Happy birthday to my son Guy wish i was 19 again but don't we all unless your under 19 , a Friend posted this poem on face book writing by a old man in an American nursing home it was found after going through his humble possessions and distributed to every nurse working in his nursing home , then posted on the web.
Crabby Old Man

What do you see nurses? . . What do you see?
What are you thinking . . . . . when you're looking at me?
A crabby old man, . ... .. not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .. . .. . . . . . with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food . . .. . . . . and makes no reply .
When you say in a loud voice .. . . . .. 'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . ... . the things that you do .
And forever is losing . . . . .. . . . . . A sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not . . . . . . .. . . lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse . . . . . you're not looking at me .

I'll tell you who I am . As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, . . . . . . as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten ... . . . . . with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters . . . ... . . . . . who love one another.

A young boy of Sixteen . . with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . . .. .. . . a lover he'll meet..
A groom soon at Twenty . my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows . . . . .. . that I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now . . . . . . . . I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . . . . .. . . . .. My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . . . . . . With ties that should last.

At Forty, my young sons .. . have grown and are gone,
But my woman's beside me . . . . . . . to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . . . . My loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me . . my wife is now dead.
I look at the future ... . .. . . . . . . shudder with dread..
For my young are all rearing . . . . . .. young of their own.
And I think of the years . . .. and the love that I've known.

I'm now an old man . . . . . .. .. . . and nature is cruel.
Tis jest to make old age . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. . . . . . . grace and vigor, depart..
There is now a stone . . . .. . . . where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass . . a young guy still dwells,
And now and again . . . .. . . . my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys . . . . . . . . .. I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . . .. . . . . life over again.

I think of the years, all too few . . . . . gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . . . .. that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . . . . open and see.
Not a crabby old man. Look closer . . . see ME!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within . . . . we will all, one day, be there, too!

i have already forgotten so much that i have done and places i have been to and people i have meet alone the way , but hopefully i have more to do and more to accomplice before i leave this mortal life , there is one thing more than any thing i i want to do more than anything is to travel more often and to record every mile i travel and every bus route and plane journey i take so when i do get hold i will remember i think every one should be on face book and keep a blog for the same reasons for more than anything it benefits me more than anyone else it makes me remember thank god for digital cameras and the internet.

Its been a good week got paid Friday which was not a day too soon, my daughters 21st birthday she travels to Amsterdam today with eleven other girls for a wild weekend oh to be young again with no mortgage.

Helen son Steve has got a job , after three years being unemployed he has found a job selling solar panels,and for the last three days hes been out and about knocking on house doors giving his sales pitch , and bye his account he is doing fine i hope he earns regular money and he can get his life back on track hopefully the job will last for a few months to come.

Got my camera back from cash converters which made me happy, then i drove over to Pocklington near York to see my son Guy he is 19 on this coming Monday he took delivery of his Suzuki bandit motorbike this week its awesome he as bought with the money he has earned working shifts in a petrol filling station well done , i followed him to York city centre it was strange feeling watching him handle his machine and a worry but to be fair he was fine.

i Saw my Jack Russell bandit for the first time in three years she went well giddy jumping up and down at me and getting excited , i was touched she is a great dog and i spent many happy hours walking in in the woods and on the canal banks close to where i used to live.

have bought a i phone case for my 3g phone and a laptop stand today of ebay and i am bidding on a ipod classic and a i pod 4th gen nano.

Listening to David Guetta "Nothing but the Beat" love Titanium

Watching the film "IN TIME"

No work until five tonight delivered 400 flyer's and business cards to houses in and around Bramley advertising our Friends hair salon LUXE which opened before Christmas and cards for Helen promoting her psychic readings , it was harder work than i realised and it took best part of three hours , at least it didn't rain.

went up to to Ilkley moors took Pip just after twelve had a well nice walk it was well muddy in places but the rain kept away it was windy but not cold plus it was a long enough walk plus there was a big enough field that we was able to take Pip off the lead and she rang around between me and Helen we have been going to Golden Acre Park but after so many visits it gets boring.
Also the last few days we have been playing Temple Run a game for the i -phone its quirky and addictive i find it quite irritating but nice and for a free its very good , you only have five moves jump slide left turn right turn and run to side you collect gold coins which let you buy power ups any way Helen's hooked and she is beating me easily the same can be said for Bejeweled Blitz .

Saturday got up at half eight just chilling out watched another episode of "Life on Mars" whilst Helen lays in bed ,Seeing as it was three in the morning when we got to sleep i didn't think she be up early, but as always i was up . they was enough milk for one cup of coffee not a brilliant start to the day. Roll on pay day seems to have been ages since i got paid.

watching - Seven staring Bradd Pitt

Listening to Tim Booth The Bad Angel

Dull and grey and very wet day no work as well so doing nothing much at all except drinking coffee and burning gas.

No work tomorrow so tonight just chillin picked Helen's son Liam up .He brought his Traktor kontrol 2 DJ mixing decks and his laptop and gave us a sample of his DJ mixing sounds and tracks to say he has only had it since Christmas he is pretty good.

