Vix

Well here we are 

About to witness an individual make history 

We have known and supported Vix through so many endeavours over the years 

And I am sure there were plenty before we even met

Vix was introduced to me as my now wife’s best mate

Someone who studied at Uni with her and someone who had a smile for everyone

But then stood firmly and proudly on our wedding day as P’s”best woman and gave a speech I will never forget 

Vix is so sweet natured she often describes herself as someone who is walked over but I have always figured you’d be mad to do that to someone like this 

Someone who would walk on fire for you, if it meant you could go for dessert together 

Someone who can make words up for places and make them sound even better

But someone who does not judge 

Someone who has a genuine innate ability to make you feel understood and give you unrelentless consideration and compassion 

We have sat and listened to Vix talk about how her life has changed, when she started this transformation with Mags we were intrigued 

Enough so, we joined too and that sealed our triple threat friendship 

We became indestructible and unbeatable as three people who walked weekly and got each other through lockdown and became this crazy bubble 

Fast forward to now, with the strength and determination to make her own business idea a huge success. A house into a home and fluff into a goddess

We love you 

Today is so important and we will be there cheering you on with tears falling out of our eyes 

With pride and true friendship

You can do anything Vix 

Anything you ever wanted to and today you chose this 

I will say looking back to the day we spent the morning after our wedding, chatting giggling and still being drunk but it was such a moment and one I will never forget 

Come on now Vix own this stage 

You absolute cookie legend 

We love you 

KP

Long road behind us … more roads ahead

We sold our house on the day it was advertised officially

We didn’t expect it to be so quick and so when it was full asking price we were probably not ready

Turns out the offer came from a lady who happened to get in to view it because she saw the for sale sign and tried her luck.. she was never booked in

22 viewings were cancelled thereafter and we started looking… hard

Both working full time and me now fully into the numb pill our weekends were consumed by addresses and specs of our ideal flavour

We changed our mind a few times

Pulled out weeks before completion for our dream new build over quality

And in the end we were forced to rent or fear losing our purchaser after she’d waited 6months 

Renting has been hard 

It’s a weird one for me to return back to the dead money market but we were forced and had two kittens to think about 

We were also tied into a year long contract and moved during the global pandemic 

Life was not normal for anyone

The time here has been strained and me no longer on numbing pills I have grown to resent it 

We have tried and failed to find anything and also worried we’d be stuck being in contract and then having a house purchase too

Trust me, if I could worry about it I was and it was not getting easier

Today we are moving out

Finally that house we had wanted existed and although not in an area we had envisaged for health pandemic and to have what little family I have now here, it was the right fit

I had suggested being close to my in-laws as I have always been grounded by family and missed that 

The feeling of owning a house again is a blissful one and to not be held by some old twats rules is surreal

Let’s be honest here, I am not a fan of being told what to do in my own place

It will be a long weekend for all the wrong reasons those being stress no patience and little sleep but it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind 

To know the walls doors and floors are yours 

And to know your paying into a building you will own

Adulting was never easy

It was a force to be reckoned with

Much more than broken hearts and teenage hangovers 

But I’m happy to say I’m still learning from mistakes 

Life is not here for bruise free paths

But more to laugh when you fall and pick yourself back up

Ps wish us luck 🍀 

Sequel

I am not sure how I feel right now

I look out to the room I am sat and I am surrounded by boxes filled with our life

The life that we have had these passed 18months

Through a global pandemic

An existence that has no words that support the emotion encapsulating the world we were in 

We taught here 

In confined spaces during a life that took lives 

Daily news updates talking through our tv 

Death tolls rising 

And this house feeling smaller 

Cramped and claustrophobic 

But together 

Sometimes it felt like we were so alone here 

Confined to such proximity

But some days our voices gave each other hope

Now we are both sat boxes piled up high 

Pictures in bubble wrap

A life left sealed from one house to the next

A feeling and reality I could not even see

A time where we didn’t know what would be

2020 being one of the hardest years in my life

Psychologically and emotionally 

Now a new dawn 

A new page

The series of KP continues 

We have subscriptions to life

We have dreams and a desire to achieve them 

Watch us as we close off another building 

Left with memories we shall remember and memories we will shut away 

Memories nevertheless 

Onwards and upwards

Carpe Diem 

You are off the hook now … so leave it there

When we all attend your evening do ensure you arrive on time

For we are here for a show of our life

We are not often concerned with the drama outside the remit of our own worlds but of late that has been my soul draining time

