Over-excitable

Less than 48 hours to go, and my lover will be here - right here, in my flat - here, with me!

I wonder if he was as freaked out and nervous and worried about how everything looked before my first visit to his home? Laughing

Although I do seem to spend a hell of a lot of time online at the moment, I haven't really been devoting much time to this blog, which is a pity really. Maybe if I spent more time lurking inside my own head rather than blarting what passes for thought all over various websites I'd land myself in less trouble. Ah, but then you see, I'd never have met my lover, now would I?

I don't know. Maybe it is time to duck out of line online and get into the real world a little more. There's an awful lot of life to be lived. Should be a little easier to do from 5.13 pm or so on Thursday, at least until Tuesday morning, as my lover will be with me all that time.

I cannot wait.

I hate being away from him. Hate it. Hate how damn miserable I feel, not knowing how long it will be until we're together again. Huh - at least this time the separation is only for three days, then we have 9 days together, then three weeks after that another three days, then three weeks after that, another three days...That brings us to June, pretty much.

I don't know what's likely to happen after that. I don't know how much longer I can bear living like this for, though. I'm already dreading being apart from him again.

Life, hey?

Particle

A repost from SOI's z2cork, for my lover (who seems rarely to remember to check katelyn's 8 minute write posts).

There is not one particle of doubt about it in my mind. I am absolutely certain, as certain as it is possible to be.

I love you. I adore the way you think...I never met anyone so wickedly perverted as you, or so unashamedly happy about it. It's a certain look you get occasionally, the way you suddenly chuckle unexpectedly and your eyes go all twinkly. I know then you've something evil in mind for me, later.

I like knowing this, especially when we're out somewhere together and I know I'm going to have to wait to find out. Better still, I love hearing that chuckle and the grin in your voice when we're speaking on the telephone and something perverted crosses your mind.

And I just love finding something filthy waiting in my mailroom for me.

I wonder, if there was no distance between us, if we were able to be together all the time, would we still have those conversations? Is part of the joyfulness the agony of waiting for that release, for the rush of pleasure and pain, knowing that it will be weeks until we are next together? Would we lose that if there wasn't the distance, the waiting?

Do I want to find out?

Laughing.

What do you think?

When I Wake Up In the Morning...

there will only be one more week to go.

One more week. 7 days. That's all.

I'm really looking forward to the next couple of weeks, starting next Thursday. I am kind of nervous, though. I never wanted my family and the people in r/t I call friends to like someone I love so much before.

Of course, some of my friends already know you, they just haven't met you yet, and those friends I'm pretty certain are going to like you, a lot.

I know my brother has some concerns. I know he's worried that I have a terrible track record for choosing partners, from his point of view at least. I think the biggest factor for him is age. But he doesn't know you. The longer I spend with you, in whatever way, the more I get to know you, the less it matters to me.

I said from the outset that it was irrelevant, remember? Just a number? As you put it, all it means is you have more experience than me. I can deal with that. But it seems to raise eyebrows for a lot of people. When they know you, though - when they can see how we work together (because I do think that we do, very well), I'm hoping they'll be happy for us.

So. All very exciting, but very scary at the same time.

I am looking forward to it, though. And looking forward hugely to the week after and spending nearly ten uninterrupted days with you.

Bad Mood

The nastiest part of being in a bad mood is the vindictive urge to share the misery. Take it out on other people, that way you can feel even more self-centredly bad about yourself!

For My Lover

I lost my way, somewhere along the road. I'm not sure where or when it happened, but I lost it just the same. I never realised I'd lost it. That's maybe the saddest thing of all.

We don't recognise the absence of light and warmth if we've become accustomed to their lack. Like a seed huddled under the cold, damp, earth, my spirit lay there quietly waiting to be brought back to life.

Your patience is endless. You watched and waited, having noticed me, until the time was right. No pressure; no unwanted attention or affection. Just your presence, calm and reassuring, and your words.

