Two Weeks and Five Days

Or (if you prefer), 19 sleeps to go.

grinning idiotically...

One good thing about a long-distance relationship is that small changes are more noticeable when you don't see each other face-to-face that often. Or so I hope. I haven't fitted in as much exercise as I would have liked, but partly that was down to the atrocious weather on Thursday. I didn't go swimming on Friday instead as I had to head off for that party in Sheffield.

Oh crikey...talk about envious. One of the barristers is impossibly slender but somehow curvy too, and she was wearing (bearing in mind the theme was Casino Royale, or Bond in general) an impossibly-tight gold shiny catsuit, thigh-high gold boots, a golden wig and with her hands and face painted gold. Apparently she had to take a friend with her whenever she went to powder her nose as the catsuit zipped up the back.

I spent some of the evening playing with Blofeld's pussy, which kept moulting over my leg. Naughty pussy.

It was nice to get away from the house, actually, and spend the night somewhere warm and with electricity. The storms took out the wooden poles on the embankment above the main house, which left the older part of the village without power for nearly 48 hours. There was a degree of damage to trees, with the most dramatic casualty here probably being a massive and ancient horse chestnut that toppled over onto the five acres here, taking with it a large chunk of next door's field, several saplings and what appears to be a fair-sized tree of some other variety. Not to mention other greenery. Pictures over at SOI's Photobag room.

I was not best chuffed to be sent home early on Thursday from a nice, warm, lighted office only to find the house in darkness. No power, no heat, no light, no way to cook dinner - and a bag full of chicken and salad from Tesco in Rotherham which went entirely to waste. I did however have the wit not to open the freezer compartment, so all the food in there remained frozen.

19 more sleeps...only 19. Feels like 119. I think the thing I hate most of all is when something goes wrong or one of us is hurting or ill. It's the physical absence that I most dislike, given that we manage to speak to or at least mail each other every day. Or nearly every day. And the missed days aren't down to anything in particular except very often just dumb luck.

I wonder if I would be half so tactile if we saw each other more often? Do I jam in as many kisses and cuddles and other things as I can to make up for the fact that most of the time I don't get to provide them? Or would I be just as bad if I did? I rather think the latter, going on past experience.

Argh

Someone over at SOI posted a very useful link (which I must add to my profile) for SparkPeople. This is broadly speaking a motivational website that allows you to enter your food and exercise within the context of a supportive online community (it's there should you want it, kind of thing, but you are encouraged to actively participate in that community).

Anyway, that was yesterday. I decided that as I'd had a really positive day (I have been trying to eat rather more healthily) that I would input my food intake and set up a few things like exercise goals, weight loss goals and so on. It reckons that at 2 pounds a week I can be at target by Boxing Day! Jeez!

I am discovering that I don't really eat enough fat. How weird is that? It's not like I go out of my way to cut it out of my diet, not knowingly. I think I must have just had picking healthy options drummed into me so much that fat is one of the things I automatically omit. Of course, it helps that I have taken two days to nibble one plain chocolate Flake bar, and haven't been stuffing crisps down my neck.

Tonight I went swimming after work for the first time since October 2006. 36 lengths in 45 minutes, ten of them breaststroke, the rest my version of front crawl. My technique sucks again after three or four laps and my breathing goes to pot, but I think I could quite quickly get back up to 50+ lengths in an hour.

This was what I had to say about the experience, however:

I want to be rich enough ...to have a house with a full-size pool.

*grumping*

the local leisure centre is all well and good, but...i don't really want to have squealing children jumping in from the side and landing on top of me or slap bang in my path so i bump into them, or am half-drowned by the tidal wave created.

i don't want to be pushed so far off my line as the pool is too damn busy that i scrape my hand off a broken tile on the pool wall and skin a knuckle.

i don't want to spend my session swimming an extra ten lengths just trying to swim up and down and having to avoid the couples, and larger groups, who swim abreast ever so slowly whilst chatting.

yes, i've tried going before work. no kids, but twice as busy.

no, i don't hate kids: but there are set times for children to horse about, and when it's an open swimming session, let's do just that.

and yes, i could join a private gym. but i don't happen to have a spare £50 a month plus the £200 up front that the local private gym would require.

i tell you, as soon as it is light at a time of day when i can see the roads and paths, i am off out walking and running! i might even buy a bicycle...i know where i can pick one up for about £70, and as a one-off i can manage that.

