I've had a long and not particularly beneficial relationship with that depressive, intoicating and altogether poisonous string of complex sugars called alcohol. You know the one: the debilitating, life-wrecking and ultimately lethal drug that the government allows us to buy and consume in any amount, just so long as we pay tax on it. I've been drinking the stuff in varying quantities since around 1982/83. I'd have probably started earlier but my dad was a copper, and I was terrified of getting into any kind of trouble (i.e., being found in a pub on the outside of some illegally purchased beer) and thereby embarrassing him.

From the age of eighteen to about twenty two, I was an enthusiastic consumer of booze of several types, and on many, many weekends - those following rugby matches in particular - I could be found in a state of profound inebriation while quietly and efficiently destroying several million brain cells. It was - apparently - fun. At least I think it was. I can still remember the excitement I felt when I realized that I was getting hammered for the very first time. It felt like a rite of passage, like stepping through a door into adulthood, like leaving my childhood behind.

However, getting drunk was always a lot more fun that being drunk. In fact, being drunk was, on the whole, bloody horrible. I invariably became very sleepy (not altogether surprising, since alcohol is a depressant, although nobody told me that when I needed to know it - thanks everyone!) and after expending all my energy on being absolutely hilarious (you can guess what that was actually like in reality), I would retire to my bed, there to have the world revolve around my head in accelerating circles until I staggered to the toilet and shouted "Garth" into it. Sometimes, for a very long time.

Thankfully for my future career aspirations, I was never tempted to behave criminally. I was, however, frequently involved in making a fool of myself, on the principle that if they were laughing with me, they wouldn't be laughing at me. It's a strategy I still employ to this day, while sober. Anyway, the upshot of this slice of reasoning was that I would do strange things like head-butt road signage (denting my head but not the sign), become trapped between street lighting fixtures and adjacent garden walls, and travel in black Taxis in a completely inverted position, sweeping up cigarette butts and discarded condoms with my (in those days: luxuriant) hair.

A particularly 'heavy' night out in 1987 brought a timely halt to my shenanigans. It's described in my book, but the key words for the experience would be: Bacardi, Beer, Champagne, Toilet, Naked, Trapped, Ejected, Ejected (again), Stagger, Spinning, and finally - and this is all one word - sickforthreedays.

After a solid four years of believing that regular huge amounts of booze was an awesome idea, I finally (mind like a super-computer, me) came to the conclusion that I didn't actually enjoy being drunk at all. So, basically, I stopped doing it. Now, I can't honestly say that I gave up drinking - because I didn't - but drinking enough to make the bedroom ceiling start to spin became a rare event, as did hangovers. I always experienced hangovers through the rather distressing medium of my digestive tract. I feel ill for at least a day, and spend an inordinate amount of time either shitting or feeling like I should be. I found the answer to hangovers (for me, at least) when I discovered that alcohol dehydrates the human body.  I started drinking water once I had finished drinking alcohol (at most social events, that equates to around 11pm), and hangovers became a thing of the past.

In short, I grew up - at least where alcohol is concerned. Yes, I've become over-excited a few times since then, and yes I may have over-undulged as a result, but those moments are literally separated from one another by years. I don't, for example, recall how long ago it was that I was actually drunk (not that it takes much effort these days). I'm lucky, I suppose - drinking was for me a purely social thing; it was never something that I needed. It was easy to change, once I woke up to the fact that my body wasn't enjoying my choices. I don't miss not being drunk.

At this time of the year, booze seems to be on everyone's minds. New Year's Eve parties revolve around alcohol and getting hammered - or as I prefer to say (as we used to where I grew up): 'leathered'. I'm not much of a social animal any more - oh yes, I can 'turn it on' if needs be, and make the effort to be mildly entertaining - and I don't get invited to parties these days (I can't think why nobody wants a large, balding, grumpy ex-policeman in the corner of the room), but my biological children are at exactly the age when I began drinking. They've begun to explore the 'wonders' of booze, and suddenly I find myself in the role of a protective, pensive parent, hoping that they don't make worse mistakes than I did.

