I Think I Met Someone...

If you look at my last post you'll see that I was about to go out with three more people through the dating site. I went out with Steve and I also went out with Frank... but just once.

Because Steve was taking up all my time, was free very soon after our first date, emailed or texted me every day and seemed very interested, I decided to cancel my second date with Frank as I'd been out with Steve three times at that point and I felt quite uncomfortable dating two people. I could foresee complications if I ended up liking Frank too. Frank was good about it and said he appreciated my honesty and not messing him about.

Three weeks and loads of dates later Steve admitted to not being entirely sure what the hell he wanted. Because I'd felt this I hadn't invested any emotion into him so decided to be cheeky and contact Frank. I'd wondered what he'd been up to and thought what the hell, he can just tell me to fuck off.

He didn't. 

I asked if he'd like to go out for a drink with me and so last Sunday we met up again. We had a brilliant time and, at the end what I guess was our second date, he told me I was "proper beautiful" and asked to see me again. We've been out to see films and dinner (quick work!) and last night he asked if we can "do this thing properly?" which turned out to mean "will you be my girlfriend?". I happily agreed.

Despite not being my usual type (he's like Ray Winstone) Frank is fucking amazing. He's big and blokey and lovely and sweary and honest and he seems to adore me (he doesn't know that I'm really annoying yet!). He tells me how beautiful and lovely I am all the time and just says what he wants, plans ahead, gives me attention (and is attentive) and has made it very clear how much he likes me. 

I've only been seeing him for a week but it feels like forever. I've been around long enough to know not to count my chickens yet, but I also know what someone being honest and not messing you around looks like. It feels like the real thing and I would be truly surprised, gutted and would have egg all over my face if he turned out to be playing me.

He's a playwright for a living but speaks like a right geezer. He's really easy company, funny, intelligent, open, warm and makes me feel like a princess. I think I've finally met someone who is going to make me very happy. I already kinda adore him and am really looking forward to seeing what happens.

Man, I hope this works out... 

2013 Has Been Awesome!

I know I'm tempting fate by saying this, but 2013 was fucking amazing... it was just as good as last year and that was one of my best years ever!

In a way it's been a long time coming as my life has been chaotic from the day I was born and, even though I know things will change (because this is the natural order of things) I'm very aware that things are going really well for me at the moment.

This year has been great for me work-wise and work makes me very happy as you know. I have my flat for at least another year and I have two amazing little furry-faced darlings who, even though they kept me awake all bloody night, make me very happy. 

I went to visit a friend in Provence in March and saw Verona in November, I'm healthy, I'm happily single, the 5:2 means the scales are slowly moving in the right direction, I have good friends and I have two successful businesses. I am very aware and grateful that things are good.

I've decided that I'm happy because of these four things:

1) I have interesting work that I enjoy

2) That work is bringing in money and my outgoings are low so I'm not worried about cash

3) I live by myself in a quiet, safe home in a way that I choose

4) I have pets to look after and stroke

I've had these things before individually or in various combinations, but I think I've achieved optimum happiness this year because I have all four things at the same time. There are other things that add to my sense of happiness of course, but these seem to be my personal core essentials.

I know I need to save money as I won't have this flat forever, but when I look back at this year there isn't anything I really want to change or improve upon. A few tweaks here or there I guess, but actually I seem to have the formula just right - which is about bloody time!

How was 2013 for you?

How Freelancing Saved Me

It was National Freelancers Day last week and, as I was heading off to a drinks thing in town to celebrate with a load of other Freelancers, I started thinking about the life I have now compared to when I had a 'regular job' like most people.

I know I've spoken before about how much I like being a freelancer but I've also wrung my hands and wailed in despair about how little money I had. But it's not just that I like and appreciate working for myself - it's actually made such a difference to my life that I would say that working for myself fundamentally changed who I am.

If I hadn't have gone self-employed I don't like to think about where I'd be now. I've had a million jobs and hated pretty much every single one of them. So many times I would leave a job unable to continue doing something I felt was not worthwhile for people I didn't like or respect and I would always quit without having another job to go to. 

Although billions of people have jobs they don't enjoy, I simply could't carry on if I felt I was wasting my time and energy on something I did't believe in or enjoy. Some days I would even walk straight past my workplace, sit on the beach or outside a coffee shop in town and despair about what I was going to do. And I keep using the word despair because that exactly describes how I felt. I just didn't know how to get a job that made me happy, fulfilled and came with a good salary.

