…. I thought I’d seen just about everything – but I really hadn’t..

I think I now know what all the good looking girls in London do on Saturday nights. To say it was an eye opener would be an understatement.

I’m with my date in a Starbucks in Hammersmith, having just got off a second N for night bus, and having run out of iBot battery charge, so am plugged into the wall and drinking a coffee, and will need to stay plugged in for an hour or so before I dare leave here, or come to a standstill I shall.

As it is, still in Fetishwear, we’ll have to get a bus with the morning workforce, and ignore the stares. Thank God it’s not a school day, or thé bus would be full of  secondary school kids, some of whom would possibly know me…

At least my carer got an uninterrupted sleep last night, as I wasn’t there… but will now need to help me into bed at 9 in the morning instead. This  is all quite typical sleep pattern if you’re 21, or in Ibiza, but I’m neither AND I’m in bondage gear.

Just to clarify, I remain absolutely heterosexually oriented, and I’d say most people there were ( adventurous ) heterosexuals ( and mostly couples ) but there was a lot of non straightness stuff going on too – stuff you’d have to search quite hard for on the internet, I’d say.

Will we go again ? Judging by the number of barely dressed women that talked to me and said how impressed they were that a paralysed guy was at that kinda party….. mmmmmm mmmmaybe!

The festive season for me was this year hampered ( no pun intended ) by my allergies to both cats and dogs. How come everyone I know has pets, sometimes 2 or 3…?

My asthma starts and then I’m a Paralysed man who can’t breathe, talk properly, drink alcohol ( as that makes it worse ) and who can’t do any exercise ( which is the constant that keeps me sane ).

Glossing over that, though 3 days on and I’m still wheezing, it was good to spend a day with Stu and Mandy and my nephew, Ben. I didn’t see Sam, thé other one, who is now sporting a Game of Thrones wannabe long ( ginger ) beard – apparently. What is it with the whole beard thing ?

On topic with the kinkyfest that is Game of Thrones, I’m going with the ‘ concentrate on the things you CAN do post injury, not the things you CAN’T, and try new stuff ‘

So I am then – tonight I’m going to a Fetish party in central London – there’ll be 3000 other weirdos there, besides my hot date and I. Am i into being whipped and humiliated ? Well, no, actually, but that’s not a condition of entry. Your fetish can be whatever you like, but the dress code is very strict – ‘ wear something that you’d be arrested in if you wore it in public ‘  Ok then… my post injury frontal lobe lack of inhibition, added to my already easy going approach to nudity, and Hey Presto it’s going to be an eye opener. We’ll both have to cover up on the Tube journey there, obviously.

As photography is banned, for privacy purposes, I won’t be posting pictures of half the MP’s in Parliament, along with Hazza and Megs, tomorrow on this blog, but I’ll try to chat to Rolf and Cliff if I see them/ recognise them behind the gimp masks.

The whole Fetish scene ( says me, with ZERO experience ) is tied in with a ‘ gay S&M ‘ look, but I’m not anything other than heterosexual, as are probably most of the people there.

But if someone touches me ‘ inappropriately ‘ then I won’t feel it anyway, so I’m very relaxed about it all, especially if it’s a female….

Except it might be a ladyboy?!

Beats the usual NYE parties I’ve gone to recently, almost certainly… no offence intended.

AND as it’s tonight, we still have NYE to celebrate separately.

So… massive thanks to my Xmas date, to Stu and Mand, to Lisa Jones, and to everyone that messaged me, especially Ali, Kev Y, Toby and Chérie. If any guys are around Chiswick today that can help to change a bicycle tyre or 2, please message me, as I can’t do that stuff anymore, and Marky P ( my tyre changer-in-chief )  isn’t around today – he’s off drinking soda and lime heavily somewhere else..

Responses –

You have nothing to be sorry about EXCEPT for calling me FAT!!!
PS: I don’t know Lisa but I think I love her for drilling some sense into your obviously large and empty head 😍

You ain’t got to say to sorry me mate
Just wish you were a bit closer so I could see and do more for you.
Your a lovely man, Russ Dawkins
So glad I met you.
Don’t you forget that.

You are who you are never apologize ‘ it will hurt more to bite your tongue ‘ I am saying thank you for giving me the opportunity to meet you…. to help you…. and for you giving me the opportunity to improve my life xxx

Well being a fellow South Walean you’ve yet to offend me …

Dawky, you were a cantankerous & abrasive git at 19 but your charisma and presence exceed your faults – sometimes.Which English Monarch made the greatest contribution to the construction of the contemporary Westminster Abbey ? Who was his famous son ?I blame ‘Pross’ ( Pontypool RFC legendary coach ) for the ‘direct approach’ – it is Pooler DNA.

[contact-form][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /][contact-field label=”Message” type=”textarea” /][/contact-form]

As an S&M model, I don’t reckon Marky P has what it takes…

His wife apparently said ‘ are you Russ’s bitch?’

Massive thanks to Robbo, Cressida, Pia, Lisa, Toby, Leigh, Mark, Chérie, Joey, Chris, Jane, Clare, Sandy and Ed for their support through rather trying times of late, including offers of company and companionship over my first ‘ alone’ Christmas.

