#447 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (8th July 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com My name is Jason Newland and my tummy is grumbling for some reason. This is let me bore you to sleep. Please only listen and you can safely close your eyes.

And I think my stomach is making some weird noises. I had something to eat earlier. I've kind of run out of food apart from some frozen bits and so I had these stuff from Christmas that I got and everything like I guess kind of like cocktail sausages.

And they kind of they were something that you'd serve with Christmas dinner, that kind of things in a metal tray and so I cooked them. I had a toasted sausage sandwich or lots of different little sausages that made a toasted sausage sandwich. And then I melted a tiny Mars bar that I had in the microwave and well I'm not sure if that was a good thing to do but I then got some the remainder of an ice cream tub.

It wasn't a remainder of an ice cream tub the whole tub was there it's just the ice cream wasn't it's a little bit left probably two tablespoons full. And I poured the chocolate, you know the melted Mars bar that really looked it reminded me a bit of the first Alien movie. And I put that into, poured that into the tub of ice cream.

The remaining little bit of ice cream and mixed it together. I had that as my dessert. It was nice, tasted yummy.

And then my stomach's been making some weird noise, took my medication. And yeah so um medication what for? Well there are probably some people that don't realize I'm a bit weird. I'm a weirdo.

I take weird medication for my weird illness. I believe I'm a ghost. That's what it is.

I used to believe I was invisible. Then I turned 40 and it became true. So yeah for those, for those, for those that have never listened to these Let Me Fall You To Sleep podcasts before, it's basically just me chatting boringly about stuff.

That's it. Sometimes I could be telling you this and another time that. Sometimes I tell the truth.

Sometimes I lie. You know it's a it's a mixture of stuff. And God that yawn sounded like a seagull in distress.

Did I ever tell you about this seagull that my friend rescued? So I've kind of, as my stomach continues to rumble, you know what I did earlier? And this was probably early afternoon, probably maybe even late morning. Morning. I started doing a recording and Jason's story time episode.

And I was doing Tom Thumb. And I, there was noise and sounds coming from the garden. And so I kept pressing pause on the recording just to try and wait until the sound had declined, reduced, subdued, gone away.

And every time I went to record, it would get a bit noisy again. So I kept pressing the pause button. And I must have pressed the pause button about 10 times.

And then finally, I was able to get on the story. I was talking about 25 minutes and then realized that I hadn't unpaused it. So I didn't record.

So I've only recorded 10 minutes out of probably about 40 minutes. So I just deleted the whole thing. I went back in time and I deleted the book.

So Tom Thumb no longer exists. I'm probably not going to read that book now until it's fresh again. So I need to read it another time.

Because the whole point of it to me is to read it for the first time. It's not that I've never read the story before, that it would have been when I was under the age of 10. So it's going to be over 40 years ago.

So it's more of a, it's almost like the old excitement still there, you know, like, almost like reading it for the first time, being on the edge of my seat wondering what's going to happen next. You know what I mean? So I'm not going to read that book. It's a story, isn't it? Rather than being a book, it's a story.

It's not really a book. It's a story. It is a story, isn't it? Yes.

And I'm quite enjoying reading them actually. I thought I'd get bored after the first one. But you know, seems to be going okay.

Actually, I think I'm in, I think I'm in a good mood. And well, I took him for a walk earlier, or he took me for a walk. And I noticed that his leg was fine.

He was running and bouncing around both legs. And so for the first time in quite a while, I let him go where he wanted to go. Because normally, for the last week or two, I've been trying to keep him on the grass only.

So he doesn't, because he was dragging his leg, which meant his foot was being cut open by, I suppose, the stones or whatever else that was, you know, who knows what's on the pavement. He likes to run himself against the edge of the wall. That's like the natural thing that he does.

Well, today, I thought I'd give him another go, because I let him do it about five or six days ago. And he ended up bleeding again. So I thought, that's it.

When that happens, I have to bring him straight home. But I let him do exactly what he wanted to do. Let him walk on the pavement, everything.

And his foot was fine. Absolutely fine. Because there was no scraping.

Because he was using it. So I think that's put me into a yeah, it's put me into a good mood. And so it should.

After all that worrying. After all that money. All that hassle he caused.

So I guess, and it is a guess, that he must have injured himself somehow. And it just took him a few weeks to heal. Because it is, it's got to be two weeks ago that he had the x-ray.

And a week before that, that he went to the vets to start with. It was the week before that, that he actually hurt himself. Or that he started limping.

He started limping on a Wednesday. I managed to get an appointment for the Monday. The x-ray was the following Wednesday.

And that was, it's now two weeks later, I think. And he seems to be back. He seems to be, I mean, I knew he was back emotionally.

And he's, I think he's really gone away emotionally apart from when he was sedated. He had that major ab reaction. Really, that worried me more than the leg.

And then, it's really weird seeing him like that. It's breaking my heart a bit because it was just, it was just practically, it was just docile. And if you ever seen any videos of him that are posted on Facebook, or on YouTube, or to be fair, if you've ever seen a video of any ferret, you see the last thing they are is docile.

You know, they're very active, moving around. Apart from when he's asleep, then he's very docile, very quiet and calm and still. But when he's on it, he's on it.

I was just so, it's just quite weird because I was making a recording. I think it was a day after he'd had the sedation. And it's still been feeling, looking rubbish and all lethargic.

