Oops... Catch up!

I'm working from home today so I thought I'd take advantage of my "lunch break" and do a catch up on my blog as I have been particularly rubbish at keeping up with it again.

We have had a lot of snow this winter. I would say "YAY!" as it is all very pretty but it has been an utter pain in the arse in terms of getting to and from work. This country seems to fall apart at the seams when it snows. I don't remember there being any weather-related problems when I was growing up in Germany and it snowed there pretty much every year! I wish our government would do some fact-finding stuff into how they cope with winter in Europe and Canada then maybe I wouldn't be losing money by not being able to get into work!! Grumble, grumble!

On 21 December the weather was so atrocious that it took FIVE HOURS to drive home from work that night... its usually about a half hour journey! I also had a few days where I just couldn't get in at all. This morning I tried for three hours to get in but gave up and came home to do work from here instead.

It is very pretty though. Here's some pics....

The view from my living room (at the back)




The view from my bedroom (at the front)




Talking of home, the house is lovely and I am all moved in properly now, however since I have moved in I have discovered that the windows don't close properly and that the under-floor-heating doesn't work properly either! Much grumbling and complaining was done to the estate agents who after a fashion did supply me with four panel heaters. All well and good but with drafty windows it was a pretty pointless gesture and the house was always cold, especially in the recent weather!

I spoke to the girl at the estate agents again as I'd not heard anything further about getting someone in to repair the heating. She let slip that the previous tenants had mentioned the heating not functioning properly and that the maintenance people had looked at it and said it was a very old system and may not be repairable! They are now trying to source another company to check it out before contacting the landlord to have the heating replaced. Also, the tenants association have decided that the windows are all being replaced with double-glazing this year! Yay! Maybe next winter won't be like living in a fridge!

Yesterday they sent round a handyman who draft-proofed all my windows and packed / sealed up the ones that don't close properly. There was an instant noticeable difference and although the house isn't warm, its not freezing either! I've stuck on a couple of the panel heaters today and I can actually feel the heat! Hurrah!

We had a great Xmas / Yuletide celebration. The best I have had in a long, long time. The 25th was lovely. Just me, Keith, Aaron and Gemima for the main meal. Jade was at her Dad's, Sophie at her Mum's and Sam decided to go to a friend's. Lots of cooking, which Keith helped with. It was nice not to have to do everything by myself. Jade and Pete joined us later on, where Jade had another dinner and a few glasses of Baileys and she and Pete opened their prezzies from us.

Jade made the most amazing gluten-free mince pies, which went down a treat. Most gluten-free stuff you buy in the shops is very crumbly and has little taste. Jade's were pretty much indistinguishable from the normal ones and didn't disintegraate into a pile of crumbs the second they were bitten into. Fabulous! Thank you Jade!

The 26th was noisy and fun. We were joined at my house by most of my family and some friends, including Jodie (who I fostered for three years), who Gemima hasn't seen since she was about 5 and was very excited about seeing again. Jade and Pete came over with Pete's parents and brother so Keith and I got to do the meet the parents thing for the first time. They seemed to enjoy themselves and stayed for a few hours so hopefully we didn't scare them all too much!

This was followed by an excellent New Year's Eve party at Dan and Laura's where Keith and I got thoroughly pickled and stayed over, sleeping on their living room floor.

Yours Truly all bunnied up and ready to go out


The Glitzy One with his unreasonably fabulous legs on display!


Uber-scrummy sparkly pink gluten-free cakes made for us by Laura:


Tomorrow I am heading off to SWF to go with Keith to have an ultrasound done. We think he may have gallstones. He has all the symptoms and has been in quite a substantial amount of pain on and off since 9th December. Fingers crossed that it's nothing more sinister and that its easily treatable. Watch this space!

New House, New Job, Same wonderful man...

Wow... its been long. So much has happened since I last blogged.

I have somewhere to live! Not a palace and not mine but a rented three bed place in Eltham, SE London. It's down the road from Mum's, its nice, quiet and calming and no little chavvy gits running about outside! It's not far from Nick so he is relieved I am not taking Gemima a million miles away and the kids get to stay in the same schools. I moved in on 12 October - had no credit history so had to pay six months rent up front - also had to buy most of the furnishings as I basically had bugger all. Bye bye savings!

