Carpe Diem

"Carpe Diem"
...... two words, just two words from a poem by Quintus Horatius Flaccus but two words that were to change my life forever, that would ultimately lead me down a path I could never have imagined.

Those words were to give me a dream, lead me on a journey of discovery and self discovery that has only just begun, that is in it's infancy, that may never be over. It is a dream and a path that is neither easy nor simple but it is, in it's many facets, sometimes profound, sometimes unbelievable, sometimes terrifying, sometimes beautiful but always amazing.

It is a dream of understanding, of living, of communication, of freeing one's mind, a dream that crept up on me, grew in me, took me by surprise. It is a dream that at times fills me with hope and wonder, at times fills me with trepidation and fear but it is a dream held precious, nurtured, a goal that outweighs a thousand fold the strength or sacrifices needed to attain it.

For it is a dream of letting go the shackles that bind the mind, the body and the soul, of believing what once I thought the impossible, of seeing with new eyes. It is a dream spawned of courage and of fear, of happiness and pain, of purpose and of loss...... it is a dream of belief, of what is truly important and of ultimate trust......

"Carpe Diem"

It's Friday again.....

.......and my cold is almost gone so I'm gonna try and make up for last weekend's debacle....I'm outta here.

Have a good one you lot :o)

The morning routine

One of the many things I'll miss when Tilly is no longer part of my day to day life is our 'first thing in the morning' routine. Every day begins the same and despite my not being one of life's morning people I have grown to enjoy, nay almost look forward to, our days beginning.

We wake long before the rest of the household at somewhere between 5.30 and 6 am, or rather Tilly does which in essence means that I do too, if I should fail to be compis mentis at the required hour a few minutes sitting on my head and chewing my hair resolves that to madams satisfaction!

We creep downstairs together, I trying to find my way without waking anyone and she investigating if she can access my parents bedroom on the sly en-route. On reaching the kitchen/living room Tilly takes up residence by the back door 'asking' insistntly to be allowed out whilst I try, in my sleepy state, to turn the kettle on for the all important strong cup of fresh coffee and to negotiate the key into the door lock.

Having carried out the key maneuver Tilly leaps over the threshold and into her territory, excited by the days possibilities and waking birds while I deal with the business of coffee making and finding a cigarette....and then our morning really begins.

I park myself on a step overlooking the lawn and somewhat wild bordering hedges while inquisitive cat begins her early checks for interlopers and any interesting looking slugs, worms or other slow moving possible prey. She paddles happily through the dew laden grass chirruping to herself and intermittently running back up the steps to me to say hello and insist on a quick stroke....Before she goes off again.

For my part I love sitting there in the quiet, I can hear the birds coming too, Tilly shuffling about in the bushes chattering away merrily in her excitement to herself and the sound of the locality gradually coming to life. It's a special me and Tilly time, a time when I can reflect on life quietly and try to haul my mind into some semblance of order for the day ahead, a time when there is just me and madam quietly together going about our waking up procedures and enjoying one another's company.

I can't imagine sitting there alone in the mornings without her carrying-ons to amuse me and her little furry feline-ness to keep me company.

Comment moderation

Unfortunately it has become necessary for me to activate 'comment moderation' temporarily. I know it's an aggravation but bear with me if you would for a short while until I can return things to normal.

I thank you. :o)

More bass?

So, whilst I still have madams daily shenanigans to share..... here's herself enjoying the latest favoured perch!

(Clickable)

The hardest decision

I have made reference on one or two occasions recently that I have been trying to deal with a particularly difficult situation, until now I haven't felt able to blog it, even now I'm not sure if I can but here goes, I'll try, though you might have to forgive me for what perhaps seems a slightly hard attitude, right now it's the only way I can handle the situation at all.

The situation is this:

I have to give Tilly away to a new home. :o(((

The reasons are many and various and to be fair to others involved it's not appropriate that I regale you with all the finite detail, suffice to say she can't stay here long term with me and as I have no money, and no prospect of an income on which I could afford a suitable home for Tilly and myself here near to London, where it is particularly expensive, I have had to finally consider the unthinkable.

By coincidence someone offered Tilly a home a few weeks ago and belive me it will be a perfect home for her, I have absolutley no qualms about the lady who will likely become her 'step mother' or the life she can offer her...I just wish more than almost anything I have ever wished that I didn't have to be considering this at all.

