And for today’s blog – The Gospel According to Pooks.

Well it made me smile and there is nothing wrong with sharing a smile occasionally – it makes people wonder just what you’re up to.

And Pooks also sends apologises on behalf of Yahoo – who she is now emailing a bollocking to – if you haven’t had a reply from her, it would appear that Yahoo is hiding emails under the mat and then sending them out willy nilly (see yesterday’s comment box).

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Affirmations for personal growth

1. As I let go of my feelings of guilt, I embrace my inner sociopath.

2. I have the power to channel my imagination into ever soaring levels of suspicion and paranoia.

3. I assume full responsibility for my actions – except for all those which are someone else’s fault.

4. I no longer need to punish, deceive, or compromise myself – unless I wish to remain employed!

5. In some cultures what I do would almost be regarded as normal.

6. Having control over myself is almost as good as having control over others.

7. My intuition almost makes up for my lack of self-judgement.

8. I honour my personality flaws for without them I would have no personality at all.

9. I am grateful that I am not as judgemental as all those censorious, self-righteous, pretentious people around me.

10. I need not suffer in silence while I can still moan, whimper and complain.

11. As I learn the innermost secrets of those people around me, they reward me in many ways to keep me quiet….

12. When someone hurts me I know that forgiveness is cheaper than a law suit but not half as gratifying.

13. The first step is to say nice things about myself, the second is to do nice things for myself, the third step is to find someone to buy me nice things.

14. As I learn to trust the universe I no longer need to carry a gun.

15. All of me is beautiful, even the ugly, disgusting, stupid parts.

16. Only a lack of imagination saves me from immobilising myself with imaginary fears.

17. Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience for there are no sweeter words than ‘I told you so’.

18. A good scapegoat is almost as good as a solution.

19. Who can I blame for my problems? Just hold on a moment ……..I’ll find someone.

20. I am learning that criticism is not nearly as effective as sabotage.

21. Becoming aware of my character flaws leads me naturally to the next step of blaming my parents.

22. To have a successful relationship I must learn to make it seem like I am giving as much as I am taking.

23. I am willing to make mistakes if someone else is willing to learn from them.

24. Blessed are the flexible – for they can tie themselves in knots.

25. Before I criticise a man I must walk a mile in his shoes. That way if he’s angry he’s a mile away and barefoot.

Here endth the lesson. Have a nice day :)

Can we just have a moments silence please, I have to report another passing….

….I’m afraid this time I’ve killed the works printer and I certainly can’t flush that down the toilet.

I think we must have had a power surge over the weekend and as well as taking the server down, it did something to the printer too. Obviously with no server I didn’t use the printer yesterday and it wasn’t until Dilys came in this morning and pointed out that the light wasn’t on did it dawn on me that something was wrong. Yes, Mrs Observant, that's me.

Now I said yesterday that work is manic (understatement of the year that one) and I really was rushing around this morning, my health is crap for want of a better word and I’m not firing on all cylinders as the saying goes – that’s my defence in case you were wondering.

When the power fails on something my first port of call is to change the power lead – I always keep spares in a drawer, so I got one out and plugged it into the back of the printer. I then crawled under the desk to the extension lead, unplugged the old cable and replugged the new one in.

With hindsight, I think it would have been a really good idea at this point to switch the extension lead off at the mains first. As I pushed the plug in sparks leaped from it and there was a God Almighty loud ‘bang’ from somewhere in the vicinity of the printer. It scared the bloody life out of me, I jumped a mile – forgetting I was under the desk and nearly knocking myself out in the process.

Not the safest of things to do I’ll admit and it really shuck me up but at least I managed to laugh about it. It was either that or cry and I came perilously close to doing just that – it didn’t do a lot to help my asthma I can tell you. I was holding on to my sense of humour by the skin of my teeth and if I hadn’t been emailing Cobweb & Scally I think I’d have settled for the hysterics and tears. I mean what a stupid eejit I'd been (and isn't that the truth, why didn't I switch the lead off first?) - so I settled for a joke instead about flushing it down the loo.

I was on IM with Pooks at the time (still ill by the way) when it really started to sink in that I could have electrocuted myself - she told me to calm down and breath slowly, in and out, concentrate on my breathing. Who was she kidding? In between coughing I was desparetly trying to suck on my inhaler as if my life depended on it, whilst trying to stop my hands shaking. And I was scared, the adrenaline had obviously kicked in with the shock - it wasn't even a major asthma attack; I've had much, much, worse, I was just panicking. Dilys by the way, having fallen back on the 'I'll get you a cup of tea and everything will be OK again' emergency plan as no one else was around to assist. Yes, leave the Office Manager in charge of the company, everything will be fine; she'll just try and kill herself. You know, I may just remember the next time to turn the power off at the mains first - make way, biiigggg learning curve coming through.

So the printer has departed this mortal earth and we’ve ordered another from PC World – well, it helps keep someone in a job, doesn’t it?

