A New start in Northamptonshire!

Firstly I feel I should apologise for my last blog, which I think we can all agree was both depressing and self indulgent. I am afraid my hand moves swiftly across the keys in bleak times, yet when life is good I struggle to be creative. After weeks of cat pee and poo, life is calming down in Towcester. We moved just over a month ago with the help of my big sister, her van and 2 very willing and kind chums. I am already in love with this quaint little town I am glad to be able to call home. I haven’t done too much research into it yet due to lack of time, but it is a Roman town with its own Museum and many beautiful walks around countryside which seems to surround it on all sides! and of course it possesses a rather old and I’m convinced haunted church. I dare say it is only a matter of time before I drag my ghost hunting counterparts around the graveyard…before that though we have Edinburgh to conquer in the name of woooooooooo! only they will know what I mean by that!

Our days begin early now as we head off for the A5 around 7.45am, with son no2 asking if we will make it to school on time and son no1 tormenting him with ‘wow Jem look at that line of traffic! you will never make it! you will be late for sure!’ and then Jem disintegrating into hyperventilation. To be late for school would be too much for him to bear unlike his older brother who would have skipped school altogether given half the chance!

I am just quietly grateful I no longer return to cat turds in the bath, on the door mat, on the stairs or my personal favourite under a bag of clothes which I picked up and smeared all over my shoes, the rug and the arm chair before I realised they had used some sort of cat faeces superglue to stick the offending turd to the bag! I then picked up the cat crap covered rug to wash it and sprayed myself with feline urine, The said cats just looked at me with ‘if a jobs worth doing’ look on their fury faces. Unbelievably they are still alive! the many threats of their untimely and cruel (at my hands) demise helped me get the hatred and resentment I felt towards them out of my system.
Well I think that is probably enough about Towcester life for now, suffice to say I will be back and a lot sooner this time I hope. I shall try and return with a bit of a book review as I have nearly finished with a little number that I cant decide how I feel about. Always nice to end on a little intrigue I think…

Tell me its not my fault?

You got to ask that question when a number of things go so drastically wrong. A few years ago I met someone who changed my life so irrevocably I now couldn’t imagine not having him in my life. We connected on so many levels it was off the reservation, when I spent and indeed spend time with him, its like coming home. He was my Robert Kinkaid, my Jack Mac. If you have read any of those books, you will know what I mean. In short he was my certainty. It wasn’t to be a romance as it turned out and instead a true and kindred spirit friendship, which I am very grateful for. When I thought I had found a home for my heart and indeed that certainty again it was taken from me, leaving me restless, sad and unable to sleep for his heartbeat helped me to do so. My bed seems huge now, huge cold and empty. I have lost two friends, one human and one canine. I am trying to remember and smile, but it is so hard. So much shared and now lost. A million memories surround me in my tiny home, engulfing my fragile heart and causing it to break  all over again. I have decided I will be a black belt in grief after these past years of love and loss. The optimist in me says what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger. However, the pessimist whispers what’s the bloody point? how much more can I take? become a nun? a spinster? or just turn to stone? I’m sure none of these things will happen, I have too much to fight for, too many small people to keep going for. so I will continue to plaster that fake smile on my face when they are around, until one day it becomes a genuine one. until then I will not let the rigours of life with a teenager who thinks he’s Rocky, a car without an exhaust, thieves breaking into said car or even a kitten obsessed with peeing on my bed! drag me under. I will sign off by saying a goodbye to my buddy Oscar, how I will miss our walks with our squeaky squeaks and endless losing of them, my failed attempts to get you to heel the way you do with daddy. You will have forgotten me by now, I am sure, I however, will hold you in my heart forever as I will your owner. Have a long and happy treat filled life little man. xxxx       

A year on…

A year has past, and yet I still hear you. I can feel your hair as it struggled to grow back. Your soft skin as I clung to you or you to me…or both. So much has happened my girl. I’ve embraced love and lost a soul. I wanted so badly to create new life and feel you through that. Probably very wrong of me, but grief is desperate it doesn’t recognise ethical correctness.

