Happy Christmas....

.....may it be peaceful and lovely and and full of everything you wish for.

Thank God it's Christmas!

The last few weeks have been pretty tough going in gemmak's-ville one way and another. The pressures on my time between trying function at work, take care of my mum, fit in all the getting ready for Christmas stuff and find time to spend with 'N' have been immense and there have been moments when I felt that all the balls in my personal piece of air might well come crashing down around me.

I discovered that working outside in sub zero temperatures form 5am each day fighting the the snow and ice is very hard work, I feel literally 'assailed' by the elements at the end of it and my love of snow has, I will admit has waned a little on and off. I have landed on my rear on more than one occasion, I have been cluttered up in so many layers I could hardly move, I have spent more time than I care to remember with my now trusty shovel in hand digging either my car or my van out and I have scared myself half to death hitting, black ice late at night a day or two ago and suddenly finding myself doing a rather spectacular 360 along the A40! Luckily because of the time there was little traffic around to avoid and I managed to regain control before I hit anything static either.

I don't recommend it however!

I'm reasonably experienced, I know the 'driving on ice and snow' rules and I employed the given tactics but it happened in a split second and was completely beyond my control for what felt like far too long.

Give me snow every time, it's a walk in the park in comparison to ice.

But hopefully all the hassle is over now for a while. I have twelve days off work, my mother is mainly in the care of my siblings for the next three days and I am spending Christmas with 'N'. It's still all a bit odd without my dad, he was usually the motivating force in our family Christmas's but that's a done deal, life changes and swe have to try to change with it.

All I have to attend to now is the present wrapping issue, I bought cards but they remain unwritten in boxes so my apologies if you usually get one, this year you won't. I have one or two items I need to try and buy later today and then hopefully life will calm down for a few days.


Thank God it's Christmas.....

Be careful what you wish for!

I think this is what's called getting one's comeuppance!

As anyone who knows me or has read here much will be very well aware, I adore snow and every winter is spent wishing for a hefty fall of the white stuff. Usually, save for last years glorious offering, it has come to very little but as most of us know this year, again, the snow has fallen in copious quantities...and thereby hangs the issue!

This year, whilst I would still rather have it than not for it's beauty and childlike excitement it has caused me something of a problem...no, that should be 'problems' plural!

It began on Friday when I was in my white van. From nowhere, so fast it was breathtaking and pretty freaky, the weather changed from cold and bright to a blizzard that reduced visibility to almost nil and deposited it's white slippery-ness inches deep on the road in just a few minutes. it was stunning but somewhat problematical. My thirteen mile, twenty minute journey back to base took three hours!

On Friday evening I drove to see 'N'...that half hour drive turned into about and hour and a half of pretty slow going and I began to think perhaps it wasn't my best plan. However, I made it there and I made it back and thought nothing more of it save for being pretty impressed my hometown made the news on two days for the lowest recorded temperature in England two nights running.

Saturday dawned and whilst there was still lying snow the arterial roads were clear, I dropped my mother off in town and headed back to see 'N' for a days Christmas shopping. It was not to be!

The route takes me along a main 'A' road but one which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I had barely got out of town before snow began to fall and within minutes I found myself in another blizzard, one the like of which I have never experienced before. I was heading up a long and steep hill and I had no option but to try and keep on going while all around me where grinding to a slippery halt. I made it to the top but then found myself in complete whiteout conditions, visibility almost zero again, vehicles scattered and stopping all around at angles no vehicle should be at and the snow on the road deepening alarmingly fast.


Again I had no choice but to carry on, I knew if I tried to turn around and go back I would get stuck so I employed everything I have ever learned about driving in snow and ploughed on (no pun intended). The snow was falling so fast my windscreen wipers were grinding to a halt, I could see damn all and I had to negotiate three more hills and ever increasing numbers of stuck and abandoned cars but my alternative was to stop and walk back over eight miles.

I have driven in snow quite often for a Brit, Snake Pass for instance used to be my route to work, I used to go and 'play' on Woodhead Pass out of choice years ago in my car and I frequently drove London to Manchester across the peak district in snow years ago...but this was a whole different ball game. Ten minutes and it looked like a different world, no visibility, no way of telling where the road was and about ten inches of snow. Completely silent whiteness everywhere.

I can honestly say I have rarely been as frightened. As I progressed there was less and less traffic until I was almost alone out there, I struggled to keep my car in anything like a straight line and on the hills trying to make my way around the already stranded vehicles without myself grinding to a halt was a feat of timing and massive concentration.

But I made it! Albeit fifteen miles took over two and a half hours.

.......only to find that the shops had all closed and there was no Christmas shopping to be had.

I had to do the return journey in the evening but I had 'N' with me and whilst it was very slow it was a whole lot less scary.

Add to all of that my boss cancelled work today so I'm a days pay down too and who knows what will happen for the rest of the week? Theoretically I'm working tomorrow but it's just started snowing again.

See....I should sometimes be careful what I wish for!

Hey...but for all that I would still rather have it and the aggravation than not! :)

*Image: Phone camera as the snow began to take over....didn't get another chance for photography!

Tis the season to be......?

I was charged today with the task of sourcing the household Christmas tree and to be entirely honest I wasn't looking forward to it. The last few years I have gone with my dad to the local 'Christmas tree farm' (yes, we have one called just that) and it has been a something of a tradition for he and I......this year was obviously going to be different and not in a good way.

I did endeavour to get said tree from elsewhere but to no avail and so I took the bull by it's proverbial horns and this afternoon went on my own to do the deed.

My father, a man of immense integrity - annoyingly so at times - must have been spying on me because having selected a suitable tree and paid for it I realised that instead of charging my card with the full £22 price, they had charged just £2!

I will fess up here, there was some intent in my mind to walk away feeling pleased with myself, I even began to leave the pay point but somehow I just couldn't....and half way out of the place I turned on my hell, went back and pointed out their error. Dammit!

Their gratitude and praise for my honesty only served to make me feel more guilty for my momentary lapse!

On a more positive note, my initial anticipated sadness was lessened by the discovery of these two beautiful and very large creatures who apparently now reside at the tree farm over the festive period....


(Apologies for quality, phone cam.)

Brrrrrrr!!

Dammit it's cold!

The last two weeks or so I have been working day in and day out, outside and the novelty of sub-zero temperatures is wearing pretty thin I can tell you. Taking the windchill factor into account, most days I have been 'enjoying' something in the region of minus 13 to 15 degrees...and I don't do cold!

Yes, I get to clamber in and out of the white van umpteen times a day but whether it's better to keep it warm or cold itself is something else that's not a cut and dried issue. if it's cold it's cold and I get no let up but if it's warm then the constant change in temperature gives me a headache. Mostly I keep it mid range and achieve nothing spectacular.

I have kitted myself out at great expense in high performance, high end, all weather gear which helps but it's still too bloody cold for words, I don't have a single draught point and only my eyes (which stream most of the time) and my finger ends are exposed but I'm still too damn cold and I bear rather too much resemblance to the Michelin WoMan!

All that and for what, we have had only two days snow....how unfair!

And yes, those of you who envied me my outdoor job in the hot summer months may now snigger heartily for now I am suffering payback!

How to wrap a cat for Christmas!

Love it! :)

Moving forward?

This post may be a little difficult to read but for me it's cathartic and perhaps positive.... but if you're feeling fragile may I suggest you might want to give it a miss for now.

Sunday just past seems to have been something of a watershed for me and one I am more than a little glad to have experienced. Perhaps it's the end of one phase for me and the beginning of a new one?

