An Outing, Entry One.

This weekend I decided upon an adventure. If you have followed my posts for the last few months, you will know I have devoted a lot of time to working. Truth by told, I have been going stir-crazy, trapped by the same four walls. My walk to work, my greatest outing, has been a flight of stairs at the rear of the building.

How best to present my weekend galavanting? I could type up the whole experience in one fell swoop, though you would get bored reading and I would get bored writing. Instead, I suppose I'll copy out my notebook entries, originally written as I travelled.

Friday, May 10th
One redeemable feature of living in the north is the undulating landscape. I have caught the train from Accrington to York. Between tunnels and dilapidated industrial towns I catch a glimpse of how the north used to be. Stone cottages sit in narrow valleys; the hills climbing hundreds of feet behind them. Here, ancient walls have outlasted the towns they once protected. Herons and foxes occupy this narrow window of wilderness.

Everything here seems to flow in unison. Rivers and walls, canals and train-tracks all carve a parallel path through Old Lancashire. I am approaching Hebden Bridge. A small station with organised walls, and  roofing that could have been stripped right off a greenhouse. Black signs fixed with pristine, white lettering denote the locations of general rooms and parcel offices. Wooden buckets in the centres of the two platforms play host to freshly planted flowers. They bring a little colour and chaos, interrupting the OCD-signage and alphabetised brickwork.

Finding a seat on a minorly-crowded train is a nightmare for the chronically unsociable. There should be a checklist provided to us for safe seating arrangements. Seating arrangements that will see us suffering as few interruptions and embarrassing back-and-forths as possible.

• Where possible, find a window-seat facing forward - with no neighbour
• If unavailable, resort to a similar, backward-facing seat
• Avoid areas for bikes, prams and wheelchairs
• Avoid tables - three potential neighbours are worse than one

Unfortunately, I settled for the third option. Now sat at the rear of a carriage where there is space for prams and wheelchairs. Making the best of a bad situation, I took the window seat in order to scout upcoming platforms for pesky disabled children and single mothers who might usurp me.

Bradford Interchange is where it happened. One of the few stations whose platform I could not recce, as it's at the opposite side of the train. A 20-something mother boards with a bright pink buggy, which she crams against my legs. I hesitate for a moment, a shy rabbit destined for the pie. Not wishing to be squashed against a window, shins covered in pram-bruises, I offered my chair to the mother. "Here, you take these seats, I'll find another." I would say more but already the cogs in her head are turning - "that's not a local accent" she's thinking, "'e's not from 'round 'ere" she will inevitably conclude, at which point the Yorkshire hivemind will activate and two tweed-clad moustachioed Yorkshiremen will hoist me up and eject me from the train. We were over an hour into the journey and nobody suspected I was an imposter. I had gained their trust and was not about to jeopardise it. Instead I wandered off to the next carriage, found no seat that met my new list of criteria and ended up sat in a fold-down chair between two carriages, where the bikes are meant to live. I'm not sure what was worse, the awkward fear of encountering an errant cyclist, or the smell of piss coming from the adjacent W.C.

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To find a place that cannot be found

Strange how, at 3am, everything blends into one. I am alert and I am asleep - eager to achieve but too uninspired to follow through on anything. I sit here flicking through the same old web-pages, refreshing occasionally, while the world around me sleeps. I know they're all tucked up in bed, I know my monitor won't divulge anything of interest 'til sun-up, but that's not enough to convince me to sleep. Dave Gorman said, when being paid to write a novel, he would sit at his computer and aimlessly browse the internet. It has everything. An organised, comprehensive bank of all things ever - right at my fingertips. "I don't know about you, but I find EVERYTHING EVER to be quite distracting" he said.

But as I mentioned when we started, 3am turns me into a walking, talking dichotomy. I can't find the will to put away such an expansive distraction. Simultaneously, I cannot find the energy to concentrate, sift through page upon page and do something constructive with my time. I could learn musical theory, read up on immune parasitology - instead I refresh the same old pages, hoping something will catch my attention. It does not.

The definition of insanity, I've heard, is to do the same thing over and over again, and expect different results.

I don't think I'm insane, far from it. I think I have a lot of drive, a lot of energy and enthusiasm. But I'm without focus. I'm without direction. Each day I struggle to be productive. Hell, some days I consider getting showered and dressed a minor achievement - a satisfying, day-well-done.

