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Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name's Jason Newland. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep.
Oh, sleep. Just giving Vinnie a little bone. So he's... Sounds weird, doesn't it? Just giving him a nice bone.
So he's happy. He's all right. Okay, carry on.
Carry on. What are you doing? Don't stare at me. Don't stare at me.
Hopefully he'll behave himself. Generally, if I give him a bone, that kind of distracts him from anything else. But we'll see.
I could really do with going to sleep. I'm almost laying down. This chair goes a little bit too far back.
So it's all right. It's okay. Vinnie, so what was it? Oh, yeah.
I have decided... So anyone listening to this that are not part of my Facebook group, then it's worth joining because from now on, my Q&A Friday podcasts will only be available to group members. And the Facebook group is Jason Newland's Facebook group. And there is a link on my website.
And if you just look for Jason Newland's... Did I say Facebook group? Jason Newland's Boring Group. I don't even know the name of my own group. Okay.
So what I'm going to be doing is setting the podcast episodes. Oh, gosh. From this Friday onwards for the Q&A Friday, they will be set to private, and only people, members of the Facebook group, the private Facebook group will be allowed or will have access be allowed.
That sounds a bit stirred, doesn't it? It's allowed. It's free to join. There's no cost other than the two seconds it takes to just press the button to join.
And then yeah, so I'll have the private... The links will be put onto the Facebook group on a Friday to all four recordings. And I will also have downloads available on my website as well. And I'll post those links as well.
So that will be all good. And yeah, that's it. I mean, it's a trial.
It's a trial. I mean, I hope you know, I plan to continue this. And I only have make it available on the Facebook group.
Because it just, it kind of makes sense to do something to have something that you can only have access to, you know, I'm going to rearrange myself. Just my body not. Anyway, so I have no noise in the garden.
And suddenly, soon as I start recording, sound drunk, don't I? As soon as I start recording, there's nothing but noise. So I've had a couple of comments asking me or messages, whatever, asking me when I'm going to do the podcast episode about my step mom number two. Because I did step mom, step mom number one.
And I did say I was going to do a second one. Well, it's not going to be today. Because today I'm going to talk about my step mom's birthday party.
So I will be talking about she will be involved in this podcast. Well, she won't be involved in it. She's not here.
But I'll tell you what happened. So is there anything else I need to tell you? I do have a YouTube channel. Subscribe to that, please.
Just or just search for my name. Jason Nolan. And it's my birthday on the 26th of August.
So not today, but in exactly a week's time. So it's the 19th of August today, in seven days time, next Monday, the 26th. I will be all right, Vinnie, calm down.
I've got my little zipper here. My little beeper. I don't have to use it.
It's not a zipper. It's not a zapper. Just makes a noise, but he doesn't like the noise.
He was so naughty earlier. So I let him off the lead so he could play with a dog. The dog had a ball.
The dog left the ball to come over to me. He grabbed Vinnie grabbed the ball and ran off. He would not give the ball back.
Now, the owners of the other dog said he does get a little bit and he might try. Yeah, he gets a bit tetchy. He might try and he might tell Vinnie off if Vinnie doesn't give him the ball back.
So I thought I'll get the ball off him. Don't worry. He would not let me near him.
It's it lay down on his stomach and just look at me. And as soon as my arm my hand was probably I don't know, a foot away. It run off.
And he was circling me. And it was just like it was a game for him. And the other two adults were laughing.
He humiliated me. Who Millie ate it. I've never been so angry.
General I just could not believe it. In the end. They called him over to give him a treat.
And I've got him because you know, offer him a treat. If another dog walker offers him a treat, he'll go for it. He loves a treat.
Didn't want anything from me. Until he was on the lead. And we were walking home.
Then Yeah, where's the treats that anyway. So it was my step mom. I'm just gonna call a step mom because it's step number step num, step mom, number two.
That's my step mom to my current step mom. It was her birthday party on Saturday, just gone two days ago. And I'll be honest.
You know, I don't like being honest, but I couldn't face the travel. I've been thinking about it all week. I was getting ill with stress thinking about it just the whole because it's probably a good four to five hours of traveling there and back.
It's not a long distance. It's just the waiting around for trains, two trains, two journeys to the train station from the train station and then back to the train station and then you know, and waiting around for the next train and just it was and then knowing that I had to be on my best behavior. Because I'm five, a five year old to behave.
Just it's not knowing what mood I'm going to be in. That's the that's the problem. And I know that they don't get it.
They don't understand and I'm not sure even if I understand to be honest. But I don't want to turn up in a bad mood because then I'm not great company and I don't want to cause problems, you know. So it's I don't have to be in a good mood.
I just have to be in an average okay mood and then I'm fine. But if as sometimes happens I wake up and I'm in a not particularly good space. It's best that I keep away from people.
So there was that concern and I was yeah I was a bit worried about the whole thing. And I was feeling a bit ill to be honest last week. Not the whole time but at times I was.
Especially come I think Thursday I was. So what I did is I think Friday morning I cancelled it. I told them I wasn't going to be going and I explained why.
I said it's just how I'm feeling and that's just the way it is. It's like you know there's nothing personal. It was personal to me but it's not personal towards them.
And I spoke to my stepmum and she was fine. Now she obviously she wanted me to go but she was fine. You know she understood.