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Good Old or Young Arnold - not sure which as we didn’t get to the point of discussing ages. But credit to him, the pop-ups are gone and the site is back to normal – I am once again a paying customer at Tripod, although I can’t quite believe the time and effort that it’s taken just to get a company to take my money off me. I do wonder if other site owners have had the same problem or whether it’s more the fact that it’s me and I don’t ever appear to do anything the easy way, no matter how hard I try. Never mind, it’s working now and I’ve emailed him back one last time to say thank you for his help.

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One more note of thanks to add – thank you to all the people who have taken the time to drop Pooks an email. I think she had got to the point that a lot of new writers get to, when you ask yourself ‘Why bother? No one ever says anything’. Well this time you have and it’s both appreciated and encouraging. The muse bunny is back in Ireland and on a mission to write a new series and maybe even a further chapter of Harry and Sam if we’re lucky.

Firstly, for those that by pass the site - Ms Verde has updated her stories page.

Secondly - Tripod hates me. We're still trying to sort the website out. I've now got it to accept my new payment details - it just won't give me my Pro account back again; it seems to think I already have one although the other part say's I'm still on the free account. So it's back over to Arnold .....

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The pressure at work has been off the scale just lately, so much so that it’s really starting to affect my health. Yesterday all I did was sleep; partly from being totally worn out, partly from ill health - my asthma is really bad at the moment and partly from feeling very low in myself; which I’ve been fighting for the past fortnight. I don’t think of these mood swings as depression, that is something a lot worse than this. And no, I won’t let the bastard win. It’s controlled enough of my life already – this time I’m not going down without a fight – but that’s often easier said than done, it’s part of my make up after all and the asthma has without a doubt not helped the situation. Trouble is, it’s not any one thing – never is I suppose – all a thousand and one little things throw you over the edge. Mind you talking to Pooks this afternoon helped, just having someone to listen to me about nothing in particularly and all of a sudden I could admit how I was feeling. Which is half the battle - even through Himself has known for a while and has been trying his very best to help - I wasn’t prepared to listen let alone admit that all was far from well in my world.

So I really didn’t need to be greeted today, when I arrived at work, with not one but two people moaning at me that the server was down. I bit back on the ‘so what do you want me to do about it, throw a party?’ My temper isn’t at its best either at the moment – wouldn’t take too much to blow a gasket and tell them exactly where they could stick the server. Surely to God someone could have just restarted it.

Well no as it happens, they couldn’t and why couldn’t they? Because there was no power going to it, that’s why. I changed the lead, I checked the fuse – it was a dead as the preverbal Dodo. Oh go on – just pile that pressure on. Kick me when I'm down. No server and the world just grinds to a halt. We’ve the company AGM on Wednesday, the company Self Assessment to finish too, as well as all the everyday jobs that are on deadlines. Anyone would think it was my personal fault – that I had arranged it. I got moaned at by every man and his dog although what the feck they thought I could do about it, I don’t know. I'm not a bleeding electrician.

We have a company that looks after our computers when they go wrong, so I called out Kev; who arrived, took one look at it and told me there was no power going into it. You don’t say. He took it away with him and told me he’d ring when he knew what it was, he thought it was the power supply but didn’t know if anything else wasn’t working until he sorted that bit out.

Great – 9.45am and no server. Worse than that NO INTERNET. I found plenty to do for a while until I noticed that everyone else was doing bugger all and then rebellion set in. You know that 'I'm so pissed off' feeling? My computer is situated next to the server and router and a long, long, time ago I used to get my internet access direct from that router – bypassing the server altogether. All I had to do was remember the settings – actually that isn’t as easy as it sounds. But I can be amazingly stubborn at times, which in this case paid off towards lunchtime when I hit jackpot and connected myself to the internet. I very nearly Woo Hoo-ed in my excitement. As no one knew I'd got an internet connection that wouldn't have been a good idea.

I then spent the remainder of the afternoon IM-ing Pooks, probably driving her mad with my moaning but what the heck – she can give as good as she gets and she managed to make me smile, something that hasn’t happened a lot just lately - all emotions feel forced. She was at home ill by the way, someone up above must have been watching over me and arranged that, although I don't think she would be very pleased if that was the case.

So I haven’t achieved a bit of work other than the meeting timetable for next year and to be honest, I don’t give a flying f**k - for once in my life I was only thinking about myself - maybe I should do that more often. If I don't look out for me no one else is going to - so I took the afternoon off!

As Scally stated in the last lot of comments, the site now has pop-ups and there is a reason for that; Arnold has down graded me.

What he was trying to do was disable my current credit card to see if the system would then take the new details. It didn’t. So we’re back to the drawing board I’m afraid, but this way although we have pop-ups they won’t take the site off line if we can’t get this sorted in time.

Arnold is really earning his salary this month. The problem appears to be America and Europe operate different updating card systems - it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m an awkward sod at times.

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Child re-sat his theory test this morning. He was up at just turned six; totally wound up with nerves. Another early morning visit to McDonalds and I then had an hour to kill.

At least the shops were open this time, which was a good thing as my asthma is playing up of late and the cold air doesn’t like me. Mind you there is only so much time you can kill in WH Smiths looking at books before someone starts to think you’re not buying anything, just reading their stock. I moved on to Waterstones, with a toilet stop in between. I don’t know if I was nervous for child or it was down to the cold but I’ve not stopping peeing all morning.

