Read this, its better than a dose of Temazepam! (General)

Member Name: garymarsh6

Product:	General
Date:	02/11/09 (129 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You might get to know a bit more about me.

Disadvantages: You might not have wanted to know any of that.

As this is my 100th review for Dooyoo I thought it might be fitting to do one of 'things you didn't want to know about me'.

Please remember to have a mop and bucket ready to catch the blood when you slit your wrists after reading the first paragraph as you wont want to make a mess on the floor.

I must say that I have really enjoyed my experience on Dooyoo so far and have made lots of nice friendly acquaintances on here some people are really very nice and friendly.I enjoy reading all kinds of reviews and have found it quite entertaining and amusing at times.

OK if you are ready deep breath...... here goes.


Who am I.

Well as you probably guessed by now my name is Gary & I hail from Dover in Kent. I am married and have been for erm.... gawd I had to think about that one 27 years. I have a delightful beautiful daughter who is the centre of my world although she went through ghastly teenage years telling me one day why don't you die and have a heart attack when she was 14 when I grounded her for a week! LOL Well that I am glad to say did not happen. We have three cats although I would much prefer a dog but outnumbered by a certain couple of people!

I have two brothers one five years older and one five years younger. I also have a sister who I refer to as my afterbirth on account of her being born thirteen months after me. See I am a lovely person really!


Childhood.

I was born in my grandmother's house which had a fantastic view of Dover Castle through the main bedroom window. It is a priceless view I must say. I grew up in Dover and went to school there. I guess in those days one would consider it ideal. We lived right on top of the cliffs in Dover and had the best of both worlds really as we were right by the beach and also near rolling hills and of course the white cliffs.

Most summers were spent on the beach catching crabs collecting winkles which we would take home and cook for our tea. As summer drew to a close we used to go into the hills to collect wild blackberries I call them wild because the brambles used to rip our skin to pieces. My mother would make jams, crumbles and pies which did not last very long in our house.

We were very fortunate and lucky to have such wonderful parents who were honest and hardworking and were pillars of the local community and when my mother died unexpectedly over 400 people attended her funeral. That was and has been up to now the most shattering experiences of my life the second watching my father die slowly with a broken heart he just gave up and became a shadow of the man everyone once knew.


My father was very interested in animals and had a special affinity with them so much so we practically lived with our own personal menagerie in our house. We have had all kinds of snakes, lizards, birds, cats, dogs, pigs, chickens the list goes on. People used to bring sick animals to my father who used to nurse them back to health.

My father had two boa constrictors he was doing a study on. He kept them in a great big glass cabinet thing in our living room. I remember during the power cuts of I think the 70's when there was no electricity we all had to keep kettles of hot water going to put into water bottles to place around this blooming thing to keep them warm. It didn't matter about us kids being warm as long as his precious horrible snakes were kept warm.

We used to take turns at holding them on a Saturday and one day my brother was holding it and all of a sudden the snake struck and bit him on the nose. Because the teeth go backwards the snake was unable to release its grip so my poor brother was sitting there looking like he was playing the flute. My dad screamed don't pull it don't pull it you will damage his teeth! Bugger that for a laugh!

My Dad used to go to various groups to give talks on wildlife and wild animals and one of us would have to go along and operate the slide projector. It was boring and predictable hearing the same old thing time and time again and for a bit of amusement every now and again I used to put the slides in upside down so he would be rattling on about some animal and all of a sudden he would turn to the screen and see an elephant or giraffe standing on its head. He used to tell me off something terribly afterwards but nevertheless I had a right old giggle plus I used to get one or two shillings or even half a crown for doing it if we made no mistakes. For those young enough not to know what that was it was a fortune of about 5 pence, 10 pence or 12 and a half pence... Which I might add was a fortune in those days.

Young adulthood.


When I left College I began a career in teaching but after about a year I found it so unfulfilling and boring. A friend of mine asked me to accompany her to an interview to undertake Student nurse training. Whilst there she had apparently told the senior tutor all about me and they asked if I would be prepared to be interviewed for Student nurse training. I thought they were kidding but went ahead with the interview because I did not want to jeopardise my friend's chances of getting in and was accepted for training as well. After a bit of pondering I thought what the hell go for it and I did. It was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made despite my fathers disapproval and protests to return to medical college instead. I guess I was being bloody minded and ignored his protests and actually found I loved every second of it.

After a year and a half I met my wife who is from Mauritius who was also training to be a nurse and we married in 1982 in Dover at St.Mary's Parish church where all my family had been christened and married and my mother is now buried.


