Train Station Friend!

I arrived at the train station an extremely damp Dalgleish after battling my way through the torrential rain, and winds that blew through Pontyclun. It was a freezing October morning, and my feet were already soaked through. Why I walked out the house wearing summer shoes I’ll never know, but it’s a mistake I won’t make again, as I had to sit through 14 hours in work with no shoes, and no way of drying them. Luckily enough a spare pair of slippers found their way to me so not all was lost!

            Like I said I walked into the shelter at the train station where a couple of people were huddled keeping warm. At half 6 in the morning the platform’s not really busy, so I walked to the farther end to stand alone. I’m not overly sociable during a large portion of the AM, and being wet as well was not adding to my mood. I was stood minding my own business listening to Nick Grimshaw on Radio1 who I love. He’s so much better than Chris Moyles it’s amazing! I feel like we’d be friends, maybe one day I can hang out with him and Harry of 1D fame?! Well a girl can dream.

            So as I was saying I was standing in the shelter when I was tapped on the leg by a man. I didn’t even realise he was sitting on the floor behind me. I jumped away ‘coz to be fair I S*** myself.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise I was stood in the way.” I said to the man sat on the ground that was either still drunk from the night before, or was still drinking.

“That’s okay” He slurred back. Are you on your way to work?”

Oh, Okay so this was going to be a conversation. He was homeless, it was cold and miserable so I though I’d chat. So we had a little convo about where I worked. It means an awful lot when a dirty, drunk man, dressed rather scruffily mocks you for working in a call centre. He had a sense of humour I guess, and I whole heartedly agreed with him! He seemed harmless enough, until the conversation deepened.

“You don’t really stand very high off the ground do you?”

I turned and looked at him, laughing.

“No I guess I don’t.”

He continued to look up at me not saying anything.

“I mean I’m serious, you’re a very little person aren’t you?”

I smiled back at him, what was this obsession he seemed to have with my height? I never even knew I was that short, I always thought I was just a little below average. It wasn’t like I was Thumbelina or anything. I’m like 5ft1. He continued to stare at me, and my smile began to fade as I waited for the train. I looked around trying not to make eye contact as I turned my radio back on and slightly turned away. I wasn’t going to be rude, even if this was getting a little creepy.

            Without me realising he had stood up and positioned himself right next to me. I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye, and nervously started laughing to myself because he was literally inches from my face. I was getting nervous now and he was getting friendlier.

“When I stand up, your even smaller.” I didn’t really feel clever enough to point out to him that this fact was obvious, it’s all just physics! Thank God I could see the train coming as well. I was ready to wrap up this brief encounter before my new boyfriend! I turned to say bye. As I did he was right in my face, literally centimetres from nose. He looked at me dead in the eyes.

“You are so little I could carry you around in a box, or a small container.”

On that note I thought it best to leave with my life in tact. It’s safe to say that I learned my lesson for taking public transport. Back to the car for me I think!

We Don't Say Hello

It meant more to me, Than it meant to you.

A few times a week, You seemed so true.

I walk past you often, Watch  you as you go.

Has anyone wondered, we don’t say hello.

I catch you looking at me with a cheeky smile,

Don’t know what you’re thinking, you play like a child.

We look away quickly so no one will know,

Hoping no one has noticed we don’t say hello.

My only exception to the one major rule,

Not knowing what to think, always feeling a fool.

A welcome distraction from what I know,

And nobody’s questioning why we don’t say hello.

Our time was done before it began,

And You always had me in the palm of your hand.

No more looking or touching it’s time for you to know,

I never understood why you didn’t say hello.

But I’ll think of you fondly in years to come,

Your piercing blue eyes,

Your cheeky nice bum.

I’ll stop looking so down, my feelings I don’t show,

I think someone has noticed we never did say hello.

Moved on, long gone, your ghost hangs around,

I see you in different places all around town.

Never to see you again, flown away like the crow,

Can’t say goodbye when we never even said hello.

Please Don't Call Me a CU*T!!!

This is a desperate plea on behalf of everyone who works in a call centre!

Stop being mean!

It was only when I started working in call centre that I became aware how completely involved in our own lives we can be, and just how stressed out we can get about little things. It’s fair enough we’ve all got a lot on, and we all deal with different stressed and different situations every day, the only difference is that some people can deal with it, and other people lash out about it. We’re used to having everything right now, everything is built around speed. How fast we can have it, and if we can’t get it fast do we even want it? There’s fast food, fast cars, next day delivery, which now seems a bit slow because we can get in day delivery now. We are all impatient assholes and I now have to listen to this everyday as part of my job. My job is to take shit off other people, and sometimes this makes me sad.  We don’t even take the time to think about what we’re saying to other people, or how it can affect their day. I mean I get it, in our own little worlds we are important but look at the grand scheme of things and our problems can be insignificant.

