bit, you know, really pushing the boundaries of me.

And he's even been growling at Logie, like having a go at him, which he never used to do. You know, he always used to let Logie be the boss. But then I'm thinking maybe it's because this is his home.

This is Vinnie's home. This is his territory. Logie's infringing upon his territory for what he's been there for, was it Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

We're in five days now. He's been living here. And I think Vinnie is a little bit, it doesn't mean I want to make of it.

And he's getting jealous every time Logie comes and tries to cuddle up to me or show me affection. He's a very affectionate dog. Vinnie doesn't like it.

Sometimes he growls, sometimes tries to get in between us. And he started doing things that he never used to do before. Vinnie this is, for example, he started to cuddle up to me, like lean on my waist and, did I say waist? Belly.

Let's call it a waist, belly, a big fat belly, a big fat smelly belly. And Vinnie will like cuddle up to me now, because he's seeing Logie do that. Another thing, another thing is, when we're in bed, Logie's generally kind of, he takes up half of the bed anyway himself, especially when he spreads out, takes up more than half.

So I'm kind of stuck against the wall a bit, on one pillow, because it's a double bed. He's on the other side, which goes probably from my waist downwards, my chest downwards or whatever, on the other side. And Vinnie has taken to sleeping on the pillow, the other pillow.

He loves it on the pillow. It's just super comfortable and it's just the right size for him. And what's weird is I never let him on the pillow before.

Like no, keep away from the pillow. I didn't want him rubbing his bum on the pillow basically. But now I don't get a chance to lay on the other pillow.

I'm now on just one pillow. How many more times do you think I can say the word pillow, before you'll notice that I've said pillow too many times? Pillow, pillow, pillow, pillow, pillow, pillow, pillow, pillow, pillow, pillow, it's rice. Isn't that a rice? Pillow, pillow, rice.

So that's the state of affairs with them two. Their friendship. See, I'm sticking to a subject.

Friendship. I don't know why she's, why is she shouting? Maybe it's a cat. Maybe it's, it's got to be a cat.

Can't be a dog, because a dog would just come by now, wouldn't it? Could be a cat. There's a lot of cats around here. A lot of cats.

I'm talking a lot of cats. There's a lot of dogs, but there's a lot of cats. Huge, has it got about a thousand cats? It's got to be at least, just in the garden.

I'm not, what do you mean exaggeration? I'm not exaggerating. 10,000, even at least, maybe. There's a few.

There are a few. And I, yeah, so thinking about friendships. I haven't got many friends, really, that I have regular contact with.

There's people that I know that I see in the street, or maybe I see every now and then, and I like talk to them. But most of my friends' friends, you know, other than like neighbours that I'll see, you know, every now and then, is people that I don't really see anymore, but I do talk to them on the phone. And it's like three, three people, pretty much.

One, two, three. Yeah, that's it. And it's weird, because I've lost, you know, I've lost contact with people over the years.

A lot of it is because of me moving away and not being, I've not always been great at keeping in contact with people. I managed to do it with a couple. But generally, these days, I just see people when I see them.

If it's a neighbour, someone lives close by, we know what a neighbour is. Okay, fair enough. It's, you know, so my friends, very, very tiny list now.

And just thinking about people from the past that I used to be really, really good friends with. Again, it's a very small number. I mean, if we go back to school, there was, I had friends at school, people I got on really well with, kids that, you know, I really, really liked a lot, but not that many that I would spend time with out of school.

And I used to think of school really as kind of, I guess, like an open prison, really. You know, I'd go there. And, you know, it's like the, and then when I got released, I could go out into the community during the day, like, you know, but instead of that, I'd be opposite at night time.

So open prison would let me out at four o'clock in the afternoon, and I have to return back at 830 the next day. So that's what it kind of felt like. So I didn't necessarily want to spend time with the people that I was in prison with, if that makes sense.

You know, it's just, I remember I still had that attitude when I was working, when I had a job in a call center, and someone was working with me. They were quite new, and they'd been sitting next to me for about three months or two months, three months or whatever. So, you know, every shift I was with them for five days a week, for however, you know, so it's quite eight hours a day.

So it's a long period of time. And he said to me, how do you want to go for a drink? I said, no. And he said, why? I said, well, I see you all day.

I don't want to see you outside of work as well. He laughed, thinking I was joking. Now, I wasn't joking.

I meant it like, why would I want to, I'm literally sitting next to you. It's a bit different if you was in a different department, and, you know, maybe we're friends, and let's go for a drink once a month or, but you're literally sitting next to me, you're almost practically living together. You know, in fact, if we were living together, we'd see each other less than we are now.

Because we'd both be at work all day. And even if we was, let's say we was married or whatever, and we live together, those eight hours in bed asleep, or whatever, you're with them, you're not with them. You're unconscious.

