Tomorrow we are going on holiday, a week away from it all! I have been looking forward to it for such a long time. Schools out, the children are happy, the bags are packed. 

Meanwhile The Dilemma (thank you for all your comments) has not been resolved

I have asked for a temporary earlier finish time, they responded by saying they would call me back today to discuss it. Despite leaving a message and email I have received no response today. I presume negotiation is not possible!

So, although I am really looking forward to the holidays, I am finding it hard to focus on the lovely weeks ahead. There is unfinished business. As I left work today, was I leaving for the last time or will I return in September? 

The Dilema

Over the last month or so I have been applying for jobs, around 16 in total. I have been called to interview twice, both were the 'better' jobs.

The first interview was stressful and long winded. It was the first one I had been to for 5 years, I was not surprised when I did not secure the position. However to get and interview from 85 applicants was something I suppose.

Last Friday I was called to another interview, 60 applicants for that one, better odds! I really need the hours, especially as I have heard nothing from husband since he said he was cutting us off financially the other week, the solicitor seems to have gone quiet too.

Anyway, I was supposed to receive a call tomorrow to let me know if I was successful. When my phone rang this evening I was not expecting the call. 'You were so good at interview' she said 'we knew we had to have you' Good to hear I guess but...

The position is full time. I need the hours. But this also means I will never be able to pick Small Sprog up from school again. He'll cope I hear you say but ...

Husband has always said he wanted the children 50% of the time, every other full week. The main reason I was able to keep them with me was that I worked school hours and it was agreed that this was a major factor in caring for them. He could not be there after school, I got to keep them.I don't want to lose them.

So, if I accept the much needed job, 37 hours when my current position has been cut to just 11 from September, does it mean I lose my children? If I decline the job, I cannot afford to live.

Money does not buy happiness. Practical or emotional stability?

Tomorrow is my day off. If I take the job, I may only have one and a half days left in my current position. It all seems surreal. It all seems wrong. I have a bad feeling. Or am I just feeling like that because my life will change so much. I have not worked full time since Tall Girl was born. 

Affordable living or my children with me most of the time? A stark choice which I need to make now.

I came, I saw, I conquered...

Well not really, more like; I hung on the phone for half an hour, went to the council offices and eventually managed to get my completed form in my hand delivering it to the solicitor on the way home, whooppee!'

It is a long story, but I'm sure you have all had the experience of 'Press 1 for this, Press 2 for that', what do you do if your problem isn't on the options list? Well, my employer, the City Council, have thought of that. The last option was 'Press 6 for HR emergencies!' I have 'pressed 6' more than once these last 10 days , I can tell you!

When you get through to a human they are very soothing, they must really need to be...

Once I knew the form has been located, and the person on the phone promised faithfully to fill it in straight away, I made the journey across the city to pick it up.

I drove through uncharted territory without getting lost (this city is such a sprawling place) and valiantly made it up to the Second Floor Reception with no problem. I spoke to the receptionist explaining I had come to pick up a form and could he let Paul know I had arrived. 'Which Paul?' he said
'I don't know, he just said Paul, he works in the blah de blah dept that fills in legal forms'
'Ah' he said 'I won't be able to find him if you don't know his surname'
'Shall I ring him and ask?' I say
'You'll have to' he grunted. (for goodness sake!)
So I did, from my mobile phone. From the second floor, I called the council office I was standing in! 'It's OK' I tell the soothing voice from 'Press 6', I'm on the second floor. . .

Meanwhile I receive an email from Husband, ''I would never not support my children and I never want to hear you say that again'', he wrote. What does he think paying his wage into an account I have no access to without setting up Child Support Payments is then, I replied? I have had no response.

Time

Life can be such a roller coaster at times. Today husband informed me he was cutting off all financial support to the children and myself from 1st August. There is no child support order in place. My hours have been reduced at work. I am stunned.

Recently I have been feeling so much better, I have even read 2 books from cover to cover. Yet all of a sudden life seems less smooth again.

However right now I am lying on my back watching the clouds rush by, there is a chilled glass of wine sitting next to me. The sun is shining and I am loved. Life can be so strange sometimes. . . .

Reached the big 500 at last (Post not strawberries!)

From this ...

