Well, here I am again.
Wish I could say it's all been wine and roses since last I posted, but that would be a great fat hairy fib.
On a personal level, relationship-wise, things are fine. I haven't spent as much time over here as I would ideally like to have, or had him over with me often enough (I'm in Germany as I write this), but at least I know now that at some point in the next three months I will (ought) to be moving over here on a permanent basis.
Back at the beginning of January, I probably wrote about the shit I got at work when I arrived back from best part of a month of being ill in Germany. I may even have mentioned that my anti-depressant dosage was upped to the highest it has ever been, 225 mg per diem. It hasn't been reduced down yet, even though my GP hates my being on Venlafaxine and would never have prescribed it for me himself.
Things seemed to have settled down somewhat after L's outburst earlier in the month. It was over a week before I dared speak to her about it, but after that she seemed okay with me again. Our head of department, AF, conducted an investigation into the various issues raised, but that didn't start until February and it was mid-April before he told me he'd finished and had handed it over to the staff partner, KG, who deals with disciplinary proceedings and the like.
I came out to Germany in March, for Easter. I actually arrived the weekend before, so around the middle of the month. Not a problem, in fact I was delighted Easter was so early this year as I was missing D terribly after almost a month with him in December and into January. When I got back in to the office, L's secretary J (who started on January 2 this year), remarked 'So you came back then?'
I was a little taken aback by that, to say the least, but thought nothing of it. I just said yeah, course I did, I wasn't ill this time. Truth to tell, if I could have made it into work once the worst of the sinus thing had passed I would have, and had I been in the UK I most certainly would have. The small fact that I couldn't fly back, and hadn't the money to get back any other way (and wasn't really up to trekking back on trains or ferries to Birmingham and then driving back home, only to have to make the same journey back again for Christmas), kind of prevented me from working, you know?'
Anyway. To cut to the meat of the story. I don't think I'd been back terribly long - a week at best, I think, if that - when payday arrived. That meant end of the month. L opened her wageslip and had a pink fit: she'd been docked a day's pay. That was it - she was straight on the phone to the finance manager, demanding to know what this was all about. She was absolutely raging and really quite rude to him. She was told in no uncertain terms that she had taken one more day's sick leave in the previous year than she should have, and so they had docked it from her salary.
She whisked off to speak to some of the partners, and seemed to think one of the partners who is she is on particularly good terms with would simply overrule the finance manager and give her her money back. She was not at all happy when by the following day he hadn't done so. She started talking about walking out at that point.
Come the following Monday, she still hasn't heard about getting the money back. She pushes the issue and still gets nowhere. All we hear then is 'I've worked for this fucking firm for ten years, and they treat me like shit!'
Wednesday rolls around, and I have a psychiatric appointment at 3.30 in the afternoon. L had previously said I should take a half day off. I didn't agree with that as in the past, I've seen her come in at 8 am, work through lunch and leave at 3.15. So that's what I did. Besides which, I came back into the office 90 minutes' later and worked for another hour or so, so did extra time (which I do most days anyway).
When I came back, I wandered into the secretaries' room for a chat and to pick up any messages that had made their way upstairs already. They both looked a little shell-shocked, and J told me that L had walked out. I gave her a 'you appear to be speaking in tongues' look, and she explained that immediately after I'd left for the hospital, L had grabbed her most prized personal possessions and stormed out the building. She made quite a display of herself on her departure, it would appear. Tongues were - and are - still wagging.
Following morning I rang AF at his office in another town and told him she'd left. He asked if I meant permanently and I told him yes, that she'd texted in that morning and said she was not going to work out her notice period as she was too ill due to stress. He told me not to be so stupid, that as a solicitor I should be aware that she was required to work out her notice period and couldn't just walk out. I told him that all I could say was what she had told her secretary via text message. He asked for a list of her appointments and court dates for the next week and said if she came in with a letter of resignation to call him again.
The next Monday, she did so. My secretary faxed it across to him at his behest. L asked if she had any messages from AF or from any of the partners. She was told no, she had not. I bumped into her briefly - almost literally when I got upstairs from seeing a client - and she cut me dead. I still told her goodbye and that I would miss her. At that stage, I had no idea she was not on good terms with me.
On Wednesday, she turned up unannounced saying that she was well enough to work out her notice period and intended to do so. I soon discovered she wasn't speaking to me...then that Friday she laid into me, at one point marching up to my desk, leaning across it and thrusting her finger at my face. I am afraid at that point I told her to fuck off. She carried on berating me for another few minutes, until I looked up at her scornfully and asked 'And I suppose it's my fault that you walked out, yeah?'
Oh, muppet by name and by nature! Big mistake girl, biiiiiiiiiiiiiig mistake. You gave her an idea, and she ran with it!
She filed a grievance against me, citing my time recording, start time, complaints from staff, clients and colleagues, inability to bill files or respond to letters from the LSC and so on, but also brought up a lot of other stuff, like the time I had off in December, my depression and some other things. Now, I have already held up my hand to those on high that I have shouted at a professional from another firm on the phone. I have suggested my start time be amended to 10 am as I can't seem to make it in for 9 am. I have explained that much of my anger and lack of motivation that lead to the other cock-up derived from my depression, but that I had addressed my depression quickly and had made the firm and my colleagues aware of the problems I was having. I did that back in February of this year, and have been making amends ever since.