                I’m actually writing this while a guy is ranting in my ear. I literally cannot get a word in because he’s so angry he has barely taken a breathe. I haven’t said two words to him, and he’s already called me a C**T. I’m still just sitting here listening to him. I mean why is he so angry, it couldn’t be just that he’s having issues with his heating or anything, he couldn’t possibly be this irate. He hasn’t had any contact with us before so it’s not that we’ve pissed him off before. I want to actually interrupt him and say “Woah now, seriously mate, what’s happened today? What else has happened apart from you heating not working that’s got you so mad? Did you walk in on your best friend balling your MRS, and then you realised the heating had gone off as well and that was the last straw?”

                It’s horrible being called names by someone who doesn’t even know you. I’m not saying I’m going to break down and cry or anything but when you can’t even speak to sort out a problem there’s not much you can do. I know it’s crap when things aren’t going your way, and I’ve been on the other side where I’ve been the one mouthing off to someone on the other end of the phone because stuff hasn’t gone my way. So I kind of understand this guy a little bit, but having been on the receiving end of this barrage of abuse I can see the error of my ways...........oh he stopped talking!

Okay so I managed to calm him down and sort stuff out for him, and even though he apologised for calling me and you know what, he still preceded to tell me what a heartless slag I was, to be fair though if you begin with C**T that’s a step in the right direction. This was a case that I was always going to fail at though because he just wanted to take it out on someone, and it happened to be me. Pause for sad face and tiny violins playing the saddest song for me! I mean take some time to think. Let’s just all try and step out of our own lives and help someone else, and really think about how the things we do and say can really affect someone else. We may not even know it but we could have seriously affected someone’s life with a word or a gesture.

                So just remember the next time your screaming down the phone at someone, that there is a person on the other end, and it’s a person with feelings that you could be hurting. Also the likely hood is that we’ve put you on mute and are really taking the piss out of you to dozens of people around us J

Actually Taking Candy from a Baby

I was sitting down watching a bit of This Morning the other day. Yes I love me a bit of daytime tele action, especially with Holly and Phil. I guarantee there’s not one person in the world that hasn’t imagined themselves in a Holly/Phillip sandwich. Anyway a story popped up that really shocked me. It was about a man who had stolen an IPhone out of the hands of a 1 year old baby as she sat in her stroller while her mother was distracted in a shopping store. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when they showed the footage. As plain as day he’s casing the pram and waiting for the Mum to turn away. I mean what kind of people are in the world that they think this kind of behaviour is acceptable; I’m not being naive or anything I mean he obviously has little morals to be stealing anyway, but to actually steal out of the hands of a child. It takes the phrase “taking candy from a baby” to a whole new level. It’s strange that it’s now evolved to become “taking a Smartphone from a baby”, but that’s just a sign of the times as my Gran would say.

What has happened to some people in their life to think that this is okay? There seems to be little community spirit anymore. We went through a really lovely Olympic British summer where we were reminded of “the good old days”, and people started to care about their neighbour again, and then something like this happens, and it just reminds you of the people that are walking around this place.

                If that wasn’t bad enough to make you think what the world has come to then this will. My cousin Michelle has a little boy who’s Birthday Party it is this weekend. So mid week she goes shopping for stuff for the party, and all he wants in the world for his party is a Spiderman cake. Fair enough right, he’s a boy, he wants a cake for his B’day and Spiderman is awesome, good on the little lad, he’s not asking for much. The thing is, it became apparent to Michelle that every child in Cardiff who’s Birthday it is has also asked for this bloody cake. So this cake is like gold dust now. It was like The Buzz Light Year of 1995! Any parent who remembers their child asking for the Buzz Light Year that year will understand the severity of the mission it was just to get one under the tree for Christmas morning. Fortunately for my sister Laura this was not the case as our Mother pretty much rocks all kind of Awesome, so there was a happy little Laura Dalgleish that year.

                So Michelle is running from one place to the other looking for this rare Spiderman cake which cannot be found anywhere. She ends up going into Asda on her shop, and there sitting on the shelf like a beacon of hope is the last Spiderman cake in the store. She grabs it off the shelf and plops it onto the seat in the trolley elated that she’d done it. She would wake up on Saturday knowing that she had it, her little man would wake up with the world all to rights, and she would be the best mum to walk the earth because she had completed her mission!

                Continuing around the store euphorically she picks up her bits that she needs. Then disaster struck as she got to the check out. It was only when unloading the trolley that she realised that someone had gone into the trolley and taken the last Spiderman cake! It was gone! Someone, noticing that there were no more of these cakes in the store had waited for her back to be turned and just grabbed the cake. I mean it’s not like this was a cake that could have been mistaken for anything other than for a child’s party, and someone grabbed it knowing full well there would be a disappointed little child out there somewhere. Not just that, it’s really bad trolley etiquette. If it’s in the trolley, it’s more or less bought and paid for. You can’t just take out of people’s trolley. What’s wrong with people, it’s easy, if it’s on the shelf then it’s for sale! I personally don’t want to live in a world where you can just walk past a trolley and think to yourself “I want that”, and just take it. Supermarkets would become a world of chaos.

