Let me start off by sending my hopes that you all had a festive Christmas and are heading for a full on New Years Eve, may 2008 provide the solutions to the issues that 2007 produced. I feel that it is only right to send good tidings even though I very rarely receive them and if I do, I usually that them slip by me like a shadow ninja in the night. I am not a big lover of the Christmas time; I rarely send out cards, I don’t do decorations or rope lights, I hate snow, carols and Figgie pudding – to me Christmas day is just another day in the paradise that is my life.
It wasn’t always like that, I used to love the holiday season, I used to dress as Santa and give out presents to all my family, friends, and work colleagues. I went the whole nine yards but as the years rolled by and life changing events took place, all around the festive period, I slowly began to curse Christmas and all that it stands for. They say that payback is a bitch and those words ring true for me every year, I am not a religious person, I do not trust in a higher power, I go for science more than gospel but I am a big a firm believer of the saying ‘what goes around, comes around’, karma is real and it’s not just for people called Earl… it’s a governing body that I use to help me make my decisions in life, I always weigh up the worst case scenario that could come back and bite me in the arse if I chose to walk off the beaten path to achieve a desired result. Do bad things and bad things will happen to you, do good things and good things will happen to you… but get that healthy balance and you have the best of both worlds. The problem is I have done some very bad things in my life and yet it doesn’t seem to matter how many good deeds I perform, I still get a reminder from karma that I have a long way to go and it’s usually around this time, I call this my Christmas karma.
It wasn’t always like that, I used to love the holiday season, I used to dress as Santa and give out presents to all my family, friends, and work colleagues. I went the whole nine yards but as the years rolled by and life changing events took place, all around the festive period, I slowly began to curse Christmas and all that it stands for. They say that payback is a bitch and those words ring true for me every year, I am not a religious person, I do not trust in a higher power, I go for science more than gospel but I am a big a firm believer of the saying ‘what goes around, comes around’, karma is real and it’s not just for people called Earl… it’s a governing body that I use to help me make my decisions in life, I always weigh up the worst case scenario that could come back and bite me in the arse if I chose to walk off the beaten path to achieve a desired result. Do bad things and bad things will happen to you, do good things and good things will happen to you… but get that healthy balance and you have the best of both worlds. The problem is I have done some very bad things in my life and yet it doesn’t seem to matter how many good deeds I perform, I still get a reminder from karma that I have a long way to go and it’s usually around this time, I call this my Christmas karma.
What things have happened that could make me feel this way at a time of giving? I won’t go into detail, I was thinking about it but this is meant to be a blog not a novel, so let’s just keep it to a brief outline.
During the Christmas period over the years I have endured:
The murder of friends, the deaths of family members, heartbreak, lost loves and relationships failed, lose of work, arrested for crimes not committed, shot at, life threatened, slashed tyres, hospital stays, car trouble, STD’s, lost phone, missing wallet, cuts, burns – to name but a few and then there was this year…
Christmas weekend, if work hadn’t taken such a sudden u-turn from fun and enjoyable to disillusioned and de-motivated perhaps I would have entered that Christmas Weekend with a touch more vigour and preparation, after all I know it’s that time of year when it all turns to shit but I had my guard down and karma knew it.
From out of nowhere my mother-in-law arrives from Ireland and visits, any husband out there know how that one makes ya feel… this was then followed by my tooth breaking (too many fights in my younger days have had this knock on effect to my teeth and joints), if the knowledge of having to grin and bear it didn’t kick in before the infection that was imminent in my gum then I was canoeing up shit creek during the rapids season. And to help slow me down even further, my boiler sprung a leak… the pressure dropped and my house was devoid of central heating. I stopped the water flow so I could ease the constant stream of h2o that was escaping from the cracked primary overflow switch but stopping that problem caused another and the redirection of pressure blew out my auto purger which in turn caused a leak that filled up the encased gas heated pipe work. This of course caused the flame to go out but the supply of gas to continue… you can see where this is going can’t you… needless to say I unscrewed the cover, the overflow of water bellowed out and on to exposed electric cables that caused a spark and, bang, an instant flame thrower… which burns the back of my right hand that I threw up to shield my face. I turned the gas supply off and was forced to take my family to a hotel so they had heat and hot water… more expense at an expensive time and all that was on the Saturday. Sunday I returned home to strip my boiler down and to see the extent of the damage… knowing what you are doing is the difference to fixing it yourself or bringing in a plumber at Christmas at double the normal call out rate, whose first piece of advice will be to purchase a new boiler (£600 - £900) and then have a Corgi registered installer to install it (a further £300 - £500). With the limited supply of natural day light to see what I was doing (due to my boiler being housed where the domestic lighting just casts shadows rather than workable illumination)… Sunday was a waste of a day. On the Monday (Christmas Eve) I bundled the family in the car and rushed around a few plumbing shops to purchase the spare parts that I needed, installed them and tested the boiler… still some tinkering to be done… the tinkering took almost 10 hours… but by midnight I had a fully functioning boiler, warm and toasty central heating and plenty of hot water that I could take a midnight bath to wash away the grime… my head hit the pillow by 2am and was back up by 8 cause it was Christmas morning and my kids wouldn’t open their presents without me there to watch… you gotta love the offspring.
That was my Christmas… people you see at work etc the following days always ask how ya Christmas was with big smiles on their faces and songs in their hearts look completely shocked when I give the answer “Total Shit”… Bah Humbug!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment