Come a Long Way, Baby

Less than six hours left of 2006, and here I am in Germany. So you could argue that I have indeed come a long way, in terms of geography as well as in terms of where my life has travelled to in the last twelve months.

I've already rambled on at length about all of those changes.

Christmas was great...I really had a good time. It's been a fun week and a bit. Soon be time to head back, though. As usual, I miss the fact that it seems to have flown by without me realising it, almost. Seems like a day ago that I was thinking there was more than a week still ahead, and now I have to start thinking about going home the day after tomorrow...bummer.

I hate this time of year. I really do.

Apart from being extremely soppy...

I'm not doing too badly.

Much to my continued amusement, the ex (who is henceforth to be known as Butthead - how extremely fitting that I bought him a Butthead figurine, then, for his 30th birthday back in April), keeps contacting me and asking whether he can buy me a meal. 'Eight years is a long time to decide you don't want to be with someone any more', bleats he. 'Why don't you crawl back under your rock and leave me alone?', thinks I. Although of course I am too damn nice to say that to his face.

I did have to tell him that yeah, I'm seeing someone new and we're very happy. I didn't tell him that actually, I love him and he says that he loves me and all the rest of it. Though he does know that I'm spending Christmas and New Year with him. He says that he's still seeing Gemma, who he picked up off some internet dating agency or other.

I suppose I have an advantage there, given that I already knew D and have done to one degree or another for over three years. True, we haven't known each other well for all of that time, but we'd seen enough of each other around the place to move on from nodding acquaintances to occasional mailroom visitors to friends and so on to where we are now. I wouldn't ever say I know everything there is to know - can anyone ever truly say that of another human being? I know that I know enough to know that I like him very much.

Work is as ever hectic. A couple of new care cases have come along in the last two months, which will nicely plug the gap left by the two that are due to finish in a couple of months' time. The existing ones are mainly plodding along nicely, but there is one or two that will occasionally flare into life and require all hands on deck. One of the new ones is presently in crisis, which is great fun. The Official Solicitor needs to come on board for my client as she is mentally incapable so cannot provide me with instructions. I haven't run my own case with the OS before, so that will be a good experience for me.

Christmas is fast approaching - I am off to hit Thorntons to get some odds and ends for various people. Chocolate and the aunts sounds like a good idea to me, and Mando and Liz will always eat it, so that as a backup to the wine is a winner. Not at all in any way original, but I cannot be arrised!

My brother is a little bit miffed I am not going home for Christmas, but given that it has been a hit and miss affair since I left home umpteen years ago I don't think he can really complain. And he has the wife and the stepkids and all their family around him, not to mention tons of mates. It will be the first Christmas without Dad's presence, but with the senility as it was in his last few years, his presence wasn't really there anyway. We're I think dealing pretty well with the loss of the physical person now, having really done our grieving for the man himself a couple of years ago when pretty much all trace of him was lost.

I expect I will be a little bit sad on Christmas day itself, but not for long. It's more of a bittersweet sadness nowadays. I know they're still watching over me, and that's a huge comfort to me. And I will be with someone I love on the day itself, without having to worry about not upsetting his family. At least so far as I know it will be just the two of us. And the cats. Mustn't forget the furbabies!

This afternoon is the funeral and cremation service for my cousin Lynn, who died while I was away the other weekend. I don't think I'd seen her since I was maybe 13 or so...I don't recall her being at her grandfather's funeral in 2000 or 2001 because I'm sure I'd remember that, having not seen her for so very long. She can't have been much more than 40, I wouldn't have said, and had at least one relatively young child from her second marriage. Poor cow - she really picked them. A diabetic alcoholic who by the time their divorce was finalised had had both his legs amputated and was dead within a year of that (I do remember him at Uncle Dick's funeral because he had two false legs and walked with the aid of crutches - I just don't recall Lynn, or her kids). And the second one doesn't sound to have been much better.

She had a romance with a guy from home...Al reports that he was absolutely beside himself when he heard she'd gone. Seems he really loved her, but when she went home to Telford that summer, her mum destroyed his letters. So, she married Alun and that was the end of that. I never realised he'd liked her so much.

I seem to recall snogging him on a couple of occasions the summer before I went to law school...that was years after he and Lynn. I must have been all of 13 when they were an item, so that would have been a good 13 or 14 years before we kissed.

I'm too swamped in work to head off to the funeral. Al and I have sent flowers, well I've sent them from both of us. I feel mean for not going. It's all excuses, really. I can't face it. Don't want to. My mum would have given me a right old flea in the ear were she here, but then I'd have been going with her, not representing our end of the line.

So. There you have it. Pretty much a year of my life is recorded in this blog. I've moved jobs. I've moved geographical location. I've made it through the death of my father. I've seen my relationship of some 8 and a half years finally flounder. And here I am, falling it seems quite happily in love with someone new. Quite a year...I wonder what the next year holds?

Patience

I've never been very good at waiting. Patience is not a virtue I possess. I always have wanted everything now, not in a week or a month. Not even an hour.

It's funny how vivid my memories are still. It's only been a little over a week, I know (laughing at myself here) but it does surprise me somewhat that certain things keep coming back into my mind and making me smile.

The most surprising thing is how quickly all of this has happened, is happening. Now I'm worrying it will burn itself out in next to no time. How ridiculous is that?

Time is something that does prey on my mind. For a number of reasons, some of them more obvious than others. Perhaps the speed of things has something to do with that. Perhaps not. I know I love you, although I wouldn't yet be at the stage of saying so had you not sprung it on me out of the blue the way you did. I didn't hesitate before telling you that because I had to think whether I do or not...it was because I needed to consider whether I could let myself admit to that yet.

Rollercoasters, eh?

My head is filled with thoughts of you

...and it really doesn't worry me all that much.

Except for the fact that I don't appear to be getting very much work done. Which isn't so great. My desk should be clear by now as I haven't had to go to court, or to a meeting, or seen a client. Think I've worked on four matters all day.

I'm easily distracted much of the time as it is, goodness only knows. I can hardly bear not to be with you - although I know that it will likely make seeing you again all the sweeter, it doesn't ease the cravings any.

I wrote you another letter yesterday. You should get that soon, although the Christmas post will most likely delay matters.

I wish you'd come home earlier...it's so late by the time you get in, I'm constantly sleepy. And often even if I do stay up till stupid o'clock, I miss you anyway.

I think I might be becoming a little obsessive. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I know I'm supposed to be acting like the sensible one of the two of us and slowing things down. Apparently. I don't feel as though I want to, though.

I miss you. I miss laying next to you. I miss watching your face as you sleep. I miss the way you smell. I miss your laugh. I miss all kinds of things...

there’s still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
there’s still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
it’s still a little hard to say what's going on

there’s still a little bit of your ghost your weakness
there’s still a little bit of your face i haven't kissed
you step a little closer each day
that i can’t say what's going on

stones taught me to fly
love taught me to lie
life, it taught me to die
so it's not hard to fall
when you float like a cannonball

there’s still a little bit of your song in my ear
there’s still a little bit of your words i long to hear
you step a little closer to me
so close that i can't see what's going on

stones taught me to fly
love, it taught me to lie
life taught me to die
so it's not hard to fall
when you float like a cannon..
stones taught me to fly
and love taught me to cry
so come on courage
teach me to be shy
cause it's not hard to fall
and i don't wanna scare you
it's not hard to fall
and i don't wanna lose
it's not hard to grow
when you know that you just don't know

Three Little Words

...that I never expected to hear. Not this soon.

I keep wanting to pinch myself. Maybe I'm crazy, I don't know. It's all so fast. Faster than I thought, but somehow it doesn't feel wrong. There's been a kind of inevitability about this whole thing since it began, really. Just one of my spooky witchy feelings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fq55sijxsg

Christmas Just Isn't the Same

You know, despite my much-avowed grinchiness and general grumpiness around all things Christmassy, this is actually one of my favourite times of the year. Or at least, it always used to be. When my mother was alive, Christmas was a time for family and was something I looked forward to all year. Christmas was a really magical time.

Since mum died, and Dad became manifestly senile, we haven't had a proper family Christmas. In fact, the last family Christmas we had was 1999. In 2000, I was working out my notice at a firm in Bradford, and they wouldn't let me have December 27 off to travel the 500 miles South from 'home'. I know, what could they have done to me - made finish work at Christmas and not January 19, which was my actual finish date? Still, I was a good girl then as I am now, and so I did as I was told and came back down to England on Christmas Eve, somewhat tearful and with a suitcase full of presents. I spent that Christmas with the ex and his parents. Which was perfectly enjoyable, but just not the same as being with my mum and dad and my crazy kid brother and my even crazier Nan.

In August 2001, Mum died. Christmas that year was not an especially fun time. We busted Nan out of hospital in Inverness on Christmas Eve with a promise to return her on Boxing Day. I wrecked my back carrying her up the stairs into the house - she couldn't have navigated the steep slope of the back yard which is pretty rutted and torn up, and my brother may be a strong lad but his back is ruined from carrying seven stone boxes of prawns around from his days on the fishing boats. We manhandled her into the front room eventually, but within two feet of the couch and facing the wrong way she decided all 120 pounds of her was hitting the floor, right then and there. Thankfully I was behind her with my arms locked round her middle at the time, but the only option I had was to fall to my knees faster than she could topple and pull her down onto my lap. I am wincing just thinking of it, believe me.

Christmas 2002, Dad was really senile and Nan was dead. I don't recall whether I went home or not. I think not. 2003 I'm not sure. 2004 I think I did, certainly 2004 because last year the ex made a huge song and dance about my not having told him I wasn't spending Christmas with his family. This despite the fact I'd been telling him since around June that I was going home, on average at least once a week!