I have no such fears for my stepson, who has long ago moved out from under our eaves, and has settled down with his partner and is busy home-making. The fact that they are living their young lives a little like a seventy year-old couple is a source of some lip-pursing, but again: they will - and MUST - make choices for themselves, and whatever works for them is just dandy. I do from time to time wish that they would cut loose, go wild and have sugar in their tea, though - just for the mind-altering rush.

They have to make mistakes, of course - they have to live their own lives and discover what works and what doesn't (and what REALLY doesn't!), and they have to hit obstacles (not literally, I hope) from time to time. The thing about booze, though, is that it can remove all the (of course: immensely) wise words that I have passed on to them over the years with a single 'glug'. It might all go horribly wrong. It may, of course, all have gone horribly wrong for me, but even in my youth, buried somewhere in my awareness was a boring old fart who pretty much always knew when enough was enough, and when to not do that thing that seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. I have to trust my kids to show the same kind of restraint while they have fun and let loose, as young people quite rightly do.

Showing restraint for me in this context means NOT issuing a set of rules (although I'm not too proud to regularly point out the evils of drink driving) and not micro-managing the youngsters. It falls into the area of allowing them to live their own lives rather than wanting them to live by my own rules, and as an increasingly crusty old f*cker, I must amble over to the rocking chair and wait for the occasional cries for help. It's not easy, but then the most worthwhile things in life never seem to be. Sometimes I wish we'd had digital cameras in my younger days, and then I could illustrate some of the things they should not try...but then I think again and decide that it's actually a very good thing that nobody thought to bring a camera along to the kinds of parties I used to attend. At least: not that I know of...

Tonight will be a test for the youngsters, and hopefully they will both have a lot of fun and perhaps most importantly, learn something useful in the process.

I'll drink to that.

At the risk of being less than topical (i.e. in the aftermath of the festival of consuming enormous amounts of food), I'm not talking about trapped wind, an over-filled bladder or even the pressing need to find a large white ceramic flushing device and fill it with poo...(incidentally, I tell a rather harrowing story on the latter theme in my recently published masterpiece: 'Signs Of (a) Life' which will make you happy that you aren't me, and which - if you show the strength of character to purchase it - will reward you mightily with many other tales of a life strangely led). No, right now I'm talking about an entirely different kind of feeling - the kind of feeling that some men in particular still seem to find it difficult to admit to.

I've given up being shy about my feelings - largely in the wake of writing the above mentioned brutally honest memoir - because I believe it to be a fallacy to pretend that we do not have such feelings, or to attach some kind of value to being the stereotypical 'strong and silent' type. Or should that more accurately be: 'strong and therefore silent about his feelings/emotions' type. Silliness, all of it. My dad was that kind of man: he was kind, generous and loving, and I miss him to this day but because he was so 'strong and silent', I never got to know him properly. For better or worse, I prefer people to understand what's going on behind my eyes - or to at least have the feeling that they have an inkling.

So: this feeling of mine...I think it's important because for me it represents change of a kind, and it represents something else that I hope is true. I may - just may - be getting a little wiser, and living more fully as a result. 

It happened last night, while I was at work, and because I was at work.

My job (aside from writing my delicate, manicured little fingers down to the knuckles) involves looking after the welfare of people whom, shall we say, find themselves in a less than desirable position in relation to the justice system. Invariably, they come to this situation as a direct result of their behaviour, and almost invariably, their discomfort can be laid at their own feet through either stupidity, selfishness, thoughtlessness, or just being resident anywhere along the asshole spectrum. I'm there to make sure that - first and foremost - they stay alive while I'm there, and that their fundamental needs (right at the base of the pyramid formed by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) are catered for. I'm not there to be anybody's friend, counselor or legal adviser. Although...