That would have been I think around about April 7. Since then, I haven't had word boo from her - or hadn't until Wednesday. She finished work on the Friday, and my last day before my short break in Germany was Wednesday. I'd asked earlier while she was out on lunch if it was definite that this Friday was her last day, and she must have heard about it because she stalked into my office and kind of...I dunno, hissed would be about right, but she hisses at high volume! Anyway, she hissed/yelled 'If you want to know when my last day is, why don't you ask me? For your information, yes, it is this Friday. But don't you worry, it'll be your last day before very much longer, so enjoy it while you can!'
On that, she turned on her heel and marched out my office, her departure spoiled only by the fact that she bounced off the doorframe on the way out...
That was not, however, the last she had to say to me. Oh no. That came at full roar as she went off to see a client downstairs.
'Not much point coming back from Germany, really - she ought to stay there. That's if her fucking pensioner will have her'.
Let's just say that it is really a testament to my ability to remain calm that she did not complete her descent of the stairs with the assistance of my toe up her arse.
I did leap out my chair when I heard the door downstairs slam shut and head for the secretaries' room which is next to mine and as far from the top of the stairs as my room. J had her head in her hands and was whey-faced and A was just kind of chewing on the inside of her lip and wriggling her nose the way she does when there's something she really doesn't want to do or say. I demanded to know if they'd heard that, then - the shame! - started to cry as I was so furious.
Later, J told me that if I mentioned it to those on high she would not deny it, but wouldn't report it herself. That's good enough for me.
The outcome of the investigation was reported to me on Monday of this week. I have to attend a disciplinary hearing on Wednesday next week. A day or so later, the partner who had dealt with L's grievance reported back to her by post and she went postal about that. Apparently he'd skirted the issues that she'd raised and she was most unsatisfied and demanded an appeal against it, stating which other partner she wanted to handle the appeal.
Ooops. She didn't get who she wanted. Oh no. She got the very top of the tree, the man who everybody fears, the man who takes no crap from no-one and who even she is a little bit afraid of, I think. She sees him at 10 am, I have my hearing at 2 pm.
I intend to go armed. I have one of my litigation colleagues, N, who I get on well with, coming with me. I was taking A, but she felt uncomfortable about it and thought it best I go with someone else. N is driving us there as she lives in the town where head office is, which is where I have to go. She can't speak for me, but can support me.
N spoke to her head of department, who handled L's grievance in the first place. She told me that she had a feeling that the disciplinary hearing is a step they have to be seen to have taken, so that if (when, more like) L goes to an employment tribunal and claims she was not dealt with fairly and was driven out of a job, they can show that they did take her seriously and carried out a full investigation.
I may receive a formal warning, a final written warning, be dismissed with notice or dismissed immediately with three months' pay in lieu of notice. They already know I intend to leave anyway. I'm hopeful I can arrange that I leave of my own accord and that my copybook isn't so badly blotted it makes it hard for me to find work in the future.
I've already owned up to having sworn at her. I've twice stated that she has been bullying me and I find it intolerable working with her. I've been told filing a grievance is the only thing I can do, to which I replied that I would still have to work with her and I would find it even harder having filed a grievance against her.
My health has suffered. My blood pressure is up, I've gained weight as I've been comfort eating or just plain not bothering to diet or exercise, and I haven't yet managed to taper off the anti-depressants, which having been on them for 8 months I would normally have done by now. My mood is noticeably flat, although at least I am not flying off the handle any more and haven't been really since the end of January when the increase in dosage kicked in.
So, there you have it. My life in a nutshell since I last bothered to update the blog.
I will update again next Wednesday, worry not. It's depressing, and annoying, and really very sad as I do love my job on so many levels. I just can't deal with the shit that comes with it at times.
Oh, hey! I have my Asperger's assessment on June 23! That's only what, seven months after I first saw a shrink and asked for it. Took a lot of nagging and a change of shrink to do it, too. But that's another post for another time.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
The Down Side
I chose to do what I do currently because I wanted to make a difference, in some small way. I wanted to use my ability to help people, and for the most part that's what I do.
Sometimes, though...there's nothing I or anyone can do.
She shares my birthdate, but apart from that small coincidence we've really nothing in common. She's 14 years younger, half my size, has two beautiful children and an IQ in the region of 47-57.
She's been let down her whole life. First of all by her parents. Her father disappeared years ago, and her mother has difficulties of her own. As part of the matter with which I became involved, her mother was also seen by a psychologist. Her IQ is closer to 65. This girl told me no, my mum's not got learning difficulties, she can read and write. I can't do that.
Her mother decamped to Norfolk with her other children. She was left behind with her grandmother. She says she wanted to stay behind, but it seems she was left, at 9 years old, to care for her grandmother.
At some point, during her childhood, she was abused. I won't say more than that. She hasn't the ability with language to disclose much and obviously enough it's upsetting for her to think about that. It isn't really important to what we're doing (although it matters, it matters a great deal), so we haven't explored that.
Her mother came back from Norfolk with a new man by this stage, and she never really got along with him. The social worker saw him hitting her, but they're both adults now so she couldn't intervene, really...
When she was 15, an older boy raped her. She didn't really understand what had happened. She'd been truanting from school for so long that she was allowed to leave before taking any exams. Not that she could read or write, so there would have been no point, anyway.
Social services had some involvement with her, but it isn't clear what. Their records are patchy. Never easy to keep records in order, when offices move around so much, and they never made it onto computer.
This is her story, in more or less her words, since she turned 16.
She met a boy when she was 16. He was nice to her, made her happy. She fell pregnant and had a beautiful red haired boy. Like his dad's dad, that. Red hair. He started to hit her then. She couldn't get him to leave her alone, couldn't cope with the baby. Her mum and her stepdad looked after him, and she hated it, she really hated it, but they took over. Social services didn't want her to look after her own baby, she didn't know how to fight them...her mam let her see him, but he used to cry when she left him there.
