Decisions, Decisions.

It seems as if the blog has focussed a lot on aches and pains recently, I try not to sound too gloomy, but as I write about the ordinary events of family life it is hard to avoid writing about something as important as Robbie's struggle with back and leg pain. Over recent years his legs have misbehaved more and more frequently (that is true of the rest of him too - but that's another story!). He has written off so many pairs of trousers and jackets, but every cloud has a silver lining - I suspect he is single-handedly responsible for the improvement in Marks and Spencer's profits.

For quite a long time I have been trying to persuade Robbie to take his health more seriously and to make some adjustments in his life to make things a little easier. To be honest I get more attention when I talk to the dog (and she is deaf!) but finally we have reach the point where Robbie has had to take stock and admit that even a superhero would struggle to cope with the wide range of commitments that he was trying to cope with.

As well as a demanding job and a difficult journey to work every day, he had his rail tours, gigs, various union responsibilities, family commitments, a demanding wife, and one or two other little diversions that he would kill me if I mentioned on the b

log (yes even worse than milk floats!). Anyway Robbie has reluctantly admitted that he has to put his health and his family first. Sometimes just getting to work is a real struggle, but he never gives up, he loves his job, and he puts his heart and soul into his work, so that has to come first, before any of his other activities. He loves his trains too, I am sure if he had to choose between me and a deltic he would the deltic! Never mind, I know my place! He couldn't give up his trains and his rail tours, it would be cruel to expect him to do that, but he has promised to be more realistic about how much he can do.

So that leaves gigs and the union. In his heart Robbie knows that gigs will not figure very much in his future, but he isn't quite ready to put that into words. He would't be able to stand for that long and that ridiculous bouncing up and down thing that he used to do has to stay firmly in the past. I know it is hard, but I am sure we can find other ways for him to enjoy his music (I use the term music in it's broadest sense, to me the stuff he likes is just noise). The union was the most difficult decision of all. I make no secret of the fact that I disapprove of his union involvement, but I love Robbie and I am proud of the work he has done to support his colleagues in many different ways. Recently he has been very unhappy and stressed because there have been times when his health has stopped him from fulfilling his union responsibilities and there have been even more times

when his union work has encroached on his paid work to an unacceptable degree. In the end the union pressures were too much to cope with and something had to give. It was such a hard decision but Robbie has finally decided to step aside from his union roles and let others take their turn.

So if you see Robbie he could use a few friendly words because it has been a difficult few weeks, but beware, he doesn't like people to make a fuss so a dodgy joke or a chat about trains would be

far more welcome than an excess of sympathy. He may have had to face a few setbacks, but in his head he still thinks he is Superman!

The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

Marriages, if they are going to work at all have to have an element of give and take. Sometimes if people love each other and they take time to talk things through and really listen to each other it is possible to overcome even the most difficult issues. However everyone has their breaking point and it can be a seemingly minor issue that tips the balance. It has been a bit like that with us recently.

In August Robbie and I had the most amazing holiday, all on our own with no children. It allowed us to really enjoy each other's company, we talked, laughed, enjoyed being close and most importantly we listened to each other. Within the space of a few days we had reviewed and redefined the boundaries of our marriage, in a way which recognised the needs and feelings of each of us. I am not talking about the imposition of a narrow and suffocating set of rules, this was the sort of unity that enables each person to be who they are, while respecting the needs and feelings of the other. When we got back from holiday we were determined to nurture our relationship, by making time to be together and to have fun, even when that means taking a few hours away from the demands of family and household responsibilities. So far we have managed to do that and it has been really good.

So here comes the 'but'. In every relationship there are issues that are guaranteed to cause friction and things that the one partner does that the other is uncomfortable about. I am sure Robbie could provide a long list of things that I do that annoy him, but for me the one thing that bothers me far more than any of the other things is his involvement in the union. I mind for lots of reasons; he has taken on far more than it is reasonable for one person to do and I think he is spreading himself too thin. I don't like the union, I think they talk a lot of nonsense and I think they have changed him in a way that is deeply unattractive. More than anything else I don't like the union taking away our family time, I don't like the way they behave and I think it has led him to make some very poor choices. Of course he would say that I was wrong on every count, but I am judging by actions not just words.

