Mahinda’s Little World

Well, perhaps it wasn’t so much of an adventure, as a holiday comprising three distinct parts:

• Phase 1 — week in/around KL, building up to Michael and Corrine’s wedding
• Phase 2 — four days in Bangkok, visiting LizzieWizzieWoo
• Phase 3 — family weekend Fraser’s Hill and then off to the jungle

The catalyst for all these things was Michael’s wedding. Having grown up a stone’s throw from me (well, quite a hefty stone’s throw, but Radlett to Potter’s Bar isn’t exactly far), he’s ended up marrying a girl who comes from fairly close to half my family (my mother’s side being mostly based around KL).

For the uninitiated, KL = Kuala Lumpur = the capital of Malaysia. Fancy not knowing that!

Anyway, having not been to Malaysia since 2001 (yes, really), I thought I’d better make a decent trip of it — it even fell enticingly between work projects, so getting 3 weeks off was possible, rather than highly unlikely. I’d also become somewhat embarrassed with my British friends (Helen included) knowing more about Malaysia than I did, having actually travelled around the place…rather than just spending time with relatives and/or being driven places…which is of course no way to get to know a place.

I wanted to "get my head round" peninsular Malaysia. Sure, I knew my Butterworth from my Malacca/Melaka, but I wanted to have some idea how long it took to get from west coast to east coast, what the rail services were like, where the sights were, and so on. I also wanted to form a proper mental map of KL — for too long, it had just been some sort of huge black box containing shopping malls, Chinatown and the Petronas Towers, with no indication of where all those things were.

The same went for Bangkok — last time I was there, it was 1988 and I was ten years old. I remember a single motel room that we got using some connection of my dad’s — the family was pretty skint at the time. I remember the motel being on a long hot road, and the room itself being mirrored on all four walls. Possibly the ceiling too. Oh.

What better way to resurrect this blog than to tell you about my first "big" holiday for a few years?

Well, there is one better way. I could tell you about my first girlfriend for a few years! I’ve been seeing Helen since July, after Bex played Cilla using the medium of drunken txt msging. We’re really rather good together, in that we tend to like the same stuff and have some definite similarities in personality and outlook. It’s all been rather too smooth, if anything – I once summed it up as a "relationship in comfortable shoes". We’re both in our thirties, we’ve both been around a bit and, before Bex/Cilla (Bexilla?) came along, we’d both been fairly settled into the single life!

There are plenty of pictures on Facebook. I might dig one out for the blog at some point. Sod it, here goes:

Helen, Linden and me at Pete and Sarah’s wedding. We might be a little bit tipsy.
Except Linden, who as usual remained sober all night.

So, back to the holiday. Well, not quite. There have been quite a few more weddings since I last blogged, including two where I had the pleasure of ushering. At the first of these, Andrea and Ed’s, I drunkenly ran a long-term "when’s the baby due" sweep, and said I’d put the times on here. So, here goes:

11 months – Rob
12 months – Vicky
13 months – Jo
14 months – John
15 months – Julia
16 months – Tim
17 months – Alison
18 months – George (best man)
19 months – Ian
20 months – Louise
21 months – Claire C
21 months – Tom (oops)
22 months – Joan
23 months – Dan, or possibly Dara, but it looks more like Dam
24 months – Me
25 months – Caro
26 months – Colin
27 months – Catherine
28 months – Trudi (I think)
29 months – Rich
30 months – Shifty
31 months – Ed (groom)
32 months – Amy
36 months – Rick
36 months – June (oops again)
37 months – Joe
9 YEARS – May (which is looking increasingly like the winner)

I’m not sure about some of those names, and don’t even know who half of those people are. I think there might even have been a phone entry, too.

When was the wedding? I’m not sure, but June 2008 sounds familiar…checking emails, it was June 7th. That makes it 18 months ago, which rules out half the participants, possibly two thirds!

So, my recent exotic holiday. Tell you what…I’ll write about it soon

Pete, one of my workmates, mentioned a few months ago that he’d had a look at my blog for the first time in a while, and seen my last post. If he couldn’t see me sat a few desks away, he’d have been worried that I’d topped myself.

Indeed, it does read that way! I should let you all know that I aten’t dead yet, by means fair or foul. I won’t pretend that it’s all roses and sunshine, especially at work and certainly with the family, but I’d say that, on a purely personal note, I’m fairly happy. Which is nice.

