Some days....

.....despite all one's best attempts life just feels overwhelming and today is one of those 'sometimes'.

I know there are people worse off than me, much worse off but everywhere I turn today just seems to present a different problem to worry about and like most of my concerns right now, no matter how hard I try I just can't find a viable way around them or out of them.

Mostly I potter along and try my best to have my glass half full but today, for reasons that escape me it is very definitely half empty.

Dammit.

No sex please we're British!

Well then, true to form of late, my efforts at blogging have been severely lacking, it's not that I don't want to, I just don't seem to have the time or in many cases anything I can blog about. So much of my life right now revolves around issues that involve other peoples privacy that there is little left I am free to 'put out there'.

However, there are still a few things I am free to divulge and today's post concerns one of them.

Ok, laugh if you wish but this issue really isn't too funny from my perspective, I can though see why it might cause amusement, particularly given my age!

The relationship with 'N' is still going well, the guy is a star, a lovely man and someone who I am getting way more than fond of...and he, thankfully of me, but as ever in my life even the things that should be straightforward just damn well aren't.

I will have to choose my words carefully from this point on to avoid offense (like any of you would be offended!) but I give you a small warning that the content of this is a little 'adult'.

We have something of an annoying issue going on right now.

There are those I am sure who would still advocate 'courting' in the 'traditional' manner but then there are still also some perhaps who think that the world is flat, me, I think the world is round and I also think that within reasonable bounds of propriety sex is all just part and parcel of any caring relationship, I can't get too hung up about the whole business, it's a natural function, simples.

Not simples! Very not simples!

'N' like myself also lives with his elderly mother and cares for her (really two of us, you couldn't make it up!) He is more tied than I and this presents us with something of a frustrating problem....you can see where this is going can't you!?

Elderly parents, understandably perhaps, think that despite telling us this is our home, only the common areas are allowed for boyfriends/girlfriends to 'inhabit' and to be honest out of respect that wouldn't be an option. Next, either for financial reasons or because our services are required for caring neither of us can be away from home for too long or move out and so now two sets of parents require consideration and organisation instead of one.... result? Opportunities to spend time, er, alone aren't easy!

So... it seems for now we are mostly resigned to chaste kisses and holding hands, how sweet! Not! Ugh! I feel like a damn teenager again, with all the same restrictions and whilst I know it has it's amusing side, believe me, it isn't too amusing in reality....it's bloody frustrating and in my opinion none too healthy emotionally, but we just have no choice!

Please, don't anyone mention cars, I might feel like a teenager but I'm not and don't suggest the old chestnut 'get a room', rooms cost money, we don't have much and anyways to leave both parents that long is not an easy task to accomplish!

One day something will be simple....who am I kidding!

The lastest - Simon's 'Cat in a box'

I adore these videos, they are just so 'cat'...I think most of them, if not all, are posted here as they have been released, this is the latest offering, enjoy!

The ultimate 'awwww' factor

Blatantly stolen from my good friend JW at Welcome to my world...sorry bud but it's just too irresistible!


Cute or what?

Legless cat starts new life?

I'm not entirely sure about this - for all the obvious reasons - she seems happy and appears not to be in any pain but I'm still just not sure, hence the question mark in the post title......

Progress perhaps!

Well then, perhaps, just maybe, possibly, things are beginning to move very slowly in the right direction at last!

It feels like it has been a lifetime in the coming and experience has taught me that anything could change in an instant but right now, right this moment in time, one or two aspects of my life are looking ever so slightly, up.

Firstly there's 'N', the new man in my life, it has it's complications, some of which you just couldn't make up (I'll save the details for another post) but it's good and it's getting gooder. That of course scares the life out of me in itself, for me, with good comes the fear of loss but I am trying really hard not to allow myself to fall into that trap again and to enjoy the here and now...famous last words, don't nag please, I know, self fulfilling prophecies and all that but I'm doing my best.

Secondly there is my job, which in the short term at least seems a tiny little bit more secure. I have worked damn hard to get it to where it is in the three months I have been in the position but if it keeps me employed then it's worth it. It would be nice to feel it was more secure but maybe in this day and age very few people have real job security and after all the time I spent unemployed I am just grateful to have a job at all.

Lastly there is the crap car, tomorrow (I know, Friday the thirteenth but dammit the new me is not going to worry about that....too much) it goes into a garage to have many of the multitude of now very significant and long standing problems it has, fixed. Suspension, drive shaft/CV joint yada yada yada. The bill could be horrific, possibly more than the car is worth but as a discharged bankrupt I don't have a hope in hell of buying a new one so this one is worth way more to me than it's monetary value.

...and you know the best bit? I have saved the money to pay for it myself, all of it, every last penny!

It may seem a small achievement to many but to me, after the last few years of relying on the state or friends and family, you have no idea just how good it feels! If it wipes me out again it will be worth it just for the feeling that knowing I have worked, saved and paid for it myself gives me! :)

I still have many a mountain to climb to get my life anything like where I would like it to be and the rebuilding process continues... but maybe, tentatively, things are beginning to progress in an upward direction just a little.

