Abscence

This blog will be quiet for a while, no idea how long, days, weeks, months I don't know. I don't know anything anymore........

"Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,

Nor for any outward part:
No, nor for a constant heart!
For these may fail or turn to ill:
Should thou and I sever.

Keep, therefore, a true man's eye,
And love me still, but know not why!
So hast thou the same reason still
To dote upon me ever".

John Wilbye.

Biscuits and gravy and other stuff

The last couple of days have been kind of hectic here is gemmaks-ville, hell I didn't even log in here yesterday let alone post, quite a departure from my usual routine, no blogging, no Twittering, in fact I barely even turned this confounded machine on.....What's the world coming too?!

So what's caused this departure, well Wednesday Lisa and Punctuation managed to make it back here for another visit, unfortunately Fletch was away on business so he missed them but the three of us had a lovely afternoon just chattering away happily and being fed a late US breakfast of 'biscuits and gravy', prepared by Lisa who made my kitchen her own, which suited me just fine, she's welcome to it, kitchens and all that cooking palaver just aren't my forte. Amusingly to a Brit, 'biscuits and gravy' include neither biscuits nor gravy, or at least not as we understand them! For those of you who like me had never had this delicacy before, it's kind of a savoury scone with a sausage meat white sauce mix and a fried egg plopped on top...yummy, tho 'Ms picky veggie' here was duty bound to dispense with the sausagy bit! ;o)

Lisa goes back to the U.S today, in fact as I type she is emailing me from LHR's internet booth waiting to board, this is not a good thing. I shall miss her much.

Onto other stuff.

Yesterday was dole queue day again, what can I say, the queue gets tangibly longer each time I am there and the queue-ees resignation that nothing much is going to change anytime soon increases in tandem with the length of the queue. It's almost funny if it wasn't so sad, there are now so many of us squished in there at one time now that what was a fifteen minute wait is now closer to an hour and security staff have been employed to 'manage' the unwieldy snake of individuals winding around and out of the building!

All that said, this week there was a actually a job possibility for me, amusingly as 'one of them'....one of the staff sitting behind the dole queue desks putting the out of work through their paces. I am a little reticent about being in that position from a moral standpoint but I need the work and should I make it through the selection process perhaps I can do my little bit in not condescending to those I find on the opposite side of the desk. Who knows. Like all job applications (and there have been a few) I won't say much here unless I get it, it's all too boring and disheartening to keep on about it.

Oh...and my new phone arrived on the day promised, though as ever it seems is the case there was much kerfuffle in that achievement and mostly it was facilitated by me rather than those who's job it should have been! Pretty funky bit of kit though it is, certainly it is function over design in this case, it's about the size and weight of a small house brick but then it does have more in common with a small computer than a phone so there is adequate payback...or there will be when I finally get to grips with it! ;o)

...and for the few phone geeks who I know read this, a little inside onfo; Apparently the phone I have, the N95 was discontinued and replaced by the N96...but that has been so problematical the 95 has been reintroduced for a while at least....it ain't pretty but it works!

Another one bites the dust!

Can you believe it! the mobile phone saga continues, yet another has keeled over and gone to the great phone landfill in the sky. This is becoming almost comical if it weren't so damned annoying!

The latest in the line of casualties is the Nokia 6600, nifty little thing, if only the firmware were anything like stable, which it wasn't. To be honest the problems began on day one a few weeks back but I decided at that point I would persevere a while...I should have known better, perseverance never pays off where phone operating systems are involved. They either work or they don't and no amount of TLC will persuade them into appropriate behaviour!

So, today again I am sitting in again waiting for a courier to bring forth the next offering from my service provider, having once more spent half a day yesterday pointing out my consumer rights to O2's 'help' desk guys. Really, it shouldn't be like this, it shouldn't have to be a fight, they know the law as well as I do and life would be a whole lot simpler if they would just not try to pull the wool over the consumers eyes!

This time I am going to give the Nokia N95 a try, I can't say it's a phone I would have chosen but it was the best that was on offer, I'm pretty half hearted about it all now and I chose it for one reason only, it was the highest spec/value my contract would allow so if I don't like it, it can go the 'eBay way' and at least I can get top dollar for it.

My old phone might not be all singing and dancing but at least it is stable. Life's to short for all this carry on!

Weekends and best friends - Redux

So, jet lag recovered and having been re-introduced to the delights of Milton Keynes by Punctuation on Friday, Lisa and 'he who is never late but thankfully was' because I was so behind, arrived here early on Saturday afternoon.

The first point of note is that Hammy did not this time , unlike last time, manage to inflict a wound on Lisa significant enough to draw copious amounts of blood within the first few minutes! Things were looking good!

