I wonder....

...if I revamped this whether it would encourage me to find the time to start with this malarkey again? Maybe worth a try.

Is it too late to say Happy New Year?!

Filing in the gaps

So, for the last year or more much of the little I have posted has been a bit vague to say the least. The reason for this was that I was unsure if I should talk about issues that concern others close to me. However, I have had time to think, time for the dust to settle and time to discuss the situation with important others and the upshot is that I have decided it's not disloyal, it doesn't detract from how much I love those involved and my needs matter too. This blog, among other things has been cathartic for me and I have missed that aspect of it, along with all the other obvious aspects I enjoyed about blogging.

That's it then, names and places may be changed to protect the innocent and all that, one or two posts may be elsewhere and password protected but in the main I intend to do the one thing I always used to do here...blog what I need too and tell it how it is.

Some of you may find some of what I say seems harsh here and there and it is in some respects because it's honest but it doesn't mean that I love or care for those involved any the less, it just means life can be harsh sometimes, life has many facets and the old chestnut of 'don't judge a (wo)man until you have walked a mile in his/her shoes etc', may apply at times.

I really...

...need to redesign this place, pull my bloody finger out and start blogging again!! I have been completely hopeless for far too long.

I'm on a weeks holiday right now, perhaps I will finally get to it....

Alive and kicking!

I know, it's not before time that I re-appear here but if I'm honest I have had so little time spare recently it has been almost impossible to find the time to blog and on the odd occasion that I have, then I have been just too tired or my blogging mojo has seemed to have deserted me.

At times the feeling that I 'should' make the effort has felt like yet another pressure on me but something has had to give and it's been this. I have even toyed with the idea of packing it all in once and for all, something a year or two ago I couldn't have conceived of. I have considered deleting the whole thing or moving to another platform where perhaps I don't feel so limited and I have wondered maybe if 'gemmak' was just simply from another time in my life, a time when things seemed very different to now.... and when most of what I could think of to blog wasn't doom and gloom and the hassles of more recent times. I don't want to keep on posting the 'oh misery me' stuff but it's been much of what I have considered blogging the last few months and it's boring!

However, you don't get shot of me that easily, I have decided to keep trying and whilst there may still not be the daily (or even weekly) updates, of years gone by (thank God I hear you mutter)I have decide that for now 'gemmak' will remain alive and kicking, I just can't give up completely after so long.....can I?

Now here's a thing!

What is it they say about never being satisfied?

Well here is an example! I don't know how many times I typed here or wished that I 'had a life' to coin a current phrase. I spent most of my time online one way and another and whilst I enjoyed it I wanted more, a life outside of this virtual world. Don't get me wrong, I have always thought of my virtual friends as my real friends, I don't differentiate, whilst there are those that will always say this is not 'real', I have always and still do think otherwise and have met some very great friends 'for real' who I originally knew from this online world.

However, I digress. My point is this; I have a life now, one outside of the virtual one. I have 'N', I have my job and I have the ongoing big issue to deal with that I keep mentioning vaguely here but can't blog the details of (I will someday when I can work out how). The latter is not a positive but it takes up much of my time and even more of my energy but one way and another, I now have a life, as they say.

But I miss my virtual life! Stamps small foot

I have so little time for blogging now, I manage most days to post something half hearted on Facebook but I rarely make it to my other favourite haunt of days gone by, Twitter and trying to keep up with emails is a constant battle.

Life never seems to hit a happy medium, it's all or nothing it would appear and I really would like to have a little more opportunity for this stuff but by the time I sit down in front of my lappy most days all I want to do is sleep and stringing a few sentences together is way beyond me.....but I do keep trying.

See...never satisfied!

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!

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! ;)

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!

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!

Six years old!

Ohhhhhh, 'gemmak' was six years old on Friday just gone and I forgot! How remiss of me.

Six years of me harping on about miscellaneous tripe through 2278 posts, heaven knows how much longer you will have to tolerate this!

Thank you guys for keeping on reading, you all deserve medals or cakes or something!! :)

I won, I won, I won!!

Well...there's a turn up, I have won something, I don't usually win stuff, in fact I'm not sure I have ever won stuff before but today I have!!

What have I won? I have won 'The laughing Chimp Award', Urbanvox's recent blog competition to blog 'My most embarrassing incident ever'.

Apparently mine was suitably embarrassing to take top spot, it felt it at the time I have to admit but when I was lying there in hospital undergoing the embarrassing procedure[s] necessary I don't think I ever envisaged it would win me a prize!

Somehow it seems rather fitting does it not! ;)

The post can be found by scrolling down a little or HERE.

Anyways, thankyou Mr Vox and your judges, you made my day!

Frustration!

'gemmak', or at least gemmak the blog will be six years old in a week or two's time but more recently this little space on the internet has become more and more frustrating for me. Not because I can't think of anything to write, precisely the reverse, I can think of much I would like to say, but I can't!

As time has marched on gemmak has undergone some degree of 'outing', as many blog/bloggers have. Some of this gradual erosion of anonymity is the result of my own sometimes slightly too complacent attitude and some as the result of other circumstances.

