#1009 Thank you Joey Let me bore you to sleep (Jason Newland) (7th June 2023)

Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. My name is Jason Newland. My website is jasonnewland.com and please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

Now before I start I want to say I want to read out a nice comment I got. It's a review submission and that I received on my website. It says ms5 out of 5. I don't know what my is that marks mms is that stands for marks.

Okay 5 out of 5. Thank you. I'll do the voice. I've been falling asleep to you for four years now.

Couldn't do it without you. I look forward to going to bed when there's a new bore me to sleep out so I can catch up with you and Vinnie. Cheers.

So I'm just see it's from Joey now. Thank you Joey and then that's a 102 and 11 minutes past one I got a a PayPal gift. So I think it's from the same person.

So thank you. Thank you Joanne. It says here taking me to bed every night for four years.

So thank you and um according to this lives in Australia I think. So thank you very much. I will send I'll try and send a thank you message as well.

I don't always have success with that though for whatever reason. I'm not sure why it's a strange one. Sometimes PayPal doesn't allow me to send messages and not that I get many PayPal gifts anyway.

Hint. Hint. But I do appreciate that.

Thank you very much and thank you for the kind words. So today is Wednesday the 7th of June 2023 is eight minutes past eight in the evening and it's still light outside. Vinnie little VinVin is currently behind me chomping on his bone.

I don't know what they call I keep I keep meaning to sort of explain what they are but anyway they're like rawhide thingies or whatever. I'm not sure what they are but he loves them and usually I mean it's more of a for me a distracting technique. Hoping that he will hoping that he will be focused on that rather than me and it's weird because I gave him the bone the thingy whatever it is.

I started setting up the podcast and as soon as I sat down and was getting ready I pressed record pretty much and he was there standing on the settee with his hands on on the table. Almost like is it dinner time yet? Do we have any sausages again? And he just started looking at me like what do you want? We've literally just got back from the park throwing a balls around for him.

Literally I mean you know 10 minutes ago.

I guess that's not literally is it? Literally would be I'm now walking through the door and you can hear me close the door that would be a literal I guess. Yeah anyway he's he's doing that so that's that's what he's up to. There's lots to talk about with him he's been um he's been oh there's not lots to talk it's never lots to talk about about anything really but there is but there isn't but there is but there isn't you know uh the main thing that I've been doing oh by the way this is a an ITV joke for those that watch ITV in the UK.

How are you? But but how are you? How are you? That's it it's a it's a it's it's a joke that's going around at the moment only those those that know what's been going on with ITV the last few weeks a couple of weeks or whatever. Um so I have been working I say working I use the word loosely. I got a bit of a cough the last uh hour or so.

Hopefully it's just a temporary thing so I had some coke coca-cola. And I think what it does it it disrupts my stomach a little bit and sometimes acid uh created in the stomach can cause coughing so that might be what it is. I know it sounds strange but it can it can it has done before which is one of the main reasons I don't drink beer.

Or lager. My stomach's making noises now it's like a little owl in there. An owl on the toilet constipated clearly.

Owl oh I'm trying to do an owl sound now and I've forgotten how they I've never heard an owl. I think I've seen an owl I might have heard now but I don't remember actually in real life having heard an owl. Now that wasn't something on my list of things to talk about like I have a list.

I think the last recording I did I was gonna talk about I was I went onto the newspaper app and the magazines and I was gonna go for all the newspapers of the day and I think I I got about two lines into the first story and that was it. So I'm not sure I'm not sure what to do about that because I would quite like to you know go a bit more in depth.

You couldn't go less depth that's the the most shallowest there could possibly be.

Well the news today Prince Harry went somewhere and that was it you know okay well Prince Harry got dressed in a suit. Okay why? What do you mean why? He was going somewhere. Where? What? Where was he going? How much information do you need? I've just told you he put a suit on and now I want to talk about chocolate bars that I used to eat when I was 10.

Which is kind of the way these podcasts have tended to develop. Hmm what I have been doing is looking at increasing my output. I mean just to start with I would like to make one of these every day.