You're not, you know, unless of course you're not. So he wore me down in the end. And then I ended up going for a drink.

And we did become good friends. But it's like, I see you all the time, man. Why on earth would I want to leave this place? You know, I'm sitting next to you.

I don't want to go somewhere where I'm then sitting with you at another table, just in a different building. What possible reason could there be? But, you know, in the end, I kind of, I came around to the idea that maybe we can have friends. So going back to when I was at school, Dean, Dean was my best friend from the age of about nine to 15.

Although we did, we did go our separate ways, you know, pretty much the last, the final year of school, we didn't get on so well. I'm not quite sure. Might because we had a fight, like a physical fistfight.

And that didn't really, it didn't increase our love for each other, put it this way, you know, it really, I think it put a little bit of a dampener on it. And maybe he, he believed that he, he, he could get the upper hand over me or whatever. And it to be fair, I kept saying, I don't want to fight you, you're my friend, all that stuff, you know.

And he just, I think it's one of those things, you know, when people, kids go through puberty, and they're, they're turning 15, 16, he was older than me, so he's probably 16 at the time. And I just want to test themselves and want to be men or whatever, I just want to be tough. And for some reason, he decided he wanted to do that with me.

Bless him. But after that, we'd never really kind of got back our friendship. And we was friends for a long time.

You know, nine to, I mean, you think about it from nine to 15. So what's that? 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. That's over three years.

So he, and also he lived in a, what's it? A children's home. The same as I used to. So I'd moved from a children's home when I was just four or seven.

And I met him a couple of years later, and he was still living in a children's home. And then he moved out and the owner of the children's home actually adopted him. Because the children's home got shut down.

It was a, I think it was a Bernardo's, is it Dr. Bernardo's or something? And it was in the town that I moved to. So, you know, we were really close. I used to see him all the time, used to go out in the evenings, used to go to see cadets together, used to, he used to hang out at my house.

I never hung out at his house. I don't think I ever even saw his bedroom. His dad didn't like me, for some reason.

I wasn't liked by a lot of parents, to be honest. I don't know what it was. I think I might have just been really annoying.

Yeah, probably. I mean, it's hard to know, isn't it? I wasn't probably that aware of how I was being perceived when I was a little kid. Or maybe I was, I just didn't care.

But the only, the only parents, I've only, well three actually, when I was living where my nana grandad lived before they moved in. So up to the age of eight and a half or whatever. So I was there for about a year.

My best friend was called Ian. And I also had another friend called, called, oh wow, I've forgotten his name now. But both of their parents were really nice to me.

And Ian, Ian, who's around the corner, they're both in the same road as me. Because, you know, that's, that's how it was, isn't it? When you're a little kid, your friends are people in your road. I mean, travelling is literally walking around the corner.

So Ian's dad used to take us out hiking or, you know, for long walks in the countryside and stuff. He was cool. He was a really lovely bloke.

And I used to stay for dinner and stuff around his house. My other friend, he was, I looked out for him because I think he only had one kidney. So he was quite poorly kid.

So I did look out for him. And I was friends with him, but it was equal, you know, I wasn't, but he, I just wanted to make sure he was okay. And he did, he did get bullied by this kid and I sorted it out.

So it didn't happen again, because I think he had a bag or, you know, like a thingy. And they were making fun, this, this kid was making fun of him for it. And this is never, I've never really been into that stuff.

Never liked that, that kind of behaviour. So even as a little kid, I didn't want putting up with it. Because one of the things I had, because I never really got bullied, partly is because I didn't put up with it.

Someone, a kid did try and bully me once. And I sorted that out as well. But this is that's when I was about 13.

The thing is, I didn't have any fear about children, other children didn't, didn't intimidate me one bit. Adults, on the other hand, I wasn't so cool with adults, but children, I wasn't bothered. I kind of had an unrealistic sense of toughness, I think, back then.

And, but then I just heard farting again. It sounded like it came from outside. Maybe it's the woman out there.

That's a proper loud fart. I mean, to reach my window from all the way over there. Wow.

I want to meet her. I think I've fallen in love. Anyway, um, God, shut up, just a bloody cat.

He's not coming in, just leave it. It'll come in when it wants to come in. And this is a tortoise.

And it's actually coming and it's just waiting. Come on, angel. Come on.

She's annoying me now. Repeating the same thing over and over again. Unless of course, she is actually asking for an angel around here.

I wouldn't be surprised. It's a bit of a bit of a strange place. So yeah, I was at this place, this caravan site.

Shut up about that bloody angel. Sorry, it's gonna wind me up in a minute. Why do you keep repeating? Look, what's the point calling a cat a name if they don't respond to the name? Come on, come on.

