A Question of Balance

 

There is a saying that I’ve heard a lot of blokes say and it is this:

“Happy wife, happy life”

I think that this saying is a bit biased towards the female side. Basically, to me, it says, if you keep "‘er indoors" happy then you will get a peaceful life. Nevertheless, there has to be balance in this equation and I am all for balance. 

The idea for me is to keep each other happy. If, as a man, you are happy and your significant other is also happy then that is the ideal situation. Life isn’t as simple as that though and this is where compromise comes into that equation.

It helps if you both enjoy the same things but there comes a point when you have to do something that is not your favourite thing to do in order to keep that balance. 

I have a couple of examples of this in action. 

Recently, when were in Lanzarote, Mrs PM who has just started a new job, asked me what I was going to do when we returned. 

“I’ll pop to the cinema to see Captain America: Brave New World” I said. I can do this at any time because I am retired. I don’t mind going to the cinema on my own at all. Mrs PM surprised me and said:

“I’ll come with you if you like. I haven’t been to the cinema for ages.”

I was surprised by this because, although Mrs PM doesn’t mind Marvel films, she usually waits for them to come on the TV rather than going to the cinema. It was only when I checked the cinema listings that something clicked. 

“I see that Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” is on as well,” I said.

Basically Mrs PM doesn’t like going to the cinema on her own at all and she really wanted to go and see it. I had seen the previous Bridget Jones movies but generally I hate romantic comedies and I would never actually watch them on TV let alone pay money to see them. 

I sighed and rather than arguing about this I decided, in the name of compromise and balance, to agree to see it with her. 

Last Sunday we went to see Captain America together and she enjoyed it. Yesterday we went to see Bridget Jones and she really enjoyed it. There were not that many blokes in the cinema at all and the ones who were, were in the same situation as I was. I did notice there were quite a few groups of three or four women all giggling and crying as the film progressed.

Did I enjoy them?

Captain America was not the greatest Marvel movie I have seen but I enjoyed it, especially when the Red Hulk appeared. 

Bridget Jones? I’ve seen them all and I have chuckled at some scenes but it was such a girl movie and I had to try to resist using the sick bag on a couple of occasions (using Newton’s Laws to express your love for somebody? Do me a favour!). The highlight for me was seeing Sally Phillips, who I really like.

I won’t see any Bridget Jones filmsa gain but in the interest of balance I have kept my thoughts to myself. The film was okay but definitely not my kind of movie. Mrs PM enjoyed it though and that is all that counts. 

Balance has also branched out to music now. During the pandemic when we were locked down in the house, we had to compromise about music. Basically Mrs PM loves dance music and I love rock, prog and heavy metal. Our tastes are quite different. However, we discovered that we have an overlap and we managed to create a joint Spotify playlist that we play very often. You can read about it here:

The Playlist 

The playlist has grown since then and we have 436 songs at the time of writing. I never thought that would happen.

In the last couple of years we have extended this idea and actually started going to gigs together, which is something I thought we would never ever do. I have been to hundreds of gigs and Mrs PM would have hated them. Nevertheless we both decided to give ourselves a taste of some bands that we wouldn’t normally see. 

And we are doing it again this year. 

In the past couple of years, I have seen Alison Goldfrapp and Sophie Ellis-Bextor (although the latter was supporting the Human League who we both like). 

In return, Mrs PM saw The Stranglers and The Foo Fighters. 

Now I do like the band Goldfrapp, and Alison Goldfrapp as a solo artist did play some of those songs but her newest album is pure dance so it was a little out of my comfort zone. But it was fun. We both loved the Stranglers though and Mrs PM was slightly out of her comfort zone with the Foo Fighters.

This year I have a few gigs planned but Mrs PM is only coming to two of them. 

The first is a real blast from my past and hers: Electric Light Orchestra, one of my favourite bands when I was a child. We both love them.

The second is Nine Inch Nails. I jokingly asked her if she would ever see them and she told me yes. They are definitely my type of band and the only thing she might like about them is their more mellow and electronic side. She likes this song for example. 

But she will have to put up with this:

I’m not too concerned though because there are a lot of different styles in between plus a few more mellow songs they may perform.

