Nutty about games!

Well I’m not completely missing in action - although if Battlefield 2142 was real you could say I was! I’m doing a lot of writing at the moment. Almost as much reading. I’ve actually cut out all gaming to do this; I thought I could do with a break anyway.  Besides, I’ve been put off my certain gaming addicts I will not name!

I’ve created a new page which will have a few stories and poems posted on it in a few weeks; I’ve also created a blog for any stories intended for adults, as it is right that they should be kept seperate. I will only give the link to trusted friends.

Anyway, will let you know how I get on.

Apologies for my lack of posting at the moment, I had a very busy Easter looking after the boys and doing lots of tidying - shame the weather was rubbish so the boys and I were stuck indoors. I would have liked to take them out somewhere really, perhaps this weekend the three of us can go and do something fun, perhaps we can see my lovely cousin Stef (or as Nicholas puts it, ‘MY cousin Stef’!).

I am likely going to miss the deadline for one of my writing competitions, but it was a little last minute anyway. Just finding it too hard to write anything decent at the moment. Plenty of ideas, not much action!

Feeling a little low at the moment for various reasons, so have been listening to lots of music which really does help. Especially enjoying The Killers and Keane. Hoping to go to a Burlesque evening next Sunday which may cheer me up, I do love all that, I’d love to do it myself one day! Well, I would likely need a lot of surgery first! I would wear 50s clothing and hair/makeup for the event too, something different for a change! I’d very much like to dress in a 50s/gothic way most of the time but Steve would throw me out!

Anyway, here is a song that is very relevant to me at the moment. This guy has the most lovely voice too.

It seems like yesterday that I lost my two gorgeous Grandmas’, but it has been 10 years now. I can’t quite believe it, nor can I truly believe that they have gone. 

On the 10th March 1998 in the morning I received a heartbreaking phone call from my Dad telling me that my Grandma had died. I instantly knew he meant his Mum, Dorothy. I was at university at the time and took the news badly. Later that evening I received another phonecall from Dad, who told me that my other Grandma, Violet, had also died. For their deaths to be on the same day, though they never spoke and lived miles away from each other, was just too tragic for words.

Grandma Beesley was 70; she had died instantly of a heart attack. Grandma Taylor was a mere 62 years old and she died of pneumonia, having spent her final few years lying in bed too scared and too depressed to get up.

Grandma ‘Violet’ Taylor 

(My sister Jo on the left, I am on the right)

Although I didn’t see much of Grandma Taylor she was a character and I loved her to bits. She really reminded me of Mum in so many ways, and seemed such a delicate soul. She was an agoraphobia sufferer, which was to eventually cut her life short. The family moved to Wigan when I was a baby and I only wish that they hadn’t - I don’t think she would have been so depressed had she had two very stubborn granddaughters to keep her in check! I would have liked to have known her better.

Grandma ‘Dorothy’ Beesley 

(With my Dad in the 70s)

If anyone mentioned ‘your Grandma’ I would instantly think of Grandma Beesley. She lived very close and we saw her often, although again she also did not like to leave the house in her later years. I don’t think she liked being ‘old’. 

Grandma was very young minded and would give anything a whirl (as long as it didn’t mean leaving the house). She had a strong personality and fiery temper, and wasn’t particularly well behaved in her younger days from what I gather! I am a lot like her in many ways! I miss her terribly, although I am thankful that I have good memories of her.

When I was younger we used to go round to her house and pinch cat biscuits from her larder; I still love them although I don’t make a habit of eating them these days! She would have a party at Christmas and I have the most wonderful memories of these; all the kids together causing havoc whilst the adults nattered in the lounge. We used to hide under the kitchen table and pretend to be mice; and got in trouble for eating all the crabsticks. The game ‘Murder in the Dark’ was just the best! 

When I worked at the Manor Barn pub I would go to see her after a lunchtime shift, and she would always tell me off for having ‘wet hair’ when it was only cold from being outside, and smothered in hair products! When I said that I wanted to dye my hair brown again (it was blonde at the time) she would go mad. She will probably be having a go at my brown hair now, wherever she is!

I’ll never stop missing her; I only wish that the last time I visited home from university I had gone to see her. I left uni soon after losing her, I don’t think I will ever get over it. I suppose because it was the first real bereavement I had, not remembering my Grandad who died when I was 5.

Apologies for the sad post, but this anniversary reminds me not only of how long it has been since I last saw them, but also how long it may be before I ever see them again.

Well, just a rather short blog post today, as we had the news this morning that our eldest son didn’t get into his first choice of school. It was an out-of-catchment West Berkshire school, but it seems that the ‘Beesley luck’ (or lack of it) has struck again as he is the only child in the past 3 years with a first choice application not to get a place at the school.