She went with another boy a couple or three years ago, fell pregnant again. He was friends with the other boy. She had another boy, this time a beautiful blonde boy with big blue eyes. He looks like his dad, too. Neither of her babbies looks like her. Makes her sad.
Social services, this time, they let her keep her babby with her. She loved him so much, looked after him as well as she could. His dad didn't want to know him. His dad's mam did, but they never got on that well.
She loves her boys. She really does. Everything were fine, but then her older boy's dad come back and he were on drugs then and he wrecked her house, tore it all up. Wouldn't leave her alone.
She saw a solicitor, got an injunction against him. Forgot to go to court to get it again and it went, and he kept coming back and hurting her. Social services came back and put her little blonde boy with her older boy at her mam's. That hurt her so much, her mam didn't care about her. Got so angry, broke a window at her mam's. Police come. Police come round a lot. Been in court a couple of times. Her mam's fella, he hits her. Bloodied her nose in front of social worker. She didn't do nothing. He hit me and she didn't do nothing. She doesn't care about me, she just wants my babbies.
My mam had my babbies, mam and her man. They got sick. Took older boy to doctor, give him some medicine. Social worker took both boys to hospital, see a doctor there. Doctor said they was sick, really sick. Blamed me, blamed my mam and her bloke. Took them off us and put them with foster carers.
They love it with their foster carers. They're so good with them. Boys tell me all about it. Older boy, he's in school. He's doing right well. He's not like me, he can write his name, and mummy. Makes me things out of Playdough. He tells me, 'Don't cry, mummy. I can't come home right now cos you're poorly, but I'll come home when you're better. Don't cry, mummy'.
She wants her boys with her, but she knows that is never going to happen. Then her mam could have them, but they won't let that happen either. Boys have been through enough. Want them to stay with foster carers, they love it there. But foster carers can't have them. Older boy, he's going to be so angry, so hurt. Don't want them to get moved again, it's not fair.
--------------------------------
It makes me so very, very angry. This poor child - because, while chronologically she is 22, she is still a child - has been let down by everyone her whole life through. There has been social services involvement on some level through a large chunk of her life. She had difficulties at school, but it was put down to behavioural problems. She was written off as lazy and disruptive.
This is a very vulnerable girl, who has been used and abused by goodness only knows how many people. The shocking thing, for me, is that it was only when the local authority began care proceedings in respect of her sons that there was an assessment of her abilities on more than a basic level.
The first time we went to court, I remember standing in the solicitors' room and insisting we had to have a psychiatric assessment carried out because I did not think she had a clear understanding of what was happening and did not think she was competent to instruct me. I was told I was just holding things up and there was no need for it. I stood my ground. That is how we know how learning disabled she is. A psychologist confirmed this. The psychiatrist recommended a psychological assessment, and I am very grateful that he did so. I just wish that more good had come out of it for her, because nothing has been done to resolve her many issues.
Today, we took her to court, and the judge made final care orders. We go back in April for placement orders to be made. Her beautiful boys will be adopted by strangers. She will never see them again after April. Between now and then, she has two one hour contact sessions, and then a final goodbye contact. These normally only last twenty minutes at most because they're so emotionally hard on mother and children.
This poor, bewildered girl, still so much a child in so many ways, was distraught. She doesn't understand how or why this can have happened to her. She never harmed her children. Not intentionally...but the older boy had eight teeth removed after going into foster care, and four teeth capped. His developmental delay has all but gone, and he will most likely keep up with his peers. He seems to be of average intelligence, as does his little brother. She is happy about that.
Her own prospects appear grim. She continues to fight with her mother and stepfather, who has a terminal illness. They blame her for losing their grandsons. She blames them for not looking after them properly, not making sure the older boy went to school or to the dentist. They were supposed to be looking after him. He and his brother both became ill when they were looking them - she couldn't make them listen when she asked if they could see the doctor, and she wasn't allowed to take them anywhere on her own because the social worker wouldn't let her.
She's lost her council housing because her older boy's father came back on the scene. He kicked her back door in to get in to her house, and although she told the council repeatedly they never fixed the door so she couldn't keep him out. He and his 'friends' trashed her house again and started taking drugs there. The neighbours kept complaining about the shouting and screaming and the bad behaviour of the visitors to her property.
She can't live with her mother because they fight all the time. Her grandmother is ill. The council won't rehouse her. So, she's on the streets, moving from one friend's sofa to another and sleeping rough when she has to.
She hadn't eaten in two days. I took her to McDonald's on the way back from court. She wolfed down her burger then played with her fries. Too upset to eat more. She had a strawberry milkshake and talked about how much her boys loved McDonald's and how she hoped she could take them for one of her last contacts with them.
So many tears, today. I couldn't speak when we came out of court, her barrister sat with her arms around her and soothed her because if I'd opened my mouth to speak I would have started crying too.
I am afraid for her future, so very afraid. I cannot see any hope that things will turn out better for her in the long run. Her children will be - I hope - well cared for and very much loved by whoever is lucky enough to adopt them. They are very beautiful boys. Bright, cheeky faces, big smiles in the photos I've seen.
She asked me, in the car, do I like what I do. I told her that I do, a great deal. But not on days like today.
I had to stop speaking there, so that I could hold back the tears and keep the car on the road.