It might just challenge the balance and compromise but I like to think that I can cope if she doesn’t. I am a Libran and the scales are the symbol of my star sign. I don’t believe in all of that nonsense but I do believe in balance and I will try to achieve that no matter what. Let’s just hope she doesn’t hate Nine Inch Nails to the point where I have to see somebody dreadful (and believe me – there are many terrible songs in Mrs PM’s collection).

The gig is in June and she has asked me for a Nine Inch Nails Spotify play list that will give her a taste of what to expect.

Wish me luck.

Coming Home

Mrs PM and I have recently returned from a week long break in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. We were meant to go to Malaysia but Mrs PM’s job situation scuppered that somewhat and forced us to postpone that wonderful trip until 2026. The good news is that the situation is now resolved but sadly it was too late to organise that trip to the Far East. Instead we opted for a short European trip to get some winter sun.

Whenever I am abroad, especially in winter, I barely think of Manchester. As we walked along the promenade after breakfast, listening to the Atlantic Ocean lapping up on the sandy shores and rocks, the dreadful rainy cold weather that we have to endure in February in the UK is so far from my brain that Manchester may as well be on another planet. 

Even the evenings are beautiful and clear in Lanzarote, if not a little chilly. All that means is that I have to wear long trousers instead of shorts as we dine within earshot of the waves. And talking about planets, we actually managed to see a couple of them with the naked eye. Mrs PM mentioned that the news had an article about all the planets being aligned. I love a good sunset and as we were sitting in a bar watching our star slowly descend behind the horizon, seemingly into the horizon, I used an app on my smartphone to find the planets – the app is called Sky Map and well worth a download. Here are a couple of sunset pictures I took.

Mercury was close to the sun but invisible and a bright spot nearby turned out to be Venus. As the sun disappeared and the sky became darker, other points of light in the firmament became visible and, with the aid of Sky Map, I could clearly identify Saturn, which looked a little dull compared to Venus but still there. The app also told me that just below Venus but perhaps too far away to see with the naked eye was Neptune. 

As I moves around the sky, I then identified and saw Jupiter and Uranus. Jupiter was perfectly clear and Uranus, like Saturn, was quite dull but just about visible. 

The only one I couldn’t find was Mars. 

It would have been amazing to have seen this exact sky with a telescope from the desert where there is no light pollution to shield the planets. I remember a trip to Barbados where we had a little session with an astronomer who used a telescope to find Saturn for us. That was amazing and I could even see the rings. 

On our last morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and had time to take a walk along the promenade for a coffee before having to return to the airport for our flight home. I enjoyed sitting by the ocean, listening to the waves and enjoying the clear blue skies and the sun reflecting off glistening turquoise water. 

I felt totally relaxed. 

About eight hours later we had landed at Manchester Airport and were in a cab, driving through the rainy cold streets of my home city. I looked through the rain spotted windows of the cab and the sky was dark and covered in clouds that hid any stars and planets. Part of me was disappointed and I craved sitting by the beach, stargazing while listening to the calm sea. Mrs PM was excited because she was starting her new job the following day and she was also looking forward to seeing her “babies”, that is our two domineering masters, our cats Ziggy and Star(dust).

I allowed my mind to briefly return the scene from eight hours ago, the taste of the coffee, the warm breeze, the sound of the ocean, the colours, the people. 

And then I realised that in a few moments I would be home. 

My home is my castle, the place where I feel most comfortable. It’s like my central office, even though I don’t work anymore and I love being there. My brief longing for Lanzarote gradually faded and once I had braved the rain, entered my house and unpacked, I had the chance to sit down with a cup of tea and think about my trip. Star(dust) put her two front paws on my stomach and stared at me as she purred. She then lay down next to me, clinging to my leg like a feline leech and fell asleep. Ziggy was sitting next to Mrs PM.

I then started thinking about our next trip to Malta in May, where we will be taking Mrs PM’s mum for a celebration of her 80th birthday. I will once again be beside the sea with a chance to explore Valetta. It will be warm sunny and in terms of weather, a million miles from Manchester. 

Mrs PM broke my reverie.

“I’m glad to be home,” she said. 

And, to be perfectly honest, so was I.