For approximately the last month, leading up to the first anniversary of my dad's death my mind has been running a continual 'loop' of memories. No matter how busy I have kept myself or how much I have tried to distract my mind, it's been there, on and on and on. Sometimes just thoughts, sometimes images flashing into my mind, sometimes I have found myself having mental conversations with my dad, at others going over the gruesome-ness that is death by cancer.

The whole of that month last year was regimented by just doing our best to make sure he had the care he needed and that his imminent death was as comfortable and as reasonable as was humanly possible, it was a tough call but despite not wishing too I seem to have been able to recall almost every second in minute detail.

It's been like a constant mental diary playing over in my head...."this time last year we were [insert specific incident]"....all manner of memories. The sounds and the sights and the smells of the hospice, calling the hospice at the crack of dawn in semi emergency for admission, seeing the ambulance guys taking my dad out of the house and suspecting it would be the last time, the voices of the staff, the daily routine of almost living there, the jokes we managed, my dad doing his very best to remain stoic and upbeat, the fun and special times we shared regardless of the circumstances, the amazing friend driving miles one night just to get me out of there for an hour in his Aston for a cup of coffee and a break from it all, a shared joke with him that I can't I'm afraid share here but which kept me going, his constant text conversations with me at all hours, the going home each night having to trust the staff that 'tonight was not going to be the night', the trying with the doctors to define quite specifically how close we were getting so as to prepare my mother and give information to other family members, the trying to make sense for my dad of the drug induced terrifying hallucinations he was suffering, the constant battle to keep him pain free and comfortable, to try and find something, anything, he could eat when he wanted to and the watching him fade away in front of us, just day by day, moment by moment, little by little, changing almost imperceptibly.

The making friends with other 'inmates' knowing they too were living their last weeks, families, in the dead of night trying to give support to one another as they just waited and waited, one patient in particular who had ignored his symptoms until it was too late and had no-one who fell apart on me at 4am one day, at the desperation of what he called his stupidity, knowing his situation could have been avoided. So, so many incidents playing one by one in my head almost hypnotically at times and no matter what I did it they just kept on coming.

Sunday, the first anniversary my mind played over and over watching him die in front of me, of us, just slipping off this mortal coil gently. I hadn't ever watch another person die before, it wasn't what I had expected, it was gentle and peaceful, almost anti-climatic if death can be described in such a way.

I went to the crematorium on my own and just stood in the frost at his memorial stone on my own, I couldn't face going with others, I felt I might lose the plot if I did and I can't afford to do that, I chatted to him about stuff I would have chatted about had he been here (pretty odd for someone who is supposed to be atheist maybe), day to day stuff, I grumbled at him for 'buggering off', I told him I love him and then I walked away not sure quite what to feel. I cried with 'N' until I was puffy eyed and red nosed, I got angry, I got desperately sad and confused and I felt a complete mess for a while but then things felt a little better and.....

.....the loop of constant 'diarised' memories just stopped, right there! Fin.

How typical....

....the whole four years I lived in Scotland, why did this never happen and today it has?!!

These images were taken in what was my local town today, dammit! ;)



© J. W. of Welcome to my world.

Dad...

....wherever you are may the jazz be as funky as hell and the red wine be of a suitably excellent vintage.

One year on, thinking of you and missing you......

Almost one year on

This will be a short post, I have to 'get it out there' but I am trying not to wallow.

I have for the last few months been dreading this week because it holds the first anniversary of two very sad losses, which occurred exactly one week apart.

Firstly the very untimely death from cancer, while only in his forties, of a very good friend, someone who had been a massive support to me, despite his own difficulties and who was an all round fabby guy, held in very high esteem and with much affection by all those who had the privilege of having him touch their lives.

Be happy my friend, wherever you are, thinking of you and your family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next, exactly one week later was the day that my father died, also of cancer and unfortunately I have one of those minds that manages to recall just about every minute detail of his last week with us, all kinds of memories, surprisingly perhaps not all sad despite that last week being in a hospice with the inevitable outcome hanging over our heads....but I could do without what seems to be a constant reel of film of those days running through my head.

Like I said, I haven't been looking forward to this week and it's not turning out to be any nicer than I had anticipated.....

There is so much more I could say/would like to say but for today at least the thought of typing it all down is too much.

I'm still here.....

.....kind of!

I know, I am completely crap at this blogging malarkey right now but I'm still trying, though it seems pretty much of an uphill struggle at the moment and fights for position (on the few occasions I actually manage to boot up my lappy) with a pile of emails I have coming out of my ears and requests for help with one or two geeky things. Hell, most days it's all I can do to tweet once or twice and make it to Facebook to utter one or two inane words!

But, a short update of other stuff I have been doing since I last showed my face in these parts:

I have attended my 'Driver awareness' course, my punishment for exceeding the speed limit by 4mph. What an utter waste of an entire Saturday and £40 worth of fuel! It was tutored by a middle class, double barrelled bully, who was seriously lacking in any vestige of humour and has absolutely no concept of real life pressures.

I learned precisely two things, that where it says 'SLOW' in big white letters on a carriageway, someone has sadly been killed and that one can actually steer around a corner just as fast steering properly as opposed to crossing ones hands.

A good money making exercise I suspect is it's main aim, 600 people a week in that one centre alone at £80 a hit.... you do the math! Hey ho, I have duly sucked it up and it's history now.

Next, I have become brutally reminded this week of the down side of working outside and driving for a living. All those who were envious in the summer can now have a laugh at my expense!

And a positive. I have finally been awarded working tax credits and had them backdated so I have a little more in my 'escape and get my life back' fund....more on that another time.

A less positive. I am currently going through something of a 'bitter and twisted spell' about life....I have tried very hard not to but I seem to have failed somewhat of late and have a horrible feeling of general annoyance with aspects of my world that I can't seem to shake. *Note to self - STOP IT!

And finally....'N' is just lovely and fabby! :)

That's all for now. More as soon as I can manage it...... and if I owe you mail I am getting there, honestly!

Turning the dream around

I don't really know where to begin this post so I shall just type and see what lands up on the page, it's always worked before albeit in a rambling fashion at times!

Today has not been a good one. I don't know why today as opposed to any other day, the was no obvious reason but from the word go I felt as miserable as sin. Nothing specific had happened, I had nightmares all night long but in the same vein, I have no idea why after all that has gone on over the last year or two, last night I should be treated to such heinous dreams. Just one of those things maybe but whatever today was pretty crap.

Crap why? Well my head just seems to be overflowing with worries and frustrations right now.

I don't think I want or expect too much from life these days but I do have a few goals which are very important to me but no matter how I try they seem to keep eluding me.

What do I want? I want a stable, loving, mutually supportive relationship...which lasts this time, I want a home of my own, though only a tiny one and I want a cat. That's it, nothing else. It doesn't seem too much to me but maybe it is because any one of those things seems so damn hard to achieve!

Hell fire, it's over twenty months now since 'the ex' left me jobless, homeless, bankrupt and somewhat lost and in all that time I seem to have achieved little towards my goals, despite being pretty single minded and stubborn.

Ok, so I lost better part of a year in nursing my father maybe and dealing with my mother since has been pretty difficult but still, I feel I should have got further than I have.

Patience is not my forte I accept and I try to tell myself that it will all come in time but it feels like forever some days.

The minutiae of all of this is what has been filling my mind all day, trying to plot and plan, one minute feeling hopeful, the next feeling utterly overwhelmed with what feels like impossibilities, trying to think of new ways to get to where I want, trying to rationalise my situation and trying not to feel sorry for myself. At times it worked but most times it didn't.

Finally I found myself being white van woman with tears streaming down my face, not the safest or most attractive way to drive I grant you but I just couldn't stop. Between customers I was wiping my eyes and trying to look cheerful hoping no-one would notice my puffy red eyes or my snuffly sounding nose..... until I managed to force myself to see the progress I have made.