The Christmas tree we had at home was the same fake tree we'd had for all of my lifetime. So the poor thing was around 30 the last time we ever put it up. We used to festoon the whole living room with decorations and swathes of cards. That tailed off in later years, mainly because Mum was working too hard to do much and Dad had no real interest in it. The tree was always put up though, and always the Sunday before Christmas. The presents then went under the tree on Christmas Eve, just before we went to bed. Some of the decorations on the tree were as old as the tree itself, too. I chiefly remember the delicate glass and metal ornaments, one of which I decided to put my thumb through one Christmas when I was tiny. I spent the night crying, with my thumb slathered in ichthammol ointment to draw out the splinters and bandaged up. It worked, though.

Anyway. When the ex and I moved in together, and we were renting, we never bothered with Christmas decorations. It wasn't even until Christmas 2004 that we actually bought a tree and decorations, despite having bought - or rather, he having bought - the house in 2003. I did go home that year, because the move happened the day I was travelling home so I wasn't around to help. I came home to find there was a passage from the front door to the kitchen through the front room and apart from the beds which were upstairs, everything else was dumped in the front room. So much for my carefully packing the boxes and labelling which room they needed to go into...It was just possible to get to the one clear armchair to sit down in front of the TV, which of course was plugged in and the Playstation all set up.

I left the tree behind...I didn't need a 6' fake blue spruce tree. I left the angel lights we chose together too. I did take the tree ornaments and the fluffy snowball lights I bought last year. Last week I bought a £4.97 4' fake tree in Asda and have just put it up. Yeah, it's too early. But I wanted to do it. I only have a couple of weeks or so to enjoy it in, so I may as well do it now. And it's made me feel sad and nostalgic, but not in a good way.

I feel as though everything I took for granted as a certainty in my life is gone. Which is I suppose what happens to that which we take for granted. It's funny. By now, I always thought I would be married off to someone, with children of my own and the kind of chaotically noisy, busy household that I grew up in. What happened?!

Huh. Introspection is a marvellous thing. Nearly as good as hindsight.

Rollercoaster

I once equated love with a rollercoaster ride.

There's the long cranking uphill ride to the top of that first drop. The anticipation of the plummet into who-knows-what. The delicious excitement of falling headlong into the unknown. And then, as the ride progresses and the journey builds up speed, further climbs and drops as it builds speed and becomes more intense with every rise and fall.

Have you ever watched people getting off a rollercoaster? Some of them are green-faced, knock-kneed, vomit-covered wrecks. Others are glowing and laughing and so alive they practically crackle.

If I let you take me on this ride, where will it take us? Do you even want to try? Dare we?

Should we?

Could we?

Will we?

I think that maybe - just maybe for now, no more than maybe - I'd like to try.

Can You Keep a Secret?

I'm not sure it's really a secret. Not really secret. Well. I don't know that it's a 'shout it from the rooftops' sort of a thing or even a 'need-to-know basis' type thing. What I do know is it involves me, someone else, and the need for a new passport.

I don't think I've ever been quite so excited at getting a passport. (It took exactly 9 days, 10 if you count the day it was posted, to arrive. Considering when I got the first one folk were waiting months for them - this was in 1995 - I think that's pretty impressive). I arrived home last night and the mailbox by the door was empty. I knew I could expect the passport any day soon as they rang me last Friday to check something and told me it would arrive within five working days then. I still felt rather deflated on finding the mailbox empty...

I let myself into the flat. The door opens outwards and takes you straight into the kitchen, up a couple of steps and along to the far end where there is the bathroom directly ahead and the living room to the right. The light switch is at this far end. It being just about 7 pm on a November evening, it was already dark, so I couldn't see terribly well. I could however see well enough to spot a small rectangular envelope on the kitchen worktop! That was it - bags dropped, envelope ripped open, cries of glee and bouncing off the walls ensuing.

Of course, he wasn't home from work himself at that time of the day, so I had to wait hours to tell him. He seemed quite pleased himself.

My colleague Liz keeps grinning at me and calling me a dirty bitch. I cannot imagine why. Funny how everyone around me has noticed how much happier I've been since breaking up with the ex. I'd have been happier without the possibility of something altogether potentially quite wonderful maybe starting - it's a marvellously happy bonus.

Life's a gamble from start to finish. And as they say, 'better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all'. Not that I'm in love or anything like that - far too soon to be talking about that manner of thing. But if you don't place a bet, you can't enter the game, can you?

From a jack to a king
from loneliness to a wedding ring
I played an Ace and I won a Queen
and walked away with your heart

From a jack to a king
with no regrets I stacked the cards last night
And Lady Luck played her hand just right
to make me king of your heart

For just a little while I thought that I might lose the game
Then just in time I saw the twinkle in your eye

From a jack to a king
from loneliness to a wedding ring
I played an Ace and I won a Queen
you made me king of your heart

For just a little while...

(Written by Ned Miller)

So, there you have it. I am a dirty bitch with a passport, a huge smile and a secret.

Patience is a virtue

That's what they tell me, anyway.

Hello out there reader (I know I have one!), it's been a long while since I last wrote.

So, where to begin? Well, since September 23rd I've been single, for all of 8 days (technically - does VT count the same as RT, do you think? I mean, I wouldn't dream of starting something RT with anyone new because that would be unfair VT, right? Or is that a weird way of looking at things? Thing is that to me, on the emotional level it's pretty much the same whether VT or RT - online and via phone calls, you get to know something about someone, enough to know whether you find the personality attractive. And I do. It is what it is. What it is though i don't think I could rightly say. I know it's been quite literally years since I experienced anything quite like this, and on certain levels it is something completely new. No names, no pack drill - some things I don't give away. Whether I'll ever meet him RT or not I don't know. I'm shy! I might joke about it but I wouldn't have the bottle to grasp the nettle and say 'come on then, come and visit'. Besides, think of all the housework I'd have to do to make the place properly presentable).

So, yes, single in some ways, for all of eight days. One day for every year I was with CtOR. I am a bad girl sometimes, and I have to say I think I deserve to be.

How I came to be single again is something I don't really want to discuss or go into. Do I have any regrets about it? Not really, not apart from wishing I'd been the one to make the break and to have had the courage to make it years ago. It wasn't as bad as I'd feared, although the immediate aftermath was tough. Great friends helped to drag me through that and out the other side.

Speaking of friends, I made some new ones RT through VT, if you see what I mean, folk I met at another chatroom I use which shall forever remain nameless. Never the twain shall meet, and with good reason. I love the internet for that, the fact you can meet people who have similar interests and what have you and develop friendships over months and years and then when you meet them you discover that they are true friends. I have fantastic friends and I love them all, slushy as that may be. Yes, if you think I consider you a friend and you are reading this, I love you too. Even you.

The biggest event of the last almost-month though is the death of my father. That belongs to another post, when I have had the time and the thinking space to sift through my memories and impressions. People say nice things about you when you're dead. Sometimes they don't marry up with your own memories or experiences, and I find myself needing to examine comments made and trawl through past events. I will be seeing many family members on Thursday at the service in England that I haven't seen in years, and we will talk and laugh and share memories and thoughts of him. That is something that oddly I am looking forward to very much. That will be my real farewell to him, remembering him in the company of others connected by blood and kinship, in laughter and in tears.

My head is in such a whirl. There are so many things for me to be happy for, but I feel bad for feeling happy. Not just because I feel as though I should be denying myself happiness while I grieve decently, but also because having just emerged from a long relationship I don't know whether the things I'm feeling are real or solid or anything more than ephemeral. And how do you ask a VT lover what his intentions are, anyway? Does he even know? I don't know. I won't unless I ask, I know that, but - it's that whole shyness thing. Is it real or just fantasy?

You could say the same about this dream that we call life.

Widgets!

We have now returned from our trip to the Isle of Wight (or the Isle of Widget, as some of my friends refer to it).

Sandown was not quite what we were expecting - sort of Chav-on-Sea, although not so bad as Ryde. And the traffic was sheer bloody murder. Not quite the south of England of twenty years ago, as many had said, more like the M25 on an island.

Not that I'm moaning at all, because we had a pretty great holiday!

The hotel was quite literally surrounded by a park: originally the main building was a big manor house set in seven acres, and most of that is now Los Altos park in Sandown. The grounds of the hotel are still big enough to house red quirrels (the IOW is one of their last UK strongholds) as well as a fox and - really excitingly! - a badger! A real live badger just snuffling around the back of the hotel, visible from the bedroom window.

We went to Amazon World, where we watched a falconry display, and I somehow managed to volunteer to be a tree for a Harris Hawk, who swooped down and nabbed some chicken from the top of the head. Then I was asked to make like a ballerina with my hands clasped way above my head, and he flew through the space between my arms. That was incredible - I never expected to come so close to such a beautiful creature. Apparently I didn't flinch at all. Which is funny, cos I could have sworn I had my eyes squeezed shut.

We also went to the Tiger Sanctuary. That was also incredible - the tigers were pretty impressive, the staff very knowledgeable and there were loads of other animals and birds to see.

The Needles were a bit less impressive than I'd expected, though we didn't take the walk to the Battery to get a good look at them. We did take the chairlift down to Alum Bay...I feel sick just thinking about it - and I let him persuade me to go back up again as well! I swear, if I could have jumped out and run away 200 feet up, I would have done. I was bloody terrified. I didn't think I was afraid of heights, either. *Greening*

Shanklin Chine at night when it's all illuminated was pretty good. Very pretty. Shanklin itself, beachwise anyway. Although it was dark when we got there, the sea front looked far less commercialised. Much more Whitby-esque, which is what we were expecting.

The ferry trip over and back was cool, too. And apparently on the M40 we missed seeing Paul Daniels' car by about 40 minutes, with it's MAG 1C number plate. *lol*

They Do It Differently Up There

Well, honestly. I never realised how different even the physical court layout would be to the English system - nor did I realise till too late that the Sheriff is not quite equivalent to a District Judge, but is altogether more senior and so should be addressed as 'My Lord'. So no wonder then that calling him 'Sir' was getting me fish-eyed glares from him...thank goodness Sheriff Fraser is long since retired, because I can't imagine he'd have let me off with it.