After killing another 15 minutes in Waterstones (well it was a smaller shop I couldn’t hide so well) I wandered back towards the test centre waiting for youngest to call the mobile.

I met up with him walking towards me; my phone signal obviously doesn’t work inside shops. He told me he’d failed again, but this time on the hazards and then passed me over the paperwork to look at.

I was stood in the middle of Worcester trying to work out from the paper his scores, asking him questions and basically telling him we’d put back in for it again as soon as we got home (mentally seeing another £28.50 disappearing from the bank account just before christmas). I then glanced up to find him grinning madly at me. What I’d failed to notice was the pass certificate that I was also holding in my hand, I’d only looked at the score sheet. The sod had been winding me up. At the moment he’s walking round doing a Cheshire Cat impersonation, and I for one am glad it’s all over.

I thought I better warn you that the website could go off line at the end of November. I’m currently swapping emails with Arnold at Tripod – we’re on first name terms you know – to try and stop getting ex-communicated in my prime, but I don’t hold out much hope.

The problem? Well some of you will remember Geocities throwing a wobbily last year when I linked my site to my blog. Yes I know, I’ve got such a cheek. Geocities didn’t think they’d bother telling me that they don’t allow links to blogs, even through other sites do it and don’t appear to have a problem, so they just deleted everything. Which, let’s be honest was a bit of a bugger.

Never mind, never one to fall at the first hurdle I got myself a tripod plus site, for which I pay the princely sum of £3 a month. There’s a lot of talk about the pros and cons of paying for your site - authors write the stories for free so they shouldn’t have to pay for readers to read them as well. Personally I don't have a problem, this is my hobby – when I actually write that is. Most people pay more than that for a round of drinks in a pub on a weekly basis and by having a paid site I don’t suffer from the dreaded pop-ups. But more than all of that, I have peace of mind that some swine isn’t just going to pull the plug on me without warning.

Or I thought I did.

As in most of these things, service providers insist on payment via a credit card and we all know that credit cards come with expiry dates. Well mine expires at the end of this month and Tripod ever so kindly pointed this out for me. To ensure that service wasn’t disrupted I needed to update my card details. Wasn’t that nice of them? Orange, who supply my broadband hadn’t said a dicky bird.

Never mind, I logged onto the Orange site and within seconds, just seconds, I’d entered my new card details and they had been accepted and updated. Now this is where it all goes wrong - I very stupidly assumed that Tripod would be the same and to a certain extent it is. I followed their instructions to the letter and came upon a small problem. They won't accept my new card.

Rather than explain it all again, I’ll just show you a copy of the email to Arnold – who, bless him, continues to send me the same response just wording it slightly differently each time:

Dear Arnold

Thank you for replying to my query. Unfortunately the information you have sent me is exactly the same as the information that I received with the notice to update my card details; it doesn’t address my problem. Which I’ll explain to you in the hope that you'll be able to assist me:

1. When I try and put the new expiration date in for my new credit card I get this error message:

Credit card pre-validation failed due to invalid or rejected number.

I can even tell you why it failed. You don't have a box asking for the new card’s verification number; it only asks me for the new expiry date. This unique number changes with every new card you receive. So basically although I've changed the year, the verification number no longer matches up as you haven’t asked me to change it. I’ve given you my new expiry date; you could try yourself and prove me wrong if possible – I could live with that.

2. The obvious way around this - or so I thought. There you go, that will teach me - is to click the link to ‘manage your payments’ and add the new card. Ha ha. This time I get this error message:

Tried to create an account which already exists (like duplicate credit card)

They're right you know, I did, the card number is in fact my account number and that bit is obviously the same as my old card. Sorry to repeat myself here, but it’s the expiry date and verification number that has changed.

All I want to do is pay. Orange didn't have a problem updating my card, they want my money. I can't be the only customer who has had this problem, please can I pay? I really do want to keep my Tripod Plus account with you and not get ex-communicated come the end of November.

Yours in hope,

Sue

This by the way is the third email that I’ve sent them, each time he quotes the basic reply of 'do it this way' – they just can’t seem to accept the fact that it doesn’t work.

So, I’ve emailed him back yet again with screen prints for each of the steps he’s told me to take (just to prove to him that I am doing as he's told me) and I live in hope that he’ll get his head around the fact that their site has a big problem in it's design and it's not me. I don’t hold out much hope, so if I do disappear come the end of the month, please address all complaints to Arnold at Tripod. I would dearly love to know if he’s actually look at our site.


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Flickr is addictive and work sucks.

That’s it really :)

This time 21 years ago I was in the final stages of labour and most probably asleep. They’d spent days trying to induce me, I was only 21 myself and very innocent in a lot of ways. I had high blood pressure and the hospital had a hell of a game trying to break my waters. Putting me on a drip to speed everything up meant the pain speeded up too – hence I asked for any drugs going. I was young and accepted everything they told me without question; to the point it was quite a clinical experience.