And it was in the evening, I was making one of these recordings and suddenly, he seemed to perk up and he started running around and biting my foot or something. Just like, wow. But then the next day, he wasn't quite himself again.

And then the day after that, he was back. So it took a lot out of him. I just wonder what's going on.

Well, I don't know. I just don't, I don't get it. I don't understand it.

Maybe they gave him too much sedation because he was being so awkward. Because he was apparently, he was biting the vet. I've given him lots of treats and hugs for that.

I said, well done, Andre. No, I didn't. So he was biting the vet.

So maybe the vet gave him more sedation than he actually needed, thinking that he was, a trouble, trouble, you know, a difficult pair. But if I'd have been there with him, he would have behaved himself. Because he's a good boy.

He really is. He behaves himself when he's with me. He's so gentle.

And even today, I was coming back. Because I was so happy to see him running and bouncing around. And he took me for a walk.

Like literally, we haven't been into the fields. Not properly since he hurt his leg. And he took me into the fields.

And it was a bit late, so it started raining. And I thought, no, because the tracksuit bottoms I've got on, that's all I've got to wear. Because I don't mean in the world, the other stuff needs washing.

So I didn't want to get all this wet. Because then I'd have to be sitting around in some trousers. And I don't sit around in trousers, I sit around in tracksuit bottoms, or jogging bottoms, or whatever you call them.

It's the elastic suits of my belly, my ever-expanding belly. It's just more comfortable. And so I thought, I said to him, no, we are going home.

And he refused. He refused to walk back. Basically, I said, let's walk back.

Because he wanted to walk all the way around the field, which meant I wouldn't have got home for probably about another 45 minutes. And I wanted to get home before I got too wet. You know what it's like when you're getting wet, and you think, maybe sometimes when you're on the way to work, and you feel that you're getting a bit wet, and you want to get to work, and I wish I could get to work before I get too wet.

Is anyone going to notice? And it used to happen a lot. When I was at my last insurance job, I lived about a 45-minute walk from my office. And there was no buses.

Hadn't been invented yet. So I used to walk, and it's really busy traffic. So on a rainy day, I'd get wet.

But also get all the, the, whatever you want to call it, the overflow from the lorries, you know, going through the puddles, spraying me. So I'd get to work, and I'd just be wet. And I remember once I got told off for putting my socks on the radiator.

I said, how else are they going to dry? I said, it's a sock, isn't it? He said, yeah, your underpants as well. Why, you know, you can't sit in the office naked with just a shirt on. You have to have a tie.

Well, just a tie. I said, look, I'm wet. You don't want me to catch a cold, do you? And they said, we don't mind.

We're fine with you catching a cold if it means that we can, please take your underwear off the radiator. I said, if it's so upsetting, why haven't you taken it off yourself? They said, you really want us to touch that. As it is, we're going to have to condemn the whole office now.

I said, yes, you get overreaction. He said, go and have a look at what they've done to the radiator. The radiator is a melted book.

They really just took things, took it too far sometimes. And yeah, I did the, I didn't think people would mind there being socks on the radiator. I generally did put my socks on the radiator and it didn't go down very well.

The thing is, we had this really, I think it was three floors, the building, and it had air conditioning. So the people on the top floor in the sales department were gagging. Oh, what's that smell? Oh, we laughed.

But it used to be horrible getting there. In the end, I had to sort it out and think, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to put my shoes in my bag.

I'm going to wear trainers or different walking instruments to go to work in, regardless of the weather. And then I'd have a spare pair of socks always with me in case I needed. I just put them in the same bag as my underpants.

Not the sealed bag, but the bag with, I'm talking about the bag with the clean underpants in. And it worked out okay, actually. I was quite pleased.

But yeah, seeing Andre being back to himself was quite nice. So what was it? Oh, I've got two things. Jenny, Jenny, thank you for your, she sent me, Jenny sent me a door thing, which sort of says, beware, ferret lives here.

Beware ferret, which I'm going to get stuck on my front door. I'll put a picture, I'm going to do it. I'll put it on Facebook.

So thank you for that. That's lovely. And she also sent me, this is concerning Rapunzel.

That was the last story I did. It's the number four of the Jason's story time, Rapunzel from the 5th of July, 2020. And she, Jenny, sent me a thing saying, know your rampion, know your vegetables.

Because part of the story was talking about rampion. And the lady in the story was absolutely obsessed with rampion. Well, that's weird.

I've downloaded it, but it's not fitting onto the screen of my phone. What's that about? What on earth has she sent me to? Why hasn't it fitted onto my screen? Open in Safari. Okay.

No, still not fitting into my screen. Open, view browser settings, auto-fill. Anyway, I'm trying to read it, but it's very hard to explain what's happened.

But I'm turning this phone sideways and it's not working. Unless it's my phone. It's a sites.google.com. So the rampion, Campanula.

Let me put my glasses on. No, that doesn't work. The wrong glasses.

Campanula, Rapunculus, formerly regularly cultivated in English kitchen gardens and much valued as a wholesome edible vegetable is seldom grown for use now, though its graceful flowers are sometimes seen to advantage in the borders as an ornamental plant. The plant is found in wild England on gravely or gravelly roadsides and hedge banks and in open pastures from Stratford southwards. I'm guessing that's Stratford-on-Avon, not Stratford.