I have met a man of whom I am more than a little fond, with whom I spend a lot of time, who makes me laugh, who makes me feel human again and who is absolutely lovely and I do have hope that although it has only been three months it will continue to grow into something more.

I have got a job, which for the most part I enjoy and I have built it up to a point where my being made redundant seems unlikely anytime soon.

I have managed to save some money, not enough yet but enough to make me feel I might eventually manage to house myself if only in a room for now (hell, have you seen the prices this close to London? It's over £500pcm on average just for one room!). Yes, I would love a little flat but it's not going to happen on my wage so best I tailor my dreams on that one for now.

I have managed to get myself into a position with my siblings etc. that may enable me to move out, despite the situation with my mum.

.....and I most importantly of all I still have my dream, of a partner, a little home and a cat. As long as I can dream and believe then maybe, just maybe, some day that dream can still come true.

I spoke too soon!

What is it they say about pride coming before a fall?

Yesterday among my other wittering, I mentioned that work was going well.... and it was. Finally, we (that's my boss and myself) had got enough new business to warrant my employ, I was making enough money to keep the bean counters happy and all was well.

Something had to go wrong didn't it. I mean, to expect more than one good day was asking a little too much wasn't it?

What happened? Today, yes, I am well aware it is the 13th, I managed to wreck my van! Ergh....and it was all going so well.

Don't ask me how exactly, I suppose if we knew how then accidents wouldn't happen but myself and another vehicle failed to see one another and reversed into each other. Damage to his vehicle almost zero, damage to mine, probably enough to write it off and if not then it will be a close run thing.

Now here is the rub, he perhaps had some excuse, I am a small white van....I however do not, his vehicle was a bright red articulated lorry!

FFS! How on earth did I not see that???

Whatever, I didn't see him, I can only imagine that somehow he was just in my blind spot because even with the realisation that I had made signifigant contact with something, when I looked in my mirrors to see what it was, I still couldn't see him. I won't bore you with a diagram but it is feasible.....that doesn't stop me being thoroughly p*ssed off about it, or my boss with me!

One thing I notice has been consistent, I got my recent speeding ticket when I was under heavy pressure of time to make my next call and again today I was under pressure to get somewhere in a stupidly short period. driving and stress are not good companions in me it appears.

All that aside however, I hate making mistakes and I should have seen a b-i-g r-e-d t-r-u-c-k somehow! I am paid to drive, not drive into things!

Me, stiff shoulder, sore neck and very hurt pride.

Bum!

Carrying on

My current inability to blog seems to remain and despite my making every effort, I just don't seem to have the time, or if I do then anything worth blogging seems to elude me completely.

I have considered mothballing this little patch in the blogosphere, something I never thought I would dare even think but over the last few months, the fact that it's here and I don't use it, makes me feel under some odd kind of pressure and I don't need more pressure. However, I can't quite bring myself to do that and so I shall persevere and try to think of this as a 'blip', blog when I can and hope my mojo gets back on it's feet (or back from wherever it is it has been) before tooooo much longer.... because despite appearances otherwise I miss it.

So, a little update at least, nothing earth shattering, work is my saviour right now, a place to escape to and think about normal things, it's going pretty well given that a month or two ago I was looking at redundancy and I don't know what i would do without it now. Ok...blog maybe I hear you say!

Things on the homefront are still extremely difficult, I can't go into detail but my mother is still struggling badly with the loss of my father and that impacts on myself and my siblings massively one way and another. I am finding ways to cope but often times I feel pretty much overwhelmed by it, I have two choices though, get on with it or fall apart, the latter is not an option!

And finally 'N'...all is going well there, I can't imagine that we have only been an item for three months or so, it seems as thought he has always been there and whilst trying to run any kind of relationship with not one but two mothers to sort out along the way and little or no privact is 'testing', it's well worth the effort. The man is a star!

The whole 'falling for someone' thing still scares the life out of me but I am trying my best not to let past experiences with those, who shall on this occasion remain nameless (you know who I am talking about) make me too negative and live day on day without being too scared of tomorrow.

I think then that's about it, no major incidents to report but in my life I consider that a good thing.

I shall try and return soon! ;)

gemmak uncovered!

Hey....nothing too exciting, don't get carried away but for me something of a significant step and one I am never sure about but in the interests of honesty etc. etc. I feel is appropriate.

I have bitten a small bullet and told 'N' the whereabouts of 'gemmak'...whether he will land up here who knows and quite what he might think of it, again, who knows, but 'N' if you do make your way here, Hello you....this is me, warts and all! ;)

So much....

....I want to write here but can't (I have to find a solution to that situation somehow) and so little time......

dammit, on both counts!

Cat people will understand!

Remember 'Hammy'?

Those who read here regularly will remember 'Hammy' perhaps?

Well as of yesterday she is no longer, she is deceased, gone to the great hamster cage in the sky :(

I appreciate this isn't on the scale of some of my recent losses but it makes me a little sad nonetheless, despite the fact that she didn't live with me any longer.

When life necessitated that I move to my parents eighteen months ago I couldn't keep her so my brother took her, but she had an eventful little life and after she made a number of escape attempts it was decided she would go to one of his friends. She had narrowly missed a few over enthusiastic 'investigations' by his dog and it was only going to be a matter of time....

The said friend is an animal nut and really wanted her as opposed to just taking her out of kindness so, off she went about a year ago to join the menagerie already resident at her new home.

All was well, she was well cared for, I saw her occasionally and she had as much food and attention as any hamster could wish for.

She died of old age in her sleep but she was a happy little hamster who had more adventures than many.

One of 'those' moments!

Today was dreaded dentist day, those of you who have read here over time will know that me and dentistry do not a happy combination make by any stretch of the imagination! I hate it and nothing on God's green earth seems to prevent me from turning into a useless heap of quivering jelly from about 48 hours prior to any appointment....today wasn't any different and added to that it had a kind of horrible extra significance.

You see, despite my being, um.... a great big useless coward 'forty something,' wherever possible I have taken someone along with me for moral support...and usually that has been my dad over recent years. Given my age and my degree of fear this had become something of a tradition that caused amusement among the reception staff, a fact that was to prove quite difficult on this occasion!

This was to be my first dental visit since my dad died and my first alone for quite some years. The lack of my dad by my side chivvying me along with his unending humour was pretty much on my mind anyway when I walked in alone on very wobbly legs and with somewhat wobbly emotions this afternoon but I was about to get a whole lot worse.

I was greeted with a cheery 'hello' and a smile by the attending receptionist....who then continued by making a joke of my managing to be their alone for once and asking where on earth my dad was this time!

I hesitated for a moment and then without thinking just said "he's dead". I perhaps could have said it with a little more tact but I was taken by such surprise that I just blurted out what came, what followed was one of 'those' seemingly unending silences which spread throughout the reception area, while someone thought what to say next.

Rarely lost for words for long, even if they aren't always entirely appropriate words, it was me who broke the silence with another knee jerk sentence...."I suppose while I'm here then I should ask you to remove him from your list of patients shouldn't I". I don't think it was perhaps my best line but distracted said receptionist from her embarrassment and I shuffled into to the lions den so distracted I forgot to be scared anymore.

Maybe my dad helped me in his absence just the same!

The slightly nuts woman I used to know

Well that was something of a failure!

The blogging from my phone idea didn't appear to be the answer to my lack of posting did it? In my defence however, it had as much to do with the app. I tried to use as it did with my current lack of time and blogging mojo. It worked the once, froze the phone and that was it and a better one seems not to be immediately available either. Hey ho.

So it's back to the trusty old laptop.