By this time in proceedings I was drugged to my eyeballs and only waking up when they kept shouting at me to push. I don’t remember much about it, other than the fact that they threatened me with forceps in the end and I told them to bugger off I was doing it myself - the first decision I'd made myself that day. I didn’t have an urge to push; I only had an urge to sleep. Why couldn’t they all just leave me alone, I was tired?

Eldest was born at 5.01pm – a very healthily baby boy who I fell instantly in love with. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how very proud Himself was, and the look of wonder on his face when he held him in his arms. Here was a prefect child that we’d produced together – God, what amazing people we were.

He’s turned out OK too, my son who I’m very proud of. A genuine, kind person, who isn't afraid of standing up for others and has proved that many times over. He’s off out to Worcester with a group of friends tonight, they've booked a mini bus so no one has to drive and tomorrow we’re all going out for a family meal.

Did you know that Christmas is only 37 days away? I didn’t and I can’t say was that impressed when I was told either. But it did bring to mind a conversation we’ve not long had about the Christmas Photo Competition – if you look back in the blog to the 16th January, you’ll see the results from last year.

We’ve changed the rules a bit this time, we’re having set headers into which we each get to enter just the one photo and we can use any photo we’ve taken in 2007. We’re then going to be asking friends (Yes, look out, emails will be sent) if they’d like to vote (and throw a gigantic sulk if they say no). Seems a bit fairer than putting all that pressure on just one person.

So far Chris hasn’t commented on whether he’s taking part – very busy person don'tchaknow; takes photos with the big boys now on Flickr. Either he’s just taking it for granted that we know he’s interested or it had crossed my mind that a bit of sulking may have gone on last year, when he didn’t get a 1st place for any of his pics.

Scally has pointed out that both Chris & I take more photos than she does and we have more opportunities to do so….this would cut more ice if she hadn’t won every single section, bar the one she tied with me in last year. So no, we’re not falling for that one again. She's changed the setting on her camera and just sent me an amazing photo of some flowers that are framed by the back of a chair - it's perfect. *Goes green with envy*.

Actually I got asked about my photos last week. I do send them out to friends to look at but don’t make them all available in general. So to meet the demands of my fans - all two of them :) - I’ve resurrected my Flickr site. I’m not putting every thing on it – so unfortunately those of you that do get sent the link to my Kodak site will continue to suffer. Tough, life’s a bitch, get used to it.

For anyone else that’s interested the link to my Flickr photos is on the side of the page – for those who haven’t spotted it already - that will be all of you then. Yes, just over there to the right. I'm currently looking back over my old photos and uploading them - I'm enjoying it too, looking back and finding photos I'd forgotten all about.

Actually I got all excited today when I got my first real comment from a fellow Flirkr-er. To be honest it’s the second comment I’ve received – the first being from Pooks after I moaned that people were looking at the photos and not saying a dicky bird about them – a bit like around here and the comment box. So she logged on and left a comment just to shut me up.

Not that I don’t appreciate it mind, I do - but I told her that it’s like your teacher giving you a certificate in the year end assembly for working hard throughout the year. You’ve not got it for any great achievement – more that they didn’t want you to feel hurt and left out. See, someone cares :)

Today was the first morning I’ve come to work and not found that any of the fish have died in the night, although out of our original fish we only have Fergal Sharkie, two of the Anthill Mob and Seamus left. We even lost a couple of the new fish we brought last week; we’ve now got a Yin and no Yang. I’d gone home last night and Himself had told me to go and buy one, if it was upsetting me that much then it would be worth every penny just to put it right again, my dad also offered to pay half. So I was all set to go into town at dinner time today and purchase one.

But just occasionally nice things do happen and people surprise you. My work colleagues rallied around yesterday and had a collection; raising between them half the cost of a new pump and my manager has said the company will pay the other half. Which made me cry, soppy cow that I am. They said they knew how upset I was; especially after I lost Gill on Saturday and that the fish were a part of our Company. They’d all got used to them being there and didn’t like the idea of anything happening to them, we were a team and we always pulled together when the chips were down. What good were chips without fish? Trust me, you don’t want to hear the rest of the jokes – it was like a comedian’s convension, they just knock off each other – but I was very touched by their gesture and the fact that they care enough to do something about it, not just for the sake of the fish but because it was upsetting me.

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One of our managers went to a meeting yesterday – very up market venue it was too. Being a charity our building and equipment leaves a lot to be desired I’m afraid, and although we’ve come on a long way from the days where we were operating from a shed in the back garden of a respite home, a lot of our equipment is still old and second hand.

This company that was chairing the meeting had a large, well lit meeting room with individual desks that fitted together to make one large meeting room table. Simon was most impressed but noticed that the desks themselves had the outline of a square cut out of them, which being Simon he pushed. The square gave a bit but nothing really happened until be sat at the desk.

As he pulled his chair in, his leg brushed against a hidden button underneath.
At this the square in the desk flipped up and a flat screen and keyboard rose up out of the depths, the computer was hidden underneath. He was most impressed – all that was really missing was the sound track to Thunderbirds; it was very FAB. Simon commented on this fact the gentleman sat next to him.

This gentleman said he’d have been more impressed if they’d bothered to tell visitors about it before hand. Apparently a few weeks before he’d attended another meeting in the same room and had placed his cup on the desk before sitting down. Like Simon, he had touched the hidden button by accident as he sat down.

