Birdsong

Its 4.20am and a blackbird is singing loudly...not a Beatles "Blackbird, singing in the dead of night"  but chirping  loudly enough to disrupt sleep...am the only person awake while the rest of the world sleeps..maybe I'm just on a different time schedule? Anyone awake out there?

Power Pose

The Yoga Teacher  recommends the "Power Pose" which reduces  stress levels by 20% and increases competence levels by 20%...so.. in "wonderwoman" stance - power pose- hands on hips, legs apart, thinking positively...sorry, no, no magic feelings :(duh....

The path to enlightenment...

Aha...oh yes, we must  all forgive and forget...oh yes, absolutely.:) Oh yes, totally...oh yes...teeth grinding..oh yes all forgiven and forgotten..

Week 6...Swearing, Star Wars and stew

Week 6

F?$!!!^@*  Monday

Swearing is my new hobby. It’s a helluva lot cheaper than shopping. Unfortunately my new stress relief strategy doesn’t meet with the approval of my family. We grew up with parents who never swore, which considering they raised a very large family makes them truly heroic. Now when I’m innocently releasing my (understandable with all I have to put up with) stress and tension with some simple effing and blinding, some of my siblings appear shocked to the core and ready to keel over in a faint.  I had coffee with friends today who were also shocked by my language. Actually it was more mangluage. How come no one passes any remark at all the swearing that goes on everywhere on a daily basis including television programmes, but if I say a naughty word it’s practically a matter for the national news?  Anyway f*** that. I’ll keep swearing as long as I f***ing want to. So there. Or at least until the yoga, meditation, gym, long walks and camomile tea kick in. Which isn’t yet.

Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to Court we go…maybe…eventually…

The new legal document comes in the post. It’s the application for a divorcé. I’m the applicant, he’s the respondent. The accompanying letter explains the way it works; my solicitor posts it to me. I then read it and accept/amend it. I then sign it and post it back to my solicitor. My solicitor reviews it, and if all is ok forwards it to his solicitor. His solicitor reads it, determines that it’s ok, and posts it out to him (same home address as me). He then reads/accepts/amends it, signs it and posts it back to his solicitor. His solicitor then reviews it. If he’s happy with it he posts it back to my solicitor. My solicitor then lodges the application with the Court. This will be the procedure with settlement terms, affidavits of means, pension adjustment orders, notifications of court dates and the whole ball of wax.

We both consider this crazy. We are sharing the same house, don’t see why we need two legals playing ping-pong with documents; surely we could both sit down with one legal person and sign all the papers together? There’s no dispute regarding anything practical and there are no complications - like children.  This methodology seems bonkers. And of course neither of us has any clue as to how long each bout of ping-pong will take.

Jewelled Words Wednesday

 As recommended by Self Help Book #2, I purchased a notebook in which to record positive affirmations and ONLY positive affirmations.  Since it is intended to contain only beautiful thoughts, I bought the prettiest little handbag sized notebook I could find. A little gem with a printed cover of birds and flowers in reds and golds, a little red elastic band holding it closed and the front embellished with red, heart shaped glass decorations. Inside, the pages are overprinted with more flowers and birds. I love it. So; what’s going to be the first beautiful quotation… AH…”Everything is happening perfectly for my highest good”.  Off to a good start. I walk round the kitchen swiping at counters with a cloth and repeating today’s beautiful affirmation over and over again.  “Everything is happening perfectly for my highest good”. Pity I didn’t notice the stew was burning. But never mind. All is calm. And good. Perfectly good.

Star Wars Sunday

May the 4^{th be} with you… Yes! Star Wars hits town! Three of us head off to the Exhibition Centre at an ungodly hour.  I can’t wait! I’m a complete geek. I’ve been in love with Han Solo for many years now. Since 1977 in fact.

We’re outside, queuing to get in. I already bought our (expensive, very expensive) tickets online in the belief that places would be limited.  But we still have to queue. While we’re waiting I lose all morality and fraternise with an Imperial Storm Trooper. In fact, I have my photo taken with him.  Sorry, Leia.

The Exhibition is a bit disappointing. It’s not the artefacts, but - in a huge cavernous arena, the displays looks.. I don’t know. Non-magical. That’s me and my airy-fairy expectations again. Posing in Anakin’s Tatooine kitchen and under a Scoutwalker helps somewhat.  We do have a nice time and take lots of photos before we head to the Metro Café for brunch. As we tuck into scrambled eggs and toast, the third member of our expedition party just happens to mention that he thought he was going to a Star Trek convention…and I’m the one who gets accused of being on another planet half the time?

Meetings Museums and Musings

Monday- blah-blah-Committee Meeting

The Doggy Charity Committee Meeting is in full swing; the discussion moves to producing a really nice calendar for next year. Finding donors and sponsors is hard work. As we don’t have  corporate sponsors for all of the twelve months some one suggests that we invite anyone who wishes, to submit a photo of their own pet and pay a small fee to have their little darling feature in the calendar as  “Miss Doggy December (Miss Dodgy December more like) or Miss Feline February or whatever.   There then occurs a robust debate (to use committee-speak), as to whose dog is the best looking.  The Chairman and the Treasurer nearly come to blows as to whether his Jack Russell terrier or her walking shag pile of a collie is the prettiest… I can see trouble ahead here so I suggest we do a “Calendar Girls” job instead – i.e., topless volunteers holding strategically placed dogs, cats or even draped in collars and leads…Strangely, no one warms to my suggestion.