That's kind of been the goal for years and I never have. I mean I have gone through periods where I've done one every day for maybe two weeks in a row and then I'll go a couple of days and you know I think yeah I haven't let me think about it took me five years to get to a thousand and let me bore you to sleeps. So what's that like two four six eight that's 200 a year isn't it kind of roughly or exactly actually but you know I mean it wasn't an exact thing.

Some years I did more some years I did less. It's kind of weird when I add up at the end of the year how many recordings I've actually done and I think last year including all the different recordings I did not the different versions not the you know the ones with music one five hours ten hours not like that just the different recordings.

I think I did about 236 last year which it's not really a lot not over well it's still quite a lot isn't it really is it I don't know I've not even added up how many recordings I have all together since I started this little merry adventure this little cosplay of the mind I really don't know I'm not sure probably a good couple of thousand.

I don't know if you're going to hear it in the background we'll just make it like this it's a it's a it's a bit of a competition between him and my stomach gurgling. Which is a bit weird it's not weird I mean I'm hungry I mean some people could look at my belly and think yeah I bet you get hungry a lot but then other people might look at my belly and think yeah but you don't let yourself stay hungry for long do you which is a bit rude a bit rude.

But you're kind to yourself and yeah when you're hungry hey hey hey hey cakes and chocolate cakes and chocolate no well I actually actually if you must know I have lost a stone since the beginning of the year I'm down to 15 stone I was 16 stone at the beginning of the year which probably didn't need to say out loud because I just told you I'd lost a stone like you're 15 stone now you said you lost a stone well how much was you before come on don't leave us in

suspense tell us we need all the facts you're being shallow again we need more deepness sorry you're not the first person who would like it deeper I'm back in shallow is about my my limit and deeper deeper no sorry that's all I got so I thinking about it yeah I was quite pleased because I managed to lose half a stone last year and then I put it back on again so I went down to 15 and a half then I went back to 16 and some of you might think oh

yeah you lost half a stone because you did a poo no that's not the case I might have lost maybe a quarter of a stone but not half a stone I actually was surprised because I weighed myself I don't weigh myself every day I've not really got a big issue about it to be honest I'm not a big fan of my body but I'm not not that bothered about weight because I'm not at a high weight I'm at a high weight for my height because I'm three foot two so it's

probably a little bit too heavy for my height but I think it's I've grown into it if you know I mean there was a time there was a time probably about 2009 I remember 2009 I was going to London and I remember I had a meal I had a I think omelette omelette and chips and beans one of my favourite things to have rare it's a very rare privilege to for someone to serve me that I don't have it very often but it's one of my favourite things and I had

this and then I don't know if I think it might be in a Saturday night I was going to London for the Saturday evening I'm not sure but something like but I had that or maybe it was after work and I felt so bloated and so unfit and didn't feel well at all really and I went and got on the scales and I was like 13 and a half stone or maybe I was 14 stone something I was the heaviest I'd ever been in my life at that time and I

was worried then I was like oh my god this is terrible I need to lose weight and it's strange when you consider I'm now like two stone heavier than that and I would say I probably feel fitter now than I did then providing I don't move providing I just sit I'm fine I'm not it's not even you know I mean if I said oh my running days are over I never ran at the very best I'd move slightly faster than walking pace you know jog right that would be it I've

never run if I ever ran which one or two things will happen sometimes both simultaneously I'd get out of breath or I would not be able to stop now you might feel oh it's just like no it's not funny if you're in the street and you can't stop and you're running and especially if you're heavy that literally you just you keep going it's keep going or fall over and the most you can hope for is I guess like a strong wind blowing towards you suddenly or a wall made out of

foam you know or big stack of cardboard boxes to land into whatever but the chances of that being in street is not that often I know I ran for a bus once and the bus stopped and I kept going I kept going and I was looking back I was like sorry I couldn't stop because I knew if my legs stopped my body because my body's bigger than my legs it's like yeah everyone's body's bigger than legs and what I mean is my legs are not in proportion with my body I

haven't got like skinny tiny little legs but compared to my body they are it's all upper body with me and I'm not bragging trust me I wish it was more downstairs than it is upstairs but it's more upper so as soon as my legs stop my body just falls over it's it's like taking kicking the stilts out from under one of those houses you know the houses they have in places where there's floods or places where there's dams and stuff and all the houses are on stilts it's a little bit

like that you're just knocking turning the house into a boat basically so I that's not a great analogy is it but yeah it's not a balanced it's an unbalanced experience and my head my head probably weighs about five stone just on its own four stone that is my nose so yeah it's not great there was a time I mean I remember years ago I actually when I was doing taekwondo don't laugh I did fitness I did I did used to do I used to do fit I did don't why did

you why do you always think I'm making stuff up because I constantly make stuff up I know but I genuinely genuinely generally genuinely did do taekwondo I did about four gradings and I wasn't particularly good at it I was okay I got first class passes and I've always been fairly good with martial arts I've done quite a few different martial arts over the years as well as boxing but I've never been I take it seriously when I do it but I do it for fun if that makes sense so I

remember I was sparring every time I ever sparred someone used to try and hurt me and I don't understand why because for me I never sparred in boxing apart from when I was a kid and I was this is a story I used to tell when I was such a kid it's weird but my bed's got this thing where the springs just jump up like inside the bed and he makes him jump like he actually jumps off the bed because it makes well it makes him jump it doesn't push him

off the bed the springs aren't that strong he hits the ceiling no no it's not that kind of thing but it just does it even when we're not in the bed it does it it's weird so but it's not an old-fashioned prison bed you know you know the old-fashioned ones with the springs and then you put the mattress on top of the springs no the spring is actually inside the mattress it's there's a decent bed although he's getting old now I guess it's eight years old blimey so oh yeah initially

I was told about taekwondo because there was one time and I've talked about this before probably and we were running from one wall one side of the gymnasium to the upper long wise I don't mean well lengthwise okay again that sounds weird and we were just we were clothed fully clothed and we were just running from and touching one wall then running back and touching the other wall now the first one I was okay because I was jogging and I touched the wall I turn around I jog back touch the

other wall turn around touch the wall and then the sensei or the teacher sir we used to call him he said speed it up as fast as you can okay now I was the last one running that just shows you how fast I was so I think it was like you had to do it four times to touch four walls or whatever and I was pretty much one of the oldest people there and I was the the last one running but I wasn't trying to run fast that was my excuse

but then they said speed it up I think yeah I think he if I'm correctly it was can you hurry up Jason we all need to go home at some point so I was like the weekend the weekend will be here soon we need to I need to get to work tomorrow so I was like okay I'm hungry okay okay the birth of my child is due for soon my wife was only three months pregnant when we got here now the child's ready to be baptized there's another exaggerations so I

said okay so I'm running and I speed it up and I'm feeling pretty good because I'm speeding it up but what I'm noticing is my upper body is leaning forward it's almost like I don't know why but my my upper body is is moving faster than my legs and I see the wall coming well when the wall's not coming but I'm moving towards the wall and in my brain I said okay now legs just slow down but the legs didn't hear me I said okay you just slow down now and

it's almost like the legs just had headphones on or something my legs had headphones and we're listening to Madonna and my legs like Madonna I don't know why and I just literally ran into the wall not not like stopped and just back I ran I ran in to the wall like a cartoon and I literally my legs and my arms were like diagonal raised up and I was squashed into the wall you could see my imprint the imprint of my body in the in the plaster in fact I'm still there

I'm still there now it's it was everyone was laughing not one person called came over are you okay no ha ha ha ha the old man's just I mean I was old then we feel quite a few of the people there were like kids like like 10 year old kids seven year old there was teenagers there was people there was a couple of people older than me and people in their 20s and 30s but I was what was I 40 39 40 or something 39 no no I was 40 40

or 41 40 I was 40 and honestly just laughing at me laughing they're still laughing I can hear it they're still laughing and I couldn't stop I ran right I literally ran right into the wall and the good thing about being overweight is my head my face couldn't touch the wall because my belly hit my body is bigger than my head or than my neck so there's a big gap between where my body comes out both my back and my stomach my chest and my head so for me to reach

forward I have to really go reach really forward with my neck in order to be ahead of my body if that makes sense anyway my belly actually I bounced off the wall and I bounced back and I knocked over about six kids but we don't talk about that it's one of those things you know it's like oh I remember my mother instructor saying yeah Jason we are insured you're right we're insured you pay for insurance but you're not sure you should come back like no but I like it here he

said yeah but what you like and you know what everyone else likes isn't necessarily compatible you can't be knocking people over I said people knock each other all the time said yeah that's kicks and punches that's part of taekwondo not bouncing off walls you know you know we don't have human trampolines here you know you want to go to a trampolining club go down there at the school the next the school up the road I said I'm not allowed there I'm banned from there as well he said why I said

I kept kicking everyone it's like exactly you need to just find what you find something do you enjoy doing I said I do enjoy doing this he said what getting told off and being banned from places no well the door just went which means not only did I I lost my flow now I've got no idea what I was talking about but also Vinnie has now been distracted from what he was doing so hopefully he's going to go back and do what he's doing otherwise he'll have to go into the

bedroom for the last half hour and hopefully he's heard me say go back into the bedroom and he's thinking no I think I'll just pretend to chew on the bone maybe you know he slept for 12 hours last night so I'm normally in bed about 10 sometimes earlier sometimes eight sometimes nine ten and he he literally went he went we went to bed at 10 roughly I woke up at midnight to do a wee wee and then I went back to bed or I might have just gone back to bed

I don't know if I went to the toilet I did a toilet I went three and then I woke up at two maybe I did go to the toilet or two I don't think I went twice I might I don't know I do a fair amount of water and then I woke up at four o'clock and I got up four o'clock's about the time I wake up these days so I'll sleep for about six hours I do sleep again later in the day as well so I get kind of six

hours and I wake up because I want to get up it's not because and and that's a good thing for me you know that's a positive it's a positive because I want to get out of bed and I want to get started on the day and I want to you know check the stats all the stuff that everyone likes to listen to hear about which I don't mention so much you know so have me breakfast look forward to that my one cup of coffee of the day that's the only cup

of coffee I have I don't know why I mentioned it twice in the same kind of paragraph but yeah I only have one cup of coffee a day just one one cup of coffee in the morning and then that's it I don't have another cup of coffee till the next day in the morning and so on and so forth I've been doing that for a while and I'm not a big coffee lover but do love well I enjoy having that cup of coffee in the morning I really do it's very

enjoyable hence the enjoy bit neighbors make a lot of noise down there I don't know if you can hear it sounds like dwarves mating so it might be to be fair so I um I wake up like yeah I'm gonna get up and it's light pretty much it's kind of light outside by four it's not like bright lights sun shining you know that kind of light but it's light and so I'll get up having breakfast I've got acid reflux I've got to take a tablet before I eat for about half

an hour before I eat so I'll go online sometimes I'll make a podcast episode but the problem with that is I'm often very tired you know if I try and look at a computer screen and try and do something that takes effort I might just fall asleep and that happened the other day I got up especially early I went to bed about eight I woke up at two two in the morning I got up and I started working on something I think it was a podcast episode and I was doing

the editing and I fell asleep literally fell asleep for about four hours and there's there's no point there's no what's the point in that so it's I like to get up when I want to get up and if I need to go for a sleep I'll go for a sleep so that's what I do when I was saying that out loud it felt interesting to me but on reflection that probably was really boring wasn't it especially if you were going to do a summary let's summarize the last 10 minutes of

dialogue from this podcast he gets up early and he has a cup of coffee with his breakfast that's it that's like 10 minutes of chatter to get to that that's the nub I like that that word nub I don't know why nub nub so I oh yeah right I was talking about Taekwondo so I um what do you want to shoot about Vinnie let's talk about Vinnie first he slept for 12 hours there was a point when six o'clock I was thinking then eight o'clock I was thinking uh why is

he still asleep nine half nine and I thought perhaps I'll check check if he's okay because I've never known him to sleep for 12 hours before not in a row and then I was thinking well you know what just because he goes to bed with me and I wake up with him in bed with me doesn't mean he spent the whole night or those six hours or whatever seven hours actually in bed with me he might got up and made a fry up in the kitchen and you know had a

little disco dance gone out nightclubbing you know who knows he might have a part-time job and security or something somewhere you don't know dear so maybe he's got an early morning job in the bakers that's why he's so tired you know starts work at midnight finishes at four gets in I'll explain why so always covered in flour oh it's such a ridiculous what am I talking about he's always covered in flour he smells lovely oh hmm bread does taste bread smells better than it tastes it's kind of the opposite to

