A blog by Ross of Penge (formerly of Balham)

I blogged pretty extensively during 2014 and early 2015, but got out of the habit. In the time since there has been a huge amount I've sort of wanted to write about (politics, terror etc) but I haven't. I tried several times, but anger and frustration about what was happening prevented me from getting things down in a coherent form. Given I couldn't express what I felt, and it didn't seem like it would make a difference anyway, I let it lie fallow.

It's now early 2017, and I'm back, blogging about my attempt to do the first month of the year without social media. After that, who knows?

And why gateway2thesouth? Named after a famous sketch popularised by Peter Sellers:

"Broad-bosomed, bold, becalmed, benign,
Lies Balham, four-square on the Northern Line."

I lived in Balham for 23 years - longer than I have been anywhere else, and it still feels like one of the places in the world I most belong.

Thursday, 25 September 2014

Musings on angels

Whilst I certainly have a dream or two, I differ from ABBA in that I do not believe in angels.

Some of you will know that I have been in a pretty dark place over the last week. No details here, but a very unpleasant work situation which has caused a lot of people a lot of pain. I am very pleased that this is now very much in the past, and it seems that life will be going on pretty much as before. Albeit it with a few more grey hairs.

The cliché is that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. The reason clichés are clichés is because they are broadly true, and I think I emerge from this wiser if nothing else.

So this is a very brief blog post to say thank you to some people. I don’t think anyone at work reads my blog (god - I hope they don't), but they have all been so supportive of me at this time – it makes me realise what a great team of people they are.

More specifically to the friends who have either reached out in response to some cryptic but bleak Fb or Twitter messages to check I was OK. And the ones who have contacted me to offer help and a (in some cases literal) shoulder to cry on. I am privileged to have you as friends, and you know I would be there for you in the same way.

The point of the first line of this blog? Well, it’s the ‘no atheists in fox-holes’ argument I guess. If every I either a) needed or b) felt that there was a guardian angel looking out for me, now would be that time. I didn't look for that angel, and nor do I think he* was guiding me. But in the same way as atheists believe that they live on not through an eternal afterlife, but through the memories they leave behind, this has shown me that it is friends and colleagues who give you the guidance space and support that helps you through these things.

To all of you – a very heartfelt and tearful ‘thank you’.


* Are angels ‘he’? Seem to remember that they are.

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