Having worked as a police officer for many years, my take on the world became hardened to the plight of the less-than-innocent, and it remains largely the same, although these days I am in particular far more aware of the effects and role of genuine mental illness upon criminals and criminal behaviour respectively. I once was the bluff (I said 'bluff', not 'buff' - calm down!), hard-nosed cop with a hugely cynical view of the world, but that approach has softened over the years, as life - especially life outside of the role of being a cop - has taught me many useful lessons about being a human being. People who knew me back then would say that I've gone soft (well, I've certainly put on a lot of squidgy padding since those days), that I've mellowed (which I would regard as a compliment), or that I've lost my 'edge'. I prefer to think that I've matured - and in the light of that, I also think it's worth sharing, because it's now about being my age as much as it's about anything else.

Last night, a young woman was in my care. Why she was in this situation is irrelevant, but let me assure you that there was very good reason for it. I'd been looking after her needs over the preceding three shifts at work, so we were, to a small extent, acquainted. At approximately 3 o'clock in the morning (yes I know, how stupid am I to be working at that time of the day?) this young woman began crying, alone. I spoke to her and found out why she was crying, but was unable to distract her or help her find a way to stop. The fact that I tried is itself something that former colleagues would find unfamiliar about me, but I've been that different person for some years now.

The woman continued crying for the next hour and a half, and there was nothing I could do about it and certainly nothing that I was mandated or enabled to provide in the way of comfort. It's by no means the first time that this has happened in the thirty months that I've been doing this particular job, and the fact that this time was different is why I noticed.

It's not the first time that I felt the way that I did, either. The sound of a human being sobbing uncontrollably is a difficult one to ignore. It bothers me more than it ever used to, when I was more closed off to my own feelings about life and when I had my feelings 'safely' (if not wisely) stored away for only occasional examination. The sound of a genuinely distraught person is, today, heart-wrenching for me to hear. Perhaps it's because I've also been there more than once during the last fifteen years, and I make an unconscious connection with my past sadness. Perhaps reflection upon my life experience so far has allowed me to realize that compassion is no kind of weakness, but is instead an incredibly strong force. Maybe I'm becoming that elusive yet wonderful thing: a little wiser.

Whatever the reason, it really hurt to hear that young person crying for so long and so hard. It hurt, and it made me wonder - because I'm a selfish bastard at heart - about the effect of that pain upon me. I could offer that girl only my compassion, some words of what I hoped was sage advice, and my silent wish that her life would begin to change for the better, both for her sake and the sake of everyone who loves her.  It struck me - perhaps selfishly - that I have witnessed this kind of distress so many times over the years in a variety of roles - most extremely during the years I wore a police uniform - and I've simply absorbed it all. This may be the reason why I react more emotionally to a great many things these days - it's possible that long repressed emotional reactions are being released now that I feel so much more safe.

Getting older has its annoyances: for example being targeted by the lard-injecting pixies overnight while I sleep, the appalling afflictions of rampant nasal and aural hair growth, the corresponding and suspiciously coincidental disappearance of head hair (who knew that hair migrates - why wasn't I warned?) and the increasing difficulty in locating comfortable underwear (scrotal pinching is something that I really think the world could safely do without) to name but a few. However, I'm starting to wake up to the truth that getting older also comes with benefits - such as the awareness that so many of our social norms are nothing more than utter bullshit. Pretending that things don't affect me is another habit that I've been very glad to leave behind, and I'm slowly discovering a new kind of strength: the kind which empowers me to live more completely, and to experience each day more purely and more honestly.

Some things hurt more than they would have done before (and I don't mean my knees), but the pay-off is that, as a more fully-functional human, I get more joy out of life than I used to allow myself. Once, I used to have a protective shield around me which kept out the deeply affective things that would have otherwise interfered with me being 'strong'. Getting older, having nothing left to prove to anybody and beginning to genuinely believe in my learned lessons is now starting to open up the world. I probably wouldn't have got to this point without the experiences that the universe has shunted in my direction, or without the mistakes that I have made in relation to those experiences (and boy, have I made some doozies!), so regrets are few. The trick now is to notice the changes, remember them and - most importantly - use them to experience my world through a new set of filters.

What an exciting time I have ahead of me...and I'd better buy some shares in Kleenex.

