The oldest man in the Nightclub

My 2^nd oldest daughter, Colleen is to be married in 9 days to Jim. This is my 4^th daughter to be married, and the 3^rd wedding in 3 years. To say that this is not good for the finances would be a gross understatement!

Last night was the Stag Night. The British quintessential precursor to the nuptial ceremony.

The evening started traditionally with the younger males drinking as much as possible in as short a time as possible. The older males, my future son-in-law's father and I, exercised more moderation. Then, when all (except we two oldies) were drunk enough – but not too obviously drunk to gain admittance - we went to Taunton's biggest night club, Shout.

Shout has a “proper dress” policy. Males have to wear clean clothes and ladies have to wear as little as possible!

The club was full, with a long queue of hopefuls waiting outside to be allowed in. It was a cold evening and the girls outside were getting goosebumps on their goosebumps! Luckily someone had arranged the VIP treatment for our party, so we were admitted without delay.

It is possible that the club is called Shout because communicating at any level below a shout is impossible. I expected that; but as a musician and a former sound technician, I was very disappointed with the quality of the sound. There was an abundance or deafening decibels of distortion. The light show was equally disappointing.

Attention was brought to bear on boobs and buttocks as the ladies highlighted their best assets. Hem lines were high and trousers appeared to have been painted on to bottoms. Copious amounts of cleavage were available for consideration. The young men, at whom the display was directed, moved around like farmers at a livestock auction. Eyeing up the stock. Ladies were categorised as unappealing, unaffordable, aspirational or attainable and the last category was pursued.

I realised that I was witnessing the mating rituals of Homo sapiens, British subspecies.

Jason, my oldest son-in-law, leaned over to me, positioning his mouth close to my ear. “I'm getting to old for this,” he bellowed. He is 37. “As I was saying to Neil, I haven't been clubbing for a few years now. I'd rather have a some friends around for a few drinks at home. I could hear what's being said.”

Neil - another son-in-law and also 37 - nodded, being too far away from my ear to attempt conversation. He apparently knew what was being said. Perhaps he was lip-reading?

Two things occurred to me at that moment. Firstly, Jim would be my first son-in-law to be younger than my wife. Isn't that weird? Secondly, how much I agreed with Jason and Neil. And the fact that I was the oldest man in the nightclub (although there were a couple of others who looked a similar age to me) had nothing to do with it.

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Meanwhile Marie, who due to her agoraphobia can't get into any nightclub (too crowded, to difficult to get to the exits, toilets would be too busy etc.) was spending the evening with two of my daughters, Carla and Collette. They watched The Accidental Husband. They had nibbles and related amusing anecdotes about their husbands. They lounged about and relaxed.

You know, I'm pretty certain that Marie had more fun than me.

A little old lady gets robbed

Last night a little old granny got robbed in our little town. It happened like this -

She left the local convenience store and went home. Shortly afterwards, there was a knock on her door. She opened up as far as her security chain would let her and looked out. She saw two respectable-looking men, one of whom was carrying a clipboard. They claimed that they were police officers doing a crime survey, so she opened the door fully. One of these brave men then pushed her backwards so violently that she fell right over on to her back. Keeping an eye on her and issuing threats, our two heroes ransacked her house, taking everything of value and wantonly destroying any non-value items that got in their way.

After a few minutes, it was all over.

When I saw the little old lady today, she was sporting an ugly bruise which covered a significant portion of the left side of her face. She was also showing that she had pain when she walked. But those injuries are almost insignificant compared to her real injuries - the psychological ones. Normally a popular, cheerful, gregarious lady, today she didn't wish to communicate with anyone. However, her body language exhibited her shame at being conned, being too physically weak to stand up to these vermin, being vulnerable. She's too frightened to stay in her home now; fortunately her daughter, who accompanied her today to talk on her behalf, lives nearby and she's staying with her and her family. The little old lady's self-confidence and dignity are history and she will find it difficult to regain them.

This type of crime is always perpetrated by local people, and so it was in this case. The town I live in is almost crime free, so there aren't many people capable of carrying out a crime like this. Those that are capable of doing it are well-known and the two scumbags responsible were arrested today.

Case closed.

Except for the little old lady.

And Marie.

Her anxiety level passed boiling point. I'm not sure who feels more vulnerable, Marie or the little old lady. Probably Marie. She's almost as fearful of attack as she was after surviving the armed robbery here. Our home is a veritable fortress now and no random visitor can hope to gain entry without passing her comprehensive interrogation - conducted through an upstairs window.

I expect Marie to recover fairly quickly. But the little old granny might never recover.

The dog, the children and agoraphobia

Blaze is growing into a handsome dog. He's 7 months old (you can see what he looked like when he first arrived here), so he has some way to grow yet. He's found his self-confidence and loves to gambol about outside, play with children or other dogs and has started to fetch a ball on demand. He is terrific with the children and doesn't bark much. He is quite easy to train, is good at recall and doesn't strain at the lead. So he's no problem then...
...but Orla is. She has decided that he's a breathing toy. She wants him to go to sleep in her bed, hide in the wardrobe with her and steal biscuits together. Blaze is so good-natured that he goes along with most of this childish behaviour.
Joseph, on the other hand, is acting the responsible owner. It's Marie's dog, of course, but since she cannot do anything more than a basic toilet trip, Joseph has volunteered to help. As soon as he gets home from school, he gets the dog's lead and off they go on a short walk – even if it's raining. He helps with the feeding and grooming. He's really super with the dog.
Blaze hasn't helped Marie in her fight against agoraphobia. Her earlier gains after Blaze arrived have all disappeared. On the plus side, he's another source of enjoyment to her self-determined prison – on the minus side, there's more cleaning to be done. She tells me that in retrospect, she should have waited for a while to add a dog to our family. But he's here now and part of the family and there's no question of him leaving. Hopefully Marie will be able to make some progress walking with him in the spring, when the weather improves and lifts everyone's spirits.

Often Joseph, Orla & I go on a longer walk with Blaze. After a while, Orla wants carried on my shoulders and I acquiesce. I enjoy these walks. One or other of the children is chatting to me from the moment we leave the house until our return, how ever long that may be. It is a special time.

Today, Orla was unremitting in her torture for poor, patient Blaze. No amount of cajoling would stop her. I had to employ The Stern Voice and perform a Telling Off. Orla's almost permanent smile was erased, little rivers of tears issued from her eyes, and the pathos in her sobs would have melted even the hardest of hearts. A few moments later, I was sitting on the floor with the dog and Orla came up to me. Her head and mine were on about the same level. She looked me in the eyes with her big, saucer-shaped, bright blue eyes (still a little watery from crying) and said gently “I love you, Daddy.” A full embrace followed, accompanied with another “I love you.” There was no guile. It was genuine, trusting, childish love. The type that only a 3 year old girl can exhibit. It will disappear soon.

The magic of the moment was broken when Joseph called to me from the next room“Dad, can you help me with Mario Kart?” (The Nintendo Wii game.)

Orla doesn't know it, but when she gives me that special look - that trusting, loving look - there is nothing I wouldn't do for her.

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Blaze has been begging me to let him write his own post. In the end I relented and let him. I had to help him, of course - like all dogs, his eyesight isn't that good and he found operating the keyboard a bit awkward. The result of our combined efforts can be found in the post before this one.