Pensive melancholy thoughts

No, he had other plus points. The first time I introduced him to my brother he insisted on walking in the middle of us, holding both of our hands - that was quite sweet. We were amused and touched by it, and by his childish enthusiasm for Westbourne Grove.

He has a kindness, obstructed by a lack of reality and thwarted by laziness, the results of which are far from kind in their cost. Immaturity writ massive. Good company for a 12 year old, although the latters intelligence has overtaken that of his 31 year old dad.

cosmictanya wrote:and by his childish enthusiasm for Westbourne Grove.

Don't take him now that the Tiroler Hut has burnt up.

I haven't taken him anywhere for a decade.

This individual is the reason I'm stuck in the UK for the next six years. I rashly promised him I wouldn't ever take our son to live abroad. I wish I'd kept it open as a possibility.

For the last three and a half years I've been desperate to do just that. I wanted a villa with a pool in Sintra, or Alvor, or Cassis, or Villefranche, and a small serviceable flat in Rome.

I've been on the phone to my mother for about an hour. She's given over her spare room to the daughter of a friend. This girl was raped at 13 and is heroin addicted. Active prostitute to pay for it all. She's now 32/33 and it's a wonder she's got to that age. The number of subsequent rapes can't be counted - gang, anal, you name it. 

The things that some men do to women never fails to sadden me. There have to be societal reasons behind this. Maybe we brutalize boys and young men so badly that this is the result. It strikes me that if you're a woman over the age of about 12, you're lucky if you haven't had your hope in humanity ripped from you in a predominantly sexual way.

Earlier today I had the daughter of a client in my office - she often pops in if she's in the area. She too hoovers up and injects anything she can find, and is very good at hiding it. There's no point in listing or discussing anyone else - these are only the two today I've had some contact with. The miracle would be a day without such colour.

In the last year of her life my grandmother - well into her 90's and less than 5 ft tall, frail, smiling, trusting, was in her bedroom when a fellow resident, more than young enough to be her son was found with his hands down her trousers. She was discovered pretending it wasn't happening while watching an Olympic cycling event. 

I bought her those trousers from a boutique in Marrakech. They were patterned silk, gathered in pantaloon style at the ankles. I thought they were smart enough for her to enjoy wearing but comfortable enough to be like pyjamas. He snapped the elastic on the waistband. The nurse, the assistant who found this going on, the head of the home, and I had a meeting to discuss this reprobate and what reaction was appropriate.

As four women we decided that it was ultimately standard fare and as long as she couldn't remember it happening it was best to just keep a watchful eye and not upset her by asking about something she showed no sign of being disturbed by the memory of. I still feel guilty. I sat with her after that meeting watching tv and talking, and she rested her head on my shoulder.

So, there's no escape even when you're dying. In fact (and the case of heroin addicted and visibly desperate prostitutes) some men seem to pay specifically for or take full advantage of the dying, because of god knows what warped world view. What a repulsive world we live in. Power and pleasure - you either have both, or neither. I make it my business to have as much of both as I can get and the castigation for that can be brutal.

But - yet - irony of cruel ironies, I'm not interested in power over others - only in power over myself. A hard enough ask as a white, rich, educated western woman in 2019, but not an unreasonable expectation from life.

I remember in August 2003 - and I don't know why this sticks out because it's hardly out of the ordinary, I was waiting for my friend to finish work and I thought I'd have a couple of gins in a Mayfair pub. I'd just got to the bar and a man who was sweating profusely said 'hi' to me. I smiled in greeting and then turned to attract the attention of the barman.

Within a split second I felt a hot beery breath on my neck and this man said to me "you're a f***ing bitch, you're a c*nt, you're a s*ut, you're a hole, you're like a hole in the f***ing wall, s*uts like you are the reason decent guys like me get sh*t on". I gave my order to the barman and pretended this person didn't exist. I've often wondered if I should've engaged him in conversation or hit him.

That night we drove down to Dorset to get away from the sticky heat. I think the Rolling Stones were playing at Twickenham because the traffic around Richmond was unreal. We sat smoking joints on the beach at Sandbanks and discussed this person, and just how common it was. 

The hottest loveliest week the UK ever had, in a wonderful location set for the Famous fu**ing Five, and all we discussed was that random guy and the issues around this topic. It's a wonder we weren't arrested - neither of us should've been driving and there were police everywhere.

'Are you ready for love?' was on the radio as I did my best impression of a sober person on that final roundabout before the Great Chertsey Road becomes the M3. White privilege. I don't think I've ever driven through traffic like that in this country. It was as if most of London had decided they couldn't sleep in such heat and needed to get to the coast.

Can't have been the Stones - just looked and they were on a fortnight later. I'm sure someone big was playing that night - that wasn't just regular 'get me to the sea' midnight traffic.

Do men discuss this stuff and bond over it? I'd like to know. Not a single female of my acquaintance is in any danger of running out of material on this. 