farts isn't it it just it really I mean I like the taste of bread apparently it's not the healthiest thing to eat I don't know but I like the smell of bread there's an old um I've worked in two different bakeries in my life and five in a previous lives so in this particular life I had I worked in a bakery it was called the bake house and it was in a restaurant on the seafront where I used to live and because I was figured you know if I was going

to get a part-time job especially as I was 12 or 13 I should try and get something local to where I live you know can't be traveling hundreds of miles to get there so I chose somewhere close and it used to start I think it was six o'clock on a Saturday morning and five o'clock on a Sunday or the other way around and I did that for I was there for a while and I liked it I did I liked it it was it wasn't hard it was physically I mean

I was 12 13 this physically is not hard there was nothing that I couldn't handle and and it was it was a laugh and Roger who's the man in charge he was the boss he was one of the owners of the of the company of the hotel not hotel what was it restaurant I mean I say restaurant there's restaurants there I think there was two restaurants one downstairs and one upstairs and they'd have weddings there and they'd have all kinds it was a big old place and there was another one

further up the other side of the of the seafront probably about a mile away maybe two miles I don't it's quite a long way and it was like another owned by the family he was in charge of the bakery his wife was in charge of the upstairs restaurant his sister and her husband I think I think it was husband were in charge of the kitchen of the restaurant downstairs downstairs now the restaurant downstairs was more for the general public coming in you know coach trips and stuff especially in the summer

and they catered for lots of different types of people a lot not types of people lots of different people and it was just a good place to go and it was it wasn't expensive and it held a lot of people and it was really a popular place to go and I feel quite nostalgic when I think about it because anyone that worked there not anyone but because they're not everyone's gonna have had okay experiences but I just you know because I started off washing up to start with and I remember

my boss saying look we're here to make bread just put the dishes down here no I was actually a washer upper kitchen porter they became it but didn't used to have that that title back then I don't think but maybe they did and I did it on a I think my brother my oldest brother had a job there to start with and then I went there and I said oh can I have a job as well he said okay I suppose so and I went there I used to do used

to wash that is like these machines that would wash the dishes and would rinse off the dishes first then wash them and they were so busy and I'm trying to think I'm pretty sure no maybe not but they were busy this is in the evenings and maybe Saturdays and Sundays and also holidays during the holidays and stuff and then I got not promoted but kind of promoted yeah Roger came in and said because he got to know me a little bit and he said do you want to work in the

bakehouse I said all right he said you gotta get up you gotta be here at six o'clock in the morning I said no no forget it I was like I already said okay not knowing I was gonna have to get up so early and I've never not really been an early riser as well I've been early riser I just didn't like getting out of bed early so I just thought okay I'll give it a go and I liked it now I was surprised considering that Roger's sister who ran the kitchen

I used to argue with her all the time and I just we used to argue she'd tell me what to do and I'd tell her no and I just I'd be it's weird I don't know why they kept me on to be honest but I'd always be having arguments and she'd be there with a cigarette in her mouth cooking the dinners and stuff and it's like it just never really got on very well but her brother I didn't dislike her I just I just I don't know I think I think

she she acted a bit too much like one of my teachers at school maybe got annoyed with me yeah basically I suppose but Roger he was lovely still pretty much one of the best bosses I ever had he was so lovely it's funny and he didn't he was never rude ever never rude never bossy I mean he was a big strong bloke and he's like you do that do that you just do it there was no question there was no there wasn't a conversation but he was funny and he was

friendly and really really liked him a lot and I remember when I went in there said I'm gonna I'm leaving I don't want to work here anymore and he said oh you're retiring are you and it was a funny thing to say to a 15 year old or 14 year old or whatever are you retiring good luck with your retirement and it didn't matter to him I was just one of many that came and went I was just another kid that was getting paid 75 pence an hour or whatever and