I tried to explain the situation and she knows she's aware of the bipolar and all that stuff. So anyway I cancelled. I already had Vinnie booked to be looked after.
I've had it this is this been planned for about two months that I know I've known about this. So I already had it my neighbour or his mum the person that had him before she was already prepared to look after him for the day on Saturday. She had it in her diary and then I couldn't get hold of her on I think it was the Wednesday.
I was trying to get hold of her on Wednesday and she couldn't get hold of her. So I thought oh I better just make sure just because she's got stuff going on so I want to make sure that she hadn't forgotten or something hadn't happened. So I asked one of my neighbours downstairs if they could not look after him but just check up on him make sure he's okay.
And she said yeah we'll take him for a walk and look you know be nice. I said okay thank you. I said but you're just but this is like only if the other person can't.
It was more like a backup because I wanted to make sure that he wasn't on his own. Well that was all decided. That was all fine and then on I think Wednesday evening the other lady who had already promised to look after him phoned me up because I've been texting her I've been phoning her.
She called up and says what do you want? What is it? See that was such a good impression because Vinnie looked at me. It was almost like my mum what's my mum doing here? What do you want? Anyway she she said yeah of course I remember and and it was all okay. So I said all right fine thanks and then I cancelled the neighbour downstairs and said I've got hold of her and that's all good thanks anyway.
And then Friday in the morning I was not feeling very well. I didn't really get much sleep on Thursday night and I was just like oh oh oh what do I do? What do I do? I can't leave it till Saturday. What do I do? What do I do? And but I was still determined to go and then what then Friday I woke up still determined to go on Saturday but Friday I didn't have a good night Thursday night.
Friday I woke up and I thought no I can't do it. Just can't can't face it. It's you know putting on a a pretend happy face if I'm not there.
If I'm not feeling that way and I didn't because sometimes there's been times when I've not been in I've forced myself to do stuff even when I'm not in the best mood or perhaps in a very bad mood let's say and I've lost friends or I've upset people. It's just you know I don't want to do that. I kind of rather avoid that situation and yeah so I decided no let them all enjoy themselves.
I'll just I'll see them another time but there's bugging me because first of all I promised I was going to go and I phoned up and I phoned up Friday morning and said I'm sorry but I can't I can't do it. I can't come. I don't know if I phoned or I texted.
I can't actually remember. I think I phoned actually. I don't really I don't remember to be honest with you and then she was fine.
She was like okay and send me a really nice message back or whatever happened. I can't I don't know if I don't know did I speak to her? I don't know. So I said you know like it's not a personal thing.
I wanted to come but just not up to it and since with all the stuff that's happened since November and you know I'm still a little bit raw on that. She said well you need to make sure you wear protection in the future. I said no not that thing.
I'm talking about my friend. She said yeah it was your friend all right. I said no no the other friend.
Oh okay sorry. Blimey and she says she was really nice about it and I felt so much relief so much relief on Friday after but not as much relief as I thought I would because I also felt guilty. I also felt like oh let them down and I keep hearing my little brother's voice.
We don't know how long we've got with them do we? I don't know you know it's like your dad's nearly 80 now. You don't you can't keep leaving it. You need to make more effort.
So it wasn't as relaxing as I thought it was going to be before. It was very stress relieving but not in a way that I was hoping. So it's still playing on my mind and so I cancelled Vinnie being at BAFTA.
I didn't need it because I was going to be here and the person said are you sure? I said yeah I'm sure and she said well if you change your mind just come and get me just come and let me know. I said okay thanks. I won't change my mind and then I contacted the other yeah I'd already contacted her I think.
So hmm croaky voice. I went to bed Friday. I went to bed early like I always do on a Friday.
I was in bed by about 10 o'clock I think maybe even nine. I didn't I felt quite uneasy. Didn't didn't yeah I wasn't feeling it if you know what I mean.
I was feeling a bit just whatever is and I woke up early maybe five o'clock or something on Saturday maybe four four o'clock maybe I don't know and just did what I normally do. I'd already uploaded the Q&A Friday on on Friday itself so I didn't have to do any editing first thing in the morning and I started to to think.
