NORMAL LIFE: Family, Hearing, Friends & Gay Pride
All Things English
Flying back home is always a challenge. By ‘home’, I am of course referring to the country of my birth, England, which I am increasingly defecting from on an emotional level. Or so I thought, for when I saw the lush, green hills of the Pennines as my flight landed at Manchester airport, I sensed that perhaps I haven’t defected as much as I had thought.
I am working my way through the airport, up the jetty that connects the aircraft to the terminal building, walking what feels like a mile towards Passport Control. A longer-than-expected queue awaits me to enter my own homeland. I patiently await my turn at customs simply to be waved aside without even a ‘good morning’, a ‘welcome to England’ or ‘Enjoy your stay’ – it made me recall an article I had read when, yet again, another journalist couldn’t stop himself from tearing chunks out of the now Spanish-owned British Airport Authority.
The journalist’s criticism was largely concentrated on Heathrow Airport and the insufficient infrastructure surrounding it is as Terminal 5 nears completion and the possibility of a Terminal 6 may lead to further overcrowding in the region. For years, I have been reading this shit, I thought to myself. But isn’t the blame somewhat being directed at the wrong party? If the authorities (and I’m not talking about the BAA), give permission for a Terminal 6 to be built, shouldn’t the authorities be monitoring the development of the surrounding infrastructure so as to minimize the impact on the local environmental and it’s inhabitants?
Another article I read on the plane was a nice deviation from the norm. It spoke of a new book, The Great Big Glorious Book For Girls, which spoke of the things that girls do – and should, argues the journalist – enjoy doing. The article, Why Can’t We Just Let Girls Be Girly? (Daily Mail, August 16, 2007) tells how girls simply are better at doing certain things than men. But isn’t it funny how, if you were to claim this out loud in the 21st Century, you are perceived as nothing more than a chauvinist pig? One convincing argument the journalist puts forth is the activity of cleaning; women are programmed to desire clean/tidy living conditions. It’s a fact, insists the journalist. And it is ironic that I had exactly the same conversation with one of my female colleagues (married with two sons, so she knows) who knows just how different men are from women. As I finished reading the article, I was left wondering what is wrong with men and women being different? It’s no different to the fact that there is nothing wrong about being black, or of Asian origin. If anything, these differences richen our time on this earth and perhaps the sooner we realize this, the sooner things will go back to being ‘normal’. Then that opens another can of worms, doesn’t it? After all, what is normal?
On the subject of different kinds of people, I was once again struck by the diversity of British society – one of it’s better values in my opinion as a relatively successful model of harmonious living – as I waited among people of every conceivable nationality. After collecting my luggage, I aimed in the direction of Terminal 2 where the railway line was apparently located. Exiting from terminal 2 was a challenge, however, as a group of Muslims blocked the sliding doors of the exit. I stood there, patiently, as did a great number of people who were trying to get into the airport. What shocked me was the ignorance, the blatant lack of awareness that they were actually standing in a place not intended to be blocked by humans. It’s the exit, hello! I waited perhaps for nearly a minute and then, having reached my limit, bellowed: “Please move away from the exit”. Summoned back into the real world, they all rushed aside so that the mass of new arrivals could leave the airport.
I waited for an hour in the waiting room on the platform at Manchester airport, feeling a bit at a loss. I was in England again and the atmosphere started to sound familiar; there were newspapers in English for sale, there were announcements in English, but the pleasure ended the moment a rowdy group of northerners sat not far from me, drinking beer - at 10am in the morning - at a pace as if though the world’s supply of beer was to end tomorrow and that we should all join in and drink up. The rowdy foursome went away and a polite lady of no older than thirty asked if the two seats in front of me were free. I confirmed that they were and engaged in polite chit-hat, using the fact that I had noticed the premium-priced Abercrombie & Fitch sales bag resting on the couple’s nearby suitcase. We have just got back from Canada, she said. I told of how safe it felt to walk around Chicago (they agreed). A bit unlike Toronto, they explained. Their train arrived and we said quick goodbyes, exchanging smiles; what a welcome change from the louts of earlier!
I boarded the 10:52 train bound for Cleethorpes. Unlike earlier experiences, this train is clean, the toilet grafiiti-free, and a sudden alertness renders me unable to sleep although the seats of this TransPennine Express train turned out to be quite comfy. I watched the landscape from Manchester Airport, a mishmash of densely populated towns among countless industrial estates. The journey from Manchester Piccadilly towards Doncaster, however, revealed what must be one of the jewels of Northern England, the Pennines. The train smoothly meandered through the countryside, dwarfed here and there by fells of such green, obviously a bi-product of the wettest July and August since records began. On this day, patches of sunshine kissed the beautiful features of a land that is instantly recognizable the world over, that of England. Farms dotted the landscape, with cattle standing out among the vast of green, instantly recognizable as the train sped by.