After much animated chatter, coffee and greetings Fletch had decided we should introduce Lisa to the Saturday afternoon ways of a Brit...and spend it in the pub taking in the Six Nations! I managed to negotiate on behalf of the women of the party a nice bar as opposed to a spit and sawdust pub, and off we went for an afternoon of Six nations entertainment and Guinness. Guinness of course is considered a food group and hence qualified as lunch! It was a lovely afternoon, Lisa and I of course took something less than avid notice of the game/games and whilst the boys shouted at the plasma on the wall we chattered away merrily for hours, though Lisa did make a very convincing effort at taking an interest in the boys stuff....


Eventually hunger got the better of us and we pottered across the road for an early dinner at the local Chinese where copious amounts of Saki were 'tested' and more hilarity and chatter continued into the night until our stamina began to fade and we made our way the few hundred yards back home to some serious Lincolnshire Poacher and a good red wine. Lisa, like myself was less than convinced by the single malts!

Sunday morning we woke bleary eyed, Fletch served up a 'full English' to further Lisa's British culinary training, she even ate the black pudding, be impressed and late morning they were ready to move onto their next port of call and left with hopes of making it back again later in the week for a short visit should their busy itinerary allow it.

It was fab to have her back again and considering the 4000 mile distance from Omaha, so soon again after the last trip was amazing!

It of course is never long enough, the good things never are and we could chatter on unendingly for days but that only makes it extra special when we do get together for real! :o)

There was one aspect of the whole weekend though that was particularly unbelievable....we forgot to eat the chocolate cake!! Hey ho, I'll just have to manage it on my own now!

Mothers Day

On the day we learn ironically of the sad news of Jade Goody's death.

I might may not have always been her greatest fan but recently I gained a new respect for her and there was no doubting her love for her children or how tragic the loss to her family and young boys.

The best I can do is a slightly happier offering, the perfect mothers day image, a black swan in Dawlish, Devon, and her recently hatched cygnets.

© Blackboard Associates Media.

R.I.P. Jade, way, way too young.

The bother with Billy Gates!

We all know this feeling! Enjoy....

Lisa is in London!

Yayyyyyy....as I type, bleary eyed and with my first hefty caffeine shot of the day firmly by my side, Lisa's flight is stacking over Heathrow waiting to land, Punctuation is winding his way through the melee which is arrivals to the gate to meet her, and from here on in this next week is gonna be a good one!

It's six months since her last visit to the UK, and since the first time, after years of countless daily emails, that we finally met for real. I kind of got used to having my best friend, she with whom I share everything, 4000 miles away but it's way better to have her here for real and I really didn't think we would get the chance again quite so soon...but we have and I can't wait! Excited? Who me?

Today is jet lag recovery day and then tomorrow both she and Punctuation come here for what will doubtless turn into a manic weekend of catching up, eating, drinking and making of much merry.....

Leave the Leffe alone Lisa! ;o)

Did I mention I can't wait?

Updates here and probably almost obsessively on Twitter, throughout! ;o)

The eggs factor!

This is amazing, or at least for me it is, brand new baby chicks hatching, live at a screen near you!

It's not of course always action packed, you need to keep popping back to check progress, but thus far I have managed to catch two make their great escape into the big wide world, fascinating stuff and of course with a massive eggs 'awwwww' factor.

Webcam chat at Ustream

Where I wish....

.....I was right now!

Somewhere in the Dolomites.

*Excuse the ever elegant 'helmet hair'...unfortunately unavoidable after weeks on the road living in a tent!

A small step forward

If you can bear to wade through all of this please try, the important bit comes last!

As anyone who has been a regular reader here will know, I detest going to the dentist and whilst I am well aware that no-one relishes it, my dislike goes the irrational extra mile to a diagnosed phobia. However, not wishing for my teeth to fall apart I have had all the psych. treatments and have rarely missed an appointment in my life, save for the five years I lived in Scotland, where dentists no longer play the NHS game and as a consequence I couldn't even get registered!

All this effort paid off, or so it seemed. I have only two fillings to date, relatively pristine white teeth and all was looking well, my sleepless nights before an appointment and hours of sitting rigid and sweating in the dentists chair, employing one or other coping mechanism to prevent the 'flight' aspect of the flight or fight response catapulting me out of the door had worked, it was all worth it...wrong! Sods law of course just had to dictate otherwise!

I was recently diagnosed with advanced periodontal disease which for those of you not familiar is a severed form of what we usually refer to as gum disease and in it's early stages has few easily detectable symptoms. The 'lucky' ones get the early warning of bleeding gums, I didn't and added to that, mine was taking hold the time I was in Scotland and so through no fault of my own it went undiagnosed at a stage when intervention was important. I won't start though on all that again, it's well documented here previously and if you have a mind too you can find it all by clicking the 'dentistry' tag in the sidebar.