I was sitting here I don't know watching the news or watching some YouTube videos or something and I was just thinking hmm if only there was a way of getting there without all of the hassle of trains and crowds of people and I think there's there would have been a bus replacement service as well a part of the journey because I'm on the like London to Norwich route and quite often at the weekends the they do like rail works like they cut you know I suppose repairing the track and maintenance
and stuff so the idea of that just oh it wasn't wasn't filling me with marshmallows and cream if you know I mean I wasn't getting too excited about that just the idea of it even though I'd cancelled it but I still like thought oh I wonder is there a way around it and then I then I remembered and I thought to myself you know what maybe I can get a taxi and I thought now it's gonna cost it's nowhere I can afford to get a taxi I don't have enough money
to get a taxi and I then I thought well who can I ask who who can I ask to give me a lift and the one person I could have asked was Vinnie's mum but she's just sold her car so she's not available but she would have done we actually talked about it last week I didn't even think about asking her because just I don't know it seems a bit rude to ask someone for stuff like that and then I thought of someone else and I thought no no there's no
one there was no one to ask no one I could ask that has a car that would be willing to do it thinking about now I just got one person that might have done it for me just sort of just thought about one person down never mind anyway I think it was eight o'clock in the morning I thought you know what let's find out how much is gonna cost to get to my dad's house from my doorstep to his doorstep well not the doorstep itself because he's got a driveway but
and there's a pavement but you know I mean like from where I live to where he lives and I phoned up the taxi company and they gave me a price and I thought well I looked at my bank account and I had there was enough in there for the two-way journey so I thought okay let's order it and they didn't need paying beforehand just like just turned up and gave me a set price I left a tip you know it was a set price that they gave me which is good
and it was it wasn't affordable but it was affordable you know in the sense of it's once or twice a year actually it is affordable once or twice a month no way not even once a month not even every two months but once every six months yeah it's it's a possibility I could do that and I really my mind started thinking differently because I started thinking well you know what um for the last the last time I saw the family when I say the family I mean uh well my family
you know the the people that I've seen we know what family is JJ no come on don't be rude um the the group of people that I've been seeing since I was like late teens there's a certain group of people I mean some of them are not here anymore like my nan um my step-mum's parents are not here anymore and I used to I used to get really well with them I've really gotten really old with my step-grandmother my step-nan got really well and didn't really have much of a conversation
with my step-granddad because he he just didn't really talk much a bit like my granddad as well maybe it's just that generation or I think they just found me he found me a bit annoying which is understandable because I find myself annoying sometimes never actually I just I think I'm a delight I'm delightful I just I find this is fun being around myself all the time it's wonderful yeah but he her her my step I feel like I could talk more about my step-mum's mum so my step-gran I don't want
to say nan my step-gran was this is my current step-mother's mum so I've known her I knew her from the ages I suppose I was about I probably didn't meet her and I met my step-mum when I was about 17 so I've known her well what 54 next weekend next Monday so what's that 17 27 37 it's over 20 years 40 I will not go I will I will not I refuse to go past 47 I'm not older than 47 how could I be older than 47 it doesn't make sense
I was 37 years old when I started my degree my counselling degree 37 and that was like three years ago clearly it wasn't but it just like how how I mean how could it be 17 years ago that I started my degree when I only finished it last month but of course I didn't only finish it last month but it doesn't it doesn't okay it feels like it's been a while a while it's been like it's been you know in a little while it doesn't feel like it's been decades since
I started the course well over a decade one of the bones in my chest is really lumpy I've got a I'm gonna tell you blindly I'm about to tell you something really personal about myself oh hell why not I've got a pigeon chest so basically when I was a kid my chest used to stick out the middle of my chest it doesn't now because I've got big boobies but and it hasn't done since I was like since I put weight on and I've got muscles so you know because you have
to say that it didn't it used to stick out the middle bit when I was just skinny and a kid but I can still feel it and it's weird because one side is more more bony than the other and the strange thing I've noticed is if you keep pressing on something it starts to hurt and then then I start getting worried like oh why is it hurting it's probably because I spent the last three weeks keep pressing on it it's gonna start anything's gonna start hurting if you keep prodding it
it's gonna start throbbing if you keep touching something it'll start throbbing that's rude 54 so I what was I talking about oh yeah my step grandmother she oh my my other brother my oldest brother he's got um is it concave what's it when it goes in I've kind of got a chest that goes out a little he can't I mean honestly you can't see it now because of my chest right my chest chest like either side of the chest because I'm so manly but his his chest went in honestly it's
like a little swimming pool uh I remember when my little brother my my my brother was sunbathing and my little brother who was about two years old it filled with water and he was swimming around in it paddling around his chest and the guy went what are you doing what are you doing had to go up my oldest brother like what were you doing letting him you know I didn't know he was doing that I was asleep or sunbathing I never know when things climb in there badger climbed in the
other day I didn't notice so I got to school none of that happened what a weird thing to say so my step grandmother so I must have really met her when I was I might have met her when I was 18 maybe 19 I'm pretty about the 19 age but it was only in my 20s that I really bonded with her and we used to I used to see her when I came down because I lived in London uh the main time I came down really was like maybe once in
the summer perhaps Easter in the summer and then Christmas sometimes Christmas you know during the actual Christmas period and because there was no travel there was no you know all the trains and everything was shut so I had to stay over for a couple of days so I get there usually Christmas Eve in the and go back the day after Boxing Day so I'd be there for Christmas Boxing Day yeah for two two full days and then you know a bit of an evening and the the morning after and she