After a brief stop at Doncaster, it was time for the onward GNER train south to North Hertfordshire; the train sped along plains of such stretches that the boring landscape rendered me unconscious. When I woke, I had been asleep for more than an hour and would shortly arrive at my destination. Fields still littered the view outside the window and upon the reapplication of my hearing device, the noise of a four not-natural-northern-blonds filled my ears. It was Friday, and they were southbound for a girly weekend no doubt! They were excited about something, that’s for sure, but it was difficult to interpret their northern accents as one bimbo spoke over the other. It was with relief that I had arrived and, almost immediately, the peace of not being in a confined space was heavenly.Before beckoning my father to come and collect me from the station, I went for a walk around town in need of birthday cards for my brother-in-law and my mother. Both had birthdays coming up and I had arrived with presents, but no cards. I visited some other stores, savoring the variety of stores reminiscent of my childhood; the books and media from WH Smiths, the bigger range of books available from Waterstone’s, the DVD promotions at HMV and Virgin Megastore, the agreeable selection of shoes at Clarks. Oh, what joy to be able to understand every that was written on the packaging, on people’s t-shirts, on the advertising that emblazoned the walls across town.
It wasn’t long when, by surprised, my sister and my darling little niece pulled up to collect me instead of my father. What a surprise! The four year old yearned endlessly for my attention and, I hate to confess, within minutes my patience was already wearing thin. It had been a long day, with nearly nine hours of travel under my belt. All this Englishman needed was a nice cup of strong tea, and a sofa on which to socialize and catch up with his family. Within ten minutes, that’s what had happened. My mother had been called away earlier in the day on her weekly visit to our Grandmother’s. While we awaited her return, my father, my sister and niece – three generations – sat around the kitchen table catching up. My father wasn’t having much luck with the pigeons this season, my elder sister was making work plans for the future to accommodate my niece’s start of nursery school and I spoke of Bree, my challenging work and the forthcoming Cochlear Implant hearing device upgrade planned for the following Monday.
My mother finally turned up on her own doorstep and we all settled down in the living room, cups of tea in hand. My niece ran around the living room screaming and, knowing that I would be in the same car on our way to Longleat the next day, was already dreading the journey. I mean, she doesn’t sit still and rarely plays with her toys on her own. She insists on everyone playing with her all the time; it’s non-bloody-stop me-me-me! The evening quickly descended on the household and my sister and niece left the house. My parents and I watched TV, sharing scattered pieces of news. My father, as grumpy as ever with the shingles he had caught in his head nearly three years ago, uttered occasional grunts of disapproval. My mother presented me with a box of post that had accumulated in my absence and, in the pile, I found my Masters thesis; I was too shocked to ask if she had put it there by mistake. I had paid £30 for my parents to have their own hardback copy of my Masters thesis and, in the pile, the return of it felt like a rejection, a non-acknowledgement of perhaps my greatest achievement to date. Perhaps I took it too personally, but I knew that they hadn’t even read beyond the second or third page of the thesis. After a couple of hours, I hate to admit it, I felt like leaving. But as a son, I felt like it was my duty to give my parents some of my time. I slept well that night in the spare room, the thick, but airy blankets surrounding me as though it was warm, fluffy meringue mix before it has been cooked and hardened.
The Nice, But Stressful Family Night Away
The morning came just minutes, it had seemed, after I had closed my eyes and gone to dreamland. It was to be an early start as the family loaded up two cars with luggage and a picnic fit for a Viking feast. We hit the road, heading first towards Stonehenge and, later, towards Longleat. It was a three hour journey and we arrived at lunchtime so, before entering the safari enclosures (which Longleat has become famous for after a series broadcast on BBC), we decided to eat. But this is where I should mention the weather; it was atrocious, appalling, abysmal. Any negative adjective could easily be applied in one form or another to the weather of the day. The impact was such that we had to eat the picnic in the car, passing food in between the two closely parked vehicles. Not the perfect day out to celebrate our mother’s birthday, my sister grumbled. What a washout, she said. It will be a washout if we let it be, I said. My eldest sister has always left unfulfilled expectations rule her mood. Bear in mind that this was before we even went into the first of a series of safari enclosures. The rain continued to smatter hard at the windows of the car and, since the windows were not allowed to be open due to the presence of wild animals, we slowly made our way through the park, straining to see through the trails of water streaming down the steamed-up windows.