Im fully aware that I am not always easy to be with, and as Lisa said just now in bed ( the bed adjacent to mine on which she was sat ) I don’t seem to ‘have a filter’ in terms of what comes out of my mouth, which if you don’t know me/ aren’t used to me can make me ‘shocking / affronting’  which she put down to my frontal lobe injury ( as I apparently haven’t always been this way – and she’s known me since we were both 5 ) Blimey that was a long sentence..

Anyway, I’m sorry if I offended anyone with my ‘ directness ‘ – I actually can’t help it! And it can make you laugh or cry, depending on your own sensitivity levels. People from South Wales do tend to say it like it is, for the avoidance of all doubt, and throw in a bit of disinhibition and it can be ever so direct.

So, sorry ( again ).

Russ

Lily and i went to Brixton Academy to see The Prodigy. They have so much material in their back catalogue that thé packed crowd wanted to hear.

Why then did they play only 2 of those tracks, and for the other 90 Minutes play tracks that were never popular, or that no one had heard of. Surely the band can see and respond to the visible reactions of the crowd ? When they play something and the crowd goes wild, is there no thought process that they go through to determine what they play that night. Of course I know that they play a predetermined track list, but they could include in that list all the stuff that Spotify and YouTube tells them fans are watching and listening to?

But no, they played largely dross and it wasn’t very good, other than the fact that I got to spend some time with my daughter, who was very helpful as well as charming.

I was finding myself apologising to her that the band were a complete let down, like it was MY fault…

I definitely wouldn’t bother to see them again. As a rule, every gig that my BFF Pia misses is bloody brilliant, but Pia – you were definitely better off missing this one!

Mind you, Matt Goss the night before was truly cringeworthy. I think I was one of ten males in the audience of about a hundred, and almost certainly the only definitely heterosexual one of those.

So, that was my GigReport. Two to avoid…..!

I’m with a friend. There were Carol singers collecting for charity. I looked through all the wheelchair bags and pouches I could reach, and after several minutes found only 2 coins totalling 15 pence.

I said ‘ I miss being able to reach into my pocket and pull out some money ‘. He gave me a blank look, so I asked if he understood what I was saying. He said ‘ yes, it’s that you miss your independence ‘.  I said ‘ no, it’s not that’.  He said ‘ ahh it’s that you want to go’.  I said ‘ no, it’s that I can’t reach into my pockets because without being able to move, I can’t access any pockets in my trousers, as in I literally can’t ‘.

He still looked totally blank though.

I think that’s half the issue with interaction with ‘ normal ‘ people- they just ( in a completely innocent way ) don’t get it at all.

Oh to have a Carer that can remember every day that pushing my bathroom tap to the left means that hot water comes out,  and that pushing it to the right means that cold water comes out.

Oh to have a Carer that can remember to lock my front door every time she leaves the flat.

Oh to have a Carer that can ask who is there before buzzing someone into the flat.

Oh to have a Carer that can remember to water the plants, which is just turning a dial once a day

Oh to have a Carer that can remember to push the lift call button for me, when we get to a lift, the button that I can’t reach.

Oh to have a Carer that knows where the front of my chair is, so that when I ask her to walk IN FRONT of me through crowds of people, to help me, she doesn’t immediately end up BEHIND ME, where I can’t even see her.

Oh to have a Carer that remembers, after 6 weeks of helping me with it 4 times a day, how to do up and undo the 4 bolts that attach my Triride attachment to my wheelchair.

Oh to have a Carer that can push a plug into a hole in the side of my iBot, and push a plug into the hole in the wall, commonly known as an electricity socket, and press the button, commonly known as the switch, which turns the power on, commonly known as electricity. And then REMEMBER what she did, so that the next time I ask  I don’t get a blank look.

Oh to have a Carer that can remember that 2 flannels are necessary to give me a wash – one for soapy and the other for fresh water/ rinse. And that warm water is better than cold, and that a towel is very handy for drying….

Oh to have a carer that could remember last night, when I called the emergency lift engineer ( in front of her ) to ask that they came ASAP to fix my broken lift so that I can go upstairs, so that when in the morning the bell rings and it’s the lift engineer at the door, there isn’t a mystified look on her face as to what he’s doing here.

I could write pages of this stuff. It’s incredible how  these  people survive in their own lives and aren’t killed by large red things ( commonly known as buses ) that they have totally failed to notice are bearing down on them as they cross the road at the pedestrian crossing, where they’ve no doubt not remembered to press the button that stops the traffic.

It’s been a year filled with drama, let’s face it. This year I got divorced, lost my children, lost my business, committed suicide, felt real love, felt real joy again, felt total and complete hopelessness, woke up from being dead, became tee total, became reliant on antidepressants, saw so many great bands, laughed properly, mended the odd rift, have felt true betrayal, have known true friendships and absolute loyalty, given true friendship and absolute loyalty back, seen the light, seen the darkness, resumed drinking and known the pleasure therein, still never experimented with drugs, stuck up for myself, been the bigger person, refused to back down a couple of times, and given in also.

2017 has a few events yet to come before it’s over – Matt Goss at Xmas (!)  and The Prodigy one more time. I’ll see a few lovely friends before it’s over, too.

So overall a good year, compared to some in recent history!