Echoes.

Where do I begin? This writing lark is such a blast. I'm still enjoying the typing part of the writing and then there's the promotion and sales which is going great guns. This afternoon I had a class in an organisation in town. I told them about my book and they've agreed to stock and sell it for me too. What a result. The stories going really well and the characters are developing, and I'm still spotting resonances of friends or parts thereof in them. I'm also pleased that I've now got 26493 words of the necessary 50000. But I think the story could be a bit longer than that.

Watching TV this evening. How on earth have I found time to do that too? Tony's been enjoying his soaps and I've been watching on from the Pc desk - living in tow or more worlds at a time is something I'm getting used to.

Did anyone see Eastenders. Phil (one of the characters in the soap for non-English readers) was freaked out by a photo he found- when we saw the photo we were close to convinced it wa me- it was taken in the 70s and looked juts like a photo we have of me in the garden at home with one of my rabbits. I even had the same jumper as the boy in the photo was wearing!

Then Corrie- what a tearjerker that was. One of the characters was facing having to have his sick dog put to sleep. The vet came in and said 'you can cradle him if you like'- Ouch. I was thrown back to Brockley as Chasca died in my arms. I've been bawling like a newborn again. How much that hurts! 

So now I'm off to bed to cuddle up with Xali and Cuddy now, oh and Tony of course!, but before I go I shall leave you with a little more of Joey's story:

This is a continuation where I left off yesterday....

I’m given number 12791, which I take to be a lucky sign as it’s my date of birth. I answer all the questions that are thrown at me and fill in a form, signing some disclaimer or other, and I’m sent to the much shorter queue to get inside. My nerves are now fired up another gear.

The last time I was at the O2 centre was to see ‘Think-on’ in concert. I must have been one of the only guys there. The place was full to brimming with screaming teenies who knew nothing of the group’s previous incarnation, and swaying oldies who knew all the songs from years ago.  Of course I wasn’t the only guy there, and amongst the others was that cute hairy-bear-type who was probably about thirty, but as sexy as hell and got us into an almost compromising situation when we exchanged intimate handshakes at the urinals. He blue-toothed me his details, so I soon had his name, and a few days later shared much more with him at his place in Kensington, where I am now living. It was him who encouraged me to come here today, so here I am.

Joey Fischer

Born on the wrong side of the tracks, according to some, Joey Fischer was actually born in a local hospital, but soon after moved to the council estate referred to as the wrong side of the tracks by judgemental villagers with too much money and time on their hands.  Joey’s mother Doreen, idolised her son from the first moment she saw him, and transferred all her love from the other man in her life, Patrick, to her new bundle of joy. Joey’s birth was a pretty routine one, if any birth can really be called that, but it was also a fairly sterile one. Joey’s father did not attend, preferring to await the imminent arrival with a few of his mates down the ‘Red Lion’ – his local pub.  Doreen had asked him to be there but he claimed squeamishness and cried off. He hadn’t even gone with her for any of the pre-natal scans.  All along the way it had been Joey’s Nan, his mum’s mum, who had been there for her daughter and then to take hold of her first grandson as he screamed the maternity ward down making his entrance into the world.

Joey wasn’t an immediately pretty baby, but within a couple of weeks he had filled out and soon the neighbours that had referred to him as Doreen’s monkey were calling him ‘Doreen’s handsome young man’.  As a baby Doreen had an inkling that her son was different to all the others and that greatness awaited him, but if she ever shared this thought with any of her friends she was always told: ‘all mothers think that, Dee’.  It was only her mother, who shared Doreen’s thoughts about her blue-eyed boy.