would have they would watch yeah they would be there for dinner they would be there for lunch Christmas dinner and so would be um my nan as well but what me and see my nan wasn't really that bothered about telly but my grand my step gran she loved all the soaps so we would sit in a different room watching EastEnders the you know the Christmas edition of EastEnders we'd probably start off with Emmerdale uh then it was Coronation Street and EastEnders and we'd be sitting in the other room all evening
watching that stuff um and my dad and his wife and my nan and maybe my brother or whatever would all be in there watching and the grandkids as well when they came along and my sister and my other brother so they'd all be watching tv maybe in the living room or sitting talking outside me and her would be in the other room watching the soaps because my dad never liked that stuff and it was it was something it was almost like a tradition i used to like it and it was
it just always got on she was very chatty and some would say i'm pretty chatty as well i guess i am but you know with the right person i'm pretty pretty chatty and we used to just have a gone really really well and they had a good laugh as well you know and it's weird she got ill she she's gone now but she yeah i'm not going to that but she yeah uh went downhill pretty quickly it was horrible to see because i've never seen anyone that i cared about like
that girl that i'd that i'd gotten so well with verbally actually that's not totally true i had a friend who got motor no motor neuron he was a comedian and that was the communication there was even worse as you could imagine i'm sure but the with her was and i was alzheimer's so it was such yeah she was so lovely i really really really got on well with her and it was different to my nan i had i might have talked about my nan in the past a few times probably
i you know my nan was the closest relative that i've had since i was 16 since my first step-mom left so my nan kind of not took me on but was there for me but always always the door was always open you know i mean i didn't never took advantage and didn't turn up at night and so my granddad wouldn't really put up with that but she she's always always welcomed me was always welcome never never turned me away and even if there was one time i remember my nan this
is my nan now i went around to see her which i did regularly um when especially when i lived in that town and my granddad was still alive at this point so this is probably 87 88 maybe 89 maybe 90 i don't know i went around there and my granddad answered the door because the gate was locked usually just go in the back way and like knock on the back door and go in and but the gate was locked so i locked i knocked on the front door or rang the
doorbell i don't know and my granddad answered the door and uh he let me in i never said i'm here to see nan he knew i was there to see nan nanny newland he knew that but you know i like to see him as well but he never spoke to me hardly he didn't really say a word he never turned me away he never but he didn't he wasn't um overly excited to see me ever i don't think maybe i was annoying i don't know some people found me annoying every
now and then but my nan didn't or at least she didn't tell me she did so she anyway on this particular occasion i said where's where's nan where's nanny and he said she's in bed she's ill i said oh okay i thought my granddad was just gonna turn me away but he didn't he invited me in made me a sandwich cup of tea watched me eat it kept looking at the clock there was no conversation it was quite awkward but he was busy you know because he did a lot of
um he'd retired uh i think he retired at 60 so he was like getting on to 80 at this point hmm and he yeah he just made me i still remember what he made me maybe a cheese and pickle sandwich i think it was or cheese sandwich with mustard it was something like that and it was lovely and a cup of tea and probably a rock cake and then i left you know it was kind of just one of those moments because i'd never ever gone i'd gone around before when
my nan wasn't there and if he told me where she was i'd normally go and i'd either wait for her to come back or i would go and find her so if he said oh she's at a church i just oh okay i'll go and see her there or you know she might say he might say oh she's around your dad's so okay i'll go around there so yeah it was it was weird but the thing about my granddad is he was a good bloke he was a good man he
was he was one of these silent but deadly and that's a fart isn't it it's not a human and he was quiet but strong very strong physically mentally i don't know how to explain it really he's because he'd been like well by anyone his age at that time because he was 80 in 1991 or 1990 so he he'd been through the second world war like everybody at that age had been i know not everyone had necessarily been at you know out to war but he had because he was a soldier
to start with and he just retired out of the army at age 29 when i think he'd been out for not even very long at all maybe a year and then he the second world war started so he was one of the first people the first civilians to get called up because of his experience so i think that's what they do during war time they obviously they they call the army up the the forces the the raf and the navy and all that but then those that are probably what do
they call them not part maybe part-time ones i suppose they're next and then after that it's the previous people that have already been trained and yeah i guess i don't know i'm making it up i'm just imagining that's the case and he yeah so he he came back from the war i might have talked about this it's weird i'm talking about this and that isn't really what i was going to talk about during this podcast but he was he was a pow that sounds better than the actual full sentence isn't
it it was a pow and he well sure we don't think pow is necessarily a good term but he when he got found at the end of the war he got found because my nan actually was told that he was missing and he was so she thought that he was gone so she was at home in london bringing up a baby because a baby that my granddad never seen before and they're basically a honeymoon baby if you know i mean they the the war started my granddad went out and he
came back on leave and he got married to my nan and nine months to the day i don't know if it was but you know she gave birth to my oldest uncle who's now passed away unfortunately during covid and she he had never seen his baby until he came back from the war in 1945 probably about two months after the war ended because he was found in one of the camps and he had to be we had to go to hospital and he had to be because he was so under
nutrition undernourished or whatever so he had to debrief him i guess but also get him back to strength so my nan lost him basically my nan lost him twice but they didn't in them days they didn't have funerals for people that were missing because it wasn't a hundred percent but she did think as far as she knew that was it she'd lost him so she'd already grieved for him and she found she finds out at the end of the war that he's still alive but he couldn't come home because of