I was I mean I'm sure he probably forgot about me as soon as I'd left because I had it was just a place where people right of passage maybe there's a place where loads of boys and girls went to work possibly their first ever job I think they only had girls as waitresses I mean this is the early very early 80s don't forget it's like 82 83 so things are a little bit different back then but they didn't have waiters as far as I remember it was all and it's basically

teenage girls mainly and in the background all the bake bakery staff were male the kitchen porters were male and pretty much all the cooks apart from the boss the lady was was male so that's how it was there but upstairs in the restaurant upstairs it was a more high class a restaurant as I said earlier it was like more for events like weddings or bar mitzvahs I don't know I've never never heard of a bar mitzvah when I was that age but um isn't that where is that the circumcision party

I'm not sure but it's it's kind of I just I went up there and I was surprised at how different it was because I worked there a couple of times I said do you want to work the evening because I always walk well I always worked during the day and because the place was closed kind of pretty much there wasn't much going on in the evening apart from maybe in the summer downstairs upstairs different matter everything was it was really nice up there it wasn't not nice downstairs either but it

was really nice up there and the lady that ran it was roger's mum and she was not roger's wife rather and she was lovely again she was just as friendly as he was and she was beautiful she's a beautiful woman and I liked her a lot I loved I didn't love her but I did really like even at that age I thought wow it's just this just yeah and then so she she was friendly to me as well so she used to give me uh let me do kitchen pouring basically

upstairs I wasn't doing much else maybe set up the tables I think if I remember rightly I wasn't old enough to work behind the bar or anything like that and I had no skills really I still don't really but she was nice she always like would ask me like do you want to come do this if you want and the only thing is don't let me down it was like make sure you turn up and I was so I was fairly reliable back then so that was good and I quite

enjoyed being around that atmosphere because she was nice seeing such big things going on like you know the birthday parties just I don't whatever events take place I don't know what people celebrate and Christmas as well that they used to be busy so I was there for a couple of years I think and one of the people again Roger's son Simon was almost like a big brother to me I felt like he was he used to tease me but not in a horrible way he used to call me muscles and

he used to tease me and you know he used to just right so Vinnie started barking again that is one of the the biggest challenges I have of making podcasts is it's not just Vinnie because you know he does make a bit of noise and he wants my attention and stuff but he barks when someone knocks on the door he barks when someone knocks on someone else's door downstairs he barks when someone lets a door slam he barks when people are talking in the hallway and if it wasn't for him

barking I could probably I wouldn't the microphone possibly wouldn't pick a lot of that stuff up so it's a little bit a little bit frustrating it also distracts me as well because you know I was very likely telling potentially the most interesting story that you've ever heard ever heard and now I'll be lying if I said I forgot what I was talking about because I do actually remember so yeah did Simon he was I don't remember his mum's name I remember Roger and he used to come in late and he'd

be wearing his tennis gear like his tennis shorts and his t-shirt and he'd turn up at like 10 we'd be there from 6 he'd turn up at 10 or 11 or something he just he said oh hi everyone it's just like he just did his own thing and I mean he grew up he must have grown up in that environment right from a baby because that family had been running the restaurants and other businesses for generations for more than one year few generations so they were well well known in that

town but I really liked Simon a lot really did he was again he's like he teased me but it was fun a really nice bloke I like I did really so it's kind of not unusual but I liked his parents and I liked him I think he had a sister but I don't remember very well I'm not sure she worked at the at the place or she I don't don't remember I don't recall but yeah I don't know why I got started thinking about I do kind of know why because

I researched and looked up Roger a few days ago just to see if he's around and he's not been around for a couple of years now but it was so really really nice bloke yeah I did a few kitchen portering jobs remember I had one in another hotel it was like yeah it was a hotel yeah it was a hotel and I used to be there on a Friday and a Saturday night again yeah Friday and Saturday and I used to get really busy because I had a yeah restaurant hotel

restaurant and I also used to do food for the pub the bar and all that stuff so I worked there for a while and became quite good friends with the bloke I worked with we just worked together for I don't know how long I was there for a few months and then I think it was about 19 I can't remember what year it was 97 maybe I had a job oh it was just an agency job and I was I was working and it was a long way away from where

