Liver Birds

 

 

I have moved around a couple of different countries in the world and I have always been asked what I am. I say that I am British because I am indeed a British citizen, hailing from England, but I've never particularly considered myself as being English. In actual fact, I have felt like a fraud in the past when describing myself as English because it was only when I was living amongst Kiwis in New Zealand that I ever started to describe myself as English. It was during my time in New Zealand that I discovered I indeed had a nationality. In truth I have always identified more strongly with the city I come from. Some consider my city to be beneath them, others love its music scene, many travel north for its football teams and some can't get past its accent.
 As a foreigner living abroad, I wonder about home and check what's happening in God's Green and Pleasant Land regularly but I'm generally most interested in the Lives and Time's of Liverpool, a northern city which is situated on the West coast and faces Ireland. Liverpool as a city is probably the reason I don't relate to the South of England. We are far removed from Westminster up there in the North of England, we think differently and we use different words, (the great tea/dinner debate rages on between my southern friends and I). Liverpool was once a forgotten city, her inhabitants and their offensive accents left to suffer in slum conditions, dockside industries left dormant and grown men unable to feed their large families. Liverpool (like much of the North of England) has known pain in times both historic and recent, we won't go into Margaret Thatcher and her 'policies' because I am not political. The reason I mention these things is because it is the fight for acceptance that has led to The City of Liverpool's unwavering belief in itself. The people of Liverpool had to fight a long battle against prejudice, ('I knew I was flying over Liverpool when my watch was stolen,' and 'calm down, calm down,' are a couple of symptoms of the problem).
 However, Liverpool appears to have won the battle she found herself rather unwillingly fighting and is now considered a cultural hub, visited by thousands and is synonymous with many inhabitants who've gone public and popularised the infamous Scouse accent. Ricky Tomlinson is probably my favourite but it'd be rude not to mention Macca as well. Acceptance has come in the last few years and it's been long overdue; even the accent seems to be appropriate in polite conversation these days, it seems that we've been forgiven for dropping our h's and our creative approach towards the grammatical tenses.

 

  I have battled with depression all of my life, I have fought against weight gain and I have often thought that the answer lies somewhere sunnier, but this is not true. The answer lies within myself and the identity I have inherited from a city as strong as it has been downtrodden, intelligent as it was considered stupid, alive as it was once decaying and a city that will always be just a little bit edgy. Long live Goodison, long live Anfield, long may the iron statues stand on Crosby beach, let's hope the ferries sail to Birkenhead for many years to come, long live life beside the Mersey and bless the Liver Birds who keep their charges safe and sound.

Walking Through The Open Door

Walking Through The Open Door

Hello again. Last time we met I was busy reminiscing over the year and 10 months gone by and times experienced. You now have a rough idea of how I ended up in the TEFL game and thank you for reading the first post and coming back for a second. We all end up doing things for various reasons and we each have our own explanations, you know mine and now I will move on and give a description about what has happened since.

Just after my little heart started to break and I had full custody of my lemon I decided that whilst I couldn't do much to stick my heart back together I could find ways to sweeten up the lemon... Enter something known as a CELTA course. A CELTA course is a course and eventual qualification which is owned by Cambridge University and gives the participant the right to teach English as a Foreign Language. The CELTA course is undertaken, usually for an intensive four weeks but in my case a less intensive nine weeks and the candidate receives a shiny certificate from Cambridge at the end. The CELTA course, once discovered, became my sugar and I started to sprinkle it on the lemon. I met many intelligent, lovely people, some of whom I still hold intelligent conversations with now and to my delight, as well as the introduction of new characters to my life I also passed the course. The passing of the course meant that I could leave the call centre job I had come to dislike with an increasing intensity during every passing minute of each and every day. The day on which I eventually walked out of the call centre's big glassy front doors held joy akin to the last day of one's GCSEs. I spent a few weeks working at a summer school as a teacher and then off I flew to Greece. I stayed in a town on the mainland and I had some nice students; I was in Greece for a couple of months and returned home in December 2012. Being at home again was really very lovely and I was happy to be there but after a few months of working behind one of the bars of an enormous pub chain I checked my bank account. Upon the checking of my bank account and the sheer astonishment at the lack of funds it held, I decided that I'd better do something about it. Do something about it I did, I applied to another summer school and quite unexpectedly got the job. Off to summer school I went and what a truly excellent summer I had. The whole thing from start to finish was utterly fantabulous. Summer school ended and I decided that I'd go to Spain next, which brings me to today, writing to you from a laptop in Seville, Andalusia.

So there we have it, the last 22 months and some days put succinctly into two neat little blog entries. Of course other things happened during those months, I went online dating, I failed my driving test, I discovered exercise, I've given up alcohol entirely and I've developed new skills in abundance. I've also learned lots of things about the English Language which both baffle and wow me on a near enough daily basis. Mostly,  I've discovered that being me is both a pleasure and a privilege. The lemon in my possession is much sweeter now than it was in February 2012, it doesn't really do citrus fruits justice these days because it has more in common with the pineapples in the basket.

See you next time, stay tooned.

One Door Closes

It has been 1 year 10 months and 15 days since I said goodbye to a man I was head over heels mad about. I said goodbye because of damage limitation to my already bruised self but sadly the damage was already done and reversing it has at times been as painful as how it got there in the first place.
I don't want you to think that I have spent the previous year, 10 months and 15 days listening to Adele and feeling sorry for myself because it couldn't be further from the truth. I've a ball for a good part of it but it hasn't been an easy ride.
I think the truth is that for quite a long time I didn't want to lose the pain because I didn't want to lose my connection to him. I needed to be upset because if I wasn't then what had it all been for? Eventually as time went on and I moved from country to country, lost weight and gained a new perspective things began to ease but every now and again and usually during the most unexpected of moments I will remember something and the memory will wake up a Pandora's box that can be difficult to close. It's far easier to close it these days than it was a year ago but and that is a blessed relief. While the box is open, I will dream of him, find a photograph I had forgotten or hear a song I haven't heard in a long time and then the inevitable remembering begins. I don't enjoy this remembering because this man is long gone and you must believe me when I say that he is never coming back into my life so there can be no resolution. There is no end to the wondering, the what might have been scenarios, the soul searching or the what was it all for conversations I used to have with myself all of the time.
I have come to accept that when you have cared for someone, truly cared for someone; no matter how bad for you they were, their presence in your life is guaranteed to leave its mark on you. There's nothing you can do about it, you will remember and sometimes it will hurt but there is a special secret to affairs of the heart, a method I have learned and will try to explain as best I can over the months to come. It's simple really, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.