But proper Stratford is East London. But Stratford-on-Avon is, that's like Shakespeare, Shakespeare land. Proper Stratford is East London, where I used to live.

But it is uncertain whether it should be held as a true native in the localities in southern England, where it is now established. So the rampion provides flowers to grace the vegetable patch and attract pollinators, which is important, isn't it? So that's good. So it's, isn't nature wonderful? It, that sounds sarcastic, didn't it? I genuinely... Of course you look wonderful, your new hairstyle looks amazing.

I didn't mean it to sound sarcastic, but I got all excited. I was very, that was me being positive. It's like, okay, you can attract pollination to your vegetable patch.

So it's, you know, okay, long edible roots, which is really good because you can eat them. Leaves that can be eaten as a spinach substitute. So you can eat the leaves.

Young shots can be cooked like asparagus in the spring. So basically, it's quite a good vegetable because it's edible. That's not a bad start, is it? So you can sow in autumn, harvest the following spring or in spring to harvest in November to be lifted for winter storage.

I thought it might say something about the you know, the nursery rhyme, but it hasn't. So rampion is still much cultivated in France, Germany, and Italy, and occasionally here in England for the roots, which are boiled tender like parsnips and eaten hot with a sauce. This is a bit I wonder about.

The roots are Swedish with a slight pungency, but the wholesome are considered inferior to other roots now more widely grown for culinary use. Right. I just want to go back to the story of Rapunzel.

She was obsessed. But the lady not Rapunzel, but Rapunzel's mummy was absolutely obsessed with rampion. I mean, the whole show's I've actually listened to what I was saying.

I learned a lot this week. Also learned about Tom Thumb, but can't tell you about that because that's, that's a secret. And it's quite a short story.

So I suppose she so her uncle Stiltzkin's mum was looking out of the window. Absolutely obsessed with getting her hands on that rampion. In fact, you could say she was rampant.

Yeah. So she was and she became obsessed and then absolutely addicted to it. And now I've looked it up.

And it's basically I kind of like an onion. It isn't something to get excited about. Yeah.

Spoil it a little bit for me because every part of that story really seemed realistic to me. I can relate to all of it. And even that bit about the rampion, in my imagination, it was some amazing delicacy.

It's like you'd eat it and suddenly you'd be like, Oh, now that's nice. But it's an inferior product. It's not even, it's a root.

It's not even something that's very popular. I mean, it's like what's popular until they discovered parsnips. Great.

Now don't knock parsnips though. I think you're out of order there. Because parsnips, not parsnips themselves, but a certain way of cooking them.

Parsnips fried or roasted, rather, are delectable. They've also, they seem to produce their own honey. It's just, there's a certain, certain special quality about parsnips.

I just really never used to like them. Never used to. I can't really explain why.

I just didn't. You know, it's just one of those things, just didn't. I think it's probably the way I cooked them, just didn't really enjoy boiled, because that's all I ever used to do is boil stuff.

Sometimes, I do have a mincer, steamer, I do have a steamer. I've never used it. So I'll be looking to doing that sometime.

And I imagine steamed parsnips might be okay. It's really weird, as I talk about parsnips, I'm feeling Christmassy. Because parsnips and cranberry sauce, those two, and stuffing, those three, and Yorkshire pudding.

So those four, roast potatoes, those five, and maybe, you know, turkey for soup. I'm just saying that it's a nice combination. You know, I've always been one of these people that likes to, that like to tell you what kind of person I am.

I'm one of these people, you know, that always likes to, no one likes to always do anything. Stop it. I like to put a little bit of everything in my mouth.

I'm not showing off. I'm just saying that if I've got four objects on my plate, and it's a meal, you know, it's not some kind of laboratory experiment, of course, I'm not going to put that in my mouth. But if it's like a dinner, and there's, you know, food on the plate, I like to have a little bit of each, and try and get at least three bits, different things onto my fork, and stuff it in my gob.

Because I like the mixture, the combination of flavours. And I like that. Not everyone's like that, though, you know, because some people, they will eat one thing, they'll eat all the potatoes, then they'll eat Yorkshire puddings, or have the Yorkshire puddings last.

Not me, I like to mix everything together. I had a friend years ago, that began McDonald's, always ate the fries first. Wouldn't mix.

Oh no, burger and potato, no. No, no, no, what they call, all together in the same mouth at the same time. No, no, no.

He'd eat the fries first. He used to wind me up so much. So what I did is, I made him some soup and I got a little bit of burger and a couple of fries, and I just mixed them together into the soup.

So we had to have both the potato fries and the burger at the same time. Unfortunately, it was a bit too big. I had to chew them up first before.

I didn't do any of this stuff. Why am I even mentioning it? It's just gross. I'm just making myself laugh.

He might be listening. I'll tell you a weird thing I did do, and I've probably told this story before, and it's totally true. Okay.

And it's embarrassing, but it's true. I was with a girlfriend who I loved very much. At least that's what I told her.

No, I didn't. See, I did love her. I'm sure I did.

I love everyone. I've loved everyone that doesn't laugh at me when I'm naked. I love them.

Mind you, I'm yet to find someone that hasn't laughed at me when I'm naked, but I'm just saying, if I ever did. So she says, I thought we should do something special tonight. I thought, yeah.