My son gets his Bandit motorbike on the 25th of January five days before his 19th birthday , and i have been thinking what if , its not nice thinking like that . i just hope no other drivers pullout on him or force him in to making a bad mistakes and decisions , i know he's passed his test but every biker killed has as well , which don't make you anymore bullet proof , i think i will buy him a St Christopher pendant for his birthday and maybe a st Christopher key ring too , make doubly sure hes covered.

Up at six scrapping ice of the car window was cold again was soon at work i sit in the car for around half an hour i go early to get a parking space so far i have not failed in securing a spot but have some days had to park a lot further a way than i like.

Finished work at one on arriving home , we set about wrapping up and addressing some items for the ebayers that have won Helen's items for sale and dropped them off at the post office for mailing , for the three items sent it was just under £7.50 in postage costs.

Took Pip our Jack Russell to Kirkstall abbey for a walk she meet a few other dogs along the way she is so far well behaved when come face to face with other canine breeds and we completed a couple of circuits , for tea we are cooking toad in the hole with extra side order of meatballs and mash potatoes with onion and mushroom gravy i am smelling it cooking as i type this.

Today is extremely cold the car is all iced up again and there is a lot more frost on the ground its whitened Ali around , the skies are very grey and its looking bleak , Helen is still in bed thanks to the wine she had yesterday. At least Harvey and Pip are up and awake. Loaded my i-phone with more books and a couple of albums i have not listened to along with Florence and the machine and Drake .
Took Pip to Golden acre park and walked round its perimeter which takes just over a hour.
On the way home stopped at the supermarket and bought some smoked ham , white wine tagliatelle fresh pasts a large container of double cream stuff the calories a large onion and garlic bulb and organic mushrooms going to make a carbonara for tea oh and we bought four partly baked baguettes , its been a while since we have cooked this dish and it never fails to be filling creamy and gorgeous it wasn't until i finished that i realised we hadn't grated any cheese to throw on the top never mind will have to do it again next week.
Helen had some items she was selling on eBay ending today and has just made over sixty quid with only having to re list one item , never starve whilst their is the eBay option of making money fairly quickly.

Still watching - "Life on Mars"

Waiting to watch - "Ashes to Ashes"

Listening to - Florence and the Machine

Reading - "Message in a Bottle" by Nicholas Sparks

Took Helen up to Pudsey to Co,Co'S nail salon for her nails redoing another £28.00 well spent she gave me her last £100 she has sold some stuff on eBay and with the money i have we should just about manage , at least the next time she goes she needs to get them done its for half price , they operate a stamp a visit card get six stamps get a treatment for half price.

At two o clock we set off for Flockton to visit Sharon and Steve at their quaint cottage , a couple of clients he has been dealing with had saved quite a bit of money from his services and had clubbed together and bought him a i-pad 2 needles to say i was wishing i could be in the same boat has him doing a job i love travelling get well paid and nice little perks along the way we ended up playing space invaders , 3d pool and table top football was like being a teenager again in the eighties another item added to my wish list Sharon cooked a chili we had with sour cream and jacket potatoes it was spot on , Helen had three classes of wine so was out of it.


Years ago i worked away nearly every week for sixteen years travelled to Scotland Ireland wales and London i had a decent wage had to save up for nothing i could buy more or less anything i wanted out of a weeks wage which was paid cash in a brown wage packet you got your hands on your money before anyone else did unless there was a wage/payroll snatch heist , but all bills got paid on time along with the mortgage there was no bank charges , i had money to get taxis every where i wished and go out nightly if i wanted to , i had money to buy clothes and my music was bought on cassette tapes and if i went to the petrol station a tenner would nearly fill the tank and smoking twenty cigs a day was not a issue well not a money issue , why has life not improved why have we all gone backwards why is everything changed for the worse in most cases.

In some ways life has got better for today's generation thanks to technology if the technology we have now had been available back then , i would have spending ability to buy a i-pad every month if i so wished , as it is now i be lucky to get one this year and that's why sometimes i get pissed off and wish i had a better job seeing has i put the hours in it shouldn't be like this even when i start my new job it is not going to be that much easier at least i will have a contract for forty five hours a week and not twenty as it is now

No work today didn't do much went to the local Tesco this morning i bought a fruit loaf some Lurpak butter some freshly sliced ham and a jar of English mustard and some semi skimmed milk along with two cans of tomato soup the posh kind.
been messing around with Adobes Photo shop elements 7 on certain digital photos that i have taken around Leeds using You Tube as a tutorial guide, its amazing what you can learn in a day was quite impressed with myself whether or not i remember what i have done and how to re do it remains to be seen.

Took Pip to Kirstall Abbey for a walk around its grounds apart from this one hour of exercise its been a lazy day.

My son Guy get his Suzuki 650 bandit motorbike this coming Saturday at a cost of £3600. He has saved his money up working in a petrol station starting Early in the morning working weekends and bank holidays and working late at night , and he deserves to be able to buy a nice set of wheels for himself , i just which it was four wheels instead of the two , he is competent on a motorbike without a doubt and has had quite a few months of riding his scooter , but has most bikers will tell you nine 0ut of ten times its the car drivers error when there is a crash or collision , it must be any mothers girlfriends or wife's worst nightmare to have a loved one killed or maimed or left paralysed due to a bad RTA.