What's the point giving a name if he doesn't respond and obviously doesn't know his name? Does it? You know, I mean, maybe she's up a tree. Because cats can get up trees and get stuck, can't they? Because that's, that's kind of like one of the smaller jobs for Superman, isn't it? Like rescuing cats and trees. That's when he's not busy.

So yeah, yeah, this kid. Because the thing is, when I left, when I was living, I lived in Newcastle on a council estate when I was really little. And then I went into care living in children's homes.

So I was a bit I think let's say rough around the edges is a kind of a description. And you don't you don't, you can't be scared of other kids when you're in that environment. It's almost like, well, I can't I wasn't I had two older brothers.

And kids didn't intimidate me. Just didn't. It changed a little bit as I got older, when everyone was going through puberty.

And I wasn't. Well, I was but I was very everything I I talk slow. The pews grew slowly, you know, just just generally, it's everything's was moving.

I'm not I'm not quick. I don't go quickly. Generally, I can move quickly when I have to but you know, I need to get to the toilet and stuff.

So I was on this holiday. And this is when I was really about 910 nine something like that. And this and I was playing on swings at this holiday camp.

We were in a caravan we'd like a mobile caravan. So we just stopped near the tent and stuff. And we stopped there for a couple of nights and holiday camp and we just saw I was just playing on swings on my own.

They were inside doing whatever they were doing the family. And this kid came up and he was Oh, probably about at least 1516 like he was. He wasn't like an adult adult, but he was, you know, an adult kid kind of.

And he started having a go at me. And I just told him where to go. So he pulled a knife out.

He wasn't near me. He was, you know, he wasn't right close to me. He pulled a knife out.

I just laughed at him and picked up a bottle off the floor. I just wasn't scared. I just wasn't even in the slightest bit scared.

Now what he didn't realize is I had a plastic bowl. I couldn't have it was bounced off of him. It wouldn't hurt him at all.

But I didn't even I just picked the thing off the floor, the first thing I could find. And he backed off and left me. And I didn't give him give it a second thought.

Just it's weird. If that happened now, I'd have to come back and start writing poems and trying to give myself self therapy. Like, you know, to try and recover.

Over the years, I turned into a proper wimp. Over the years, you know, from the age of seven, when I was a tough little thing. And by the time I got to like, 1112 13.

I was just proper, softie, really. And yeah, it was kind of just went from them. I'm just a softie.

Not just soft to the touch, as it were. It's weird. I'm kind of glad because I could have, I'm pretty sure that had a different scenario and it had life gone a different way.

You know, I would have gone a different way. But luckily, things have kind of gone all right. But maybe not.

I don't know. Who knows? Anyway, friendship. So I had those two friends.

When I was little. I had friends when I was little, little. And the thing is, when I was in the kids home, we were the boys and the girls slept separately.

But I lived in dormitory. So it's by you. I don't know how many in one room, lots of kids.

So they're not your friends. They basically, they're your family. You know, they are, they are your brothers and sisters, really.

It's no longer like friends. I had both my brothers with me, but they were different ages. So they, they were automatically spending time with kids of other ages, which makes sense, you know.

But ultimately, we're all still a family. Because that's all it is, isn't it? So I was there with people of all different nationalities. And I had a girlfriend, a little black girl that was, I kind of thought of her as my girlfriend, and she used to let me comb her hair.

And I don't even remember her name. Well, it's a long time ago. But she's, I liked her a lot.

But she was kind of my girlfriend, but I guess my sister as well, you know, which I was in Southend. So that wasn't too weird. But yeah, so friends, I then, when I moved, because we moved out of the house that my nan and grandad moved into.

And this was probably six months after my little brother was born. So he was born in August 1978, the day before my eighth birthday. And we moved the next summer.

Or, or, yeah, I think we moved the next, so probably nearly, well, not a year, but probably nine, 10 months later, we moved to a different house. I guess, did I have to say a different house? When people say I moved, they normally say to a different house, do they? It's kind of almost implicit within the sentence. I don't know if that's the correct way of terminology.

So yeah, we moved. I lost my friends because I ended up going to a different school. So it was the third junior school I went to in that little town in a matter of a couple of years.

Well, less, yeah, a year and a half or whatever. So that was because we went to a different school, which was just near where we were living when we first moved to that town. So it was the summer before my seventh birthday, on the end of August, my birthday, and we moved there in probably summer holidays, I guess, so July time.

And in the September, I went to this school called Langer, it was called. And then I don't know, so that would have been seven. Maybe I was there for a whole term.

I don't think I was for a whole year. I think I was only there for maybe a term or two. And then we moved because the house was basically, it needed demolishing, apparently.

So we moved out. It was my stepmum's mum's house. And I think she'd lived there for a long time.

So she got given a council flat. And my dad and my stepmum, and us three kids went lived in a new build council house. Which had technically three bedrooms.

