LEE PAYNE

Tag: memories

  • 10 of my favourite photos that I’ve got on my phone

    10 of my favourite photos that I’ve got on my phone

    Most of us have had a camera phone for quite a while now, with hundreds if not thousands of photos taken over the years. I’ve scrolled through mine and picked out ten that have a story behind them.

    1st November 2010 – Dad

    I have told the story about my dad more than once, but in short, he died in 2014 at the age of 69 having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease six years previously. It’s nice to have this photo on my phone. Dad is in his sheltered housing flat here, on the sofa where we drank bucketloads of tea and watched countless football matches. His cheeky grin is showing off the false tooth he wore. The story goes that it was knocked out by a cricket ball during a match on the playing fields of what is now the Hewett School when he was a young lad.

    1st June 2020 – seeing family for the first time since lockdown

    I think for many of us it was a bit of a shock to go into total lockdown in March 2020. Never before had we faced so many restrictions on our lives, but then it had been a hundred years since the last pandemic of Covid’s scale. It wasn’t until June that the restrictions had been eased enough for me to go and see my mum and her other half Dave (aka Stephen to me). It was strictly outdoors only though – thankfully the weather was lovely. This was also Dave’s birthday and the day my mum presented him with the papers showing that she’d legally changed her surname to his.

    20th July 2021 – sunset at Old Trafford, Manchester

    This was taken at Old Trafford cricket ground as the sun set on a red hot July day in Manchester. The match between England and Pakistan turned out to be the first sporting event to be played in front of a capacity crowd since the pandemic began. England won.

    28th November 2021 – my last day at Sainsbury’s Queens Road

    My first, and so far only, job was at Sainsbury’s and for eleven years Queens Road was all I knew. Then an opportunity came up to move to the Pound Lane store and, despite the terrifying prospect of having to meet a load of new people, I took it. I was blown away by the send-off my friends and colleagues gave me. This was taken on the Sunday, my last day at Queens, before I started at Pound Lane two days later.

    21st January 2022 – Oscar

    My friend Katie’s dog and without a doubt the best boy in the world. On this particular walk on the old railway line near Aylsham I managed to capture the moment he looked at the camera and I’m rather fond of it.

    28th February 2022 – the end of self-isolating with Covid

    Having avoided Covid throughout the lockdowns it finally caught up with me early last year. At the time I was living in a house where my bedroom had an en suite bathroom so I remained in that room for the entirity of my self-isolation, with food being left outside the door. Being stuck within those four walls for over a week was really tough. I took this photo just as I was about to leave the room for the first time. I can remember the feeling of excitement and relief.

    23rd April 2022 – before a Norwich match at Carrow Road

    With mum and Dave before Norwich’s match against Newcastle last year. Our pre-match ritual tends to involve buying pasties from Morrisons and sitting on that wall before going into the ground. Norwich were thrashed 3-0.

    9th June 2022 – The Killers gig at Carrow Road

    The tickets to see The Killers at Carrow Road were actually given to me as a Christmas present in 2019, with the gig due to take place in June 2020. For obvious reasons it was postponed twice before we finally got to see them in June last year. It is rare to have a band as big as The Killers performing in Norwich and they put on a fantastic show, with one of my favourite bands Blossoms as the support act. In June this year a dream will come true when my all time heroes Arctic Monkeys will play at Carrow Road. I can’t wait!

    25th August 2022 – my 30th birthday

    There was something about turning 30 that freaked me out. On the day, plans to go on the heritage railway between Dereham and Wymondham were scuppered by thunderstorms. Then all my friends turned up on the doorstep and we had a barbecue. I didn’t think people cared about me enough to do such a thing! It was a lovely evening and, as it turns out, being 30 is a lot like being 29.

    15th March 2023 – sunrise from my hotel room window in Cromer

    A recent one, but I must have enjoyed my one night stay in Cromer because I’m feeling nostalgic about something that happened only two weeks ago. I had long wanted to stay at the Cliftonville Hotel, as I thought the building was interesting and I was keen to see what the promise of sea views from every room looked like. I scratched that itch during a week’s holiday from work and had a great time relaxing and getting my head together. This was taken from my hotel room window quite early in the morning, with a stunning sunrise over the town and its famous pier.