When I was in my hospital bed everything reminded me of you. even the little cup they brought my pills to me in. I had watched a dozen times as you had taken them, on automatic pilot, ready to give your date of birth when asked. The heavy and awkward way you dragged your tired body into bed. My pain was temporary, a few units of blood and I was on my way. Yours was constant, knowing you would never leave, but still a beautiful smile to greet me every time I visited you. Your devastation was palpable Gem, but so indeed was your courage. I talk to you all the time, I cant let it sink in that you really are gone for good,. To function properly would be near on impossible if I did. so many people will be sad today, as I sit and allow the tears to fall, I know I am not alone in my grief. To say I miss you is an understatement. its unhealthy, its unproductive, but I want you here, giggling and calling me hettyspaghetti.

Is this how it will be Gem? year after year, me trying to remember all we shared…will those memories fade? will you? or will you stay clear and bright in my mind as you are now? I hope so. I miss you Gem, every day, I miss you.

 

bogus callers…

As I took my walk through the village of Greenfield in Bedfordshire with my new best friend Oscar I noticed a sign saying neighbourhood watch bogus callers phone this number. Followed by a number. how odd I thought in my vacant blonde head, why would they provide a number for prank callers? terribly kind, and what nice people. giving up their time for prank callers…It then hit me, bogus and prank are two very different things,.Its fun being me sometimes. On we went, Oscar timing his crap perfectly as ever. When we have left the field and indeed poo bins, he waits until we are in front of a perfectly manicured lawn, usually with elderly owner carefully trimming the hedges, and lays a steaming turd for me to try to scrape off the pavement. All part of dog walking I guess.

I should really take my little man out now instead of sitting here tapping away…
I have been reading a book called embracing love. it talks a lot about trust instead of hope, living without fear or worry, as they are the big destroyers of the world. I have to say I am without doubt guilty of feeling fear and worry for a lot of the time. It’s interesting as it gives you advise on mantra and manifestations to re wire your way of thinking. It’s not necessarily talking about relationships either. Love in general in our every day life. However, fear does come into play more when you enter into an intimate relationship. Something I am all too familiar with. Vulnerability isn’t a great feeling and I struggle with it a lot. Love is an intense feeling, we feel it for our children and its like nothing else on earth, what I didn’t realise was how acutely you can feel it for another person, but how does one form the words? It’s that leap of faith and I’m not sure I can take it again. No wonder people get pets, their love is unconditional, but shouldnt true love be unconditional too?

Lest we forget

I thought apart from it being about bloody time! that Today was a good day to blog. I watched with my son as the Queen, her children and her grandchildren lay poppies at the steps of the cenotaph. with much awe and respect. what an honour to be part of a Nation who refuse to forget and continue to remember those men and women who fought with such courage and selflessness. we then went onto the Rugby. England v France. And what a win! well done lads.

I’m fighting tiredness, but can’t sleep until my boys do. Hence me trying to conjure up some or any creativity to blog. I have to say a belated Happy birthday to my girl Gemma Morrell. You would have been 37 on 30.10.12. My son asked me why I miss you and what made us so close today. Quite out of the blue, I wasn’t talking about you. I just replied that we were kindred spirits and it was true love with our friendship Gem. My heart literally aches for you. broken the day you died.

As we prepare for Christmas, sorry you bar humbugs! but it’s just around the corner, so go with it! I have been reminiscing about years gone by and how different Christmas would have been without my siblings, for I think if it were not for our joint optimistic excitement, whipping each other up into a frenzy, I don’t think we would have survived those hard 1980’s years quite so well. Our Father going from job to job and our mother perpetually angry and resentful to the world, which unfortunately included us. How different life is for our little rascals, thank goodness!