where he'd been he'd been one in one of the camps in germany and and he when he came back they put a street party on for them so he was a very liked person very known i think he lived around there his whole life i think been born now i reckon like in that area of london and the and my nan was very very likable you know she if she would known everybody she once worked for bruce forsyth who's a very famous celebrity in this country he's no longer around but
he was really famous and she i think she looked after he had a he had a garage or something and like a lock up something like that and she used to clean it for him yeah because he was from that area brucey was anyway or was it a theater i don't know it was something that she used to clean for him so anyway so he was coming home they put on a little like a little party in the street to welcome him home big banners welcome home granddad and welcome home
jason's granddad even though i wasn't even born yet and he when he got home he avoided the street and he went in the back gate went to the back gate went upstairs and i only know this because my nan told me she told me loads and loads of stuff about her life my granddad's life my dad's even my like earlier life so yeah i found out a lot about stuff from her and both her parents it's weird both her grandparents my nan's grandparents on i don't know if it's a mum
or i think it was a dad side i'm not sure but because they're all irish both my nan's parents were irish they came here from ireland we know what peeing irish means no they they i mean technically my nan was irish because if both your parents are irish really vinnie he's absolutely destroyed that bone it's completely gone this is taking a lot longer than i thought it was going to take that is so loud i'm hungry as well vinnie shush i hope it's not too loud it is too loud isn't
it it's very loud he's found something to rip open it's a bag i thought i took the bag wait a minute what is that you're doing i don't even know what it is it's definitely not chocolate what uh vinnie what is that thing you've got i've got no idea what it is oh yeah i can see what it is it's just a wrapper it's the the little wrapper bag that his treats came in and i don't know how he got it because i did not i did not put it on
the floor he somehow managed to get it off at the top and onto the floor it's so noisy anyway so yeah my uh i should get back to what i was talking about so my i decided i ordered a taxi on saturday and i ordered it for 10 o'clock so two hours after i'd phoned you know i called them like just after eight o'clock in the morning a taxi and i said can i get it for 10 o'clock please they said okay and so i took took vinnie out for a
walk make sure he does a wee reason everything i tried tried to contact my neighbor just to see if she could look after him after all even though i had told her that i didn't need her to she was didn't answer a phone and she didn't answer a door it was to be fair fairly early i don't know i did i did knock on the door till half nine so i didn't want to didn't want to be knocking that too early earlier than that well i did ring about half eight
and no answer eventually she phoned me probably about 12 o'clock but i was already at my dad's so anyway i didn't tell my dad that i was coming i thought well i've already told him i'm not coming so i might as well i'll just get the taxi and see how it goes and just roll up maybe it'd be a nice surprise for them i don't know which it turns out it was which is nice oh he's eating he's eating his dinner now now he's eating his food just had a nice
drink of water now he's eating his food so he's everything's gone to plan for him he's just been out for a walk he's now he's had a treat a bone to eat chew on now he's now he's got his food and he's had a bag to rip open so everything's gone to plan so yeah so i'm i'm in the taxi and this the bloke that has given me a lift is very chatty and i said to him it's all right to open the windows that when we first got in i
like to have the i like the the feeling of the air blowing in i know it's not everyone's thing but i mean especially in the winter maybe it's not so nice but in the summer it was breezy and it was nice and i'm not a big fan of air conditioning generally if i can help it but he he asked me as i cover close the windows because it was quite loud and i said yeah okay it wasn't didn't really bother me i was i was only going to be in the
car for 40 minutes at this point we're probably 10 minutes in it turns out yeah i think the only really reason he wanted to close the windows what he kind of said oh i can hear you now or you can hear me now because he wanted to talk i think and he just told me some quite interesting things he talked about ramadan and you know what it's like to go that long about eating and stuff like that and we just talked about some stuff and it was it was interesting it
was quite nice so yeah that that journey went fairly quickly really it was not a lot of traffic it was i think the fact that we were traveling away from london it meant that there was less traffic than if we were traveling towards london because the journey home that was a different matter because we were traveling towards london and part of the there was roadworks so it took about an hour to get back instead of 35 minutes anyway so we get we're traveling we get there he parks i walk up
the driveway and i see my dad in the kitchen and it's like hey oh it's lovely just to see the look on his face he went from being happy to being really sad so quickly just seeing his face drop oh no not him again but no he seemed he seemed quite pleased to see me and so yeah it was it was all right we had a barbecue and i had some cooked food which i hadn't had for a while and yeah it was quite nice because some of the people there
were saying either i'd lost weight i said yeah yeah baby i have i have and after telling the first person i'd tell the second person i think word got round and the third person that mentioned i'd lost weight when i went to speak uh she said to me uh you don't have to tell us about the pre-diabetic and you've cut sugar and you're not eating any cakes or sweets or chocolate i know all about that everybody knows about it now you don't have to tell the story again how rude i
love telling that story so oh did you do you want to know what happened yeah because let me tell you now i'll go back to the doctors next month it's only probably a week or two away and i got another blood test to check my blood sugar level to see if i've managed to reduce it i must have done mustn't i and if i've lost weight and i've had no sugar except what's in naturally in food it must have reduced i hope so so yeah and there we had barbecue i
spoke to i had a good chat with my brother's girlfriend so that was nice because we haven't really i felt like we bonded a little bit this time i never really felt that she liked me before and i was just annoying her but this time i mean she did yawn a bit when she was talking to me but that's normal you know i think i don't think i always excite people i'm i don't know i think so it might just be the way i look it's like it makes people yawn
