The last word

It has to be said, some of the best conversations and some of the best ideas are the ones at the end of an evening on the drink. lol

Knowing your place

Well, we have managed to ship the kids off to the grandparents for the night. Last time this happened was on a Thursday which happens to be the night my wife does Body Pump and Body Combat. So faced with choosing between a few fours or torturous exercise or a romantic night out of course I lost out.

Tonight is a Wednesday so I do not have that to contend with. I therefore suggested doing something special like a trip into Windsor or London or maybe a drive down to the coast for fish and chips on the beach whilst watching the sunset. However, the sun is shining and my wife wants to sit in the sun not a car or train. Her alternative suggestion was to eat in the beer garden of the local Beefeater.

Of course, I tried to counter this with the offer of some other quality local restaurants but each was met with "Can we eat outside?". The answer in most cases being no. So I'm guessing the priorities so far must be something along the lines of:

1. Kids
2. Body Combat/Body Pump
3. Sunshine
4. Quality romantic time with me.

Onward Christian soldiers

My wife, like many others, has fallen for the "mommy porn" 50 Shades of Grey trilogy and like many husbands and boyfriends there have been positive side effects. For example, on her first night of reading I had been down the pub with friends. Now under normal circumstances when I creep in from the pub late, with all of the subtleness of a hippopotamus ninja,s he would always be asleep, or at least pretending to be asleep, but no not that night ;o)

But here we are once again with a sense of frustration. One friend was moaning on Facebook how despite his wife reading 50 shades he was yet to reap him any rewards. One female friend responded to the thread that "if you want your wife to act a bit more like Ana, try acting a bit more like Mr Grey". 

Now, despite already benefiting from positive side effects, this sounded like good advice coming straight from the horses mouth. So with this idea in mind I send my wife a text, nothing brash (Mr Grey is too sophisticated for that). Far from a hot lustful reply the response I get was along the lines of  "Lol, so anyway ...".

There you go, dismissed in an instant. It's all very well you ladies rattling on about what you want from us men but first you're going to have to learn to recognise it when your presented with it!

Where is the love ...

... films about couples who have been married over 10 years and aren't experiencing some kind of life event like having a baby, getting over an accident/illness, children getting married, dying, etc etc??? I'm sure there may be the odd exception, I just can't think of any. Most romantic films are about new relationships. These are of course new, exciting, full of unknowns, in short, everything that an established relationship is not. That does not mean that new relationships are better, they are just at a different stage.

These movies are just capturing the start of a relationship which, if successful, will one day become an  established relationship. In the day-to-day goings on of an established relationship there are not many unknowns, not much that is new, and perhaps not much that is exciting and this is exactly what they are meant to be, stable, predictable, secure. 


During the initial phase one overlooks any shortcomings or annoyances in a partner and one focuses on the good. If not careful over time the polarity of this viewpoint can reverse. The good points get overlooked, or taken for granted, and then even little annoyances seem to grab the attention. Maybe its like adrenaline, when at risk and pumped full of adrenaline you fail to feel the pains but when the situation is normal and good even the smallest pain stands out. 

Vitamin R

I once attended a conference where Professor Heinz Wolff was the guest speaker. In his speech he spoke for a while on an important human requirement, Vitamin R. The R was for risk. He talked about how risk was in our make up and that as countries veered more towards becoming nanny states ironically individuals would increasingly start to seek out risk.

Similarly, I watched a tv programme once that talked about thrill-seekers and once again they discussed how people from all walks of life seek out risk. The were many forms of risk taking such as crime, drugs, sex, gambling, extreme sports and the like. It seemed the choice of fix was largely down to economic circumstances.

I guess risk is not something I've been adverse to and is probably why I have 12 screws, 2 metal rods and a rib graft holding my spine together. I cannot deny that I have had my share of thrill-seeking in its various guises over the years but risk and parenthood or self-employment do not make good bedfellows. Maybe part of my quest for a life less ordinary is an attempt to fill the void left by my resignation from thrill-seeking.

This is not uncommon. Whilst there are without doubt high-risk activities, how many actually want risk? Thrills and risk do not necessarily go hand in hand. I mean how many people would do a bungee jump if they thought there was a good chance that the rope would break? How many would jump out of a plane if they weren't pretty convinced the parachute was going to open?

I guess we like the thrill the idea of risk takes, but don't actually want the consequences of the risk being realised. Hence the growth in off-the-shelf 'extreme' experiences. That's not to say there are not risks associated with these experiences, and there have been deaths, but how many of these businesses would be able to operate if the Health and Safety Executive or insurance companies considered them a disproportionately high risk.

So what's this got do with my journey. A point my friend and I concluded over a pint last night, several actually, was that a life less ordinary does not have to be 'extreme'. Less ordinary is just that, it's not the  usual or norm. This can be viewed on various levels. Firstly, and perhaps a good place to start, is with things that I wouldn't normally do or perhaps say yes to. Conquer this and maybe I'll aspire to the dizzy heights of doing things other people would not normally do.

Disclaimer: There are some things in life that people do not do for good reason e.g. kill people, sleep with a hooker and the likes. For obvious reasons I will try to avoid these.