I will call and appeal today, and ask for him to be placed on the waiting list.

Also doesn’t bode well for our Reading school applications, as there is likely to be a higher intake this year. We find out on the 28th March, and I can tell you there will be many sleepless nights for me until then!

Why can’t we just emigrate or something?

Someone, somewhere…is against me writing anything. I’m sure of it! I believe a rant is in order!

I remember back to Nanowrimo time, when I was all prepared to write and began on the 1st November with gusto, steaming along at a rate of 2000-2500 words a night, which is a good pace for me. I enjoyed it so much; it was far from a chore and my imagination was buzzing along at a rate of knots.

Monday November 4th hit and with it came the fireworks, starting at 7pm and lasting until 1am.  This happened every night up until the end of the weekend, with some fireworks going off literally on our doorstep. It wasn’t that they were just disturbing me, but that they were waking the boys multiple times during the period I had designated for writing. By the end of that week I was at least 12k words down.

Just as I thought I may catch up a little, flu struck. Now, normally when people say they had flu, they did not - heavy cold, sniffles, whatever, not flu. I started out feeling a little rough, lying on the sofa with a mild fever and a sore throat. Within a few hours I was shivering and shaking and aching, veering between boiling hot and freezing cold, with raging fever of 40 degrees, feeling like I was dying. I still had to look after the children so I got off the sofa just to get them some food and then sat straight back down again afterwards. By the weekend, when I was allowed 3hrs in bed by Steve, I was pretty much delirious and kept having horrible nightmares. I couldn’t eat a single thing for 5 days, and lost a lot of weight, and it took me at least 2 weeks until I started feeling myself again. Worst illness ever!

Then - of course - just as my fever started to go down the boys got ill, and my goodness were they poorly. It was dreadful. Then Steve got it and after he struggled through work for a couple of days he spent a whole weekend in bed and I had to take care of him and the children despite not being too well myself.

So - around 3 weeks of Nano vanished without a trace! I did manage to catch up a little at the end but it just wasn’t to be and I failed, again.

Of course writing isn’t just for Nano time, so I wasn’t going to give up that easily - until the laptop broke.

Now, I do have a PC - but have you ever tried writing while sat next to a man with a voice like a foghorn who is either (a) playing Battlefield 2142 and yelling into ventrilo, (b) listening to extremely loud music whilst raiding in World of Warcraft or (c) moaning about me writing and ignoring him, and interrupting my thought every few minutes with comments and phone calls?

I imagine that to be a no. So for now my writing is at an end, except on those rare occasions he is out of the house. Handwriting is also no-no, as these days I can barely read it myself thanks to never really having the need to write!

I would love to write, really I would, instead of jotting down endless thoughts and ideas that never see the light of day - but I can’t ever see it happening. Perhaps when I retire, eh?

As it is nearing the 10th anniversary of the death of my gaming Grandma, Dorothy ‘Dot’ Beesley, I have decided a little retrogaming is in order in her memory.

Grandma loved her games, and was a big fan of the ZX Spectrum from the late 80s right up until her death. She even got the Spectrum before us, and once I had seen the games she could play I was hooked!

We never ran out of games because Grandma would copy them for us, and we would never get stuck on a game for long with her countless gaming tips, and ‘pokes’ (cheats) when it all got too difficult!

I feel sad that she could not stay with us for longer as I am sure she would have loved the games of today, and also been an avid fan of the internet, especially enjoying sites like YouTube. I think she would have played an MMORPG with me for sure! Who knows, maybe Battlefield 2142 would have been her cup of tea!

Anyway, more about the games.

 Dizzy Series


Dizzy was one of my fave games ever, and I never managed to finish the early ones - but I believe Grandma finished them all! I remember her talking a lot about Treasure Island Dizzy and I believe she found every last coin too. So, first order of the day is a proper go at a number of episodes from the Dizzy series - although these days I am glad there is a save function as I don’t have the patience to complete them without it!

Slightly Magic


I loved this game but every time I got near to the end I would die horribly. I used to cry and scream at the damn annoying thing! It was a very short game but you had one life, and if you made a single mistake that was it, game over. Cue Grandma to the rescue! Although I wanted to complete this one legitimately it wasn’t to be, so Grandma found me a poke and I got to see the ending. Hooray Grandma!

Bubble Bobble and Bubble Dizzy


I have to admit that after 20 years or so I can no longer remember which of these Grandma played or liked the best, but I suspect it was both. I never got into it either of them, but I am going to have a go anyway.

Chuckie Egg


Oh, what a game, I loved it! I never did finish it but I got pretty close; not bad for a kid sharing with an obsessed Dad and younger sister!