I lived way too far it's like hour and a half traveling for a very very tiny amount of money but I really was desperate for some kind of work and it was this fire station was it a fire station or was it a was it a fire station or was it a lorry depot was it a ambulance I think it was a fire station I don't know it was a big big big place maybe it was a bus it was something but there was a lot of people going there huge

canteen it was in London and I was just a kitchen porter there and I think I went there two days in a row and I was just washing the dishes you know and stuff like that and even though I didn't like the job I didn't enjoy it it wasn't you know it wasn't it wasn't quite as fulfilling as perhaps I wanted it to experience but I did want to keep it I wanted to try and turn it into a proper job but they didn't want me back so I don't know

something about the dishes needing to be cleaned properly and they had a little niggle about me wearing the fireman's costume but they had a bit of niggle about me not just wearing it while I was doing the washing up wearing a fireman's hat and a fireman's jacket or fire people fire workers jacket and the trousers and the boots but apparently the the icing on the cake was me calling it a costume and that was it plus stealing all those wallets that probably didn't help no I didn't I didn't I didn't

three wallets three what no I didn't I didn't do any of that stuff so yeah they didn't want me I don't know why I don't know why but yeah I did taekwondo I'm trying to think what else has happened I took I don't know if I mentioned this I got the this ball thing that chucks the ball it doesn't chuck the ball it needs me to do it but it picks the ball up and it was like a handle it's a big handle but it's like this round thing at the

end and it pins the ball in and I can throw the ball and I don't know what it's called but I've got one anyway and it uses tennis balls but they're not proper tennis balls they're rubbish they break like if you if you chuck it against a concrete floor or steamroller over it it breaks really easy and like a tennis ball I mean they're not they're not they're not cheap either four balls for about three pound or four pound that's a pound a ball roughly now I'm not an expert on

tennis balls but I'm pretty sure they're not expensive unless of course they are and I think I've got through about 10 balls so far I've lost some some of he's eaten he's eaten he's eaten them I've got half eaten balls all over the floor which is weird to say out loud then he keeps eating my balls and I've lost a few the other day I threw one over the fence over someone's garden fence and I thought I'm probably too old to knock on their door so can I have my ball

back can I have my ball back it's in your garden probably too old for that I don't know if I could I mean they might find it funny but it's yeah so I thought no I'll let it go and then I thought you know I thought about it and I thought well what if they're having a barbecue and you might think what's that got to do with anything but what if they're having a barbecue and the ball landed onto the barbecue they might be angry with me or worse than that

what if the ball landed on the barbecue and no one noticed and I do knock on the door walk through and someone's got a hot dog roll with the ball sticking out and they're eating the ball no that's I don't know it's a weird probably not going to happen but you know I'm just saying just roughly your hot dog's green mind you it wouldn't be green with it I guess after it's been on the barbecue especially after it's been pasted with the juices and the barbecue sauce and stuff but then

in order to do that you'd have to see it was a tennis ball wouldn't you what else could it be I've got like an urge to just list lots of little things that are around but there's no point but I've lost quite a few balls anyway I lost one earlier and the thing is I started off with I think two balls came well nothing just came with one ball when I bought it came with one ball I chucked it and I lost the ball because he wouldn't bring the ball back

and I lost it bought a pack of four balls or three balls I think it might be three balls four unless it's four no I think it's three the 2.99 it might be 3.99 and then these little nets but they're the net you can literally just pull the net apart it's not it's not not strong not really and he basically unless I've got two balls he won't come back so it'll it'll chase I'll go ready ready and I'll chuck it and he'll chase it you know sometimes I bring it back

sometimes he won't but if he does bring it back he won't let go of it unless I've got another ball ready to chuck let go let go and he does ready and he'll chase that one sometimes he chases the ball and he just stops and looks at me and I have to walk up to him and the more he does it the lighter I'm throwing it's getting to the point where it's like I'm just kicking the ball like you know two or three inches so I'm thinking if he's not going

to bring it back I'm going to wear myself out and then other times he will bring it back or no no yeah what he likes to do yeah what he likes to do is wait for me and then I'll throw the ball and he gets both so he likes to grab but we'll grab it out of the thing so he's got two balls and each one I try to go to pick up he'll grab it and start barking and I've got to pick he'll grab that one and he'll grab that

one and he's trying to get both the balls in his mouth at the same time reminds me of a video I watched recently exactly the same thing there's this dog in the park trying to like get two balls two tennis balls and it couldn't like he can't he's only little when he I'm sure a bigger a bigger dog could but he can't get two balls in his mouth at the same time he tries and every time he gets one in he like tries to get it and then one just pops