they just don't want to look at me or maybe maybe my voice is a bit tedious i'm not sure what it is but we got on yeah we got on really well which is nice um my little brother was busy trying to because he got he got my step mum a new phone so he was transferring syncing up the old phone with the new phone and that was causing him problems so he was getting a bit frustrated with that so he didn't we were talking it was i think it was
annoying him a bit because he kept talking to him and he wanted to focus on that and he spent about three hours doing it seriously i couldn't believe it and i saw who else i see i see me his sister and the other brother so that was good they're kids so there was one little girl and then there was the twins and then her other older daughter which i haven't seen since blimey last time i saw uh last time i saw any of them apart from my dad to my step
mom last time i saw any of them was five years ago it was 2019 and it was uh my step mom's birthday party again except that was it was her 60th so it was a party party you know the whole garden was all decorated and so the vineyard just started barking there so i'll try to edit that out last time yeah it was 19 2019 and literally just before all the old you know 2000 and 2021 stuff happened well 2022 in some places as well so there was two years when
i couldn't really go i did go in 2022 but i did i went to the town and i visited my dad at his place and then that was the last time i visited them but i didn't see anybody else on that visit so this is the first time in five years that i'd seen um my brothers sisters grandkids well not my grandkids but my nephews and nieces and stuff um yeah or my brother's girlfriend it's weird it's like doesn't seem like five years that's half of that's half of 10 years
half of a decade when you think five years 10 of those well 11 nearly but you know just over 10 of those and that's my entire life so far plus four or three and 51 weeks so there was no this time because last time in 92 same 19 2019 there was loads of people that i didn't know like their friends and there was a few people i did know from the past or they recognized me and i like i think my dad's apprentice his apprentice from like late 70s or early
80s lovely lovely lad say lovely lad i mean in reality he wasn't much older than me he was probably i don't know six years older than me so which was a hell of a lot then but now not so much you know it mean yeah six years isn't a lot really and i saw him it was like so weird he's still got the same face he's still he's got a young face one of these people that just really nice i must be getting old everyone's nice now i don't want to
talk about horrible things like oh they're horrible i'd rather talk about how nice the nice characteristics of people don't know why but yeah he's always a nice bloke always friendly because you know he was because he was my dad's apprentice because my dad was an electrician he'd be around the house every day during my childhood during i don't know how many years yeah good like five six years or something so i would see him regularly every morning he'd be around there to collect or maybe it was for three or four
years i don't know how long so he was an apprentice and then he went and got his own business but he might still worked with my dad so we'd still see him but he was there every morning he was there see him at weekends and he became part of family really him and his girlfriend or his wife and they'd you know if there was a family get together he'd be invited because he was he was kind of like another son in a sense to my dad i guess because he was
only a little bit older than my oldest brother so i saw him there was a couple of women they're friends of my stepmom and uh they asked me who i was and i said i'm jay jay juicy jay jay jason he said who i said her son she's my mom to talk to her about my stepmom and they laughed and my stepmom looked at him and said wait he is my son and they shut up it was not really nice it was quite nice because obviously she's not my birth mother
and she's way too young really i mean she's i think she's she's not way too young i mean she is but you think she's 65 i'm 54 so it's 11 years okay she is way too young i'm so obviously she is but you know another in this country another five years and she there's plenty of get pregnant at 16 in this country that is the legal age for that stuff but even eight so 8 18 is still it's only six years away or seven years of 11 so it's not not
a huge huge gap does that make sense it's not like she i was if she was two when i was born then yeah obviously you're like yeah plus i look so damn young i just i mean back then i couldn't look more than about 25 five years ago in my mind and then i got some new glasses and it all changed so yeah uh that was that was it so that was that party uh it was nice it's nice to see the people again i haven't seen for quite a while
but it was also strange that some things just haven't changed not strange in a bad way just quite comforting i guess uh there's a few different changes to the house but ultimately it's it's the same garden it's the same driveway it's it's my little brother looks the same my other brother looks the same sister looks the same even though it's been five years maybe they look a bit older i don't really notice it to be honest and is my brother's girlfriend looks the same the only people that look different are
the kids because the oldest is about to go to college so last time i saw her she was probably about 12 or 13 maybe so yeah she definitely looks different and the other the littler kids were babies pretty much last time i saw them toddlers and now they're like six or seven it's just weird it's just strange they didn't know they didn't know who i was the oldest one remembered me because she used to see me quite regularly as she was growing up and you know quite a few times a
year she'd see me and spend christmas and stuff so she she kind of knew who i was even though i hadn't seen her for five years but it was almost like i expected just everyone to forget me which is weird probably a weird thing to do but they've known me a long time now because both the younger ones they're my stepbrother and stepsister but they're a brother and sister since they were probably seven or eight years old and i was what 20 so there's a fair difference in age maybe i
wasn't maybe i wasn't 18 19 i think the stepbrother is the same age as my he's one year younger than my little brother and my sister's i think one year younger than him so they're all kind of roughly the same age they're all in the 40s anyway so my little brother is 46 next week he can't wait till he's 50 until i remember that i'll be 58 so it's not so good but forgetting that part i can't wait to see his face when he's 50 then i just keep remembering i'm
eight years older this is i wish i could just get that out of my head i want to see his face when he's 60 but i'll be 68 it's just not oh i'll always be eight years older and don't let me know it what did he say he said something to me at lunch he said something it was really rude it was funny but it was rude well not lunch what we was eating and it was lunch it was lunchtime and i think there was asking i think my sister was