To this (Small Sprogs biggest ever strawberry!)

via this ...

(Tall Girls sticky hands!)

To this, 14 jars of it in fact!

A particularly satisfying weekend!

We picked soft fruit with Mum last Saturday, we do it every year, so much so that Tall Girl pronounced on the way home that once you'd been fruit picking it really felt like summer! We had a tradition, the realisation made me smile.

We picked strawberries and raspberries until our hands were red and sticky but just as we were wandering towards the exit Tall Girl happened upon some huge cultivated blackberries. We had already gorged on everything else but thought we ought to try one in the interests of, well I'm not really sure?! They were delicious, black as night and shiny too, ripe and plump and juicy. Suddenly we unexpectedly ended up with a punnet full of them. I so love this time of year. Tall Girl decided she was going to make them into jam. I was secretly pleased. The tradition was catching, we were 'memory making'

As for Small Sprog, he managed to eat his body weight in strawberries, his favourites, and took great delight in finding 'The Biggest Ever Strawberry' as well as deformed ones that looked like bottoms, or worse! Still at least he remembered not to smuggle out 'free' ones in his trouser pockets, because when you put on your seat belt in the car they go all squashy - a lesson learned a few years ago!

On Sunday we cooked batches of jam together and froze some of the raspberries too. Tall Girl, with a little supervision, made 4 pots of her own blackberry jam. She labeled them proudly, it looks and tastes good. All in all we made 14 jars altogether. There were lots of pans and spoons to lick out...

Missing

My Mum has always been a bit forgetful. It has nothing to do with age. When I was little she would take me shopping, and then, when we had bought everything she needed, she wouldn't be able to remember where she had parked the car. I remember walking the streets of my home town, trying to find her little red Mini before the traffic warden did! Far more recently there was the time when she dove off down the road with several Christmas presents balanced on the car roof and didn't stop until several people had gesticulated wildly at her. She has a history of loosing things...

She came down to see me on Monday, and to see Small Sprogs school play, in which he had a very small speaking part. I met her, as I always do now, just off the motorway junction because she's not confident driving in the city.

Despite trying to be on time, there she was, as I drove into the car park, sitting on a bench in the sun. I parked my car and walked to where she was, apologising for being late. She said she was perfectly happy waiting and had been into M&S to buy me some strawberries, bless her.

Anyway, before we set off back to my house, we went to her car to get something she had forgotten. And that's when she realised. No car key. We tipped out her handbag. Twice. Looked under the car, back to the bench. Nothing. She began to panic and, as I tried to keep her calm, I suggested we went back into the shop to see if it had been handed in. Thankfully it had. So off we went, happy that all was well. We had lunch at my house and went to watch Small Sprog, who was good in his play and very much himself, if you know what I mean?

However at the end of the performance we were informed that there was to be a collection for Cancer research, everyone delved for change during the encore and guess what? Mum couldn't find her purse. Oh no, I thought, she can't have lost that as well as her keys, not all in one day surely? She panicked and visibly grew old before my eyes. 'It's OK I soothed, we'll find it, but you just need to sit there for another few minutes until the performance is finished, then we can go and search for it'

I thought she was going to get up and rush out of the school hall. Instead she buried her head in her hands. The look of her reminded me of when she suffered a horrible depression after her mother died. One day, when I was younger and single, she sat in my house and proclaimed that life was no longer worth living. It is a hard thing to hear and at the time I had only a little understanding of just how awful depression was. It took a while back then, and medication, for her to recover but I got her back. How much she would have missed if she had got her wish?Two grandchildren for one thing.

Sometimes though, I think I still see the shadows of depression clouding her face, she is better but damaged. I feel it lurks and it scares me. So when I looked at her, so obviously stressed, I realised how fragile she is, how old she has become. One is used to ones mother always being there, a pillar of strength. When do the tables turn? When does the child become the adult? When did I become the one who reassures and nurtures? The change seems imperceptible, but all of a sudden it is there, fixed. I am the strong one now.

The performance finally finished, I ushered her out to the car. She was uncharacteristicly quiet. Had all been well she would have been revelling in the success of the performance. Instead she was locked up inside herself. I talked to her gently, like one would to a baby, soothing sounds, even and measured, I have soothed my own children in the same way to bring sleep and dispel illness.

