Anyone Would Think

...from a casual read of the later instalments of this blog that all I ever talk about, think about, write about is D (perhaps best referred to by one of his online nicknames, Aging Hippy).

Let me assure you that I do think about other things. Honest I do.

The whole point of blogging is that it's done solely for me. I use it as a way to get my thoughts in some sort of order and to get some of the things running around inside my head out of it and onto paper. Or the screen, whatever. One of the main things that exercises my mind at the moment happens to be my relationship with Aging Hippy, mostly because every time we meet up I find myself feeling closer to him and the times apart are therefore far too long.

I have no idea what the future might hold in that regard. There are a few possibilities, but at this early stage it's too soon to say. All I can say is that I feel incredibly relaxed, happy and comfortable when I'm around him. He says that we're good for each other: he's certainly good for me. I feel a hell of a lot better about myself and seem to be regaining some of my self-confidence, which took rather a battering over at least the last 12 months of my previous relationship.

You literally could not find two more different men than Aging Hippy and CtOR (forever more to be known as Butthead). Where one is supportive, the other was controlling. Where one would perceive my getting frustrated about something I was trying and failing successfully to do and shouting about it as my yelling at him and get very upset about it, the other takes it in his stride as a reaction to the situation and not as a personal attack. There are so many other differences; these just happen to be the two that jump immediately to mind.

I knew before we even met that I loved him, or was fairly certain that I would when we finally physically met. I was fond of him as a friend before Butthead and I broke up. In fact, I found myself thinking at one point last year what a pity it was that we couldn't be more than friends. I wasn't free to be anything more, and besides that there were other factors such as the geographical distance between us. Improbable as it may be, though, things seem to be working out very well. I can't imagine life without him in it.

On the home front, I'm hopeful that a long-running legal issue is soon to be resolved. That will be a definite relief! I'm thinking about perhaps moving at some point, buying a house of my own probably near enough to work to mean commuting is still fairly easy while being far enough away I won't be bumping into clients every five minutes when I go out. I'm not sure, though. Much depends on other things which have yet to be decided and issues that may arise in the next year or so. I have a vague idea of how I would like things to be in a year or so's time. Whether it is achieveable or not I am not yet sure.

Work seems to be okay. I always say that, because given the number of times I've been made redundant since I qualified I never feel as though I have any job security! I'm busy, as always, and have a desk full of work to be getting on with and a stack of billing to do, but it will be done. I have a fairly quiet week as I had the last two days of a three-day final hearing cancel after we resolved the issue in a morning. I've deliberately not booked any clients into the empty slots (or rather Mand, my secretary, hasn't). She casts her eye over my desk and juggles my appointments accordingly - she's a star!

I've just finished a care case that had been running for three or four months before I started working here, 15 and a half months ago. I'm down to four now, from a high of 9 or 10 last year. I wouldn't mind some more to be honest, although I am appreciative of the time it frees up to deal with the other matters I have on.

The cats are all fine. Sulking like mad at me because I abandoned them for four days and went off to Germany. Again. Without them. And came back smelling of strange cats and without bringing any presents back for them. I awoke to find both Kit and Loki sitting on my chest this morning. My cue to crack open a can of cat food. While they will eat dry food, they have a definite preference for the wet canned food. Fortunately with three cats now, rather than two, a can of food put down in the morning will be hoovered up before it can go bad in the hot weather.

Loki is the butt of jokes from Aging Hippy due to size of his tail, which appears to have been installed upside down as it is fat and fluffy at the top and skinny where it joins his body. I will admit that he has a different tail appearance than other cats - long-haired cats specifically - but it does seem to suit him quite well. I ought to take some up to date photos of them all. Well, post some of the up to date photos I've been taking of them!

The biggest thing that's happened to me lately is having to buy a new car. The most I've ever spent in the past is £695, and I paid that out of my inheritance from my Nan. The car lasted maybe 18 months...with hindsight, I should have stuck to my guns and got something far newer at that time, but CtOR went postal at the idea of my taking out a loan, considering I'd only just about finished paying off my law school loan and still had my student loan and credit card to clear.

When you consider I spent around £1,000 on repairs for the Hyundai Pony in 18 months and gave CtOR £250 for the Nissan Primera, it all starts to look very uneconomical.

I knew the Primera was on its last legs. Any car that is burning fuel at an exponential rate all of a sudden and is making odd squealing and banging noises is probably not going to make it through the MOT, and at 13 it didn't owe anyone any favours. Just under 111,500 miles on the clock which is nothing really, but considering it was flooded twice and the electrics totally replaced...the bodywork was rusted clean through on the rear door sills, the brake discs needed renewing, a CV joint was gone, the exhaust needed replacing: the total cost was more than the car was worth.

So, I am now the proud owner of a Fiat Stilo 1.4i Active, in a nice shade of a sort of metallic greeny-gray. It's hard to say what colour it is, really. It performs as well as if not better than the Primera (which was a 2.0 litre SLX model) and has 6 gears. It's pretty comfortable on the motorway and good around town, and much easier to park (and avoid trees).



