In Need of an Off Switch!

I love Robbie very much and mostly I like having him working from home, but I have my limits and just occasionally I need a bit of time on my own. I need peace and quiet, time to think and to process my own thoughts without someone talking non stop at the side of me. 

On Wednesday Robbie really seemed to have his talking boots on. During the morning I was trying to focus on several important things that I needed to do, but I couldn't concentrate because Robbie kept talking. He keeps returning to the subject of the Sky box and the possibility of moving to Virgin for our television, internet and phone. I am very reluctant to move and I told him 'loud and clear' that pestering me is not going to make me change my mind. After a few brief moments of quiet he was at it again, and we leapt from one subject to the next without stopping for breath. Much of the conversation was about his work in one way or another, but eventually he settled on the subject of irritating people - and as I listened to him I was mentally adding to my own list of annoying people!!

We had lunch at Morrisons with my mum and step father, it is nice to spend an hour or so with them during the week. We chatted about all sorts of things as we ate, but Robbie was making me feel exhausted because he didn't even stop for breath.  He had returned to the subject of our television and Internet provider his voice seemed louder than usual and he didn't pay any attention to my hints so I had to tell him point blank to stop talking. That worked for a few seconds but then he 'defaulted' to his specialist subject (trains) and off we went again. I wanted to scream at him to shut up but I managed to control the impulse and settled for a withering look instead.

Robbie was aware that I had some shopping to do, but as we finished eating he told me to get a move on because he needed a lift to the station to catch the 13.55 train. The urge to harm him was almost too much for me to resist! He had talked non stop all morning but he had not bothered to share the one piece of relevant information, that he needed a lift to the station just before 2pm. Having had a brief but meaningful exchange of views, we ran around the supermarket to get the absolute essentials and met up again at the till. I was still livid and when Robbie told me that he thought I would have know what time he needed to be at the station, I informed him very firmly that I am not Mystic Meg. The woman in front of us in the queue gave me a knowing smile and let us go in front of her as we only had a few items.

I had to hurry to get him to the station on time and I wasn't taking too much notice of Robbie. Then I realised that he was talking about 'Percy' and I was completely mystified. The only 'Percy' that I know of is the one that gets 'pointed at the porcelain' so when Robbie started talking about 'web Percy' and 'normal Percy' I had no idea what he was on about. I should have left it like that but I was unwise enough to ask what he meant. He told me that PERCY is a computer program that DfT and train operators use to check that they are meeting existing franchise commitments. He gave me more detail and I got the feeling that he could have talked for a lot longer but thankfully we arrived at the station on time and he had to dash off to catch his train. At last I had a few minutes peace! 

Better to live on the roof than share the house with a nagging wife. (GNB: Prov 21.9)

Robbie has done some daft things in his time (and been forgiven for most of them!) but this week he took a step too far. I know he is a slow learner but if he ever does that again he will need police protection! Sometime I long for the old days when he used to take his pager to bed with him. It woke me up countless times during the night and sometimes Robbie would wake me up to tell me about the state of the railways, but it wasn't as dangerous as his blackberry. He has two (one for each hand) one work one and one personal one, they put ideas into his head and lead him astray. Earlier this week he 'confessed' (under duress) that he had used his Blackberry to record me talking in my sleep. He thought it was hilarious. When I found out about it I made him play it back to me, most of it was him talking rather than me - nothing new there! I did mention a train and an elephant, but I wasn't rambling, I was just remembering our recent rather amazing trip on the Severn Valley Railway. I did see an elephant and a couple of rhinos when we went past West Midlands Safari Park. He has received stern warnings and if he knows what is good for him he will not record me again.