I mean, one was really a box room, but I've no idea what I was talking about then. And then he started barking for no apparent reason. So I've just gone look to see if there's anyone in the door there wasn't.

Now Logie's up. So hopefully, I don't know. It's annoying.

Slightly, slightly annoying. So yes, we moved into this house. So that's it.

I've talked about this before. But back to the friends thing. So I had friends at school at the first school I went to in the new town when I was seven.

I don't remember any of them. I must have kind of seen some of them outside of school. I don't know.

But I don't remember any of them. I remember that summer before going to school. Because my dad was teaching me and my brothers how to ride a bike.

I think my oldest brother already knew but me and my second oldest brother didn't. We had never had bikes before. So I was that was like just four or seven and my other brother was getting on to nine.

So this was this was our first bikes. So my dad was teaching us how to how to ride a bike. And it was my I didn't even know my own birthday until I remember, you know, most kids like know when they're born, don't they? Not when they're born.

Like, Oh, this is wonderful. I've been looking forward to this for years. I mean, like, yeah, the actual moment that they're born.

But I never knew my date of birth. I didn't know how old I was. So when I was seven, I didn't know I was seven.

I didn't you know, it was the first birthday really. I didn't know when I was seven because we celebrated it. But I don't recall ever celebrating a birthday previous to that.

And there was one when I was in Newcastle in children's home in Newcastle. There was this I'm coming downstairs. I'm guessing it was a Saturday because there was no school unless it was during the summer holidays.

I guess it would. I've always had my I've always had my birthday on a summer holiday always my whole life, like school wise. So yeah, so it might not have been a Saturday.

But I came downstairs. And my memory is we had this breakfast place in a conservatory. The the Newcastle children's home was way better than the South End one.

It was just a nicer place. Loads of fields around I mean, not necessarily a nicer place to live, but just a nicer building, you know. And the show was like a big conservatory and have a glass ceiling and you could have breakfast in there.

And that was I remember walking in there and the children's homes quite often had they run by nuns. But they also had like civilians, civilians, non nuns working there, like care workers, care assistants, whatever. I don't know what they were called back then.

And one of the ladies said to me, Oh, I came I came downstairs. I might have overslept. I don't know.

And there was no one else around. So I don't know if everyone had like come down, had their breakfast and then gone out playing, which is what we generally did. And this is the the year I think when we had the the plague of what they called not butterflies, not caterpillars, not immigrants.

I don't like the word plague actually, because it's used in such a derogatory term these days. But it was they called it a plague of and ladybirds or ladybugs, I think you might call them billions upon billions of them. Now, I look on the internet, and it was a huge deal back then.

And a lot of people didn't like it. And they were eating crops and all that stuff. I loved it.

Because it's basically for me, it was like having a plague of ice cream. I loved ice cream. And it's only thing I like more than one ice cream that was to a million ice creams even better.

So you know, that was I love ladybirds always have done always will do. Never scared of them. People say all day, but they buy but they never been bitten by ladybird.

They're beautiful things. They're just so beautiful. They're just perfect little things.

So you know, I've been completely covered in them. Like complete because they should just cover you like this. So many of them.

And I wasn't never bothered. I thought was funny. It was very similar to going to Trafalgar Square in the old days.

And getting covered in pigeons. It like you know, you'd have like 40 pigeons on you. And people would take pictures.

It was a thing until someone decided to get rid of the pigeons. I mean, there was a Yeah, it was a it was it was a tourist thing. People would come from all over the world in plagues, of course.

They come from all over the world and they take pictures of their loved ones or ever covered in pigeons. And it was always fun. But someone decided it wasn't fun, for whatever reason.

A few years back, and I don't think they're really. I mean, you can't stop pigeons altogether. So we'll still come.

You can't cover the whole of the whole of the the sky with a net. Because that'd be weird. So I yes, I came down one day into the breakfast room to have my breakfast, probably breakfast cereal or something.

I don't know. And a lady said, Oh, happy birthday. I said, What? Well, I didn't know what that was.

It's your birthday. So does it? Yeah. Okay.

It had no meaning to me. It was meaningless to me. hadn't really ever celebrated it didn't mean anything.

I mean, I was probably five, probably five at the time. And it's all your mom has been there. Really? Yeah.

And she'd left me a present. I don't know if it was wrapped or not. I don't I can't remember.

There was a box of Maltesers. But she didn't stick around to say hello. So I guess she was busy.

But it's weird. It's just really strange. I didn't know.

I didn't know. You know, even when I was six, and you know, sort of getting on to seven when I moved in with my dad, I didn't know. They say when's your birthday? I said, I don't know.

How old are you? I don't know. I think I'm nine. Or I might be 30.

I don't one of them. I didn't know where my birthday was. And Christmas is another thing I didn't really.