He had watched in horror as his very hot cup of coffee had catapulted across the room; dispersing its contents across several of the desk and narrowly missing the person sat opposite. Utter pandemonium had then ensured as staff had desperately tried to mop it up before it damaged the hidden computers.

There have been developments on the fish front; good news/bad news, I'm afraid.

Craig called in to a different aquatic shop on the way home last night and took another water sample in – apparently Craig wasn’t impressed with the shop I went to on Saturday. He said that they employ young kids that know nothing about fish! Actually I think he has a point – not that it would have changed what has happened to any great extent or changed the fact we’ve lost another fish in the night.

Basically the pump we have isn’t big enough for the tank - there has been a slow build up of nitrate in the water over the year and it's reached critical levels - which is poisoning the fish and although we’ve now treated the water and got it back to a safe level, chances are some more of the fish will still die as the poison is in their systems. The nitrate comes from the food we feed them and the waste they produce; which obviously goes straight back into the water they live in.

So the good news is we now know what is causing the problem but all we’ve done really is treat the symptoms, we haven’t addressed the cause. For the size tank we have and the number of fish we had, we need an external pump; one that takes the water out of the tank, cleans it, and then puts in back in again.

And the bad news? Well the sort of pump we need costs well over £100 and we can’t really justify spending that sort of company money on the fish. We had a search on ebay and put a bid in of £25.00 on a second hand one – but with those sort of pumps costing so much I think the bids will go above what we've got available to spend. So we've got to keep searching all the local papers, ebay etc. until we find one that we can afford and try our hardest to ensure that we keep their water as safe as possible until then.

Two more fish have died and I’m really at my wits end to know what to do, it looks like we’re going to have to put the fish in a small holding tank and then completely empty and sterilise the big tank. It’s a massive undertaking and I’m not even sure if the fish will survive the upheaval of it all, but I’ve got to do something. The other thought is that there's a problem with the pump, as all the dead fish have been over that area of the tank. Maybe there's some sort of bacteria in it. Can you tell I’m grasping at straws yet?

To think that they managed to survive all that time after the old CEO left without anyone caring for them. Old history, but basically they were her fish and as she wasn’t the best liked person around these part; the fish caught the cop out after she left. No one bothered with them, they were lucky to be fed. In fact if the water hadn’t started to smell I doubt we’d have notice just how bad it had got. After that, Craig & I took over their care and we’d got to the point that the fish had even started to breed, a sure sign that all is right in their world.

It’s certainly not any more – it’s more like the Black Death has struck. You can tell how bad it is, they’ve even stopped cracking jokes about it around here now.

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We were continuing to sort through the boxes in the shed yesterday and I came across all my old birthday cards from when I was 13, up to and including my 21st. Yes, I’m a hoarder and at times I’m glad I am. I had cards there from my Nan; in which she'd written me lots of little messages that reminded me just how much I loved her. I also realised that I'd forgotten that she'd always called me Susan, never Sue - one of the very few people that called me by my given name all of the time.

We came across a little gold mine of really old photos that my Granddad had taken, including a photo of him that I don’t remember seeing before. He used to develop all his own photos and had a real love of photography. I shared a few of the snaps with Scally, Chris & Pooks, including this one:

Now don’t let it be said that I can’t laugh at myself. In it I look a cross between the Michelin Man and one of Santa’s Little Helpers. If you look closely you can see my Nan crouched down behind me – obviously they thought I was going to fall off the steps. My dad could remember the photo being taken, he said that they tried everything to get me to actually look into the camera and I wouldn’t.

There’s a photo of me with wild curly blonde hair – my mother obviously being of the generation that believed it was cute. Another one taken with me holding a doll and yet another with me holding a handbag with our pet spaniel in the back ground. That brought a lump to my throat – he was my first dog and I clearly remember him being very tall; to my mind the same size as a labardor. Which is obviously to do with the fact I was only three at the time and a not very tall three year old at that. His name was Paddy Paws and he was black and white.

I can still remember my mum sitting with me on the sofa, trying very hard not to cry, telling me that he wasn’t very well. His kidneys were failing and he needed to go to the vets to be put to sleep. She told me that he was in pain and because we loved him, we had to let him go - I can't say I was very happy about her attitude at the time. I loved him way too much to let him go anywhere. They’d waited ten year for a child before I came along and Paddy had been her substitute baby; she worried that he’d be jealous when I was born. Where as in fact he became my constant companion as I grew up, he was never far away from me.

I can clearly recall sitting behind the sofa hugging him, knowing that when he went through the door I’d never see him again. I cut a curl from his coat with a pair of scissors and hid it in a box upstairs, just so I’d always have something to remember him by - see, I was even a sentimental, silly cow back then . No, I’ve not a clue what happened to that curl, time being the greatest of healers and eventually months later another dog came into my life. A mogul that we called Cindy.

She belonged to a couple with a baby that lived in a high-rise flat – I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time she was let out in our back garden. She jumped a foot up in the air when her feet touched the grass; I think she’d only been on concrete up until then. She used to have what we called a ‘mad fit’. Every so often the pure joy of life and the freedom she now had used to go to her head and she run up and down the garden at full pelt barking and jumping in the air.