We went home, searched the rooms she had spent time in, searched my car and her bag again, all in vain. Again her head was in her hands, 'it's OK' I said 'It's not the end of the world, no one is dying, no one is in danger. You may loose the cash but the cards will be OK, it will all be OK'

We drove back to the car park where I had picked her up. I parked next to her car so that we could look inside and see if it had fallen in there. Again we looked underneath, but it wasn't there. It wasn't there because it was somewhere else.

Yes, it was somewhere else, somewhere much more visible, if only we had known where to look. There it was, on the bonnet of the car, just neatly sitting between the bottom of the windscreen and the wiper blades, in full view of anyone passing. It was intact amazingly. Who'd have thought it? She was relieved of course, and cross with herself, but my main concern was that she was still in shock.

We went inside for sweet tea and chocolate. Once she seemed OK to drive, some hours later, we said goodbye. It had been a very eventful day and one, she told me, she would not be telling her husband about. It had brought home so much to me though too, like how little she has become, diminished somehow, and how fragile too. It made me realise how much I will always love her, and how time stops for no one.

The Wedding Anniversary

I was driving along in the car with Tall Girl last week, on the way to fetch Small Sprog, when she asked me what the date was. I thought for a minute. I mentally counted the days since my birthday.

'It's the 24th June' I concluded

'Thanks' she replied and then started to burble away. But I wasn't listening after that.

The 24th June. It was already past 4pm and I had not really noticed the date at all, and now I had been reminded. It came to me out of the blue. A date once fondly remembered.

I wondered when exactly it was that he started to forget. When did he forget to send a card for the first time? After the first baby, more likely the second. I can't remember when it was, but I do remember the hurt. And then again, when did I give up remembering? When did I stop marking the event? When did I make a conscious decision to forget?

For me the forgetting was self defence. Yet now I have truly forgotten with no effort at all. Not a second thought last week until the date was mentioned. All that time, all those years, once fondly remembered. How strange to forget.

When I left the family home, over 4 months ago now, I took some of the pot plants with me. They were ones I had bought from my own garden when I was single, all those years ago.

I bought the palm tree in Cornwall as a 'baby'! It grew quite well despite being in a pot, and when I went out in the freezing weather last February, to assess what I could take with me when I moved house, it was still alive. It looked a bit poorly but still alive it was.

On my moving day I directed the removal men into the garden, telling them there was a palm tree to go in the van from the back garden. They returned back into the house looking puzzled. 'Do you mean that stick in the corner?' they enquired. And sure enough, the thing had died overnight. All it's leaves were on the floor and it stood there looking pitifully naked. I sighed. I felt like it had betrayed me! 'Take it anyway' I said to them, 'I can always use the pot later'.

It's been in my new, pocket sized garden ever since. You can see above that it is just a stick (the rosette shapes belong to another plant). I have watered it in the vain hope that it might come back to me, but recently I commented to my mum that I might have to chop its top off, just to see what would happen, but I haven't had the heart to attack it yet.

Anyway, as I was leaving the house Friday night, I gave it a cursory glance and there, near the bottom of the trunk I could see this:

What do you think? I reckon it's still alive!

I shrieked with joy and gave it a little rub. I knew you could do it, I said out loud. It made me very happy. It may well grow up to look a very odd looking palm tree, but palm tree it still is!

Lots of things have made me happy recently. I have had a lovely weekend. And who couldn't fail to be happy in this lovely summer weather (unless you are an England Football Fan that is!)

Giant vegetables!

Small Sprog has had trouble sleeping of late, light nights, hot room, over excitement, over tiredness, all the words for his school play going round in his head, all of it rolled into one. It makes a hyper charged Small Sprog and it's not getting better.

This week he has had a couple of drops of lavender oil in his bath to see if that helps and at the beginning of the week it seemed to work. He may have smelt like an old ladies hanky but at least he slept well.

So tonight, after a trip to the park to run off his tea, and a good dig around in the sandpit, I ran him a bath and sat down with him in the bathroom to chat. He was still hyper charged until, all of a sudden he said 'Does Daddy know Significant Other?'

'No' I say, taken aback 'Have you mentioned him?'