out the side of his mouth this is quite funny and I mean his mouth really isn't big enough for one of the balls because you know the toys I've got and the toy tennis balls that squeak a lot smaller than the ones that these ones are like I think they're like normal size tennis balls but they're not proper tennis balls they're not uh slave slave slavengers or whatever they're not those ones so and then the other thing he does what is it oh yeah I got to chuck it and he'll

pick the ball up and run after it so literally he's got both the balls so I'll chuck a ball thinking he's dropped the ball before I chucked it and he hasn't so he runs off with the ball in his mouth towards the other ball I'm sure I can hear him laughing like giggling got you I got you it's very cheeky I mean now he literally jumps up and pulls the ball out of the out of the socket of the the catcher the holder whatever you want to call it yeah he's

made a lot of friends though in the park so many dogs that he's friends with that he likes to go and play with and even if they're on the lead he goes up to him he knows which ones are friendly he seems to be able to tell and if there's one that ain't interested he'll keep away from it he's he's quite good with his senses when it comes to other dogs and he just loves other dogs so much earlier on I was talking he's playing with one dog I started talking

to her and then he ran off and started playing with another dog and another dog like two other dog people had dogs and they were both on leads and he was playing while I was talking to this other lady and I lost one of my balls eventually one of his balls and I found it eventually and I was in that zone of like I'm gonna find it I will not quit I was walking around like why can't I quit you I wanna I wanna go home but I can't quit you

I need to find you in the end I did see that was a very concise story wasn't it it was very quick it was done done did it done done done done no fluff no no excess hair it was just done oh well so that's it really that's that's today and I didn't even mention about what I've been doing with the podcasts but I'll mention it another time so thank you for listening remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy and be gentle with yourself what

does it mean to be gentle with yourself I had to learn that many years ago I had to learn to be gentle you know with the my internal dialogue and part of it is it's not just being gentle with myself because I found that the more verbally aggressive internally I was towards myself I kind of seem to have a very similar internal dialogue towards others sometimes so when I turned it down a bit on myself it seemed to turn down towards others as well and sometimes I think especially with things

like meditation what I noticed is some people when they do meditate and they they start thinking well I can't this this is really hard because I keep drifting off and if they some people when they start this is from experience knowing seeing hundreds of people over the years saying under the same thing you know over time thinking that they're somehow failing or what they're doing because they're drifting off but this the same thing is pointed out to them every time is the fact that you notice that you're drifted off means

that the meditation is working there's progression because you've noticed because meditation isn't being unconscious meditation yeah so yeah meditation is meditation is meditation I do quite like the just sitting meditation zazen or zazen I'm not sure how it's pronounced it's Japanese it's just sitting literally just sitting I had some audio tapes in the early 90s middle 90s 94 95 teaching me how to do it it's sitting down cross-legged focusing on the carpet ahead not like down below where my toes are but just like a head you know so my head

was about six foot away I guess the carpet and all that stuff and I used to listen to it be used to audio be guided I think there were tapes might have been CD but I think it was tapes that was my first like real attempt at meditating although I did go on a school trip when I was at school which is the best time to go on a school trip and I went to a the London Buddhist Centre and I was probably 14 and that was my first meditation and

I loved it I really did love it I loved it a lot so being gentle with yourself really kind of comes when I say that that's where I'm coming from really a place of my stomach's gurgling now the owl nah the owl is now giving birth he's gonna anyway just being gentle just I guess it is whatever you think it is but being gentle with yourself so you know instead of me saying I'll be gentle other people and try and think more softly towards others and no just focus on you

I can't tell anyone what to think or what to do but I can make the odd suggestion and part of the reason for doing these podcasts is to help people relax and maybe fall asleep and that process does involve a softening of those hard edges you know in our minds just a softening a slowing down of the mind a slowing down of the chatter that maybe was there before and some of that can continue when the recording ends you can continue to have more of that feeling of calmness calmness feeling maybe centered optimistic now I'm gonna go so I shall speak to you next time take care lots of love bye I think that's the longest ending I've ever done