Apps!

Not much of a post I know but I couldn't resist! :)

Trapped!

Monday morning (I know, I'm a bit late blogging this) I walked into work at stupidly early o'clock, bleary eyed and still struggling to get back to reality from a good weekend....to be greeted by a round of applause!

For a moment I was utterly confused, I had absolutely no idea what was going on but all soon became horribly too apparent.

We have a notice board on the wall which is used to communicate important messages and when they could manage between sniggering and smart remarks my colleagues directed me to take a look...and this is what I saw (for those who don't know, my real name is Jane):


Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Bloody marvellous!

I - do - not - need - this - right - now, I really really don't!

I have no defence in law of course, I can only assume I waswas speeding but annoyingly it was a day my boss had come out with me to attempt to sort out the logistics of my delivery round and fit in a few more drops. I was stressed, under pressure to meet an almost impossible schedule and just moments before he had told me I had three minutes left to make it to my next call.......6 miles away!

My job depends on my being able to make enough calls and take enough money.....it might not be right but it's how it is and to be fair, the more delivery drivers I talk to as I go about my days, the more it seems it's not just my employer, this issue affects all delivery drivers and many of the big multi-drop drivers only do it for a few years before they give up, citing the pressure/traffic/time issues as a reason.

Subsequent to my Monday morning discovery I have been taking much extra care to stick to speed limits but as a result I have been late to many of my calls and ultimately, if I don't take the money I don't have a job, that's the harsh reality and no amount of my knowing it's unfair is going to change that. Businesses run on profit, no profit no business and I do have some sympathy with my boss, it's tough out there right now, really tough and if he goes under so do the rest of us, catch 22!

It's the old thing about 'any job is better than no job', so in the end we do what we have to do I suppose.

However, I see little point trying to tell that to the magistrate so I will pay up and look happy and await the loading on my insurance, which I can barely afford as it stands, let alone at an increased rate.

Sometimes I feel like every time I take a step forward something happens to take me back two!

I feel the need to go find a speed trap app. for my phone/sat nav.

Happiness is....

The growing cynic in me that bubbles beneath the surface of late can't help but like this! ;)

Stunned!!

I had some 'news' recently, provided to me by someone who I admire for their consideration and care. When you hear the news that may seem an odd thing to say but you may understand and those of you who know me well will understand why I say that.

Those of you who read here regularly will recall my unceremonious dispatch from what was a very important relationship in my life about eighteen months ago and the subsequent car wreck my life became. I won't link it here again, it's consigned to history now and I won't name he who committed the deed because that is perhaps unfair but if you know you know.

So...this 'news', bear in mind here that at the time I would have given anything to have had him ask me to marry him....well 'Mr I will never get married I don't believe in the concept and it would be hypocritical, no way, no how, not ever' is getting married or has already got married!!

I don't know too many specifics and I don't want too.

At the 'point of impact' (an email while sat in a coffee shop) you could have knocked me down with a feather, in fact worse than that, I reacted rather badly by spontaneously saying out loud "F*cker" - hopefully not too many overheard!

For a minute or two I didn't really know which way was up and I will admit the 'ouch factor' was very evident, I was pretty much stunned but I quickly recovered my composure and got something of a grip. The reason I say I have nothing but admiration for the person who took the decision to tell me something so difficult is because for me it has finally drawn a hard line under the whole sorry business and reiterates much that I have come to understand about the guy involved and what I believed as opposed to the reality . People change I know but others are just not as honest as one would like to think.

I would like to be a big enough person to wish him hasppiness but I'm not sure I am, I do however hope he has finally and honestly found what he is looking for, if only to avoid someone else going through what I did....I was not the first by a long chalk. Some relationships just aren't meant to be perhaps and I apparently wasn't 'the one' but he had some p[retty heavy duty history where any kind of commitment was concerned and maybe I just should have known better from the start.

Hey ho.....

ooopssss....

.....sorry, was that a whole week just gone by without a single post? Hmmmm I think so!

Oooppssss!

Um, what can I say, I am being particularly crap here lately but I am having way too good a time and I just can't seem to find the time for this blogging thing too often right now.

My mother is currently away for a few days with my sister, work is pretty manic and well, the new guy 'thing' is going good as they say. I barely seem to make it online at all at the moment, let alone long enough to blog, or moreover to read blogs.

I have emails coming out of my ears waiting for a response, a head full of things I want to write here and all manner of other stuff I really should get too but hey....life's too short!

Please don't abandon me though, I'm getting myself sorted into a new routine and I will be back up to speed any day now.

Really! ;)

I have been remiss....and busy!

Ha, so my promises to return to some kind of 'normality' and blog more frequently seem to have come thus far to nothing.

This time I appear to have surpassed myself...it's a whole week since my last post which I think is probably a record bad blogger incident for me. I really don't know if I have missed an entire week anytime before now!