My fiftieth Christmas  ambled towards me in a lazy, what-the-hell-do-we-go-to-all-this-trouble-for kind of way. My stepson left home a couple of years ago and is happily settled with his partner, and my two biological progeny are fast approaching the age when living with parents and their stupid, common-sense rules becomes too dull to be tolerated any longer. Christmas still holds some excitement for them all, but the intense, jumping around the house kind of frenzy is missing these days (although if I won the lottery, it might briefly return), hiding in some quiet corner until the advent (like the seasonal reference there?) of grandchildren - when, I hope, we will return to indulging small people and their wide-eyed wonder fills our festive season. This time, however, I wasn't sure what to expect. In particular, my daughter (my youngest child) is on the cusp of adulthood, and at that tricky point where buying age-appropriate presents seems a little like playing Russian Roulette. Even after going through the same process with my stepson and son, the stress of trying to get it right remains ridiculously disproportionate...

As things turned out, this year was a little different - for more than one reason. For beginners, my ex- wife has been unwell for the last two weeks, and I ended up trying to support and manage the youngster's emotional needs in the run up to the holiday. At this stage of their lives, it's far less clear cut than it used to be - 'it' being the determination of what they need, and just how much of 'it' is welcome. Those particular needs (worrying about your parent's health is, for most people, one of life's big things) hung around in the shadows like a surly teenager, kicking an empty coke can every now and then, and walking moodily after it. I wondered how it would all be on the day that we were so used to celebrating in a carefree (and let's be honest: a food-centric) manner.

Most of all, I wanted - as I always want - Christmas to feel special.  I was always so incredibly excited to celebrate the festival when I was a kid, but these days, so much of what I consider luxury items (phones that do everything except cook the dinner and drive you to work, Televisions that connect with the International Space Station, and computing devices that fit inside the space between your eyeball and your eye socket) seem...well...normal, and not very special at all.

My lovely lady and I have for some time been buying gifts for one another (we don't do Christmas gifts for each other, but we give our love and gifts to one another throughout the year) in the form of experiences rather than material stuff. We have more than enough 'stuff', and these days we value memories a lot more - especially as we missed so many memory-making opportunities over the last thirty-something years (it's a long story). This year, we agreed that we would do something similar for the young 'uns.

Well, having carefully chosen two quite different 'experiences' for them and their respective partners, I commenced worrying. Was it enough? Had we got them enough/appropriate small gifts for under the Christmas tree? Would - horror of horrors - this Christmas be a bit of a flop? *Cue dramatic fanfare*

On the big morning, I was in a bit of an emotional befuddlement. My wife and I had a very nice walk in the snow with the dog, before we returned to our cozy little house, and two quietly (coolness reigns, man) teenagers. As I vibrated gently, the youngsters opened their presents, getting to the envelopes with their 'experiences' at the very last. By this stage I was steaming like a nuclear reactor in meltdown mode, and when they opened up their respective surprises, I held my breath to conceal the rising panic...

Of course, as always seems to happen, I was over-reacting. It was a slower burn than usual, but as they realized what each gift actually meant, they both warmed up to the ideas. Nevertheless, in the interval between frowns of puzzlement and smiles of appreciation, I think I probably took a year or two off my life expectancy. Like I said: disproportionate stress, and all self-induced...

The biggest, most impactive difference, however, was in what I received. Usually I am terrible at receiving gifts - even gifts of love - the reasons for which are old and deeply-rooted and, were I to subject myself to analysis and therapy, would doubtless keep a psychologist in recreational drugs for many a year. My wife and I have discussed this at length, and with her experience in the field, she assures me that I have constructed some truly marvelous mental mazes, from which escape is all but impossible. Anyway, the upshot of this silliness is that I am - at Christmas or at birthday time - always rather uncomfortable receiving and in particular opening gifts in front of other people.

This year, two things changed. Firstly, both of the kids (they're not kids any longer, but I'm too lazy to use another descriptor....although I might have saved myself this explanation if I had...dammit...) had bought my wife and I thoughtful gifts - things that we wanted/will use. Previously, their gift-buying has been a little...ummmm...last minute-ish, shall we say.

Secondly - and this is what I'm taking away from this festive season - both of them had made and written cards containing personal messages from the heart. They've done it before, because they know that I value thoughts over things, but this year, the quality of their words was quite a revelation.