I knew the legal system was different. Very different. The policeman kept going on about Mooroff (sp?) evidence and the common law and what-not. I think this seems to be something to with corroborative evidence. Several of us were telling the same or very similar stories so there must be something in it, basically.

I got a lift through to D------- with another witness and his wife, who was there for moral support. Had a couple of sneaky fags on the way. Me, nervous, about going to court? Damn bloody right, I was shitting bricks, for want of a better phrase. It's one thing getting up on your hind feet and putting on a performance to convince a bench or DJ to side with you. Quite a different thing to be giving evidence in a criminal case against a man you've known since you were 6 and who you once counted a friend. Especially when you've just found out that that man is suspected of paedophile offences against a number of young men and boys, including a relative of mine. A man who threatened your brother, mentioned getting a shotgun and shooting those who deserved it and by the way, I think I'll just pop into the nursing home and see your old man...and someone asked me if I thought the experience had made me a better lawyer and I could empathise with my clients more closely. I couldn't do this job if I was unable to empathise with my clients already, but apparently we lawyers are nerveless creatures untouched by human emotion. Except avarice, presumably!

The charge I was giving evidence in respect of seemed to be one of threatening behaviour, though I'm not sure as no charge was read out in front of me, nor was I told at any stage. I waited in the witness room across from the court room along with the other witnesses. Shortly after 10 am the Procurator Fiscal (the prosecuting lawyer) came in and had a chat with us. The accused pleaded guilty to a couple of the charges, so two of the witnesses were told they could leave and scuttled off sharpish before he could change his mind. About a quarter to eleven, JU was called to give her evidence, and PG and I had a nervy wait till about 11.30 when he was called in.

My turn came shortly before midday. We'd been kept company throughout by the officer in the case, PC CM. I only knew his first name as we're rather informal in the village. It's a small place so they live and socialise amongst the people they serve (and occasionally arrest) so it pays for us all to get along, I suppose. They've always been right with me and mine, although my brother has had a couple of speeding tickets, and indeed used to associate with the accused a few years ago and was interviewed about some of the offences the accused had committed in the past. No charges were ever preferred against my brother, who may be daft but isn't stupid. Anyway, C cracked numerous jokes and told outrageous stories about cases he'd worked on in the past.

The usher came for me as I said, shortly before midday. I followed her into the courtroom and laid my coat and book down on a chair behind the witness box. The box was raised up and to the left of the Sheriff and to the side of him. The PF had his back to me and the defence lawyer was facing me, one either side of a big rectangular table made out of heavy wood. The PF walked round to the opposite side to face me and began asking me his questions. My name. My care of address (Bradford Central police station!). My profession (the Sheriff raised an eyebrow at that one). Then he asked me if I remembered the events of April 29, to which I said yes. Before I had to give him any details he asked me if I could see the accused in the courtroom, to which I replied yes, he's sitting in the dock. Could I point him out? Well. Nice. I had to look across to where DR was sitting and point him out. I didn't look at his face. I couldn't bring myself to.

The questions from the PF were not so bad. Just taking me back through what had happened, in what sequence, what was said and by whom. I felt a bit lame at the end when he asked me how our conversation had ended because I'd said to C I wasn't really sure how to describe it and he'd put down 'friendly chat'. But that was the weird part of it, as I explained, DR had been so matter of act and ordinary even when what he was saying was totally outrageous and nonsensical.

The defence lawyer attempted to take me apart and largely I think failed. I can't really go into some of it because it relates to other people close to me and I don't wish to go there. I got in the classic line 'You don't antagonise a rabid dog, do you? I wanted to keep him sweet because I was frightened by what he was saying and wanted to get away in one piece'.

The upshot of the morning was that because H, my sister in law, was unable to attend that day to give evidence, they decided they needed to hear from her on a later date and so she had to go back on June 14 to give her evidence, as did C. DR was found guilty of the charges relating to mine and H's evidence and JU's evidence, but not of PG's. Sentence deferred for reports to June 30th, so another update on Friday!

Part of DR's defence was that the sisters in law (me and H) had made up a story because DR had said he'd had an affair with my brother! H nearly died laughing in the witness box and replied 'I don't think so!!!' in very stern tones. *lol* It was an interesting experience all round, but not one I think I would want to repeat any time soon at all. If ever.

When I said I would be taking the High Road again...

I hadn't imagined I would be literally doing so.

Being prone to doing things at the last minute (and not being paid till the last Thursday in the month, bizarrely), I rang up the Procurator Fiscal's office in D------- to find out if the trial was still in the list for this week and was I still required. They confirmed I was, so I asked how I went about claiming my travel back. A very shocked young woman informed me that oh no, I don't pay for my own ticket - they buy it and send me the rail ticket in the post.

I said oh, oh, right. So you sort it all out for me then?

Oh, said she. Ah. Well, you'd need to ring back tomorrow anyway cos the girl that does the travel warrants isn't working today, but it's ok because you'll be coming up Tuesday anyway...

No, I say, I figured if I am coming all that way I may as well spend some time with my family, and as Monday is a Bank Holiday and I need to take a day either side of the trial for travel, I may as well come up on Saturday or Sunday.

Oh, says she. Well, you'll need to fly then.

Fly? You'll pay for me to fly up?!

Och yes!

So I rang back the next day and spoke to Laura, who booked me on to a flight from my local airport up to Inversneckie. My brother commented that after I'd flown up the once I'd never want to get the train again. Let me put it to you like so - £96.20 for 6 and a half hours bored witless on a train (7 and a half to 8 if you have to change anywhere, and quite often there are rail replacement buses due to engineering works) or £99.60 if you book far enough in advance for 1 hour 25 in the air and a half hour drive to the airport from home? OK, so you have to be at the airport no later than half an hour before the flight leaves, but you literally arrive in Inversneckie, get into the terminal, the bags appear and off you go and it takes five minutes. Had we not gone to the supermarket on the way home, I would have been back indoors less than four hours after leaving our house in West Yorkshire. You can't whack it, you really can't. Specially as the train journey comes after an hour in the car to York from home, or two trains and again about an hour, hour and a quarter, if no lift is available.

So, I flew up. On an aeroplane the size of a postage stamp. A 29 seater Jetstream 41, courtesy of Eastern Airways.

I have rarely been so scared in all my puff, especially when we hit some pretty bad turbulence. I thought I might need to use the sickbag, but gladly had no need to recourse to it. It was nearly as bad as my brother's driving at over 100 mph over a set of bumps in the road near here. When your head is rebounding off the roof of the aeroplane/car, you know it's bumpy out there.

But I'm here!

Taking the High Road Again

Oh, frabjous joy.

(And, indeed, Calloo! Callay!)

The date for the trial has been brought forward to May 31. Wednesday of next week, in fact. So, another trip up home for me, and sooner than anticipated at that. I could wish it were for a nicer reason too. I don't mind admitting that I am losing sleep over it. Silly of me, really, but it is true unfortunately that it is much different a prospect to know that you will be the one being examined and cross-examined and not the one asking the questions.

Conducting my own advocacy at trial level always made me nervous anyway. I talk too much when I get nervous, which isn't good.

I'm tired and I want it all to be over. And we all think he is going to change his plea at the last minute anyway, possibly on the day of the trial itself. What a waste of time and effort that will be, travelling umpteen hundred miles for nothing.

Looking on the bright side, I get to spend some time with the family. And I think my brother could use a bit of sisterly support. The sister-in-law is not too bright either as she had a big operation last week. So all in all, not a bad time to be going back up necessarily. Just much sooner than anticipated.

And another thing!

Received a text from L this afternoon (checks clock) - yesterday afternoon now.

'MG has been fired! Praise the Lord!'

Karma is your friend.

We like Karma.

Karma Kicks Ass.

I must not gloat...a friend says it's simply Schadenfreude that I feel, not gloatingness.

I must NOT gloat. Gloating is bad. Gloating leads to Karma biting the gloater on the bum.

But oh, ME! I bet that stings!

What Happened Next

Let's put it this way.

I have to go back up home some time in the next couple of months, so far as we presently know, to appear as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of someone I used to consider a friend. This friend is accused of making threats to kill, of threatening behaviour, and of assault. One of the people he threatened was my brother.

I am not the only witness. Not by far.

Something else also came to light about this person. Ironic, given the job I used to do - it seems he has been for years involved in perpetrating sexual assaults of varying degrees of severity on young boys. I never had a clue, I just never imagined any of it. I am almost more upset by that fact than by anything else.

I don't really feel able to talk about it. Partly because you never know who's reading this. Partly because it is just too...raw. Too big to really take in all at once.

This is why I haven't updated this blog for so long.

Wedding Bells

Well, actually, there were no bells.

It was a register office do, you see.

My baby brother had arranged his wedding for October this year. The plan was always that they were going to run off to the nearest town to get married and they weren't going to tell anyone except their two witnesses - one of whom was me. (Initially they were going to grab two strangers off the street, but apparently nowadays you have to provide the names and addresses to the registrar well in advance).

He decided though that he couldn't wait. His business being predominantly seasonal, the other bookings he could have picked before October were all in midsummer, which is just not possible for him. So, he went for the nearest date available that was at a time of year he could manage.

Hence the phone call I received on April 11th to ask me what was I doing on April 28th? Well, basically I was due back at work on Monday 24th after a week and a half off for CtOR's operation, so I reckoned I would be at work. I was soon made aware this was not acceptable, and so found myself having to throw myself on the mercy of the office manager. When she heard the reason for my wanting a further two days' off, she was more than happy to say yes.