I have a new job! My contract with LDT in Bexley was due to end early this month so a job hunt was necessary. I'm now working for social services in Bromley with older people. Been there since 26 October so the past few weeks have been mainly about settling into the new home and settling into the new job!

I went on holiday! Keith and I took Aaron, Gemima and Keith's Mum, Linda to the Isle of Wight for a week. It was lovely. Many, many photos were taken and blogged on Keith's page. We had a lovely time.

Keith and I are still going strong. Tomorrow is our official 2nd anniversary and we are actually celebrating it this year! We're off out to see SPiT LiKE THiS tonight - we seem to see a lot of them!

I've been out and about seeing more bands and events this year than I have in the last 15 years! I have been utterly lazy about blogging this year but now that I am settled (ish) that will change. I've bought myself a camera too!

Watch this space!

Been a while...

Been a very long while actually - I've not blogged properly for quite some time.

But you know how it is - when there's been SO much going on, your brain just doesn't want to revisit it all at the end of each day.

I've had a rollercoaster of a couple of months and some days I have felt like my head was about to explode.

In fact on Monday it really felt like it had, because I had one of the worst migraines I've had in a very, very long time.

Divorce is still in progress. He is going from being an arse to being reasonably human (ish). Although in a new development he has now started recording my phone calls with Gemima when I call to say goodnight to her on his weekends with her. He also tries to goad me into saying things that will make me look bad and him look like the poor hard-done-by victim.

Not going to work!

I am REALLY not that stupid!

Did do all the financial forms but his vulture of a solicitor is asking for more info which I really can't be arsed to provide to be honest! I don't see why she needs 12 months worth of bank statements. I haven't been putting my salary into that account for 12 months for a start. Plus its all been done on a voluntary basis and its not even part of a court process (yet) anyhow!

Plus its none of her fucking business!

I am definitely pushing for this house to be sold. Things have got to the point where none of us want to be here - kids included. Far better to sell now, pay off debts, move into council place for a bit until more appealing options can be feasibly considered.

Bastardcard are still bastards and have not resolved the issue at all! Debt collectors are phoning now. Oh joy!

On a positive note - they have managed to sort out the duplicate card and that now has a zero balance so that's one less thing to worry about.

As for the rest of it - well - you know what its like when you have a ton of things to do and organise and you know you should do them quite urgently but you really can't be arsed because it drags you down so far? I have a fair bit of that going on.

All procrastination, I know but nevertheless, I don't need to be continuously dragged down by all this divorce shite.


...and then there's Keith.

Wow - what a doozy of an emotional rollercoaster this last week has been. Not even sure I want to write about it all but I do want to say that fortunately I was able to tell him just a teensy bit of some things I'd wanted to say for a while but hadn't known how to. The other things I needed to say he managed to work out for himself and told me which was SUCH a relief.

He also said a few things that I really needed to hear and which went much further than I had expected.

In terms of our relationship, I feel far more secure and happier now than I have done yet. There's been a really big step forward and its all good.

That part of my life is all really good.

Aaron's been away on a school holiday in Wales since Monday. I have taken a couple of hours out so I can pick him up when he gets back at 3:30 (ish). I've really missed him this week.

For those of you who want to know a bit more about what I've been up to , you can go HERE and read more!!

Yes, I know that was incredibly lazy of me but there's no sense reinventing the wheel you know!

The Upside Of My Weekend

Being a true Gemini, I am of course easily able to live two lives at once. So on the positive side of my weekend, I had a great time at Keith's!

Sophie was allowed to come home for the day on Saturday and Sunday which was nice. It was the first time I have seen her outside the hospital setting and although she is still tired and unwell, it was good to see her up and about.

Sam was lovely - as he usually is. A bit subdued this weekend but there was a lot of activity and lots of people in the house so I suppose it was to be expected that he would sod off to his room for hours on end and only emerge for food!!

I got to meet Keith's Mum. What the hell was I nervous about?! She is lovely - reminds me a lot of my Nan so it was easy to get along with her.