I think at the time, I shouted out something about getting chocolate wings. But anyway, she said, do something special. I said, okay.

I was just happy that a human being wanted to touch me. Really? That was nice. And she went downstairs.

She came back upstairs, and she was holding a yogurt pot. She took the yogurt off. She licked the lid of the yogurt pot.

She put her finger into the yogurt pot and licked the yogurt off of her finger. And then she said, hold on to that. I'll be right back.

So I'm not going to say what happened, what I did. This was a long time ago. This is before I knew any better.

I was only about 42 at the time. Anyway, regardless of what I did, she came back upstairs about five minutes later. I'm ready.

I've kind of prepared myself for what I thought was going to happen. And she said, oh, great. She's holding a spoon.

She's saying, where's the yogurt? I said, oh. So I kind of, it's on the side counter. So basically, I give her the half empty part of yogurt.

And she says, it's not annoying there, is it? And she starts to eat it. That's the end of that story, really. So I've missed a few little bits out.

But I've got a shout out. This is saying, shout out to the most beautiful, sexy angel in the world, Jason Mourad. Oh, it's lovely.

Oh, that's from my sister. So we're talking about embarrassment. Here's another embarrassing thing I did.

Okay, you can't tell anyone about this. It's along the same lines. Okay.

I was sleeping over at a friend's house. I was still at school, probably 15, 14, 15 at the time. Obviously, good friends, because I was sleeping in his house.

His parents liked me for some reason. And well, they tolerated me. Anyway, I wake up, I'm in a sleeping bag on the floor of his bedroom.

He's in his bed underneath his covers. I wake up, I figure he's just woken up as well. We're chatting.

And he says, you know, he's making some weird noises again. He said to me, do you want to have a competition? Again, I can't, I'm not going to tell you what the competition was. But it was, it was a race.

And neither of us left our particular bedding environment. We were both covered up. You know, I was on the floor, he was in his bed.

And I won that particular race. And I was jubilant. It felt a little bit weird.

It was a bit of a weird experience. But like, I won. It was a very, you know, still covered up completely.

And he started laughing. And he jumped out of his bed and he was fully clothed. He said, it's breakfast time.

He said, I was only joking. I said, yeah, me too. She had come for breakfast.

I said, yeah, a few minutes. Two days later at school, he told me that his dad wanted to know what had happened to the sleeping bag, the inside of his sleeping bag. I said, I don't know.

And we left it there. I don't know why, why they seemed to like me or put up with me. So I was a little bit, I think I was a little bit rude back then, verbally.

You know, if I ate around someone's house, I said, thanks for the grub. I need to poo now. Or, you know, something like that, you know.

Thanks, Neil's mum. Hello, Neil's dad. Will you take me to school, please? I can't be bothered to walk.

Oh, yeah, it'd be just like, you know, I had to go. Now I've got Andre's decided to make an appearance. He's doing a poo? Oh, it's a poo, definitely.

It's a big old smelly one as well, I think. Both of his legs are holding it. Oh, what a lovely, what a lovely little gift.

Thanks, mate. That's lovely, gorgeous. Mmm, yum.

Looks like those sausages I ate earlier. So, you know, one of the things was I, yeah, I remember we got drunk. I went round my friend's house and we got drunk.

And we all got drunk. It wasn't just me, but I think they aimed it at me. So it's three of us.

And it was, I think either the teachers were on strike or it was a half day study day or something like that. Like I was going to study. Study for what? So, you know, I didn't study the whole five years I was at school.

I'm not bragging, because look at me, 49 year old unemployed person. But I do have a degree. I've got a degree.

See, that's the thing. I reckon if I'd have been successful after having got the degree, I could have gone and been an inspirational speaker, motivational speaker saying, look, this is my life. I know I started off this way.

And, you know, it was difficult times and had mental health issues from a child onwards. And yeah, I still managed to get a degree. And I, you know, went to my refugee party.

What was it called? You know where you collect the degree from? I forget it. I think it was called, but the thing where you dress up with that big flat hat on. Graduation, that's a graduation.

I went to my graduation when I was 40 years old. And, you know, I left school with nothing, left school at 15 years old with no qualifications, zilch, zero. No ambition.

I'm still there, still got no ambition. That's not true though, is it really? Yeah, sometimes I like to put myself down like from a humorous perspective. But also sometimes I think, wait a minute, I'm saying the stuff that I used to actually believe about myself.

And it's not true anymore. It never was true. But I used to believe it.

I used to believe I was stupid and I believed that I couldn't learn anything new. And I believed I was never able to get a degree. I couldn't even get an O level or CSE or GCSE, whatever they're called now.

How was I going to get a degree? But I did. But it's still that part of me thinks, uh, dum-dum. I probably don't do myself any favours by making these recordings though, do I? Well, I'm definitely sometimes in dum-dum category.

I'm in that territory of acting silly. It's all for fun. Anyway, my friends got me drunk.

And it's the drunkest I've ever been before or afterwards in my entire life. Never been that drunk before. Well, clearly, you know, I was 14, whatever, 15.