The mood in the car intensified, my sister’s mood thunderous, my niece’s growing confinement in the car and lack of external stimulation requiring me to keep her amused. I just wanted to get out of the car there and then, and run away into the forest; surely an encounter with the lions would be much more fun than having to draw more matchstick men lounging on sun-beds around a badly drawn swimming pool?! It was then that my sister announced that she was running low on petrol. I couldn’t believe it. We had just entered the safari park and now the driver of the vehicle declares that we are running low on petrol. Jesus, help me! I thought to myself. Here’s what actually happened: using a mobile phone, my sister called my father in the other car, informed him of our predicament and, during the call, came to the conclusion that we would leave the park, come back and meet up with them later. Quite clearly, most of the day would be spent languishing in a car that started to smell damp from the pummeling rain, entertaining a child who had whittled away my patience (yet somehow, and quite rarely, I had managed to control my own frustration) and spending more than an hour looking for a petrol station.By the time we got back into the park, it was already past 3pm. We made the best of Longleat’s facilities by boarding the mini-railway and the safari boat. The shops onsite contain an assortment of crap-ness; the proof is in the pudding for my own mother, who loves shopping, refused to buy a thing. The day may have been a washout in one sense, but the occasional laughter of a family struggling to make the most out of a bad thing brought about a kind of balance which rendered the day satisfactory. As we left, we checked into the nearby Travelodge just five miles from the park. An hour later, the seven family members were in motion once again, this time in search of dinner. I wasn’t hungry, but I had learnt a long time ago that, in my family, going through the motions earns you brownie points while voicing your own opinion doesn’t.
I ordered Prawn Cocktail to start and Steak and Onion Pie with vegetables; the former went down nicely, the latter overwhelming me before I had even tucked in. You see, the contents of the pie, the gravy and the pastry topping took up a whole plate while French fries took up the whole of a second place and an assortment of carrots, cauliflower and green peas virtually filled another. I voiced some concern about the size of this dinner, but instantly I was the guilty party. The slimmest in my whole family – even slimmer than my own two sisters, who are both older than me – I realized that my relevant healthiness differentiated me from the family. I ate as much as I could, having to admit defeat with nearly two whole plates of food left uneaten. What a ridiculous waste, I thought to myself. But then I reflected on the well publicized state of the nation; after all, they are using crash test dummies weighing 16st (100kilos) to more accurately assess the reliability of cars these days. It tells you something. Just because I don’t conform to the obesity of the nation, I shouldn’t be look down on because I don’t approve of a three-plate main course.
My niece, the right little madam she is, declared that she was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel. So, simply as that, the family paid the bill, upped sticks and made way. Such was the power of this four year old. I guess we should give in to the little madam’s demands before she creates a scene, I thought sarcastically. I was relieved actually to get into my room, which I would share with my other sister who was merely two years older than me. We had been somewhat estranged after a feud last Christmas and, for the sake of peace, we didn’t discuss any of the older issues. Instead, we watched some TV, exchanged the news and bade eachother goodnight. As I slept, I could recall, quite clearly, the way my niece had continuously asked “Are we there yet?” all the way to Longleat. Put a sock in it, for gods sake!
Surprisingly, I slept rather well. Nobody could decide what to eat for breakfast at the tatty, run-down Little Chef next door so I suggested that we go into Bath. It’s only 20 miles away, I explained and, surprisingly, nobody in the family had been to the world-famous Roman town. I just happened to mention that I’m sure we could get a more decent breakfast and better service in Bath. It was the wrong thing to say. My eldest sister shot me a look as if to say that ‘nothing is ever good enough for you, is it?’ I glanced back at her, and nearly made a ‘Mum-deserves-better-than-Little-Chef-on-her-birthday’ remark. I bit my tongue. In the car, I played with my niece, drawing her some more matchstick men which, she said, she would colour in. How do you colour in a matchstick man?, I thought to myself. Turns out that she just liked watching other people draw. Perhaps this was a future manager in the making, someone who would order others to do things that needed to be done instead of doing things herself.
We drove into Bath, breakfasted at BHS (it was cheap self-service, but very tasty) and ambled along the cobbled streets of the town centre. I bought much-needed new shoes from Clarks, some also much-needed trousers from NEXT and some Carry On DVD’s to show Bree just what Barbara Windsor used to do before she became the proprietor of the Queen Vic pub in Albert Square, the fictional location of BBC soap Eastenders. I reckon he is in for a shock! Nobody in my family bought anything, my sister bought a ‘frappucino’ from a nearby Café Nero which, she said, cost £3.39. ‘Blimey’, I said, ‘it costs even more than beer’. ‘It’s always money with you, isn’t it?’, she retorted. Here’s me thinking that I have just spent nearly £100 on things I can use just before I pointed out that the ridiculously named frappucino cost more than beer and suddenly I am a pikey, a tightwad, a miser. Before this had escalated, she had told me she buys one of these ice-cold coffee drinks every two days. Forgive me, but I did the math: 3 x 4 frappucinos/week = £3.39 x 4 = £13.56/week. Calculate a bit further and that is £705/year. What do YOU think of that?