In reality though I do. I'm not in a position to offer her a suitable home and it's likely I won't be for maybe as long as a year or two so I have no choice. I have thought and thought about it until I've driven myself almost demented, I have hoped and prayed that I would find an answer, a way for her to stay with me, I have investigated every option I can dream up but in the end I think I have lost the fight..... and too keep her now would be more about me and how I'll miss her, than about what will make Tilly happy and give her a stable and happy life.

So, through the tears, the doubts, the fighting and the trying now to find a way to come to terms with losing her I have to keep telling myself that if I really love her as I say I do, then I will do what's best for her, not me.

I probably have her for about another two to three weeks before she goes to her new home, her 'step mum' is a lovely lady, a true cat lover who has already fallen in love with her. She has a lovely garden, won't ever subject her to a cattery, preferring instead not to take holidays longer than a few days and already has one other cat, who once they are accustomed to one another will hopefully become company for them both. If I have to do this now is the time while Tilly is still so young, while she is still adaptable. My biggest concern is that she is very much a one person cat and right now I am that person but I hope that given a little time she can become as attached to 'A' as she is currently to me.

There will still be some Tilly stories and pictures once she has settled down and once I can face seeing her and keep leaving her behind because I will retain lifelong'visiting rights' and she will only be half an hours drive away, but for now it seems scant compensation for not having her with me all the time and there has been little in my life before that has made me so sad.

In the back of my mind there is still a tiny glimmer of hope that somehow I will be able to keep her but it's fading fast, my deadline for a decision is Thursday and I've about run out of options and ideas that don't involve shuffling her from one place to another (which isn't in her best interests) just so that I can have her back once I'm in a position to, whenever that might be.......

:o((

The best laid plans...

...and all that!

Well so much for the wild weekend of sex,drugs and rock and roll, for in actuality what transpired was that on Friday night, what had been a mild sneezing session turned into the full blown cold from hell!

By Saturday morning I was a snivelling, snotty, pathetic heap, fit for nothing and that's about what I did all weekend ......nothing!

By last night things had improved marginally and as I type the improvement is considerably marked, but those heinous little bugs certainly made sure the weekend didn't go as I had planned! Pfftt!

Ah well....there's always next weekend.....

TGIF!!!!

Thank God (or whoever your particular 'God' happens to be) it's Friday!!

I don't ever want another week like this one, it has to rate in my top 5 worst ever and I am more than glad to see the back of it. This was the first week since I moved that I seriously began to question whether my sanity would hold out, but one way or another, and with some fantastic support, I managed to 'hold it together' though not always too elegantly and only because I have such a wonderful 'support team'...thank you again guys.

I still have my biggest worry to sort out and to come to terms with, (sorry but I can't bring myself to blog the details yet) though slowly I think I'm getting some small degree of a grip on that one too.... but for now it's Friday and I'm determined for the sake of my mental health and that of those around me to try and have two days of R&R and to put all the crap somewhere in the back of my mind until next week.

So that's it, the week is over and I'm outta here for a weekend of sex and drugs and rock and roll....ok, maybe not quite that wild ( hey...I don't do drugs), but if nothing else I'm gonna hit my tee total years on the head, get drunk and eat chocolate by the barrow load! ;o)

Bankrupt!

Today at 12.21 pm gemmak was declared officially bankrupt.

I was struck by the fact that the judge is required by law to record the time the bankruptcy order is made on the official documentation and to 'announce' it, it kinda reminded me of the manner in which a doctor is required to record the time of an individuals death, the irony was not lost.

The day went as well as could be expected. I plumped for the 'suited and booted' approach but minus the Prada (like I own any!) and off I set to face the music.

I have to say that the court officials were excellent, efficiency personified, they took me through the checks on the 35 page (yes I said 35, it wasn't a typo) petition I had already submitted in a flash, without hiccup and in a relaxed manner I hadn't expected.....my time with the 'big guy' however wasn't quite so pleasant.

I assumed I would be seen by a judge in chambers but no, it was the full hit court room scenario, save for the fact there was only he, myself and a video camera 'in residence'.

Emotionally it was a very odd and none too enjoyable experience. He was as one would expect a faceless, suited gent who seemed to spend an eternity pawing over my petition in detail interspersing his note taking and small grunts with questions. I felt suddenly very small, almost like a child waiting to be berated by the headmaster for some heinous misdemeanor. All I could think was what on earth must this man be thinking of someone like me. There he sat, midway through his own presumably successful career with all the associated trappings, making judgment on me who has literally nothing of monetary value save for a five year old car. My life and his must be about as diametrically opposed right now as it is possible to be.

I promise you, today was not an experience designed to boost one's pride in oneself.