I mean, we did celebrate Christmas at the children's home. Because Catholic nuns, they were gonna get religious festivals that they definitely did celebrate those things. So there was a Christmas tree.

I remember because yeah, there was a Christmas tree there. And there was some toys. I think the community used to donate toys and stuff to the children's home, I think, if I remember correctly.

But then from then on, from the ages of seven onwards, I was living with my dad and his new wife. And back to friendship. I went I went to the second junior school, which was Causton.

And that was when I was living in the house when my nan and granddad ended up moving into the new, the new build council house. So I had friends there. So definitely, like I said, Ian and whatever.

And so I had lots of friends. And I had a girlfriend as well. I can't remember her name, but she was my I had a first kiss with her under the table.

And it was weird because I had a date, like a proper date, the first proper date of my life. And I've had about three since. And I remember my dad, my dad woke me up, it was Saturday morning.

My dad woke me up because he knew that I had to be somewhere, you know. And even to this day, I remember grabbing him and giving him the biggest hug. I was just I just loved him so much in that moment.

I was just excited. So excited that I was going to be going on a date with a girl from school. And just full of happiness, really.

So it's quite amazing. And I was I was still seven at that point, I would say, because I was living in the small room that my little brother took over. And unless I turned eight, and my little brother was a baby in the other room, it puts around that time anyway.

So stop all that noise. And it was a proper date. I mean, we didn't go to a restaurant.

There's no hotels involved. But I, I'm not sure if she came to my house if her parents dropped her off. Or if I went to her house, I think my dad might have driven me to her house, which wasn't far away.

And then we went to the cinema. So we went to the cinema, watched, I don't remember what we watched, but it was a matinee. So there's two movies on a Saturday morning at the local cinema.

And that was a standard thing for years. And I don't recall the actual movie we watched. And that is what we did.

We watched the movie because we was kids. That's you know. And then I went back to her house.

And her family had dinner and they invited me to stay for dinner. So that's what I did. I had some chips and whatever else they had.

And we played around in the garden together and that and I don't remember how, what happened to that relationship. I'm still waiting for her to call me back. I think she might have lost my number after how many years is it? 45 years? Blimey.

43 years. It's a quite a long time. I mean, she might, she might have moved on.

So she was a friend, but there was another girl I really had a thing for. And but she was bad for me. She was bad news.

Because she was naughty. But I liked her. And but she, this was a different school, I think.

No, no, there was. That's it. So there was two naughty girls I met.

One was at the first school, Langer. And she had a key to the tuck shop. She found a key to the tuck shop, which is where they sold crisps or chips, if you call them in America, if you're in America, and chocolate bars, cans of drink, cans of fizzy drink.

So that stuff would be sold during a break time. Well, somehow she got the key and invited me to join in with an after school snack. So me, her and I think another boy or another girl went in there.

And we, we went in there for every night or every every day after school for I don't know, a few days at least until we got caught. And the I wasn't allowed to talk to her anymore after that. But you know, what happened is, they didn't tell her parents.

But they called the police to come in, not call the police on us. But and I think it might have been a Friday, or whatever the next day, the next school day, a policeman comes in. And basically, we had to stand up and be humiliated in front of everyone for stealing.

And the police told us that, you know, we go to prison if we did stuff like that as an adult and or I don't know, whatever else. Now, I'm not so sure if they didn't tell the parents, because I wasn't allowed to see her anymore. But my dad didn't mention it.

But then we'd only just moved there. So maybe he just fought or just give this a we'll just give this one a miss because he's only been living there for a few months. Maybe I don't know.

And then I think I was in the third, third junior school. colonies, it was colonies was actually on the Rolf Harris show with that school. And I met this girl on the beach.

And I think it was with my brothers. It was in the summer. And I just said hello.

She said hello. And I thought I like her. I'm not sure if I said I like you.

I might have done I'm not sure. But then I then she was gone. And then I had to leave to go home and I kept looking back as she was looking at me and I was waving and she's waving at me and it was very sad.

I mean, I wasn't happy with that. The weird thing about it is that was during the summer. We went back to school the next week and he was there her playing on the playfield.

Right on the playground. So she'd joined the school. Oh, right.

Just had another interruption. But it was a good interruption. It was Luke's dad, my friend's dad.

So so it's been talking on the phone for about half an hour now or something. What time did I start this about 11 o'clock? It's now three blimey had a lot of distractions. But just thinking about friendships that I've had over the years.

There was Dean at school. And all the way through high school, he was my friend. I had other friends, Neil.

I had other friends. And Neil was my friend after school as well. But when I left school, Dean, we kind of didn't really have much of a friendship.

After the last year of school, that was it didn't really see him. So a couple of times, but we really sort of went our separate ways. And he really had his head screwed on, you know, he really knew what he wanted to do.