The build-up to Christmas starts here…

Work sucks. In 9 years at the same workplace, I’ve been through some pretty tough times. Working weekends during a gloriously hot summer. Shedloads of unpaid overtime to make departmental ends meet. Two rounds of redundancies, and then being issued with the dreaded "at risk" notice myself. Watching countless friends head out the door, either pushed or of their own free will, fed up either way. But it’s never been quite as bad as it is now. Even "the afternoon of the phone calls" wasn’t this bad. And that was bad, believe me.

So it’s been a tough week. And it’s going to get worse in the morning. I have absolutely no idea what Thursday and Friday will be like.

To make things worse, my somewhat dysfunctional family is imploding. Again. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t two hundred miles away…while at the same time wishing it was more like two thousand.

Sports. Well, my hockey team is losing, and losing, and losing again. My shooting’s been rubbish (nothing new there), and I’m falling out of love with the sport. I’ve also had a bit of hassle due to an attempted break-in at the rifle club. Which I discovered on Saturday.

I don’t seem to have the time to go out for relaxed non-structured non-mad nights out. Maybe I bring it on to myself? There’s no maybe about it. I just miss heading out for a drink at the local with a mate or two. How come I used to be able to do that two or three times a week?

Sometimes I just want to curl up into a ball and hide away from the world. Rather than whizzing around at a hundred miles per hour while keeping completely still. When people ask me what I’ve been up to, I’m finding it difficult to come up with anything remotely interesting.

It may sound strange, but in the last few years I’ve come to understand why recluses and hermits do it.

Ho ****ing ho.

While searching through old emails for the Maria story, I also came up with this one…

Unusually, this story starts while I’m sober, and ends the same way. I was dropping some borrowed books off at Rosy’s place. He wasn’t in, so they went in the paper recycling bin with a txt sent to Rosy telling him where they were.

As I first drove to the house, there was an old man on the other side of the street with lots of shopping bags, who thought I was a taxi. I told him I wasn’t, and dumped the books.

I went back to the car to find that the chap had crossed the road, in prime position to beg me for a lift home, just up Yew Tree Road. He was harmless enough, just a bit doddery and drunk. And Irish. Something of a stereotype, to be honest. He also looked absolutely freezing, it looked as though it might start raining, and I had nowhere else to be…so I thought I’d do a good deed for once.

I was Oliver’s new best friend, it turned out. He was most persuasive about this. I concentrated on trying to pick the valid directions out of his stream of consciousness.

So I drove him down to what turned out to be a little close just opposite the Man City training complex, and helped him with his bags — he was spilling turnips everywhere. When I realised that his place was just off the close, I decided that I should probably lock the car up. In the badlands and all that

So I locked the passenger side door…and realised just as it slammed shut it that my car’s dodgy central locking had decided to work for a change…and lock the driver’s door too. I was locked out of my car, with the engine on and my phone in the door pocket.

BUGGER.

No really. BUGGER.

I helped Oliver home with his bags, and asked if he had a phone — my plan was to phone home and see if I could get Housemate Andy round to pick me up so I could find my spare keys. Oliver couldn’t find his mobile, which I figure was probably just in a different pocket. No matter — he took me round to a neighbour’s place…who looked at us suspiciously and told us that she had no credit. At this point, I was thinking of running home anyway…but there was another neightbour to try. "Lovely girl, I’m sure she’ll help" slurred Oliver.

Like this one but smaller

Knocked on the door at no.4. A miniature Cyberman stared back at us through the window. Not a bad little costume, to be honest. Eventually, the door was opened by a rather attractive brunette.

"Is yer mother in?" asks my erstwhile companion, "this chap’s lost ‘is phone".

"I am the mother" she replies, looking less than impressed.

I shushed him and explained what had actually happened, and Emma (for that be her name) let me use her phone. Turns out Oliver was trying to get hold of the (older) woman in the flat above. Close enough, anyway.

No answer. All other useful numbers were in my phone.

Oliver wasn’t helping — he’d gone into "manic but well-meaning mode" if you see what I mean, where someone’s drunkenly trying to help but really isn’t.

I ushered him home, told him to get some rest, and asked Emma if she’d mind keeping an eye on the car. I then started running the two miles back home. Got to Wilbraham Road…and realised that leaving my car with its engine running, in Rusholme west of the Wilmslow Road, for at least 40 minutes, was not a great idea.