My last word is to anyone who lives in the Leighton buzzard area…I promised my buddy peter that I would blog about his awesome book store, ‘Good heavens book shop’ peacock mews Leighton buzzard. if you haven’t been get down there and do your christmas shopping somewhere interesting!!

Ok quote time……..James Branch Cabell.  ‘The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.’

School runs!!!

I’m happy to say that on our own school runs usually the boys and I are laughing quite heartily at something or another. Quite often it is at Jem and one of his random acts!! or indeed one of his off the cuff remarks, always delivered in a dead pan way which makes it all the more amusing…Today was like any other busy midweek morning. pleading with teen son to get out of bed (already dressed and breakfasted, but had returned to bed! an everyday occurrence) packed lunches, keys, bags, right out the door. As we were sat in the traffic jam which waits to turn into their school, I couldn’t help but wonder where all these people would be in fifty years…most dead I guess, but all these days, weeks months and years  spent doing the same thing over and over. Does anyone stop and question it. A life spent in ground-hog day.  How do you find the time to make the difference though?

Interesting bike ride this morning. A future warning to my self, always tie your hair back and wear sun glasses. Fecking flies!

I feel it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention our newest family member. Boris (my choice) or Torpedo (Jems choice) is a super hybrid Gecko lizard. He wanted a dog and I (stupidly) thought this was a good alternative. I am now living to regret that somewhat naive decision!

Yesterday I turned a few crickets into albino crickets, trying to coat them in the powdery calcium that Boris has to have every day…It would seem I had put too much on, so there was a blind panic as I frantically grabbed some back out and threw them out the front door! I missed one which of course Boris promptly ate after spending days ignoring all the rest!

The moral of this story can only be, when your young son asks you for a dog…you say YES!!!

I have read about three romantic novels on the trot of late and feel they need a mention for their reeling you in power if nothing else. Ok so firstly there is A hopeless romantic by Harriett Evans, You before me by Jo Jo Moyes and also by the same author The last letter from your lover. Forgive me if I’m repeating myself, I’m too tired to check through previous blogs. But they are worth a read if you are indeed a hopeless romantic, like myself.

Ok so the quote for this blog is…my love for Heathcliffe resembles the eternal rocks beneath;-a source of little visible delight, but necessary.

Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights.

Romance for better or worse?

Have you ever wondered what life would be like without it? Imagine if the human race could survive without reproducing. If we never had to come into physical contact with each other. It just wasn’t necessary, we had never done it so therefore didn’t really miss it. How would that change us? would we become colder, cut off from one another locked in our tactileless world? morose as a result of loss of touch and without empathy for one another.

Of late I have realised how much I have missed that touch, leading the solitary life I have done for so long now, I think one can forget how much it can mean. Just a simple gesture, a hug, the holding of hands and dare I say it…the meeting of lips occasionally. I told myself rather stoically (in the sense that my emotions were suffering as a result from this) that I didn’t need this kind of contact, on the contrary something as silly as holding hands was for children or love-sick teens at best. Certainly not for an independent closed off island such as myself! I now realise that of course that is all horse crap. We are like Swans, we need each other. Sometimes needing that one person for life. True love is a gift, if you are lucky enough to find requited love with the one who holds your heart, then I wholly advise you to hold on to it with passion and tenacity.

It’s an odd beginning to this new term. I find it hard to articulate exactly how I am feeling. One son starts his penultimate year at school, while the other is just beginning his secondary education. I feel like I’m coming to the end of my time with them, while also being acutely aware that of course you never really do come to an end (apart from death) as a parent. It’s just insomuch as their need for me is far less now as time goes on I’m finding that they would prefer that I wasn’t around to hassle them and mother them I guess. Which allows me more time to think of me and what I want to do, or should have done, or wished I had done. All rather negative and leaves you feeling rather lost. I have to tell myself it’s never too late to be the person you always hoped you would be. I heard that said once and it has always resonated with me, I kind of wish I knew who said it…T.S Eliot probably…

Well here’s to a new term for us all…and to all parents and children out there embarking on new journeys, I salute you!

