friedandy

[friedandy]

And so 2021 rolls in...

#funny

[friedandy]

July.

Wk1.

It’s been an unbelievable year so far and it’s only stretched as far as July! I’m beyond any expectation and feel like I’m already full speed to somewhere – which sounds exciting for a 43 year old but the reality is destination unknown and I’m not strapped in!

Since I left hospital I have only come into contact with one person (other than Niall). It was six weeks after discharge and he was the radiologist at my x-ray appointment.

Apart from a couple of failed attempts to stand in the garden in the dead of night looking for satellites, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve physically left the house so my current mystery is where the hell this head cold came from! I’m streaming, living on a cocktail of cold and flu tablets and warm drinks and yet still it comes, never ending, this omnipresent torrent of wet.

I’m concerned it might be dairy related. I eat a lot of diary and I heard there is some truth in dairy affecting bunging you up. My mum used to make us avoid drinking milk as kids when we had a cough!

I was eating pizza last night when it kicked up a gear and I couldn’t breathe through my nose. It was a large pizza and I slept badly as a result.

I ate the two remaining slices this morning which on reflection is a double edged sword. I currently don’t regret the decision because who doesn’t love a couple of cold slices for breakfast? But I’m currently now sucking on a Jakemans just to clear my senses!

*homework: should you avoid dairy products when suffering from a cold?

**there is an element of truth to this! Milk is classed as an emulsion and when it mixes with saliva, droplets cluster together – the posh name for this is flocculation. So, although the mucus feels thicker when you drink milk, it’s not actually increasing the production of mucus. I’m probably going to listen to my mum on this one though. The feeling of thickening phlegm makes me dry heave just writing about it. Conclusion: mum knows best.  

#blog #content creation #friedandy #covid2019 #covidart #covidquarantine #creative #blogger #cold #cough #2020 #quarantine

[friedandy]

Spring Clean.

...there will be no fanfare, I'm just going to pinch my nose and dive back in. Hopefully the blog content will be bouyant enough to catch your attention and see me slowly gain your trust as a creator or reputable content rather than just plummeting to bottom of the deep end like one of those black rubber bricks.

*do those bricks still exist?

[friedandy]

February.

Cadbury’s Creme Eggs were on sale as soon as the Reindeers had bolted leaving no time for the festive dust to settle. I quite like them so I’m not too fazed although this year (like every year) I promised myself things would be different. If I was to have voiced my intentions (and if they were to have been believed) then I’d currently be tea total and burning off the calories at the gym since the turn of midnight on New Year’s Eve.

I tend to only think about resolutions on the run up to January. I made a list of realistic goals in late December when I realised I only needed to eat 363 apples within the space of two days to ensure that I kept last year’s resolution! I distinctly remembered having an apple in the summer – well, a few slices in a tall glass of Pimms which, when added together with all the others I consumed over the summer period, would have equated to full Golden Delicious. And then there was the morning after my birthday when my stomach let out a little cry for help and I gave in and fed it a Pink Lady and a Capri-sun to counteract the junk I'd filled it with the night before.

But I’m not going to kid myself this year. Like I said before, there is little to be gained from putting yourself under so much pressure. I know how this all works. And, to be honest, I know how I work. I sit here on the sofa at the beginning of January picking at the elastic waist band of my PJs while swiping though over saturated, over smiley, healthy faces in mid energetic bounce on the websites of the local gyms. I’ll way up the pros and cons and mainly the price and then take the plunge and join one. There will be an induction in which I’ll pretend to be a lot fitter than I really am, vomit in the shower and spend the rest of the week crying every time I attempt to bend down to take off my trousers. Once the pain wears off I’ll returned bright eyed and bushy tailed and I’ll be hard at it four days a week.

I’ll start wearing tracksuits around the house at weekends. I’ll be seen refusing crisps and chocolates and opting for a side salad rather than the chips. Then, as my friends begin to complain that they feel abandoned and my significant other pretends not to even notice I’m out most evenings, I’ll drop to just three days after work and pick up my social life again. Once I’ve let it slip to three it will soon just be two days with the justification that if I walk to the pub on Monday night I’m making up for the lost gym time. After several pints and a taxi home because it’s beyond arctic on Monday nights in February, I’ll catch man flu and that will render me helpless, confining me to my bed for a week and then, upon a miracle cure, I’ll flirt with just once a week to show my face and then hardly ever. And with the ‘hardly ever’ comes the sense of guilt and there is far too much effort involved in cancelling the membership so I’ll just monitor my bank statements as the gym keeps taking my money until out of pure shame, I cancel my standing order and cross the road so I don’t ever have to face to ‘welcome’ mat of Pro Gym ever again. Thanks but no thanks.

I'm already one step ahead of you.