This is the down side of what I do for a living. No happy endings for this girl. At least I know that I have done all that I can to help her. My contact at the Official Solicitor's office who instructs me tells me I've done more than many of the solicitors she instructs would bother to do.
Sometimes all the caring about the outcome and worrying about the client and trying your best for them doesn't lead to a happy ending. I know I get too involved at times, but when you are dealing in matters like this, truly life-altering matters...how can you not become involved?
All I can do now is hope for the best. One comment that was made by the psychologist haunts me, though.
"I do believe that with the support of a loving and caring partner, K could parent safely, adequately and perhaps competently. However I do not think that K would be attracted to this kind of partner, or that she would be likely to attract such a partner."
I cried when I read that.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
An Anniversary
Six years ago on August 3, at around 5 pm, my mother suffered a massive sub-arachnoid haemorrhage. In simple terms, a blood vessel or vessels in her brain burst and bled.
We lived a long way from the nearest hospital. Both the air ambulance and the Coastguard helicopter were engaged in rescues, and the land ambulance had taken someone else from our village to hospital and hadn't yet got there.
Our GP was called straight away, my father went to pieces so my brother had to call him and then go back to performing CPR on mum. While all this was happening, I was in the pub after work with a colleague and her partner.
It wasn't until around 6.30 pm that my brother had a chance to call to let me know. I was 500 miles away and could do nothing. My colleague's partner gave me a lift part way back to my house and I travelled the rest of the way on the bus.
My partner of the time had gone out on the lash in Leeds and wasn't answering his phone. He got back around 8 o'clock and fell apart when I told him. I can remember comforting him and wondering what the heck I was doing - wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?
Meanwhile, the ambulance had finally taken mum to hospital, where they put her on life support and scanned her. They had to stabilise her first, in case something could be done. It was 1 am when we heard they could do nothing and that she would more than likely not make any kind of meaningful recovery.
The next few days are sort of a blur of travelling home, to and from the hospital, and long hours in intensive care sitting there. I didn't want her to be alone, even though there was nothing there of my mother by that stage. She lost consciousness within minutes of collapsing and never came round. Still, I couldn't think of anywhere I wanted to be but there.
I'd booked my train ticket home that morning, to surprise her for her birthday a couple of weeks or so later. Around lunchtime, I started to get this feeling of real dread. It worsened during the afternoon...the weather matched my mood, with torrential rain and thunderstorms. I recalled, later, that I'd woken in the middle of the night a few weeks earlier with the thought clear in my mind: 'How am I going to cope when my mother dies?' I can't help but think that deep down, I knew.
I last spoke to her properly on the Wednesday night, and I remember we were both reluctant to end the call, kept saying goodbye and telling the other to stop being silly and hang up. The next evening, my cat did something incredibly sweet and daft, and I wanted to call to tell her about it, but talked myself out of it because we'd only spoken the night before. Of course, I wish I'd called her, now.
I've recounted previously how I remembered the night before she died that she had wanted to be an organ donor if this kind of situation arose. I remember that my heart soared when they confirmed that could happen, I had such a burst of energy at that news.
There are so many things I have chosen not to remember. She died at 10.55 pm on Tuesday 7 August 2001. It took them just short of two and a half hours from when they took her down to theatre.
I'd experienced bereavement before, but never on this scale. I can't describe adequately the emptiness. The fact that someone who was so vital to our lives suddenly no longer being there just took the ground from beneath my feet. Do you suppose they call it 'loss' because you feel so totally lost as a result?
I have an odd kind of belief system. I went down to the chapel and raged at God one night. Lucky for the chaplain that he wasn't there, I suppose. I went back later and apologised, but that's the way I am.
It took me a long time to straighten myself out afterward. I think at times I may still be a work in progress. I still miss her and think of her most days, but the paralysing sense of loss and the rawness of the pain have for the most part gone.
Anniversaries are always difficult. I find that after my birthday - July 9 - I start to dread the passing of the rest of the month. August is not a great month as her birthday is August 23. She would have been 68 this year.
There were over 400 people at the funeral. The church was packed and I believe there were folk standing out in the porch as they couldn't get in.
She touched so many lives, just by being who she was. A funny, kind, generous woman who made you feel your worries and hurts were the most important thing in the world if you were hurting, and who could make you laugh till you cried.
She was very much loved by many. I can't think of a better epitaph.
We lived a long way from the nearest hospital. Both the air ambulance and the Coastguard helicopter were engaged in rescues, and the land ambulance had taken someone else from our village to hospital and hadn't yet got there.
Our GP was called straight away, my father went to pieces so my brother had to call him and then go back to performing CPR on mum. While all this was happening, I was in the pub after work with a colleague and her partner.
It wasn't until around 6.30 pm that my brother had a chance to call to let me know. I was 500 miles away and could do nothing. My colleague's partner gave me a lift part way back to my house and I travelled the rest of the way on the bus.
My partner of the time had gone out on the lash in Leeds and wasn't answering his phone. He got back around 8 o'clock and fell apart when I told him. I can remember comforting him and wondering what the heck I was doing - wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?
Meanwhile, the ambulance had finally taken mum to hospital, where they put her on life support and scanned her. They had to stabilise her first, in case something could be done. It was 1 am when we heard they could do nothing and that she would more than likely not make any kind of meaningful recovery.
The next few days are sort of a blur of travelling home, to and from the hospital, and long hours in intensive care sitting there. I didn't want her to be alone, even though there was nothing there of my mother by that stage. She lost consciousness within minutes of collapsing and never came round. Still, I couldn't think of anywhere I wanted to be but there.