Wednesday with Youngling

Today I am minding a young relative. We are going to the National Museum to see the Bog Bodies Exhibition titled “Kingship and Sacrifice”.

We stand in the Museum looking down at what remains of “Clonycavan Man”. He was found in a bog by a turf cutter. I have to say he’s not looking great but then neither would you if you were born around 392 B.C.  On top of his shrunken scalp there is a bird’s crest of dull pinky/red hair and a few feathery red hairs still cling to his leathery chin. His skin is stained orangey/brown, the colour of bog itself. Apparently he wore French Hair Gel, not what you’d expect to be freely available in the Iron Age. Maybe he was the first Metrosexual. Now what remains of his worldly self lies curled up in a Perspex display case under dim lights.

A little boy and his Dad enter. The little guy holds his Dad’s hand and stands thoughtfully looking at the Iron Age version of a man about town. “Well, what do you think?” asks Dad. The little guy looks up. “Is it a mutated prawn?” asks this child of the graphic novel age, in an awed whisper.  We leave before I crack up.

Later that evening  the Youngling is asked what she thought of the Exhibition; “If you’ve seen one Bog Body you’ve seen them all”. Very hard to impress the younger generation nowadays…What with the internet and all…

Free House Saturday

Earlier I cooked a patriotic dinner. Green, white and orange.  Salmon, potatoes and broccoli. I am now drinking wine in a midnight garden with my best friend and watching the sky for shooting stars. Dust from Halley’s Comet should be producing the Eta Aquarid meteor shower this weekend.

Let me tell you, the therapeutic value of a good old White Wine Whine is greatly underestimated. We verbally shred anyone who has had the effrontery to annoy us and get indignant on each other’s behalf. In between slurping down the vine and talking, we gaze at the sky as if we knew what we were looking at.  The bottle is empty. A foray to the kitchen is required. On the way, I trip over the garden hose lying hidden like a snake in the grass and pitch head first into the cotoneaster. Thank God it wasn’t the pyracantha. Otherwise I’d have more body piercings than a punk rock band.

Single Sunday

In between slurping Solpadeine, lying on the sofa and looking up the signs of alcoholism on the Web, I decide to make something simple for dinner.  There is a recipe in the Foolproof Cookbook for baked potatoes. I take out two enormous potatoes from yesterday’s shopping. As instructed I use a large knife to score lines across them from side to side and then sea salt is rubbed into the lines. Into the oven on the wire rack.  As they are very big potatoes I decide to increase the temperature a few degrees and leave them baking. Three hours later I have the steak grilled as his key turns in the lock. I put the steak and peas out on the plates with the potatoes. The potatoes are a bit overdone. Well they’re black actually. Big black things with lighter coloured scars. The chip shop connoisseur stares at his plate. “We are having giant woodlice for dinner?”  Words fail me. But the frying pan doesn’t.

Flash Floods

Week 5

Flash flood Friday

The television meteorologist was giving the weather forecast; “There were unexpected flash floods today on the east coast”, she said. “The rainfall has been way above average.” Ha! That wasn’t rainfall. That was probably me, projectile weeping.

This is how crazy you get; for some reason I remembered him acquiring a grave some years ago, and coming home to tell me where WE were going to be buried. I was less than impressed at the time although I saw the funny side.  Today a new form of “aloneness” hit me. To be without parent, partner or child is to feel bereft of the most primary connections. I am blessed with family and friends. I am. But I am also alone.

I sit peacefully in the garden and watch the fish do their synchronized swimming up and down their aquatic centre.  Only mad for a water feature, I had waited years for His Nibs to put in a garden pond for me. Eventually decided I wasn’t prepared to wait any longer.   Off I’d gone to the Garden Centre – wonderful! They had plastic precast ponds! “What size would you like?” asked the assistant. “Whatever size will fit into the back of a Peugeot 206 please” I drove home with the boot open and a pond sticking out of the back of the car.

I remember standing in the back garden admiring the pond when His Nibs arrived home.  “I got my pond. Isn’t it lovely” I said. He stood in contemplation for a moment. “That’s not a pond. That’s a baby bath”. And he turned on his heel and walked into the kitchen before I could run a trowel through his heart.

Shortly thereafter, he built his own water feature which took up a good portion of lawn and half the boundary wall. Right enough, his was bigger than mine.  Large rock face, trickling waterfall into a large pool…  He’d built a smaller version of the Grotto of Lourdes… Just to wind him up one day, I put a statue up on the rock face.  

In these parallel universes I inhabit at the same, time, I get up, go to work, do all the normal things while at the same time moving through a dark universe of  silence and fear, particularly at night when I am obliged to stop distracting myself and rest.  Light and shade. Veering between hope and doubt. See-sawing and knowing that it is essential to find emotional equilibrium, and the rest will then fall into place. Knowing what I need to do and actually accomplishing it are two different kettles of fish. And they ain’t goldfish.

I made an appointment to see a new counselor. A relationship counselor. The previous one suggested it.  Could he recommend someone? He could, in line with my preference for a female therapist. When I heard her voice on the telephone I knew immediately that along with a load of framed certificates on her wall, she would have empathy. And I was right.