    There we have it then, a small selection of photos on my phone that bring a smile to my face. Thanks for reading!

  • Have a wonderful Christmas – and here’s to the new year!

    Merry Christmas!

    All the signs point to these being bleak times: a lot of us can’t afford to put the heating on, Covid is still refusing to go away – like a double glazing salesman who won’t take no for an answer – and Sky News has a permanent graphic in the top corner of the screen telling us which set of workers is on strike today. At the time of writing, it’s the postal workers.

    Yet, despite all of that, I was cheerful and optimistic when I drove home from work for the last time before Christmas last night. I’d even made a playlist of my favourite Christmas songs to soundtrack my 30 mile journey. I’ve written about this banger by The Darkness before but I also highly recommend White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin.

    For those of us in retail, the busiest period of the year is almost over. We won’t struggle to find a space in the car park, have five trolleys full of left behinds or have to put up with god awful Mariah Carey covers any longer once the doors are closed on Christmas Eve.

    Ignoring the utter misery that is January, we also have the new year on the horizon – a chance to reflect on what’s gone before and what we want to happen in the year ahead.

    Thinking about it, my 2022 has been about establishing a base, mentally, from which I can build on. Due to factors, I had to move back in with my mum in the spring. Having just turned 30, this is hardly something to be proud of but my mental health has improved dramatically by having a warm, loving and stable home life. I now feel that I can make decisions about the future direction of my life with confidence.

    I would like a new job. I think I’ve said ‘this Christmas will be my last in retail’ every year since about 2012 but maybe this really will be it. That’s very much a work in progress though. We’ll see how that goes.

    I’ll end this piece with a few photos from my year. Thanks for reading, and however you’re spending Christmas, I hope it’s a happy one.

    With mum on a chilly January walk on the beach
    My positive Covid tests when it laid me low in February
    My first day out of isolation, March
    A car catches fire in the car park at work, March
    Breakfast outside at the now-defunct Corners near Dereham, April
    Day out in Cromer, May
    With mum in Cromer, May
    At The Killers gig at Carrow Road in June
    Friday night drink in Wells-next-the-sea, June
    Watching Norwich at Dereham Town, July
    Pet-sitting Oscar, July
    Watching England women in the Euros at the fan park in Manchester, July
    Mum with England batter Jonny Bairstow at Old Trafford, July
    Watching England v South Africa at Old Trafford, July
    With my friend Gavin at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach in August
    With my friends and family on my 30th birthday in August
    On top of Norfolk’s highest point, Beeston Bump, September
    My night wandering around London in September
    Happy bunny… receiving the new Arctic Monkeys album in October
    At the Blossoms gig at the UEA in November
    Lovely winter walk at Castle Acre, December

  • Christmas was better when I was a kid – and 12 years in retail might have something to do with it

    Christmas was brilliant when I was a kid.

    It’s far from the only thing that I would say was better when I was younger, but I’m not sure it rings true quite as much with anything else. Christmas began as soon as I finished school for the year. I can remember once when the suburb of Norwich I lived in was covered by fog for what felt like a week, combined with the festive films on the TV lending a wonderful winter atmosphere to the build up. On Christmas Eve, a family tradition was to go to KFC for tea and then drive around the city looking at the lights on people’s houses. It really got you in the spirit.

    As an only child (I have a half-sister, but she’s quite a bit older than me), I got lots of presents, as shallow as that makes me sound. I wasn’t one for getting up ridiculously early to open them – I once had to be woken up by my parents on Christmas morning – but there were definitely years when it was still dark outside. My dad would pretend to be interested in what I was unwrapping, but his real role was being in charge of the bin bag that all the paper went into.

    Christmas Day would usually mean going to my grandmother’s house, where you were guaranteed a meal that would leave you unable to move. You were never knowingly underfed at nanny’s. She was an excellent cook, and her Yorkshire puddings were divine. We’d then collapse onto the sofa, slipping in and out of a food coma watching the big Christmas shows on TV.