asking me about this stuff i do and i said yeah are you still doing it i think she asked i said yeah be doing it forever be doing it forever i will be and she said well you know for the rest of my life i'll be doing this and i thought we would talk about probably just about why am i am i making any money no why am i doing it for not making any money the same old conversation i've had multiple times over the last 17 or 18 years it's
not about making money it's about helping people and uh it's just going it's going quite well i don't know he made something about i imagine if you put that much energy into i don't know something about being a millionaire but it was funny but i can't remember exactly i'll try and remember what he said in fact i might text him to ask him just so i can tell you next time but it's basically why aren't you a millionaire then something like that and i said well same same to you really
but i was about 10 minutes too late it's a very slow reaction it was funny so i was laughing but uh oh there's one bit when he he was going to the shed to get wine or something for people that were at the table like i don't know why he was getting it so i don't drink so i was just have my bottle of water because i'm a hero and as he walked away and he was on his way i said to i said something so old to his girlfriend um
i don't know if i've i hope i haven't ruined this but he's going to propose you to you in a minute he said he said to us that whenever when he comes back with a glass of wine that we have to get our cameras out and film it and they they all laughed so it was my brother sister and his girlfriend and then he came back holding this glass of wine so i get my phone out and he's just oblivious to what what's been said it was just a funny weird
funny moment it's just because the idea that she might have believed me as well she didn't believe me but she knew i was just being silly but the fact that i'd like first i could have spoilt the surprise if it was real but on the other end made her think that she was about to get proposed to when she wasn't and my brother being oblivious to all of the whole conversation so him coming back and that maybe her expected him to propose to her oh it it was it was silly
it was a silly moment but i enjoyed it yeah i did i did enjoy it yeah it was i don't know if i really explained it in a way that other people could enjoy that moment as well i don't know i'm not sure i'm gonna have a pizza tonight i am i am i am i am so i'll just check just let you know if you're still listening my website oh i've been working on my website the last few days well yeah last couple of days and stuff it's very updated
there's a lot of uh a lot more stuff on there that you could download for free it's coming along quite nicely actually now that was my stomach did you hear that like a drain emptying so yes i guess we was there had a love to have to add some food had a laugh i kept sheltered from the sun because sun doesn't really suit me and i got there about 11 o'clock i ordered a taxi for three o'clock so so it was 11 12 1 2 5 so i was there for
four hours i know that's not a long time and in retrospective or whatever i would have ordered it rectum inspective inspective i would have probably ordered it for five really four maybe five but i was more concerned about this little one i didn't want to leave him too long on his own i thought six hours was enough and i still i still believe that was enough time to leave him on his own i didn't i didn't want him on his own for the whole day you know moving into the evening
it's dark outside and just yeah i don't remember if i i don't think i did turn in lights on because i knew i was going to be back but i did put food out and water and you know i left the tv on with some music a specific YouTube video for relaxing dogs which is ironic because the one i found started playing it and there's a picture a static picture of a dog which might surprise you it did the opposite to relaxing him he started howling at it so i had
to find one that didn't have a picture of a dog on are they not aware that you imagine i've got a big tv so him considering how little he is the dog on tv screen is probably the biggest dog he's ever seen in his life it's like a lion so i found one in the end i had a black screen and it was just music uh i don't remember when i got back i don't remember if the tv was still on or not it might just switch itself off but it
didn't make a sound when i came in didn't bark but he was at the door when i opened the door and he was all excited to see me and he's kissing me and you know and for i took him out for a walk and everything oh i said that word he wouldn't leave me alone he stuck to me like glue seriously not like glue it wasn't but he did stay close to me i guess he didn't want you know in case i went out again or anything so he's been a
bit like that the last couple of days yeah it's nice but i think he's getting a bit bored with me again but for at least a day like all through sunday or saturday night and sunday he was really like the thing is on friday he did something he doesn't normally do so i went to bed quite early i woke up went to the toilet and i usually have the door closed but on this occasion well i have to open it to get through because i'm not slim enough to get through
the gap so i don't want to climb through the window and it's just a hassle so i open the door and go that way it's quicker so i go to the bathroom do a wee wee and come back close the door go to bed well the second time i did that so i think i did a few wee's that night for some reason probably maybe nerves you know who knows still kind of unsure well he decided to go into the living room and he went to sleep on the city which
he hasn't done for ages so maybe i was being a bit restless so i don't know if he in his mind somehow the fact that he slept away from me and then i went out maybe he thought i was punishing him for that or i know i'm sure dogs don't think that way but that's possibly how i would think so he's stuck close to me bless him he's been pretty good he's done a little bit of barking but he's not been terrible to be honest i mean look he's barked once
i think during this recording yeah so yeah basically i ordered the ordered the taxi for three we had a few photographs all took and everything before three o'clock and you know i had a chat with everybody uh individually one two three four five my stomach's churning yeah i spoke to about i spoke to all the adults individually and none of the kids really wanted to talk to me and yeah it was i tried to talk to my niece who's 17 18 or whatever she is now i was getting one word
answers and my dad laughed he said yeah that's what you're getting now well maybe she's 16 i don't know 17 16 or 17 but she's not it's weird though because you know if you heard her on the phone it'd be full sentences like non-stop lots and lots and lots and lots of words probably very quick words but you know when it came to talking to anyone else like in the family like yeah yeah no yeah no yeah she didn't get out of bed till like i think half past 12 in