Werewolves of London


Looking back at this game I see it wasn’t actually all that exciting. I only think I enjoyed it because you could eat people! I think they should make a modern game with a werewolf going round biting people’s head off - it would be awesome!

There are more that she used to play such as Repton and Saracen, but I will stick to these few. I don’t know how long my limited attention span can cope with such classics…

Last night I logged into BF2142 with my other half Steve, and had rather a lot of fun!  We played on Northern Strike servers, large and small. One titan server was tiny but most enjoyable - shooting Steve’s char in the face with my Clark shotgun a few times was quite theraputic after the day I’d had! Was awarded a Gold Star for coming top; only out of 5 people but it didn’t matter to me, I was waaaaay ahead on points to boot. Unlocked frag grenades at last too! Of course Steve played great as usual and was awarded a number of badges and pins. We both especially enjoyed driving around in the Goliath - a great way to gain points and rack up a few kills too (especially as a support character reloading it).

Now, I am not great at this game - far from it (check out my rubbish stats), but it really doesn’t matter to me. I have played far too many RPGs in the last six years to be as hot as most people with a rifle. Many point out my kill/death ratio and laugh, but I’m not that intent on killing people in this game. I much prefer to run around with my ammo hub! I have now found that if I join a squad and follow them with my hub out I gain more points than if I try to kill people. Of course Titan defense is now great with my Clark shotgun, as I can just hang around waiting for them to drop in, holding my shotgun with my turret aimed on them - great fun!

If you’re not sure what I am talking about as you do not have this game I recommend you try it - it can be bought for a tenner now at Game and the Northern Strike expansion pack is about a fiver (you can get these even cheaper ifyou shop around online). It costs nothing to play online and there are countless servers for you to choose from with full-on action; well worth the money. Try reading the reviews here and here. As long as you are playing with friends you will likely never get bored of this game; I often try to avoid playing as it is so addictive!

If you log on to the game look out for Melindi or Bymz0r and we will show you the ropes. Well, I will probably show you how to play very badly…but I’ll try my best anyway! We could always have a laugh on Ventrilo whatever happens, especially when I have been on the vino!

Not all bad, but not the best of days so far…

Firstly I have to point out that this is the second time I have written this post. For the first time ever I did not select all then copy the text before I hit save as I always do when writing anything, and this is the first time ever that Wordpress did not save my post despite me hitting ‘Save and Continue Editing’. Nor did it save my page automatically. This really sucks. Really it does. Instead I got a blank page and the post I had previously spent half an hour writing had vanished. Honest.

Anyway, I digress. This morning I awoke at a decent hour (i.e. after 7am) to find a lovely card and some very expensive alcoholic choccies waiting for me. I am supposed to be dieting but I have a real penchant for chocolate - none is safe from me in this house - so it was a nice pressie nonetheless.

I then proceeded to make breakfast and do some washing up, and started to blitz the lounge at about 10am before the shopping was due to arrive at around 11am, whilst Steve was doing a spot of gaming. Tesco arrived a little early and I left the boys in the computer room with Steve while I created a huge mountain of bags into the lounge, ready to take through to the kitchen at the back.

Thinking I may get some help carting said bags into the kitchen and perhaps even some help putting it away - it is Mother’s Day after all - I began the task alone and soon found myself surrounded by little boys screaming for ’snacks’ and fighting, emptying food all over the floor; something they always do when the shopping arrives. I looked up to see Steve vanishing upstairs offering to put my phone on charge - it is now after 3pm and he still hasn’t come back down again.

It took me just over an hour to put all the shopping away, then I gave the boys a snack and finished tidying the lounge. I made soup for lunch, but the boys decide that it is far too much fun to keep the soup in a bowl, and instead spread it all over the table, floor and themselves.

I cleaned this all up but was dismayed to hear Nicholas’s shouts of “Gabe’s got poo everywhere” and find that is indeed the case. Gabriel decided that he would yet again delve into his nappy and pull out the contents, and had placed a few ‘malteasers’ in his weeble campervan, and squished the rest into the carpet with his feet. Nicholas also had poo on his jeans and feet. Such is my day so far.

My Mum has had a better day, thankfully; cards from us and the boys, and flowers with a vase that we sent via Interflora. As an extra bit of luck she also received another lovely bunch of flowers, again with a card from us, possibly by mistake but we are not complaining! Here is a piccy of them:

I don’t usually pass on Mother’s Day texts, but one I received was particularly helpful when having a bad day and feeling very neglected:

Motherhood’s a tough 24-hour job. No pay, no days off, often most unappreciated and yet resignation is impossible! So send this to anyone who’s a TERRIFIC Mum and let her know she’s wonderful.

Loving this song right now too - today is a Keane day.

Now to make dinner…