/end rant.

Not too impressed, was I?

Ah, well! If I am going to do all this walking, I need to get fitter. Quite a bit fitter. And as it is too dark for walking in the evening during the week, swimming will have to do for now. But I really do think a reasonably inexpensive bike is a good plan. I always did find it bloody hard work, though. So it probably is a really good idea, in that case. And cross-training is better for you than just sticking to the one exercise.

Time for bed, I think. Night night!

Sometimes I Think Too Much

There are times when I wonder just exactly am I getting myself into? Where is it likely to lead? Where do I want it to lead? What do I want from it?

What do I want?

Now there's a question. If I knew exactly what I want, well, I wouldn't be thinking about what it is that I want. I would have reached a decision, dealt with it and be working out how to achieve what it is that I've decided I want.

Much of what I've been thinking about today is too imponderable, it's too soon to be worrying about. But I know all too well that if I don't think about this stuff now, it could cause me - and others - a lot of heartache down the road. And I don't want that to happen.

I walked into this with my eyes wide open. Quite why I'm panicking about things that may or may not happen is a mystery to me. So, that said, for now I am going to stop worrying and just concentrate on what I have now and decide on where to go from there.

Some things I know already I want. Like a house of my own. I'm trying to make that a reality - I have to start to build something for myself, because after all, the only person responsible for me now is me. I'm supposed to be a big girl now, and if I am going to have any security I need to start working my way towards that now. It does depend a little on something else being sorted out. I need to start yelling at a few people to make that happen, and for that I need to be in full possession of all the facts and information that I need.

What I need to bear in mind is that the only person who can make a bright future for me, is me. While there may be someone in my life right now who is doing wonders for me on so many levels, and I hope will continue to be in my life for a long time, there are no guarantees, no givens, and nothing can ever be taken for granted.

That contributes to a feeling of being unsettled. I feel in a state of flux, following on from the changes that there have been in the last 12 months. Now is the time to consolidate and to build on those changes.

On a lighter note, I have been fooling around with my new camera and taking a few photographs. I thought my gentle reader(s) may like to see a rather more recent shot of me than the one on my profile.

One of Those Days

Insert lengthy whinge here.

I hate days like today. I hate feeling crappy, I hate feeling whingy and I hate missing you. I could deal with any one of those in isolation, but all of them together...

Ugh.

I Could Almost Wish...

we hadn't spoken last night. Then I would have it still to look forward to.

Although that's silly really because I would still be missing you just as much as I am now. You should know, incidentally, that knowing that you are now reading these meanderings makes me awfully self-conscious. No, that does not mean I want you stop reading them!

I'm amazed how much of the detail I no longer remember. I can't recall much of what I did on the days you went to work. Apart from sleep, and wander around poddling here and there, sorting things out that I wanted to sort out. In a strange house that isn't your own, you never like to move anything or do anything too much. Considering how I react to people doing that in my own space, I don't quite know why I did it. I am shocked to find that I quite enjoyed it, somehow. That is so very not me...

Usually. But then, I am not usually how I am when in your presence. Maybe we bring out the best in the other. Or possibly the worst? Or baddest. *snerk*

Anyway. Life rumbles on. I can't really complain. Well, I could. But I don't feel like it right at this very minute.

I would rather be in your arms than almost anywhere else at this precise exact minute, actually. As to the anywhere else - you can probably guess.

So, gentle reader (my other reader, that is - hello out there). What else is happening? I'm planning and plotting a trip to Bradford - back to deepest, darkest Manningham! With L's husband having moved out at last, I have somewhere I can stay, so we are going to arrange a meeting and revisit some old haunts. Yes! La Cantina on Manningham Lane! Mexican food and at least one jug of the best Margarita this side of...well, the last place I had a Margarita. The company won't be quite as good.