Anyway, the long drive home commenced – my family hadn’t even hinted on the Roman history of the place, had hardly ventured into the area where the Roman baths were located. Even where the fire fighter had wowed the crowds, my family hardly paid attention. I put my niece on my shoulders and we went to watch a man atop a two-metre unicycle juggle sticks of flame, much to the delight of the audience. We finally got home about 6pm and proceeded to allow our Mum to open her birthday presents; she got some real surprises and her delight was evident. I felt quite okay – and still full from English breakfast I had eaten at lunchtime – when my father suggested we go out for Chinese. More bloody food, I thought. With the baby reaching her bedtime, it was agreed that maybe it was better to have a takeaway – I opted for nothing more than duck and pancakes and was content with that. It was yummy, and now I was reaching bursting point. It wasn’t until about 8pm that the family had separated. After spending nearly two days in eachother pockets, my tension started to ease; the attention-seeking niece was now out of the picture, the always-skint sister who won’t take any financial advice had shuffled away and the parents of the child who insist on negotiating with her at every instance had mercifully vacated the premises. Phew!
I needed time to chill, to prepare for the next day’s Cochlear Implant hearing device Upgrade. After six and a half years of using what is known as a ‘strategy’ in my sound processor, the opportunity had come to gain further elements of the hearing spectrum by upgrading to Advanced Bionics’ (AB, the manufacturer) Harmony Program. This was the extent of my knowledge, but after bumping into an AB employee in Rome recently who praised the new program, I’m left feeling hopeful. Darkness came and night gave way to another day.
The Day My Hearing Changed
My father dropped me off at the railway station the next morning. Before heading to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear (RNTNE) hospital near London’s Kings Cross, I would stop off at Hatfield to make an appearance at the firm’s UK office and catch up with my email. With just the department’s secretary for company, I proceeded to scan my email, filtering those I must reply to from those who could wait. Two hours later, I was back on the train, bound for Kings Cross. The trip to the RNTNE was an exhausting one. I met one of the AB crew, who would guide the audiologist on how to install and configure the device to meet my own needs.
After the software was installed into a brand new, gleaming silver behind-the-ear (BTE) processor, I had to listen to a series of beeps across the frequencies until the volume had reached a comfortable level; this was done across eight channels and the end result is that the software creates an algorithm which is then uploaded to the BTE. The user, in this case myself, then has to start making sense of all the sounds around him. This requires considerable effort. The first session created a very unsatisfactory program, but with a bit of tweaking, a second ‘map’ was uploaded to my BTE. I left the hospital pleased that I had been upgraded, but as I walked from the silence of the hospital and into the hubbub of the Kings Cross area, I started to wonder why I had pursued the upgrade. After all, things had been going just perfectly before, hadn’t they?
As I made my way through the train station, none of the public announcements made sense to me; I could ‘hear’ the voices, but there was no clarity as if though I were struggling to decipher the speech of a drunk. With the help of the monitors, I located my train and the beeping of the closing doors was so shrill that I had to turn the volume down on my device. I attempted to listen to some music and, quite bizarrely, it came through relatively clearly when compared to environmental sounds. I didn’t move, savoring these soothing sounds as the countryside sped by just inches away on the other side of the rain-swept window. When I arrived, I attempted to call my mother; from what I could make out, as her voice now resembled that of a squeaky American speaking through a tin can, she had told me that my Dad was on his way.
Back at the house, I told them about what happened at the hospital and asked them to bear with me. My mother, forever compassionate, asked if I was okay, did I need anything, was I hungry? Anything to make her son’s situation a little more tolerable. ‘All I need is time’, I explained ‘to get used to this new strategy’. In truth, I was a little bit stressed about the following evening – I had agreed to make an appearance at Advanced Bionics’ Scandinavian Event in Cambridge in return for having sped up the upgrade. But with the initial experience of the Harmony processor being what it was, I was afraid that I wouldn’t have much good feedback to give the folks I would meet there. But a promise is a promise and I always keep my promises; I watched TV, engaged in conversation, listened to music, tapped on wooden furniture and the rim of glasses, knocked on solid walls, anything to aid perception of different sounds.
Once incident had caused me to recall ‘the method of hearing’ which I had somehow conceptualized in my brain during my original switch back in March 2001. As I watched TV, aided with English subtitles, I heard a whistling so shrill, but as the news presented some statistics about the state of the National Health Service with blue ambulance sirens in the background, I worked out that what I ‘should have been hearing’ was a siren. And so the process started, what I call the method of hearing, the need for hearing, recall and assignment to memory e.g. sound = x. I realized that I had to start all over again, learning all the sounds that I had taken for granted for the last six years. It was then that I realized that it was going to be hard work. But if it would have the same results as last time round, the effort would be well worth it.