CtOR couldn't risk travelling so far from the specialist so soon after the operation, so I went up on my own. Thanks to the wonders of our railway system, or more particularly the lorry hitting a bridge on our local line and blocking it, I left at the ungodly hour of 4.45 am to be sure of getting a bus into town to get a train to Leeds on a different line and thence to York to make the train I was booked on. I think we got into the house at the other end some time around 8 pm, after a stagger round the shops, a further stagger round Tesco and a trip to the Chinese. I popped up to the nursing home to see dad for half an hour, as I'd not been up since August last year.

I ended up getting to bed far later than planned, having burnt a CD of two songs for the bride's arrival and the departure of the happy couple. (Two Shania Twain songs - From this Moment and Still the One).

The wedding day itself dawned overcast with us, but was sunny on the other side of the country as we hit Inverness. My brother drove the two of us in, the bride travelling with her witness. He wanted to hear the music the bride had chosen. I cried. We had a serious conversation about Important Things. I cried. I gave him the speech I think our Mum would have given him if she'd been with us. I cried.

He was so nervous - I cried. I pretty much cried all the way till the registrar pronounced them man and wife. Which meant my brother turning to me and hissing 'For goodness' sake, quit blubbering and give me the ring!' which made everyone laugh, including me. Although not as much as when the registrar instructed him to place the ring on my finger, resulting in us swapping a look of sheer and total panic till she corrected herself.

The rest of the day is a blur of champagne and good food. And more champagne. Much, much more champagne. I could quite fancy some more champagne now actually.

There was even a surprise party arranged by one of the bride's friends for after the evening meal. There were 6 other guests at the wedding in the end, but my brother had me take a photo of them on his mobile phone to text to their friends. One of whom was actually 32 miles offshore at the time on his fishing boat, having decided to go out for the first time that week at 5 am that day. He thought it was a wind-up at first and accused his partner of keeping secrets from him when he heard it was true.

All in all, a really fantastic day.

What came next was not so good, but has no place in this post.

Gambling

It was the Grand National Saturday before last.

I have a fairly good record where that particular race is concerned. I've picked every winner since 1992, maybe 1991 (Party Politics is the first one that stands out, that was in 92).

I don't follow the form guide, nor do I tend to look at the odds. I pick a name I like, or that resonates to me. It must have a meaning to me, ideally. Party Politics - there was an election the week after, connection there, bet on that one. Mister Frisk - loved the sound of the name, all fast and swishy and prancy like a highly-strung horse.

Minnehoma...was a last-minute pick, I heard the old boys on the street corner talking about it and had to dash back to the bookies to put a quid on it. My mum used to call me (among many things) Minnie Ha-ha, which I think might be something to do with Hiawatha, but may not be. Anyway, I thought Minnehoma sounded quite close to that, so on went my quid. I remember Michael the bookie laughing at me and telling me it was a total nag. *g*

So, this year's race. I was drawn to Numbersixvalverde, and put £3 on it to win. Which it did.

Why that horse, when it would appear at first glance to have no connection for me at all?

Well, this is mostly tenuous - CtOR laughed at me before the race.

'Come in number six, your time is up' is something my mother and I would often call to each other. (Don't ask me why the hell we would, we just did, and it always cracked us up).

My mother's name was Valerie, but mostly she was called Val.

And her favourite hymn of all was 'There is a Green Hill Far Away', and verde is I think Spanish, possibly Italian, for green.

It works for me, okay?!

The Marvels of Modern Medicine

Well.

After nine months of fretting, worrying, cancelled dates and various pre-operative tests, the Operation has been and gone.

What should have taken two to three hours took more like five and a half. There were various complications; deep layers of internal fat blocking access to the required area and oozing along the stitchlines being the worst of them. He came out of it all with an extra wound on most folk who have the same procedure, six wounds for the op and one drain wound. The extra wound was required to gain access to the aforementioned area. The Prof says it was a very good job he'd followed the liver-shrinking diet to the letter because if that had been enlarged, things would have been very black indeed.

Yet again, that man of mine excelled himself whilst on morphine. He had the medical and nursing staff in fits of giggles. He has a new catchphrase, courtesy of the anaesthetist, Dr Dearden, who talked him through the inserting of various lines and needles pre-op. 'We're just going to go for something a little more saucy now, so I'll give you a local anaesthetic first', has resulted in cries of 'Let's go for something a little more saucy!' from himself whilst indulging in a spot of PS2 gaming.

Much of the last couple of days since his release from hospital (in on Wednesday, op on Thursday, out on Saturday) has been spent playing Champion: Return to Arms, or as we like to call it, Fake Baldur's Gate. It's one of those very rare beasts, a computer game we both like playing that is also two player. Baldur's Gate as a 2-player PS2 game is just stonkingly good. Sadly, the PC version is duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllllllll.

I want to play Tombraider: Legend quite badly, too.

Right now, I am just enjoying an extended break from work. Most of all, I am enjoying spending it at 'home', with the man and the cat, though I am missing the guys a little. We may drive over for a day visit later in the week, I don't know. Must ring the landlady and check she is okay to keep feeding them - if she isn't, then I will have to return!

We've both had tons of messages from friends online. I sometimes forget that one of the sites I frequent is also frequented by him, and that my friends there know him and tend to repeat stuff to him. Not so good when things get back to him that I'd prefer he not know! So he got quite annoyed with me when a particular friend mentioned the op to him months ago when it was all hush-hush. I think now he realises that I needed to talk about it because I was worrying about it and he is glad that I had some back-up.

Anyway, this has been and will continue to be a life-changing event for him, and in a way for me, too. Food has been a huge part of our relationship from the outset. You could describe us both as large. Certainly each of us has had a 'weight problem' for most of our life. My weight has spiralled mostly upwards over the last twenty years or so, and in the last two or three in particular, as has his. It is never a good idea to attempt to match one's partner in portion size when your partner is very large as opposed to just large. He could out-eat me by a very long way indeed. It was more the weekends that hampered me, as they tended to consist of at least one takeaway, a big Sunday roast and as much in the way of chocolate and crisps as could be consumed. Not forgetting the bacon and egg baguette from the local bakery on Saturday morning. I am hoping that eating more normal-sized portions (both in digs and at home) and not being able to eat junk around him (so not fair on him if I do) together with the increased exercise we will both be getting will lead to a normalising of my weight eventually.

I did do very well at WeightWatchers...I'm not sure I have the discipline to keep at it for months on end. What I am able to do is to eat fairly sensibly and get more exercise, which also works. He was bought a recipe book by someone which is no use to him at all, but I may borrow it and try the eating plans suggested in it.

I just don't want to be the fat bird waddling around after a slim young hunk!

They Don't Call Me Muppet for Nothing

True, is that.

Having moved out to the country, I have rediscovered my love of long walks. So far, I've been trying to get out for an hour or so most days that I'm here. In practice, that means there are four nights in which I can get out into the woods for a while and escape inside my head as I wander where the path may take me.

Last Thursday, that turned out to be a total dead end. I thought I was walking round in a rough square - I was, as it happens. Unfortunately, the third side of the square didn't actually reconnect with the top side of the square from whence I came...this was after a good two hours of walking, by which time I was pretty much worn out. Oh, it was also dark. I'm not fond of the dark, and this was rapidly veering from twilight to darkest night.

And I was desperate for a pee. Now, Sod's Law says quite clearly that anyone taking a leak in the woods is a) bound to be spotted by someone, and b) also bound to widdle all down one or possibly both legs, and probably all over one's trousers or shorts too. So, discretion having warred with valour for some little time, discretion won out.

Let me tell you now that the next three quarters of an hour seemed very, very long.

I realised that there was no need for me to walk back through the woods for an hour and a quarter just to get back to the top of the bridlepath some 45 minutes into my journey. This was because, while I did earlier indicate that this road was a dead end, it was in fact not. Where the top side should have been was a branch off to the left, leading down to the main road. As in, the A1. A nice dual carriageway, speed limit 70 mph (except in the Elkesley accident reduction area where it is 50, or cuurently 40 cos of the roadworks).

There are no footpaths beside the A1. Pedestrians aren't banned from walking alongside A roads, but they sure as hell are not encouraged. So. There I was. Hot, tired, feet killing me, staggering and stumbling along the grass verge, which I quickly discovered took a steep dive to the right into a nice drainage ditch. Not to mention all the ruts, rubbish, burst tyres and general roadside detritus. It amazes me, the kind of crap people happily fling out the window of a moving vehicle. Fortunately not at me, on this occasion.

I walked in alternate pitch darkness, intermittently pierced by headlights of cars, lorries and vans. I only got hooted the once, which I thought was quite good.

The scariest part was actually walking through a huge layby where lots of truck drivers pull up overnight on long haul journeys. All these giant, silent lorries, with mysterious trailerloads of who-knows-what going who-knows-where. And all these great big lorry drivers, ditto. Not the best place for a lone female late of an evening. Not at all.

Happily, the rain stayed off till I was at the top of the driveway and so a minute's stagger from the warm and dry.

On getting home, I may have had just about the most delicious wee I have ever enjoyed.

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

Being minus a mother, there are times when I feel the absence of said maternal being more keenly than others. Mothering Sunday (March 26 in the UK) is just one of those days.

Now, Chicken the Oven Ready is well aware of my feelings as regards this particular day. Even still, he announced to me on Friday night on arrivng home from the rugby (Wigan were not terribly good, he couldn't see much because of the fog, waste of bloody money etc), that he hadn't managed to get his Mother's Day present yet and so could I possibly source an orchid for him?

The reason for this request was that he was racing remote control cars in Wakefield the following day with our neighbour, TechyDave, and a bunch of other weirdos who despite being allegedly adults like to buy expensive bits of kit that require putting together, painting, covering in decals, radio gear and electrics and remote control purchasing separately and so on at great length. It's an expensive hobby, but they enjoy it and it gets them out in the fresh air. And if he ever finishes building the second-hand Super Sabre he bought off Ebay, I will have a car of my own to race.