Your words became a lifeline of sorts, a safety net beneath me as I climbed and crawled and clambered my way out of the darkness and back into the light. When I fell, you caught me and set me back on the road again. You guided my steps and brought me out into the warmth of the sun, where I could blossom and grow again.

And to this gift you added a further gift: the gift of self-discovery, and a blossoming into something altogether new and different, something unexpected but marvellous.

We walk this road together now, in the warmth of the sun and the clean bright light of his fires. Together we walk and grow, marching on into the future. A future as yet unseen, but the way is well-lit and clear of obstruction, at least for now.

Copied from SOI, a response to katelyn's 8 minute write of 21.02.07.

Do You Feel Lucky?

Well, do you?

Grinning in most evil fashion.

Only time will tell...

[Rolling Stones, Time Is On My Side]

I know I do. Whether I am or not as was quite rightly pointed out is something that only time will reveal. I certainly feel blessed. Everyone should have someone in their life who can pick them up when they're feeling a little downhearted or hard done by. Someone who can make them laugh.

Someone like that is a useful counterbalance to the people who make you want to just SCREAM in frustration.

I like me. I like who I am, for the most part. I don't think I'm too awful. I have friends, and I also have someone who loves me (and who I love, so that works out nicely).

But, for a little bit over eight years, I didn't much like me. I didn't do things the right way, think the right way, act the right way, behave the right way, say the right things. I ended up almost afraid to say boo to a goose when I was with my ex-boyfriend. And the most awful part of it is that I never even noticed this had happened.

I've had 'issues' about some things for a large part of my life. I think anyone who's ever been thoroughly and consistently bullied over a long period of time (11 years in my case), especially as a child, carries a fair amount of baggage around with them. It took me up until I left home at 17 to discover that I could make friends fairly easily, that boys did actually find me attractive, and that I wasn't the invisible girl in the corner good for nothing but ridicule any longer.

I still carried some of that baggage around with me though, into my mid to late twenties. At the time when I met the ex, I wasn't sure where my life was heading. I knew what I wanted to achieve - I was fixated on my career, determined I would qualify as a solicitor and work as one. I hoped to do that and be a mother too, although as I've grown older I do wonder whether that will happen and if it did, would I want to be a working mum? I suspect I will have no option other than to be one if I do become a mother, but only time and circumstance will tell, should that arise.

I had 8 years of being told I wasn't good enough for one reason or another. I'm not committing myself to you until a happens, then b, then all the way through the alphabet and beyond. Some of it seemed reasonable enough: I was carrying a few hundred pounds worth of debt around with me from my student days and it seemed only right that I pay that off before we married. But other things he wanted me to change were part of my personality, part of the fundamental who and what I was, and am. He fell for a gobby, bright, sparky, sarcastic, opinionated, passionate girl with a tendency to occasional bouts of depression and a low self-image and turned her into a miserable wreck who barely dared open her mouth in his company.

Last night he told me neither of us had changed, we were still the same people we were 9 and a half years ago when we first met (you know, February 14 we would have been together 9 years and I only just thought of that now)? I gently reminded him that we had both changed, very much so, and I had changed at his insistence. He commented that they were changes that needed to be made and I'd turned out pretty well. I chose to disagree with him and said that on the whole, I had become someone I didn't recognise.

He misses the gobby, bright, sparky, sarcastic, opinionated, passionate girl - but he all but bludgeoned her out of existence. She's coming back but it's taking a while to fully resurrect her. Age and experience have taught her to temper some of her opinions, and her sense of humour may be all the more wry at times, but on the whole the older version is maybe more rounded a personality. There's still a way to go, but I've come a long way, I think.