My ten days holiday is over and I have to admit that under my current circumstances I am more than a little pleased to get back to work. My home life is very difficult right now and being at work something of a respite. I woke at 5am this morning after only two hours sleep full of beans and ready to go, I am I know something of an oddity!

The holiday was not all a lost cause though I hasten to add. Myself and 'N' managed a few days away, peace and quiet and none of the usual difficulties that have become the norm of late. We had planned on a few days at the coast or something similar but our attempts at finding something suitable at such short notice and for minimal cost were thwarted so finally, having realised that all we wanted was a few days escape from the stress we booked into a local hotel and pretended for a long weekend that real life didn't exist.

Absolute bliss! For four whole days I felt like me again instead of the ragged, anxious, worry wart I seem to have become over the last eighteen months. Me, the slightly very nuts, laughing, life is fun woman I remember from days gone by.

It was fabulous, to do nothing, to worry about nothing, to offload my responsibilities and to give myself permission just not to give a damn about any of it for a few days.....priceless.

Oh....and it really wasn't by design that the hotel we chose had absolutely no cellular coverage at all, but hell it was a bonus! ;)

Test!

So... This is my latest plan to blog more often... Assuming of course it works which seems not to be a given, to blog from my phone perhaps. Lets see if it works....

I am on holiday....

....and I suppose I should be jumping up and down with glee but I'm not, to be completely honest I would rather be at work!

That probably sounds a little odd to most of you and I can remember only too well a time when I couldn't wait for my holidays but right now isn't that time, right now work is my escape and what for the most part what keeps me sane.

I do however have some plans, the first of which is sleep and lots of it and the second of which is facing 'the list'. I have lots of day to day stuff I really need to catch up with, you know, all those chores and official type things you always mean to do but don't really fancy so they get pushed to the bottom of the dreaded 'to-do' list repeatedly. Well this week I am determined to take on my list and if I achieve nothing else at least see that off.

And finally, with a big chunk of luck and a prevailing wind 'N' and I will get to have a few days away somewhere later in the week. At this stage we have absolutely no idea where, or even if he can get the time off but we are gonna try and do something if it kills us!

Some days....

.....despite all one's best attempts life just feels overwhelming and today is one of those 'sometimes'.

I know there are people worse off than me, much worse off but everywhere I turn today just seems to present a different problem to worry about and like most of my concerns right now, no matter how hard I try I just can't find a viable way around them or out of them.

Mostly I potter along and try my best to have my glass half full but today, for reasons that escape me it is very definitely half empty.

Dammit.

No sex please we're British!

Well then, true to form of late, my efforts at blogging have been severely lacking, it's not that I don't want to, I just don't seem to have the time or in many cases anything I can blog about. So much of my life right now revolves around issues that involve other peoples privacy that there is little left I am free to 'put out there'.

However, there are still a few things I am free to divulge and today's post concerns one of them.

Ok, laugh if you wish but this issue really isn't too funny from my perspective, I can though see why it might cause amusement, particularly given my age!

The relationship with 'N' is still going well, the guy is a star, a lovely man and someone who I am getting way more than fond of...and he, thankfully of me, but as ever in my life even the things that should be straightforward just damn well aren't.

I will have to choose my words carefully from this point on to avoid offense (like any of you would be offended!) but I give you a small warning that the content of this is a little 'adult'.

We have something of an annoying issue going on right now.

There are those I am sure who would still advocate 'courting' in the 'traditional' manner but then there are still also some perhaps who think that the world is flat, me, I think the world is round and I also think that within reasonable bounds of propriety sex is all just part and parcel of any caring relationship, I can't get too hung up about the whole business, it's a natural function, simples.

Not simples! Very not simples!

'N' like myself also lives with his elderly mother and cares for her (really two of us, you couldn't make it up!) He is more tied than I and this presents us with something of a frustrating problem....you can see where this is going can't you!?

Elderly parents, understandably perhaps, think that despite telling us this is our home, only the common areas are allowed for boyfriends/girlfriends to 'inhabit' and to be honest out of respect that wouldn't be an option. Next, either for financial reasons or because our services are required for caring neither of us can be away from home for too long or move out and so now two sets of parents require consideration and organisation instead of one.... result? Opportunities to spend time, er, alone aren't easy!

So... it seems for now we are mostly resigned to chaste kisses and holding hands, how sweet! Not! Ugh! I feel like a damn teenager again, with all the same restrictions and whilst I know it has it's amusing side, believe me, it isn't too amusing in reality....it's bloody frustrating and in my opinion none too healthy emotionally, but we just have no choice!

Please, don't anyone mention cars, I might feel like a teenager but I'm not and don't suggest the old chestnut 'get a room', rooms cost money, we don't have much and anyways to leave both parents that long is not an easy task to accomplish!

One day something will be simple....who am I kidding!

The lastest - Simon's 'Cat in a box'

I adore these videos, they are just so 'cat'...I think most of them, if not all, are posted here as they have been released, this is the latest offering, enjoy!

The ultimate 'awwww' factor

Blatantly stolen from my good friend JW at Welcome to my world...sorry bud but it's just too irresistible!


Cute or what?

Legless cat starts new life?

I'm not entirely sure about this - for all the obvious reasons - she seems happy and appears not to be in any pain but I'm still just not sure, hence the question mark in the post title......

Progress perhaps!

Well then, perhaps, just maybe, possibly, things are beginning to move very slowly in the right direction at last!

It feels like it has been a lifetime in the coming and experience has taught me that anything could change in an instant but right now, right this moment in time, one or two aspects of my life are looking ever so slightly, up.

Firstly there's 'N', the new man in my life, it has it's complications, some of which you just couldn't make up (I'll save the details for another post) but it's good and it's getting gooder. That of course scares the life out of me in itself, for me, with good comes the fear of loss but I am trying really hard not to allow myself to fall into that trap again and to enjoy the here and now...famous last words, don't nag please, I know, self fulfilling prophecies and all that but I'm doing my best.

Secondly there is my job, which in the short term at least seems a tiny little bit more secure. I have worked damn hard to get it to where it is in the three months I have been in the position but if it keeps me employed then it's worth it. It would be nice to feel it was more secure but maybe in this day and age very few people have real job security and after all the time I spent unemployed I am just grateful to have a job at all.

Lastly there is the crap car, tomorrow (I know, Friday the thirteenth but dammit the new me is not going to worry about that....too much) it goes into a garage to have many of the multitude of now very significant and long standing problems it has, fixed. Suspension, drive shaft/CV joint yada yada yada. The bill could be horrific, possibly more than the car is worth but as a discharged bankrupt I don't have a hope in hell of buying a new one so this one is worth way more to me than it's monetary value.

...and you know the best bit? I have saved the money to pay for it myself, all of it, every last penny!

It may seem a small achievement to many but to me, after the last few years of relying on the state or friends and family, you have no idea just how good it feels! If it wipes me out again it will be worth it just for the feeling that knowing I have worked, saved and paid for it myself gives me! :)

I still have many a mountain to climb to get my life anything like where I would like it to be and the rebuilding process continues... but maybe, tentatively, things are beginning to progress in an upward direction just a little.

Apps!

Not much of a post I know but I couldn't resist! :)

Trapped!

Monday morning (I know, I'm a bit late blogging this) I walked into work at stupidly early o'clock, bleary eyed and still struggling to get back to reality from a good weekend....to be greeted by a round of applause!

For a moment I was utterly confused, I had absolutely no idea what was going on but all soon became horribly too apparent.

We have a notice board on the wall which is used to communicate important messages and when they could manage between sniggering and smart remarks my colleagues directed me to take a look...and this is what I saw (for those who don't know, my real name is Jane):


Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Bloody marvellous!

I - do - not - need - this - right - now, I really really don't!

