Rising damp!

After something of an even more prolonged absence than usual I have finally made it back here in an effort to update and to detail some of what has kept me from blogging much lately. My random missives on Facebook have caused some questions and concerns from some of you kind people and so I thought it was time I pulled my finger out and posted something at least!

This is gonna be a long one, be warned!

My current situation goes back a fair way, in fact all the way back to my fathers death in November 2009. I still, for the sake of my families privacy, can't go into great detail but suffice to say that since then my mother has struggled to come to term with her loss and also with significant memory issues which only became apparent once my father had died.

To say it has been a nightmare for both her and myself would be something of an understatement, I think I can safely say it has been pretty much the hardest thing I have had to cope with in my life and despite support from my siblings, as the one living here all the time for me it has been a constant internal battle of emotions, and patience and at times a complete feeling of frustration and exasperation and of feeling I was becoming completely overwhelmed by it all. My stress levels have been through the roof and if anyone had told me that once we lost my dad I would have to deal with this situation immediately afterwards I think I would have run screaming into the hills there and then.

And it continues, thought after almost a year of doctors and appointments a few months back we at last got some answers and a little help with a way forward. Day to day little has changed but being armed with more information instead of trying to deal with it all 'blind' makes it a little easier. There have been times though when I really felt so 'up against it' that I couldn't see a way to cope any longer. On many of those occasions I wished I could blog the details just to vent but I couldn't and still can't but I can now at least share a little of it and of how it affects me. That is not to underestimate the impact on my mother herself or on my other family members but this is my blog and hence it's my thoughts and feelings that are here.

So, where does that bring me too now?

Well, the current state of play is this: it has been decided that my mother will cope better in a different and smaller house for various reasons and so our family home, of over 45 years, has been put on the market to enable her to move to a lovely new retirement apartment nearby. She will move just as soon as the building is completed which is projected to be May/June and whether this house sells by then is not relevant, if it doesn't we have made other arrangements.

And that leaves me with something of a dilemma. Yes, when the going has got tough over the last 18 months sometimes all I have wished for was to be able to move out and escape the problems here, I have been desperate for some privacy and peace and quiet at times but the reality of achieving that is a whole other thing now I have to!

My problem is this. I earn little above minimum wage, we live near London and prices to rent even a small studio apartment are hideous (upwards of £600pcm...including absolutely nothing). I have viewed a few but those one would like to live in I just can't consider financially and even those that could never be classed as a remotely 'bijou residence' seem to be out of my league.

Plan B, much though it's not a route I wish to go, is to rent a room. It's hardly where I anticipated my life would be at my age, I hate the idea of living like a student in one room and sharing amenities with strangers..... I feel like it will be my own personal version of 'Rising damp' (that reference may be lost on non-UK readers) but even that is proving difficult to achieve! It seems very few people want someone of my age to house/flat share which is kind of understandable, when I was student age I doubt I would have wanted to share with someone of my current age. it would have felt like sharing with a parent!

So, I am a little stuck. This seems to be the story of my life, it feels like I just launch from one crisis to the next sometimes and I keep wading through them in the hope there will be a period eventually of some degree of simplicity in my life...but there never seems to be.

So there you have it, a not so brief update on what is and what has been going on in gemmak's-ville. Don't ask me where I will be in three months time because right now I haven't go the vaguest bloody idea.

Just call me Miss Jones!

Nuts!

Well, if life wasn't nuts before it certainly is now!

Everything is upside down and I hit the ground running most days lately.

As soon as I stop the running for a moment I will update with more details.

As ever, it's not simple. No sh*t Sherlock!

Ann Summers, a handsome stranger and the demise of cool!

I am, as anyone who knows me personally will testify, not easily embarrassed, I'm pretty up-front and very little offends or fazes me....yesterday however I got my comeuppance and my very own 'Carry On' moment!

This is one of those occasional posts that I have to make an effort to word very carefully, something else that doesn't come naturally but here goes....

So 'N' and I were indulging in a little retail therapy yesterday afternoon and whilst he went off to purchase something mundane I decided to patronise the local purveyor of a well known store of let's say 'intimate' goods, Anne Summers, for educational purposes only of course.

I was happily perusing one particular shelf when a rather handsome man appeared next to me, I had a vague feeling I knew him but dismissed it and carried on about my business. A minute or two later he turned to me and said 'I think we know each other'......

It was at this point I was suddenly painfully aware that I had in my hand an item offered for sale which was vibrating wildly and which I appeared not to be able to turn off....dammit.

A short conversation ensued about where we might know one another from and all the time I was still starkly aware that I was having this conversation with a handsome stranger with the aforementioned item still in my hand and still failing to turn off! I tried to put it down on the shelf but it just bounced merrily and loudly and I had to retrieve it again and ask a sales assistant to turn it off for me!

Jeez....my usually cool, unembarrassed exterior was fast disappearing but trying to keep it together I stupidly picked up another item of similar 'genre' pretending to be completely at ease in the company of this stranger and telling myself we were both adults and there was nothing to be uncomfortable about. Who was I trying to kid?!

It was at this point, when in my state of fluster, my unknown companion declared he remembered where we knew one another from and that we both regularly frequent my local branch of Caffe Nero, that the whole situation deteriorated spectacularly.

In my surprise I very un-cooly dropped the item I was holding onto the hard slick floor with a very audible thud causing other customers to turn and look.....on impact it turned itself on, 'danced' manically across the floor for what seemed like forever and then fell apart.

The demise of my cool was complete and utter as I watched the offending item bounce around the floor while I scrabbled after it trying to retrieve it and make my apologies to the staff for the damage.

My handsome cohort was trying his best, but not succeeding, to politely not laugh too obviously while I tried desperately to ignore the very definite feeling of embarrassed perspiration trickling down my back and to gather my wits and scuttle out of the place with a tiny degree of dignity intact.

I suspect I failed dismally!

.....and the thought that I will likely run into this guy again in Caffe Nero is not lost on me. my fall from cool grace will be complete!

Frilly!

Having launched my old camera rather clumsily onto the floor around Christmas time, I just had to buy myself a new one shame! but like everything these days it's taken me forever to actually find time to use it.

However, 'N' bought me flowers earlier this week - no, he hadn't upset me - so finally I managed to have a little fiddle with my new toy.

Life is....

....mad, hectic, pretty stressful and very frustrating right now but as someone once said 'I'll be back'!

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! :)