As The Year Ends..............

It's always good too look back over the past year and reflect - oh bollocks ........ I've not got time, so here are 3 random pictures of me with "things". !st in bed with Eeyore, then outside with Dr Who's Tardis and finally looking all Scissor Sister's like with Fozzie the Muppet bear!
Now use your imagination and think about what sort of fun year its been!"

Christmas - highs and lows

Those that know me, know I don't actually "do" Christmas - which can be really hard when EVERYONE around you celebrates it.

The highs included not having to rush around town buying the wrong sort of presents in crowded shops or sitting with relatives you don't like etc but apart from my Bah Humbug attitude, Christmas also has other highs. It is a time of year where most people are more friendlier and giving. This year it was good to spend time with my friends and be part of their Christmas, even if I don't celebrate it myself! Whether it's family or friends, being with people you care about is always uplifting.

The lows included just one noticeable point - I saw my older brother, whom I have finally got closer to after all these years. Yet the pressure of Christmas and not seeing his daughter for 11 years quickly led to depression (alcohol didn't help).To cut a long story short - he tried to end his life by driving his car into a barrier because of how he felt.

Christmas can be a beautiful time of the year for people with loving strong families or with religious convictions but for many, it can be a hard time of the year. For those who live alone or have lost a loved one or go into debt to pay for the presents. Seeing family or friends or giving gifts need not be limited to just one day of the year.

May each of us surprise someone we know in 2006 by doing an act of kindness - whether it be a phone call or a visit or a little present to show we love them on a day they least expect it!

Coventry At Night

Taken with my phone, the two pictures above show some of the unusual lights in my city. The picture on the left is the water fountains opposite the Cathedral that are lit up. The picture on the right is the fantastic "Coventry Transport Museum". On the ground are unusual lights that tell the time around the world and above is the lovely lit bridge over Millennium Place.

See............... Coventry is not all bad!

My Top 5 Singles (this week)

1. James Blunt - "Goodbye My Lover"
2. Girls Aloud - "See The Day"
3. Nizlopi - "JCB Song"
4. Pussycat Dolls - "Stickwithu"
5. Sugababes - "Ugly"

Some great songs out at the moment and all 5 songs are pretty mellow and I love all 5 of them soooooooooooo much. I'm going into HMV tomorrow to buy Girls Aloud - I just wonder what other single/s I will be buying?! I'll let you know.

Wonder if Nizlopi (local lads from Leamington Spa!) will hold on to the top spot and get the Christmas #1, I hope so.

Tired..........

Damn you all for posting so many Christmas cards and presents LOL, I just spent 12 hours sorting endlessly packet after packet all in aid of getting them to their destination asap.
No late night for me - I'm back up @3:40 to work my day off so I can get buy some nice things in the January sales when they come, since I don't actually celebrate Christmas!

Deal or No Deal

I love "Deal or No Deal" on Channel 4 everyday @16:15 - this is the only TV programme I will lose sleep for every afternoon. I never liked Noel Edmonds before this but on this programme he's great. Seems that the viewers are loving it as well as this is fast becoming Channel 4's top rated daily programme with 3 million per show - not bad for such an early programme. Imagine if it went peak time viewing!

I love the roller coaster ride with each show as they try and win the £250,000 top prize and avoid the 1p, the added bonus is that there are no questions so even thicko's like me can join in!

Another Funny Email

A teacher asks her class, "If there are 5 birds sitting on afence and you shoot one of them, how many will be left?" She calls on little TONY. He replies, "None, they will all fly awaywith the first gunshot."

The teacher replies, "The correct answer is 4, but I like your thinking."

Then little TONY says, "I have a question for YOU.
There are 3 women sitting on a bench having ice cream: One is delicately licking the sides of the triple scoop of ice cream. The second is gobbling down the top and sucking the cone. The third is biting off the top of the ice cream.
Which one is married?"
The teacher, blushing a great deal, replied, "Well, I suppose the one that's gobbled down the top and sucked the cone."
To which Little TONY replied, "The correct answer is "the one with the wedding ring on," but I like your thinking."