So why the quotation from the Bible, partly because it is one of my favourites and also because it gave me an excuse to include a Snoopy picture. The other day Robbie reminded me how much he likes Snoopy and it made me Realise how much Robbie has in common with Linus! The main reason for the quotation is because it is the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. People who know me well will know tat it is not my favourite version of the Bible despite the beautiful use of language. I prefer the more accessible and down to earth language of the Good News translation, but I recognise the importance of the King James Bible. It made the Bible accessible to ordinary people in English but it is also an important literary work in its own right and it has influenced the way that English is spoken.


"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light..." 
Genesis ch1 v1-3

Finding The Right Words

Those of you who know Robbie will know that words are the one thing he is never short of. If fact the opposite is true, it is almost impossible to get him to shut up, he can talk endlessly about anything under the sun and you can rely on him to lower the tone whenever there is the slightest opportunity. He talks and talks and talks - he can fit more words into a minute than anyone else I know.

Being lost for words is a new experience for Robbie, but in the circumstances I am not surprised that he is struggling. He has been asked to speak at his friend's funeral, there is so much that he wants to say, but putting the feelings you have deep inside into words is not so easy, and finding exactly the right words to express how much Chris meant as a friend and colleague is difficult. It is almost impossible to sum up the qualities of a close friend in just a few brief sentences, but one thing is undeniable Chris knew how to live well. He loved his work, but it didn't rule his life, he filled his leisure time with all the things that were important to him. He packed a lot of living into not quite 40 years. I don't know if Robbie's words will adequately paint a picture of his friend, or express how keenly Robbie feels his loss. I can't do much to help, but I can at least make sure everyone will understand his words - I have be making him practice speaking slowly!

Porn?

Robbie hasn't exactly covered himself in glory this week and after yet another man stress he was sitting at the table talking to himself . I couldn't see exactly what he was doing because his laptop was blocking my view, but he seemed to be looking at a magazine. His lips move when he reads and being Robbie when his lips move noise comes out. Usually I ignore the constant muttering but my ears pricked up when I heard him mention "master and slave" then moments later I clearly heard the word "hump". I jumped up and demanded to know what sort of filth he was reading. With a huge grin he held up the Hornby magazine, he had been reading about hump shunting at Tinsley! He made me look at lots of pictures and he explained the whole process in meticulous detail - twice!

A New House Rule.

Robbie never learns! After a less than perfect Friday evening we had a lovely start to Saturday morning. It is so nice not to get up in a hurry, to have time to relax and listen to the radio or just talk. That's the bit that Robbie has problems with - the just talking bit. He can talk faster and for longer than anyone else I know. If talking was an Olympic sport he would be a gold medalist. His problem is what he talks about and when he talks about it! We were cuddled up, just enjoying the moment, one of those times when words are not really necessary - and then he spoiled it. He looked into my eyes and told me that he'd had an email the evening before. I thought it must be something serious, but I was wrong. He went on to tell me that the email contained details of the next three rail tours. He embarked on a detailed account of the proposed route of one of the trips. He was very excited about it because he had not traveled that route before. I was far from excited! I made a mental note negotiate a new house rule - no trains in the bedroom!!

Lost!

Those people who know Robbie will perhaps understand that I don't always listen to Robbie when he is talking. He talks almost constantly and it is like a roller-coaster ride, dragging up hill via a long and contorted explanation, careering down hill as information tumbles out faster than you can take it in, twisting and turning from one apparently unrelated subject to the next and looping back to cover the same subject all over again. It is exhausting and if I am working I find it easier to just make the odd non committal grunt without actively listening to him. OK, I know that is a bit mean but it is a form of self preservation, my head would explode if I tried to listen to everything he said!

Robbie went off to play trains at the weekend, he left with his weekend bag at 6am on Friday and I didn't expect to see him again until Sunday afternoon. He phoned several times on Friday and in the evening he let me know that he had arrived at the Travelodge, but that was the last time I heard from him. I know I can't compete with his precious trains, but when I didn't hear from him on Sunday morning I started to become anxious. I realised that I didn't know where he was, who he was with with or how he was getting back because I hadn't listened. He had two phones with him, both were switched off, I kept ringing, but I didn't know what else to do. As the day went on I became convinced that he'd had an accident or something bad had happened. It was about 6pm when I finally tracked him down, apparently he had forgotten to take his phone charger, he was surrounded by people with phones but he didn't think it was important to send me just one text to let me know he was OK. He isn't in the dog house, he is somewhere much more remote than the dog house!

