It is currently 3:30AM. I have drunk the best part of 3 bottles of wine, and I have no doubt that I am somewhat tipsy. (This may be an understatement).
For some reason, at this point in my life my thoughts have turned to my mum, whose birthday it was just a few days ago. I shall not pull punches here; my mother (and therefore myself and my half brother) has had a hell of a life; my father died in a motorcycle accident before I was born, back when being a single mother was something to be ashamed of. My first stepfather died of a debilitating mental disease that turned him into a walking wreck that could just about ask for money to buy fags and not much else.
It took our house being burned down for local government to realise that we were not equipped to deal with him - and this despite him being sent back from an institution for mentally handicapped patients because they "couldn't cope" with him (apparently it was perfectly OK for a mother and 2 kids of 12 and 8 to cope with him).
Through all of this, though I didn't appreciate it at the time, my mum was there for me. I might have* been a self-centred little bastard with all the empathy of a psychotic maniac, but I never doubted that if I needed to talk to someone my mum was there.
*definitely was.
The point of this blog post is not to bemoan these things; they are part of what has made me who I am, and though I might wish them otherwise I might not have my wife and 3 beautiful kids if it wasn't for these experiences.
The point of this is just to say "thanks, mum". God knows I never said it, but if anybody ever deserved thanks from an ungrateful little sod, it was you.