And that’s where we’ll leave her story for now; unfortunately she was killed by a car six years later. It had been a windy night and the gate at the top of the garden had blown open. She’d got into a neighbours garden and then onto the road. I certainly don’t feel like recalling that story at the moment; I'm trying to remain positive - anyway I'm out of tissues and it would only make me cry :-)

Update:

I went into work to check on the fish and found that another had died; the last of my original Angel Fish. The beautiful black and white, Gill.
I had a horrible feeling last night before I came home that he wasn't well, he was staying down the one side of the tank. I know they're only fish and you shouldn't get upset but I just couldn't help it. He was special; he'd come up to the top of the tank and take the food from me.

I took a water sample in and they tested it, but it was fine. I've racked my brains over just what the hell has gone wrong. We use the special drops when we have to fill the tank up with water, because tap water with all the added bits can kill fish. Maybe Craig got the amount wrong and over did it. I even upped the temperature slightly in case it was too cold during the night as winter is on the way.

I'd spent time yesterday messing with the water, cleaning the filter system out and replacing the plants so may be it had put itself right but the damage had already been done to the fish. I honestly don't know and although all the other fish seem OK, I still don't know what to expect when I go back into work on Monday. Himself said that it could just all have been a coincidence, all of the fish we've had a fair while and like any living creatures we all wear out at different rates. I honestly don’t know what else to do now.

But goes to show how special a husband I've got when he asked me if I wanted him to bury the fish instead of flushing it down the toilet like I normally do. No, I didn't, but he did take charge of the fish funeral for me as I couldn’t bring myself to do it this time.

Child sat this driving theory test again this morning – we were sat in McDonalds at 7am with a drink, a bagel and his revision book - he got me up at 6 am as he didn't want to be late. No where else was open; they had more sense and were still fast asleep. No greater love has a mother than to leave her bed at an ungodly hour on her day off for her child.

Unfortunately he failed – by one fecking point. Just one sodding point. He needed to score 44 and he got 43. Once again he past the hazard theory part with flying colours. So it’s now cost me another £28.50 and we’ve booked him in again for later this month.

The poor kid gets so frustrated and angry with himself and he’s a bundle of nerves before any sort of test as well; which doesn’t help the matter. He’s dyslexic, the hazard part of the test is visual and causes him no trouble; he’s passed that part twice now with a very high score - it’s the questions that get him. He does use the facility available to listen to the question being read out through the earphones and that helps, but it’s more the way the question is worded that causes the problem. He’s always had this problem right the way through school – he’d be asked a question and not understand, but if you asked exactly the same question but reworded it ever so slightly he’d instantly give the correct answer. Its part and parcel of the dyslexia and something that he has just had to accept.

The plus side to all of this is that he’s determined to pass. Often if he fails at something he won’t try again, or even worse won’t try at all for fear of failing. Yet if he does set his mind to something, believe that he’ll do it, he’ll move heaven and earth to ensure he does. I just hope the next time he passes – otherwise it will end up costing me a small fortune because the minute I see how upset he is I do the mother thing of trying to make it better, encourage him to keep trying and then tell him I'll pay.

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Went to a firework display last night. Have tripod will travel, sort of thing.

Pretties :-)

Update: Before I left work tonight I went in to feed the fish and found one of the orange ones had snuffed it too. Something is not at all well in their world, I'm going to have to get the water tested. That's if they are still alive tomorrow; other wise it will be pointless and a waste of my Saturday to boot.

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A minute’s silence, if you please. One of the angel fish has today past away.
*Deep sigh*

This was after we lost Bruce the Shark earlier – unfortunately, he for some alone reason decided to try and swim between two small rocks and got himself lodged. Death by drowning I suppose. We’re not doing very well with the fish just lately and after a quite fraught morning / week / two weeks at work I decided that the only option left to me was to either join him, and let’s be honest I’d never fit in that tank or raid the petty cash tin and buy some more. I decided that this time I was extremely stressed and that £10’s worth of new fish probably won’t do me much good. So I spent £40.00 instead.

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Getting out of the shower yesterday morning I managed to tread on one of those clear plastic clip covers from the top of the disposable razors. I may just have spoken a few choice words after screaming and pitching headlong into the wall. It actually cut into my foot and it started bleeding – real blood I’ll have you know. Mine!

Both the Child and Himself denied all knowledge of actually dropping it on the floor and not into the conveniently placed bin that is in the bathroom – in fact, assumptions were cast in my direction, as I was always nicking the razors to shave my legs. Apparently my foot wasn’t half as bad as some of the cuts Himself has had on his face after he’d ended up using the blunt razor I’d put back on the side. I’m pretty sure that if I murdered either or both of them a court would accept a plea of self defence. It was hell walking in high heeled boots and it was all their fault.

It was my friend’s dad funeral yesterday; which was as all funeral are – very sad. It’s one of those times that you can’t help thinking of loved ones you’ve lost yourself, the service was particularly moving.