I'd had issues in the past, especially when he went to Dublin earlier in the year, but we had put those behind us, so I didn't have too many concerns about him going on a training course on Thursday. Unfortunately things went down hill from there, he promised that he would ring me in the evening, so after work I looked forward to his call, I didn't want to ring him because I wasn't sure what he would be doing and I didn't want to interrupt. The call didn't come so eventually I took the phone to bed with me and read a book while I was waiting. I must have fallen asleep because I was woken soon after 2am by a text arriving. It was the briefest text informing me that he had been out and was going to bed. I was really hurt, how much effort would it have taken to make a quick phone call at some point during the evening.

The final straw came in the morning when he compounded the problem by not ringing me. When I finally spoke to him he said that he had forgotten about me, poor choice of words perhaps, but that was the final straw - I would never forget about him!! An argument followed and small as this incident was it had tipped the balance for me and I gave him the choice - me or the union. Robbie has always been a slow learner, he chose the union! Lets just say that Friday wasn't a pleasant day for either of us. I walked around the house thinking how much space I would have if I got rid of all his junk and he spent the day telling me that I was totally unreasonable. It was stalemate! Robbie has never understood that when in a hole you should stop digging. He decided to 'light the blue touch paper' by leaving a comment on facebook agreeing that the course was fantastic, I am not sure if it was the comment that annoyed me most or the fact that the woman whose status he was responding to had a rather dubious, near naked profile photo! If I was angry before I was furious after that!

Saturday morning dawned and Robbie's negating style of giving no ground and and insisting that I was totally unreasonable was making matters worse. I will not say how he won me over but if he tried that tactic on anyone else I would kill him!! The result is that he has agreed to give up most of his union work by November and I have agreed to accept him keeping the health and safety stuff. This brings us back to the level of involvement that he had when we got married. He is not entirely forgiven but we are working on it!!

A Knicker Nicker - Surely Not?

Robbie decided to abandon me on Thursday to go on another pointless union course. He was only going for one day and one night but he packed enough for a week, how many shirts can one man wear in a day? He wasted all the previous evening packing and working out his travel arrangements to Birmingham - a journey that he should be familiar with by now as he does it every week day! After all the messing around I expected him to be totally organised and ready to leave in good time for his train on Thursday morning - I was wrong! I woke him up on time, I even managed to get him out of bed without too much difficulty, but it all went wrong after that.


When I got up I realised that his arrival in the bathroom had been seriously delayed and when I went downstairs to investigate I found him trotting around in his knickers muttering obscenities. According to Robbie someone had stolen his knickers to prevent him going on the course! I had plenty of good reasons to stop him going on the course, but if I had set my mind on keeping him at home I could have achieved my objective without resorting to pant pilfering! I went up to the bedroom and found half a dozen pairs of Robbie's pants, but when I offered them to him he found reasons to reject every pair as unsuitable in some way. He insisted that he had to have his best pants for the course (perhaps they help him to think better!) and he plodded off in search of the perfect pair of pants.


In the end he settled for an 'inferior' pair to pack in his case and he insisted that his best pants had been stolen. By this time we were in the car racing towards the station in time for hid train. I tried to make him review the evidence, Sam is skinny and he couldn't possibly wear Robbie size garments, the girls have an interesting selection of underwear but it is somewhat skimpier than Robbie's, neither of them has a use for the kind that he wears. So who nicked the knickers? The only person I know who wears trunks like Robbie is Homer Simpson, but I believe he prefers white rather than black. The truth is that there was no conspiracy to steal his pants, he just hadn't looked in the right place - they were in the tumble dryer!