So, what's the upshot of all of this? Well, in a nutshell my otherwise perfectly healthy teeth are literally falling out of my head, one gone already, one as wobbly as a child's and most of the remaining molars beginning to wobble tentatively! For me, as I suspect it would be for many this is pretty horrifying not only for the obvious reasons but also in my case because it means lots of dental treatment in an effort to hang onto them as long as possible...though that may not be very long! Add to that perio. disease can be a factor in the risk of heart attack.

None of this was helped by an unfortunate encounter recently with a particularly brusque and unsympathetic dentist, who managed in one fell swoop to reinstate my previously almost beaten dental phobia in one visit, by telling me he needed to extract XYZ teeth 'now'...and wouldn't entertain either discussion or my fear. Needless to say I declined his offer and set about some research.

As a result yesterday I had an appointment with a private dental hygienist, even attending the hygienist fills me with dread these days, in fact the mere mention of anything dental does, quite literally even the word 'dentist' sends my anxiety and adrenaline levels sky high, so much so that this post has been a long time in coming, I couldn't even get it written down until now!

And that's where the title 'a small step forward' comes in. I made it to the appointment calm enough to hold a coherent conversation and not as high as a kite on diazepam and the woman herself was fab, she took time with me, she explained my options at length and with honesty and she promised me that whilst I will still likely lose some, if not all of my teeth, as long as I keep doing what she tells me she will make every effort to enable me to hang onto them as long as possible. Reading between the lines I also understood that I am not alone in having had issues with Mr nastybrusquedentistman, so I felt a little vindicated.

All that and I went on my own, which might sound amusing to most of you but it's only the second time in my life, at my ripe old age, that I have actually made it to a dental appointment alone! She spent almost an hour working in my mouth and not once did I have to ask for a break! I know that it maybe doesn't seem a 'big deal' to many, I know I shouldn't be so frightened but phobia, by it's very nature is irrational and I am quite proud of myself!

Now, the warning; Periodontal disease is caused by a few things, firstly it is something some of us just have a predisposition too, secondly stress is thought to be indicated as a cause but thirdly and most importantly, smoking causes it to advance much quicker than it would naturally, so if like me you thought the fags wouldn't get you, don't count on it....one way or another they might! There you have it, my own bloody fault in part at least, albeit when I began smoking no-one knew any of this. And just in case you are still in any doubt about just how much of a hassle this is, it hurts, eating is an issue, invariably at any given time I have parts of my mouth that are too painful to use or infections in my gum and cleaning my teeth has gone from the normal five minute job, to something much more protracted, in an effort to at least slow down the advance....no amount of money or dental work is going to fix it or cure it.

So, that's my next big issue...but please, no nagging, I don't respond to pressure but I'm onto it and getting to a place where perhaps I can take my next step forward.

Normal service is resumed

I'm back and a good weekend was had, well, in the main it was, unfortunately the prime purpose of our visit to my parents didn't quite work out as those involved would have chosen but all is not lost, there is a 'plan B' afoot in the near future, which should be more successful.

Aside from all of that there was much chatter, gossip and catching up to be done, much hilarity, much watching of rugby for Fletch, copious amounts of good food, Fletch cooked Sunday lunch for everyone, and an all round generally relaxing, fun time was enjoyed. My brother also managed to make for a visit which was cool, though I'm sure his main intent was to impress on me just how wrong I was when I decided not to buy an iPhone a month or two back and instead stick with Nokia! As he walked through the door he handed me his bright shiny new specimen, with free reign to 'play'....and play I did, obsessively, whilst hearing the the advice of others a few weeks back saying 'I told you so' ringing in my head! What a bit of kit!...sorry, but you can be in love with an inanimate object! ;o)

And that was it, back home last night and back to reality, 'Himself' away on business again and for me back to pointless job hunting, one person microwave dinners and this afternoon the dentist, well the dental hygienist but that's barely any better! Joy. You know how much I love the dentist!

It seems strangely quiet here now, it's amazing how quickly you get un-used to stuff. I am well practiced at spending days on end on my own, but having been in the company of others all weekend, suddenly to be on my Jack again seems a bit 'ugh' (that's a technical term!).

Fletch is back!...and other stuff

First up, if you get a moment pop over HERE and you will witness a small miracle, Fletch is back! He has finally posted on his blog after a ten month lazy period. Wonders will never cease! Having been absent for so long though he could use a helping hand where readers are concerned! ...oh, and if you leave a comment on his blog I get a reward so please, if you have time? ;o)

Second up, it's now only five 'Jane days' now until Lisa arrives here!! Hurrah!