Thanks Daz!

Shredded Wheat

I hate Shredded Wheat and that is now official!!

Recently I thought I would try them since they were on special offer and looked quite a healthy purchase. I opened them two days ago and noticed they come in sealed packs of three, just a con to make us eat three not two I thought but still opened them and put them in my bowl.

That's when the fun began - you try eating 3 of them in a normal bowl! The sugar falls off them and the milk goes everywhere. Next time I'll buy the bite size pack.

It's Saturday night and I'm staying in - shock horror ................. Well I am going to be doing overtime @05:45 so need to be up early.

Inside Royal Mail

Due to the secrecy act I 'm not about to reveal any insider information about my work but what I can tell you is - it's jolly busy as I'm stuck indoors for the two week Christmas period sorting the millions of letters that are making their way through the largest sorting office in the UK where I work.

Normally I am doing lots of overtime, yet this week has been just like any other as during the final month of the Royal Mail monopoly budgets and cutbacks remain the focus. In fact I'm normally out delivering the mail not sorting it, but since going back to Royal Mail earlier this year, I've had to settle for being the bottom of the ladder - which means I have to do whatever job they throw my way!

Oh I'm rambling on so it's time to get my finger out and get my sorting head on and send those Christmas cards to the right part of the world!

P.S. - Loved the artist stamp above - maybe it reflects what working next to me can be like when I fart!

Brighton Picture Update

As you can see above, we didn't get out and about to see the sights in Brighton this time around - it was one hell of a lazy week but helped along by lots of alcohol and a crazy mix of student life.
Picture 1 is of Alex and I ,just before going clubbing and picture 2 shows us the day after!
Picture 3 was taken late at night, watching TV with the headphones on cos Alex and Helen were working hard on an essay.
Picture 4 was me cuddled up with our adopted baby "Eyore" and the final picture was just me poseing for the sake of it.

I'm just so happy things turned out well in Brighton and everything is back to normal. Life without Alex was just ordinary, life with Alex is extraordinary!

New Pics.........

I'm too tired tonight to post the new pictures taken during my week in Brighton, not that we went out much in daylight!

I'll post the pictures asap.

Re-union Night

It was a special night tonight in this double re-union. First of all it's the first public picture of Alex and I since the break-up/make-up (.......Just when you think of the word "never" something happens to spoil it ......... Thankfully this time!) and secondly it was the re-union of Bananadrama.
(see: http://robmacca.blogspot.com/2005/09/bananadrama.html )
I'm not a birthday sort of person, but it was Norman's 21st and both of us value Norman as a good friend who has been loyal, so we gladly took the 2hr 45 min journey to join in the fun on his special night.
The picture above says it all really - he's as mad as ever and totally enjoying life. Loved the live band and enjoyed having a bop - so thanks for another Bananadrama moment worth remembering.

Thanks Norman.

Love Update

After travelling about 160 miles to get to Brighton, I had the dilema of how it would all work out. Alex didn't know I would be arriving to sort things out. I didn't know if we would even work things out!
It was now 18:30 on the Saturday and I text Alex to find out what he was doing etc............... but I didn't get a reply and I was already outside his Uni campus building. I was going to say in my next text that we needed to talk and then tell him I was outside - but because I'd not had a reply to my first text I couldn't do that. I sat for 30 mins just waiting for a reply, then - to my surprise Alex walked past with his friend. I waved and he just waved back and carried on. It turns out he hadn't recognised me.
1. It was dark
2. I had a hat on
3. He wasn't expecting it to be me.

Now I was worried he was ignoring me so I rang his mobile and said "Don't say hello then" and said I was there. "Where?" replied Alex "behind you on the floor you fool!"
He looked behind and suddenly clicked it had been me waving and he came running towards me.

Travelling half way across the country for a face to face talk to iron out our problems worked. Swollowing my stubborn pride and Alex being totally honest paid off - it was not time to end something so special so soon.

