Skip to main content

Back in the day ......




This is a photo of me, taken in Aberavon Beach Bier Keller, back when no one had cameras, other than our parents who only used it on holidays, if you were lucky enough to go on one.  This was taken the night before I left to join the RAF, I was 17, a hippy type, but needed to see more of the world and was unlikely to do that staying in Aberavon.

I loved and love where I come from. It is industrial, a steel town, but has the most wonderful beach, miles and miles of sand and sea, mountains and forests all peopled by the funniest, kindest, masdest people I have ever met. It was full of eccentrics and characters as we called the drunks and don't give a toss people. The area has produced many, many famous people, actors and singers and politicians and artists. Why this small town has produced so many I have no idea, but maybe it is because there was a can do attitude. Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Sheen are just a few.

I was and still am a bit of an oddball, I don't need people to be happy, I am happy just being. I have a tendency to say things aloud and then realise I have said something I probably shouldn't. I don't give a toss what people think about me, but do care if I have hurt anyone. I have always marched to the beat of my own drum and always will.

When I joined the RAF I realised I was pretty good and enjoyed sport. I ran, played squash, badminton, walked miles and was very fit. I also loved dancing, I cannot dance, but I just love to lose myself in music, I still do. All was going smoothly, then I got a tick bite and ended up in a fever ward with chronic Lyme Disease, not the internet diagnosis and a slight ache, this was an emergency trip to a fever ward and a temperature of 107. After that, things gradually stopped working as they once had and I slowed up.

A big part of this blog is about how having an autoimmune disease has affected my life and those who share my life with me. Right now, some 35 yrs after the bite, I am being tested to see if the autoimmune was triggered by the bitter and if the bacteria that is always sloshing about my bloodstream is Lyme.

So, the photo is of me back in the day, when I had the world to conquer, not a care in the world and the promise of good times.

Comments

Post a Comment

Leave a message, ask a question, post it here for answers.

Popular posts from this blog

It is 3 days before Christmas, the house is decorated, the tree is all sparkly with lights, baubles and my old Venetian chandelier, which I have used as drops to catch the light. Atop the tree sits Pamela, she has sat on every tree since as long as I can remember and I am 59. Pamela has new wings, but has lost an arm over the years. Yet she still sits there in charge of the tree and all that is on it. I love that she has seen all the Christmases of my youth, the excitement of me and my brother Trevor getting up at 4 in the morning, excited to see the few gifts my parents could afford and very happy to get a pillowcase full. I used to love the felt tip pens, the pencils, the colouring in books, the plastic dolls that one year had one that could walk and talk. The three wheelers then bicycles and the stocking with tangerine, selection box, chocolate coins in their little net bags and sweet tobacco sweets. One year a doll's house, that I loved, complete with little lights and fu...
1 comment
Read more

The little voice in my head

The little voice in my head that is my conscience, even when I would like it to be quiet. I have this little voice in my head a bit like Jimmany Cricket and Pinnochio, the one that when I am going to do something or decide something says, hang on, wait a minute if you do that, then all you have said about the other is hypocritical, can you live with that Missy? (the voice calls me Missy at these times). In this instance it is the General Election quandary I am in at the moment. I belong to our local Labour Party, I have joined every local Party when I moved house, I have been an active member, not just a supporter on elections, but always, the lobbying, the not so popular times, the leaflet drops, even when I would rather stay at home.  I don't support my Party's Leader, I love the manifesto in much the same way I love all good news and wish lists. It almost feels like the Party has sat down with a catalogue of good things we all want and need and has gone, I...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's April already!

Daddy Woodpecker fetching baby for his dinner on my feeders. It's April, already, where did the past few months go? I had forgotten this blog and started another, I have so many blogs I have forgotten the password to, I reckon they all sit in a holding area, bit like a Lost Blog Office, all waiting for their owners to pick them up and add to again.  Poor forlorn blogs, I hope to not lose this one. We have been busy, I haven't been crafting as much as i like, mainly my illness, a lot of sloth and I have been distracted by my Harp. Mr. T, wonderful man that he is, bought me a harp for my 60th birthday. I have a violin and a saxophone, but as my illness weakens my neck muscles and lungs, my wrists and fingers get stiff, making music on these becomes more and more painful and difficult.  I love making music, it isn't perfect, I am no maestro, but there is something so very relaxing about making tunes. So, he went out and got me a Celtic Lap Harp, to be honest you would n...
Post a Comment
Read more