A house of many deaths

It’s morbid I know, but I have taken so many phone calls in the eight years I have lived here, telling me another family member or friend has died.

I thought at my age it was supposed to be all weddings and christenings? I guess not. I’m pretty sure I have been to more than the average amount of funerals for my age…which means I need to change who I hang out with or start to panic about my DNA.

My thoughts have been diverted towards death of late because of my weakness for brain shitting, it’s what my friend calls it when you watch trash TV. I have been caught up in a plot line involving Cancer, not very wise, you maybe thinking if you have been reading my previous blogs. You would be right to come to this assumption. I have been crying, sat in a pathetic heap on my sofa angry at the show because in true Hollywood fashion she, unlike my dear friend, survives her Cancer. She always looks perfect, she never throws up or gets mad. Nothing but serenity. Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!

So men……..I have been reading ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’. It’s a slight eye opener and I find it weird that even though I was in a very long relationship a long time ago, I never felt the need for it. Now, however, when I’m dating I feel like I need to up my game and be one step ahead of these guys. I do think it’s classic they brought out a film called ‘what women want’ when actually it should be ‘what men think they want’ What ever silent being that pulls them aside at college and teaches them how to change a wheel and throw a punch right, should really add know what you want and say what you mean to the mix. It doesn’t seem to matter how old they are, they still don’t have a clue. I was having a conversation with a customer at work recently and we went quite deep into the subject of the differences between men and women. Or Venetians and Martians as he called them. Apparently all Venetians have a Martian inside them and vise versa with the Martians.

This dude called Peter owns his own book store in Leighton Buzzard, he is so dry and funny. Our conversation actually began with him mentioning he was married but had forgotten until his wife turned up at his house!!! He said it so matter of factly, like it was totally normal to forget you were married. I nearly died laughing!

I guess there’s still so much to learn about the opposite sex, and despite being the mother of two boys, I’m still pretty clueless!

Ok folks so my parting quote this time is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge…’ The mans desire is for the woman;but the womans desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.’

Life is so much less without you.

The waves are still coming, life flawed by your absence. That naughty giggle, that smile. I remember it all so well. I miss you. I whispered I’m sorry as I dropped the soil on your coffin. I watched as your wretched children sobbed uncontrollably at your graveside. Your pastor said we should rejoice and be grateful for where you ended up. ‘life eternal’ I believe were the words he used.

Sorry if I don’t feel like rejoicing. I struggle to when I watch the back of a ten-year old boy shaking as he peers at his young mothers coffin, trying, no doubt to make sense of it all. Or when I watch your brave beautiful daughter read you a letter she wrote to you, and knowing your eighteen year old son calls your answer phone repeatedly just to hear your voice. Throughout your service, I just kept thinking, thank god you are not here to see this. it would have broken your heart as it did mine Gem.

So come on, what words of wisdom would you bestow on me Gem, in order to pull me from my melancholy reverie? would you tell me to get on with it, get over it? I will never get over you Gem. Maybe the heavy rock of grief will feel a little lighter in my pocket as time passes?

I want to live a full and happy life, I want to live it for you, because I know that’s what you would say. Seize the day! you would say. Dead poets society style. It’s just the guilt I can’t switch off. if I catch myself laughing at a tv show, a cloud of guilt soon appears above my head. I spent the day with one of my favourite people the other day and I got lost in my happiness, but towards the end of the day, my guts twisted in shame. You are in that graveyard without a heart beat and mine is thumping all the more for being with him. How could I? how dare I?

I worry that you are cold, I worry that you are alone, my mind says stop being ridiculous. I just wish someone would tell that to my heart. I’m going to check up on your children again today Gem. They are not easy people to get hold of, I can tell you! They probably think I’m a right little busy body.