the afternoon wow i would never get away with that seriously if any time i stayed over my dad's i wouldn't get away with staying in bed till half 12 he'd start drilling the door he'd take the door off start you know i don't know replacing the windows in the bedroom whatever just to get me out of bed when i was wet there once i think he was cleaning the windows outside he's like really why you do this on a sunday morning they're my windows i'll clean them when i want to
yeah it's two o'clock in the morning light shining in my face so yeah it was it was nice it was nice it was really good and it made me realize not in not in a kind of judging way but the whole aging thing i'm not the only one that's getting older you know we're all getting older and like family wise and i guess because i hadn't been there for a while it was noticeable it wasn't so noticeable last time because there were so many other people there but it's very noticeable
that my nan and the my step nan and my step granddad weren't there it was that was quite a noticeable thing and i don't know even though i've not been there for quite a while it just i don't know it just was noticeable i found a little bit it was a bit strange and then seeing my dad's i don't want to use the word old but old he's old he's older now as i am and just seeing how how quickly the kids grow up and i've not been part of their
lives at all not really they don't know who i am and no one's fault i mean they the the two the twins they don't live anywhere near me at all they don't live they live quite a quiet distance away and yeah it's probably wow couple of hours on a train i think probably so it's maybe an hour hour and a half on a train i don't know yeah the only person that wasn't there was my brother's wife my step brother's wife so she was definitely missed because she's lovely and i
haven't seen her again for five years and yeah so that was that she was working so she couldn't get there yeah it's weird though to see the twins how different they are i mean they're boy and girl so they're clearly different physically but personality-wise nothing in common just from what i saw i mean i had very brief i saw them briefly i didn't really see what they were like you know all the time obviously but also from what my sister says like very very different one's really quiet and one's really
not like really not loud but very very energetic and so that's the boy and the little girl she's just really quiet you know it's it's interesting it'd be interesting to see what they're like as they get older see it's just weird because i'm always the stranger even if it's even if i see them once a year i'm still the stranger like i see my little brother once a year if i even if i do see him once a year like i'm not normally like i used to or twice sometimes but
even if it's just once a year it's yeah it's fine but when when when a kid's young a year's a long time isn't it what are you doing stop licking my phone he's just he doesn't know what to do he wants to he wants to climb on me don't you do you want to climb on me climb on me if you want and cuddles cuddle waddles cuddle waddles i'm hungry now so i'm gonna go but yeah that's pretty much what happened i got a taxi ordered for three three o'clock i
got a phone call at three o'clock it was there and i went out i was actually no i was my dad told me they were here i didn't get a phone call but dad told me they were here and i was going to the toilet because i was getting ready to go outside wait for them and then i go outside and i can't see the car and it's parked at three doors down or two doors down so i'm waving to them and my dad's there my brother's there and they were
sort of seeing me off i've always said goodbye to everyone as well and the blokes just looks like he's well for me it looked like he was looking at me but he wasn't acknowledging me so i said i'll just go and just get in his car walk up to him if he can't drive to me but he wasn't looking at me he was on his phone i think he was looking to try and find uh to call me to let me know he actually thought he was outside the right house
then he was just a couple of doors off so he was pretty much outside the right house and he was also lovely as well so we had a good chat on the way home but we got stuck in traffic proper stuck so it was a much longer journey but it was all right it all went okay to plan and he got home i said i got home about six o'clock not six o'clock i got home about four i might be an after four but it was around four o'clock i think
in fact i can tell you exactly what time it was because i got a text i got a phone call just before i got home from a neighbor let's have a look saturday yeah 3 59 she phoned me all calls saturday 3 59 and i contacted yeah five o'clock i sent a text message to my family you had to my dad just let me know that i was back safely they asked me to so i did that and i was like okay so yeah it was probably just after four o'clock
maybe five or ten past four so it was it was a lot longer than the other journey but you know what can you do traffic jams well traffic i guess it was a traffic jam but it was it was on the motorway due to roadworks but it's all right we're stuck on a roundabout for a while weren't we so i had to stop myself from saying don't worry i'll walk the rest of the way and you just go back just be quicker for you to get back i'll just walk but
then i'll be walking for half an hour and that kind of defeats the object of getting a taxi and paying for the taxi if i'm gonna walk you know for half an hour and i was a little bit exhausted by that time as well so the day took a fair bit out of me so yeah the thing is come saturday i was a little bit too wired to i did my normal thing you know uh went to bed about nine or ten but i was i just wasn't really i was
a little bit too activated i guess from all the days going on yeah but yesterday was fairly relaxing and today i don't know i've done quite a bit of uh website building and stuff like that and i've uh i've made this recording of course and i'll let it in in the morning so i'm gonna cook myself a pizza because my neighbor one of my neighbors gave me a pizza because i said to her i'd really do a pizza and she said oh and then she came back and said oh i've
got a pizza you can have from the freezer so it's a treble cheese or triple cheese one so i'm 17 minutes in the oven so that'll be good and yeah that's me done and then i'll have that and then i'll take this one out of his last thing of the day and then it'll be time to go to bed so i'll be in bed by 10 probably yes i will yes i will won't i right so that's it for me so that was the party i probably haven't really talked got
into much detail really have i but that was my second stepmum's a stepmum let's call my stepmom now that was her party birthday party so yeah for her birthday i actually got a massive bar of chocolate i sent it i sent it in the post uh because her birthday wasn't it was actually at the beginning of the week so i sent it last friday to get to her on monday i don't know if it was saturday or sunday i think it was saturday friday or saturday so vinnie is now starting to bark so calm down so i'm going to go thank you for listening remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy be gentle with yourself lots of love bye
Paragraph spacing and recurring name or title errors have been tidied. Because this began as a voice transcription, an occasional word or piece of punctuation may still be incorrect.