I have no defence in law of course, I can only assume I waswas speeding but annoyingly it was a day my boss had come out with me to attempt to sort out the logistics of my delivery round and fit in a few more drops. I was stressed, under pressure to meet an almost impossible schedule and just moments before he had told me I had three minutes left to make it to my next call.......6 miles away!

My job depends on my being able to make enough calls and take enough money.....it might not be right but it's how it is and to be fair, the more delivery drivers I talk to as I go about my days, the more it seems it's not just my employer, this issue affects all delivery drivers and many of the big multi-drop drivers only do it for a few years before they give up, citing the pressure/traffic/time issues as a reason.

Subsequent to my Monday morning discovery I have been taking much extra care to stick to speed limits but as a result I have been late to many of my calls and ultimately, if I don't take the money I don't have a job, that's the harsh reality and no amount of my knowing it's unfair is going to change that. Businesses run on profit, no profit no business and I do have some sympathy with my boss, it's tough out there right now, really tough and if he goes under so do the rest of us, catch 22!

It's the old thing about 'any job is better than no job', so in the end we do what we have to do I suppose.

However, I see little point trying to tell that to the magistrate so I will pay up and look happy and await the loading on my insurance, which I can barely afford as it stands, let alone at an increased rate.

Sometimes I feel like every time I take a step forward something happens to take me back two!

I feel the need to go find a speed trap app. for my phone/sat nav.

Happiness is....

The growing cynic in me that bubbles beneath the surface of late can't help but like this! ;)

Stunned!!

I had some 'news' recently, provided to me by someone who I admire for their consideration and care. When you hear the news that may seem an odd thing to say but you may understand and those of you who know me well will understand why I say that.

Those of you who read here regularly will recall my unceremonious dispatch from what was a very important relationship in my life about eighteen months ago and the subsequent car wreck my life became. I won't link it here again, it's consigned to history now and I won't name he who committed the deed because that is perhaps unfair but if you know you know.

So...this 'news', bear in mind here that at the time I would have given anything to have had him ask me to marry him....well 'Mr I will never get married I don't believe in the concept and it would be hypocritical, no way, no how, not ever' is getting married or has already got married!!

I don't know too many specifics and I don't want too.

At the 'point of impact' (an email while sat in a coffee shop) you could have knocked me down with a feather, in fact worse than that, I reacted rather badly by spontaneously saying out loud "F*cker" - hopefully not too many overheard!

For a minute or two I didn't really know which way was up and I will admit the 'ouch factor' was very evident, I was pretty much stunned but I quickly recovered my composure and got something of a grip. The reason I say I have nothing but admiration for the person who took the decision to tell me something so difficult is because for me it has finally drawn a hard line under the whole sorry business and reiterates much that I have come to understand about the guy involved and what I believed as opposed to the reality . People change I know but others are just not as honest as one would like to think.

I would like to be a big enough person to wish him hasppiness but I'm not sure I am, I do however hope he has finally and honestly found what he is looking for, if only to avoid someone else going through what I did....I was not the first by a long chalk. Some relationships just aren't meant to be perhaps and I apparently wasn't 'the one' but he had some p[retty heavy duty history where any kind of commitment was concerned and maybe I just should have known better from the start.

Hey ho.....

ooopssss....

.....sorry, was that a whole week just gone by without a single post? Hmmmm I think so!

Oooppssss!

Um, what can I say, I am being particularly crap here lately but I am having way too good a time and I just can't seem to find the time for this blogging thing too often right now.

My mother is currently away for a few days with my sister, work is pretty manic and well, the new guy 'thing' is going good as they say. I barely seem to make it online at all at the moment, let alone long enough to blog, or moreover to read blogs.

I have emails coming out of my ears waiting for a response, a head full of things I want to write here and all manner of other stuff I really should get too but hey....life's too short!

Please don't abandon me though, I'm getting myself sorted into a new routine and I will be back up to speed any day now.

Really! ;)

I have been remiss....and busy!

Ha, so my promises to return to some kind of 'normality' and blog more frequently seem to have come thus far to nothing.

This time I appear to have surpassed myself...it's a whole week since my last post which I think is probably a record bad blogger incident for me. I really don't know if I have missed an entire week anytime before now!

Life just keeps on getting in the way but for a change it's a very nice bit of life, in fact more than nice! Dates four, five and six with 'N' were on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of this last weekend, cinema, dinner, walks and much talking and drinking of coffee have filled my weekend and I have loved every minute of it. (And hopefully he has too!)

It is just so good to feel something normal and nice again, to feel like not everything in life is crap and to notice myself smiling stupidly still when faced with the less pleasant aspects of my life right now. Things just don't seem so bad and maybe, just maybe, my faith in the male of the species is being a little restored at last!

Yes, I'm still scared witless that it will all go the way of hell.... and this fledgling relationship is not without it's difficulties (is anything I wonder), he too is stuck caring for an elderly mother with no apparent route of escape, but somehow things work out if the are supposed too and I'm gonna keep telling myself that and make a damned good attempt at positivity. ;)

Dead!

My apologies for the starkness of title of this post but it's significant.

Among all the hoo-ha of the last eighteen months my mind has been so full of just dealing with the situations I found myself in and trying to cope with them that in a strange way I didn't really have time to think. I'm not sure if that's entirely a bad thing, I suspect in fact it's the reverse and that had I been able to mull over the minutiae to a greater degree it would only have hindered my ability to get on with the matters in hand.

Not much of it was good, most of you who read here regularly already know the timeline, my being unceremoniously ditched by the guy I thought at the time was the love of my life wrong!, the diagnosis of my fathers terminal cancer just when we thought he had beaten it, the death then of a close friend from cancer and lastly the death exactly a week later of my father.

The whole period was madness, I remember it really as a blur of trying to organise, administer and control umpteen medications, constant hospital visits and procedures, trying to keep everyone 'afloat' and positive, trying to make what time my Dad had left as tolerable as possible for him and of a constant underlying feeling of panic that I wouldn't cope and the obvious sadness that ultimately, whatever we did, the outcome was not going to be good.

I just never had time to think and no sooner had the inevitable happened and my Dad had turned up his toes than I was catapulted into another difficult situation, taking care of my mother and dealing with the fallout.... but today was different.

Today, and I have no idea why it was today, I was driving my white van merrily along the road when seemingly like a bolt from the blue, with tremendous and almost physical force it hit me; my dad is dead, like really dead, like never coming back, absolutely dead and gone. I can remember his face as clear as day, I can hear his voice in my head easily but I won't ever see him again, never, not ever, he really is completely and utterly dead.

Forever. Fin. The End.

I use the stark language that I do because that's how it feels, in my face, real, stark, tangible at last. I don't quite know what I feel about it right now, at the moment it hit me I felt a sadness like I don't ever remember before but it was strangely brief and I'm glad I felt it, it felt real and accepting and has somehow allowed me to suddenly remember in detail things I think I had tried not to think about and buried away.

There is so much stuff, lots of it right now appears to be centered around his last few months of life, but not necessarily sad stuff, just stuff, stuff about the time I spent nursing him and some of the amusing (if sometimes gross) things that happened despite the circumstances, about how that time bought us closer and how we could laugh however desperate the situation became.

I suspect in the near future I may regale you with some of those tales, it's cathartic for me and some are worth sharing for various reasons... but mostly I feel that maybe the real me, who I battened down for so long with such alacrity to enable me to cope with the here and now, is finally emerging again with the acceptance, however difficult, that it's really all over.

My dad is dead. It's real. I have to cope now without him because he's gone and I'm not......

....and he would be as miffed as bloody hell with me if I didn't!

I am almost....