'No'

'Well you know you can' I say 'I have never asked you to keep it a secret, it really doesn't matter if it slips out' I look at is big eyes. 'You don't have to keep it, really you don't'

He looks up at me and in a very grown up voice says 'Has to be done' then changes the subject. That was it. He made it clear. No more. It must have been puzzling him, or bothering him and now he had said it he didn't want to discuss it anymore...

'What sort of giant vegetable would be the scariest?' he asks me in the next second.

'A carrot' I say, not really concentrating

'A carrot?' he says disparagingly ' Not a carrot. Broccoli! Just think how big it's heads would be, and it would have big fists of green for hands, and it would do this' He gesticulates a big punch in the air 'and this' He grins 'It would be like having a giant tree chasing you!'

'Yes' I say absent mindedly 'I guess it would'

In retrospect

When I was 5 the wallpaper in my bedroom was vibrant. There were bright orange cats and lime green mice, clustered together all over it. I remember that my toy box, which my Mother had made for me, also had the cats and mice stuck to the sides, neatly and lovingly cut from the spare paper. On my bed was a candlewick bed spread.

During that time my Father was having an affair with his dance partner. One night he woke me from my sleep to show me glow worms in a jar that he had collected on the way home from a dance. They glowed so brightly, they were magical. I have not seen one since.

On Sundays we would have afternoon tea with Betty and Gramps, his relatives who lived in an old Victorian terraced house in the poorer part of town. Even then I lived in the suburbs; in a Cul-de-Sac, with herbaceous borders and neatly cut lawns.

The terraced houses seemed to me to be dull and cheep, even then. They had shiny painted anaglypta in the hall, slightly browned with tobacco and the stairs went mysteriously down to the kitchen. Sometimes we ate multicoloured tinned fruit salad from china bowls that were painted with horses and hounds. I used to save the cherries until last but they never really tasted like cherries at all.

The Victorian Terraced houses in that part of town are now well sort after. They have been 'done up', renovated and restored. They have become desirable homes harking back to an era which looks much better in retrospect.

Perhaps life is better that way, in retrospect. Only sometimes it is difficult to gather all the pieces together.

It's my Birthday!

I have had a lovely day, relaxing and being waited on.

I have had birthday wishes from friends and am always touched that anyone should think of me.

I am blessed with wonderful children; My daughter has pulled out all the stops, she has looked after me, bought me a thoughtful gift, protected me when Husband dropped off Small Sprog after camp. I couldn't ask for more.

A lovely Mum; who organised a surprise cake for the children to give me.

And friends, who have called both in person and by text and phone.

I am Blessed and grateful and smiling.

Go on, virtual cake, have some, you know you want to.....!

Travelling with my Small Sprog...

'Don't put your feet on my bag' I shout as he clambers into the back of the car.

'Why?'

'There's chocolate biscuits inside'

A squeal of delight emanates from his excited body. This is Small Sprog in overdrive.

He has had a fair day at school, from what I can gather...

'Good day?'

'Yep' That's about all I get. Then he has had his extra maths lesson, which recently always goes down like a lead balloon, and today was no different. But after maths, then, then he has had Granny to play with. Someone to be his audience, to sing his school play songs to, to eat his meal in the grossest way possible in front of, and to practice his guitar with. Oh yes, he has made the most of his Granny this evening in every single way. But bedtime draws near and she has to leave.

She's still not sure of how to find my new house yet so when she arrives I meet her just off the motorway and 'lead' her in. However this also means her following me back out of Bristol again at the end of the trip.

We are running late. It is Small Sprogs bedtime and she has not yet left. He is pixilated, over excited, and he has just discovered the chocolate biscuits. As it turns out, this is a blessing. Munching biscuits whilst taking Mum back to her car means a quite 10 minute outward journey for us all.

However, after dropping her off, back in my car he was refuelled and raring to go. He was full volume with the remote lost under the sofa, sort of loud. He was chocolate high and sugar infused and nothing was going to keep him down!

He started to recite TV adverts. This is one of his specialities, you have to hear it to believe it. And the advert of choice today was... The Meerkats. He can do a convincing Serge and Alexander, he knows the lines, could pass for a soviet spy with his accent and if he can't remember the content exactly, he makes it all up. Once done he can repeat 'Computermabob' over and over again without getting tired of hearing it. If only it was the same for me! If you have managed to avoid these ads and have no idea about 'The Battle of Fearlessness' then I am willing to rent him out for as long as necessary. If I hear him mention fur balls and 'simples' once more tonight I'll...