When did I become so lost?

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Ache

I am tired.

Not a sleepy, sore-eyed tiredness that can be shrugged off after a few hours' kip. This is different. I can feel this, in my bones. A dull ache that won't subside. Perhaps it's the stress, the worry or the three hour shift that soon became 10.

I made a serious decision last month. I don't like those life-changing, adult decisions but I was up against a wall and time was a scarce luxury. In order to properly care for a sick child I sacrificed a year to his care and my family's well-being. At the end of the day family is all you have. Families are there, and families endure. So yeh, if that means watching a monitor for 5 hours, looking for a fit, then so be it. If it means cleaning a man's stomach contents from a piss-filled urinal, then so be it. I don't regret my choice, or begrudge being left in this position. I only wish I could do more.

It's interesting what people go through in times like this. When the wolves howl and the world comes down, all we can find to wear is a brave face. But the acne scars and the vacant eyes on the surface don't do justice to the haemorrhaging hell beneath.

In other news, it snowed tonight. I was reminded earlier of the saying "worse things happen at sea" - it doesn't help when the world around you is blanketed in a frozen ocean. In this winter trees become wraiths and the world is swallowed up. Lest I be swallowed and drowned too, I am retreating to bed. As a child I would hide under my covers from bumps and creaks in the dark.

Perhaps that solution can be applied to my current circumstances

Image Owner: Donna St. Pierre

To Distant Friends

I was bound to have to tell you sooner or later. But it's difficult. It isn't the sort of thing you send in a text, and it's not something I feel comfortable sitting down and discussing when we all get back together.

You've all met my youngest brother, James, I think. And you all know he has a disability - CFC syndrome. I won't bore you with the symptoms, I've probably told you them before, but one is severe eczema. At the start of February he picked up a herpes infection. For the rest of us it would manifest as a coldsore, but for him it's a systemic viral infection. He was admitted to hospital where the virus spread from his skin to his blood, and then on to the rest of him. It took a weak of aggressive antivirals and antibiotics to clear the infection and by all accounts he should be dead. Anyway, we responded quite quickly and had a lucky escape.

He was released from hospital after 7 days and life carried on as it always had. Fast-forward about two weeks, he's still home and all's well. While I was watching him he came into my room and complained about feeling sick. I asked if he had a sick-bowl and he pottered off to get it. But he didn't come back. After a few minutes I went to check on him and found him in the living room, collapsed on the floor, metres from his sick-bowl. We called an ambulance and I managed to get him conscious again but he soon drifted off again and began fitting. His fit lasted for several hours before they got sedated at the hospital. Fearing he had relapsed, doctors started his antivirals again and kept him for another week. They also did a CT scan to check for clots and haemorrhages - there were none. They also performed an MRI just to rule any eventualities out. On this MRI there is a marble-sized mass at the rear of his brain. A follow-up MRI with dye confirmed the mass was not a mistake on the scan or a remnant of his herpes infection. At this time we were told the mass could be anything from a bit of scar tissue to a brain tumour. The plan was to send him home to recover and get fit for a month before passing him off to a neurology team to treat the brain anomaly.

You can probably guess the next bit. He comes home and he's ok for a week. We're now at the start of March. Once again he comes to me and isn't himself - lethargic, dizzy, unresponsive, morose. He's taken back to hospital to get checked out and begins fitting again. They admit him again and his fits become more frequent, from every few days to every few hours. He's still in hospital now and will be for the next few days or weeks at least. Yesterday he forgot who our middle brother and extended family are - remembering only Mum, Dad, Sam and his grandmother.

With the month I've had, I didn't have much time for uni. I spent my time visiting the hospital, working my parents' shifts so they could be with him, and generally picking up the slack at home. As a result I'm not finishing university this year. I decided to interrupt and will hopefully go back and finish my last semester in 2014. My choice was either this, or ignore everything at home and focus solely on my degree. Obviously with the state my brother's in I'm not prepared to forget everyone to pursue a bit of paper with my name on it. Besides, I haven't slept properly or had time to look after myself since seeing him collapsed and fitting a few weeks ago.