And to cap it all we had a night at the dodgy Pink Toothbrush! Me, Keith and Hazel (who I also met for the first time) Wahay! The music was DIRE and the clientele the MOST BADLY DRESSED I have ever seen in any nightclub anywhere EVER! It was fucking hilarious and Keith and I spent the evening spotting and photographing a selection of (in Keith's words) the top contenders for the Pink Toothbrush What Not To Wear competition! See Keith's blog for the photos - they are priceless.

Here are a few of us.....



Me and Keith!! Why do I always look so pink in photos??


Christ - this music sucks! Wake me up when something decent comes on!


Keith - wake up! Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up!


Hazel - also wishing they'd play something decent or just shoot the DJ!

Roll-up... Roll-up... The World Famous Emotional Rollercoaster Ride Starts Here...

Oh my fucking God! What a weekend it has been. Emotionally I have been up and down like a sodding yo-yo on a runaway rollercoaster.

In a somewhat large nutshell... here's why:

On Friday I was getting ready to go see Keith and his kids for the weekend. His Mum is staying with him and I'd not met her before so I was a little nervous. Meeting two key people in his family in a week. That's stressy enough without all the rest of the shit I am dealing with!!!

Dropped kids off at their respective places and took stuff to the hospital for Nick at the last minute when he called to ask for things. Got to the hospital and Nick was fully dressed in his chair. Momentary panic that he had been discharged and was expecting me to drive him home.

And then Nick calmly asked me to sit down before dropping a bit of a bombshell.

Nick has MS. (Multiple Sclerosis).

Just for info, there are four main types of MS:

1. Benign MS that starts with a small number of mild attacks followed by complete recovery.
2. Primary progressive MS, affects around 12% of people with MS. From the start, the pattern isn't of relapses and remissions but symptoms gradually develop and worsen over time.
3. Relapsing-remitting type is the most common type. About 80% of people with MS have this type at onset. This means the person has relapses (a flare up of symptoms), followed by remissions (periods of recovery). These tend to be unpredictable and their cause is unclear. They can last for days, weeks or months and vary from mild to severe.
4. Many people who start out with relapsing-remitting MS later develop a form known as secondary progressive MS. About 50% of people go on to develop secondary progressive MS during the first 10 years. This means that the disability does not go away after a relapse and progressively worsens between attacks, or that the cycle of attack followed by remission is replaced by a steady progression of disability.

For those of you who have successfully trawled their way to the end of that lot, Nick has been told that he has had MS for more than 10 years and it would seem that although he started at stage 3, he is pretty much at stage 4 now.

In fact, looking back, I can't remember the last time when he would have had a remission - I think over a year ago at least and he has been getting steadily more unwell since. The condition is no longer just affecting his limbs. the MRI scan showed that he has multiple lesions (scars) on his brain and spinal cord and that at the moment it is attacking his internal organs - his digestive system is the latest in line. He's currently on a steroid IV to reduce the inflammation in his brain and spinal cord.

That was a shock.

It was a huge shock actually which resulted in a whirlwind of emotion and guilt and confusion and a number of other emotions I can't even begin to label. And from there started the battle in my head - do I continue with the divorce or do I stop it now?

So after a weekend of tears and talks and hugs from Keith and his kids and pep talks and hugs from my Mum and other friends and my manager and my colleagues, then feeling OK and then feeling shit again, I have come to the conclusion that it would be wrong and hypocritical for me to change my mind about the divorce now. The MS is just ONE OF the contributory factors in what has gone wrong in the marriage - it doesn't change the fact that these things have happened and has no impact on my reasons for wanting the divorce. So I am proceeding.

Now I fully expect to be the bearer of a humungous pile of shite from his family because I suppose I will now be the bitch wife who buggered off when he needed me most. But at the end of the day, as my Mum has so wisely said (thanks Mum) what does their opinion matter to me anyway? They aren't important in my life.

Tomorrow may prove to be interesting. The neurologist will be meeting with Nick and I will be there and that is when we should get some sort of proper prognosis.

But whatever happens, Nick will now be registered disabled and he will have to move as this is a three-storey house and he needs a ground-floor, wheelchair accessible flat.

Emotionally, after this weekend, I am feeling a little flat. Too tired to think about it.