                I heard these two stories within 24 hours of each other, and I just completely lost faith in this world. Everyone seems to be out for what they can get for themselves. There are so few people who will do something for nothing. There is always a “what’s in it for me” attitude. Even innocent children are learning too early that the world can be a really hideous place. All we can do is hope that one day people will start caring about the consequences of their actions, but even that seems too much to hope for.

                However on the positive side, being awesome mums seem to run in the family because even now as I write this, Michelle’s little boy Luca will be enjoying his Spiderman cake that she managed to get him ordered in from another store. Well done Michelle, Supermum strikes again!

Always Wanting.....

Why is it that we always want what we can’t have? It doesn’t matter what it is. If someone says no, or don’t touch, or stay away from, that’s it. It’s all you want and all you need in the world. If you only had that one thing, then life would be sweet! It could be anything, a toy if you’re a child, a new expensive bag, a new car, or that someone who is off limits. Maybe they’re a friends ex or someone in a relationship. There are always rules and reasons for the things we can’t have. These little restraints that we walk around in making sure we stay in line. Don’t spend what we can’t; try not to have more than you need kind of lifestyle we’ve adapted to over the last few years. It doesn’t stop people trying though, and trying is a good thing. To get a better job maybe, to get more money to live the same lifestyle as those other people we see all the time who managed to avoid the recession all together.

The thing is though, I have conversations everyday with people who continual want more and more. Wanting it and chasing it so much that they don’t even have the time to enjoy what they have right here and now. They’ve made it to where they want to be but they’re still chasing something. Not asking if they really want it or whether it’s the rush of trying to get it that makes it seem so desirable. It’s the whole grass is greener mentality that seems drilled into society today. We all love a good chase!

                I think what it comes down to really are the rules that we live by every day. Wherever you look we are being told what to, what not to do, things that are expected of us, advice that we should be listening to. Restrictions are everywhere, which is why we have had such a rise in people doing TEFL courses and just heading off, because things here got a bit boring. Things over there are so much better, didn’t anyone tell you?!

It begins in school. All these dreams and ideas that we think of, and the goals that we think we are going to be achieving, or the people we are trying to become. We are told to start thinking about this before we even develop enough to know what we want to do in our lives. So we just think about what we’ve been told and we go from there. We remember things our parents mentioned or the things teachers said we’d be good at and we rationalise from that and before you know it we’re on a path we didn’t even know we’d chosen. It’s the moments when you start looking back and really thinking about how you got here that you start to question what you have. This then makes what you don’t have so much more desirable.

 Life has become so restricted that I think there are rare little moments where we bend the rules or break them completely in order to just feel that rush, which even knowing what you’re doing is wrong it’s in that one moment that the decision is solely yours. It’s a way of taking a little bit of control back because we don’t have full control.

Maybe it’s just human nature, I don’t even know. I don’t pretend to know or even attempt to understand anything to do with the way we are. I just know that as soon as I can’t have something, I want it so much more. It might be because I still have the same level of maturity as I did when I was in school. I look at things the same I think. I look at things as being good, or being naughty, and sometimes it’s fun to be naughty, and to get into trouble.

I have no idea when this will change or when I’ll actually grow up. I still refer to things by saying “yeah but when you’re a grown up”. I guess I never got told I was a grown up, or maybe you never feel it. I hope for the latter. I don’t ever want to feel it if it happens, when I become a grown up.

I’m lucky in some ways because I have seen enough people around me lose everything chasing that something else. I’ve heard the stories and walked down memory lane with them while they painfully sob wishing to turn the clock back. Those times when you’re alone and you realise everything you wanted the most, was always there, you had it.

It’s only when losing it all we realise what we had all along, and this is a lesson that has been taught for years, but it’s also the lesson ignored by most. No matter how many stories of woe you hear, you still go ahead and make the same errors in judgment, follow the same path others have taken. Keep trying so hard to get promoted, you lose the time to spend with your loved ones, and eventually lose them. Take a walk on the wild side and do things you know people around you would disapprove of, but it’s okay because they’ll never know! Even take a gamble on that someone that you shouldn’t. We all know you play with fire eventually you’ll get burned, but why are the flames always so inviting.

Tremble

Trapped in a cage of frustration

In a prison of your own creation.

Trapped by your choices and decision that brought you to the edge of reason.

You yearn for a spirit to mirror your own,

To know the person who looks back.

It’s a touch that has come too late,

Your body aches with no one to soothe.

Always waiting, longing and searching.

Feel the tremor of waking up,

Be lost to the pleasures of life,

To reach the edge of desire.

Be kicked and punished,

Enjoy the pain because you feel again.

Lose yourself in a moment that was created for you,

Reach your limits and pass through.

He mirrors your desires and comes with you.

There is no guilt, no hurt, no casualties.

In that moment there is just you.