For your amusement - The Scrollwheel!

Oh how we have all been here one way or another!! ;)

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!

New year...new me!

Well then, my first resolution of the year appears to have failed already...that I will blog more doesn't seem to have happened but I am here now and at least it's still the first week of the new year! There is hope!

So...resolutions, I don't usually do them, I see them as another way to set oneself up to fail but this time, whilst it's not quite a resolution I have promised myself I will do my level best to make some changes.

This is all pretty easy to type here but I am well aware that the doing it will require more than a little determination to see it through and that it will be all too easy to lose sight of the goal but I am determined and I am writing the goal here so I can't forget....because you lot hopefully won't let me.

The goal; Well I have spent the better part of the last two years feeling like I have been trying to keep everyone happy but me, putting the needs of others before myself and more importantly letting circumstances and situations run my life for me. Maybe that had to be for a time and I just had to live like that but the time has come where I have to become more proactive and make the changes I need happen.

It's going to take diplomacy - not my forte - it's going to take balls - I'm scared to death - and it's going to take time and strength but I'm going to do it, come hell or high water this year I need to put me first some of the time and begin to make life what I want it to be....or at least make steps in the right direction.

No doubt I will fall by the wayside here and there and no doubt I will lose sight of my goal from time to time but by this time next year some significant things will have changed in gemmak's-ville.

You have my permission to nag me and kick my ass should you see me losing my direction along the way...in fact, please do!

HAPPY NEW YEAR guys :)

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!