Getting used to Helen's red hair it was weird when i woke up this morning at half past five and looked across the pillow and spotted this red head lying next to me for a split second thought i was dreaming ,is it in the film true romance where the girl he meets and ends up in bed in the morning removes her wig before he is awake , and she is a natural black haired girl instead of the blonde girl he meet , anyway its ok by me .

Thought of the day its a long way off till pay day but we will make it no choice but to make it its a fine line some months so far so good.

tomorrow i am off all day no day or night shift will sleep in till at least half past eight.

Started watching "Life on Mars" have got the complete set of dvds to watch series one and two never saw it the first time round watched the pilot episode last night and liked it , long live the seventies I was leaving school in 1976 and STILL listening to bands like Mud the Sweet and Showaddywaddy, Thank god my taste in music has changed for the better over the years , along with my flared Brutus jeans and my multi coloured Slade hooped socks.John Simms who plays Sam Tyler in the series was born in Leeds my home town in 1970 to say he has been transported back to 1973 makes it all the stranger, only 15 episodes to go .And David Bowie is 65 years old on the day i started to watch episode one always say fact is weirder then fiction.

Helen today Helen went to Louise's hair salon "Luxe" and had her dyed her hair from blond to a chestnut redhead and its kewl it suits her immensely

Went to bed at half three this morning up at nine feel shit got a very sore throat and am starting with a cold sounds like man flu . I am off work Wednesday and i am not working my evening shifts for two whole weeks , so the days i work i will finish at one at that is the end of the day sounds good to me.

Helen has been reading Witness by David Smith he was the person married to Myra Hindleys sister Maureen and his testimony was responsible for putting them both behind bars after going to the police the morning after the night before when he witnessed Edward Evans killed with a axe even though David smith was responsible for getting the evil pair convicted he was hounded beat up on a regular basis and assaulted for years to follow , he was attacked in bars and near to his house and generally got to the point where he was as much a victim of Brady and Hindley's crimes as if he had been murdered by them himself.




In the book he has written he list songs and music he listened to and was popular at the time of the early sixties that he listened to and heard every day and this helped him out with his day to day existence these i found the tracks Helen and drawn up and downloaded them so i can put them on her i-phone laptop and burn them to disc the list includes the Beatles ,the Big Bopper, Duane Eddie Billy fury Del Shannon, Johnny Cash , to name a few .

There are songs over the years that when i hear play on the radio that take me back to a moment in time to a place in my life that i once was , so i think i will do my own list and give them to to Helen , i guess every body must be able to comply their own list and should be on every body's bucket list of things to do so when departed it can be given to people left behind as a remembrance gift at their funeral , might even do it with films and books it would have been nice if my parents had done something similar.

Reading Lynda La plante - The Red dahlia

listening to - Drake

So Far ok nothing brilliant has happened in 2012 , Helen is doing more readings this year all ready she had done around around seven readings and three booked in for next week.
Our fence as blown down in the gales and high winds we have been having its that what divides the two drives , but there is no chance of doing anything with it until i get paid at the end off the month.

My son Guy is after buying a 650cc Bandit motorbike once he get the finance sorted out he finding only being eighteen its not straight forward , Bandit also being the name of my other Jack Russell which i left behind when i walked out on my wife ,Guy continues to look after her and she is now his dog , my other Jack Russell Pip is a love she is well behaved but needs to get out more she has been neglected due to the weather and my working all the time hopefully once i start my new job i begin at two loads of time to get up and walk her wish i was living somewhere more in the country its had living in a city and going to the same stretch of canal all the time is boring as is walking around the cemetery .

Took my camera to Cash Converters on buy back but Christmas wage was that poor i am going have to leave it and pay the minimum amount and get it back next pay day we are really struggling some months and if it wasn't for well hiding food in our chest freezer we be eating just ice, makes you wonder how many people living in England are struggling to pay heating bills taxes and just survive hand to mouth every month so months we do fine if i get plenty of overtime some months its a nightmare and its robbing Peter to pay Paul, the two things i pay straight away are the bills for the Internet and my i-phone the two things i couldn't be without for obvious reasons its 2012 is there still people in houses that don't have a pc or laptop and broadband is anyone still on a dial up connection in fact do they still do dial up connections will have to google it, anyway what ever 2012 is about to bring i get the notion we are still going to be struggling and if things improve then it wont before time

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all we set alight and let fly in to the new years night five Chinese lanterns are wishes and dreams went with them hopefully 2012 will be a better year , we all need a good one.Took the two Christmas trees down the lights outside , around the bay window and from the garage soffit. We put away the reindeer's and the rest of the tinsel Christmas cards and the wreaths and other ornaments ,as i am back at work tomorrow Christmas is over hope we are better off for Christmas this year might have to do some forward planing i know more than likely will be at Adel John the baptist church for midnight mass.