So, with any luck, that will be four weekends from now. That leaves a blank weekend this weekend, the posh party in Sheffield next weekend, J&F's party in Suffolk the week after that, then hopefully Bradford. And then we are at the second weekend in February which hopefully means...

Hmm. Christmas pudding without custard. I wonder how it tastes? I must find out.

Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before

Had a text from L earlier this evening.

You remember L, gentle reader? (New readers, please refer to this time last year for the gory details). Seems she and her husband C have finally had an epiphany and separated. He's moved out and the house is going on the market.

'It hasn't been working for ages', she comments. Um, yeah. I know. For as long as I've known you (since what, September 2005?) and then some.

I asked her once why she'd married him. 'All my mates had gone off to uni or had long-term boyfriends and I just felt really left out. He asked me to marry him after a few months and I just thought, well why not.' What's that saying - marry in haste, repent at leisure? "If we marry without thinking about the decision, we will have a lifetime to regret the choice".

A lifetime? Not these days! I must be getting old or something, but this society feels more and more disposable every day. Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating a return to the days when women put up with the most awful domestic violence and cruelty, or couples stayed locked in loveless and miserable marriages because that was 'the done thing'. It just doesn't feel to me as though anyone these days actually stops to think about marriage before entering into it.

I know it may be cheesy and old-fashioned, but whatever happened to marriage as lifelong commitment? If you are going to stay with someone for the rest of your (or their) life, then surely to goodness you need to think long and hard whether this is something you actually really want to do before making a commitment on that level. I don't agree - not in terms of UK legislation - that cohabiting is just as solid and effective. Sorry ladies, but unmarried women are routinely ripped off on separating for a number of reasons - been there and done that myself (and I set myself up for it in full possession of that knowledge).

I'm all for cohabiting for a while to see how it works out - my Mum always swore blind she'd never have married my father if she'd known what an utter slob he was beforehand. But if it becomes apparent that the two persons involved are still firmly convinced they want to make it a permanent arrangement, I do believe that marriage is a good thing. What firmer commitment can two people make to each other, after all?

People change. Ways of thinking change. The reasons we fell in love with our partner can irritate the pants off us months or years down the road. But is any of that sufficient reason to walk away from a marriage, from a commitment meant to last a lifetime?

Ah, what the hell do I know - never been married and not convinced I'm ever likely to be!

Bleeeeeeuuuuuch!

Ugh.

Back to work. And back to Earth with a bump. Although not due to a bad landing on arriving back in England.

I hate the post-Christmas blues. I need something to look forward to, and the end of March when I am off home for my brother's birthday seems a hell of a long way off. That will be the mother and father of all parties...he turns 30 on March 31st, and they know how to party above pretty much all else in Ullapool.

I had a fantastic Christmas and New Year. Really fantastic. It's totally unlike me to feel so relaxed around someone I hardly know (erm, have hardly met before - I can't really say I don't know the person in question, now can I)? I did, though. It all feels perfectly right and natural - and I mean all of it. Yes, all of it. I never usually make my mind up so fast. I'm not even aware of having made my mind up, as such. It just is what it is and that's all there is to it.

The pile on my desk was as bad as if I'd never been away. Much of it though was filing, some of it was just court orders and whatnot and they take very little effort to deal with. There's still most of it left though, because I realised that in the mad rush to get stuff dealt with minus a secretary, I totally forgot about the work (tons of it!) that needed doing so I could meet a Court deadline of January 4. Tomorrow! So Mand will have her fingers occupied tomorrow typing all the stuff up and then faxing it to the relevant places. Though I might just stick it all in the DX - a day late won't make any real difference, and the other side were over a week late with their Form E, meaning I haven't actually had the chance to go through it with the client which may have raised more questions - must send him a copy and ask him for his views ahead of the FDR...(switches into legalese for a moment regardless).

Can I go back to Germany now, please?