It’s at this point that I realised that I was an RAC member, and they do things like that…so I ran back to Emma’s and asked her if I could use her phone again, this time for an 0800 number. The RAC said they’d be 45 minutes, so she invited me in and we sat there chatting for a while. It was her son’s 5th birthday, hence the Cyberman suit, and we mostly talked about spiders. She made me a cup of tea.

Eventually, RAC bloke got there, laughed at me, poked a metal rod in between door and frame, and pressed the button to wind down the window. Job done. It took all of five minutes.

Well, they say one good turn deserves another…which sort of applied. I’d much rather not have needed to cash it in so soon, though!

Apologies if you’ve heard this one about four times already, but I’ve decided that it NEEDS to be blogged!

So, it’s last November (scary, huh?) and I’ve been out for drinks with the hockey lot. Started in Didsbury and ended at Friday’s Discotheque. Oh dear.

It was dire, and there were fights. I got the drunk bus back home up Palatine Road, somewhat inebriated.At this point, it must be nigh on 3 o’clock on Friday night. I get off the bus and navigate the twists and turns between the stop and Tenby Towers. As I passed the bins halfway down Croma Ave (or is it Redcar? I can never remember), I heard a noise. I looked round.

It was nothing like this…

Imagine if you will a scene straight out of 1950s film noir. It’s a moonlit night, with a chill mist in the air. The panama-hatted gentleman, cigarette in mouth, catches the eye of the fur-coated lady who’d dropped her purse. He bends down to pick it up. She bends down too. Their hands meet. She drops her cigarette as he casts his away. The chemistry is instant…

It was absolutely, categorically, nothing like that.

Instead, there was a pretty blonde girl sprawled across the kerb. She’d come a cropper on the cobbles and toppled off her heels, hitting a wheelie-bin on the way down. Classy.

Santa was clearly a month early, but how did he know? And where was the brunette?

So I picked her up, dusted her off and walked her home, all the way to the end of my street. About 30 yards from my place. I helped the girl open her front door and she invited me in so I could write down my number. Which I did, before staggering home and collapsing into bed.

…or this — I just like the photo!

On Saturday afternoon, just before my hockey match, I got a txt:

"Thanks for walking me home. Did you say something about a party? Love M x"

This confused me for a moment, as I’d completely forgotten about the incident. But then I remembered! I’d picked up a pretty blonde!

So, the party. We were hosting a MUGSS pre-show party that evening, and I’d told the girl to bring herself plus housemates.

But I still couldn’t remember her name. Mary? Marie? Melanie? I ruminated on it through the match, without reaching a satisfactory conclusion. Margaret? Madeline? Mandy?

"By the way, my name’s Maria."

Ah yes, that’s it. I’d met a girl named Maria.

So, fast forward a few hours. I’m in the kitchen topping up the punch bucket, when a pretty blonde storms in, asking "Did anyone here walk me home last night?"…yep, she had absolutely no idea what I looked like! Turns out she’d been let in by a housemate and had already asked everyone in the living room.

I say hello, she looks confused, so I give her some punch. Her two housemates, Tom and Fernanda, are standing behind her looking highly amused.

So, a bit later, I asked them what was so funny. Well…

They told me that they’d asked Maria about this random bloke she’d brought back last night. She’d told them that she couldn’t remember much about me. I was, apparently, very English, which seemed odd with a name like Mahinda…quite tall…and definitely, absolutely, positively…blond.

Yes, blond. The one thing she remembered about me was my flowing blond locks.

Exactly how drunk do you have to be to think I’m a blond white guy?!

For a while there was a bit of socialising with the bunch from Maria’s household — like us, it’s a 5-person shared house. However, that’s tailed off, and she’s moved out, in with my mate Matt…but that’s another story. And not really mine to tell.

Thought not. This blog’s been quieter than a good small yappy dog. If you believe that the only ‘good’ small yappy dog is a dead one.

*sigh*

Times have changed. I just can’t be arsed to type things out at lunchtime. I’ve not been reading other people’s blogs, and neither have I contributed to my own. A sad state of affairs.

I had a conversation in the kitchen at work with Pete, a former workmate who’s returned in his capacity as a contractor. He has many pictures of birds.  Anyway, he asked whether I was still blogging — apparently he’d been reading these very pages, having been forwarded the URL by someone else I didn’t realise was watching! So I’ve decided that I really should write something.