I was completely tortured by it. As I went through my twenties then thirties I saw that what I did for a living was the big theme in my life and was of such key importance that it effected everything else. If I hated my job then it seeped through every other aspect in my life from relationships to where and how I lived, my mood... literally everything. It was the cause of much unhappiness and frustration. 

And then I went freelance and my whole life changed.

I had always known that what I did for a living was important to me, but I hadn't realised exactly how key work was to my sense of self. I appear to be one of those rare people who gets a great deal of pleasure from work which means that when I went freelance I didn't mind putting the hours in - and now I'm reaping the rewards. I love what I do and now I'm finally making pretty decent money doing it. 

Mainly though I got what I had always wanted which was work that was part of my life and not something I did all day for someone else before I came home to have my own life. I don't even know how to explain to you what a difference this has made and how thankful and relived I am because it had always been one of those 'long dark night of the soul' subjects a person tortures themself over - a thing that affects them their whole life, you know?

I had continually and painfully struggled with my relationship with work since I entered employment, so becoming a freelancer in my mid-thirties not only changed me but it actively made me the person I am now. And I can't even begin to find the right words to explain to you how much happier, calmer and contented I am now compared to the person I was before.

"The Woman Who Walks Alone..."

I was reading some business blog post the other day and I came across this quote by Einstein: 

”The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before."

I've always liked walking alone and, although I'm not sure if I've found myself in places that no one has ever been before, I certainly live a life that none of my female ancestors - including my mother - has ever been able to live.

A while back I did some extensive research on the maternal line of my family tree and I think about these women often. I think about the limited choices they had regarding who they married and when, how many children they had and even if they would survive each birth, and how a great part of their lives was already scripted based on the limitations society placed on them just because they were women. And those limitations just don't apply to me.

My Mum had me at 16, her Mum had her at 18, and her Mum had her at 20. They all married men who were violent and an utter waste of space if truth be told - and sadly they all had to get married because they were pregnant. They cooked, cleaned, raised children, and basically made sure that every single other person in the family had what they needed. All at the expense of their own ambitions and happiness. Men may help out a bit around the house and with the kids (now at least) but statistically it's women who do the lion's share of the work.

But I don't have to do any of that. I can travel freely, go to exhibitions and the cinema by myself without comment, make my own money and don't have to ask for 'housekeeping' like my Mum did, I don't have to spend my life on my knees scrubbing floors as a maid (which most women would've done until their back gave out and they were unemployable and broken at the age of 40), and I can choose if I want to have children or even be in a relationship. I answer to no-one.

Plus I was given a free education - and even with only five measly GCSEs and no degree I now run TWO businesses. I had the opportunity to make whatever life I wanted for myself and this is something that none of my female ancestors had because of the time they were born in. How fucking lucky am I?!

I often wonder though if I have this life because I walk alone or despite it. Could I have achieved this much freedom if I'd been married or in a long-term relationship? I think I could've achieved some of it but if I'd had kids or a joint mortgage for example then I might not have had the money to travel or time to set up my business as I'd have other responsibilities to meet. I can sit and read all day if I like which is a luxury many women don't have. In fact, It's nearly noon on a Sunday and I'm not even dressed - and I might not even bother!

My personal in-my-heart feeling on the matter though is that I've achieved this level of happiness and freedom because I have no ties. I miss out on all the great things that come with a relationship but I'm also spared all the shit as well. I think women (in particular) are bound by relationships - whether of their own making or not - it just happens. And, weighing up the two, I think I prefer the relationship I have with the world when I meet it head on by myself. The things I lack by being in a relationship (on balance) don't make up for the joy I experience being by myself.

But I also appreciate that that's just me and I how I feel. Maybe I could be in a relationship and not feel hindered by the compromise that seems to come with it. I have a feeling I might find this situation a bit later in life because God knows I've been in a TON of relationships and have never been able to figure out how you make them work and still be true to yourself. I seem to be allergic to them yet keep going back to see if I can find a balance. And although I haven't managed it so far, that's not to say that one day I won't.

I also like looking at Einstein's statement differently. I read it with the emphasis on 'the finding herself' bit. I seem to lose myself in relationships and I don't like that at all. I live a very liberated and charmed life in a time where I have the option of being able to 'find myself' which is a luxury that none of my ancestors had. I think that whichever path women choose, the most important thing is that we can choose - which is something that a lot of women on the planet still don't have.

I've also never been good at physically following crowds which is something that might even save my life one day. I've noticed that most people seem to become like cattle in crowds and just switch into auto-pilot. I saw a programme once where a man escaped a place crash because he used his initiative and jumped over seats when evacuating when everyone else just queued in the aisle until they were overcome by smoke.