....afraid to even type this post for fear of putting my usual hex, or some other heinous infliction, on the situation but as one who has always maintained she isn't superstitious, I shall be brave and continue!

The man, you knew before I even began of course that was going to be the subject of this post didn't you?!

So, the man, let's just call him 'N' for now, is positively lovely and surprisingly he appears to think the same of me, he's open, honest, upfront and doesn't play games, so far it has been way too simple, there have been no traumas, no let downs, nothing suspicious and none of the usual crap and bother that seem to have been the norm where the men I have dated recently have been concerned.

Friday, date number 2, we went out for dinner, a balmy summers evening sat on the restaurant terrace, eating and drinking and chatting like we had known one another for for much longer than a few weeks, followed by a moonlit walk...... we didn't want the evening to end!

Sunday, date number 3, a walk along the Thames at Marlow hand in hand, laughing and talking and larking around (that is not a euphemism) like a pair of kids, a drink in a lovely bar and then hours just talking.....We didn't want the evening to end!

What more can I say? Maybe that I seem to have a ridiculously stupid grin plastered on my face most of the time and life feels a whole lot better suddenly, even the tough stuff doesn't seem quite so tough right now :)

What else can I say, I am scared bloody witless, I like this feeling, I really like this man and I don't want things to go their usual way of late....straight to hell.

This time it matters.

Fingers crossed please if you would.

A date and a donkey!

The date on Sunday evening......

The guy was lovely, I had a lovely time, he was good company, funny, attentive without being suffocating, polite and best of all didn't adopt the octopus approach that so many of my recent disasters dates have. I felt completely at ease, we chatted and joked and laughed easily and when it was time to go home I didn't want the evening to end...and neither did he! There was only one tiny fly in the ointment but I won't go into that right now.

This is the guy I met through the strange coincidental circumstances I blogged here. I don't know of course how things will work out but I do know I had a great evening, that we have every intention of hooking up again this week and that it kinda can't come quick enough for me!

But woaahhh.....don't anyone go buying a hat just yet please. I am trying these days to do this stuff one day at a time and not look any further forward than that, he's a lovely man, we had a lovely evening and we will do it again, further than that I have no idea and it kinda suits me right now to feel like that.

Life is way too complicated right now for me to complicate it any further unnecessarily so I'm going with the flow this time and what will be will be.

Oh...and I got to see Shrek 4 too! Did I ever mention I am particularly fond of Donkey? :)

What's been keeping me?

You may well ask, given that my blogging has been pretty much non existent of late!

Life really is what's been keeping me from here and whilst I know there are those that will say that's a good thing (and maybe it is to some degree) much of it hasn't been so good in actuality and I kinda miss blogging regularly. I've done it for so long now it's part of me and it's odd to be so absent. Hey ho, needs must as they say, I have little choice in the matter.

In the main it has been work and taking care of my mother that have taken over my life, the former I enjoy, in fact I love being back at work but the threat of redundancy looms already, wouldn't you know it! That said, recent sad circumstances mean that perhaps that threat is slightly less, at least for the time being so I have my fingers crossed thought I wish the possibility wasn't for such sad reasons.

My mum, well it wouldn't be appropriate for me to put too much detail here, she is a very private lady but there have been times when I thought I really couldn't cope any longer or that in my efforts to cope, my own physical and mental health would suffer. Well they have, I have raised blood pressure for the first time in my life and a raised heart rate but I am finding and learning new coping strategies and one way or another I will find a way.

It seems odd now and perhaps selfish but when I was nursing my dad, somehow I envisaged that once the inevitable had happened I would be able to start re-building my life and things would get less stressful. How wrong was I?! Nursing him through the horrors of cancer were, in comparison to what I am dealing with now, relatively straightforward. Yes it was harrowing, yes, it was sad and yes I knew that at the end of it there was the loss and upheaval but regardless of all that it wasn't as difficult by a long chalk, as I am finding this current set of circumstances.

But, I plod on. Mostly I feel completely trapped but I try to keep the faith and tell myself that somehow I will escape and that nothing lasts forever.


On happier, or at least less serious, things;

I appear to have got myself embroiled in a man situation that I'm a little unsure of, time will tell I suppose but right now I'm feeling a little antsy about it all....however, we have a date on Sunday so all will become evident soon.

I have recently also been contacted again, out of the blue, by a guy I saw just once a few months ago but it didn't get any further at that point. I would tell you more but as I recall he has this URL so for now....shhhhhh ;)

And lastly, my very stupid decision to give the stalker a second chance finally seems be resolved and all contact has ceased. Phew!

I think that's about it, my current life in a nutshell (or a blog post)....not exactly hunkydory to say the least but when things finally improve ( and they will, I have to believe they will) at least this last eighteen months will have taught me, if nothing else, to really appreciate the better times!

Oh...and just in case whoever is in charge of dishing out the better times is listening, I'm ready, I can handle some good bits now, really, honestly, I can! ;)

Pedestrians crossing

So, there I am this morning beetling around a large industrial estate in my white van when suddenly i am forced to pull up hard behind a Porche that has apparently stopped without warning and is showing hazard warning lights.

At first there was no obvious reason for this slightly odd behaviour and I was marginally miffed as to what he was up too.... but a few moments later all became apparent as mum and her offspring appeared from in front of the vehicle, apparently all en-route for someplace else.

Her choice of crossing was perhaps not her wisest move but all made it to the other side of the road intact :)


(Apologies for image quality, click to enlarge, photography by phone whilst trying to manoeuvre is not the best way to get a decent shot!)

All I seem to do....

...recently is pop in here to apologise for not being here...and I'm doing it again!

'Sorry'!

I will get myself organised again soon!

Success

Sent to me by he who is my mentor, my friend, my sanity and my common sense....hell, let's face it, I don't have too much of those things myself sometimes! ;)


Cheers bud :)

Oscar the bionic cat!

I saw this story today, something with a happy ending for once! Oscar, a cat who lost his back feet in a 'run in' with a combine harvester taking his first walk on new bionic feet.

There are those who might think it's maybe not worth it, that Oscar's quality of life might be too limited, if that's the case go watch the video...and for those who just love cat story with a happy ending, ditto, see the video HERE and watch to the end! :)

So far so good!

A little update.

This situation is still going well, nothing heavy, we haven't even met yet beyond a few minutes each morning when I'm playing white van woman but hours and hours of talking later and as yet nothing disastrous has happened.

So far so good.

Shhhhh, though, with my recent history I don't want to be tempting fate do I! ;)

Bright and beautiful!

(Click to enlarge)

Taters!

Someone 'kindly' bought my mum one of those potato bags a while back, you know the thing, a sack that one is supposed to fill with compost and happily plant some seed potatoes in and then sit back and wait....and lo, there should be potatoes!

Hmmmmm, well in this case, after weeks (or maybe months, I have lost track) of fiddling and faffing with them and hauling the whole thing from one place to another in my mothers efforts to find the 'perfect' growing spot, today I was gleefully informed I could dig up our prize crop, this was the result....


Just four of the ruddy things (yes, one is hiding in the background) and believe me, they are way smaller in real life than this picture suggests!

In fact, would think they may well qualify as some of the most expensive taters in history given the time and cost put into achieving this meagre show!

I told you so!

You really would think I would learn not to be quite so silly wouldn't you! Remember the stalker issue a few months back.....ugh, beat me over the head with a wet kipper will you please someone!

What have I done this time you might ask. Well the guy concerned backed off after some very tough talking and to cut a long-ish story short, behaved impeccably from that point on, so me being me, I eventually agreed to meet up with him last week.

I know, I know.

I had many discussions with a close male friend who was of the opinion that leopards don't change their spots etc. but ultimately I decided I should give the guy concerned a second chance given his apparently changed attitude and the fact that I knew he had sought counselling for his issues in that area.