And finally we are away at my parents this weekend for the first time in way too long so activity around these parts until Monday is likely to be low to nil..... I will of course have my phone glued to me Twittering, hooked? who me? but that's about all I'm likely to manage.

Have a good one guys and I'll catch you on the other side.

Catch 22!

I'm feeling a bit disgruntled with life of late!

By that I don't mean my life as a whole, I am very well aware that there are many good things in my life and things I am very grateful and thankful for, I am way luckier than many and I genuinely appreciate that but still my life seems something of a muddle and out of my control, or at least, parts of it do.

The issue is this in a nutshell... I don't have a job, I can't find one and finding one is getting harder and harder by the day! This is not new and sadly there are increasing numbers of people in my situation but it's as frustrating and disheartening as hell because as time goes by, not only is it becoming harder because the economic climate is putting people out of work instead of into it, but also because the longer it goes on, the less confident I feel about the whole bloody issue and the prospect of starting over yet again becomes more and more daunting.

I remember years ago when my mother went back to work having raised myself and my siblings for sixteen years listening to her say how terrifying it was. I laughed, I just couldn't understand where she was coming from....well I damn well do now!

I know the psycho babble and I know it's a matter of biting the bullet but waiting to bite that bullet is the tough bit, just waiting and hoping and waiting and hoping and all the time the opportunities get less and less along with my confidence!

So much in life seems to depend on our having paid employment, our own self esteem, societies opinion of us and obviously our ability to move on in life financially....and that for me is the really tough bit. My life feels on hold.... I can't get it re-started without a job....and I can't get a freaking job!

On a day to day basis some might think it's nice not to have to work, and I can understand that, it is nice in some respects but it's not so nice when it's not by choice. I can't sit back and enjoy the good aspects because if I do I'll lose the motivation to find work, but in having to maintain the motivation and not allow myself to sit back and enjoy, I am constantly having to face the negative aspects of the whole issue! Add to that, if I try to be cheerful and make the most of what I do have I worry people will assume I'm just being lazy and that I don't want to work and if I moan and groan I feel like....well just like all I do is moan and groan!

Catch 22! Twice! Bum!

I'm not alone in this I know and time and maybe a little luck will eventually resolve it but I'm feeling a bit disgrunteld with the whole damn thing just now.

To err is human

One of the things I most dislike and something I find quite upsetting is individuals who presume to make judgement on me, or anyone else, without being in full possession of the facts of any given situation!

I suspect we are all guilty of it to a lesser degree occasionally but hopefully most of us then take a step back and consider that there may well be factors surrounding incidents, behaviours or situations that we are not aware of. Most, if not all, things happen for a reason, if we only take the time to look a little deeper.

Having taken the time, if we remain confused most of us I hope, would still retain the sensitivity not to make a judgement or at least not to openly criticise, our lack of understanding is after all not someone else's fault, rather, if any one's, our own.

We all have opinions of course, we don't and nor should we necessarily agree with everything we encounter or the decisions of others but we will none of us ever fathom every situation we encounter. That however that still doesn't give us the right to make judgement. What it should do is remind us to accept that every one of us is different, that we are individuals and that each one of us lives within a slightly different set of emotional and practical specifics, some of our own making and some that we find ourselves having to deal with despite wishing we didn't have to.

Unfortunately that isn't always the case, as most of us know, there will always be people who feel that they are somehow entitled to level criticism at others, that they know what's right, who believe that 'their way' is the only way and for that reason alone we should all choose to take the same path in life as they have chosen.

Perhaps by the same token, rather than get hurt or angry when someone judges us, we should be attempting to understand them and why they react to us in that manner. Maybe their life isn't as sweet as they would have us believe, perhaps they have their own problems they have difficulty coming to terms with and judging others takes the focus away from their own internal wranglings, perhaps standing in judgement helps them to feel more secure about themselves, or perhaps they are just too insular and tied up with their own issues to consider those of others.

It is probably apparent from this post that I am smarting from a recent incident in my own life, one which I found particularly hurtful and one which having looked within myself for some time now, I still find hurtful. I may be oversensitive and that is not a third parties responsibility but what is the responsibility of each of us is a some degree of sensitivity towards one another. We are none of us perfect, we all blunder through life's ups and downs dealing with whatever we face, good or bad, to the best of our ability. We all live our lives within the limitations that we are presented with and to err is human, if indeed we do err, as we are bound too sometimes, in the opinion of anothers. It is not however excuse or reason to pass judgement on issues that most times are none of our business anyway!