The other day too, I was waiting for a train when a platform change announcement was made. Out of around 30 people, only me and one other person moved to the new platform - the others just stood there. They had to make the announcement twice more before the others joined us. So I'm hoping that come the zombie apocalypse my unwillingness to follow a crowd might even increase my chances of survival!

Utterly Relieved To Be Single Again

Since Tuesday I find myself back to being a single woman again and I have to admit to being absolutely ecstatic about it. On Tuesday I gave the guy I was seeing the old heave-ho - actually I couldn't get him out of the bloody door fast enough!

On paper we seem quite suited but in reality? Man that guy had some annoying habits. I'm not the most tolerant of people at the best of times but I think he must have ADD. By Tuesday I just wanted to punch him in the face.

I can talk a lot, but he seemed to have no pause button between his brain and his mouth  and constantly whittered on about nothing - the same boring things over and over again. He also never asked me about my day and talked about himself constantly. He would be round for about half an hour before I'd think "Yeah, I'm fine actually - thank's for (not) asking". 

He also had a ton of addictions - it was everything in excess. I think I just exchanged one alcoholic for another yet he always had an excuse: "it's the end of a long day/working week/football match/whatever" it got that I would hide my wine when he came over cos he'd just gulp it down. He'd see it in the kitchen, ask if he could have a glass, and before I knew it he'd finished the bottle. 

He never savoured anything either, he'd just eat and drink everything as fast as he could then immediately draw long and hard on his 'death flute' (as he called) it. This was an e-cigarette that smelt of vanilla or coffee that he pulled on really hard constantly and I mean ALL. THE. TIME. He'd have it clutched tightly in his hand for half an hour at a time and drag on it so hard he'd be coughing and hacking away. It was incredibly unattractive. 

So I'd sit there watching him wolf his food down (massive portions) then scrape his plate, gulp down my expensive wine then start sucking on the e-cigarette like it was a dummy - and all before I was even half way through my own dinner. He just seemed to want everything in excess all the time and immediately too - the second he felt even a slight hunger pang he'd have to stuff his face straight away. He had no self control or regulation whatsoever.

He didn't like cats so would push mine away when they came near him. He said he was allergic to them which meant he'd sniff constantly then snore all damned night. As you know I paid (I paid remember, he did nothing to help me out with this one) for some nasal strips. But if they came off in the night I was the one who'd be left lying awake and then end up sleeping on my own bloody sofa. 

He was also really manic. He'd come round my flat, chuck his stuff all over the place, talk constantly about himself and his dull uneventful week, ram his face with food, drink all my wine (he never once replaced it), talk all the way through every film we ever watched (except Gladiator - he sat quietly absorbed all the way through that 3 hour film but only after I gave him 3 Valium!), then we'd go to bed where there was NEVER any foreplay, where he'd snore all night. He'd then out of my bed in the morning and not even straighten up the covers, then repeat. And every waking moment was spent dragging as hard as he could on his e-cigarette and obsessing over the battery. 

MY GOD!!! And that's just the stuff off the top of my head. I cannot tell you the utter relief I felt when I told him I didn't want to see him any more. I so do not want to be in a relationship at the moment -  least of all with that boring man. 

I was telling my best friend last night that when you've created a life for yourself that's running at such a high level of happiness it's very hard to adapt to a person coming in and lowering it. I have an absolutely amazing life and have so many things in it that make me happy that a boyfriend really does have to make my life that little bit better - not make me unhappy! Why would anyone want to be unhappier?

I don't work well in a couple and I hate compromising so I might never be in a happy relationship - but I really don't mind. I'm having a great time: both my businesses are going swimmingly, I have some absolutely wonderful friends, 2 darling little kitties, a lovely quiet and sunny flat, and I live in a town by the sea that makes me deliriously happy. I have a great relationship with the world and I seem to interact much better with it by myself. I like my own company a hell of a lot and I'm just not up for dealing with habits of that kind of level.

This gal rolls better alone!

I'm Sizzling Baby!

Things are going really great in my life at the moment. Loads of brilliant things are going on, or are in progress and I have to say that I'm pretty excited for my future.

* Both my businesses are stellar and, although I nearly had a burn-out breakdown yesterday, I can see the light. I'm just about to start selling paid downloads on one site as the traffic has just peaked at 14K hits for the last 30 days. You heard right - effing amazing huh? Basically I wrote a couple of helpful blog posts and they score so high for certain search terms that I had to expand my band width. I didn't even do it on purpose!