So, Saturday morning dawned. I was kicked out of bed at 8 am (on a Saturday! Argh!) and sent off to Dave's Village Bakery (another Dave) to buy breakfast. He departed just after 9 am and I headed for the net to find a local florist to enquire about orchids. Three hours later, I remembered why I'd actually gone on line and located a florist locally who had orchids. I presumed he meant a spray orchid, so asked them to keep one for me and then rang him to confirm. No, he actually meant the whole growing plant. I knew they had some of those too, so no worries there.

His mum is now the proud owner of not one but two phaleonopsis plants, both displaying different shaded blooms. She is delighted with them. Buying them was something of a production though, involving me ringing himself trackside and describing flower colours to him over the sound of revving engines and excited squeals from TechyDave. Not the easiest thing to do, really. 'This one is sort of pale greenish with kind of yellow-pinky stripes on the bloom. Yeah, it looks very orchid-y. You like that one? It's 14.50. You want two? The same or different? Yeah, OK. Well, there's one that's like a white with dusky pink in the centre and then dark pink stripes? Or there's a dusky pink one with no stripes but stronger pink. The first one? You sure? Yeah, okay. Gift wrapped? Well, the one you already said is in a gift bag. Plastic. Sort of you know, thing. Hallucinogenic. No, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. That's what I said. Oh, didn't I? Well, it's what I meant'.

We had slow-roasted lamb shanks for tea, with melon and serrano ham to begin and meringue nest with raspberries and ice cream for pudding. Very lovely indeed.

Driving home, I had the radio tuned to Radio 2, which is usual for me. The tape deck packed in a few weeks ago, and given that the car is being junked soon there is no point in having it mended, even if that were to prove possible. So, I drove along listening to Canon Roger Royle. He has a half-hour programme on a Sunday evening from 8.30 in which he plays some of the nation's favourite hymns and psalms. The theme of the last few weeks has been connected to Lent and tonight was about the prophet Elijah who went off into the wilderness to try to escape the voice of God. Of course, he couldn't.

Elijah was indeed spoken to by God. There was in the wilderness an earthquake, a storm and a fire. These are all ways in which God was said to communicate. But it was not in the noise and tumult that Elijah heard God, but in the calm that followed. There was a lovely piece by I think Mozart, and this was followed by one of my favourite hymns, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, sung to the tune Repton. My absolute favourite. Now, the good Canon had already made reference in passing to it being Mothering Sunday. As drove along, the words of the hymn and the beautiful tune swelling around me, I had tears in my eyes and I couldn't at first think why.

It was then that I remembered. I chose that hymn in particular for my mother's first funeral service at the local church in Ullapool. Funnily enough, it isn't one of the hymns they especially like in the Church of Scotland - I'd never heard it till I was a student in England and began going to church on a fairly regular basis, after ten years or so of estrangement from the established Church. You'd have thought a congregation of some 400 souls would have been able to sing it, but no. Even the minister didn't know it. There was myself and maybe two or three others who sang it. That kind of fits in with the words towards the end.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.

Somehow I felt like that still, small voice of calm. I felt so buffeted by emotion and assailed by the sense of loss and anger that came with losing someone I loved so very much, I felt as though the best thing I could do for her to was be calm and to be still and to accept what had happened. Singing on through the hymn was my tribute to her.

Driving on through the night, my eyes filled with tears, I felt her presence so keenly I cold have stopped the car and sobbed on the roadside. Instead I dashed the tears away and drove on into the night.

Bugger still doesn't work right!

The bugger in question is two-fold:

the Crimson Brick is still not quite there, but as has already been said that is of little import. Providing always that I manage to safely negotiate the highways and byways as I potter about the North Midlands and West Yorkshire. And it is rather more there than it was - it only takes about ten seconds of embarrassed stick-it-into-neutral-turn-the-key-gun-the-throttle-and-swear-a-blue-streakness for it to pick up and scoot off again (albeit with the accompaniment of a degree of chuggery), and the fuel consumption appears a little better. So there is some improvement. But the outlaw still hasn't found his new car. And I still need Chicken the Oven Ready to have his car and the outlaw's old car at the same time for a while while he transfers the numberplate from one to the other.

The other bugger is of course my broadband connection, or rather lack of it. I ran a test on the outlaws' computer to see how long their telephone-line based cable (different ISP but same make of modem) takes to initialise the ADSL line. Answer: ten flashes of the right hand green light. Not, in any way shape or form or indeed by any stretch of the imagination does it take between four and five hours, nor depend on making a phone call out first to get it to pick up the connection.

Some nights it plays ball. I mean, on Wednesday night I was on for about five hours. Long enough to download iTunes (only to find that all the music in my account that was authorised on this computer is inaccessible from the other computer, even having authorised that computer, which I am bloody well annoyed about - I am NOT allowed to download iTunes back again onto this machine because CtOR has heard horror stories about the Bonjour gateway service). And also long enough to download the driver for my soundcard - hence the iTunes download. I have downloaded other essentials too, of course, such as AdawareSE and AVG (first thing I downloaded above all was ZoneAlarm, even when I was on dialup, and that took best part of four hours to load and install. And don't talk to me about Java!!!!).

Other nights, I can get on for 3 and a half minutes tops. But only after I make a phone call, which has to be answered so it means either ringing home to speak to himself or leaving gibberish on the answermachine, which he is really not happy about. But then as he has spent most of the last two weekends moaning at me about trivial little things I am in all honesty beyond caring. But let us not go there.

It hasn't been that bad so far, I suppose.

Cold and Colder

That was me, last night.

Bad enough there were three or so inches of snow when I departed from home. Which had to be shovelled off the car before I moved it. There wasn't any snow once I got about ten miles away, but the Crimson Brick ground to a halt on me about a quarter of a mile before the last roundabout before my turning into the village.

This is where the A1(M) splits off to join the A1, the A614 and the A57. We are talking major, big roundabout (it's called Five Lane Ends - hint?) and there I was, stuck in an immobile car with an engine that refused to restart, half on the main road and half off it and able to think of nothing save sticking on the hazard lights and clambering over gear stick and handbrake and getting the ferk out of Dodge before a lorry slammed into the back of me.

You may well ask where cold comes into things. Well. It may not have snowing in North Notts, but it was colder than a witch's you-know-what. I waited well back from the road down a farm track (well away from the car - just in case that lorry did happen to slam into the back of it) for nearly three-quarters of an hour before my knight in yellow refletive overalls turned up in his AA van. He was far too cheerful. And the verdammtes car started first turn of the key.

So my nice AA man followed me the four miles home and gave it a quick check when we arrived. No rhyme or reason to it cutting it out - nothing to do with my firklings with carburretor cleaner which entailed cracking open the round flat thing with the air filter in that sits on top of the carburretor. (Look, I know how to dismantle bits of my car - that doesn't in my view necessitate knowing what they are called). Nothing to do with the missing bit of flexihose twixt manifold outlet and air intake. (Though my former apprentice mechanic brother muttered something about vacuums and powerloss and shocking fuel consumption).

The CB actually is running sweet as a nut today. Pulled out onto the A1 this morning and there was no power loss, no jerking and shuddering like a fitting bucking bronco. Most relaxing!

There will be a slight delay in getting the new old car. CtOR has the car I am going to have, you may recall. I'm sure I mentioned it...Anyway, this is his Dad's old car, which has the vanity plates on that his Dad bought him for his 18th (the car was always going to pass to him in a few years). He gets his Dad's current vehicle and passes the old one to me. But, to transfer the vanity plates, he has to own both vehicles at once, the old car gets a new registration number and I buy new plates for it with that number on. And then it gets transferred to me. Oh, I need to probably increase my insurance a bit cos it's a 2.0 litre SLX as opposed to a 1.3 litre Pony GXi or something like that. The blue car goes like a rocket. The Crimson Brick goes like - well, a brick, obviously.

Oh, well. Mustn't grumble!

Overtaking Manouevres

I would just love to know - having spent approximately one-third of a nearly 70 mile journey travelling at 50 mph or less on a road designed for 70 mph - who the hell felt the need to sit in the inside lane of the A1 and prevent anyone else from passing the slower-moving traffic in the other lane? Which eventually became the lane that people switched to to undertake the slow person at the front of a long, long jam of extremely frustrated people.

It's dangerous. It's also selfish, but the dangerous angle is the more worrying to my way of thinking. I know that road, I know it well. It is very easy to do 80, 90 mph and more (though you shouldn't) without causing a danger to anyone else for much of its length. And yet, being only a dual carriageway, you often find a convoy of lorries overtaking a slower-moving lorry. They usually all decide to go at once, more often than not at the bottom of a very steep hill, so that all the lorries struggle to keep above 40 mph. It can take five minutes and more to get them all past the slower object, and then usually no sooner have they all crawled back to the 'slow' lane than they all pull out again, normally after one or possibly very lucky two cars have managed to get past them.

I think that's one of the reasons the A1 is so dangerous!

Anyway. I am glad to be home. I am very, very tired. Wanda was too upset with me to run away when I came in. I just got this sort of feline glare and a 'harrrummmpppphhhhhh' from her as she curled up a little tighter on her cushion.

So nice to be loved!

Glad I didn't go to the match. I was also supposed to be going on a leaving do for someone I used to work with at the last place of employment. I quite frankly coudn't be bothered. Same old bitching about the same old faces, and L maundering on about the state of her marriage and how R won't leave her alone even though she dumped him.

To use a much-overused phrase of L'sL 'Whatever!'

Time for bed soon. Just waiting for the man to arrive home from the match. Cold and wet but happy because we won. Not by very much at all, but a win is a win.

On Grief

It is a funny thing, the grieving process.

Ever wonder why it's described as that? A Process?

Well. Maybe it IS something that you 'process' through, as it were, in respect of the fact that it has different stages that we have to pass through.

I'm at the stage now (four years, seven months and one day) after losing Mum, that I can go throughout probably most of a two or three day period without at some point having a twinge of the 'I wish I could tell Mum about X' or 'Mum would have loved to have seen/done/heard about Y'. Or just plain and simple missing her for no apparent reason, or thinking of her suddenly.