When I began I didn't have any real idea why I was blogging or what I hoped I would gain from it, to be honest I didn't imagine anyone would read it or that I would sustain it for long but as the years passed and life 'did it's thing' I found I was using blogging, to some degree at least in a quite cathartic way. Psychology has long recognised that writing things down when the going gets tough can be helpful and for me blogging has the same effect, though in a stronger sense. I can't define why that is, I don't know if it because blogging provides feedback and support, because I have maybe a narcissistic streak, because just writing certain experiences in itself helps to clarify the mind or whether it's a little bit of all of those things. Whichever or whatever it is cathartic and on occasion I suspect being able to 'out it out there' (whatever 'it' may be) has probably helped save my sometimes questionable sanity.

So why the frustration? Well, as my anonymity has gradually been lost I am less and less able to put into the public domain certain aspects of my life. I sit here frequently itching to type about some particular issue or event and just can't, either to protect the privacy of others involved or because I am aware that what I want to say risks offending or upsetting some who read. It frustrates the hell out of me.

I have looked into moving the whole blog (much too big a job given the number of posts and images) to a platform that allows protected posts, I have considered just ditching this and starting over (but the narcissistic bit of me can't bear to lose all this now) and I have considered linking certain posts to another private blog or passworded account. None of those options seem to be quite suitable for one reason or another unfortunately and so I remain frustrated with my finger ends poised to type, feeling somewhat gagged and wondering why the hell Blogger can't or doesn't offer the protected post option.

Answers on a postcard (or comment) please!

Ms. Not So Savvy!

So, Ms. 'thought she was pretty internet savvy' here has made a glaringly fundamental mistake!

This blog began with the intention of being anonymous and for the most part, over almost six years, I have achieved that. There has of course been one or two 'glitches' but nothing major and I was pretty convinced that I had secured it well enough that strangers couldn't find it and associate it with me, the real person.

WRONG!

It transpired yesterday that someone I had met online only the day before, managed to find 'gemmak'....and more worryingly, he did it very easily, dammit! I had overlooked one thing (that I am aware of!). Well to be more specific I hadn't overlooked it, I had considered it and thought it highly unlikely anyone would go that route.

Wrong again!

As it happens in this case (if you read this you know who you are and I should thank you for making me aware!)it doesn't actually matter and there's no real issue other than my embarrassment but given my recent stalker episode it does concern me. I have however now 'plugged the hole' so it will be much harder for anyone to go the same route in the future but it has made me think again about the fact that over the years I have got a little complacent and that I must sharpen up my act.

Incidentally, for obvious reasons I won't advertise the 'loophole' here but if you want to know for the preservation of your own anonymity, just drop me a line or a comment.

Ms. Not so bloody savvy eh? Duh!

I really should....

....write something here today but I'm not gonna, the blogging mojo appears to have done the off again!

Hey ho, no doubt it will return to bend your collective ear again in a day or two.

Happy weekend guys!

It's all good

Ok, so the title may be something of a slight overstatement but mindful of those lovely souls among you, who as soon as I go M.I.A. I know start to be concerned as to what new mischief or muddle I have got into this time, I thought I should just pop by and assure you none!

Nothing is amiss, there is no new trauma, I just seem to be busy with other stuff and so in the interests of prioritising I am having a very brief blog sabbatical.

I'll be back to darken your virtual doors in a day or two, if not sooner!

I thank you.

Frustration and happiness

I am frustrated, (no guys not that kind of frustrated). I am frustrated by my recent inability to blog, not because I can't think any longer of things to blog about, rather the reverse, I can, I have so much I would like to be able to 'get out there' but for innumerable reasons I just can't.

Other people's privacy, the feelings of others, the nature of some of what has been happening, you name it, it seems that most of my current life, is for blogging purposes at least, off limits for the time being. It's driving me quietly insane what I am already? but there is nothing I can do to circumnavigate the situation right now....why oh why does Blogger not offer the protected posts facility that Wordpress does?

I could of course migrate to Wordpress but I don't in all honesty want to lose what's here and I suspect the transfer, despite promises on the Wordpress blurb that it will all be easily moved is a little on the optimistic side!

I will think of some way around it before long but until then suffice to say, things with TP are as to be expected, we are still battling on but it's a rough ride. My life is still in a kind of limbo and it's all pretty surreal. There are one or two bright spots and we make the most of the situation we find ourselves in but mostly we live day to day and deal with stuff as it hits us, which it does, with regular monotony.

There is one particular happiness to report though, an update on my post a few days back "America says I can get married". For those of you who haven't already heard, Ian got his visa today, he gets on a one way flight to the U.S. on Sunday and Lisa and he can at last be together and be married!!!

How cool and romantic and lovely is that!? :o)

Manic!

Life has become somewhat manic of late and I can't really even define exactly why but between hospital appointments, the day to day minutiae of life and trying to fit in just a tiny bit of a life, I seem to need something like 28 hours in each day at the moment!