Plus, it’s been a really boring afternoon and I’m feeling slightly ill.

So what have I been up to?

Weddings, of course. And sports. Not as many beer festivals as usual, or trips away — my glamour trip this year was to Luxembourg. I’m definitely slowing down in my old age!

I’ve got a couple of stories — most of my friends have been well and truly bored of them by now, but perhaps those readers further afield might find them entertaining.

Guess I’ll start with one of the stories…

It’s been a looooooooong time since I last blogged, and boy have I picked up some stories since then! I’ve just blogged my tale from last night, but there’s plenty more where that came from.

I’ve been called blond, and white, and obese. All in the space of five days.

I’ve been to Rome…and the sprawling metropolis that is Leeds.

There have been a couple more weddings, obviously. And a couple more to come. I even even wore a kilt. And no, I’m not going to dignify _that_ question with a response!

Unfortuantely, while the three months either side of today will have featured four weddings…it’s also featured a funeral of Aunty Hosana, someone who’d been very close to me when I was growing up. I’m not going to report on the funeral, but I’ve reminisced before about what she meant to me.

Continuing the sad theme, I’ve still not found love, so there’s no gossip for all you vultures out there. Well, there is gossip, but nothing of the positive variety…and I’m not going to go round blogging about it for a change.

On a lighter note, I’ve turned 30. Yes, I feel suitably old. 

Lastly, I’ve just been promoted, but not to the job I’d applied for. It’s weird — I’ve had four job titles in my 8-year odyssey at [company name withheld], and only one of them was a job I’d actually gone for.

I’ve not blogged for bloody ages!

Sorry folks, but it’s just kind of happened that way. I should get back into the habit — I’ve picked up a few good stories since I last wrote, anyway, and I’ll start with last night’s episode…

On the way home from work, I dropped some books and a shower head (don’t ask) off at Rosy’s place. As I left his house and headed back to the car, there was an old man on the street, with lots of shopping bags, who thought I was a taxi. I told him I wasn’t, and he begged me for a lift home, just on Yew Tree Road. He was harmless enough, just a bit doddery and drunk. And Irish.

The chap looked absolutely freezing, and I had nowhere else to be (for a change), so I thought I’d do a good deed.

He turned out to be called Oliver, and well into the "you’re my beshth friend" stage of drunkeness. 

So I drove him down to what turned out to be a little close just opposite the Man City training complex, and helped him with his bags — he was spilling turnips everywhere. When I realised that his place was just off the close, I decided that I should probably lock the car up. 

So I locked the passenger side door…and realised just as it slammed shut it that the central locking had decided to work for a change…and lock the driver’s door too. I was locked out of my car, with the engine on and my phone in the door pocket.

BUGGER.

I helped Oliver home with his bags, and asked if he had a phone — my plan was to phone home and see if I could get Housemate Andy round to pick me up so I could find my spare keys. Oliver couldn’t find his mobile, which I figure was probably just in a different pocket. No matter — he took me round to a neighbour’s place…who allegedly had no credit.

At this point, I was thinking of running home anyway…but there was another neightbour to try. "Lovely girl, I’m sure she’ll help" slurred Oliver.

We knocked on the door at no.4. A small child in a Cyberman costume stared back at us through the window. Eventually, the door was opened by a woman (a rather pretty brunette, as it happens) about my age.

"Is yer mother in?" asked my companion, "My friend here’s lost ‘is phone".

I shushed him and explained what had actually happened, and Emma (for that be her name) let me use her phone.

Turns out Oliver was trying to get hold of the (older) woman in the flat above. Close enough, anyway. 

So, the phone call home. No answer. All the other useful numbers were in my phone.

Oliver wasn’t helping — he’d gone into "manic but well-meaning mode" if you see what I mean, where someone’s drunkenly trying to help but really isn’t. I ushered him home, told him to get some rest, and asked Emma if she’d mind keeping an eye on the car. I then started running the two miles back home. Got to Wilbraham Road…and realised that leaving my car with its engine running, in Rusholme, for at least 40 minutes, was not a great idea.

It’s at this point that I realised that I’m an RAC member, and they do things like that…so I ran back to Emma’s and asked her if I could use her phone again, this time for an 0800 number. The RAC said they’d be 45 minutes, so she invited me in and we sat there chatting for a while. It was her son’s 5th birthday, and we talked mostly about spiders.