Where would we be without words? I have always known that my kids love me, even if at times I have doubted my worthiness of that love. I have loved them ferociously, with a passion separate from every other emotion I have ever known, and will always do so. I have always striven to make them fully aware of the depth of my feeling for them, and I have done so believing that they may never feel quite the same way about their big, grumpy, forgetful, stubborn and prone-to-farting father.

Yesterday, that changed. Their words - so difficult for people of their age to use face to face - reached out to me from the page, embraced me and never let go.

I'm still wrapped in those words today - this morning I awoke cradled by them, and they are there in my mind, right at the front, smiling at me lovingly. It feels wonderful. 

This Christmas was indeed a little different, but not in the way I was worrying about. I learned something about my world which brings me some peace. It seems that, despite all my fears (so many fears) to the contrary, I may just be doing a good job of being 'dad' to my kids...

I can't think of a more fulfilling discovery - and inside, my smile couldn't be wider.

​My tears? They are tears of joy.

It's not every day that I buy a new car. There are two - no, three main reasons for this. No, four:

1. I doubt that there are enough car types out there to supply such a habit.
2. There is only room for four vehicles on our driveway (and only one vacant space).
3. Unless cars were available at around $1 each, I would hit a financial wall on day two of such an enterprise.
4. I really hate buying cars.

Despite number 4 above, we took the plunge a few days ago and exchanged our 'old' and much-too-small-for-me-for-Christ's-sake car, for something which I can get into without folding myself into Pretzel-like shapes. There aren't too many of the latter vehicles around, since I currently seem to be on a quest to expand into something resembling a perfect sphere. Oh - before anyone points out that you can't make a sphere turn into a pretzel, just hold it right there: it's called artistic/poetic licence, and it's also called MY website...

Now, our new car (which we shall call Sherman, out of respect for its go-anywhere AWD system) seems very nice indeed, and I am pleased with our purchase, except for one detail which threatens to mushroom into a life-consuming obsession...

I've always had a small part of my attention on the fuel consumption of any of our vehicles, especially as a Brit in North America, and therefore having previously owned and operated vehicles which merely sniff petroleum fumes by comparison to the American and Japanese-made behemoths which plague-er-populate our roads in Canada.

At present we have a small pickup truck which, while only a few years old, has as many bells and whistles on it as does a plank of wood (we like its simplicity) - and its fuel consumption is a merry little game of mental arithmetic at the pumps, even though it hardly varies at all. It's small, relatively economical, and very, very useful, even if it does only seat two people.
Our back up car is a fourteen year-old Volvo which is comfortable, wonderfully fast (it's a T5) and possesses the longest list of potentially terminal faults known to any car since Mr. Daimler decided that strapping an internal combustion engine to a cart was probably going to be a bit of a giggle. I love driving it but it is our nemesis (the worst car that I have bought since 1986), and along with all its many other faults, it also insists on using rather a lot of liquid hydrocarbons. It likes to tell me just how much oleum (the online spell-checker doesn't like 'oleum', but it is a real word) it has used via the very informative display in the dashboard - the very same display which also tells me that our brakes have failed, the traction control has failed, the ABS has failed, and that basically, we're all going to die - immediately before clearing itself and deciding that it's a lovely day for a drive in the countryside after all. It is about to be placed into semi-retirement, glared at repeatedly, and possibly donated to charity.

We used to have a small, fast little hatchback too. It was fun to drive, but getting into and out of it was a real problem for me, requiring the services of an on-call orthopedic surgeon on average once every three months. It too had a surprising thirst for gasoline, although the large engine under the little hood did its best. It was a good car, but the size of a large shoe. It has been exchanged...

Now, we have a 'Sherman', and it has lots of doohickeys, buttons, lights, readouts and computers - and clever transmissions and things - with which to keep our fuel consumption down. And there's my problem. I'm already driving everywhere with the 'eco' button pressed in and a grimace on my face, and every journey ends with a little report on the fuel consumption for that trip. It's taunting me! I can't get away from the darned thing - it wants me to know ALL THE TIME how much fuel it's using! I don't want to know all the time (well, yes I do, but you know what I mean) - I want some peace! I want to relax! I want it to run on fresh air, or solar energy...