Anyway, we met last Saturday, by my decision in the middle of town on carnival day so there were lots of people around and to be honest he wasn't scary, he was actually quite a nice guy (judgement fail!), we got on easily and it even had it's amusing aspect in that I am 5' and he is 6'8"!! We spent the afternoon talking comfortably and then went our separate ways.... but it was apparent at that point he was more keen than I.

I gave it some thought but decided within a day or two that despite his not being as I had expected, I was still wary of him and so tactfully told him that I didn't wish to take it any further.

You know what happened next of course don't you!

He reverted to type instantly and kicked off with a tirade of abuse (text only) that would curl the toes of the most hardy veteran of unpleasant behaviour. I asserted my point and then ignored him. Eventually he apologised and has since only contacted me very occasionally on day to day stuff. I am treading carefully and rarely responding....which I will tail off to never responding in the hope that it becomes history.... but I feel I have been vindicated, my initial gut feeling was right but I should have learned my lesson and not been drawn in again to give him another chance!

I don't need it, if he can revert that quickly it's more than concerning.

Oh....and the friend who mentioned 'leopards and spots' has refrained thus far from saying 'I told you so', more than once! God love him! ;)

How the other half live!

I deliver to a Lamborghini service centre each day, currently they have these two models available for sale should you have the necessary funds spare.


They will set you back £160,000 and £250,000 respectively and the yellow one, if you have a penchant for something a little different, is one of only three worldwide.

Oh...and before you rush off and make your purchase, bear in mind a new clutch will set you back £8000, though that does include labour.

Stunning tho! :)

It's a small and spooky world!

Ok, this is going to get complicated but I will try my best to simplify it!

Firstly, for those of you lucky enough never to have become embroiled in the world of internet dating sites, you need to know that most sites allow you to join for free, what they don't allow you to do is then make more than one contact with anyone without parting with cold hard cash and there is nothing vagualy soft, squishy or romantic about dating sites, including their prices!

So....a week or two ago I was contacted by a guy I kind of liked the look of, I responded but then nothing. One is then left wondering if it's lack of interest or lack of payment but I noticed his profile said he worked in the area I deliver to each day. I contacted him again asking if he could be more specific...but again nothing and I forgot about it.

Now, about a week ago and completely unrelated, I was at work and delivering to a company when I saw a guy who I also kind of liked the look of.... but at work I look like I have just fallen out of bed (because I usually have at that hour) and so rather than trying to appear interested I do my best to fade into the background.

Today, at the same company I was serving the same guy, as I have most days over the last week or two, when inexplicably I felt a strange familiarity but dismissed it.

You know what's coming don't you?

Anyway, he left and I carried on serving customers but as I was about to drive away he came back out to my van, looked at me and said, 'you are who I think you are aren't you'? He handed me his business card, having written his personal email address on the back, asked me to mail him and vanished back into the building, leaving me red faced and very amused!

How I hadn't put two and two together sooner or recognised him I don't know but it was of course the guy from the dating site. Spooky!

Dammit, why today, when having been called at the crack of dawn by my boss asking me to get to work asap to cover someones sudden sickness, I had not so much as dragged a brush through my hair in my hurry to get to work withing twenty minutes, let alone considered what to wear or put make-up on!

Anyway, I mailed him early this evening and got a reply quickly.

I shall keep you informed..... ;)

How utterly ridiculous!

It transpires that if I could house myself on my current income, which I might add is impossible, and then if I lost my job, the state would pay to keep the roof over my head and the bills paid, at least to a point.

Nothing wrong with that perhaps but consider then that I can't afford to house myself, even in one room but I get no help, no nothing!

Now, whether one believes in the welfare state or not (and for the record I do where it is genuinely needed) this situation seems utterly, utterly stupid!

I work, I pay tax and have most of my life, I do what 'they' tell me is the 'right' thing to do (and again for the record I agree it is the right thing to do) but my mother is expected (yes, expected by the state) to put a roof over my head, at my ripe old age, but if I could find a way while I work and then render myself unemployed then my living costs would be paid.

However, I can't find a way, landlords don't take on tenants who can't pay the rent in the first place, not unsurprisingly.

Jeez. Is it any damn wonder that there are those who will work the system. It just seems all so back to front and perverse to me and the reality is, that without my family, while I work, I would quite literally be on the streets.

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't think I am!

It makes me angry, really it does!

Meh!

Saved from certain death!

This morning, my second call in the white van was immediately peculiar in that as I drew up in front of the large building there were something in the region of forty employees lined up in the first floor window, and another twenty or so lined up outside, all looking intently at something! Ok, so I know my arrival is heralded but not usually in such an enthusiastic manner!

It transpired that what they were watching was a small fluffy ball of baby seagull that had somehow found itself on the ground, way before it had any chance of flying and which was being 'buzzed' viciously and mercilessly by a flock of adult gulls. They had been trying too keep the adults from continually pecking at it for hours apparently but to not much avail.

How it got to be there no-one had any idea but various attempts at catching it had resulted in it being too quick for capture and in those trying to capture it being buzzed by the adults too. Having become alarmed they had given up and had seemingly resigned themselves to it's demise.

I think not!

There is of course the question as to whether nature should be allowed to take it's course but I just couldn't do nothing and stand by and watch it be killed, so sandwich van abandoned I set about trying to gather the terrified little creature up......and I managed it! I'm not sure how much of it was luck but I got hold of it on the third attempt, to a round of applause, and despite a fair number of the flock trying to do me damage and making physical contact with me more often than I would have liked....those big beaks hurt, I tell you!

So, with this delightful little creature safely in my hands but pecking at me and squawking for all it was worth, I ran for cover into the factory where the lady who had originally been trying to rescue it took it from me with a promise to get it to the RSPCA, or some similar organisation.

Trying to get back to the van subsequently also had an element of interest, adult gulls are mean buggers it seems.... and now more angry they really gave me hassle, so much so that one of the onlookers to this carry on was fending them off with a big stick as I ran to where I had parked and jumped back into my van pronto!

Maybe I will get to hear what happened after I left. I'm not big into seagull husbandry and consequently I'm not entirely sure I shouldn't have left it to it's sad fate but with only a second to make a decision I did what I thought best and hope that ultimately it was the right decision.

*Image is not of the actual gull, I didn't have time for cameras but 'mine' was just the same and just as cute.

Tiny turtle!

I want me one of these!

Sometimes....

...life seems to be a very confusing thing!!

Really, it does, though not always necessarily in a bad way, just in a confusing way!

That's all....

Vincent Hawkins

You might remember I mentioned a while back that I found an old school friend out of the blue on Facebook. Well since then daily emails have flown backwards and forwards through the ether, catching up on over thirty years and full of general chit-chat.

Well that friend is a guy called Vincent Hawkins and this week he was selected (Telegraph article here) by Tracey Emin to be one of the artists involved in the art work for Westfield Stratford City - London Olympic Stadium!!

How exciting and cool is that and how impressed am I?! Art has long been a passion of mine and though I don't pretend, by any stretch of the imagination, to be well versed academically on the subject, I do know what I like and I can at least sort Kandinsky from Modigliani and now I can't wait to be able to go and see Vince's work in situ!

How completely jumping up and down exciting!

Go you Mr H.... and massive congratulations!

'Lock/Unlock' 20 x 30cm acrylic on canvas, 2010.
Courtesy of and © Vincent Hawkins.
Vince's blog can be found HERE.

It's pathetic...