And I probably, I don't know, I might have been 15, 14 or 15. But I was, before I left school, I left school in April and I wasn't 16 till the end of August. And the, what's really weird, I'll tell you what's weird, is I went, I had, well, see, I didn't have to, but the thing with school is they train you to follow the rules, even though, even when you don't perhaps follow them, you still kind of have to.

I still had that inbuilt in me that I had to go and do my, my CSE exams at school. Even though I'd left, even though I knew that I wasn't going to make any effort, I didn't care about the outcome, but I still went because I didn't want to get in trouble. How weird is that? I wouldn't have got a lower mark if I had not turned up.

If I had turned up, done a big poo on the desk and run off giggling, I would have probably got a higher mark than what I did by turning up and doing the actual exam. So, you know, it wasn't, not that I actually attempted, I just turned up and just wrote down a load of rubbish, just for the sake of it. So I was just, jokes, you know, just silly answers to questions.

And I, I had this rule where, because at school the alarm used to go off, I think it was every 40 minutes between lessons. So all day long, every 40 minutes, the alarm would go off. Maybe not at lunchtime, I don't know, it'd be a different time period, but, you know, so the rules were, if you hadn't finished your exam paper by the time the alarm went, then you had to wait until the following alarm went.

So even if you only spent five minutes afterwards, you have to wait another 35 minutes or whatever before you could leave. There was no way, there was nothing going to stop me from going. No one could stop me from leaving.

But I didn't like that idea of being, sort of having to stay there. So what I did is I made sure that I left after 40 minutes. I was finished probably within about five minutes.

But I made sure I left at the first bell every time. And I had a competition with one of my friends who was there and he did the same thing. And we both had a multiple choice.

I think it was maths or geography or something, multiple choice. And we had a race to see who could fill the form in the quickest. And it was just ticking, just random ticking boxes randomly.

And it was like 150 questions or something. Silly like that. Technically, I could have passed that by accident, couldn't I? I could have passed that by accident, by accident.

Oh, yeah. It is strange that sometimes I find myself learning new things. It just doesn't feel right.

I have to try and push it away. I don't want new things, learn. Stop it.

It's been years trying to avoid learning new things. No, I don't want that in my head. There is so much I don't know.

I don't admit to it. Things that maybe a lot of other people do know or maybe they remember from school. Things like capitals of villages and stuff and how deep the mountains are and how wide the trees.

My light bulb in my bathroom is flashing on and off. And it's supposed to last for six years. Genuinely, the light bulb was put in seven years ago.

No, it was put in last year. And it's a proper, I can't replace it myself. It's some kind of, it's a council job.

They put it in. It's a sort of big electrical job thing. I mean, I don't think it takes long for them to change it.

I can't just take, I have to take the whole thing off the wall and the ceiling rung. Why do we call it a ceiling? Why not just the top wall? Because it is kind of a wall, isn't it? It's a flat surface. The sense the ground is, I suppose, isn't it? Why don't we call the ceiling the top ground or the ground the bottom ceiling? That's probably not relevant to the light though.

Why? I don't like flashing lights. I mean, I don't dislike them. I'm not prejudiced, but I'm just, I don't, I kind of, oh, is there a faulty wiring? Because this is an old building, mate.

This is this proper, mate. It is, mate. Proper old building.

Good, like 50, 60, 70 years old. I think this was built in the fifties. So yeah, that'd be about 70 years.

And it used to be for old people. Okay, elderly, is that a better word? For elderly people, these flats were built. These ones, the ones, the whole kind of area, just these, this estate.

Not, see, this was, I think originally, I might be wrong, but this is a council estate built on an estate. So I think, again, I'm making this up. So please forgive me for everything I've ever done and what I'm about to do also.

This was, I do believe that when a company builds houses or when the government builds houses, they have to have a percentage that are social housing. And this area was social housing. It's not all social housing now because a few of them have been bought.

One of them in my block has been bought. The one next door has been bought. At least, I think two of the ones that side have been bought.

The other side, over the side of the gate or the fence, it's studio apartments, but apparently quite big. So someone, a neighbor that I know that I speak to every now and then, who's, she lives on the estate, but she's not on the council. She's got her own house.

Because the houses around here, they're, I was quite surprised because around the corner, there is a for sale sign outside one of the houses. And it's a Heritage, the company. So these houses are really old, but really valuable apparently.

Because I've looked in the Heritage, not news agents, estate agents in town thinking, what's that about? They basically sell really expensive houses that are possibly, I guess, listed maybe. Mind you, why would you want to buy a listed house? Don't even want to know where you lived here. But I looked in there and I was surprised because they didn't have a coffee machine.

I thought they would have had, unless it was in the back. But then I looked at the boards and saw the prices and I don't know if it was anything less than about five, 600 grand. And this, see this area where I live, if it wasn't for the people, it'd be quite nice.

Isn't that the same for everywhere? No, I guess the people are okay. I don't know. I'm not sure though.

I sometimes get some funny looks with Andre. And I get some funny stares, like earlier some bloke was just staring at me. I was walking through the park with Andre and I don't know.

It's because I'm not scared. I'm not, I don't get intimidated by people like that. So I just, I kind of, I find it slightly amusing, but slightly like, what's that all about? Because I think what you find in Essex, there's a lot of people, it's unofficial this is, there's quite a few people that are like ex-gangsters from London that moved to Essex because they kind of retire.

