Settling in

Well, I have lived in my new place for almost a month now and to be honest I can't believe just how quickly the time has gone or how fast I have settled in. It's a strange thing but in some respects it all still seems new to me but in others it feels as though I have been here for a long time.

I really wasn't sure about this sharing malarkey but thus far I kinda like it. Given the choice of course I would prefer my own flat but this situation is more tolerable than I had imagined. my housemates are all pretty cool, the woman is rarely here but she's lovely when she is, myself and one of the guys get on pretty well and usually have a 'post-work debrief at dinner time each day and the other guy is a real character. Ok, so his drum and bass gets a tad wearing from time to time but in this situation one has to live and let live a little.

These guys in fact could provide good blogging subject matter but I am still not sure whether I should go that route or not. They have no idea about this blog and I have no intention of them finding out but if they did (and let's face it, it happens) it could get difficult.

This first month hasn't been without it's ups and downs (that's for another post) but in the main it's been a vast improvement on the last two years and I am at last beginning to feel a little more like a human being again!

A new start!

Well then, as luck would have it, within days of my last post, I found somewhere to live and my continued silence here has been as the result of my finally moving from my parents house!

Ok, so it's not what I had in mind and it's not anything like I imagined my life to be at this age but it's mine, I can afford it and at last I have my privacy and perhaps my sanity saved.

I have a room in a shared house, it's actually a beautiful, almost new, four bedroom house and a house that I could never hope to live in if I had to rent of buy the whole place, (you don't want to know just how much the one room is costing me!) it doesn't feel to much like I am living in one room to be honest, my room is very big (big enough to make a sleeping area and a separate living area, I have french doors to a small garden and a shower room next door which I only have to share with one other woman

There are four of us, two girls and two guys, myself, the other woman who is a beauty therapist, a geek and an engineer and thus far we all seem to get along just fine...just as long as the guys don't try and use our bathroom!

I've lived here almost two weeks now, I've tidied the place up some, courtesy of one or two mad dashes to Ikea, though I still have much to do to really make it feel like home but for now I love it, I love having my freedom back, I love having my own 'stuff' and I love feeling like a 50 year old instead of a bloody 15 year old!

I have had the odd moment of feeling lonely and a bit scared but 'N' is here most evenings at least and at last I feel like I have made some headway, the last two years have been a time I never want to visit again...and I never will. This is the first time I have lived alone (yes really) and it's the first time that I have been in the position where having a roof over my head doesn't depend in part on a man.

I like that feeling! I like it very much!

One day, somehow, I will have a whole flat/house but for now this is just fine, it's a first step to rebuilding my life and one thing is particularly notable, I haven't cried one single time in two weeks....and that's not something I have been able to say for a very long time, it used to be almost a daily event.

FREEDOM!!!! Yayyyyy.

Moving - Well that's the theory...

...but in practice it seems to be a whole other matter!

Ergh (yes, that's a technical term), I have to move within the next few weeks now and despite having spent better part of the last few months scouring the internet/estate agents/newspapers yada yada, I still can't find anywhere I can even consider affording.

It's utterly ridiculous, rents here are so high it's beyond me how anyone affords them, 50% of what I see runs into £1000's pcm quite literally and even the smallest studio flat is out of my price range. I knew that of course but I kept telling myself all the things others tell me "something will turn up", "you will work something out", etc. etc. Well nothing has turned up and I haven't worked anything out.....and believe me, I have tried...and some!

I have always been a firm believer in the 'where there's a will there's a way' principle but this time it just ain't happening.

And so I have capitulated and finally lowered my sights to renting just a room, I hate the thought of it. I know I might meet nice people, make new friends, see a little more of life but none of that compensates for the fact that at 50 I want/need some privacy. I have lived devoid of privacy for two years now, I am desperate to live a 'normal' life again, have my own space but it would appear wanting and having are not the same thing. Even one room is going to cost me in excess of £500 pcm and those are hard to find for various reasons, my age being the biggest.

Most flat/house shares are younger people (who haven't yet had a chance to screw their life as I have) and they (understandably) don't want to share with someone who is probably older than their parents. People my age it seems are usually more sorted (no shit) that I am and don't share houses.

Hey ho....it looks like I'm going to have to just suck it up and look happy, I have no other option unless lady luck suddenly springs a surprise...but let's face it, that's not gonna happen either.

None of this does anything for ones self esteem I might add.

Jeez....I owned my own flat at 19 yrs old and this is just absolutely nothing like where I anticipated my life would be at this stage......

Bum!

Spring things!

'Buzzzz'

'Make a wish'

'Bells'


*Click images to enlarge.

Half a century!

So, last Wednesday, yes, the 13th wouldn't you know it, saw me reach my half century!

I can't believe it, where did all that time go, I certainly don't feel like I was there for all of it and as I'm sure everyone bleats, I definitely don't feel it! I'm not entirely sure exactly what age I do feel but it's not fifty, for heavens sake. Anywhere between about eight and twenty eight (occasionally about ninety eighthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif, I'll admit), depending on the day, would be closer.....but there is no denying it. I am FIFTY and I don't like it one tiny little bit.

No other age bothered me, until this one they were all just numbers but this one bugs me, big time...jeez, even Saga will be at my door now bothering me with their unwanted attentions. Ergh.

I'm not exactly sure why I have such an issue with it, I really didn't think I would have. Maybe it's because my life is far from the place I ever dreamt it would be at this stage and even further from where I would like it to be...or maybe it's just that it sounds so bloody, heinously old, dammit!

Whatever, thus far I have not been persuaded to embrace this particular birthday....though I did have a good day despite it all! :)

Can anything else go wrong?

The answer to that is a resounding YES!

Wouldn't you just know it.

I don't know right now if I am more angry, disappointed, worried or just plain scared but mostly I just feel completely floored.

This of course concerns my imminent and necessary move of residence. I have maybe six to eight weeks left until I have to actually move from here and as my last post illustrated it hasn't been an easy task finding somewhere I could even remotely hope to afford.

However, after months of my brother and myself doing much hand wringing, brainstorming, manipulating of figures and plotting and planning we were almost there. In fact probably literally only a few weeks from my having my very own tiny home, some privacy, some self esteem, somewhere to call my own (in so much as renting can ever be) at last. I was so excited, I hardly dared believe it, it would have been tough financially, no more coffee in Nero's etc. etc. and it would have taken every last penny to keep said roof over my head but it would have been worth it, so worth it.

You will notice I speak in the past tense, for today, out of the blue, I was informed that the working tax credit I was awarded nine months ago is being cut. We are not talking pennies here, we are talking upward of a fifth of my entire income....which when you have no disposable income at all makes the whole thing fall apart instantly. Fin.

I've checked it out, there is no error (other than the minutiae of the bloody legislation in the first place), there is nothing I can do.

I can't really even bring myself to talk about it right now without risking dissolving into tears.

There is no 'Plan B'...we were already at about 'Plan G'.

Fuck...sorry but just FUCK! :(

Oh...and to add to my woes I'm 50 next week and this isn't even close to where I imagined my life to be with half a century gone. I feel very old!

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 :)