Category: birthday

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Memory Tracks

Over the years I have noticed that some music in my life has developed a trigger for memory. Occasionally I’d hear one and I’d be straight back there remembering the past. Here is a selection of 50+ I have put together though there are many more I can think of

Fantasmic! from DIsneyland and Walt Disney World

This one is very simple, it reminds me of my DIsney trips and one of the most impressive shows I have seen

Flying There from ET

This is the movie I think I watched more than any other. It was the first movie to hold the title for the one which got me emotional with and, it was the first movie that I made out with

Crossing the Marigold Bridge from ‘Coco’

This should be ‘Remember me’ but I still cannot listen to that without tears in my eyes. The movie reminds me of all those I have lost over the years

Hogwarts Forever!

Obviously the movie but also the great time I spent with Robin at Universal Studios Florida and the hysterics of Robin squeezing into one of the rides

One Day More

From the play (and movie) ‘Les Miserables’. Reminds me of the shows and the movie. Watching that for the first time with my friend ‘Don’ probably the last time we were together. Also the moment when the song ‘On My Own’ is played which reminds me of the two times in my life when I fell desperately in love with guys and it was not returned and all the associated pain of that experience.

Rocket Man

Most recently from the movie which I very much enjoyed but also of me being a kid playing with my model cars

Main Theme (Galaxy Quest)

My go to cheer me up movie, always makes me smile and got me through some bad times

Giza 1928 … theme from Stargate

One of my all time favourite TV series

Finale of Nunsense

Robin had been mentioning the show for years and when we both visited Florida in 2011 I finally got to see a version of it which was awesome … plus, because of Robin I noticed a poster for it when I went to Brighton Pride so, it very strongly reminds me of that as well

Finale to ‘Oliver’

I remember being fascinated by it when I went to see it on release in Barking as a kid. This was back in the day when movie visitors bought a program to go with the movie and I even remember that as well. I was so curious how they had made it, how they made everything look so old.

Of course, years later I also discovered my friend Robin appeared in it which gives it added appeal

Overture to ‘The Producers’

Again one of my favourite musicals and I finally got to see it a few years ago in London with Robin. It was incredibly hot and Nathan Lane (lead) stopped the show to comment just how damn hot it was on the stage!

Jurassic Park Main Theme

Again, the memory of the movie which brought dinosaurs to life for me, a childhood fantasy to see a wold with actual dinosaurs. I am not so keen having see the results!

A few times in Florida I went to the Jurassic Park area of Universal either with others or on my own. On one occasion having a private session with a triceratops in its enclosure, very special

Forrest Gump theme

By now you must be sensing a theme!

So many triggers here. From visiting Savannah in 2004 with my friend Danny and his late father, lovely man.

From visiting ‘Bubba Gumps’ in New York city with Daisy & Adam, going to the London venue with the family and one of the first outings for Dennis in the UK, going to one of the restaurants in Las Vegas, so many happy memories

Back to the Future theme

The movies obviously but also the times I have seen one of the Delorean cars from the movie and also when I went to the location of ‘Twin Pines Mall’ near LA and then, got distracted by a buffet restaurant and totally forgot to do any pictures …. it was a great meal though.

Pirates of the Caribbean theme

The time on the ‘Pride of Bilbao’ a ferry from Bilbao in Spain to Portsmouth. Poor Daisy was very seasick and we watched the movie in the onboard cinema on rough seas with more and more people leaving to puke

The Avenue Q theme

Have seen the show several times and especially with the family watching them laughing hard was amazing

Suite from Mulan

Particularly of a trip to Disneyland Paris when they did a show with acrobats and other Chinese themes and also the Mulan parade with was just lovely. This is also Daisy’s favourite Disney movie

Hooray for Hollywood

The music I chose as the backing for the home movie segment where I drove from Atlanta to Orlando in a Chrysler Sebring which made me fall in love with the car which I would go on to own and all the memories associated with that.

Stars

Another track from Les Miserables which always gets Robin emotional and so reminds me of him and many of the fun times we’ve had together over the decades

Love in an Elavator

One of the songs used on my favourite coaster, Rock n Roller coaster by Aerosmith and the time with Anne when she plucked up the courage to ride because I told her how awesome it was with the music to discover they didn’t have the music working

Love of my life, Jim Brickman

One of the first songs Dennis told me he liked and I’d never heard it so I played it loads reminding me of him

Tonight Tonight – Hot Chelle Ray

I was playing this song whilst driving through LA the first time I saw the Hollywood sign just as they mentioned it in the song

Gangnam Style

The song of 2012 and Daisy & Adam doing their version of the dance in the hotel in New Jersey, so much fun to watch

He aint heavy, he’s my brother

Reminds me of the bond shared between Matt & Jermaine when they were little. Very touching when I recall how they were together

Thnks fr th mmrs

A song I used as backing for part of our most awesome 2007 holiday to Gran Canaria but also a reminder of the time when Zoey was locked up in a mental hospital and me and Anne went to Wembley to watch Fall Out Boy