So they might have been kind of underworld, you know, sort of really tough, strong, violent, you know, scary people. And now they're sort of in retirement or semi-retirement, maybe do a bank job every few months, just as a hobby, or get an allotment. And so you never really know who you're around.

And it's interesting, I just find that, you know, I can usually, I'm quite good at spotting people, not knowing their history, obviously, I'm not, I don't know people's history, but I can get quite a good vibe. Not always a good vibe, but I can get a vibe roughly what kind of, the cut of someone's jib, as they say, just a little bit when it comes to rough people. Scum.

No, not scum, just people to be wary of, maybe. Not that I care anymore, to be honest with you. I'm not here to worry about people like that.

Ain't my problem, my deal. I'm here to talk rubbish into a microphone. But this whole area is kind of, I suppose it's like middle class, white middle class, I guess.

Or the thing is, middle class really is, it's a mixture, because there's a lot of working class done good. Like my dad would class himself as middle class. But he didn't come from that.

You know, my nanny granddad working class through and through, lived in a council house all their lives. You know, never owned her own house, never owned a car, raised five children, 700 grandchildren. And each of her kids, my nanny, my dad's brothers and sisters, they've all done really well for themselves.

As in never been without a day's work. They've all got trades. Uncle, two uncles, one's a plumber, one's a carpenter, dad's an electrician, the other one's a teacher.

And the other one was, I think, worked with the police or something. So all like really like professional. And so I guess they became middle class in a sense, by being really good financially.

See, I've not, I've not inherited that. And I don't know where they got it from, but thinking about it, if you can raise five children post war, you know, we're talking, in fact, my oldest uncle was born during the war, during the war. So he was born during the war.

Or he was born, yeah, I think it was kind of a honeymoon, maybe. So the war might have started, my granddad came home, married my nan. They had a couple of days together.

And they got married at the registry office. I might be wrong, that there's no time for, people got married really quickly back then. And I think it took about three minutes.

I'm talking about the marriage. I don't know how long it took. I can't believe I didn't say I should ask my nan.

I can't ask my nan, can I? She probably told me. I've seen pictures and stuff. Again, talking about the wedding.

Yeah, so she, my granddad went to war. He came back to a, I don't know, a five-year-old child, something like that. So, because he was a prisoner of war.

And he wasn't until his captors realized that he wasn't German. So they let him go as Americans. And that's not true.

And he, so thinking about it, he worked for the government all his life after, because my granddad was in the army. He'd done his full term in the army before the war even started. So he was, I think, 29 years old when the war started.

So he'd served from 16 to, I think he'd done like 12 years. So 16 to 28 or something like that. So he'd done a full proper term, you know, that's a long time.

He got his army pension and everything when he retired, as well as his government pension from the job he had. Because he, when he left the army, my granddad was a cool, cool dude. Nothing like me, honestly.

I only ever had two conversations with him. He was not a chatty person. I don't know, it might surprise you, but I can be quite chatty.

And he wasn't. But you know what? I think I had more integrity, more respect in him than I'll ever, could ever have. I think I just, yeah, there's something about him that was way better than me as a person.

And toughness as well. Tough, so tough. It wasn't just because, well it might, I mean, that's not gonna, obviously it helped the fact that he'd been in the army for 12 years, plus he'd survived the war, the Second World War.

Plus he'd been, he'd survived being in a concentration, or you know, in a camp thing. But before that, he was a boxer during, in the army, won medals and stuff. He was like a really good boxer.

And so physically, mentally, he was just really, really strong. Phenomenally strong. And I'm not comparing having mental wellness to being weak, because I would never do that.

And because I had that, that would be me putting myself down. And probably many, many people that listen to me. So I'm not saying he was strong mentally, in the sense that he didn't have mental health issues, because I bet you he did.

Bet you, millions of pounds. And I've got a few million in the bank, you know. Bet you.

But he kept it inside. That generation didn't talk about it. He came back from the war.

There was a party outside in the street to celebrate him coming back. Because my man had already had his funeral. They thought he was dead.

So he thought he had the funeral. And then she found out, finds out that he's been rescued from a camp right at the end of the war. After everything was like, you know, they think maybe the Americans were sort of emptying the camps and taking people home.

And you know, and he had to go and have to be rehabilitated. And he was malnutritioned and all that stuff, like probably everyone else. And what happened? How about this? This is something.

This is what my man told me. There was a celebration outside in the street to welcome him back. Welcome back, Ted.

Because everyone knew him. And my man had dated him, I think, since the age of 17, until the age of about 20. Or not 20.

Yeah, so. And so, you know, he was a local. He might have even grown up there.

And he had all this party going on outside, people waiting for him to come in, to come down the road and stuff. He came a different way and he crept into the back, through the back gate. He didn't want any of that, couldn't face any of that.

Just wanted to have a cup of tea. I guess he just wanted to spend time with his his wife and his little boy, who he'd never seen. And you know, for years, so when I was little, I didn't really know him until I was seven.

Because from the age of, well, I just wasn't, I didn't live with my dad or anything until I was seven. I was with him for the first, I don't know, three or four months of my life. And then other stuff happened.

So when I was seven, I used to look up at my granddad and just think that he was just amazing. But then I used to do that with my dad as well. And to be fair, my dad was amazing.