...and hopeless, between getting up at the crack of dawn, working, my commitments at home and trying to stay awake I seem to have no time to blog, Twitter or pretty much anything else much these days! However, I have made it here briefly this evening.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy working and I like my job, thus far I haven't woken up with the 'ugh, it's a work day' feeling even once, I am just happy to be working and with people I like and who I get on with. It might be poorly paid and it might not be a job to die for but I love it....so I suppose it stands to reason something had to create a cloud on the horizon!

It seems that there is a distinct possibility, if not a likelihood, that I may be made redundant in a couple of months! Give me strength....how bloody typical! One step forward and two back and all of that. The thought of returning to being unemployed horrifies me but I might just have to get used to it again apparently.

I won't bore you with the details for now, I am too fed up to go into the minutiae right now, maybe it won't happen but given the last couple of years you can understand why I am tending to expect the negative on this one.

We shall see.....

Meh!

Impossible dream...

For J, just because! (You know why) xx

A severe lapse of memory!

Since I have been back at work I have had little time or energy for the dating site carry on but last night someone contacted me out of the blue, who looked reasonably interesting so I agreed to have a virtual chat with him.

That took place earlier this evening and went something like this....

Me: So your profile says you live in Berkshire, whereabouts?

Him: Johannesburg.

Me: Pardon, you mean the J'burg in S.A.??

Him: But I'm moving to Holland next month.

Me: But the profile says Berkshire?

Him: I did live in Berkshire until my wife died a few years ago.

Me: (Suitable condolences) But you live in Johannesburg now? Why did you say Berkshire?

Him: I'm Dutch!!!

Me: Uh?

Hells bloody bells, give me strength! I couldn't be bothered to go any further with it, in fact I couldn't even be bothered with the courtesy of 'goodbye', I just rolled my eyes silently and killed the connection.

IDIOT! (Him not me before you retort!)

Fed up-ness and phones

It's a strange thing but the bank holiday weekend we are supposed to look forward too was something of a double edge sword for me at least and I'm probably not alone. I think it's something similar to that 'Christmas thing' that is always talked of in the festive season...the word that sums it up is 'loneliness'.

During the week, even before I was working, the week and even most weekends seemed reasonably well 'populated' the few friends I have close by and all of those I have online are kicking around but this weekend everyone suddenly disappeared en masse. Well to be more accurate not so much disappeared as have better things to do, families to spend time with, partners to relax with or days out and visiting to do....and my weekend became a 'study in lonely'. I don't recall the last time I felt quite so alone, I'm used to amusing myself and filling my time but normally there is some company or small event to look forward to...not this time.

In an effort to make something of it I at least decided it was about time I treated myself to a luxury in recognition of my getting a job, something I really shouldn't spend money on...a new phone! Hey, I have been running the old one for over two years, I can justify it!

So, the new phone, a Nokia X6, fantabulous, love it....but it is proof that material possession is so much less important than people. I'm a gadget freak, I adore all that stuff but it doesn't stop the loneliness. Dammit!

It's been...

...a pretty hectic week but I think I am finally getting to grips with the working thing!

I still feel half asleep much of the time and it's not helped by my inability to actually sleep when I fall into bed but it is beginning at least, to feel like the norm to be back working.

I just don't seem to be able to fit stuff in like I used too, hence my almost complete absence from here and similar absence from all my usual old haunts, Facebook, Twitter etc..... dammit, I don't even remember to answer half of the text messages I receive, unheard of in gemmak's-ville, I'm usually the one that replies annoyingly quickly!

Other news, er... not much, though I did go out with a friend last night who had an amazing piece of very touching news while we were together, I can't give you details but it was massive, tear invoking stuff and left me, even by proxy, feeling pretty emotional and with something of a renewed sense of life occasionally being good if you give it time. Hell, I'm still smiling and feeling a bit moved and affected by it 24 hours later!

Ok, I'm a soft lump I know.

Right then, I will try and do better here after this poor, almost post-less week but no promises just yet!

Is it really possible...

.....to be this tired??

I know I get up early for work now and I know I'm not as young as I used to be or used to working but hell fire, by 9pm every evening I am fit for nothing this last week or two and it doesn't seem to be improving any!

Add to which last night I couldn't sleep for the heat, despite feeling completely knackered, and managed only about two hours.... and tomorrow morning I have to be up at 4.30am!

How long does this working malarkey take to get used to, does anybody know?? ;)

Incidentally, all things considered I am loving it, as far as work goes it's not bad and it's fab to feel vaguely normal again at least in one respect. It might not solve all my current problems and it might not be the job of a lifetime and one I can stay with forever but it's a start, it gets me out of the house and into the real world meeting people and whilst it doesn't offer a kings ransom for a salary it does offer more than the dole and I no longer have to tolerate the humiliation and prejudice that 'signing on' involves! :)

The other side

Yesterday I decided to spend the afternoon in the park enjoying the sunshine and getting me a little headspace.... and as luck would have it, when I arrived, coincidentally a couple of friends were there and invited me to join them.

We had an amusing and relaxing afternoon of lighthearted banter, chatter and joviality and it struck me that it was probably the first time for well over a year that I have been in the company of more than only one other person at a time, family aside, and just 'had a giggle' had fun just for the sake of it, been giddy and silly and properly relaxed and it felt almost profoundly 'normal' and very nice but also a very stark contrast to how my life has become over the last year. I just haven't been able to do that 'normal' stuff for so long that to be able to felt almost peculiar or strange. As the chatter went on around me, for a moment I felt myself almost marvelling that I felt so lighthearted and ordinarily cheerful, things I don't remember feeling for a long, long time.

The time didn't involve worry or death or cancer or chemotherapy or medication or taking care of my mother or funerals or wills or any of the other myriad issues that have been my life for what feels like almost forever now. I didn't have to consider anyone else, I didn't have to be responsible for anything or keeping and eye out for anyone else's welfare, I could just have fun, be me and do what I wanted with a few friends.

It was short lived, they went off to the pub in the late afternoon for the evening but I had to decline their invitation to join them and go back to 'my normality'....hell, you have no idea how much I wished I could have just gone with them and carried on just feeling free.

I really hadn't realised quite how much of my life has been completely taken up with all that stuff, or how the fall out and trying to help my mother come to terms with it, are and have been, almost all I seem to have time to think about....and I'm not sure it's a good thing entirely to be reminded of 'normality!

Yes, I had a lovely afternoon but it almost made it harder to have to go back to my current situation, I felt like I had been let out of prison for a few hours and going back wasn't something I relished. I liked feeling normal and free, I liked laughing and I want more of it, much more, I want to be able to be spontaneous again, to make my own decisions and do more of what I want to do without having to plan and plot to achieve it!

Getting more however is going to be a whole other issue. It ain't easy and I don't see it changing greatly anytime soon, my circumstances don't have a simple or quick solution and I'm pretty much stuck with them for now. Yes, I have finally got a job but it's not enough, the only way out is to move out and here, this close to London, rent for a small flat or even a room in many cases, is more alone than I actually earn in a month!

It's unfair to say I never get out, I do now and then (maybe I will blog that another time) but it can never be spontaneous and it always involves a degree of worry about my mother and some pre-planning. In part I didn't have children because I liked my freedom and the ability to be spontaneous, they for me were the payback for not having children but now it seems I am just as tied anyway, if not more so and ironically, had I had children I probably wouldn't be as tied into my current situation as I now am!

Call me selfish if you will and to be fair I can't blog the details to illustrate properly what I am dealing with but I begin to feel like my life is passing me by in a way that I hate and I just can't find a solution to it however much I wrack my brains. Some days I feel I can't cope for one more moment but I just have to 'keep on keeping on' because there is just no other option either practically or morally.

For the forseeable future, short of doing a disappearing act, which believe me has crossed my mind on more than one occasion, I seem to be completely and utterly cornered! :(