Before the evening was over, there was work to be done: to empty the attic. My parents didn’t want my stuff clogging up their loft anymore. When I say clogging, I’m talking about five boxes taking up space equivalent to less than one tenth of their loft. Fair enough, my stuff shouldn’t be in their loft, but given that it would cost me £1,000 to ship it all over to Finland, we agreed that I would at least review the contents and try to minimize the amount in the loft. The end result: I ended up car-booting lot’s of books in perfect condition, throwing away my immaculately filed Marketing books and notes. In all, I manage to reduce the five large boxes down to two. After that, I was exhausted. The rest of the evening was spent sorting through a box of old photos, forcing me to recall some amusing moments as well as some sad ones. I separated those I would keep from those I would dispose of. It was about 1am when I got into bed – it had been a long, but productive day.
I slept well, sleeping until 10am. When I awoke, my niece greeted me. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand a word she was saying to me. I asked her to speak slowly and to look at me when she spoke so I could lipread her. She understood, and obeyed and little by little, I began to relearn her voice, her cute phrases and those mannerisms that made her so amusing! Over breakfast, I watched the lips of my parents, acutely aware of my increased dependence on lip-reading; this wasn’t good news, but I suspect that it was a temporary way of dealing with the change in hearing. After the first hour of the waking day, I started to wonder how I would get through the day; with a three-hour telephone conference looming and an engagement in the evening, I was wondering how I would get through the day with what I can only describe as sub-standard hearing, a fraction of the hearing I had possessed just the day before.
The time came for me to retreat to the spare room, from where I participated (or at least tried to) in a two-hour engineering telephone conference followed by a general marketing call, which, fortunately, nobody dialed into! Just as well, really, because the engineering call had exhausted me. After the calls, it was time to pack an overnight back and head to the local train station; in return for expediting my Cochlear Implant hearing device upgrade, I had agreed to make an overnight appearance at Advanced Bionic’s gathering of independent Audiologists and Clinical Scientists from Scandinavia and Finland. On the way to the station, my Dad threw a wobbly about my request to borrow his car the following afternoon to meet up with a friend of mine in Hertfordshire; after some heated exchanges, I got onto the train, fuming; I’m not in England very often and, unfortunately, it does help to have a car to get about. My father suggested I hire a car for the day (but I only needed a car for four hours), which would cost £50 + fuel, a waste of money.
Forty minutes later, my train pulls into Cambridge station and, having vented my earlier frustration at a friend of mine who loves to listen, set off in search of the short-stay car park where there was a taxi waiting for me. I was whisked away to the very posh Crown Plaza in Downing Street. When I checked in and was presented with a welcome pack which include a box of chocolates, I was very impressed indeed. After a quick shower, I dressed up in my suit, set to dazzle ‘em. This was my moment to impress the professionals with my ability to communicate effectively and prove to be an invaluable member of a potential future team. Armed with a card box filled to the brim with my business card, I made my way on foot to one of Cambridge’s congress venues. I waited patiently in reception when, suddenly, a man with lean, Italian dark looks approached me, an outstretched hand making its way towards mine.
I got acquainted with the Advanced Bionic’s crew, some of whom I had met before. They were curious to know how I was getting on with the Harmony – a struggle at the moment, I explained, but I’m confident it will get better. Bang on time, the now-gathered group of some forty professionals made their way to the nearby shore where a number of punts would transport us along the River Cam to Magdalene College, where dinner would be served; the weather held off and we listened to the amusing commentary as the punt glided smoothly along the river. We passed numerous colleges and bridges of such ornate proportions that, but for the odd appearance of a car or worker in modern clothing, you felt like you had been whisked back in time.
We made our way back onto shore, crossed over a bridge and strode, as a group, across a well-maintained courtyard. Waiting for us was a sumptuous meal inside one of the well-preserved rooms of Magdalene College. Founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, Magdalene College came into being in 1542, leg by Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII. The last college to grant access to women, in 1988, the college’s most famous pupil is Samuel Pepys (1663-1703).
Over candle-light, I got acquainted with a Finnish Speech Therapist, a Norwegian Clinical Scientist and a Danish Clinical Specialist. They were interested to hear of my hearing, and non-hearing, histories. After dinner, I made my way back to the hotel, relieved that another day had come to an end. I slept uneasily, having forgot my alarm clock, and having no other means by which to wake up.
I woke up with a start at 7am and headed straight for the shower. I was exhausted, but there was no time for slouching around. The morning consisted of sitting in to hear what some of the visiting audiologists had to say at AB’s morning conference session. When it was nearing the time to leave, I asked one of the audiologists if she could tweak the volume on my hearing device a little bit. We worked on the volume settings for a while, but then it was time for me to rush to the station. Next stop: Watford. I took the fast train to Kings Cross, walked a mile to Euston and, from there, took a train to Watford Junction. Altogether, it took about ninety minutes. Not bad, I thought to myself!