Thing is, when I am rudely jolted into remembering that I have no mother, it hits me like a slap round the face: my mother is dead.

I've just been over to the market place here, across from the office and up the hill a little way. I am such a magpie that things like handbags and jewellery captivate me and haul me in to peer at the glittering pretty things. And so it was that one poor man engaged me in conversation whilst I cogitated over what I might like to spend my (increasingly and alarmingly) dwindling funds upon.

He was doing so well until he chirped 'We've some lovely things for Mother's Day'. (Those of you who live outside the UK and may chance to read this should note that Mother's Day in the UK is celebrated on normally the last Sunday in March which this year is March 26th).

I find Mother's Day incredibly hard to deal with. I was almost hysterical the first year after she died when CtOR and I went to Asda to do our shopping in February and all the Mother's Day trappings were out. It physically hurt me. I always saw that day as being even more special than Christmas and birthdays because it was all about her in total - all about thanking her for being my Mum, and being quite simply the best Mum in the whole world ever. Mum was my best friend. She was the first person I thought of whenever good things or bad things happened, the one person I ran to when it all went wrong. The one person who really knew me and would never judge me. I absolutely loved her to pieces. I always will. She made me laugh like no-one else could. Or can. Roll out the clichés, because she was like a sister to me. I count myself lucky beyond words and rich beyond the dreams of avarice to have had such a fantastic mother, and find it heartbreaking and puzzling - baffling - that other people aren't as close to their mums as I was to mine.

I am ashamed to say that I smiled at the poor chap on the stall and chirruped blithely: 'I'm afraid that that isn't something I need to worry about any more, unfortunately'. Well. He felt dreadful, poor chap, and was desperately trying to apologise. I fled. I was on the edge of tears, and I don't want to be tipped over the edge. Not now, not when I have to go to work and put on the happy face for the clients and sit and listen to them without losing my temper.

By the time I was almost back at the office, it had occurred to me that I really had behaved rather rudely and shouldn't have said what I did. I was idly programming the microwave to finish heating my lunch when it dawned on me that today is March 8th. Which means yesterday was the 7th. Which means that it was not just 4 years and 7 months since Mum died yesterday. It was also 4 years since my Nan died, my mum's mother.

I was more upset about forgetting that than anything else. My relationship with my Nan was a complex thing. As a child, I adored my grandparents, though I was always my Grandad's little girl. He died when I was 7 and that broke my heart. It broke all our hearts. Nan spent the rest of her life wishing she was dead, too, and became increasingly difficult and reliant on Mum. Mum, in turn, was not a well woman in some ways. She was also overworked, an insomniac so always overtired, had two children in my brother and I who took her for granted even while loving her to bits, and a husband who spent months at a time not talking to her and could be - and was - extremely violent in every possible way. The added burden of being a round-the-clock carer to her own mother as well was simply too much for her, and so Mum died at 61, two and a half weeks short of her birthday.

Nan blamed herself. She was no longer a senile, cantankerous, demanding, nasty, sly old woman, but briefly alert, clear-minded and filled with the sort of self-realisation that I can only imagine was excoriating in its awfulness. She turned to me after the funeral, when we were going through some old photos together, and said to me 'I killed her. It's my fault'.

I told her that that was rubbish and she mustn't think that way. I'm not sure that I wholly meant it. Worse, I think she knew that.

Outside, the rain lashes down as it has for the last two days. It matches my mood and envervates me. I think I would really like to go home. I'm not sure where I mean by home. I think that ideally I would like to be standing in my mother's kitchen, me leaning against the sink while she leant against the worktop to the side of me and we just talked about everything and nothing and made each other laugh. Or maybe that means clowning around behind the counter in the shop and making the customers laugh almost as hard as we were.

Where Do I Begin?

Well, it has been a while, hasn't it?

Where to start?

The cats are blossoming in my care. Both were riddled with fleas, Loki had earmites, a long-standing eye infection and a dreadful stomach upset that had left him with permanent diarrhoea. All of those are cleared up with the exception of a few stray fleas that I keep finding on combing out of both cats' fur.

Neither of them had ever had any of their vaccinations whatsoever, and of course the previous owner has not shown up with the money for them as promised. She also left a load of debts behind her, which caused me to have to change my phone number so I could get online at home - she'd had the same ISP I wanted to sign up with and the debt attached to the phone number.

Dialup truly sucks - I'd forgotten how frustrating it can be. So, I have broadband coming on Friday courtesy of Mr Branson's fine company.

Work seems to be okay. It is very quiet compared to how I'm used to things though. I get the impression the previous incumbent had been running things down prior to leaving quite horrendously. There are maybe 50 live files. Not the 188 alleged on the file list! Some of those are care cases, but they're mostly being run by a guy in a different office. I got to go to court today for the first time in this post! It was much better than the last time I'd had a lay off - but then it's been five or six weeks as opposed to 8 months!

On the bad side, my secretary's husband had a heart attack on Sunday morning, about 8ish. He had a further, massive attack in the back of the ambulance as they went to the local community hospital and had to be resuscitated at the roadside before they could continue the journey. He's now in the City Hospital in Nottingham. It seems he had a blockage in an artery so they have him on warfarin. Hopefully he will make a full recovery and not need surgery.

He's a truly larger-than-life man, with a huge laugh and a pirate beard - he's referred to as 'the Pirate' by us all. He's one of the friendliest, easiest men I think I've ever met. A lovely man.

Everyone is great, really, at work. No problems with anyone as yet, though there is clearly a lot of office politics. I am keeping well clear! Not wanting to get involved at all. NO way - not this time! Once bitten very definitely twice shy.

Landlady still a nutter but not being anywhere near so obtrusive as she was. I don't see her for a couple of days or more at a time now! The youngest child has discovered me now though, although more to the point she has discovered CtOR and thinks he is the bees knees! A four year old fan club. Good, eh?

I think I will update further later cos I am tired now and it is nearly time for the steampowered dialup two hourly boot.

*snarls*

Lost Cats

I lost the cats last night. Both of them. The little furry rascals disappeared. Vanished into thin air. No amount of yelling, whistling and tongue-clicking on the back step could bring them home. Not even the ceremonial opening of the cat food tin brought them galloping through the catflap.

I assumed that all the upheaval of Nicky moving out and me moving in had sent them off for a couple of days to sulk somewhere.

I was wrong.

I left the back door open for quite a large chunk of the evening while I ferried stuff in from the car. I left the boot lid up for quite a long time, too. A cursory examination of the back of the car revealed nothing remaining in there, and I didn't think to look in the front as there was nothing in there.

So, this morning I trotted out to the car to drive off to work and flung open the door to find:

two small, furry, feline faces looking at me as if to say 'Well! What kept you?'

Along with a pool of diarrhoea, courtesy of Loki who is not feeling at his best it would seem (a trip to the vet is already arranged for Thursday).

So, another late start for me. But I did manage to find Sainsbury's this morning, having taken an exit too early at the last roundabout!

Can You Hear Me, Mother?

*Waving frantically to anyone from SOI who may be checking blogs for daily updates*

Hello there!

Well. I've made it to Friday lunchtime of my first week. Monday morning was a complete and total disaster. Motto: never trust the AA's Route planner to get you to where you want to be. I arrived forty minutes late, thanks to the fact that the directions were complete and utter codswallop. Fortunately they were all very nice about it, and it gave them a good giggle. I soon discovered the correct route and can now complete the journey in fifteen minutes, as opposed to an hour and fifteen minutes.

The one cat looks set to become two. I have in fact agreed to take Loki (ginger tabby long-haired tomcat) as well as Kit (tortoiseshell female). Went round to see the present incumbent last night and the flat absolutely stank due to the practically overflowing litter tray. I have already purchased a new tray, tray liners, and a huge bag of Catsan odour control litter. I've never had any odour problems with Wanda using this system, but then I do change her every couple of days and remove solid waste as soon as it is discovered in the tray.

I am going to have to keep on top of the grooming regime for Loki, obviously. I don't think the flat has been cleaned at all regularly - if ever. I began to itch within about five minutes which is very unusual for me. I don't suffer from cat allergies particularly but it got to the point where my eyes were swelling up and my nose was running. Hopefully the promised deep-clean by the landlady will be forthcoming before I move in on Sunday. I am equipped with my own cleaning materials anyway.

I seem to be spending money like water, what with having to buy pots and pans and knives and dish towels and linens. Ah...we unloaded my car on Saturday morning as we decided not to drive over and drop a load of stuff off before Sunday after all. One of the bags was in the way where I'd left it so was moved, and this of course was the bag with the bedding, the dish and bath towels, and my comfy work shoes in. So I had to go out and buy linens, and have been tottering about in dolly-bird strappy heels all week. Except for yesterday when I rebelled and wore my blue suede trainers all day. No-one appeared to give a damn. I bought a new pair of shoes yesterday evening and while they are very nice, they aren't my comfy flatties!

Last Sunday I arrived at the flat around 10:20 in the evening, having got lost twice (not the fault of the AA this time but entirely down to me being a muppet). Himself was bouncing on the spot with worry as I was nearly 45 minutes behind him, though partly this was due to the detour and partly the fact that the crimson brick at present is battling to reach 70. Ray the electrician was still working away, and to make matters worse he'd managed to put a jigsaw through a water pipe so I had a flood too.

Ray eventually had to be ejected at around midnight - forcibly. He was told to come back the next day. Which he did. Not long after everyone had gone, I made a visit to the powder room as it were, and discovered on flushing that there was more water jetting out either side of the pipe leading from the cistern to the bowl.