Although the fact we lost the funeral cortège did give everyone something to laugh at later. Which as everyone else, other than the hearse, the funeral car, Val’s sisters and then us – a grand total of four vehicles in all – went straight to the crematorium, it took a bit of doing.

We were testing youngest on his road signs, basically as we were travelling along the road we were pointing out signs and getting him to tell us what they meant. All was fine until we reached the main traffic island into Worcester.

We spotted a sign that Youngest didn’t know and Himself was telling child what it stood for, then automatically indicated and turn down the road – unfortunately there are two roads that lead to the crematorium - the one we took and the one the cortège took.

Not a problem, both of those roads join at another traffic island about three miles on, so we drove slowly and eventually turned onto the road to the crematorium. We were driving along and my dad pointed out that they didn’t appear to be up in front, we must have driven too slowly and missed them.

Um. No.

At this point child points out that the hearse is now behind us. We’re leading the cortège. Himself quickly pulls over and the driver signals and goes past. I’ll just point out that Fiancée’s mum works for the Undertakers and is sat in the front of the hearse.

She goes past, staring straight ahead, with a very big grin on her face. She is then followed by Tracy and Co and Val’s sisters. They don’t even try to hide the fact that they’re laughing at us.

The crematorium was packed – must have been nearly a hundred people stood outside. The Hearse and Funeral car pulled in and Val’s sister, with us now following again drove on to the car park. Which was full. Not only was the car park full, but there wasn’t even a space in the side road. We all ended up parking miles away. The whole service was held up as they waited for us to turn up again.

The whole incident did make us all laugh at the wake afterwards – it was like something out of a carry on film, but everyone felt that he’d been give a good send off and really that was all that mattered.

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Himself insisted we go into town later that afternoon. He decided that with all that has happened of late – and I’ve not mentioned even half of it here, I could do with something nice to cheer me up, and according to Him, he knew just the thing.

I argued against it; Christmas is coming up and the wedding is getting nearer but I still ended up with the camera tripod that I’ve been thinking about for ages. I do have a real problem justifying spending money on myself, which Himself just can’t get his head around – apparently I was due a ‘happy’ and the amount of enjoyment I get from taking photos meant it was money well spent as far as he was concerned. I’m so lucky to have found and married someone as special as him.

I tried out the night setting on the camera, it allows you to take photos in the dark without the flash but you have to use a tripod with it as the slightest of movements results in blurred pictures.

So, More Pumpkin Pictures…..

They’re putting me to shame, the pair of them. Well, they’d be putting me to shame if I had any, which let’s be honest – I don’t. Both The Scary One and The Leprechaun have been bitten by the writing bug; the little devil must have had a banquet. Not that I mind of course, as long as I get a gander. I’ve worked out that Scally has a whinge level – if I can keep it going long enough, she’ll eventually give in and send me something to read just to shut me up. Neither has yet issued orders, sorry requested, that I update the website. In fact I think Pooks is probably still at the point of stomping around over excessive use of blue boxes or that could be pink boxes - yes she has even argued over the colour of the comment boxes in the past, never mind what the S.O. has written in them. What can I say; the Irish just love a fight.

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I’m fed up with moaning, that is all I’ve done lately so I’m going to laugh inappropriately about something that happened to someone else instead. Just for a change, and I'm not mentioning how fecking ill I feel - just don't stand too close 'cos if I start coughing the only way I stop is to throw up; that could make the Disciplinary Hearing I've to chair later today very interesting. What? It was only a little moan and you can't expect me to just go Cold Turkey, now can you? Anyway, I digress.....

Someone on our board of Trustee’s is into camping and was away for a jolly with family and friends. Now during the evening one of his group, a lady, fell backwards over her chair (no I’m not laughing at that). Bet they did through - until they found out that she’d hurt her back; then they rang the emergency services, who in turn dispatched the air ambulance to assist.

The gentleman in question thought that at a later date the lady would just love to see a photo of the air ambulance arriving and then carting her off to hospital. He’d be able to pull her leg over it (yes, what a thoughtful chap).

Of course, that meant he needed to find the perfect place to stand so he’d not miss any of the action. You know what it’s like when something happens, some nosey bugger always stand in your way and you can’t see what’s going on. So he looked around for the best vantage point and conveniently enough there was a nearby group of rocks – all he had to do was climb on top of them. The trouble with us photographer types is that we’re perfectionist - we want to get the lighting just right; take in the whole ambience so that you really capture the moment.

And sometimes this means taking a step backwards so that you can get everything in range. In this case, it also meant falling off the rock and down the ten foot crevasse behind him. He broke his nose, his collar bone, was unconscious for nearly half an hour and ended up going to hospital in the air ambulance instead of the lady it had been sent to assist. Oh, and he broke his camera as well, so he never did get to show her the picture of the helicopter landing.

I just hope everyone appreciates the lengths we photographers go to!

I have another head cold – just staying at work till 4.30 p.m. yesterday was a mammoth achievement, but I’ve so much to do now we’ve a member of staff on long term sick that I can’t afford to give in to it, especially as I'm off anyway Thursday for the funeral. So I shall just have to be a martyr - just as long as everyone knows it. I got home and went straight to bed for a couple of hours – just to try and get rid of the headache and sore eyes and I did feel a bit better when I got up again.