Fighting Back!

According to Sam, he is perfectly normal and it is the rest of us who are a bit weird (his choice of words, not mine), maybe he is right. Living with a person who has Asperger Syndrome certainly tests the limits of my sanity at times; it can be frustrating, exhausting and isolating. I love Sam dearly and I am so used to his idiosyncrasies that I couldn’t really imagine him being just ordinary. He rivals Robbie when it comes to random facts; on Thursday he informed me that apart from humans, dolphins are the only other species that indulge in sex for pleasure. I will have to have a rethink, I’d always assumed that rabbits had all the fun! Sam is the only person I know who can talk more than Robbie, his specialist subject is films and comic books, but just like Robbie he will talk in detail about absolutely anything!

Shopping with Sam has always been ‘an experience’. Can you imagine a child with a compulsion for sorting being let loose in a supermarket, we could never get past the cereal section because he wanted to sort and straighten all the boxes. Shopping with Sam was a very time consuming activity! When he was three he went to the fish counter at Safeway (now Morrisons) on a behind the scenes visit with his nursery group and he has been fascinated by fish ever since. For years afterwards he would go up and look at the fish and `interview' the staff about what the various fish were and where they came from. I would attempt to ‘disown’ him and disappear to the next section but eventually I would have to drag him away. I really don't know what Sam found so fascinating about fish, perhaps it is his Cornish background showing through!

For years it was Sam’s ambition to be a trolley pusher at Safeway, but one day as we left the shop he spotted a sign displaying job vacancies, he said "Mum, if I can't be a spy I think I would like to work on the fish counter". Thankfully he has slightly different ambitions these days.

Shopping is still a challenge and it rarely passes without incident. Something about Tesco transforms him from a tolerable teen into an angry troll, come to think of it; the supermarket has much the same effect on Robbie! On Friday Sam and I had to pop into Morrisons for some bread and a couple of other items. Sam was being really helpful (there’s a first time for everything) and when we got to the bread section they had packed the bread on to the shelves so tightly that it was very hard to pick up a loaf without squashing it. I held the basket and Sam carefully eased the loaves off the shelf and checked the sell by dates. We were just selecting our second loaf when an old woman who was using her trolley as an offensive weapon came up behind us and shouted 'excuse me'. I looked behind me and checked that we were not blocking her way and Sam stepped a little closer to me. In seconds she shouted 'excuse me' again and attempted to shove Sam away from the bread with her trolley. I was incensed and told her she was a very bad mannered old woman. I pointed out that Sam was helping me, she had plenty of room to go past us and if she wanted to buy bread she should wait her turn. She was very offensive and threatening and as I walked away I told her to learn some manners. I was so angry that someone would treat Sam like that, especially when he was being so well behaved.

Sam was shocked into silence for a while afterwards; I think he was really shocked by the woman’s behaviour. As we drove home he told me I was ‘awesome’ and he said he didn’t know I could be so cross. Maybe I wouldn’t have stood up for myself as much, I am not a confrontational sort of person, but I couldn’t stand by and let Sam be treated like that!