I’m going to try to step up my game with my writing, there are a lot of talented people out there getting published, and I won’t be joining them writing blogs to my dead pal…What? its true aint it???

Ok so here’s a fitting quote I think…D.H. Lawrence…The dead don’t die. They look on and help.

Goodbye…

When I think I’m lost in thought, grief and utter devastation for a few seconds, I soon realise it has been far longer. My siblings have been flanking me since you passed Gem. You died on the 4th of July. I can barely stand, I’m weak and dazed. People are still going on with their lives and its like white noise to me. Walking  along beside my sister, her chatting about the state of the collars on her kid’s school shirts, I can hardly hear her…have I been immersed in water? The thought of being in a world where you are not, is more than I can bear. I catch myself zombified in shops, staring for an immeasurable amount of time at the lenses of sun glasses, or mens belts. I blink and don’t know why I’m in that section of the store…I look around and try not to catch the eyes of the other shoppers, as I know they know, I have been crying. ‘Get a grip’ I tell myself…’keep it together.’

I went to pay for my groceries in a local store the other day and Gem, you would have laughed your arse off! The young lad…or beef cake, should I say! was rather too eager to please the older woman, that particular day! But wow, was it lost on me. I just wanted to get out and get to see you, as I think I knew I wouldn’t see you again.

‘ How was your day?’ he asks, looking me up and down.

‘ok’ I reply.

‘what you been doing?’ he asks…

Oh really? I’m thinking…really, we need to do this today? ‘just been for a run in between dealing with the kids’ I add, thinking that remark will have him winking at the girl behind me faster than you can slap a tick.

‘so what you up to now then?’ he asks while staring at my chest. wow! Gem would be laughing I tell myself..just keep it together.

‘I’m on my way to a hospice to say goodbye to my friend.’ I feel a little bad, but it is the truth, and he did ask!

There is silence as he stares into my eyes. (which is a pleasant change) then manages a muffled, ‘well least ya going’

‘ Yeah, at least I’m going’ I say. I then walk out of the shop. of all the times for me to attract male, albeit juvenile, attention. It doesn’t happen often, as well you know Gem. Weird universe of ours.

Now,  I know I called this post Goodbye, but its helping writing to you Gem. Is it selfish? should I be letting go? I think I may need to do this for some time to come. I feel connected to you and I like that. Its taken me a while to finish this blog, as It’s very hard to get my hands on this silly laptop. Days have passed and its nearly a week since you left us. Everyone keeps saying I should take comfort from being a good friend to you, but until I spent the day with my dear friend, who has wisdom beyond his years, it meant nothing to me. All I could think was, what did it matter if I was a good friend? I failed. You are not here. I’m walking, eating and talking. You are not. It’s not right Gem. My guilt is a bottomless pit. He reminded me that when I sat with you all those hours, that perhaps I did make a difference Gem. Perhaps I did make you happy. I do hope so, it’s that thought that helps me snap out of my trance at traffic lights or at T junctions, not knowing all of a sudden, which way to turn.

Not only did you time leaving this world to a significant date, but it would seem your funeral is falling on friday the 13th too! It shouldnt be happening, should it Gem, is this your way of letting us know this?

Can I just say Gem, how very sorry I am; sorry that I’m here and you’re not. Sorry that I didn’t stop you smoking. Sorry that I didn’t change your diet to keep you alive longer. Sorry that my super antioxidant immune crazy pills and potions didn’t work. I’m sorry every time I kiss my son, knowing you will never kiss Ryan again. I ran today for the first time since losing you and all I could do was look up to the sky and say ‘sorry’. I watched my son in his school play and all I could do was whisper ‘sorry’.

All I can do is promise I will be there for your children Gem, what ever they do and where ever they go in this life, I give you my word I will make sure they go well. Your last words to me were I love you and mine to you.

I do love you Gem, always have, always will. xxx