Lollipop

Also a backing track for the 2007 holiday but also a song playing a lot during a great trip I did to Suffolk with Javis and Tyler

One Call Away

Being part of a Karaoke session in CDO Philippines of aunt Nene who sadly past away. It was just lovely to see Dennis and the kids singing away with no inhibitions 

Swan Lake

My first ever ballet and it was just so magical. It was also the sound that mums musical box played. I wish I had got to keep that but it was one of the great many keepsakes that others in the family took from her home 

Climb Every Mountain

One of mums favourite tunes and movies and one which was played at her cremation

Summer Holiday

Another 2007 holiday track but also one which reminds me of a holiday in 1969 I think it was to the Isle of Wight where my granddad died

Team

I’d never heard of the newly released song in 2014 when Jimmy Kimmel had it on his radio show for a lyric quiz whilst I was on the coast road from LA to San Diego

Yo Ho A Parates Life

All the time I’ve been on the ride with various if not all the people I care about at the parks around the world

Grim Grinning Ghosts

For exactly the same reasons as the Pirates ride though, I still need to take Dennis on it as they don’t have the same ride in Hong Kong

Halloween Halloween

From 1999 when I did a holiday with Kris, one of our last together. Very late nights at Disneyland Paris and an awesome fireworks display from the balcony of Phantom Manor which we went on at midnight

I’ll leave it there as many of the remaining tracks are for much the same reason and Disney related … Disney does hold so many happy memories for me. 

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Nearly June Update

Have you seen this man?

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That’s my other self on GTA V, Robin Banks. I think he looks just like the bloke I think I should look like but don’t!

Next week I shall be 52. I’ve always been a little nervous of being 52 as it is the age my mum died at. True, there are no similarities between her and me health-wise. But, even so, it sort of also brings it home to me just how young she was when she died, how much life she didn’t live. By comparison I am so much more fortunate. She never knew her grandchildren and she ended up with 6 of them. She never knew her great-grandchildren either and there are 4 of those. Most upsetting for me personally is that she never got to know me either. To her I was probably this stupidly introvert weird kid who had little respect for her (because I had sex in her house) and who had got this girl she didn’t much like pregnant.

She never got to know the person I couldn’t be then but later become and that’s sad because I would have liked to seen how she was, whether she would have approved of dumped me or just went through awkward denial. I’ll just never know. Of course, no point dwelling on what didn’t happen and can’t happen. She died in 1986 (July 10th) and that’s that.

So, at 52 what do I still want to do?

I really want to do more travelling. I’d like to return to the Philippines if I can, visit Hong Kong, India and Australia, I must do Australia as it tops up my continent tally! It’d be nice just to go somewhere else that sort of speaks English too. Where else? I really do want to do Gran Canaria again and the USA too, hell, so much of the USA! Top of the list would probably be Florida though, so much escapism. Seems greedy though as it was only 4 years ago I was last there. New York for sure but taking in Washington DC and Niagara Falls, that’s a big ask. I really enjoyed LA but wouldn’t go back unless I could add San Francisco onto the journey. Actually, San Diego is another I’d like to redo. Ibiza, that was the start of my international travels, the first destination I flew to back in 1982, so long ago now.

I’d like to do another holiday on the Norfolk Broads, I enjoyed that and it’s really quite relaxing.

Hmm, a hot air balloon, quite like the idea of that. Riding a motorbike again. Not done that since 1983 and that didn’t go so well. Having some fast fun around a race circuit in an awesome car, that’d be good.

All the above have a degree of the possible about them.

The not so likely is, have enough money to get my eyes and ears as fixed as they can be just so I can be somewhere close to ‘normal’ physically for a while. I do so hate wearing glasses and hearing aids. A lot of people don’t think let alone understand how horrible it is. My hearing level never gets above the quality of an old transistor radio, and they are uncomfortable always. My eyesight means I can’t see properly at any time. Sure, I can see but not naturally. I know from when I wear contact lenses that the sort of vision which is natural is a very long way off what glasses achieve. I can’t feel the wind in my face or wear fashionable shades. Certain personal things are thoroughly diminished because I need to remove my aids and glasses, forget turning the lights off, I actually would prefer the lights off so I might forget I cannot see and, sweet nothings are actually just ‘nothings’ without my hearing aids.

So, if I had the money, I’d get something done which the NHS would never fund. It wouldn’t be a cure but a huge improvement.

No, I still don’t colour my hair! I get really fed up with those who keep insisting I am colouring my hair to hide the grey, I just don’t, it is what it is. The only colouring goes on is my eyebrows as they are quite grey which just looks odd with non grey hair.

I’d like to get in shape but then, I’d also like to feel good about myself more often so I didn’t comfort eat.

What else? Well, I want to start the photography more again, I want to set up and use the Karaoke too. Both those help me unwind and I need some unwinding.

Love interest … sort of in the works but, not assured yet, a work in progress which reminds me, shall call him in a little while.

As for my birthday itself, I think that’s sorted.