Eventually having satisfied himself of the facts he agreed to make the order and pronounced me bankrupt with an almost apologetic tone. I wasn't sure whether I should thank him, punch the air that it was over or cry, the latter seemed to threaten dangerously for a moment but what little pride I had left won over and off I went for my first interview with the official receiver with my head held high and a very hollow feeling somewhere inside me.

I have yet to have interview #2 with these guys in a few weeks, it will be at that point I learn the fate of my car but in essence that's it, I am debt free but at a very different kind of cost.

So that's it, I'm now officially an undischarged bankrupt.

C'est la vie....I had no other option I know..... and hopefully in a few days I will begin to feel it's the beginning of a new start and all that, but for now the hollow 'thing' in my gut still prevails and I'm still wondering how one receives a salary (when I get one) or pays standing orders etc. for a year with no bank account.......

Do Prada take cash?

Tomorrow sees me take one more step on the path that has become the destruction or rebuilding, depending on your perception, (mine wavers from day to day at the moment) of what was once my life, for tomorrow I have my appointment in court with a guy in a funny wig and gown....do judges wear all the regalia in 'non-criminal' proceedings?.....who will declare me bankrupt all things being equal.

Odd though it may seem this little 'court appearance' seems to have become lost among other more upsetting difficulties over the last few days, the up-side of which is that I have barely given it thought let alone gotten into a state of panic over it, every cloud has a silver lining eh?

My current and most pressing consideration (and yes I know it's a girly thing) is what should I wear?...under usual circumstances an appearance in court would warrant (no pun intended) that I get suited and booted, pull out all the stops and look like I mean business but should a woman applying for bankruptcy look 'together'? Would it not be more suitable to go looking down at heel, like I don't have a penny to my name (which is about true) and I have just been dragged unceremoniously through a thick hedge? Who knows, maybe I'll err on the side of caution and fence sitting and hit a mid point somewhere!

So that's it, by this time tomorrow my financial life will be all over bar the shouting, I'm not sure quite how I feel about it anymore, making the application, submitting it and knowing it's going to happen is one thing....actually walking out as an undischarged bankrupt might be another entirely.....the best I can do I suppose is accept it's the only route I can take and try to see it as the resolution to a problem and move on.

Do Prada take cash?

Sorry, I shouldn't be flip I know but if I didn't laugh and all that.......

Life happens ~ reprise

I posted this a year ago, almost to the day, little did I know then quite how appropriate it would be a year later!

"This is the 21st century, we have control, from the cradle to the grave we make our decisions large and small, we shape our lives, we plot, we plan, everything is within our sphere, our power, we choose our destiny and the choices are many.

Much is grey though some black or white, our destiny chosen, we head toward that place, certain of our goal.

They say don't they, that we make our own luck?

At times life happens, the control is gone, the choices gone, changed or re-arranged, the once straight path, headed to a place we thought we knew becomes a muddied track. Plans made evaporate, ideologies stand challenged by incidents outside our common realm. We stand confused as life's curved balls make tracks toward us, one by one, in certainty still, we catch them deftly, re-plan, re-shape, re-gain control.

One is dropped, no matter, two then three, our minds flail lost, they came unbidden, four then five, control a foreign concept now.

Luck? Luck is not an absolute, luck is not a plan nor destiny, luck is not a tangible gift bestowed, or not, upon us, control is not a power, we have no power, we have no luck......... we have only an attitude of mind.

Life shit happens."

Bear with me....

...please if things become a little quiet in gemmak's-ville over the next few days.

Life has presented me with a particularly difficult problem recently and I might go temporarlily AWOL whilst I try to get my head around it all.

....and a special big thank you to my 'support team' (they know who they are)....I know I'm testing your collective stamina right now but I appreciate your support more than you know.

Yesterday I Got Stoned!

No, not what your thinking :o)

I went for a visit to Avebury Stone Circle in Wiltshire. Avebury is one of Europe's largest prehistoric stone circles, a bit like Stonehenge but far better.


By chance, whilst partaking in a little light refreshment at the local pub, the Red Lion, the only Pub in the world that is actually located within a Stone Circle, a Druidic Wedding was taking place. Lots of 'Odd' looking folk, hippies, new age travellers etc. all dressed up in Priests gowns banging on drums and chanting.

Most excellent people watching and maybe the only time I've ever visited a pub that was so busy, but knew (because alcohol wasn't the only substance for relaxation being consumed ;o) ), there wasn't going to be any trouble.

All in all, a most interesting day out and a life style that has its attractions.

Education today!

Couldn't resist ;o)