    Boxing Day saw us play hosts to dad’s side of the family. My sister and her family, along with my nanny and grandad (the one who would buy my hand-drawn comics from me) would come to our house. I would get to play with my nephew and niece, my mum would cook another lovely meal, and then the adults would play cards. I played along on a few occasions, but more often than not that time would be spent putting on a little show for my grandad. The great man would sit through whatever awful acting, singing or dancing (my niece would do that last one, rather than me) we put in front of him. One year, the three of us made our own film using a camcorder. I can’t remember if the camcorder had been a present for someone, but I can definitely remember filming my nephew at the top of the stairs, apparently murdered. The rest is sketchy. I think one of the characters was called Barry.

    The fun didn’t stop there. New Year’s Day would be my sister’s turn to open her home. We’d have buffet style food, rather than a full meal, and we would watch the football scores coming in. These memories are incredibly vivid. Yet there are Christmases in the last decade that I couldn’t tell you about, as I have forgotten them.

    Times change, of course. My mum and dad split up in 2007. All of our Christmas traditions up to that point ended immediately. In 2010, my mum couldn’t taste her Christmas dinner and ended up in A&E, eventually being diagnosed with bronchitis. On Boxing Day 2012, I took my dad – who had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for a few years by then – to his last ever Norwich City match at Carrow Road. It had just become too difficult to get him there and back. We lost 1-0 to Chelsea. Then, on Christmas Eve 2013, dad was taken to hospital from his care home. He died on 1st February 2014. He was not well enough to read the card I’d bought him that year.

    Another big difference between Christmas as a kid and now is that I’ve spent the last 12 Decembers working in a supermarket. Provided I haven’t been sacked and not told about it yet, this will be my 13th. Plenty of funny things have happened at work in those years. My favourite is probably when a woman came to the kiosk to ask me for ’50 grams of Golden Virginia’ but instead asked for ’50 grams of Golden Vagina’. Obviously, Christmas is the busiest time of year in that industry so, not only does the build up to it start before the kids have gone back to school, by the time the big day gets here you’re knackered. It wasn’t too bad when I first started, when I was just on the checkouts. I’d just go home with the same six Christmas songs ringing in my ears. But when I moved onto doing the trolleys, it would be like painting the Forth Bridge. By the time I’d brought a line of trolleys to the front of the store and gone to get another, the first line would be gone. It’d also be difficult to get the trolleys in at all, what with the cars queueing round the car park. In 2018, I came home from work the Sunday before Christmas in a state that I can only describe as broken.

    Christmas 2018 – I was broken.

    Since I’ve gradually been given more responsibility, Christmas is busier than ever. It sounds quaint now to think that when I was at school doing anything before 8am felt excruciatingly early, and after 4pm incredibly late. These days I can be at work at 5.45am, or I can still be serving someone with a massive trolley full of stuff at 11pm (though not on the same day, thankfully). All to the soundtrack of a choral cover of Santa Baby, or the frankly bizarre I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas. Last year, for the first time I was given the task of handing out food orders to customers, some of which they had put in as far back as October. It was superbly organised, but did involve me spending time in a dark and cold shipping container in the yard.

    The company are kind enough to allow us to wear a Christmas jumper at this time of year. I cannot stand wearing a collar (I have a thing about things touching my neck) so I will take any opportunity to ditch the usual uniform. As I’m tight – I’m my father’s son – I have worn the same one every year since 2017 and that tradition will continue in 2022. It’s grey with a polar bear on the front. The bear used to light up but the jumper smelled so bad one year that we had no choice but to remove any battery-powered parts and put it in the washing machine.

    The trusty jumper I’ve worn for work every year since 2017

    Christmas is still something I look forward to. Even though work is busy, there’s a nice atmosphere of ‘we’re all in it together’ with my colleagues. The World Darts Championship signals the beginning of the festive period for me, starting a week or so before Christmas and finishing at New Year. As soon as I see the arrows on the telly, I feel warm inside. The day itself is spent with my mum and her other half Dave, the two most important people in my life, and we eat lots of food and have a great laugh.

    Whatever December means to you, I hope it’s a good one. I think we all deserve it.