Love really can screw us up and it can also make us do things we wouldn't normally do but at the end of the day, if love is true then it will endure along the lines of 1Corinthians 13...................

(Get your Bibles out and read that fantastic chapter sometime!)


Anyway, I'm here in Brighton until Sunday and I'm glad the love we had has been ressurected and brought back to life - hopefully we will both learn something from this hurdle we have had to get over.

Dramatic Choice

This weekend I made a choice I would not normally make - I gave someone a second chance!

Regular visitors to my Blog will know that two weeks ago, a relationship ended that hurt me inside. My normal course of action in such events is just to cut that hurt out and not let it affect my day to day life. Indeed - I was doing quite well, still socialising and getting on with life without this person.
Yet everytime I recieved a text message on my phone, my hopes lifted - somehow hoping it was from a certain someone. But even when it was, I would throw the phone on the bed and huff , then not reply!
After getting a few text messages at the latter part of last week, I unblocked that person from my MSN and had a real long chat. We were able to talk and try and get to he bottom of things, explaining how we we'd both been feeling over the past two weeks.

I was now faced with a difficult choice - do I keep that person cut out of my life forever or do I make a dramatic move and change the situation?

I was originally going to stay with them this coming week (until we split up of course!) , but now I had made alot of alternative plans to do things with friends throughout the week. My discision to take that 6 hour journey and sort things out face to face, meant I'd have to cancel all my plans for the week with my friends in favour of trying to sort things out with the one person who made me so happy inside.

I was also taking the biggest risk of my life - they didn't know I was about to turn up outside their Uni room, so I could have a nasty surprise or fallen flat on my face. But this was a risk I was willing to take because I knew I couldn't just throw it all away as easily as I had been prepared to.

Like I said, I have had to cut people off in the past in order to survive and remain strong - yet now I was doing something totally different - I was going to see if I could bring something back to life. I thought I had buried the relationship only days before, now I was going to see if we both really wanted it to really die or had we made a terible mistake?

More updates to follow...............................

Decision Time

As if the drama of the past 2 weeks haven't been enough to keep me busy - I've got some important choices/decisions to make and I need to make them very soon.
I can't go into detail yet, but watch this space as all will be revealed.

Oh man, why can't life just be simple!

Rubber rings and Arm bands!

Maybe my last posting could be taken the wrong way, and I hope it hasn't been offensive to those that are my friends.

So to counter balance the thought of "those that say one thing but do another", I would like to take this time again to thank the many people who have text me too many to list), phoned me (special thanks to Catherine and Peter calling today from Melbourne - you crazy lovely drunks!), emailed me and personally offered me support when I needed it.

Some only know me from my online presence (robmacca/robbie), some may know me out and about in my day to day life (a hug makes a big difference) and some, have stuck by me through the years. Yet at a time I could easily have such down into a depression, you have all been like the rubber ring that has kept me afloat. In so many simple ways people's actions have stopped anger/hatred getting hold of me and causing me to cut myself off from the world and drowning in a pool of sadness.
My friends have also been like arm bands, either side of me supporting me when I have felt weak and vulnerable. Each day I face the waters of life that threaten to wash over me and cause me to splutter, yet knowing the network of people who are in my life - I can face that daily challenge.

What goes on inside a person's head is a very complex matter as we all deal with situations differently. My years at church taught me many good lessons for life and helped me to try and turn bad situations into good.

So instead of being bitter, I can be a better person.

What Lies Beneath

No, not the movie but what really lies beneath the surface when a person says something.

I think I'm fairly well known for my lack of trust in my fellow human beings, and I still maintain that to be true - simply because I understand (partly) how the human mind works.

People often say one thing and do another, or may use a well known expression (such as "I love You") but beneath the surface lies a totally different story. This is where we can get sucked into believeing a "lie" , some intentional some unintentional of course. Many times we are told what we want/need to hear but in time the evidence becomes clear that beneath the surface is another agenda at work.

We are all guilty of saying things we dont mean or promises we can't keep but "time" provides us with the answers to those questions that puzzle us.