As I exited the station, there was Red in her brand new Mini. Her own petit-ness complimented the car perfectly and we headed towards the Arndale for a late lunch and a spot of shopping. We spoke of our dislike of ‘other people’s children’ and, speak of the devil, there was a sign forbidding the use of ‘heelies’, those stupid shoes with wheels inside aimed at making the lives of kids that little bit easier while frightening the bloody bajesus out of adults as kids whiz past. After a pizza lunch, we ambled through the shopping centre, catching up on all the things that take too much effort (and are too personal) to chat about online. After all, you never know who is eavesdropping online, do you?
Time flies when you’re having fun and, already, it had passed 5pm. It was time to get back to my parents for tonight would be my last night ‘down south’. The trains continued to work well and as I undertook the train journey in reverse and walked among the crowd between Euston and Kings Cross, déjà vu overcame me. I pulled into my destination around 7pm and my father came and collected me, fortunately for the last time. We rode in silence for I knew he was angry with me for pulling him away from the telly to come and collect me. He doesn’t exactly see me that often, does he?
When we arrived at the house, my Mum wanted to know all about how the visit to Cambridge went. I updated them both over a cup of tea in front of the telly, which distracted them occasionally. Why can’t that fucking TV ever be switched off?, my head screamed. Inside, I was fuming, wanting to make my parents realize that there was more to life than Emmerdale, Eastenders and Coronation Street. I bit my tongue, remembering how I was once like them – on Saturdays, I would receive my TV guide and circle everything that I intended to watch during the week ahed. It was my way of avoiding real life. How things had changed for, these days, I watch about 2 hours TV per week. After updating them on my trips to Cambridge and Watford, I retreated to the spare room, fearing how I would get all the stuff from the attic, my shopping and the clothes I had come to England with back into the suitcase. As if by magic, however, I managed! Phew!
I settled back down in the living room, while my last bath tub of water was running; how I love a bath-tub bath! My mother made a comment along the lines of your trips always go too quickly, and there’s never enough time when you are dashing to and fro. I had spent a whole weekend and the equivalent of three working days with my parents and yet, somehow, I hadn’t made enough time for them. In truth, they hadn’t made enough effort to get up, get out and live. That’s how I felt, at least.
As I soaked in the bath, I felt relieved that at 10am the next morning I would be back on my way up north. Things could only get better. I deliberated upon what was making me feel the way I was feeling. The truth was that, at 30, one could say I had matured, both physically and sexually. I was a man, who appreciated his own freedom and being able to come and go as he pleased. But I couldn’t come and go as I pleased for I was dependent on my parents for lifts to the station. It was almost like being a child again, but being grounded. I put my head under the water, savoring the feel of the hot water as it engulfed me. As I raised my head above the waterline, I emerged with a renewed mood. I got out of the bath, shaved my head and stubbled-face and exited from the bathroom feeling sexy.
I got into bed about 11pm and slept soundly. I was exhausted and part of me would love to skip my trip up north to see Sweatpea and Fred, and just go home. When I woke up the next morning, my father was visibly offended once again just because I opted for a cup of tea instead of a breakfast. Why must I have to eat all the time? When the time came to leave, I gave my niece a massive hug goodbye, kissed my Mum a heartfelt au revoir and joined my father in the car that would take me to the station for the last time. I already knew what was going to happen before I even got in the car: my father’s first words weren’t take care of yourself or have a safe journey. His words were ‘when you come over in future, maybe it’s a good idea to hire a car’. I explained that hiring a car for ten days would cost ~£350 plus petrol and that the trains were the quickest way to and from the north. He explained that he felt that he shouldn’t be called to and from the house so often and I was somewhat amused that he would begrudge his son 3-mile lifts to and from home and the railway station.
I felt it best not to argue, but when we got out of the car, I collected my bloody heavy luggage from the back of the car and my father didn’t even say goodbye. He just drove off. The sad thing was that I didn’t feel anything – while I am enjoying what I describe as the pre-prime of my life, my father was exhibiting the grumpiness of a man well past his sell-by date. Could it be that my active lifestyle made him envious? Could it be that my get-up-and-go attitude made him feel inactive and old? Just before I got out of the car, he pointed out that if I could afford €2,000 holiday to South Africa for Christmas, I could afford to hire a car when I was in England. This may be true, but why would I spend €700 on the costs associated with hiring a car when this could be used to much better effect? I was only asking for a lift to and from the station, for fucks sake.
By the time I had boarded the train and prevented myself from forewarning my mother of my father’s mood, I had forgotten the episode. Perhaps I am an ignorant son after all, but the truth is life is for living and nothing was going to make me feel guilty for living the rich life I was living – I was pulling out all the stops to plan nice experiences in foreign countries, I was making every effort to see the friends I really valued yet my family, my sisters included, seemed stuck in a time warp, a vicious circle that they weren’t brave enough to walk away from. It is true that sons tend to leave the nest and find a family of their own while daughters tend to remain close to the family. Perhaps this was the way life was intended to be.