I have struggled with the intensity of the existence of others in my sights 

I cannot fix them 

I have realised after a long endurance test that I cannot physically or emotionally fix them all 

And the most significant lesson is that I didn’t have to

It was never my job 

Never my purpose

Never my calling

If I am to succeed and survive this current damp spell I am to stop thinking I need to 

How could I possibly 

When would it end

I need to see it for what it is

Give them what my title deems acceptable and forward them on

Instruct them of the services available 

Then when the day is drawing to a close

When the lessons are over

Sign off 

Let go and switch off

Don’t leave myself in stand by for the inevitability of that mistake

The messages the concerns the support 

I will never meet my own demands so why start the eternal spiral of disappointment 

Let them know I did my utmost 

Record the words accurately 

Then collect my bags and coat

And leave 

An acceptance speech for real life 💙

And then what happens 

People are all there on the calls feeding your broken shell with ideas and advice

Their true feelings come out at the bucket load

You are breathing in deeply and trying to manage the thoughts you have about it all yourself

They all want to help but how can they really

How can anyone really know the heart and mind of another

How does anyone really know how another’s heart breaks and how it heals?

The phone calls end, the dead tone is deafening like white noise 

You are left in a room in a house which feels so cold

A house that had once sang to you your future plans and dreams

A house with pictures that cover walls of memories that you shared with someone who was supposed to be the everything you had always wanted

The house that is such a long way away

Away from the family that filled you with the love that you have searched for as a result

Your upbringing created the dream of true love

How do you build it up

Build it up from the ruin on the ground that lays in front of you 

The rubble that clouds your sight

Blocks the reality

That maybe 

Maybe 

Your gut was always aware

The gut had been screaming so loud 

For so long

That maybe you had not noticed that hum anymore

There is a beauty to this 

I promise you

A beauty that far exceeds your current thoughts and minds filled nights

Your dreams and nightmares have no idea 

They can not see this

For this is a bigger picture

The pixels far exceed the iOS on your devices

The picture is full of smiles and truth

Truth that might blur the current picture sat in frames in some half packed box in the attic

We are not always aware of the road below

We are too busy looking up

Too busy stressed from life, work life and living 

The strain of reality living in what we have coined the global pandemic

We cannot be blamed for not having the clearest vision in history to see what may have been the brightest light

We might have mistaken it for the sun

We all know that is getting hotter with the climate 

How the fcuk do we keep up with this

Trust me though 

It is not a completed novel

This is just a new chapter

Same character

But having seen through 20 plus vision 

Heart and mind on the window sill

Gut on a pedal stool 

Trust me

You will and have already levelled up

Levelling up and building strength 

Evolution at its best

Outgrown that picture 

Shed the skin 

When you are ready

Let it go

But don’t look back 

There was never a thing you could do more

You tried every thing 

And everyone knows that 

Last page

Gone are the future days in which I thought you would be here

Gone are the memories of our highest times

For now we are a were not a now

And that hurts

G & P

Come down from the heights 

They are not safe anymore for the wind is coming and will not wait 

Life has been a tumultuous existence in which heart and soul has been pushed against its rock and hard place

The pain has been squeezed deep into the pores of your skin and left you effortlessly tired

You are no longer able to muster the words of forgiveness and solitude is your only friend

The lights burn too bright for the sore eyes which are stained and wrinkled from the stinging of salted water which poured so heavily from them 

I will not apologise for being

For being is a blessing in this uncomfortable existence 

The existence which has taken the beauty of company of others and replaced it with the fear of ill health and guilt

We have been blamed and slaughtered for wanting to see those we love

Cancelled plans that have been the light for so many’s tunnel

Weddings and births are now a solo project in which only the brave or stupid can partake

Life is not as we knew it

But a sketch that was left out in the ruins of thunderstorms to smudge and become drenched

We are no longer able to see through the tinted lenses that are placed on our faces as we wake to the morning tune of birds

Concealed like some cheap make up you got free in a bingo hall toilet

Sticking to the floor that has been trampled for so many years the carpet is so weathered the colour doesn’t have a name

Dragging our limbs up stairs in fear of lifts or social contact

Becoming shadows of our former glory days

Nostalgia over fantasy times we can’t remember 

Missing the days of a bus journey without concern over masks or distance 

Eye contact being something we all avoided but now how we read a rooms mood

How we interpret feeling for the voice and normal conversation diminishes to a face time call in this new societal norm of 2021

Come down from the heights

Look down at your hands holding a phone which encompasses your new life

Time lost to short videos of action and comedy 

For this is our new normal

This is our life now