I don't suppose anyone is remotely interested but as I've mentioned my sort-of-step-dad a few times on Twitter lately I felt I should clarify the situation for future reference.
First to explain my parents - they are two of the most screwed up individuals I have ever met. They were screwed up before they met and succeeded in making each other worse. They are difficult enough people individually but together...let's just say my childhood was decidedly odd.
My mother got pregnant with me...this presumably seemed like a good idea at the time but backfired on her spectacularly. Just like me, my mother wouldn't recognise a maternal instinct if it jumped up and bit her on the bum - like millions of other women throughout history she thought she could win my dad's affection this way. My dad (who I also call Pogsy for no adequate reason) never got over his resentment of this; my mum never got over the disappointment and I got well and truly screwed up being caught in the middle.
Strangely, my parents actually got on quite well for people who despised each other. This only served to confuse me even more! They developed a kind of friendship from being stuck with each other.
My parents split up when I was about 25. I was rather disappointed they couldn't have done it 20 years earlier...or better yet, before my conception therefore avoiding a lot of trouble.
My dad is still single - he will fall for married women... My mum has had a few boyfriends and for several years now has been with Neville bringing us back to the sort-of-step-dad issue.
My mother has no interest in getting married again (my mum and dad never married but she had been married before) or even co-habitting again. Admittedly she spends an awful lot of time at Neville's but I think she's happier knowing she has her own place to go back to if they start getting on each others nerves. So Neville is not legally my step dad or in a common-law kind of way either. However, he's a great guy and definitely part of the family so far as I'm concerned. Even my mum had a Freudian slip recently where she referred to both in an anecdote; calling Neville as my dad and my dad by his Christian name.
Years ago I told my mum that my dream boyfriend would be a long-distance lorry driver. Someone I could enjoy being with but wouldn't be under my feet all the time. But it was my mum who got the lorry driver in the end! Well, technically it's a white van and he's semi-retired but who's being pedantic?!
When they first got together Neville was travelling all over Europe couriering (sp?) stuff around. It wasn't long before my mother was tagging along. My mother who had insisted she was only going to stay in comfortable hotels in future CHOSE to camp in the back of a delivery van...nuts!
Often it was just random boxes of documents or supplies for pharmaceutical companies but sometimes it was working for popstars... One day my mum rang to say they were doing a job for "a group you'll never have heard of...Violent Femmes" I rather put her out because I had heard of them! She never once managed to catch me out: Morcheeba, Chicane, Hot Chip, Tori Amos... That seemed to bug her somehow. You'd think she'd actually have been pleased...
Anyway, in late 2008 I started harbouring a secret fantasy...that Neville would get a job for the European leg of New Kids On The Block's tour and let me tag along instead of my mum! It wasn't to be. The company he drove for went bust ahead of time. Never mind...
First to explain my parents - they are two of the most screwed up individuals I have ever met. They were screwed up before they met and succeeded in making each other worse. They are difficult enough people individually but together...let's just say my childhood was decidedly odd.
My mother got pregnant with me...this presumably seemed like a good idea at the time but backfired on her spectacularly. Just like me, my mother wouldn't recognise a maternal instinct if it jumped up and bit her on the bum - like millions of other women throughout history she thought she could win my dad's affection this way. My dad (who I also call Pogsy for no adequate reason) never got over his resentment of this; my mum never got over the disappointment and I got well and truly screwed up being caught in the middle.
Strangely, my parents actually got on quite well for people who despised each other. This only served to confuse me even more! They developed a kind of friendship from being stuck with each other.
My parents split up when I was about 25. I was rather disappointed they couldn't have done it 20 years earlier...or better yet, before my conception therefore avoiding a lot of trouble.
My dad is still single - he will fall for married women... My mum has had a few boyfriends and for several years now has been with Neville bringing us back to the sort-of-step-dad issue.
My mother has no interest in getting married again (my mum and dad never married but she had been married before) or even co-habitting again. Admittedly she spends an awful lot of time at Neville's but I think she's happier knowing she has her own place to go back to if they start getting on each others nerves. So Neville is not legally my step dad or in a common-law kind of way either. However, he's a great guy and definitely part of the family so far as I'm concerned. Even my mum had a Freudian slip recently where she referred to both in an anecdote; calling Neville as my dad and my dad by his Christian name.
Years ago I told my mum that my dream boyfriend would be a long-distance lorry driver. Someone I could enjoy being with but wouldn't be under my feet all the time. But it was my mum who got the lorry driver in the end! Well, technically it's a white van and he's semi-retired but who's being pedantic?!
When they first got together Neville was travelling all over Europe couriering (sp?) stuff around. It wasn't long before my mother was tagging along. My mother who had insisted she was only going to stay in comfortable hotels in future CHOSE to camp in the back of a delivery van...nuts!
Often it was just random boxes of documents or supplies for pharmaceutical companies but sometimes it was working for popstars... One day my mum rang to say they were doing a job for "a group you'll never have heard of...Violent Femmes" I rather put her out because I had heard of them! She never once managed to catch me out: Morcheeba, Chicane, Hot Chip, Tori Amos... That seemed to bug her somehow. You'd think she'd actually have been pleased...
Anyway, in late 2008 I started harbouring a secret fantasy...that Neville would get a job for the European leg of New Kids On The Block's tour and let me tag along instead of my mum! It wasn't to be. The company he drove for went bust ahead of time. Never mind...
Neville with Smokey Robinson
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