It was only a 10 minute journey back home, seemed longer, and he hardly stopped for breath.

Summer holiday in North Wales anyone? I mean, someone has to drive him there don't they?!

The interview

There were 11 of us today, drawn from 75 applicants. I arrived at 8.20 for 8.30. I was the 7th to arrive and all the seats in Reception were already taken, standing room only. There is a Large Silence in the room.

By 8.31 we were all crammed into a small interview room and given the agenda for the day. Someone arrived late, we all moved up a seat. Someone else arrived late, again we shuffled. The last latecomer arrived and a very nice man gave her his seat. Surely they won't get the job if they can't arrive on time? I think. Does everyone else think the same I wonder?

We have an introduction and a look around. We do a 'task' and spend an hour in the classroom. This is senior school. The behaviour is challenging. For some, I discover later, this is a shock.

We meet together again at 11.15. There are 11 of us now to interview. Time ticks on.

One by one we are called through. The ones that are left make small talk which gradually, I discover, becomes more specific. Life stories unfold. Life styles become uncovered. Personal values surface. We are united in our quest for work. We all agree jobs are few and far between. I discover that most of us are applying for anything that is out there. United in our quest for work yet with a need to out perform each other in the room beyond. Time ticks on.

We eye each other up. He won't get it, he looks far too miserable I think as I listen to another woman talking about the fact that she has other work on her plate. She doesn't 'need' the work, I think, why is she here?! Don't be greedy I want to shout!! Some of us actually need these hours! Time ticks on.

"I'm going to sound rude now" One candidate says to me after the 4th person is called in, "I mean" she says in a stage whisper "What criteria did they apply when they asked her for interview?"! The situation was bringing out the worst. The wait was making us edgy. It was a Dog Eat Dog situation! I had a fleeting thought for a second, that I had been transported to the Big Brother House!

I'm second last to be interviewed. I have waited in the same dull room for 2 and 1/2 hours. By the time they ask me the questions I had previously felt prepared for, my mind is blank. I forget that I have to sell myself, I can't seem to bring the right words to mind, I can't say what I want to say. Nerves take hold. It is like taking an exam, I feel like I'm trawling through deep mud for the words I need, the ones I know they want to hear. I try my best but I know I am not reaching anywhere near that point.

Before I arrived I wasn't that keen on the job. Once there I fell in love with the place.

Needless to say I didn't get it. I am still berating myself

Excuse me while I moan?

Small Sprog is due to go to 'Cub Camp' with his dad next weekend. He told me he doesn't want to go and could I relay that fact to Husband, which I duly did via email. Why didn't Small Sprog want to mention it? I guess because he knows he will be persuaded to go.

I have had no reply to my email. Camp falls on my birthday. I have a sneaky suspicion that is why Small Sprog doesn't want to go. I have told him that we can celebrate my birthday at another time but it hasn't changed his mind. By the way, it should be my 'turn' to have him next weekend.

This weekend the children have been with Husband. I won't see them until tomorrow.

'Do you know if Small Sprog is going to camp?' I texted Tall Girl this afternoon

'Think so' she replied.

Husband must have persuaded him. I hope Small Sprog hasn't agreed to go just to please. I wish Husband had let me know what was going on. I often send him emails keeping him up to date with events that the children are involved in. He never answers. I don't have any details about camp yet, what time he is picking Small Sprog up, what time he is bringing him home, what things he needs to pack. All done to annoy I guess.

It is my birthday on Sunday. I would like to make plans, but I can't until I know what's happening. I wish I had just put my foot down now. Old habits die hard I guess.

Monday Morning

'Have you got your bus ticket?' I ask Tall Girl as she left for school this morning.

'Yep' Monosyllabic, she doesn't 'do' mornings!

'Dinner money?'

'Yep'

'Homework?'

She nods, eyes rolling.

We head for the front door. I like to stand at the door for a while once she's left and watch her disappear around the bend in the road. If there is no one much about, I hazard a last 'goodbye', half stage whispered so as not to embarrass her. All is peaceful and right with the world...