Ray had to be forcibly removed again on Monday, having promised to do only two small jobs. I had dinner at the local pub (I need a third and fourth mortgage to do that, I tell you) and got back at half past nine, having spent half an hour hanging around outside talking to himself on the phone. Phil the landlord eventually came to my rescue just after ten. Ray has since been barred from the flat. Hooray! And Mark the plasterer fixed the loo for me. Appears Ray must have moved it to do some wiring and put it back wrongly. Silly sod.

The job seems fine. The town is a typical small to medium market town with a small range of shops and - as for anywhere during the day - the usual motley assortment of passers-by. It's quite busy at the moment as the schools are out for half-term, so there are lots of young folk around. The people at work are all lovely and so far I have no problems to report!

Expecting to be home either very late on tonight or tomorrow morning. Himself's car now has an oil leak so is off the road so I will be moving from one flat to another on my own. Hopefully I can persuade some of the lads who seem to be permanently hanging around the landlady's house to give me a hand with the heavy items.

Acquisitiveness

In readiness for the move, I went out shopping yesterday. Ooops...Monday now.

I bought: a 20" screen TV; a toaster and kettle pack and a cordless digital phone (I always wanted one of those and it was reduced from £30 to £14.99, so another bargain. And you must know by now that I do love my bargains!

I am going to persuade J to let me borrow the video recorder or something so I can watch movies. There's no point in getting a computer for next week as I will only be in that flat for 1 week and getting involved in dialup will be just too complicated to have to move numbers for the account after 1 week. Besides, I need to get settled so I can get broadband access organised. And as I am lodging in one flat for a week before moving to the proper flat, I don't want to have too much stuff to move.

Worryingly, I still haven't had a letter making the offer official. I know my reference has been sent over, and I am told it is good, but I can't help but worry. I did receive my P45 and last payslip from the old place this morning.

And L texted me to say that the doziest, laziest secretary from the personal injury department has taken my place in the family department as a fee earner! She heard that directly from uberboss this evening and is spitting feathers.

She keeps telling me she's bored with him now, she's had her bit of fun and isn't interested any more. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

I think I lost a post too, Johnny Bravo

I know I updated after we bought the new washing machine last weekend, I know I did. Hotpoint Aquarius 1600 spin, 6kg washload, fantastic little performer, reduced by about £180. Bargain! (I like my bargains).

But I don't see any post about it...

What a difference a week makes

Well. OK. Eight days, between you and I. But never mind...a week sounds rather snappier somehow.

I have a new job. Fingers crossed I do. L wrote my reference for uberboss to sign and she promised she would make me sound brilliant. But...but...what if she didn't? What if they get my reference and change their mind about offering me the job?

See? See? I am ever the pessimist when it comes to good things happening to me!

I also - and you may say this is pre-empting things rather - have found myself a flat. I won't be able to move in to the actual flat for a week, so I will be camping out in one of the other flats for a week first. We went down to look at flats and houses yesterday and this was the very first place we looked at.

It was quite funny really, because we drove off the A1 into the village itself and J just yelped 'You are living here! No arguments!'. We drove on to the sound of: 'Ooooh! Oooooh! Look at that quaint little church!' (Car stopped in lane, exchange of meaningful looks). 'Oh my God! The post office is in someone's front room!' 'Argh! Would you look at the local pub! How quaint is that?!' (It really is all very quaint).

Now. The directions were kind of 'turn off the A1, go along the High Street, turn right at the pub, drive down Low Lane, take the left fork in the road, drive up to the security gates and press the buzzer and I'll come down and let you in.'

The main house is a former vicarage, set in five acres of parkland with trees some three hundred years old. A river runs through the middle of it all. There were sodding real bulrushes in the damn river! I mean! I never saw a bulrush in my life outside of Odsal (r. league injoke there, sorry). The lady of the house inherited it from her father, who bought it at auction from the Church of England in 1980.

The main house is where her family live, in part of the building at any rate. They also have a licence for civil weddings and can hold services in a suite in the house. They can arrange the whole package, including marquees in the grounds for the reception, caterers, bars, mobile disco, bands, whatever you want. We just kind of looked at each other at that point and went 'Ug'. It's like some kind of conspiracy!

Anyway, there is the Gatehouse (which is much more modern inside), living room downstairs and bathroom, kitchen and bedroom upstairs. Very nice, in a bit of upheaval because it is being rewired - they only recently bought this building from an investor. Then there is the Coach House.

Now. I have a cat, and I know if I don't keep right on top of the litter tray situation it can begin to get a little fragrant. The lady who presently has the ground floor flat in the Coach House has two cats with an overflowing litter tray. One tray between two cats. Never a good idea. Cat owners may know the slightly chocolatey smell of desiccated cat poo that's sat in the litter for a good few hours. Not too pleasant. That was right in the doorway - sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

However. Bear with me on this. OK. Kitchen is less modern. Long and narrow with slightly cobbled-together units but nice black granite effect worktops. Serviceable. A mix of wall units, not matching but quite appealing in their own way. Cooker...bit of an ancient electric with eyelevel grill but it will scrub up OK I reckon. It all looks as though it really hasn't been taken too much care of, but it will be cleaned before I move in. There is a fridge-freezer that belongs to the present incumbent that I will buy off her for £30 as she doesn't need it where she's moving to.

The bathroom is a decent size. No bath, but a really nice modern electric shower in a new glass cubicle of a decent size, basin in one corner and loo in the third corner. The bathroom is at the end of the kitchen.

The living/dining room is massive. There are huge black beams in the ceiling and two three-lamp overhead lights as it is quite a dark room - the window is quite small and looks out on to the Jurassic Kueper Marl rock that used to form part of the river bed. It looks like a huge multi-coloured sandstone, full of holes and riddled with caves. The soft rock of the area is honeycombed with tunnels, apparently, from the old Abbey nearby. Prosaically, they keep the lawnmower in one cave and logs in another. It is furnished with a huge green sofa, three seater easily with big soggy cushions, a matching armchair, a gorgeous dresser, shelving units, brassbound coffee table, tv stand, dining table and chairs.

The bedroom is quite small - room for a double bed, wardrobe and a dressing table and that's about it, but who needs a massive bedroom?

It is painted white throughout, with the beams painted black. The doors are black. The carpet is a darkish blue, beige in the bathroom.

It has masses of potential to be a really comfy, cosy, homey place to live. Once it's had a damn good clean and been aired out a little! *lol* I am already planning all the things I can add to make it 'mine'. I have pictures that aren't up here at the moment for lack of room, family photographs that are framed but not on display as they creep J out, soft furnishings that I can take over that he won't miss (I've had them since university days for the most part). Then there are the silly things like the food processor, the hand blender, my paints, sewing stuff, that sort of thing.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I had two interviews, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. The Tuesday place loved me but wouldn't offer me till I'd had Wednesday's interview and come back to them on what I thought to that. They thought I'd be snapped up. Well, I was. Or would have been. The Tuesday job required relocation on my part as it is too far a drive to commute daily. Another reason why they were fairly pessimistic that I would say yes to any offer they made. The Wednesday job was local to me, and they were very dismissive of the Tuesday firm due to the fact that it would mean relocating and would take me away from my home here.

The points to consider are these:

1) Which position offers long-term security, the chance to develop my work skills and obtain further qualifications and accreditation?

2) Which position offers the better salary and more chance of a bonus and a review of salary annually?

3) Which employer is larger?

4) Who did I prefer at interview?

From my perspective, on Tuesday I firstly met with the senior partner in my area of law. We had a good long chat, he was upfront with me and said he liked me, he could honestly say he would recommend to his partners that they make me an offer but he wanted to wait and see what happened at my next interview in case I liked them more. Then I met the managing partner and his wife (always a good sign). Then I got to have a long chat with the people I'd be working with in our office on a daily basis. In all, I was there an hour and three quarters, and my future colleague drove me to the station to catch my train and left me with the words 'I really, really hope to see you again very soon' ringing in my ears.

Wednesday...well, I knew both my interviewers already. I'd temped at this firm in York after I did my post-grad year. I knew the lady who owned the firm by reputation also. They have four offices, the other firm 5. However: she is the sole principal. It is her firm, take it or leave it. The main offices are in two different cities. The branch or satellite offices are tiny, the Leeds office - where I would be based - being a fee earner and two job-sharing secretaries.

They were quite cold at interview. It wasn't what you'd call a cosy chat, just straight down the line business. Contrast that with the day before, when we'd talked about people we each know (my favourite District Judge only used to be a partner in the firm, and is a regular Saturday golfing partner of the senior partner who interviewed me, so when I said he was a lovely man and one of my favourite DJ's, and told a little anecdote about him, it went down a storm), we'd talked about where I come from (my schooling is on my CV) and he turns out to be a keen hillwalker and knows my village well from many a holiday - in fact knows the family business well too. It was a real investigation not just of my work experience and background but a chance for him to suss out my personality - such as it is - and to see how I fit in to the firm's ethos.

I had a call on the Thursday from Wednesday's interviewer. She made an offer immediately and proceeded to go through the diary entries for the next month. Consider I might have been in my last post in court twice or three times a day, and seen two or more clients in the office as well. Certainly I never had fewer than two appointments in my diary each day regardless of other engagements. Contrast that with one or two hearings a week if I'm lucky, two or three clients a week and three days in succession with nothing in the diary at all. The post incumbent was taking work off people in other offices for something to do. Does this sound like a job with prospects? I thought not.

So, at the end of the day, there was very little choice.

Back to the accommodation. I mentioned the litter tray and that there were two cats. Well, it seems that the cats can't move with the present occupier and only one has a new home. So, I find myself - or will shortly find myself - the proud new 'owner' of a little, affectionate, slightly deranged tortoiseshell love-addicted feline who demands to be loved and fussed over by any human present in the room.

I think a larger litter tray, better cat litter and a regular change routine will soon deal with the odour problem. As will a damn good clean as already said.

Yes. What a difference a week makes.

I've (not) Got a Washing Machine

So. Four years or so ago - maybe even as many as five - we bought a new washing machine, the one my parents having donated to us when we moved in together having expired very suddenly.