It is thus that I have been somewhat absent in these parts...shamefully absent I will admit but it just can't be helped, when the going gets manic something has to 'give' and it's been this recently.

I am however 'onto it' and things may improve slightly, if not please just bear with me while my efforts are concentrated elsewhere.

On the positive side this doesn't mean things at chez gemmak have deteriorated, the reverse in fact. TP has been considerably stabilised having spent a few days 'holiday', as it has affectionately become known as here, at the local and very amazing hospice and quality of life has been upped significantly.

So that's it, life is a little manic but I haven't disappeared, rather just become slightly distracted on and off! ;o)

One hundred things

Having realised it's over two years since I last updated this, I considered it was about time I made an effort!

1. I was born on the 13th...... kinda says it all!

2. I detest dishonesty.

3. I don't have children.

4. I used to be a competetive gymnast.

5. I'm passionate about London.

6. I'm 5' tall......or short!

7. I consider chocolate a food group.

8. I miss my cats.

9. What did I want to be when I grew up? A cop.

10. Football bores me rigid.

11. I have moved house 8 times in 10 years.

12. Coffee is imperative in my life!

13. but never instant!

14. I have ridden a motor bike way too fast, way too often.

15. I adore all animals.

16. but I'm terrified of spiders.

17. I have a loud voice for a small person!

18. I'm impulsive....or stupid, I'm still working on that one.

19. I once had to photograph someone famous... and ran out of film!

20. I adore the sea.

21. I can 'talk the hind legs off a donkey'.

22. I'm 'gobsmacked' when I meet someone famous.

23. My favourite colour is pink.

24. I'm a dress size 8....but I wouldn't dream of wearing a dress except under extreme duress!

25. I love extreme weather.

26. Dentists scare the crap out of me!.

26. I'm over-sensitive.....and I wish I wasn't.

27. Money isn't very important to me, luckily!

28. I don't hold grudges.

29. I'm not impressed by wealth/power/status etc.

30. I'm agnostic.

31. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life......but rarely seem to have learnt from them.

32. I follow my heart not my head.

33. I'm sentimental.

34. My perfect job would be in a field where economic gain was not the #1 priority.

35. I love Cornwall and The Alps.

36. I would like to be 35!

37. My dad is my hero...yes, a bit Freudian I know.

38. I smoke........please don't nag!

39. My favourite foods are green olives, fresh Parmesan, Walkers smokey bacon crisps and chocolate.

40. I love snow, the more the better.

41. I wish I had gone on to university.

42. I weigh 7.5 stone.

43. I knew Harold Shipman professionally

44. I wish I understood stuff.

45. I love flying.

46. I'm a gadget freak, when I can afford to be.

47. I've been veggie most of my life.

49. I'm gradually learning to be 'tall'.

50. I would like to be well read but I'm not.

51. I would like to understand politics but I don't.

52. My life tends to be an open book.

53. I have been married and divorced twice, not my proudest moment. (s).

54. I don't like shopping, yes, really.

55. I have never done drugs.

56. I consider my Internet friends real friends.

57. I have size 2 feet.

58. I always try to keep everyone happy.....but usually fail dismally.

59. I have never been arrested.

60. I believe we are all a product of our life experience and consequently there are very few truly evil people.

61. I passed my driving test 1st time.

63. I wear my heart on my sleeve...but I'm beginning to think that's a bad idea.

64. Despite years on a motorbike I have only ever had one speeding ticket...in a car at 41mph!

65. I owe my life as I know it to Mary (she knows who she is).

66. Peculiarly.... I still believe In marriage.

67. ....and true love, though it's getting harder.

68. I hate cruelty.

69. Money is the root of all evil, closely followed by religion.

70. I barely watch TV.

71. I have been caught up in two terroroist (I.R.A.) bombings.

72. I slept on the pavement under Big Ben the night before Princess Diana's funeral.

73. Embarrassingly my father had to set up my first computer.

74. My favourite film is Last of the Mohicans.

75. I think too much.

76. I'm impatient.

77. I want to travel the world, preferably on a motorbike.

78. I have an absolute passion for diamonds.

79. but I'm not very materialistic otherwise.

80. Because I'm always asked.... the real 'gemmak' was my first cat. She lived to be 19 and was beautiful.

81. I miss my grandmother.

82. I aggravate others by driving slowly on small roads for fear of hitting an animal!

83. I'm very squeamish.

84. I love people watching.

85. I would like to be top at something.

86. I don't do cooking.

87. I hope I have integrity.

88. I don't do the lottery because I don't want to win it (see #69)

89. I love art galleries and museums.

90. I'm fiercly loyal.

91. I have been tee total since age 20....but I'm learning not to be!

92. I want to give up smoking but doubt I ever will.

93. I wish clothing designers would accept we are not all tall.

94. I always back the underdog.

95. I don't suffer fools gladly.

96. My pet hate is discrimination...in any form.

97. I can still do the splits.

98. I am obsessive.

99. I can do big decisions but struggle with the little ones.

100. I'm hard to offend but easy to hurt.