I'm not quite sure how to wrap up, other than to say that this made more sense than dropping you a brief text like "lol guess what, not finishing uni, brother's got a tumour" or to wait til we're all together and ruin everyone's night with a whole host of shit. So yeh, you're my friends - you should probably be in the loop.

Pause. Reflect.

Only 4pm... I've already been awake 12 hours.

The tossing and turning exam stress induces makes sleep difficult. While there's nothing but jitters and nervous anticipation on the surface, you feel your insides churning.
We're past that now - free of stress and life changing responsibility for another five months. Exams are in the past and I'm returning north. The stone towers of the city recede, submitting to hills and valleys doused in white. Snowfall has left my home looking somewhat pretty. It's funny how acres can change in a day's absence.

It's difficult to write about the snow. Within itself, it is an empty canvas - blank as the page I'm trying to fill. There's nothing to be inspired by the pale hills, nor the frozen sky. All they do is reflect. Amongst this icy uniform I find the time to breathe, appreciating that winter's stress is behind me. I will need these few days to gather my thoughts, recuperate and brace myself for the onslaught.

When all is said and done, life is reduced to this - a series of struggles. Interrupted only by preparation for the next.

If, by chance, I am not arming and readying myself - I'm already out in the fray.

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The Chase

It is not every day that I get to feel like a hero - with this in mind I try to seize the opportunity when it presents itself. This story is a few months old. Unfortunately between university and procrastination I haven't had time to recount it, until now.

Our story begins on a wet Thursday afternoon, as all Thursdays in the North are wet. After walking into the city centre for lunch I made for the bus stop in order to get home. Safe in the knowledge that my bus wasn't due til 3.45pm I sauntered along quite merrily. Well, as merry as can be in a miserable, industrial city. My peaceful stroll was soon interrupted, however, as I turned the corner to see my bus leaving five minutes early.

Somewhat inconvenient.

For the common man, this would be the end of his story. He would feel a tad annoyed, find some shelter and wait for the next bus. But not me. Knowing the route the bus takes through Manchester, I turned and ran. I took a route through dark alleys, multi-story carparks and a section of China town. My short adventure through the city saw me leaping fences and bravely (recklessly) crossing roads in order to head off the bus.

As I made it to the town hall, I entered the courtyard and saw my bus approaching from the opposite direction. I pelted down to the next bus stop - managing to reach it and signal with seconds to go. If I had missed the bus a second time, I would have felt terrible. Then again, just reaching the bus put me on top of the world.

Here, for your reference, is the bus' route, and my own improvised shortcut...

The bus is highlighted in red, myself in blue - with arrows to show direction. After narrowly missing my bus at point 'A' I bravely traversed the city in search of success.

It's the little things.

Hold Your Drink

Some men are just repulsive.

Try as you might to find some pleasant aspect or redeemable quality you keep coming up empty. I had the displeasure of dealing with three such men last night - the joys of working in a pub I suppose. Two hours were spent listening to the most racist and sexually degrading remarks and stories you could be subjected to. If they weren't insulting a particular ethnicity, or the women they'd allegedly slept with, they were turning on each other. It's a tough position to be in when you would love to see these men beaten to within an inch of their life, and heck they're even offering to do it themselves. Of course with customers in and a reputation to uphold I instead spent my night negotiating and preparing to call the police every five minutes. Fortunately, I suppose, they sorted out their differences and were back at the bar unleashing a sickening torrent of abusive language like the best of friends.

I suppose I'm fortunate in that I have managed to grow up in an atmosphere that doesn't tolerate, nor celebrate such disgusting behaviour. It is strange to think that, should I have been born to different parents in a different part of town, I may also have become so thuggish and narrow-minded. There, but for the grace of 'God', go I.

I think this post addresses a few things. It is an opportunity to vent and to process the events of last night. It is also an opportunity to be thankful for where I was born and who I was born to. Finally it gives me a chance to express my feelings about such people. There are hundreds of words in the English language that could sum up these three men - disgusting, vulgar, horrid, unlikeable, blackguards (this one isn't used enough) but suffice it to say, I am thankful to not be one of them.

As I'm sure you can imagine I was glad to see the back of them and had to fix myself a strong drink once they'd left. The result of dealing with our town's dregs. Hopefully they wont be back tonight and I'll be in more pleasant company.

Image Owner: Damon Cowart