I'd booked my train ticket home that morning, to surprise her for her birthday a couple of weeks or so later. Around lunchtime, I started to get this feeling of real dread. It worsened during the afternoon...the weather matched my mood, with torrential rain and thunderstorms. I recalled, later, that I'd woken in the middle of the night a few weeks earlier with the thought clear in my mind: 'How am I going to cope when my mother dies?' I can't help but think that deep down, I knew.
I last spoke to her properly on the Wednesday night, and I remember we were both reluctant to end the call, kept saying goodbye and telling the other to stop being silly and hang up. The next evening, my cat did something incredibly sweet and daft, and I wanted to call to tell her about it, but talked myself out of it because we'd only spoken the night before. Of course, I wish I'd called her, now.
I've recounted previously how I remembered the night before she died that she had wanted to be an organ donor if this kind of situation arose. I remember that my heart soared when they confirmed that could happen, I had such a burst of energy at that news.
There are so many things I have chosen not to remember. She died at 10.55 pm on Tuesday 7 August 2001. It took them just short of two and a half hours from when they took her down to theatre.
I'd experienced bereavement before, but never on this scale. I can't describe adequately the emptiness. The fact that someone who was so vital to our lives suddenly no longer being there just took the ground from beneath my feet. Do you suppose they call it 'loss' because you feel so totally lost as a result?
I have an odd kind of belief system. I went down to the chapel and raged at God one night. Lucky for the chaplain that he wasn't there, I suppose. I went back later and apologised, but that's the way I am.
It took me a long time to straighten myself out afterward. I think at times I may still be a work in progress. I still miss her and think of her most days, but the paralysing sense of loss and the rawness of the pain have for the most part gone.
Anniversaries are always difficult. I find that after my birthday - July 9 - I start to dread the passing of the rest of the month. August is not a great month as her birthday is August 23. She would have been 68 this year.
There were over 400 people at the funeral. The church was packed and I believe there were folk standing out in the porch as they couldn't get in.
She touched so many lives, just by being who she was. A funny, kind, generous woman who made you feel your worries and hurts were the most important thing in the world if you were hurting, and who could make you laugh till you cried.
She was very much loved by many. I can't think of a better epitaph.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
August Already
This year really seems to be flying by.
I measure time now in terms of how many weeks or days in between trips to Germany or visits from Germany, and not so much in months. We found out pretty early on that 9 weeks in between trips is longer than either of us is happy with, and really since March I think the worst we've had is approaching five weeks. Possibly six.
Sometimes five days feel like an eternity.
August is not my favourite month. I'm glad that I have a trip to look forward to, starting from August 16 when D flies over here for another dental appointment. We'll fly back together on August 20 and I get to stay out there till late on August 27. I don't much mind spending time around the house or walking round the local area while he's at work - the break is restful in itself, knowing I don't have anything to rush around for. And I love to take care of him, do things for him.
August 7 will mark the 6th year since my mother's death. It is never an easy time, and this year I suspect may be all the more difficult as it falls on a Tuesday this year, as did her death. The illness that took her life struck around teatime on Friday 3, so this weekend is likely to be hard also. It's hard not to remember in part the events of that time in 2001 - I count myself lucky that I have blocked out much of the detail.
The really bad time comes to an end after August 23, her birthday. She would have been 68 this year, had she lived.
I miss her constantly. I miss her wit, her insightfulness, her unstinting support of me and her unfailing willingness to let me know in no uncertain terms when I am being a prat. I count myself lucky that I am the sum of the best of both my parents. I feel the loss of all that she was to me more this time of year than any other. I would love to have her opinion on so many things...I think I miss that the most of anything.
I'd love to know what she made of D - my brother thinks both our parents would very much have approved of him, even if there is much that is unusual about our relationship. I tend to agree with that.
I measure time now in terms of how many weeks or days in between trips to Germany or visits from Germany, and not so much in months. We found out pretty early on that 9 weeks in between trips is longer than either of us is happy with, and really since March I think the worst we've had is approaching five weeks. Possibly six.
Sometimes five days feel like an eternity.
August is not my favourite month. I'm glad that I have a trip to look forward to, starting from August 16 when D flies over here for another dental appointment. We'll fly back together on August 20 and I get to stay out there till late on August 27. I don't much mind spending time around the house or walking round the local area while he's at work - the break is restful in itself, knowing I don't have anything to rush around for. And I love to take care of him, do things for him.
August 7 will mark the 6th year since my mother's death. It is never an easy time, and this year I suspect may be all the more difficult as it falls on a Tuesday this year, as did her death. The illness that took her life struck around teatime on Friday 3, so this weekend is likely to be hard also. It's hard not to remember in part the events of that time in 2001 - I count myself lucky that I have blocked out much of the detail.
The really bad time comes to an end after August 23, her birthday. She would have been 68 this year, had she lived.
I miss her constantly. I miss her wit, her insightfulness, her unstinting support of me and her unfailing willingness to let me know in no uncertain terms when I am being a prat. I count myself lucky that I am the sum of the best of both my parents. I feel the loss of all that she was to me more this time of year than any other. I would love to have her opinion on so many things...I think I miss that the most of anything.
I'd love to know what she made of D - my brother thinks both our parents would very much have approved of him, even if there is much that is unusual about our relationship. I tend to agree with that.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Neglected Blog
Sorry, I've been rather busy lately (and there's been no-one nagging me to update it and telling me how much they enjoy reading the new posts - must have scared my devoted reader off)!