He was a big, strong man, saved us from a children's home. And I think most kids, probably, it was different. I don't know how to explain it, because I imagine a lot of kids would think that of their parents, because I've never had that experience of being with one person all the way through childhood.

I don't know what it's like to have that and natural kind of love that's just happened naturally, you know. And he was a hero. He was my first hero.

I need to tell him that one day. He was my first hero. Yeah.

Perhaps if I said it at the time, that might have made a difference. It's never too late. And I don't know what point this was.

Anyway, my granddad, I looked up to him because he was, I know it's a cliche, the strong, silent type, but that's what he was. But I didn't realize because back then I didn't know about psychology. I hadn't studied it.

I hadn't studied counseling or human behavior or emotions or, you know, I didn't know about that stuff really. I was a little child. So as far as I was concerned, he was absolutely fine, had no problems in his life.

He was pleasant. He smiled. He was stern, he was strict, but he wasn't physical.

You know, when he said stop, you stop. He didn't have to shout. It was quiet.

Now, Jason, get down from the roof. It was very to the point. And we did what we were told, but not to the point of always moaning and moaning.

And as I talk about it, one of my favorite memories, and this was again, when I was about seven, we used to visit my nan and granddad. And I did, I knew my nan and granddad when I was little, but I was too young to remember. And because I was from the age of three months or six months, I'm not sure, between that time, old and two years old, I was living with foster parents with my older brother.

But my oldest brother was living with my grandparents for that period of time, year and a half or whatever. And then our mum came and took us because our foster parents wanted to adopt us. So again, I had a man and a woman that loved me, but I don't remember them.

It's weird, isn't it? But my nan was around before we moved back. She came and visited. And I didn't really know who she was.

And I think one weekend, we, because we had this period where we used to come and stay with my dad and his wife, his new wife. And they'd pick us up on a Friday evening. He was probably working and the finished work drove all the way to Southend, picked us up, drove us all the way home or back to his house, where he was sharing with his wife and his wife's mother.

Yeah, so my other gran, and who incidentally, I got on really well with. I'm talking, I was really, really, really close with her, really close with her until I lived with her for, you know, nearly a year. After that, never spoke.

We just, terrible. It was really, I was a teenager. I was 15, turned 16 and then moved out a few months after my 16th birthday and they moved away.

But I had nothing to do after that and she had nothing to do with me. Yet before that, proper close. I used to visit her regularly, you know, during my childhood.

When I was old enough to sort of do stuff on my own, I was like, I don't know, 10, 11, 12, 13. And she'd always be around our house regularly, much more than my other nan. She used to stay over.

She had a room that she used to stay in. Because my nan didn't need that because she lived with her husband. And, you know, she wanted to go back to her own house.

But she was, I don't know what, I really got on well with her. And for years, I've had this little negative kind of thought about her. But the reality is, if you take away that last year, we were really tight and really close.

We would talk for hours. And I loved her, really loved her. So isn't it weird? And so my granddad, I don't know what I'm talking about this stuff, but yeah, my granddad was right near the end of his time.

He started talking about the war and he hadn't talked about it for 40 years, however long. I mean, this would talk in 1990. So what was it? 45, 55, 65, 75, 85.

So 45 years, he hadn't mentioned and talked about it, refused to talk about it. And suddenly he was talking about it. He was opening up, like going into details about stuff.

And I mean, he never said anything to me. But at that time, I was living in London, and I only saw him a couple of times. And it's really weird because I did something I would never do.

I don't mean standing on my head, doing break dancing or anything like that. It's the last time I saw him. It was at my nan's birthday party.

And I think it was March 1991. And my granddad was sitting there in a chair. And it was usually a handshake.

That was it. You know, that was the most, that was it. That was as close as I ever got to him.

This time, I kissed him on his cheek, on his face, kissed him on his cheek. I might have done that when I was a little kid. I don't remember.

But I hadn't done it. I don't remember ever having done it before. Maybe I was scared before.

Maybe I was, I wanted to, but I didn't feel I was able to. And I kissed him on his cheek because I kind of knew that that was, well, I felt that that was going to be, might be the last time I saw him. I don't remember.

I don't remember what he said to me. He said, stop doing that, it's disgusting. Don't kiss me.

No, he didn't say that. He said, I can't remember what he said. Yeah.

And then we all played street poker. So yeah, that was good. A bit of a nostalgic night today.

Maybe it's the rain. Maybe it's weird that my mood lightened. A couple of things happened today that lightened my mood.

Andre, of course, seeing him jumping around and like, wow, that was good. Second thing is I had a text from my dad because I spoke to him the day before yesterday. And this was last night.

Yesterday, it's a different day now, isn't it? It's now the 8th or something, July. And he said, it was lovely talking to you yesterday. I enjoyed talking to you.

He's never written a text like that to me before. So I was like, wow, that's nice. It was a nice conversation.

It was humorous. It was light. It was attentive on both sides.

It was nice. And my dad sounds like me. I've inherited.

I think my brother does as well. Maybe all of them do. We're all, I guess we're kind of, I would say out of all of us, I'm probably the one that looks most like my dad in some ways.

But then I haven't seen my other brothers for absolutely years, apart from my little brother, who isn't little. He's got the same kind of body, but he's my little brother's broad, big, strong lad. And he, I would say he looks more like his mum facially, which is a good thing.