I'm still loving the fact I can wander off in a daydream of my own in a store and not have to suffer being yelled at and made to put back whatever it is I've picked up while browsing and get a telling off for not dogging the heels of who I'm with. I think it's fantastic that I can get frustrated and yell and pout and stomp and it's realised that it is not aimed at you personally, but you're here so I'm going to yell at you because you're here. I know that isn't terribly grown up of me, but sometimes it's the only possible way for me to deal with whatever it is that's frustrated me. And I can snap and be irritable and it not be taken as a massive personal insult and spark off a row or lead to hours if not days of sulking, because it's recognised that one snap and I'm done, that's it, over and done with, apologies offered and accepted and the situation resolved.

The greatest thing about it of all is that because I do these things myself, I don't get worked up when someone else does it to me. I understand this behaviour absolutely because that's what I do, too.

I think that's probably the nicest and best thing about life right now: someone out there actually gets me, and I think I get them, pretty much.

Further musings

Well. I was right to be anxious about the snow.

Finally arrived in Frankfurt around 1 pm on Saturday rather than 9 pm Friday. I hate the fact that we lost a night and (by the time I'd run round the airport finding my bag, which was brought to a different part of the airport than we passengers were offloaded to) all of the morning and half the afternoon.

It doesn't help much either when we're both so exhausted having not slept on Friday night that we're fast asleep before midnight (although only one of us slept till gone 3 pm on Sunday and then didn't stir from the bed much before 8 pm).

To add insult to injury, the trial that straddled this weekend was adjourned on Tuesday, so I could have gone to Germany this weekend as had originally been planned, so the snow wouldn't have been a factor and we would have had the time that we expected to have.

Still, at least we had some time together.

The downside is the crash after I get back here. For a good couple of weeks my mood sinks lower and lower, and this is only compounded on this occasion by the fact that work is beyond hectic and means neither of us has much time available to keep in touch, as well as the fact that his broadband connection seems to have turned up its toes. I do tend to get a little bit miserable when I've had one short message since the early hours of Friday morning, and that some time on Sunday.

[Note to self, approximately 14 hours later: do not type Blog entries whilst under the influence of gin...]

The Day After Tomorrow

Two more sleeps! Two more! Two! Count them!

That's if the six inches of snow we're to expect overnight tonight don't totally ruin my plans...it did say that would be the hilly parts of the Midlands - the M1 between here and Birmingham does rise a little bit as it goes round the side of the Derbyshire Dales.

I just don't want to be in the situation where I either can't get to the airport or my flight is unable to take off due to bad weather. At the moment and indeed for the last three days, the sky has been a beautiful, cloudless azure during the day and adorned with a myriad twinkling stars by night. So believing all this snow is imminent is kind of hard.

I intend to pack tonight, anyway. I have some new items to pack which we should both enjoy, as well as some presents for next Wednesday (I can't let February 14 pass by without notice, I'm far too soppy for that). Goodness knows what I can expect to find in the spare room when I do get there. I have had vague comments, odd text messages and have heard more filthy chortles in the last week than the previous three months put together.

Planning to get in for 8 am on Friday so I can head off at midday. Surely 6 hours will be ample to do what is normally a 90 minute journey at the worst, right? As well as getting checked in and onto the plane? Flight leaves at 18:10 and I intend to be on it!

I do wish weekends were longer. And that 'our' weekends had a little less time between them. But this is how it is, so there's little point in muttering and mumbling about it.

Bullying

You know, I had hoped that as I grew older, bullying would become less and less of a problem. I fervently hoped that this would be the case when things were at their worst. It was only the thought that one day, this won't happen any more because grown ups don't do stuff like this that kept me going.

I really was naive, wasn't I?

There's a bully at work, but a nasty, insidious one. She's the adult version of that simpering little pigtailed brat who would run to tell tales in no time at all, who would sneer at you for no apparent reason and who loves to feel intellectually superior even though she isn't.

There are also bullies by the shedload on-line. This is a huge disappointment to me. You would imagine that it would be so much less of a problem, but no. It seems that jealousy and hatred are just as prevalent on the internet if not more so. And just when you think it might have all died down, it all flares up again.

It's really very tiresome.

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?

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