He wants to be a chef. He wanted to, I guess, probably maybe own his own restaurant or something at one point in the future. But and he did all those things.

He became a chef and he was successful. And it's brilliant. It's got family, kids, as far as I know.

I go on Facebook every now and then just have a little sneak preview and see if he's all right. And as I was friends, I kept friends with Neil. And Neil's parents were the only ones that liked me, or put up with me, tolerated me.

And I was a little bit of trouble back, you know, when I was a kid sometimes. But they were lovely. They're really, really, really cool.

So I had a lot of time for them. And even saw them as I was an adult. I visited in 1996.

And his mom was there. And he was, I think he was traveling. His dad wasn't there, but she remembered me.

Even though I hadn't seen her for like 10 years, or eight years or something. She remembered me and we just had a cup of tea and just talking about the past. It was lovely.

And really, I had a couple of other friends along the way, but I used to meet people and get on with them, work with them and you know, get on. And then I just move on, move to a different job, have new friends. I never really got too attached.

Possibly it's because I moved around a lot as a kid. I got used to making new friends. It just was a natural, natural thing.

And I didn't get too attached to any one person or any one place. And then I moved to London in 1991. And I, I made some new friends there as well.

But then I made a couple of good friends in the like the early 90s. One of them was Andre, my Irish friend, who I named Andre after, you know, my ferret. And he was pretty much the closest friend.

I mean, I was, I became much really good friends with Kevin afterwards. But Andre was the one I was most friends with at that time. And I ended up living with Kevin twice, I think.

And I did live with Andre once as well. I worked with both of them. But I worked with Andre, he was my supervisor.

The other one, Kevin, he worked in a different department. So I, I went to Ireland to go and live with Andre's parents. He was living there as well.

They didn't adopt me. And we just, you know, I was very close to him and a very close friendship with him. And he opened up to me and, you know, very close relationship.

But then I moved away from Ireland because I heard his mum on the phone, talking to his sister who lived in England. And she was saying, talking about me, saying, I think he thinks he's going to stay here forever. And that was a little trigger for me.

And I thought, well, okay, fair enough. And I moved out the next day, I moved back to England. I just wasn't, I didn't want to be a burden.

And I really didn't want people thinking that way about me, be on my back, you know, that I was in the way. And I thought, I wasn't, I didn't want to stay there forever. I wasn't in a hurry, though, to be honest with you.

Me and Andre were looking for somewhere to live, to get a flat together or a house together or something. But I did need to get a job. And so I just went back and lived where I lived before, in London.

And so that was it, kind of lost contact with Andre. Kept contact with Kevin, he went to live in Ireland a few months later. And then he came back again.

And we were friends. We lived together, lived together in the what 96, 97 time when I was a security guard. So I got to know him quite well, I guess.

And that was it, I did get really on really well with my cousins, a couple of my cousins, a girl and a boy. And I was pretty much like brothers and sisters to me, really. I got on really well with them for a few years that I was living in a certain house that I lived in.

And because it was with my cousin, my distant cousin, she was, she was my landlady. And then, so friends wise, I didn't Kevin, I didn't really have any other friends that I was particularly close to. I had my friend Duncan, I forgot about him.

I met him in 1989. And we stayed friends all the way up to about 2014. And was that 8999 2009.

So a good 25 years. And we fell out over something pretty silly, really. But on the phone as well.

But then we never spoke again after that. So that was that was weird. Was it 2015 to 2014.

So he was pretty much, you know, I classed him as my best friend for a long, long time. And then it was in that there's someone that I met in 2006. And I dated her for a little while.

And then we, we just split up because we were better as friends. It's almost like a sister I never wanted. And we argue and stuff, but we get on really well, you know, we're pretty, pretty close.

I speak to her on the phone and that. Who else? There's my friend Noel, who I've known since 1991. And he used to run the comedy club.

One of the comedy clubs in London, then he stopped whining. And so I've known him for years. And then he he offered me to help out at the comedy club.

And this was just after a really big event had happened in my life personal event. And he just wanted to help me. So and it wasn't like a like a paid position, really, it was just an opportunity to get out of the house and to be part of something that I loved.

And in that process, you know, he's become someone that is, he helped me so much over the years. And I wouldn't be where I am without him. I wouldn't have got into hypnosis, I wouldn't have even had the self belief to be able to do some of the stuff that I've done.

Without him, he helped with that. This dog is driving me crazy. What do you want? You literally only went out a couple of hours ago.

You need to go in the garden. I got to take them both out in the garden. Oh, Logie understands the word garden.

Stop banging the table, please. Please stop it. Go over there.

I want both of them gone. Is that bad? Just can you both run away together? Like in a Disney movie? Just time to get away. But it's still still still there.