Eventually, RAC bloke got there, laughed at me, poked a metal rod in between door and frame, and pressed the button to wind down the window. Job done. 

Well, they say one good turn deserves another…which sort of applied. I’d much rather not have needed one myself, though!

Wow. Just…wow.

I didn’t expect it, but this ended up as one of my favourite holidays!

In terms of my holidays, this was notable for lots of things:

• Most expensive (ouch)
• Biggest group (27)
• Coolest locations (Kensington Oval, amongst others)
• Most sun, sea and sand (lots)
• Most rum consumed (shudder)
• Most sport played (several matches)

This is VERY belated blogging as it is, but never mind.

There are many many photos on Facebook — mine are here and here.

Basically, we played hockey, we drank, we ate, we partied, and some of us even explored a bit.

First, I’ll lift the two letters home I stuck on Facebook — those’ll give you a flavour of the first few days….

Letter from Barbados

I’m in Barbados. It’s ace!

For those that don’t know (and I’ve been insufferably smug about it all lately, so there won’t be many of you), I’m over here for a fortnight, for the Banks International Hockey Tournament. That’s as in Banks beer, the local brew, rather than any financial institutions. I’m there with Sale Hockey Club — there’s 27 of us, comprising one mixed team and some travelling support.

The opening ceremony was on Sunday, at the Kensington Oval — a VERY impressive ground…well, half of it, anyway. It’ll be even better once they build a couple more stands on the currently empty side of the ground.

We got to parade around the outfield, with music and stuff — I think there’s 24 clubs involved, local and international, with most teams from the UK and Barbados. There’s also some Trinidadians, Germans, Dutch and Americans.

Our first match was yesterday, against some Scottish uni OTC types. We expected to get a hammering, with the opposition’s army-style fitness destroying us in the tropical heat. Instead, we won 2-0, and it could have been 6-0. Bring on the locals later this afternoon!

Hurricane Dean just missed us — a few of our touring party were here last week, and they got to experience the winds and rain at its edge. Scary. It’s winding its way across the Caribbean at the moment, and was due to hit Category 5 the last I heard. For those that don’t know, that’s up there with Katrina. It just missed Jamaica yesterday, I think, and was due to hit the Caymans and then Cancun.

Hope you’re all having fun back in Blighty. I think I’ll head over to the beach for a quick swim before catching the minibus to this afternoon’s game. Come on in, the water’s lovely

More from the Caribbean

First game, on Monday — the aforementioned 2-0 win against the Scots, which we followed up with a 0-2 (I think) defeat at the hands of a local side. By way of celebration, we all got well and truly blasted on Tuesday night — a tenner for all-you-can-drink action, including Mount Gay XO rum. Mmmmm.

So, Wednesday morning came, and we had two games. The first was at the Banks Brewery ground, so featured a lovely smell of malt. Which really made the hangover pleasant. We got beaten, 0-3 or something, by a local team who were helped by some absolutely shocking umpiring — the other foreign teams report similar stories. They were the better team, though.

Later on in Wednesday, it was another forces team, from a British regiment currently serving in Germany. We beat them quite easily, 2-0 again I think.

Thursday was the big day — a 10 o’clock match at the Kensington Oval itself, against Maples, a club based near where we were staying. We lost. 1-7. Our goal game early, while their ‘keeper was stuck in traffic. Bugger.

Well, it’s certainly not the first time a touring English side have been utterly destroyed at the Kensington Oval.

More Hockey-related Stuff

So that’s all I got time to write on Facebook about it. And almost the end of the hockey bit. All that’s left is the finals day.

Unlike many of the other teams, we watched all the finals, getting royally drunk in the process and hurling abuse at the refs. The best match by far was the men’s final — Grasshoppers vs. Dominion, I think.

Grasshoppers were a Dutch touring side full of ex-internationals — they were absolute quality, and a good bunch of lads. They’d brought lots of equipment to give to local kids, and ran hockey workshops as well. The local lads, Dominion (I think) were very big, very fast, and very fit. It was a really tight match, destined for extra time…until Dominion got about three short corners in a row right at the end…they scored from the last to take the match

And that was that. In summary, the first week of the tour was bloody hard work. I think I enhanced my alcoholic reputation, but doing so almost killed me!

We partied more than just about any other team (but were robbed of the "best party team" prize thanks to not really doing the official socials), and had a great time.

That’s enough for now — I’ll tell you more about the rest of the holiday when I sit down to write Part II…