Central vs Suburbia

It seemed like a great chance.  Wow a flat in Vauxhall and cheap.  Let move I told my partner.  It's ok it'll be good living in Zone 1 (well the edge of Zone 1/2)  Lets move in.  I don't really want to move my partner exclaimed to me.  I managed to talk him into visiting the flat, just to see.  We went and it all seemed so good.  Nice flat, great location but behind was a dark area of despair.............the landlady! "It's okay!" she told us you can move in and do what ever you want with the place, we won't be here much and  you can make it your home!"  Living 20 mins walk to Big Ben seemed like a great idea and a bonus it being the next best thing to Soho from a gay point of view was even more inviting.  We could pop into Barcode when we wanted for a quick drink, it was our local (we went twice in the 6 months we lived there!)

Clapham was up the road, great we have friends who live there and it'll be fun (We went to Clapham probably 5 times in the 6 months we lived there!) The most ironic thing about living in Vauxhall that our flat nearly looked over Fire, which was the place I lived in mostly a couple of years back (Never stepped foot in the door for the 6 months we lived there!) and it was soooo annoying to hear all the drugged f*&ked, pissed people screaming outside my bedroom window.

So, six months passed and we'd had enough,  the Landlady turned out to be a neurotic pre menstrual psycotic nut case who made the freaky neighbour look like Mother Theresa.   We decided to look for another place.  We decided to buy.  Zone 1/2 was too expensive, so we looked a bit further afield in Zone 2.  Nunhead screamed at us.  We looked at a few places and made a couple of offers,  2 were turned down.  Then we went back to our original viewing.  A lovely 1 bedroomed house, 1 second walk from the station and on the edge of East Dulwich, the place where people want to live but can't afford it. We got a great deal.  We moved in just before Christmas and have made the house our HOME and love it.

So, the debate is Central or Suburbia???

Well for me you can keep Central, it's too noisy,  you maybe near to everything, but you don't really go anywhere (or is that just me?!) and I'd rather live somewhere where there's no screaming people pissing on your doorstep and being sick in your letterbox.

I'm looking forward to our future in the suburb of Nunhead and hear it's really rocking.

To lose a friend (Dedicated to the friends I've lost)

You came, from somewhere far away,

A part of my life, destined to stay,

To help me find my path of life,

To keep me in touch with sanity,

You led me to good things in my time,

My life with you

 was always sublime.

No matter what I did in life

You always made me feel alive.

You pushed me to fulfil my dreams,

Never judging, or holding me back,

And always when there was strife,

You encourage me to move on in my life.

You saved me from killing my soul,

Bringing me back to make me whole,

I travelled far and travelled wide,

Knowing that you were by my side.

You made me laugh,

You watched me cry,

Why did you have to go and die?

The memories of the years gone by,

They make me laugh,

They make me cry.

Why did you have to go and die?

The loss of you still hurts deep,

The pain of which still makes me weep.

No day goes by I don’t try and hide

the emptiness I feel inside.

Why did you have to go and die?

I remember well that fateful day,

You told me you’d be taken away,

It crushed me deep in my heart,

The thought some day we’d be apart.

The only thing that I could do,

Was stop my life and come to you.

I tried my best to keep a smile.

Why did you have to go and die!

I watched you slowly slip away,

There’s nothing really I could say,

I held your hand and watched you die

What could I do but sit and cry.

Some times I think the pain has gone

I know I’m not the only one.

You touched the hearts of lots of lives.

Why did you have to go and die!

Confidence

After I'd finished my blog yesterday.  I did manage to some of my Uni work, Hooray!  Then when I was trying to get to sleep (horrible insomnia) I started to think about whether it was procrastination or confidence or both.

Much as people think I am, I've never really been a confident person hiding behind a facade.  I always wanted to be an actor but I'm pretty shy really (I can hear all my friends laughing at that comment).  I think it's why I enjoyed working in hospitality, I sort of made the restaurant my stage, being the comedian and trying to make people laugh.  I thought I was funny anyway, no matter what other people think.

So back to my thoughts while I was trying to get to sleep last night.  Is it procrastination (I love that word) or is it confidence.  I remember writing a blog a few years ago when I drove to Spain on one of my adventures and it seems that the people who read it, really enjoyed it.  Now I am, as I said in my last post doing a degree in Creative Writing, but for some reason I don't think what I write is good enough. Like most things in my life, I've never thought I was good enough.  Why is this do you think? Is it because of my child hood? Is it because a lot of my life I've taken things personally and felt put down by certain people who have come into my life? or maybe I don't feel my tutors give me enough or constructive feedback? I know on my course there are some very good writers who I feel intimidated by, not by them personally but by what they write!

I remember when I decided to start the course.  I'd been through a lot in my life over the last few years, illness, death, loss of friends and it really shook me up.  So, I decided I was going to do something for me, something I wanted to do.  So I found a course I was interested and found out when the open day was at the University and off I nervously trotted.  While I was on the bus I was getting more and more nervous.  What the hell am I doing I thought to myself,  45 and going to University to do a degree? I'll never be able to do it.  And that's my problem.  No confidence or belief in myself.  That's wrong.  I find myself now like I said procrastinating because of the confidence issue.  I need to get over it and get on with it.  Onwards and upwards they say.  Lets see what happens.  You never know until you try and if you never try you never know.  So get on with it!

Bye for now.

Mark

Procrastination

I've always been the worst at it. Procrastination. I'll do anything apart from what I'm supposed to be doing. My Uni work. I'm in my second year of a Creative writing degree and started it at the age of 45. I've never been a person who likes studying you can ask all my old teachers at school about that. I hated it, maybe for the fact that when I was at school they never made it fun to learn or maybe, I just wanted to mess around and didn't think it was going to do me any good in my life, or maybe it was the people I hung around with. I suppose the only person I can blame is myself. Just like now and getting my head into my degree, it's never to old to learn something people tell me just like people tell me it's one of the best things I've done for a long time. Life's to short and if I didn't do it then I'd regret it, this is true. I would regret it. Most of my life I've never finished anything properly. I've spent my life skimming through. Not really caring about what the future would bring.

Discipline is what I need to stop the procrastinating. I say to myself all every weekend. I'm going to spend a certain amount of time each day doing my assignments. I'm going to stay in the bedroom and do my work. It's not like it's a really hard degree. Or is it? All I have to do is use my creative and artistic mind and writing what comes into my mind (sometimes not a good thing if you know how my mind works!) But something always distracts me, facebook, twitter, iplayer. I'll do anything rather than do my work. My partner keeps coming upstairs and catching me watching something on youtube or posting something on my social networking sites! I get a disgruntled comment about getting on with my work. He's very focused on his and puts me to shame. You'd think that would push me to work harder but NO it doesn't. Well it does for a while and then I get distracted again. Procrastination. I'll get my stuff done. Another example writing this blog. Procrastination. I could be doing my work or getting my stuff done. At least writing this I'm doing something connected to the course I'm doing and actually writing, not watching Jeremy Kyle or Loose Women (although whilst doing this I'm watching Location Location Location).

Well that's said and done. Now I should get back to my work. After I've made something to eat and put out the laundry and done this and done that! Procrastination! Not good.

Bye for now.