I noticed Slimming World has popped a flyer through the door too. I have to admit, he (who sits at the other end of the sofa) managed to lose a staggering amount of weight on the Slimming World Plan. I joked that it was simply me getting bigger that made it look so impressive but when I suddenly got the look of pity or the ‘have you not thought about joining’ I realised that slimmers are part of some elite club (like teachers or Kardashians) that I’ll never understand. I applaud everybody who does it and can do it. In fact, I applaud anybody who can turn down a Cadbury’s Creme Egg and a cup of tea in favour of a glass of water and a handful of berries. Although I do have trust issues with anybody who cooks with Quark and claims to enjoy the taste!

So, as we settle in for another wet and blustery winter, I thank my lucky stars that even in the deepest of snow, I’m only a stone's throw away from Georges on the Parade and all that it has to offer the weary, hungry bear wanting nothing more than hibernation but irritating habits such as work and paying bills keep him from his slumber. I’ll tunnel there if I have to. I’ll clear a path from the front gate right up to the counter just so I can warm my hands on a chippy tea – not to be confused with fish and chips Mum! Oh no. I’ve learnt that since moving up here. I might not have been born within the sound of the Bow Bells but being raised by East Enders means a chippy meal is anything that includes chips. Sausage and chips, pie and chips, fish and chips, egg and chips, chips and chips. But when you drift north of the M25, things get lost in translation. My first chippy tea in Chester came in a plastic box and had noodles and egg fried rice. It was a baptism of fire but I soon got used to chippies selling everything from pizza and curries to baklava and egg foo young.

[friedandy]

Thread.

There’s a little black thread that I noticed one morning as I dressed for work. I caught sight of it in the glow of the early morning sun. It did not concern me and although this was the first time I had caught sight of it, I got the feeling that it had always been there. And so I dressed and continued on into the day.

There is no physical pain, no discharge nor scab at the point where the thread exits my body and it is not fixed. It can appear longer on some mornings and shorter on others. I can feel a release when the thread is at its longest, as if I am letting something go. But this release comes without relief and now I begin to worry what is coming undone inside. What seam is being unstitched and can it ever be repaired?

I am keen to protect the thread, now that I am aware that it catches and pulls on gravity of life and all that orbits around it. Illness and sickness and travel and distance and assessment and feedback and criticism and duty and care and the drag of being questioned: who are you? And when you answer, they reply: oh no. That’s not good enough. We expected more.

The thread has grown longer of late – longer than I have ever seen it. It wrapped itself around my feet, tripped me up and coloured me knees. I am coming undone.

Part of me wants to push it all back in. Be good enough to fit the mould. Be quiet. Sit still. Smile for the camera. Tie that thread into a bow. People have invested time and money and effort to get me to where I am today. I should be thankful for the opportunities but instead the age old questions prevailed. Where am I? Why am I here? Why am I not thankful?

With every stitch that pulls apart, the glow of my soul grows dimmer. My skin tires and hangs about me like an ill fitting suit that once belonged to somebody great. I am borrowing it. Feeding off what is left in the pockets and puffing out my chest to properly fill it but it is not mine. I am a mere hermit with a little black thread that is slowly turning out the light within.

[friedandy]

22

It’s never quiet. Not at any part of any day or night. Sometimes I believe the walls are as fragile as water stained magnolia eggshells. Paper thin. To drive in a nail would be sheer stupidity.  If I crack the protective layer that separates me from them, I’ll lose all sense of privacy for as much as it disturbs me to hear their elevated conversations and prolonged theatrical laughter or to be physically moved by their dramatic soundtracks that resonate though my entire home, to have them able to hear me existing in my private world would be raping me of my last ounce of escape. Because although I am locking myself in, bolting the doors and closing the curtains, I am escaping the endless world beyond. To be strapped in and yet to feel so free.

Today a sign went up for the world to see. We are nearing the end of chapter 22. An eight-yearlong read of such heady highs and even though my thread has caught on the sharp angles and doorframes at times, I wonder how much positivity, excitement and creativity has been absorbed into these walls. How much of me will continue to haunt this house when I am gone. Like the seductive waft of toast long after it has been consumed, I think I’ll unintentionally stick around.  

When the kitchen began to leak water from the bathroom above it, the walls began to shift. The skirting boards blew. The tiles began to lift and crack under the weight of the fridge and the stains ran down the walls like bars, either keeping me locked in or something else locked out.

The dining room soon followed suit and the plaster bubbled on the walls as if gently boiling. The single glazed, ill-fitting windows amplify the gulls lost en-route to the coast as they mocked us in our state of desperation.  They heard my exhausted promises that I’d not spend another Christmas in this house and watched as a myriad of dirtied professionals came in and one by one tore at my home. They ripped and scraped and splashed and soiled until it became somebody else’s house once again. Somebody else’s house full of unfinished jobs, holes and broken off-cuts nestling uncomfortably about my furniture. Finger prints on walls, splattered paint on glass, mismatched tiles and the steady drip drip drip of spring, summer, autumn and winter through the ceiling cracks.