I took it into my head last week that I wanted to start househunting and found the perfect house. Unfortunately I saw it before I saw a mortgage broker (my initial appointment having been cancelled) and don't yet have a deposit. I know the sellers of the house I loved will accept £77,000, but that would leave me in deep financial doo-doo, and I don't do doo-doo. It would be much more achieveable if I were looking at borrowing £47,000. To borrow the full whack is too great a stretch. That is, if I want to be able to eat and buy fuel to run the car after I've met all my outgoings.
Anyway, I don't as I say have a deposit in place yet, but hopefully now that is only a matter of time.
Though even when I do get it, what to do? Should I buy now anyway, or wait and see what happens? Do I put my plans on hold while I wait for other things to sort themselves out, or do I set about making myself comfortable and happy?
What I really want is an English-speaking job in Germany, and I'm not going to get one of those in my current field. I'd gladly do something else if it was fulfilling and allowed me to pay my debts off and have a little left over. I'd possibly think about relocating if I could do that. Of course, an ability to speak rather better German than I do currently would be extremely useful, so I ought to be making more of an effort to relearn the bloody language.
Then again, is it really what I want? I mean, I know I'd like to be with D rather more often than we can manage at present, but he doesn't know where he's likely to end up in even a year's time. It wouldn't be so bad if he did go back to the US (they do after all speak a kind of English out there), but the Green Card lark sounds horrendously drawn out. Not sure I fancy two years of being unable to work legally, although if I could afford it I could maybe requalify in US law. There's a heck of a lot of conveyancing work in Florida, after all (groaning at the thought of conveyancing!) and a lot of ex-pats...I could always set up in business doing that, or blag my way into an existing firm or real estate office. Always handy I guess if you have experience of buying and selling property in a different jurisdiction, and many ex-pats I understand like to deal with other Brits abroad.
I suppose I'd just have to get used to living in America...can't say it's what I thought I would ever do, but millions of other people do and millions more seem to want to, so it can't be that bad.
Can it?
Anyway, work calls.
I took it into my head last week that I wanted to start househunting and found the perfect house. Unfortunately I saw it before I saw a mortgage broker (my initial appointment having been cancelled) and don't yet have a deposit. I know the sellers of the house I loved will accept £77,000, but that would leave me in deep financial doo-doo, and I don't do doo-doo. It would be much more achieveable if I were looking at borrowing £47,000. To borrow the full whack is too great a stretch. That is, if I want to be able to eat and buy fuel to run the car after I've met all my outgoings.
Anyway, I don't as I say have a deposit in place yet, but hopefully now that is only a matter of time.
Though even when I do get it, what to do? Should I buy now anyway, or wait and see what happens? Do I put my plans on hold while I wait for other things to sort themselves out, or do I set about making myself comfortable and happy?
What I really want is an English-speaking job in Germany, and I'm not going to get one of those in my current field. I'd gladly do something else if it was fulfilling and allowed me to pay my debts off and have a little left over. I'd possibly think about relocating if I could do that. Of course, an ability to speak rather better German than I do currently would be extremely useful, so I ought to be making more of an effort to relearn the bloody language.
Then again, is it really what I want? I mean, I know I'd like to be with D rather more often than we can manage at present, but he doesn't know where he's likely to end up in even a year's time. It wouldn't be so bad if he did go back to the US (they do after all speak a kind of English out there), but the Green Card lark sounds horrendously drawn out. Not sure I fancy two years of being unable to work legally, although if I could afford it I could maybe requalify in US law. There's a heck of a lot of conveyancing work in Florida, after all (groaning at the thought of conveyancing!) and a lot of ex-pats...I could always set up in business doing that, or blag my way into an existing firm or real estate office. Always handy I guess if you have experience of buying and selling property in a different jurisdiction, and many ex-pats I understand like to deal with other Brits abroad.
I suppose I'd just have to get used to living in America...can't say it's what I thought I would ever do, but millions of other people do and millions more seem to want to, so it can't be that bad.
Can it?
Anyway, work calls.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Six months, my love
Who'd have thought it, hey?
We first met at somewhere around 1.30 pm on Friday 8 December 2006. I got lost on the way to the airport from my aunt's and missed my flight. I rang you in tears, sure you would be hurt horribly and certain that I never intended to come and was lying to you.
You were so kind...and so calm about it. On the phone, at least.
You weren't there, when I eventually arrived. I admit, I panicked a little bit then. Just for a minute. Then I sat down and read my book.
As I already commented at our site (grinning):
Having met online in a sense makes us that much stronger. We knew each other so well before we physically met. I knew I loved you before I met you, and you have commented you were fairly sure yourself, before we met. You told me it wasn't fast at all, your declaration of love. It did come on December 9th, the second day of our first real time meeting. I have to agree with you, that on many levels it wasn't fast at all.
I can think of nothing I would rather do than to spend the rest of your lifetime loving you.
We first met at somewhere around 1.30 pm on Friday 8 December 2006. I got lost on the way to the airport from my aunt's and missed my flight. I rang you in tears, sure you would be hurt horribly and certain that I never intended to come and was lying to you.
You were so kind...and so calm about it. On the phone, at least.
You weren't there, when I eventually arrived. I admit, I panicked a little bit then. Just for a minute. Then I sat down and read my book.
As I already commented at our site (grinning):
"It bugs me a little that we can't be sure when we set out on this road v/t.
But I do know it will be six months this Friday since we first met. I can still feel the huge hug you wrapped me up in then...and I can still remember how nervous I was, especially as you weren't quite on time to meet my flight.
