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.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
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?
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?
Monday, December 18, 2006
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?
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?
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
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
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
Monday, December 11, 2006
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
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
Saturday, December 02, 2006
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.
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.
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