A few years later my daughter was born a delightful, beautiful little girl we named Leonie who on being delivered looked like she had been through ten rounds with Joe Bugner. We have a great relationship she has the same warped sense of humour as I do and we play tricks and games on each other teasing also my wife unmercilessly who takes everything literally as read until she hears us giggling & wetting ourselves.
We are a bit naughty really but hey it's all in fun.

Leonie is currently working as a stewardess with BA and of course she is very beautiful indeed but I am sure I am a bit biased as any proud father would be. My best friend and I were going to buy a ticket on her first flight without her knowledge and after the safety demo I would have loved to say to her excuse me miss I missed part of that could you do that bit again. I can imagine her going crimson read and saying OH dad. I would have replied erm Excuse me young lady that's daddy sir to you I am a fare paying passenger if you don't mind! Unfortunately her first flight was to Stockholm and the day return fare would have cost about £300 odd quid so she had a lucky escape as I was not prepared to cough up that much how ever much I wanted to. Still there is always time and I am sure I shall do something one day. So watch out girlie dada is going to come after you!!! I will get you! LOL

So Career wise.

I have worked in all kinds of medical, surgical and psychiatric specialities and I am currently working as a manager in a special unit in South London for people with the wicked illnesses of dementia with behavioural problems although the patients we have usually end up staying with us until they pass over to a better place. I love my job and I love the people I work with. They are a good bunch of people and very caring and compassionate despite the frustrations of the odd battering etc eventually the patients settle down and they trust us and we take over the role of their family. The sooner they find a cure for the dementias the better. It is such a wicked evil disease that has a rippling destructive effect on people's lives however by maintaining their privacy and dignity and treating each as an individual hopefully we have made the end of their lives as comfortable as we can. Funnily enough I do love teaching nurses and I am involved in some teaching still but with adults as opposed to teaching kids.


Interests.

I as you probably have gathered I enjoy travelling immensely especially to the Far East. I will let you into one little secret though I am absolutely petrified of snakes almost to the point of being irrational and hissterical. You can probably guess why from what I told you above. There are so many lovely places to discover yet and I have already planned out the next few years travelling destinations. I tend to do a hell of a lot of research before going to new places which keeps me out of mischief I suppose.

I love my computer and spend most of my time on it. I do not really watch television and do not have a clue about half the people or programmes on the television. I am bit of a Luddite when it comes to famous movie stars and wouldn't know who they were if they were sitting next to me on a plane. I have had a couple pointed out to me and I am afraid the names went straight over my head........ When Sweeney Todd came out we went to see it at the cinema. My daughter had to tell me to shut up moaning as although the film was supposed to start at 19:20 we sat through 40 minutes of adverts and I was moaning and saying if I wanted to watch adverts I could have sat at home and watched them for nothing why should I pay for the displeasure of forcible advertising. (Being hard of hearing sometimes I can not gauge how loud I am talking) GRR. After the film I said didn't that man look like Edward scissor hands and they fell about laughing because it was him apparently. (Sorry Jan if you are reading this I still don't remember his name although I know you have the hots for him).


I was involved for ten years as chairman of a charity which helped Chernobyl children and visited Belarus several times once going right down to the perimeter of the exclusion zone. When we came back after a week we had received the equivalent dose of 50 X rays or so we were told following readings of our radiation monitors we wore on our clothes. I am pleased to have seen the children we have helped over the years grow up and get married themselves. It was a very rewarding experience and I enjoyed the work involved. However five years ago I finally managed to find someone to take over the reigns which has given me so much free time since giving it up only to be replaced by other things.

I love my family and I am quite content with my lot. I am not bothered by material things as long as I have my family around me and their good health is all I pray for.I was recently devastated to hear the news that my eldest brother has got cancer and for the past two months he has had to have daily chemotherapy and radium therapy. He has been very poorly but thankfully today was his last treatment so we are all keeping our fingers crossed for him.

I enjoy writing my reviews and hope that it gives some pleasure to others. I know that some people for whatever reasons are not able to travel themselves so if my reviews help in bringing these places into their living rooms then mission accomplished.

Thank you for reading this I do hope you have not cut your wrists or anything so drastic. If you have and you have stains on your carpet have a look for reviews on stain devils I am sure there must be a review on Dooyoo about getting rid of them.

I hope you found this a bit interesting. I am no body special just plain old me and what you see is what you get I am afraid.


Thank you for your patience reading this.

Summary: What you see is what you get.