Mr. Robbie Burgess 15.08.07

I thought I might dish the dirt on my legend of a step-father, Robbie. I don't think anyone will mind me saying that there is only one Robert Burgess and when they made him they broke the mould! I've never met such an unusual person! He and my mum, although they seem like they are complete opposites, actually have a lot in common! For a start, they are both expert hoarders, and myself and my sister have been clearing out rooms full of train magazines, model railways, family tree magazines and paperwork, CDs and doctor martin shoes! It is much easier to clean the house when they are away, because Robbie doesn't like it when we clean. He likes to clean in his own way, which consists of putting things in places that no one would ever dream of finding them! The rest of the family like to call him Mr. Squirrell! Mum seems to have become rather interested in trains nowadays too; if Robbie is sitting reading one of his railway books or magazines, my mum can often be seen sneaking a peek over his shoulder! Robbie likes to talk...alot! :P He will often get mum cross by starting a group discussion on the most random of subjects, whilst my mum is trying to watch one of her programmes on the television. He's probably the funniest, most bubbly person I'll ever have the pleasure of meeting, and Laura has now almost perfected the art of impersonating his mannerisms!

Playing Trains 16.07.07

Robbie always has a lot to talk about after a day out playing trains, yesterday was no exception. I am afraid I couldn't summon up too much enthusiasm about the charter trip to a cement works, but he described the trip in minute detail anyway, he even explained exactly where he sat - and where everyone else sat. He had to wake me up after all that excitement! He then went on to tell me about all the people he met, it wasn't particularly interesting as I didn't know any of these people. My ears pricked up when he claimed to have met Shrek, but maybe I misheard. I was listening again when he mentioned the young blond woman that he met on the train. Apparently he just got talking to her, but he must have got her full life history because she has popped up in conversation 5 or 6 times today! I think he was quite flattered when she told him he didn't look 35. I don't know, wherever he goes he always ends up with women making a fuss of him.

Information Overload 20.01.07

Here is part 2 of Sam's description of Robbie. They are incredibly alike in so many ways, but of course neither of them would admit it!

Robbie is always moaning at me because I am untidy. I am a bit disorganised, but he is untidy too and he never admits it. He puts everything in piles all over the place and he hates throwing things away. He has piles of magazines everywhere and there are trains taking over the house. Just because I don't put my stuff in piles like he does he moans at me for being untidy. Mum moans at him about his magazines sometimes and if she is really cross she calls him 'haemorrhoid man' because of all the piles. That makes me laugh.

Robbie helps me with my computer and he talks mum into letting me do things when she says no. Sometimes we watch films together, he knows quite a lot about films and so do I. When we argue mum gives Robbie that sort of look that tells you are in big trouble and she asks him "Who's the adult?" He isn't always good at being an adult because he says he is a toyboy. I am not sure what one is really. Action man is a toy and male but Robbie isn't like him, I don't think Robbie likes action stuff and I don't think Action Man knows about trains. The other boy toy is Barbie's boyfriend Ken and he looks a bit gay, mum says that Robbie has a gay walk sometimes but he is not like Ken. Mum told me that Robbie says he is a toyboy to make her feel old, he doesn't need to bother because I make her feel old anyway, she is always telling me that.

Robbie takes me on train journeys, I like that, but I don't see the point in writing down numbers and things like he does. I just like being comfortable on the train with my laptop. We do have lots of things in common. I have to learn not to make people bored by going on and on about Superman and films and stuff. Sometimes mum pretends to go to sleep when I am talking to her. If we ask Robbie about trains we get information overload and mum has to tell Robbie to stop talking because she is losing the will to live. Sometimes when she asks him a question she says she only wants the brief version, but he is not very good at being brief.

A Man of Many Words

One of the things I found attractive about Robbie when we first met was his voice – especially on the telephone. I don’t recall having too many problems with his accent, but most of my family behaved as if he was speaking in a foreign language. The problem is that when he gets excited or enthusiastic he speaks much faster and he is harder to understand. Robbie is a man of many words; his philosophy seems to be to uses as many words as possible in the hope that a few of them make sense! My mum finds him especially hard to understand. We often visit her on a Sunday and Robbie chats away about all sorts of things, sometimes I notice my mum wearing a polite but confused expression and she has to ask me what he was saying. Much to her amusement I can often distil five or ten minutes of Robbie’s conversation in to one sentence!