We have loved it. And then when we fell out of love with it we tried to love it as best we could. But not now. We’ve had the rug torn from under our feet. The empty words of support and thanks and respect were all just lip service. Nobody is working to our timescales. We’re only important while our pieces fit into place. Now our pegs are squarer. The holes, rounder. It’s an uncomfortable fit.

There are still a few pages of this chapter that will shape and carry the plot but the outcome remains uncoiled: 22 will become somebody else’s chapter. Somebody else’s project. I just sincerely hope they like toast.

[friedandy]

Proud.

(written for M&S Bank “Moneybox” intranet - June 2017)

I don’t hold my Fiancé’s hand in public. I can’t argue that it’s because I’m not affectionate. I am. It’s even said I give good hug! When I greet friends in the street it’s usually with a hug. I am a hugger. But when it comes to he (who sits at the other end of the sofa) I walk alongside him at a respectful distance. When I meet him from work I still get butterflies. We say hello and ask how our days were and then we walk alongside each another at that respectful distance.  Not miles apart but not close enough for our hands to brush against each other. We don’t draw attention to ourselves. It’s as if I’m keeping him a secret – which couldn’t be further from the truth. I am immensely proud of him. He is the kindest person I have ever met. He is so clever. He is so engaging. He is also so clumsy and socially awkward at times. He laughs too loud, eats with his mouth open, and usually says the wrong things and I love him all the more for it. But I worry. I worry that people will take advantage of his gentle nature. I worry that by any public display of affection I’ll be endangering him. I’ll be making him a target of abuse that I can’t protect him from. I honestly feel to embrace him before he hops on a train to work would put him in danger. Who’s watching? Who’ll target him? And so I do what I can to protect him.

Every day I’m subconsciously adjusting to my surroundings. It’s a survival technique but not one that comes with a David Attenborough narrative. It’s simply how the majority of us who identify as LGBT live our lives. We just do it without giving it much thought. I attempt to be myself when I’m in a safe environment and attempt to blend in when I’m not. Even here at M&S Bank I’m second guessing reactions. We all work for a company that actively promotes diversity and inclusion but I still hear the odd: “Why’s everything got to be so LGBT? We get it. They don’t need to keep going on about it!”

I appreciate that by not knowing why it’s so important for M&S Bank to promote its LGBT colleagues it can come across as one too many rainbows. One too many acknowledgements in a Connect session. One too many awareness days in a D&I newsletter. “When are they going to drag out the unicorns?” But its vitally important for the company to make its LGBT support as visual as possible simply because it allows me and your other lesbian, gay, bi and trans colleagues to feel safe in our shared environment. These visual reminders are our protective shield. They allow us the same confidence within our roles as everybody else.

I’m proud to work for M&S Bank. And while M&S Bank encourages me to be my whole self at work and accepts me for who I am, it’s not universal. Once I squeeze out from those revolving doors at the end of the day I’m stepping out from behind my protective shield.

In many societies, being gay is condemned. People are punished, tortured and banished from their communities because of whom they love.  In more than 70 countries, being gay is still illegal. Only 50 years ago it was illegal here too.  The Stonewall Riots of June 1969 are considered to be one of the most important events leading up to the gay rights movement. Pride marches are now held to commemorate the impact of those riots across the world. The UK has come a long way in terms of tolerance and unity but it’s been a tough road and there is still so much we need to achieve.

M&S Bank recognises this and has once again extended its support by sponsoring the Main Stage at Chester Pride. It’s a powerful statement that the bank openly supports its LGBT employees and the community as a whole.

Pride is a testament to those who fought for our rights and for those who continue to do so. The heart of the city beats a little faster during Chester Pride. It’s huge, it’s colourful and it’s here on 19 August. It’s a celebration of how far we have come, how much has changed, and how strong we are.

It allows me to be part of a majority for a day. It also allows me to hold my fiancé’s hand in our home town. It’s the warmth of a community that accepts everybody for who they really are.

I’ve smashed the acronym LGBT throughout this blog but please know that Pride is not just for those identifying as LGBT. It’s for all of us. I’d absolutely love for you to show your support and get involved.  I’m hoping to be part of the parade on August 19th but M&S Bank are also looking for marshals to ensure the day is a huge success. You can cash in your CSR day and, because Pride is on a Saturday, you can claim back a day off during the week. And if that’s not enough to tempt, you could even rub shoulders with such musical greats as B*Witched and Sonia. How can you say no to that? If you’ve already got you CSR day booked for something else, come along for a few hours anyway. Come and watch the parade. Come and be proud of the difference you make every day. Be proud of your work family. Be proud of your community.  

#pride #M&Sbank #friedandy #blog #chesterpride #chester

[friedandy]

Mother’s Pride.

I’m not a high achiever - my greatest feats were sewn onto my swimming trunks - but this weekend my mum told me she was proud of me. That’s the greatest thing I’ll take from Chester Pride.