Life just keeps on getting in the way but for a change it's a very nice bit of life, in fact more than nice! Dates four, five and six with 'N' were on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of this last weekend, cinema, dinner, walks and much talking and drinking of coffee have filled my weekend and I have loved every minute of it. (And hopefully he has too!)

It is just so good to feel something normal and nice again, to feel like not everything in life is crap and to notice myself smiling stupidly still when faced with the less pleasant aspects of my life right now. Things just don't seem so bad and maybe, just maybe, my faith in the male of the species is being a little restored at last!

Yes, I'm still scared witless that it will all go the way of hell.... and this fledgling relationship is not without it's difficulties (is anything I wonder), he too is stuck caring for an elderly mother with no apparent route of escape, but somehow things work out if the are supposed too and I'm gonna keep telling myself that and make a damned good attempt at positivity. ;)

Dead!

My apologies for the starkness of title of this post but it's significant.

Among all the hoo-ha of the last eighteen months my mind has been so full of just dealing with the situations I found myself in and trying to cope with them that in a strange way I didn't really have time to think. I'm not sure if that's entirely a bad thing, I suspect in fact it's the reverse and that had I been able to mull over the minutiae to a greater degree it would only have hindered my ability to get on with the matters in hand.

Not much of it was good, most of you who read here regularly already know the timeline, my being unceremoniously ditched by the guy I thought at the time was the love of my life wrong!, the diagnosis of my fathers terminal cancer just when we thought he had beaten it, the death then of a close friend from cancer and lastly the death exactly a week later of my father.

The whole period was madness, I remember it really as a blur of trying to organise, administer and control umpteen medications, constant hospital visits and procedures, trying to keep everyone 'afloat' and positive, trying to make what time my Dad had left as tolerable as possible for him and of a constant underlying feeling of panic that I wouldn't cope and the obvious sadness that ultimately, whatever we did, the outcome was not going to be good.

I just never had time to think and no sooner had the inevitable happened and my Dad had turned up his toes than I was catapulted into another difficult situation, taking care of my mother and dealing with the fallout.... but today was different.

Today, and I have no idea why it was today, I was driving my white van merrily along the road when seemingly like a bolt from the blue, with tremendous and almost physical force it hit me; my dad is dead, like really dead, like never coming back, absolutely dead and gone. I can remember his face as clear as day, I can hear his voice in my head easily but I won't ever see him again, never, not ever, he really is completely and utterly dead.

Forever. Fin. The End.

I use the stark language that I do because that's how it feels, in my face, real, stark, tangible at last. I don't quite know what I feel about it right now, at the moment it hit me I felt a sadness like I don't ever remember before but it was strangely brief and I'm glad I felt it, it felt real and accepting and has somehow allowed me to suddenly remember in detail things I think I had tried not to think about and buried away.

There is so much stuff, lots of it right now appears to be centered around his last few months of life, but not necessarily sad stuff, just stuff, stuff about the time I spent nursing him and some of the amusing (if sometimes gross) things that happened despite the circumstances, about how that time bought us closer and how we could laugh however desperate the situation became.

I suspect in the near future I may regale you with some of those tales, it's cathartic for me and some are worth sharing for various reasons... but mostly I feel that maybe the real me, who I battened down for so long with such alacrity to enable me to cope with the here and now, is finally emerging again with the acceptance, however difficult, that it's really all over.

My dad is dead. It's real. I have to cope now without him because he's gone and I'm not......

....and he would be as miffed as bloody hell with me if I didn't!

I am almost....

....afraid to even type this post for fear of putting my usual hex, or some other heinous infliction, on the situation but as one who has always maintained she isn't superstitious, I shall be brave and continue!

The man, you knew before I even began of course that was going to be the subject of this post didn't you?!

So, the man, let's just call him 'N' for now, is positively lovely and surprisingly he appears to think the same of me, he's open, honest, upfront and doesn't play games, so far it has been way too simple, there have been no traumas, no let downs, nothing suspicious and none of the usual crap and bother that seem to have been the norm where the men I have dated recently have been concerned.

Friday, date number 2, we went out for dinner, a balmy summers evening sat on the restaurant terrace, eating and drinking and chatting like we had known one another for for much longer than a few weeks, followed by a moonlit walk...... we didn't want the evening to end!

Sunday, date number 3, a walk along the Thames at Marlow hand in hand, laughing and talking and larking around (that is not a euphemism) like a pair of kids, a drink in a lovely bar and then hours just talking.....We didn't want the evening to end!

What more can I say? Maybe that I seem to have a ridiculously stupid grin plastered on my face most of the time and life feels a whole lot better suddenly, even the tough stuff doesn't seem quite so tough right now :)

What else can I say, I am scared bloody witless, I like this feeling, I really like this man and I don't want things to go their usual way of late....straight to hell.

This time it matters.

Fingers crossed please if you would.