I'd say stereotypically gay men of my generation and older are also used to being publicly sexualized. Probably in an even worse way because there is nothing even cackhandedly positive about it. I know my brother went through hell as a teenager.

I met one of his tormentors not so very long ago. He seemed displeased to be reminded of his viciousness and claimed to think I had punched him into a gutter, poured a jug of semolina over his head and arranged for him to be battered by a gang from Shepherds Bush because I fancied him.

There was naturally nothing I loved more than listening to my brother crying in the bottom half of our bunkbed or for myself being personally pinned to a wall and felt up by this person while his friends enjoyed the show. I distinctly recall using a cashpoint when he and his mates came up behind me and ripped my shirt to shreds while I tried to retain dignity and say please don't. The off centre scar between his eyebrows is a very well earned feature. And yet he seemed slightly put out, denied something.

There was a kid outside Glasgow on the other forum that I was very fond of. He finished school and started a history degree. I said he should come down to visit, 19 was my absolute lower limit etc, tried to give helpful advice on work experience, suggested to him to please not be (for his own future sake) that guy on Twitter etc with the casually dreadful misogyny. 

I thought we had a kind of friendship. I'd have happily opened my door to him. The way he then openly spoke of me as some kind of monster and nonchalantly joined his laddish forumers to speak to and of me like some kind of dirt was a genuinely hurtful experience. Although I don't see why it should've been a surprise to me. It's always a surprise to me, regardless of how many examples are provided.

I love the A316 Country Way and especially the point you mention where it becomes the M3, because it represents escape from London and escape from having to go to appointments in Hammersmith.

I'm sorry that a spot with such positive associations for me is part of such sad memories for you.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. 

I was out tonight round the corner from where I lived until I was 14/15. I walked past and looked up as I always do. I really miss that flat. I miss sitting on the windowsill listening to music and watching people/shouting out to tell them I liked or disliked their outfit/whatever.

I miss the locals and the nightlife, now either gone or changed beyond all recognition. I miss sitting on a stolen barstool talking on the phone that was on the kitchen wall, smoking cigarettes. 

I miss sleeping in my mothers all white and very sunny bedroom when she was out or working, and waking up there to watch The Big Breakfast with a slice of toast before school. I miss the spacious living room with its enormous speakers and incredible views. I miss lounging on my chair watching tv and having the lights and neon outside reflecting off the window.

I even miss how cold it was in the winter and having to plug a hairdryer in just outside the bathroom and rest it on the barstool to get some heat in there first thing in the morning. I miss the elderly pervert across the way who used his own window as a convenient place to flash from.

Does anyone else deeply miss their old home and relate to this? I can't seem to shake it off. It's a sensation that's been getting stronger for a year or two now.

I can't say I miss anywhere I've ever lived.

I did, though, the last time the house we lived in until I was four came up for sale, think about turning up, pretending to be a potential buyer, just to have a look around it again. However, that was out of curiosity, rather than sentiment.

I did have a good luck at my old house's pictures on the estate agent's web site when it came up for sale.

Half a million? Yeah, good luck with that!

Ooh, I like what they did with the garden.

Oh, both spoilt brats - estate agents and gardens being done up ;) 

This was a housing association flat. One of the few that wasn't covered by right to buy, so it wasn't an option.

It was only my great grandmother dying aged 103 that freed up the place we moved to.

I've thought about writing a letter and posting it to the current occupants asking for a look round.

If it was me I'd let someone do that, but other people might not like it, so I haven't asked.

I miss the house I grew up in, but it's only across the road from my parents' current house, so I can see the outside every time I go round there.

I've noticed that whenever I read a novel that describes someone's childhood, I always imagine it as being based in that house, suitably adjusted for period and location. I used to do that when I was 5, and still lived there, but it's odd that I'm still doing it now four decades later.

I have just returned from one of my favourite walks - through Ovington Square, up Walton Street, across Pont Street, up the left hand side of Sloane Street and back down Basil Street, past the back of Harrods and down Walton Street, right along Beauchamp Place and down the Brompton Road, cut through the mews and home. 

There's nowhere like London and I fall in love with it all the time. It's only having lived abroad that I came to appreciate that to its full extent. I just wish it wasn't attached to this poisonous country. When I was away I was talking to a South African couple on the beach who asked me where I was from and I said London.

This guy said, kind of laughing, 'they all say London, never England'. His partner said 'exactly, that's why they say it like that, they are two totally different things'. I would love to move away from here for good. I hate the UK. I could miss London from afar and love it on visits. Abroad, my son could grow into the freedom and community that I did. All that possibility - pi**ed on and pi**ed away by the gleefully ignorant.

I'm not in a good place right now NHOTWers, I have yielded to my compulsions on multiple fronts.

It's not good.

If it would help to share, feel free to speak.

I'm all right again now, thanks. I suppose sometimes the only way to remember why we had to stop doing something is to do it again.

It's a subdued manner and early bedtime for me today.