He's very lucky. He's very handsome. I'm not saying that his mum was handsome and she was a very beautiful woman, just saying he's kind of taken that.

But he's also got the muscly, broad kind of shoulders that my dad's got. Now I've got my dad's face and I've got my mum's body. Hence the need for a bra, a very supportive one as well.

Yeah, so that was nice. And then I've got a phone call from my friend Noel, who I've known for 30 years nearly. He's one of my oldest friends and he's helped me out a lot.

And as I said to him, I said to him, I said it a few times, but I don't think it always sinks in. So I do try to keep, I try and tell him so that he knows I'm not just saying it for the sake of saying it or trying to blow smoke up his bum. It really is true.

If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. And he said, being unemployed at 49 and having no money. I said, no, not that.

I'm talking about helping people with the online podcasts that I do. And I wouldn't have spent the last 14 and a half years doing that. And he said, well, what have I got to do with that? I said, don't wait a minute.

No, it was all me. I take the credit. And I said, well, no, because he steered me in this direction.

He helped me in a time that I was desperately in need of help and support, not financially, but emotionally, as in needing a focus, needing something. So I was in a pretty weird place back in 97. Very, very strange year that was.

And he kind of led me towards self-help, self-development, NLP, which led to hypnosis, and which led to eventually me doing this free hypnosis service from 2006. Well, actually it was from 2004, but it didn't... I used to have a website, helpwithpain.co.uk, but that didn't really do much traffic, if I'm honest, but eventually I got it started. And also, when I became a counsellor and I qualified, he lent me some money to get me started in private practice.

So, and even at Christmas, if you believe, he put £200 into my bank account on Christmas, or like the week before Christmas. I didn't even know it was in there until he phoned me, because quite often I just don't bother looking into the bank, because back then I used to draw money out, and then I'd wait till the next money was put in. But now, at the moment, so much of transactions needs to be done by card, no one seems to want to handle cash anymore.

Even a local drug dealer's got an app. I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking. And so, it's helped me a lot.

And doing the counselling and having that experience, although it only lasted for about three years as a counsellor, three or less than four years anyway, as a professional counsellor, I learn a lot, which I think helped me to develop my free hypnosis service, helped to be a bit more, I don't know, therapeutic, I hope. I don't mean in these recordings, I always have to say that, don't I? Because I know that someone might be listening, thinking, yeah, but he's talking a bunch of rubbish most of the time. Yeah, but if you listen to someone, I have a podcast, I don't talk a lot of rubbish.

Deep sleep, whisper ones, pretty good. Relaxation, stress and anxiety, pretty good. Sleep hypnosis weekly, pretty good.

Hypnotic buffet, superb. No one listens to them, but they're brilliant. I've no idea what you're missing, absolutely wonderful podcast.

Like 36 wasted hours of my life, that was blimey. Anyway, so that was really nice. And then the last time I went outside was a couple of days ago, before last night, and I had a bit of a hard time, just struggled dealing with people.

So what I did is I did a little chant, a little internal thing where I was saying, be gentle, be kind, be friendly, be gentle, be kind, be friendly. And I was just kind of saying it to myself as I'm walking towards the garage, because I thought the reality is if I have those intentions inside me, then I'm more likely going to come across as a bit friendlier. And the person behind the counter, it could be a difficult person that doesn't like me, might be rude, or maybe not be as rude, possibly.

But I was kind of preparing myself, just be kind, be gentle. Because ultimately, the only loser is me, because I end up leaving having felt a bit rubbish, and I kind of regret how I'm feeling and allowing myself to feel those things. So I thought, no, I'm going to prepare myself.

And I did, went in there, got some cokes, can of four cokes, can of four, pack of four cans of cokes, got some croissants, and a couple of chocolate bars, and a big tub of milk. That was it. One of the staff in there, they had three members of staff, just more than they used to have at that time of the day.

And he was talking to me, asking me how I was, and he's saying, oh, you like cokes? And I said, because I'll go in there, I'm probably known just for going and buying four cokes. And he started telling me I'd given up coke. And so I was asking how did he get on? And he said, he feels like he's got a lot more energy now.

And I was saying, oh, did you find you got a bit of a headache and stuff? And I was just chatting to him. So it was really nice. I stepped back and I banged into someone, or they banged into me, I'm not sure.

And I said, oh, sorry. So that didn't annoy me, it didn't at all. Because when I go in there with the mask on and the gloves on, and I'm a little, very kind of a bit too marked, too wary of who's around, and it's not an enjoyable experience.

Not that buying groceries in a garage is supposed to be an enjoyable experience, petrol station. Anyway, and then there was two people that was on the counter, the Serbian counter. And the lady asked me, do you want to come and get served? Okay, cool.

And so I said, is it okay if I pay part on a card and part cash? Because I had six pound on my, no, six pound on my card. And so I paid that. And then I paid the rest in cash, which was what I paid, what I had in cash.

And then paid the rest on a card, something like that. And that, that was cool. Got all that done, came home, took the mask off as I got out and walked back.

And I felt really relaxed, really calm. It was kind of a good day. But what happened before that was really weird.

I think I mentioned it, I started doing a recording and I pressed the pause button and it didn't work out very well. Anyway, that's the end of the recording for this one. Thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love. Bye.