Dilys thankfully came back to work today – she’s retired twice now. She’s coming in on an ‘as and when’ basis from now on. Which basically means that she’ll be here two days a week unless she’s off to her villa in Spain (very nice) – and that is happening more and more and for longer periods of time. This last time she was over there for two months.

Just having her back has lifted a great weight off my shoulders. She’ll take over the day to day personnel stuff and help to train staff to cover other areas – which is something that I’ve been trying to put into place for a while now. I want all of the staff to be able to do each others jobs, but obviously that takes time and a fair bit of organising and input on my behalf. I don’t what to be the only person who can do all of the jobs ever again.

I’m also very aware of the urge I get to say ‘don’t worry, I’ll do that’; an old and very bad habit of mine and one that I am trying to at least have some control over, if not break altogether. I'm fine most of the time, but of course it's now crunch time - the pressure is on - because it’s just so much easier to do what you know needs doing yourself. But if you’re not careful a few more minutes a day turns into an extra half an hour, and then before you know it, you’re in work at 8.00am and its 6.30/7.00 p.m. before you’re setting the alarm to go home. Not doing that again. I’m not.

Trouble is, with the best will in the world, when you feel under pressure its not easy to gain control over a previous learned behaviour – I managed the last time by living for years on my adrenaline – I was in a constant fully wound up state. I rushed from one job to another, working longer and longer hours and took work home in the evenings and at the weekend. Last week, I started to feel the same way again and I found I couldn’t switch off when I got home, hence that very late blog. At least this time I know its happening, I recognise the signs, which has got to be half of the battle.

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Made some time last night to start looking at some of the photos I’ve taken – I’ve got loads that I’ve not looked at properly yet, just sat there in a folder on the computer - that should put the fear of God into some people. A threat of more to come.

Foggy Common on Sunday




Bewdley Gulls

I’m smiling. OK, it may appear a bit wooden looking but it’s a smile and I am tired, unfortunately it takes me ages to wind down when I'm like this. See, laughter lines. Yes OK, so I have those lines all of the time, but my lips are curling upwards at the side. No it’s not a sneer.

Lots going on at work and to be honest not appropriate to talk about it here, so I’ll just settle for I’m awfully busy. Tonight, Himself got all serious and gave warning that I finish work at five from now on and unless the sky is falling in, Chicken Little, I need to be home by 5.15 p.m. He’s not that happy with the 8.00 a.m. start but is prepared to give a bit on that; although it seems that working myself into the ground again isn’t an option any more. He was a little slow in telling me that - I’ve already received that lecture today from others. And I am listening to what I'm being told, I won't make myself ill again.

Fair enough, I also acknowledge that I’d carry on quite happily if I wasn’t stopped because I really can’t stop myself. I see others still working late and I feel terribly guilty if I go home, even if I did start working hours before they did. By now, if you've read my blog, you know what I'm like when I guilty myself out and although I've worked at stopping it and I know when I'm doing it, I even know why I do it and why I shouldn't do it - but I'm still not quite in control of it yet. BUT I am now moving in the right direction, that's got to good, hasn't it? Just smile and nod at this point.

I have very deep feelings when it comes to the company I work for; I strongly believe that what we do is important and that we make a difference. So I’ll always push myself to the limits and go the extra mile. At the same time I can honestly say I don’t want to start living on my adrenaline again or become ill, but it’s not like last time; this time my manager does care about me and is already putting things in place to ensure that it doesn’t all come my way.

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Right, what’s happened since the last blog.

Dad has been out to visit two of his old friends in the afternoon and is trying very hard to think a bit more about others and not just himself. Also got a box of chocolates and another apology from him for his behaviour, which since he’s had time to think about what he said has genuinely upset him. I don’t suppose it will last forever, but the shake up was needed and often I really have to be pushed to the extreme before I’ll but my needs first or stick up for myself – which will no doubt come as a surprise.

It was 6.30 before I got home last night so I’d missed a lot of the trick and treaters. But Youngest had done the pumpkin and taken a picture of it for me ….

That small act meant the world to me. He gone out by the time I got home but had left me a note saying he’d carved the pumpkin as a surprise and I could still have the Thornton’s chocolate. And then to make my day, the door bell rang and I found a six year old Dracula and a four year old Wicked Witch with their mum stood watching from the gate. They were just so excited - it went something like this:

Trick or Treat! (Dracula has his arms in the air with his hands claw-like and Wicked Witch had got the most amazing cackle) So getting into the spirit of it, I did the looking scared bit and jumped backwards with a scream and they both burst out laughing.

On to the important part of the proceedings – the giving out of the sweets. For that I got a: Oooo, look! Pumpkin lolly pops, thank you. Happy Halloween. Look mum, pumpkin lolly pops. We’ve got pumpkin lolly pops. Bye!

Often it’s the little things in life that make your day – I’m so glad I didn’t miss out on all of the fun.

Right, I think I'm going to bed now, I'm tired enough to sleep and not lie awake thinking. Although some of my best ideas come to me at 3.00 am :-)