Less than 10 minutes later I hear the phone ring downstairs. I have just turned on the shower for Small Sprog and so leave him there, with washing instructions, while I run down to answer it. It is Tall Girl, she is at the bus stop and can't find her ticket. Can I bring it to her before the school bus comes?

I panic! I have one lovely child in the shower who needs me to be here, and another equally lovely one who needs me a short car journey away."Quick" I half scream at Small Sprog "We need to get to the bus stop. Can I wrap you in a towel and take you like that?"

"No way" He retorts. Well, I guess he is 10 now, even if he still can't work the shower controls!

"OK, you get out and dry REALLY quickly then"

Meanwhile I am running about the house looking for the said ticket. It is not where she said she'd left it. Bum! I ring her back

"It's ok" She says non-plussed "I'll just pay him tomorrow, anyway I can see the bus coming now!"

I put the phone down and sigh. My 'everything is right with the world' feeling has totally disappeared.

"It's OK Small Sprog" I shout out "Panic over"

He appears, completely dressed and ready for the day. Perhaps I should try that trick more often? He can take ages sometimes.

Before I leave for work I tidy the bedrooms a little. I am fairly pleased that Tall Girl has made an effort to make her bed, though it still looks like someone is asleep in it. I pick up the corner of the duvet to straighten it. Her bus ticket is underneath, gently put to bed for the day with 'Larry' her bedtime lamb (I know she's 13 now!)

Bless her, I can here you mutter. Bless her? You just wait until she gets home!

Never a dull moment in suburbia

End of the holidays

Today will be a family day with visits to my Father and then, weather permitting, a BBQ with Mum. Going to work tomorrow is going to be so hard after such a lovely few days with children and friends...

I am grateful for all of it.

My Children

Every other Thursday evening, Husband comes round to pick up the children's stuff for the weekend. He usually comes around 6pm, takes the bag, chats to the children and then goes again. I dread it. The whole event hangs over me for the few hours between coming home with Small Sprog and when husband arrives. I find myself getting agitated and wondering why, then I remember again that his visit is imminent.

It is usually civilised, no worry there, though so much hangs between us unsaid, I guess it is best that way. Yet I still feel uneasy. Perhaps the Thursday visit just brings the inevitable Friday departure of the children a little nearer?

This weekend he has the children. We do a weekend on and weekend off rotation. By luck, for him, he has managed to get all the bank holiday weekends this year. As it's the school holidays he's taking some holiday to be with them after the weekend.

I feel really close to Small Sprog right now, more so than ever, and don't want to loose him for the weekend. Tall Girl spends more time with her Dad than Small Sprog. She protects her father, and me too, but sometimes I find it hard. I feel sometimes I loose her. She used to be all mine. Now she is not. She comes home different. She bosses her brother around, takes my place. It takes time for us all to adjust to each other when she returns.

I will say goodbye to them tomorrow morning and then not see them again until Wednesday evening. Then we will have to re adjust to being together again.

Yet all the time I know it is the same for husband. And although I resent him having them for so much of their precious week off, I know that I have them for more of the time.

Doesn't stop me not wanting to let them go though.

Looking back, Looking forwards

Gosh, seems ages since I wrote anything here, I miss it, and am not sure how I ever really got the time to write every day?

It is Wednesday already and I am simultaneously looking forward to this coming weekend and looking fondly back at the last.

Last weekend I went to a Charity Ball. We had a fab time, it was a 'Start of Summer' Ball and so aptly named. The evening was warm and sultry on arrival. We ate, drank and danced, and as I lay down outside in my posh frock at around midnight and looked up to the stars (I did not end up lying down by' accident'!) I realise how far I'd come in this last year or so. Goodness me how strange life an be.

Two years ago I was living my suburban life, expecting nothing more, trying to accept the way life had become. It felt like hard work, with little rewards. Yet how can I say that, as if the children are not a reward in themselves? However I am blessed and cursed at the same time with a mind that both looks forwards, and looks back, too much thinking...

And when I looked forwards, those two years ago, I saw the children growing, leaving, leaving and then nothing. Nothing left. Empty days spent doing things, little things that were solitary and still, that were too old for me, made me old. I saw my old age, brought on by being married to someone so much older than myself. I felt that I was missing my 'middle age', and had slipped into a perceived retirement, easy but bereft of love and closeness.