Northbound
The train shuttled towards Kings Cross once again and, from Euston, I boarded the train that would take me to Liverpool Lime Street Station. I slept during the journey, my knees digging into the seat in front of me. Halfway, I moved to an empty seat with a table and a plug for connecting the power of a laptop. I happily busied myself with some draft replies to email while an elderly woman sat opposite me, rapidly completing The Times crossword.
The Virgin train pulled into Liverpool Lime Street Station bang on time. How things have improved in the rail services. I while away a couple of hours in Liverpool’s impressive library, wheeling my heavy luggage through the aisle’ of books, audio CDs and other media. Sweetpea sent me a message, announcing that she was outside in her car. I dragged my luggage out into the now-warm sunlit sky and smiled at Sweetpea in the distance. We chatted as if tomorrow would be the last day on earth, covering every subject under the sun.
The evening was whiled away catching up over a dinner of Salmon pasties with vegetables and a bottle of wine. Surprisingly, the wine made me woozy and we were in bed by 11pm. But not all was lost because, by sheer luck, Sweetpea had the next day off work according to her work rota. When we woke up the next morning, we had a cup of tea, holding off on breakfast until we got into town – I had promised Sweetpea breakfast.
We stopped at the nearby library to check our email and, by bus, popped into town. First stop: the location when, in March next year, Sweetpea would celebrate her 50th birthday. I cannot believe that she is even forty, let alone fifty! The venue is very nice indeed, a hotel in town that has been recently renovated. We found a restaurant in town, had an late breakfast/early lunch and then went for a wander around town; it was Friday lunchtime and the shopping centre was swarming with people laden with shopping bags, a sure sign that the economy is doing well.
Tiredness overcame me once again and, back at Sweetpea’s place, we had a thirty minute nap before Fred would come to pick me up. What are we like? I thought to myself! I have come to visit Sweetpea and I’m just too tired to do anything!! I woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed and, managing to get my overnight clothes and toiletries back into my suitcase, proceeded to make my way down the three flights of stairs where Fred awaited me.
I loaded up Fred’s car and returned to Sweetpea, hugging her tightly. As we parted, an exhausting weekend of partying was about to begin. I dreaded the thought, not wanting to part with Sweetpea, the one I could nap with and not feel guilty. In the car, Fred and I caught up with pretty much every subject under the sun, just as Sweetpea and I had done the night before and Red and I had done the afternoon before that.
We were bound for Fred’s retreat in Manchester, a newly built flat in the regenerated district of Castlefield. As we arrived, it was about 5pm, the perfect time to start a wild weekend which would welcome the Manchester Gay Pride to town. In fact, Pride has been on all week, but now it was time for the Big Weekend, the climax of all things gay in Manchester’s Gay Village in and around Canal Street.
The Week Turns Gay
After a cup of tea for fortification, we took a brief nap before getting prepared for the night out. We walked along the canal stretching from Castlefield to the Centre of town, and I admired the canal-side architecture, the well designed bridges and the towering 48 floor, 169m high Beetham Tower.
The night out was spent wandering through the packed out Canal Street; a one-mile block had been boarded up, shielding the gay community and it’s supporters from the outside world. As a result, entry was gained by buying a ticket, which was certainly worth paying for. The weather was warm and dry and Belinda Carlisle belted out a half hour set on the main stage. Later that evening, we visited all the bars; Via Fossa, Queer, AXM, The Rembrandt, Velvet and last but not least Legends.
Located just outside the Village, Fred and I visited Legends, a real gay man’s bar with a rather bizarre dress code which required you to dress like one of the Village People. We had failed miserably at that task, so we paid to enter the non-dresscode section of the two-floor establishment. Confined to downstairs for not obeying the rules, I was amazed to see lots of free chocolate bars lined up at the entry desk; Bounty and Milky Way bars were there for the taking, which I thought was rather odd. As the place started to fill up, however, it turned out to be quite a sight: the place was full of overweight men packing on at least seventeen stone or more. It would be deemed acceptable, I thought to myself, if they changed the name of the bar to ‘Lovers Of Blubber’. Even Fred pointed out that he felt as though he were in a WeightWatchers class, which had me in fits of laughter!
It was about 4am by the time we got home and Fred and I were a bit woozy. It had been a blast, but it was now time to prepare for Round 2 of the Big Weekend. I slept comfortably on the large black leather sofa in Fred’s living room, waking up just before 11am. Fred woke up shortly after me and, over breakfast, we laughed about the ‘Lovers Of Blubber’ experience – it was just bizarre!
It was the day of the Big Weekend Gay Parade, which would welcome the diverse to Manchester. As the parade gathered pace at 2pm in the centre of town, we were treated to some eye-catching spectacles, including gay representatives from the police force, the fire services and HM Prison services. On the less serious side of things, we saw disco divas in the form of drag queens collecting money for charity, followed by a Gaywatch float featuring guys clad in tight, bright red swimming costumes associated with the Californian drama.