We bought one that was advertised as a manager's special. Someone had bought it before, taken it home and had returned it after one use to the store, so it was a very good machine reduced in price by about £120. I had £50 worth of vouchers from my then job too, we used to get a bonus twice a year and would get little gifts now and again if the company share price was high or if they wanted to ensure a little more worker co-operation. So, this machine cost us I think around the £200 mark, which meant we got a really very tasty machine.

Thing about its having been returned once already (for aesthetic reasons, apparently) was that it couldn't be returned again by us once bought.

We took it home, filled it up, switched it on. And discovered that unless you set it to do a 30 degree c mixed coloureds wash, it wouldn't work. At all. So for four and a half years or so, I have been unable to do a whites wash, a boil wash, a quick wash, wash a half-load...any of the less ordinary washes you might wish to do. For a girl raised to believe that dish towels and hankies and underwear all got blasted at 60 degrees minimum, this has been pure torture. Certain things just don't seem properly clean, and I hate that.

Anyway, the buggering thing has been misbehaving itself for the last year or so. It arbitrarily would fill with water, turn the drum a few times and then would just go 'click...click...click' as the knob clicked aimlessly round the programme dial and the washing stayed locked in the creature's guts. I used to be blamed for overloading it. Load of rubbish, but if you switched it off and emptied half the load out and switched it on again, it would work.

Last Sunday, it ate one of my bras. I mean, it ripped one half of the back fastener off (the hook side) and ripped another part of the side arrangements off too. A whole piece of bra has vanished into the subterranean, stygian depths, never to be seen again. On Thursday night, himself filled it with his clothes, switched it on, and it filled with water. Then he went to the pub, yelling over his shoulder as he walked out the door for me to go and put the washing in the tumble dryer in an hour or so.

I forgot.

When he came home, the machine was full of water. It was still going. The drum would go 'swoosh, swoosh swoosh...*grrrrnkkk* swish, swish, swish *grrrrrrnk* swoosh, swoosh, swoosh' but would do nothing more than that. It never did play ball if you moved the programme dial to the rinse cycle or any trick like that, and it didn't on Thursday night either. The only thing we could do was switch it off so we could eventually open the door. It stayed full of water which it kept heated to the right temperature, but it would do nothing else.

It is now upside down in the back yard, with the door broken off and the drum detached from its mountings.

We've been looking at new ones but came home to consider the plumbing situation and to eat KFC *guilty shrug*. The new machines all seem to have cold water fill only, whereas the old one was both hot and cold, so we need to see if the little tap arrangement on the side of the pipe by the connector will actually serve to cut off the flow in the hot pipe, or whether we need to get some kind of stop piece or something.

Right now, the man is zonkoed on the sofa, fast asleep with a belly full of chicken. I am injuncted to awake him at half past three, no later. Yeah right. I know how hard he is to waken. I'll be lucky if I can get his arse off the chair in three or four hours. In the meantime, I have no water.

I don't much feel like talking about the W situation right now. Maybe I will do an update on that, maybe I won't. Right now, the world is alternately full of golden opportunity and very scary and black and with very little money. I hate change. Always have.

I hate colds

And I have a real doozie.

The latest news:

I registered with the agency I mentioned before last night. They were ever so nice, actually listened to me when I said I was thinking of a career change and suggested avenues I may want to explore. They were also positive about temporary work too, although as I am unavailable a day and a half next week I think they may have trouble placing me.

I e-mailed my friend (well, his friend) at HMRC who got me on to the casuals register there last year, and he is doing the same for me now. There is a post at that level in his office but he thought it was earmarked for someone previously - he now knows it isn't and is dropping the pack off this weekend for me. It pays buttons, but better than signing on the dole. Temping can actually bring in more money, oddly enough, through the agencies, although casual work for the civil service does tend to be longer term, more secure, better perks by far. This agency does all the local authority placements and the university too though, and their terms and conditions are pretty cushy too.

Then of course, I have those interviews next week.

Something will come up. It will. I will find my perfect niche. I must believe that or sink.

Gissa job

Go on...you know you want to.

I am now the demon of the scenario because I didn't tell L that Head of department was on to her sordid little secret. L is not speaking to me.

Do I give a flying fuck? I do not believe so.

Anyway. L is now very wise to the fact that everyone knows what she's been up to and no-one (save uberboss, and maybe not even him) thinks very much of her. Head of department is spitting feathers over it.

And I have no job, effective close of play Friday this week.

But...

I do have two interviews next week.

The man is yelling at me to find something temporary to start Monday morning. Yeah, right - I can't work at all Tuesday cos one interview is 200 miles away and I have to travel, it's at 12.30. Can't work Wednesday afternoon as I have to travel to the other interview. Whatever!

This sucks.

Angry doesn't come near to describing how I feel

Head of department had a long chat with me last night, arising both from a jokey comment of mine and from some prompting from her secretary.

She reckons that it was L who first raised concerns about my behaviour at work. (I freely confess and have done before that I am a flapper and a shouter - when I feel out of control and stressed about something I tend to get into a real tizz and start yelling. It isn't personal, it isn't aimed at anyone in particular, I just get worked up and the pressure is relieved by dint of a lot of waving of arms, slamming about and swearing a blue streak. Not the most grown-up of ways to behave, and something I have worked hard on not doing any more, with quite a degree of success. A notable degree of success where it matters).

Yes, indeed, it was L who raised concerns with uberboss about my behaviour even before Head of department came on board which was a couple of weeks later.

H of d also reckons that this girl who came on Friday is a long-time friend of L's from Leeds, and that it was not in fact a chance meeting at court one day that lead to L telling her there might be a position going at our place.

H of d also commented that I have made real improvements in my work - when I do something well, my work is excellent. (She inserted the caveat that there are times when it appears that I have just abandoned one or two matters in the past, but that that seems to be resolving). A lot of that was down to inexperience and my basically needing to get to grips with the workload and the job again after so many months out of the profession and a little over a year after I'd last done this type of work.

The upshot is that she would like me to stay. I have her permission to tell uberboss that. She also thinks we need an Asian solicitor who can speak Urdu and Punjabi as we have a lot of Asian clients with little or no English. If it is a choice between me and this girl, I will lose out. But - and this is a big but - she says that there is no reason why we cannot have four fee earners in the department. There is sufficient work to justify that - we are all overworked and struggling to keep up, but the billing hasn't been too good in the last couple of months and we need to work on that. We need to really be bringing in a set figure, and we hit maybe one third to one quarter of that last month. I have several matters approved and awaiting payment, so I am going to check out how much I can expect to see on the fortnightly BACS statements coming up that is attributable to me and see how that goes down with the boss.

In the meantime, I am in a quandary. H of d knows about L and uberboss. She said I should tell L myself that she is on to her - I don't want to be doing that. H of d agrees that that ought to come from her as she doesn't want the situation ongoing. Anyone who can do what she has when she has a husband and two small children is more than capable of doing what I am told she has done, according to H of d.

I'm not sure who to believe. There have been one or two things that himself has commented in the past looked a little weird where L was concerned. I raised a couple of those with H of d and she was gobsmacked.

I don't know. I just don't know.

I have two interviews next week though, I can tell you that for nothing.

Today may very well be interesting.

Lead me not to the Tequila

Ten past three on Saturday afternoon and I am finally approaching the waters of near-normality. I hope.

Those who know me through this blog will by now be convinced that I am some kind of alcohol-dependent, shambling wreck. I'm not, honest. Really I'm not. We just ended up having a couple of drinks in the office after the department meeting, then going over to the Mexican again and having Margaritas and beer and good food.

Then we went home, and not very long after I arrived my neighbour came round and invited me over for drinks. So I went. And had a bottle of wine.

I think I need a good long break from such debauchery now.

The man rang the Nuffield yesterday. He will shortly receive a letter inviting him to another appointment with the good Professor McM who will then give him an operation date. Probably about a week after that appointment. He has to follow a special diet for a week to shrink the liver first, apparently. So he's supposed to have stopped smoking again. Which is presumably why he's out in the back garden having a fag.

*sigh*

Last night he asked me why I'd told his mother he'd stopped breathing for himself under the anaesthetic when he had his op last year. Up until that point, I didn't bloody well know that! His dad told him that that I had told his mum that, but I can't have done. Can I?

No news on the job front, in terms of a new job anyway. Yesterday I had the fun and joy of the person who may replace me coming in for the day to see what she thought of it. Head of department asked me if I was ok with that, I said yes and was patted on the back by her. Two minutes later, the person is lead into our room - the room L and I share - and left to speak to L for the morning. So I got bugger all work done and had to listen to L saying what a marvellous crew we are, what a great place it is to work and so on.

Which it is. She felt bad about it she says, but having told her all this at court three months ago - which lead to the girl being approached in the first place - she could hardly then say it was really crap.

Later after lunch I had the further joys of head of department going on in the department meeting about how WE had overcome all the problems of the crap files we'd inherited in the six months or so since the new people started, and how the new procedures had ensured we'd been given a clean bill of health by our consultants who ensure the LSC and the new peer reviewers will think we are great. The bloody cow - she joined in mid-September, two months after me, and has never worked on ANY of the pre-existing files. She brought her own caseload with her and that is practically all that she touches. And it is the likes of me and L that cover her bloody hearings for her.

I was so furious last night that if the uberboss had joined us as L kept asking us to I would have told him straight to his face what I thought to that.

He didn't fortunately.

L got very upset that he didn't and that he was quite dismissive of her, when she had come running at his beck and call the night before. She sent him an ultimatum and he said yeah, whatever in reply. She hasn't heard from him since and was in floods of tears when she got home last night. This whole situation - me with my job and her with this silly affair - is all part of his bloody powertrip, I'm sure of it.

I will end up getting bitter and angry and resentful if I carry on. And that is SO not me.

*snerks*