I was laughing when you arrived, over something I'd just read in the novel I was busily devouring. You said later that you wished fimb had warned you about my smile as it was so much more intense in person. Darling, I don't think it has quite the same effect on her - or on many others, for that matter!
I love you more with every day that passes. We just seem to keep getting better and better together. Every minute I spend with you is golden, every second away from you an eternity."
Having met online in a sense makes us that much stronger. We knew each other so well before we physically met. I knew I loved you before I met you, and you have commented you were fairly sure yourself, before we met. You told me it wasn't fast at all, your declaration of love. It did come on December 9th, the second day of our first real time meeting. I have to agree with you, that on many levels it wasn't fast at all.
I can think of nothing I would rather do than to spend the rest of your lifetime loving you.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Staying in Touch
I think one of the things I have a hard time with is in understanding how to maintain friendships in everyday life over a long period of time. I mean friendships and not romantic relationships, I should clarify that.
Growing up, and having certain personality traits indicative of AS (although whether I could be diagnosed as such is unclear), I found friendships very difficult. I don't recall being especially shy or awkward before the age of six, indeed I can recall having three specific friends (Susan, Paul and Sharon. Funny how I can remember that, and remember where the first two lived). However, once we moved up to Scotland it was a different story altogether.
Part of the problem was that my entire class had all gone to school together, and for the most part so had their parents. It was still quite an insular and isolated community back then, incomers were comparatively rare and the local businesses were owned by local people. There were no big supermarket chains: there were a couple of independent grocers and a Templetons store (they were bought out by Presto who in turn were bought out by Safeway who were bought out by Morrisons who had to sell some stores to Somerfield, which is who owns the big supermarket now. That was newly built on the site of some old depots on Latheron Lane about ten years or so ago...another segment of my childhood destroyed, as we used to play around the depot buildings.
There were no other English people, none at all.
I remember my first day at that school. I was seated next to the class bully, who pinched and poked and prodded me under the desk all day. By morning break, I was miserable. My clothes were wrong, my hair was too blonde, I was too tall, I was posh because my accent was so different and my parents were rich and owned a shop and I was a stuck-up English cow. They wanted nothing to do with me.
Whether it was curiosity, pity or the hope that by hanging out with the newsagents' daughter they would get lots of free sweets I don't know, but from time to time some brave soul or other would take up with me for a while and spend time hanging around me. It never lasted long, and I accepted this. I didn't expect anything more or less. It was vastly preferable to being bullied by everyone. Mostly they were also incomers and moved on again with their families within a couple of years. It wasn't - still isn't - the kind of community you can function in if you are not welcomed in by the locals. My parents managed it, but it took 25 years.
Anyway. I never had a friend long enough that I had to worry about how to maintain a friendship over a long period of time. My best - and oldest - friend, Dave R, has been my friend now for 15 and a half years. He's known me since I was 21, and is the only one of all my friends to have the distinction of having met all of my boyfriends. Except for my current partner, and that will be rectified I hope quite soon. We meet maybe once or twice a year and sometimes don't meet for two years or more at a time. Our friendship was forged over a six month period while we were both studying journalism, he on the academic year course and me on the calendar year course. We can instantly take up from the point that we left off.
Of course, email and telephone calls keep us in touch inbetween times. However, as he doesn't use the same chat sites as me, I do find it difficult to keep in touch with him when they occupy me a great deal. I should call him, tomorrow. (Too late tonight).
My two closest female friends in the real world I have had no contact with for over a year, over two in Tina's case. I really should call or write.
I spoke to L this evening, though, who I used to work with in Bradford. Last time we actually spoke was in January. I telephoned her shortly after she left her husband. A couple of weeks later her father was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and he was gone in a matter of days. Then she had a fall and broke a bone in her hand. It looked as though she might need an operation, but they managed to fix it by putting her hand in plaster and keeping it immobilised that way. It's healed up pretty well, she says.
The family department there is now five fee earners strong, rather than three and a half as it was when I was there. The firm has merged with another local firm and will relocate to new offices in December of this year. The big bad boss spends most of his time in the offices of the other firm in the city centre now, much to L's relief. He's still trying to get her back into his bed, but she's got a new fella now herself so isn't biting.
She's seeing a fireman, he's 46, divorced twice, a daughter the same age as her daughter Olivia, and they've been dating for three months now. Nothing serious - they're both newly divorced or separated - but she's having fun. Sounds happier and more optimistic than in all the time I've known her.
I'm hoping to meet up with her tomorrow. I have a dental appointment in a town near to her, and I am hoping to stop in on the way home and spend some time with her. She may have the kids with her tomorrow, so it looks likely to be at her home if we do meet up. She'll text me tomorrow.
I miss the camaraderie that we had at work. We worked bloody hard, the boss was a lunatic, but we got on so well (except for MG, who was universally regarded as a sneak and a tyrant and an inveterate dumper of work on others). I especially miss F, who is hugely experienced in care cases and was a source of knowledge and advice that I really appreciated. I have an invitation to pick her brain whenever I like, but I don't like to push that too hard.
Lisa K had her baby (yet another Ellie!!) in January, too. She and her bloke had parted in the months before she fell pregnant but reconciled - in the meantime she'd sold her house to pay him out on separation and was back in digs with her two kids from previous relationships. They split again just before the baby was born. She's doing okay, although it's a struggle to raise three children on her own. Her family will help with childcare so she can go back to work, and her older children are 13 and 10 now so not quite as dependent on her.
The other Lisa is expecting her second child next January, and E who used to be a litigation secretary is expecting, too. Her husband had a vasectomy reversal and they managed to get pregnant. She was working in Tesco but is now with another local firm of solicitors, doing family secretarial work which is her preference.