Then there were gay rugby players, simulating a scrum, charity fund-raisers raising money for Aids In Malawi. Later, came the bodybuilder dudes gracing the club circuit, representing nightclubs such as Federation, Essential+ and Cruz 101. Even father Christmas and some clowns made an appearance, which delighted the young among the thousands of people along the procession route. My favourite was the Conservative Salford Ladies United Temperance Society who bore placards with slogans such as ‘Calling Time On Filth’, ‘Fag Butts Are Dirty’ and ‘Not In My B&B’. You can see all the pictures here.
After the parade, my feet aching from standing still in the crowd for more than two hours, we headed into Canal Street once again. This time we were browsing among the market stalls selling all sorts of tat. My favourite was a store selling t-shirts with all kinds of crazy sayings such as ‘Nobody knows I’m Gay’, ‘Heterosexuality Is Not Normal, It’s Just Common’ and, in bright pink material, ‘I Can’t Even Think Straight’! Hilarious. Moving on, we found a stall selling all kinds of leather goods, some of which did nothing but confuse. What do people do with these things?!
People continued to wade through the crowds on what turned out to be a reasonable day for weather; the sky was dotted here and there with clouds, but it was warm and dry and that was all that mattered. We made our way out of The Village via the north exit, heading towards China Town, where we downed a huge banquet of a meal. From there, we walked back to Castlefield. After a cup of tea, we napped for a while, but as soon as I had managed to get to sleep, it was time to wake up again and prepare for another night in town.
Having familiarised ourselves with the layout of this year’s Pride, we headed to the outdoor version of Legends, which was inside the Village. Here, so-called real men rubbed shoulders with Muscle Mary’s and lovers of leather and, unfortunately, blubber! It bought back memories from the night before, so when Fred suggested we go to Legends again, I was wondering if he was joking. There was a reason behind his suggestion: all the nightclubs were intent on capitalizing on the busiest night of the year. As such, entry to some places was as much as £25!
The ironic thing, Fred explained, was that people who pay that much to get into a nightclub will be on drugs (which is cheaper than drinking) because they can’t afford to drink whereas if the entry price was low, people would drink to get a social high of some sort. I had never really thought of it like that before. Obviously, we didn’t want to be on a dancefloor full of drugged-up nobodies who thought they were all that so we headed to Legends with our fingers crossed. It actually turned out to be okay, although Fred wasn’t impressed. Lack of talent, was his complaint whereas my thumbs up was attributed to the abundance of entertainment; I mean, look at that fat guy on the dancefloor who has just taken his clothes off? And what about the guy whose leather trousers had no material around the bum?! Hilarious! These things don’t happen in Helsinki, you see!
The music in the place weren’t bad either. Booty Luv’s Boogie 2Nite stood out from the rest, but some oldies like Temptation by Heaven17 and some ABBA remixes were a refreshing difference. When we left Legends after 3am, we took a taxi back to Castlefield. I slumped onto the sofa, absolutely worn out, somewhat numbed by the copious amount of Bacardi & Coke I had consumed.
When I woke up on the Sunday, it was with a schedule for it was the day I would be going home. By home, I’m referring to the land where my love lives, Finland. What a week it had been! When Fred awoke, I was already packed. Since it was nearly midday and I needed to be at the airport by 4pm, we headed into town to do some last minute shopping at Manchester’s recently extended shopping centre. We popped into Selfridges where, as we descended to the Basement level on the escalator, we saw pre-prepared plates of sushi working its way around cultured eaters who were at liberty to take what they chose. I have never tried sushi, but Fred and I agreed that we would do that next time.
At the airport, Fred and I said our goodbyes; it had been a wonderful visit, but it was now time for me to go back to ‘real’ life and to my love, Bree. After I had checked in with 35kilos of luggage (which the BA staff allowed after I batted my eyelashes at them) and made my way airside, I called Bree. He was having issues with his parents and it was at that moment that I returned to being the caring, considerate boyfriend. Almost at the same time, I yearned to be back home, with Bree. We continued talking as my made my way to the gate where a 100-seater Embraer 190 awaited its passengers; it was surprising that only 24 of the seats onboard would be occupied. I dozed during the fight, waking in response to a sudden jerk which indicated that the time had come to prepare for landing.
It was delightful to disembark and make my way through Helsinki airport, one of the best airports in the world in my opinion. By the time I had reached baggage control, my baggage was waiting for me rather than the other way around. When I left he building, the chill took me by surprise; in the ten days I had been away from Finland, autumn had arrived with a vengeance. When Bree pulled up outside the terminal building to collect me, however, warmth filled my heart once more. Still, even now, whenever I landed at Helsinki airport, I felt like I had come home.
posted by About Me: @ 12:42 pm
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