Now Logie's being noisy. And Vinnie refused to move. He kept coming back into under the table.

I was trying to push him away but no, he wouldn't do it. Why are you groaning for Logie? Stop banging the table. He's so big.

He literally can walk through walls. I think there's an old movie called carry on screaming. There's a carry on movie.

And there's this odd bod character and it's like a monster that's been made out of the finger of another one. And he just can't use doors. He just walks through walls and there's the outline of his body as he's walked through it.

That's that's Vinnie. That's Logie rather. And last night or the night before he ran in and this has been is that one of the next door neighbors has got this washing line thing that stands up and it opens up.

Yeah, proper fixed into the the ground, cemented in. And it's been there for years. Well, two nights ago, Logie ran into it and snapped it in half.

Really? It's like, how did you do that? All these years of running around it and you just didn't see it. And he's been out there in the dark hundreds of times. And he ran away yesterday, ran out of here.

Now he's eating food. You can't even do that quietly. Blimey.

So noisy. Other friends. So I've had lots of friends over the years, I guess that I've met at work.

But then I found that if you got a friendship that's based on where you work, I found that a lot of time I talk about work when I was with them. And then when I left, there was nothing in common anymore. And even if I kept in contact with them, you know, for a little while, it would fizzle out.

I found that pretty much happens with everyone. Pretty much. I've kept in contact with Noel.

He's now retired, travels the world. The club's shut down and everything. So that's all done.

I've got another friend that I met at a Buddhist center that I keep in contact with. And someone I met at college that I keep in contact with. I taught in college back when I did a massage course in 2003.

I have no contact with anyone I did the degree course with. And yeah, it's weird. So I haven't got really many friends.

But I've had, even when I was at Butlins, I made quite a few friends when I was there. It was weird. I kind of got on quite well with most people.

And that was a very tight knit situation. You're sharing rooms with people, and you're living with them and working with them. And it's different departments and they kind of stick to themselves.

So the cleaners have their own group. The people who work in the kitchens have their own group. The people who work in the bar has their own group.

And I kind of mingled with everybody. I didn't really just stick with one group. And not that I was a social butterfly at all.

I just got on quite well with people, generally. And there was one time there was this bloke, he had a cap on, like a baseball cap. And we got talking and we were both a little bit drunk, I would say.

And we didn't realize that loads of people around thought that we were about to have a punch up. And people kept coming up and saying, are you okay? He's like, yeah, go away. And we were having such an intense conversation.

I don't know what it was about. I'm sure I knew what it was about at the time. Because I was talking, so I guess I must have been aware of what the conversation was about.

But we just hit it off. It was such a, and we were just standing there for probably an hour or two just talking. And because of the way we were standing, they thought it was kind of aggressive or something.

And it wasn't. I was just trying to just, just talking. Maybe it was a serious conversation.

I don't know. That was very strange. It was.

And I think I saw him the next day and I had nothing to talk to him about. It's almost like, you're right. Yeah, yeah.

See ya. Couldn't remember what the conversation was about the day before or the night before. It's very, very weird.

What other friends? I've got a few friends around here, people that I know, neighbors that I see regularly. I'll tell you that he's doing it now. Logie's got this food.

It's much too big for Vinnie, really. So what Vinnie does is he waits. So Logie crunches it, and little bits fall on the floor and Vinnie eats the little bits.

So he's a bit like those, it's a little fish that follow. Was it, is it little birds that clean crocodile's teeth and little fish that follow sharks and stuff like that. He's like that.

And then I give him, I give Andre his own food, which is wet food. And I give that to him in a bowl. And he eats that.

I give him most of the packet and then I leave some in the packet and give it to Logie just to rip the packet open and eat it. And I make sure that Logie doesn't go near the bowl when Vinnie's eating. And when Vinnie's eating most of it, if he's licking the bowl, I say, now take it away from him.

So that's okay. I let Logie lick the bowl clean. So they're kind of sharing, but Vinnie gets to eat his food because the other day I gave them both food at the same time.

And when I came back in from the kitchen, Logie was eating the rest of Vinnie's food. And I thought, nah, now Vinnie's eating Logie's food, the dry food. And it's way too big for him, but now he's crunching into it.

It just copies Logie so much. And I quite like it because Vinnie looks up to Logie. He clearly does.

And before he met Logie, he didn't even used to cock his leg when he went to the toilet. He used to crouch down like a female dog. He didn't used to, you know, when they brush their feet backwards, like almost to cover up the wee or poo or whatever.

Vinnie never used to do that, but he saw Logie do it and he started doing it. He does it in the wrong direction, but he still does it. There were differences between them though.

Like Vinnie takes sometimes 10 minutes to find somewhere to do a poo. He'll walk up and down a bit of grass and they keep turning around and then walk further up, turn around a bit and walk up further. Logie does it while he's walking.

