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! :(

A hit man, a bloody nose and other stuff!

Marvellous, so I blog my sixth blogiversary and the number of posts I have had you all suffer in that time and then what....damn all, I go awol, a most unimpressive start to my seventh year I would say! ;)

Ok, so I'm going to make an excuse.....I am bloody knackered, completely and utterly knackered, worn out, tired and longing for a lie in but hell I'm loving being back at work. You just don't know how horrible not working is until you do it long term, really, I know we all moan and groan about going to work and I'm sure I will be just the same in a few weeks time but still, work is about so much more than money.

Excuses over with and what can I tell you, well the last time I did this job it was pretty different to this but I'll go into that another time when my eyelids are more operational but a few points of note and minor amusement from my life this week are;

1. I tried to exit a revolving door at the entrance of one of my customers posh offices and managed to attempt my exit one 'turn' too soon, straight into a glass wall....a small nose bleed and feeling of complete stupidity followed! What can I say, the glass was clean, it was sunny, it was a mistake anyone could make, but it had to be me!

2. I had a very near miss with a Lamborghini!!! Disaster was averted with only a split second to spare thankfully, not sure that claim would have impressed the new boss too much.

3. I have learned to go for four hours without a cigarette! Please don't anyone say if I can do that I can stop. I can't, you haven't witnessed me at the end of the four hours....but I can do the four hours and I'm kinda pleased about that alone.

4. The latest (nearly)dating disaster involved a guy who after much chatting and appearing to be intellectual, very amusing and very nice.....began telling me he was a hit man/mercenary (WTF) and trying to support his claim with quite convincing and worrying documentation!! Moreover, when I expressed a lack of interest he was surprised!! Sorry sunshine but you either kill for money and I'm not interested or you are a sad fantasist and I'm still not impressed. Jeez, there's always one isn't there but why do so bloody many of them seem to track me down??

I hasten to add I didn't ever get beyond the internet stage, even I am not that daft!

So, that's about it then, that's the best I can do in the way of an update for today! :)

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!! :)