So, there you have it really. About caught up, I think. I'm sure there's loads more stuff I could blather on about but I have to get back to work now!

Life Goes On

I hate leaving. Hate going back to the mundanity of everyday life without you. It's so hard to concentrate on everything. Work fails to hold my attention much of the time, as the state of my desk will attest. I don't feel like doing much around the flat, although I've kept it reasonably tidy. Still things I need to do.

I need to try to find some balance, I think. Not sure how to go about it, but I know I need to do it.

Time to start planning the next trip, I think. Always helps to have a date in mind.

This weekend has been great. I treasure every second we get to spend together. I also love to see you having a good time when we go out and meet people, whether they're friends of yours or my family or people we both know from online. Yesterday was great fun, meeting Seadreamer. I love how you can talk about so many things. Maybe that's down to the fact you have so much experience grinning, maybe it's because of your intelligence and your love of learning and finding out about the world. It makes me smile to watch you talking about things you're enthusiastic about.

I love you...and the tagline still applies.

So, here's to the next time, and the times after that, and to the future (whatever it may hold).

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

...according (I think, though I could be wrong) to Shakespeare.

Yeah, well. I wouldn't call it sweet. I've come to dread the leaving as much as I look forward to - even long for - the arriving.

I knew what I could be opening myself up to, from the beginning. Would never have come out here that first time if I hadn't thought that this could be a possibility. That I would indeed find that I loved you. Love you.

I didn't expect it to hurt this much, though.

Nothing has yet happened to shake my love for you. Sometimes things do go awry, or not as we'd hoped or planned. That doesn't make me love you any less. Perhaps I love you more for the way you deal with things when they do go wrong.

There are no certainties in life, saving the two already universally acknowledged. I am though as certain as I can be that whilever you wish me to be a part of your life, I will not leave it. I may not be physically here, but I am with you all the same.

I'll be back in two weeks and four days from now, after all. In the meantime, you have a grand adventure to look forward to. And three days after you get back, I'll be arriving to spend four more days with you.

There are so many things we could plan to do after that, time and circumstance permitting. We both I think have some vague ideas as to what to do. We still have that trip to Holland to accomplish, that's one thing I think we agree on.

I never want to be someone who hurts you in any way. Believe me, that was one of - if not the biggest of - my worries before I decided to see what might happen if we started something.

A very dear friend tells me that if we think negatively about how a situation may turn out, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, or has the potential to become one. So, I choose not to think negatively. I firmly believe in 'happy ever after' for both of us. I'm not quite sure how we'll get there, but I'd like us to. If that is something that we can both agree on, then we will find a way to make it work.

I love you, darling mine.

Bah!

No dear, not 'cheap dates' sort of baaaaa...

I don't want to be here but I know I can't be there. That's really very annoying.

Still can't quite believe Saturday night happened, either.

Travel broadens the mind

...or so it has been said.

It's certainly a different experience, travelling on a German intercity train. It's only a half-hour journey from Frankfurt to Mannheim, and the train was pretty crowded, but fortuitously for me I fell through the door into a practically-empty buffet car and was more than happy to spend 3 euros on a diet Pepsi for the privilege of a seat and a chance to relax and watch the world go by for a while.

I'm even used to sitting on the right in a car travelling at an ungodly fast speed down the autobahn and not being at the wheel. Apparently my knuckles don't turn a lovely shade of white anymore.

The journey is almost fun now I'm used to it. I get ridiculously nervy travelling, though, even when I know where I'm going. I think it's because I'm so good at getting lost, or managing to miss flights without even having to do anything at all to contribute (like snow closing airports).

What I like best of all, though, is that now it feels like coming home, or it's certainly starting to. That's a good thing, but at the same time it unsettles me. I should know by now not to take anything for granted. That said, there's a small voice in the back of my head telling me that if I expect everything to go wrong, then it will. Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that. I'm good at expecting the worst, though. At least then it doesn't come as quite such an unpleasant surprise.

In many ways, this is the most grown-up relationship that I've been in. That may be perhaps more to do with the fact that I've grown up a fair bit over the last few years. A consequence of growing older, I expect, as well as reaching a certain level of maturity.

When I was 21, I fell for a man who was 8 years my senior. He seemed terribly grown-up at the time, but looking back on it at that stage in my life he was probably far too old for me. I was a pretty young 21, and he was a convenient way out of an abusive relationship I'd been trying to break free from since I was 17. Not the most ideal start for any new relationship.

Maybe the relationships that grow from friendships are the better kind...deeper-rooted, with a greater understanding of each other from the outset because so much is already known, although there are still many mysteries to be explored.

Perhaps the only thing I can be certain of is that each relationship has been different from the last, some more so than others. And I like where I am now, very much.

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!