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Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Head Rambles

A sideways look at life by an Irish Grandad

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The blank slate

Head Rambles Posted on 27th May 2025 by 192.168.1.127th May 2025

I used to have my own blog, years ago. Dad used to give it props and send readers my way and it gained momentum and became fun for a while. I even won an award, once. I think that was my downfall, I began to feel pressure to write content for other people’s approval instead of for the sake of my own joy. The blog became an empty space, rarely updated, all motivation lost.

Then, after a journey into sobriety after decades of mistreating myself, creativity came back and I felt the craving to write again so I began a new blog, this time not hosted by dad and not shared to anybody I knew at first. This gave me freedom to write whatever I wanted, but funnily enough the content was dull and not up to potential. I shared the site’s address with dad after a while and he’d call me up, shocked at what I’d written or telling me he was worried about me. It wasn’t worth it, so I shut that blog down too.

Now here I am again, with an opportunity to write. I wonder if anything will happen, or if it becomes another neglected pet like a fairground goldfish which loses its shine once the weeks wear away. Dad used to tell me to write about the clients I work with. I’m a care assistant so the material is certainly there, like the lady with dementia who keeps giving out to me for repeating myself or the girl with cerebral palsy who curses like a sailor or the gentleman who lives in the 17th century house whom I’m pretty sure is a ghost.

I’d love to write a book, a horror story which incorporates some Irish folklore and dark humour with inappropriate exaggerations as is the storytelling way in Ireland. I want to write it about the Hellfire Club. This is an old ruin at the top of Montpelier Hill in the Dublin mountains, built by a chap named William ‘Speaker’ Connolly in the 1700s and taken over by an extremely amoral man named Richard Parsons who was known for his shady love for the dark arts and hedonism. A faery fort which originally existed on the site was used to build parts of this building, thus cursing it for eternity. People would go there to gorge on booze and sex and murderous black magic, servants and animals were sacrificed in horrific rituals and stories tell of visits from the devil himself to join the craic. It’s a real place, with a real history and is right up there on the list of Ireland’s most haunted places.

It’s always fascinated me, the Hellfire Club. My dog hates it. She won’t go into certain parts of that ruin and likes to sit and stare at a blank part of the wall in one of the upstairs rooms and bark at it nervously. It’s a nice place to bring children for picnics, but I’d love to visit it at night time, alone. I’m sure I could make a story out of it, involving a love-triangle, a few restless spirits and an upturned sod.

But life is busy and there aren’t enough hours in the day for now, the restless souls I deal with now are very much alive and in need of feeding and the bills won’t pay themselves and I have a lot of repeating to do.

 
Posted in Daughter

The Late Grandad

Head Rambles Posted on 7th May 2025 by 192.168.1.17th May 2025

This is very hard to write. I know it’s his style to be funny but all I can find is sadness.

Grandad died this morning (he never liked euphemisms) after a week in the hospice. He declined gracefully and great efforts were made to ensure he wasn’t suffering in any way. He got visits from dogs, and had a few days sitting outside in unseasonably warm weather listening to birdsong before he became too weak to move around. There was no drama, he just doffed his proverbial cap and slipped away while I slept beside him on the couch bed.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen to this site, I’d love to preserve it, and to know if he’s still hosting sites for others knowing him as the kind fella he was. Perhaps you could let me know by way of a comment what I can do, given that I only have a fraction of his internet knowledge. I feel very lost without him. I miss him tapping his feet to his folksy music and making me listen all the way through. I miss the way he kept banging on at length about esoteric things, and telling me about nice things that people do.

Thank you to all of the readers who’ve followed dad on this site and in real life, you gave him wonderful motivation and a powerful meaning to his life.

I hope that as I lay there this morning, drooling on my pillow as he left, that some of his soul spilled out into mine so I can keep him a little bit longer.

Love from

Daughter

 
Posted in Rambles

A fresh start

Head Rambles Posted on 27th April 2025 by 192.168.1.127th April 2025

paradise

noun

par·​a·​dise ˈper-ə-ˌdīs 

ˈpa-rə-ˌdīz,

Synonyms of paradise

: eden sense 2

: an intermediate place or state where the souls of the righteous await resurrection and the final judgment

c

: heaven

2

: a place or state of bliss, felicity, or delight

Yes, time for a new category to replace that C one that has been haunting this site for far too long.

I genuinely feel that life has changed, and changed so radically it’s hard to describe.

I hope to be writing a lot more about Paradise in the times to come. Incidentally, it’s not a religious thing though I can understand why the religious may want to grab the word for themselves.

My Paradise has a much simpler definition..

It is the opposite of hell.

 
Posted in Paradise

The final solution?

Head Rambles Posted on 24th April 2025 by 192.168.1.124th April 2025

I have been doing a lot more thinking lately than usual.

Some of it on my own into the long dark hours of night, a lot with Daughter who has been more than a rock of common sense, but sadly none with Herself due to limitations of infirmity and geography.

A few of those thinking sessions have even led to quiet emotional outbursts of choking which is a new experience for me.

Maybe the time has come to say what all this thinking is about, and probably what’s more important are my arguments for and against the motion?

Some of you may be aware that I have been having some minor health problems for the last year. The general consensus is that physically and emotionally I have been through a lot, probably far more than most in their lifetime. I have endured pain, disfigurement and endless trips to and from various hospitals. I might add that in the course of all those hospital visits I have built up a very impressive list of teams, disciplines and expertise.

The question – Where do I go from here?

I tried out the question on my various teams of experts. The first thing you learn is that none is an expert. I would get various degrees of positivity [or negativity] while sadly the positive side seemed to be gradually losing the argument over time.

Over time, my choices seemed to narrow down to two. One choice which was a forerunner for a while was to go into hospice care whereupon i would build up my strength to face into chemotherapy. The other choice was to bow to the inevitable and just let nature take its course. This would also take place in hospice care where the entire focus would lay in making my life as comfortable and pain free as possible.

I know there are going to be arguments from both sides.

I finally decided on the second option. My reasons were simple. I chose my Oncologist as my primary expertise and asked him in all honesty to lay out his thoughts. He said that yes, it may be possible to build up my weight and strength a bit [I have now lost about 5 stone in weight] but that I would be then entering a period of chemotherapy which would probably kill me anyway.

By chance, Daughter visited early today and again, by chance, I had a visit from my Palliative Care team at the same time. The Gods were indeed smiling on us. Already they are making moves to check on availability of beds and hopefully there will be word in the next few days.

The Wicklow Hospice is everyone’s choice. I know websites can be glossy [just look at this one?] but theirs is really impressive.

They even allow smoking and drinking on the terraces!

 
Posted in Cancer

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