If someone had told me then, that two years hence I would be lying down in a ball gown, head in the lap of my lover on a warm and sultry May evening I would have looked in astonishment. 'That is not my life' I would have said, 'No, you are wrong, that is not how it will be for me'...

So today I am looking back to last weekend, still enjoying it's pleasure and also forward to the next which looks full of pleasantly happy and comfortable things.

I am lucky, blessed and thankful.

Perhaps

As I drove along the tree lined road to work this morning, I realised how green and lush everything is looking now. I love the lime green colours of the fresh new leaves in the spring time and I realised how, living further into the city now, it was all passing me by this year, the loveliness of it. I am missing the green, I am missing picking spring flowers from my garden to bring indoors and smell, I am missing the sound of bird song.

Constantly I contemplate when and where I might be able to at last buy a house of my own. All I really want to do is be in the countryside, somewhere small and comfortable, where I can see the setting sun on a summer evening across open fields.

A dream may be. Impractical at the moment, very much so. Ever to be realised, who knows?

Yet, as I'm driving and thinking things through, I remembered a comment made on an earlier post of mine. Someone pointed out how I had once craved love and passion and to actually feel something and I have that now. I am lucky.

So maybe, if you want things badly enough, set your heart on them, push towards a goal, maybe, just maybe you can get there in the end. Time will tell, yet this time, it seems even more impossible.

Out to lunch!

I arrived at Mums a little late today. She met me at the front door with her coat on "Come on" she said, "We're going out for lunch!"( Not even a 'Hello'!)

It was 2pm, I dutifully jumped into her car, she didn't want to miss last orders!

Now it was very sweet and kind of her to take me for lunch, and also very fortuitous that I had not already eaten, because I do so like my food! However, I had spent so much time sorting out my car on the phone before leaving, that I hadn't managed to fit in lunch, nor even a second breakfast!

Anyway, off she drove me, into the very beautiful Cotswold's.

We went VERY quickly, in fact, if I had mistakenly eaten before hand, I'm sure I would have had an empty stomach again by the time we had reached the top of Cleeve Hill. She drives like the wind, steers like she's reliving a very tricky stage on Marrio Kart and breaks at the last possible minute. We arrived at the desired destination almost before we'd left! Phew, I needed a drink, never mind lunch. She however emerged from the car as cool as a cucumber and proceeded to usher me in to the Corner Cupboard, which is not as it sounds, but a very small and typical country pub.

We had a lovely meal, velvety Steak and Ale Pie with chips and peas, lots of French mustard and a good swig of vinegar on my chips, mmmm! However my enjoyment of the meal was slightly marred by the thought of whether I would manage to keep it in my stomach for the whole of the return journey back down the hill, but then she mentioned pud...

"You have to have a pud" She insisted "and they all come with ice cream, you have to try it"

"I'm not really bothered about the ice cream, and I'm very full" I replied, hoping not to sound ungrateful. "If I ask for the ice cream, do you want mine?"

She nodded in approval. Goodness, I thought!

While waiting for puds we started to chat about my stepfather;

"It's a shame he couldn't come" I say

"Oh, he could have" She replied

"Well, why didn't he?" I ask puzzled

"I told him you might want to talk" She hissed, as if someone would hear.

"Oh" I said, hoping I hadn't disappointed by not divulging any more woes to her, I had told her about the car accident on the phone, I mean as if that wasn't enough after everything else?!

"So will you have to cook for him later?"

"No, he's eaten"

"You've left him a sandwich?"

"No he ate out"

"Oh, that's nice, where did he go?"

"The Kings Arms"

"Lovely, who with?"

"Oh no, he was by himself"

"You made him go by himself?!"

"But I thought you might want to talk"

How could she?!

Anyway, the puds came and we waded through the gateaux. Both of us were rather full and wondered if we may just not quite manage it all. I looked at Mums plate. "I don't think I can manage the rest" She says defeated by the huge portion of White Chocolate and Blueberry Gateaux.

"You don't want my ice cream then?"

"Oh yes, I can manage that" She said delighted "It won't take up any room at all!"

You've got to love her!