He just doesn't care. It's like he doesn't even notice it's happening. It's weird, very different, but I think Vinnie looks up to Logie as an important person to him.

I'm not sure how Logie sees Vinnie. I don't really know. I mean, he doesn't see him as the average small dog because Logie doesn't like small dogs normally, but he took to Vinnie straight away.

Before I even met him, before I even met Vinnie, because he was with a neighbor, Logie had already met him a few times. So they've always got on and my friend used to tell me, oh, Logie's got a new friend. You wouldn't believe it.

It's a little dog and they get on. They like each other, which I didn't kind of, couldn't really get my head around. And then one day there was a knock at my door.

I opened the door and this little brown thing runs in and then this big white thing, Logie runs in afterwards and then my friend's there. He's laughing. I said, what the hell was that? He said, it's Logie.

I said, no, no. The thing before him, I saw a little brown thing or little red thing running. I don't know what the hell it was because it was going too quick, ran through my legs.

What was it? He said, it's a dog. What? So come in and that's Vinnie running all around the place, all excited. And he said, I need to find someone, someone to take him in.

And stupidly, I said, oh, I'll have him. I don't know why I said that. I should have given it a little bit of thought, but I didn't.

And then that was it. By the end of the day, he was living here. This is a Saturday in December.

And he was, that was it. He's been here since. So I guess really, he's my best friend now, isn't he? Little Vinnie.

And maybe Logie as well. I don't know. I mean, he ran away last night, but he did come back about an hour later.

I don't know where he went. I couldn't catch him. He just, he just ran out the front door when I opened it because I took Vinnie for a walk and he barged past me.

And then he stopped and I said, well, come inside then. And he did. So I couldn't reach him because I know if I go to reach him, he'd run off.

And he took a few steps towards the front door. And then Vinnie jumped up at me, started barking because he was still on the lead. And I looked over and Logie was downstairs.

It was just, so I opened the front door downstairs, put it on and put a brick in front of it to keep the door open. I left my door unlocked like Luke used to, so he could just let himself in. He just pulls the lever down, lets himself in and just comes in.

That's what he did. About an hour or so later, he just, I heard the door go. Funny enough, he didn't let himself in.

He pushed, he pulled on the lever, but it didn't open. So I just opened the door and he just ran in and jumped on the bed. And I gave him a good talking to, read him a disappointment poem that I wrote.

So that was it. So I've had a delivery of food and it's on the door. It's on the, in front of the door, basically on the porch.

It's not really a porch, but in front of my front door. So there's bags of food. So I'm going to have to go and collect them.

Last time I got a delivery, one of the bags was ripped open. So I think one of the neighbors might have, or someone saw the delivery and helped themselves or something. Because they're usually sealed shut.

So I've never had one that's been open before. But I couldn't be bothered to look at the receipt, you know, to see what was missing. So, and it's nothing interesting anyway, because all I get is like milk and cereal and a few bits and bobs.

None of it's going to be, none of it's going to change anyone's life. You know, no one's going to be, it's not like I've just given them a genie. Or why would you give someone a genie? How could you give someone a genie? That doesn't even make sense, does it? So I'm going to go.

So thank you for those of you that have left some nice messages. I did post on my thing that, like a rest in peace thing on my Facebook page. And it's, I don't know, it's just there was a picture of my friend with his two sisters from about 2012, which was three years before I met him.

And he just looked so much healthier there. His face was bigger, like he had more, he was very slim when I met him. But he used to be a lot bigger.

He used to be, he said that he used to weigh as much as I do. But then he was six foot, so it would look better on me if I was six foot. And apparently the ideal weight, the ideal height for my weight is about seven foot four.

But you know, that's probably not going to happen. Although there is an operation you can get where you can get your legs stretched. And it adds like half an inch or something.

To be fair, if I was if I had the ability to have an operation that added half an inch, I wouldn't be focusing on my legs. Oh, yeah, my ears, of course my ears. So I'm going to go thank you for listening.

I'm not sure how regular I'm going to be making these recordings. It's a case of doing them when I'm kind of feeling feeling it. And by do I do want to do some more stuff.

I don't, you know. And also, we just have to see. I mean, I spoke to Joel, who was offered to help with the getting back some of the music, the recordings with music.

So I have to look into that. But right now I just thought for some reason, I'd make a recording. So I was waiting for my the food to be delivered.

So I thought I'll do something with while I'm waiting for that. And here we are here here here I am. So I'm going to go thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself. Because you do deserve to be happy. And if there's someone special in your life, maybe contact them and let them know how you feel.

It doesn't have to be a phone call, maybe just a short text. Really do you have to make that much noise now? Right, I'm gonna go. Lots of love.

Bye