Instead, my waking hours are being progressively filled with this issue - how much gas is the car using????!! It doesn't help that we live halfway up a small mountain and no matter where we go, in order to get home we have to climb up a ridiculously steep, long gradient (the town planners like roads that give you vertigo) and thereby destroy all the petroleum-sipping, gentle driving that we've been doing until that point. I suppose we could leave the car at the bottom of the hill, but that's a long way from our home, and after a day or two, I'm pretty sure we would find some hobo living in it and filling it with cooties. I'm not prepared to take things that far.

What I am prepared to do, however - and I know that this makes me sound more than a little strange - is to make damned sure that when we move in 18 months time or so, we do NOT choose somewhere new that is on top - or close to the top of - of a fucking hill!!!! Buying a new house based on fuel consumption concerns...sounds perfectly sane to me.

​Now, where's my phone - the one with the handy, dandy fuel consumption conversion tables...?

I'd been awake for a few hours today when suddenly the date registered in my night-shift addled brain. December 1st. That used to be a date that had a mark next to it upon the wall calendar, and a reminder in my work phone and computer.

December 1st, 1990 was the day that I got married. It was a cold, quite grey but thankfully dry day. Our families gathered in a churchyard in the English countryside and watched as the woman I loved became my wife for ever. It was a joyful day, a mixture of traditional white wedding dress and morning suit fussing, mixed together with a desire to keep things low key. We enjoyed the day - it was wonderful, and I felt very happy and very lucky. That was twenty five years ago today...twenty five years!!!

Of course that means that today is my silver wedding anniversary - but before you condemn me for being a forgetful/unthinking/heartless swine, I should point out that I have not been married to that lady for more than five years now. The marriage that was supposed to last for ever (aren't they all?) simply didn't, and of course the reasons and details are strictly private.

I've since remarried, and very happily so, and this fact leaves me wondering about how I'm feeling about the date today. It's a day for reflection - or is it? I am, after all, married to someone else now; someone whom I love unreservedly, and earlier today I had a nagging worry that even remembering the significance of this date is somehow a betrayal of our relationship. I was concerned that even mentally marking this kind of landmark was inappropriate or insulting to my wife. Since this morning I've been working my way through my feelings about the date and my reaction to it. I've been exploring. I've been thinking upon feeling guilty about having positive feelings about that day.

It's taken me a while to find the truth of it, and I'm actually at peace with it, perhaps for the first time since our divorce. I've finally come to a place where I can allow myself to admit that - especially in the long shadow cast by the joyous event of a wedding - it's OK to feel sad about a relationship that ultimately stopped working. Acknowledging that sadness is fine, and does nothing to harm or bring disrespect upon my marriage today. I was married for very nearly twenty years to someone else. It was not possible for us to be married for longer, and that's simply a truth.

My sadness stems from the knowledge that our dreams in that churchyard - our dreams of being together until death did us part - were destined not to come true. The man who stood at the altar that day and slipped the ring upon his wife's finger would be devastated if he still lived today. That thought brings sadness, because the memory of him lives on within me, and I am sad for both of those young people who launched themselves into a future together with no idea of what lay ahead. It's OK to be sad, though. It's OK to acknowledge that there is sadness, and that we can carry on with life without trying to hide from it.

I am a very fortunate man. I am married to a wonderful woman, and while I may reflect upon the past, my life lies in the future (the present, of course, disappears with every moment, faster than a blink). Twenty five years ago I did a thing: I got married, and I was overjoyed to do so. It was an important day - no, a HUGE day - and I will remember it always. It's OK, then, to remember a thing that I did, and to acknowledge a life that I used to live alongside another person. It does not intrude, and it does not diminish what I have today.

It follows, therefore, that I can mark this day - even smile about this day - and what it recalls: a very happy time of my life. And now that this door is opened, perhaps I can come to terms with a great deal more.

Getting older can be so very interesting...