It's our 6 month anniversary on Friday 8 June, D and I. Grinning. I'm a lucky girl, to be so loved and by someone so wonderful.
And I have my first mosquito bite of the summer...deep joy.
Growing up, and having certain personality traits indicative of AS (although whether I could be diagnosed as such is unclear), I found friendships very difficult. I don't recall being especially shy or awkward before the age of six, indeed I can recall having three specific friends (Susan, Paul and Sharon. Funny how I can remember that, and remember where the first two lived). However, once we moved up to Scotland it was a different story altogether.
Part of the problem was that my entire class had all gone to school together, and for the most part so had their parents. It was still quite an insular and isolated community back then, incomers were comparatively rare and the local businesses were owned by local people. There were no big supermarket chains: there were a couple of independent grocers and a Templetons store (they were bought out by Presto who in turn were bought out by Safeway who were bought out by Morrisons who had to sell some stores to Somerfield, which is who owns the big supermarket now. That was newly built on the site of some old depots on Latheron Lane about ten years or so ago...another segment of my childhood destroyed, as we used to play around the depot buildings.
There were no other English people, none at all.
I remember my first day at that school. I was seated next to the class bully, who pinched and poked and prodded me under the desk all day. By morning break, I was miserable. My clothes were wrong, my hair was too blonde, I was too tall, I was posh because my accent was so different and my parents were rich and owned a shop and I was a stuck-up English cow. They wanted nothing to do with me.
Whether it was curiosity, pity or the hope that by hanging out with the newsagents' daughter they would get lots of free sweets I don't know, but from time to time some brave soul or other would take up with me for a while and spend time hanging around me. It never lasted long, and I accepted this. I didn't expect anything more or less. It was vastly preferable to being bullied by everyone. Mostly they were also incomers and moved on again with their families within a couple of years. It wasn't - still isn't - the kind of community you can function in if you are not welcomed in by the locals. My parents managed it, but it took 25 years.
Anyway. I never had a friend long enough that I had to worry about how to maintain a friendship over a long period of time. My best - and oldest - friend, Dave R, has been my friend now for 15 and a half years. He's known me since I was 21, and is the only one of all my friends to have the distinction of having met all of my boyfriends. Except for my current partner, and that will be rectified I hope quite soon. We meet maybe once or twice a year and sometimes don't meet for two years or more at a time. Our friendship was forged over a six month period while we were both studying journalism, he on the academic year course and me on the calendar year course. We can instantly take up from the point that we left off.
Of course, email and telephone calls keep us in touch inbetween times. However, as he doesn't use the same chat sites as me, I do find it difficult to keep in touch with him when they occupy me a great deal. I should call him, tomorrow. (Too late tonight).
My two closest female friends in the real world I have had no contact with for over a year, over two in Tina's case. I really should call or write.
I spoke to L this evening, though, who I used to work with in Bradford. Last time we actually spoke was in January. I telephoned her shortly after she left her husband. A couple of weeks later her father was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and he was gone in a matter of days. Then she had a fall and broke a bone in her hand. It looked as though she might need an operation, but they managed to fix it by putting her hand in plaster and keeping it immobilised that way. It's healed up pretty well, she says.
The family department there is now five fee earners strong, rather than three and a half as it was when I was there. The firm has merged with another local firm and will relocate to new offices in December of this year. The big bad boss spends most of his time in the offices of the other firm in the city centre now, much to L's relief. He's still trying to get her back into his bed, but she's got a new fella now herself so isn't biting.
She's seeing a fireman, he's 46, divorced twice, a daughter the same age as her daughter Olivia, and they've been dating for three months now. Nothing serious - they're both newly divorced or separated - but she's having fun. Sounds happier and more optimistic than in all the time I've known her.
I'm hoping to meet up with her tomorrow. I have a dental appointment in a town near to her, and I am hoping to stop in on the way home and spend some time with her. She may have the kids with her tomorrow, so it looks likely to be at her home if we do meet up. She'll text me tomorrow.
I miss the camaraderie that we had at work. We worked bloody hard, the boss was a lunatic, but we got on so well (except for MG, who was universally regarded as a sneak and a tyrant and an inveterate dumper of work on others). I especially miss F, who is hugely experienced in care cases and was a source of knowledge and advice that I really appreciated. I have an invitation to pick her brain whenever I like, but I don't like to push that too hard.
Lisa K had her baby (yet another Ellie!!) in January, too. She and her bloke had parted in the months before she fell pregnant but reconciled - in the meantime she'd sold her house to pay him out on separation and was back in digs with her two kids from previous relationships. They split again just before the baby was born. She's doing okay, although it's a struggle to raise three children on her own. Her family will help with childcare so she can go back to work, and her older children are 13 and 10 now so not quite as dependent on her.
The other Lisa is expecting her second child next January, and E who used to be a litigation secretary is expecting, too. Her husband had a vasectomy reversal and they managed to get pregnant. She was working in Tesco but is now with another local firm of solicitors, doing family secretarial work which is her preference.
It's our 6 month anniversary on Friday 8 June, D and I. Grinning. I'm a lucky girl, to be so loved and by someone so wonderful.
And I have my first mosquito bite of the summer...deep joy.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
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!
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!
Monday, May 28, 2007
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).
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).
Monday, May 07, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, April 16, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
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?
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?
Thursday, March 22, 2007
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.
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?
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
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!
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
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.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, February 19, 2007
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...]
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...]
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
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.
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.
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