So the paid products I've spent ages developing (well 2 weeks but intensely) should be live in the next day or 2 and if all goes well then I hope to be making money while I sleep baby! With that cash I'm going to hire a business developer to help me see how to make even more money by expanding all my businesses. I know I'm doing something right cos people contact me all the time to say how impressed they are with my business models.

* I've seen that the guy who pays for my flat (if you're new here it's a long story but he's an American client who needs a place in the UK but I live in it cos he's never here - nothing dodgy or saucy, just business) has sorted out some post that was being redirected from an old address to this address - which is not something you'd do if you were not about to renew the lease in 3 months... I hope. So it looks like I'll be staying here another year which makes me very happy.

* The weather in the UK is marvellous at the moment. After the longest Winter known to man, Britain is sweltering. I'm not one for really hot weather (really hot weather here is about 30 degrees max by the way) but I do like it to be warm at least. My favourite time of the year by far is Autumn actually but the Winter we've just had was a right malingerer.

When it's too hot though it can be a bit uncomfortable. I work from home so I'm indoors or in a cafe anyway, and I get a heat headache if I'm out in the sun too long. Plus you get a bit sticky and uncomfortable as the UK has no systems in place for extremes of weather. We have hardly any air conditioning for the heat, we can't handle snow, if it rains too much we flood, and the trains will stop running whatever the weather.

* My love life has picked up a bit and I've been getting some rumpy pumpy for the first time since last August. A guy I've dated twice before (another long story but we decided to leave it both times as he was going through a messy divorce instigated by him) so he could focus on his main priorities. Anyway, he's been asking me to hang out for 7 months now and I hadn't really even noticed.

Turns out that he thinks we're right for each other so has been persevering each week to see me again and again. Who knows what will happen there but I'm so glad to be getting some that I'm not thinking too hard about it - that's what kind of a tramp I am.

Bizarrely he said he wanted to be with me 2 days after my best friend and I made a list of the kinds of attributes the kind of man I need should have in order for it to work. And he has all of them so the cosmos was sure paying attention that day. His main fault is that he does talk a hell of a lot (and I can really go on) but he shuts up between the sheets, so if I keep him busy we're both happy.

Overall the thing I'm most pleased about is my business. I get a great deal of pleasure from work but I've never been very good at sniffing out the money. Helping people and doing the work yes, earning a load of money - not so much. But if I get it right then I might finally start to reap the rewards of my hard labour. Eeeeeek! 

Blooging Challenge Day 31: A Vivid Memory

Thank FUCK this is the last post! What on earth was I thinking? "hey, I'm the busiest I've ever been, let me take on something else to do" - what a prat. Oh well, I managed it and now you'll  probably never hear from me again.

Right. A vivid memory. Hmmmm. I've always thought that the reality of something was never the same as how you remember it later but this is an important memory for me and the actual details aren't that important anyway.

I moved to Brighton at the very end of October 1994 with £150 and a suitcase and I didn't really know anyone or have any friends when I arrived. I had escaped a pretty horrible time back in my home town and I was incredibly relived to be in a place where nobody knew me and I felt safe. 

One night about a week after I arrived, I was walking along the seafront from Hove towards Brighton when suddenly all these fireworks starting going off behind the pier. It was magical.

I now know that this happens every Saturday night in Brighton but at the time I didn't. I stood there and watched the sky explode in a riot of colour and the air fill with whizz-bangs and it felt like the celebration of a new beginning. 

I don't know how to describe the moment to you except to say the explosions of sound and colour were almost cutting through the air to make a moment so clear and real - almost aimed at shocking me personally awake from a sleep walk to bring me back into my new reality. It was like a punctuation mark. A moment in time that heralded the end of one life and the beginning of another one.

I haven't done a very good job of describing it but it was a deeply personal moment and it was more of a subconscious thing that doesn't really translate well. But at that moment I knew I had finally arrived and things were going to be better than ok.

Blogging Challenge Day 21: A List Of Links To Your Favorite Posts In Your Archives

My Double Edged Sword - l like this post as it's all about my identity as a single woman without any children and how it's hard to measure your worth or happiness when so much of your identity is defined by others on whether you have any children or not.

 I'd also come out of a bit of a gloomy phase and had been having a bit of a worry about what I'd done with my life - I'd been comparing myself to the 'traditional' view of women I guess so had no measure of where I stood in the world. This post is me redefining myself and confirming how happy I was not to have a 'conventional' life.

I Passed My Driving Test! - Self explanatory really. I passed my test first time at the age of 40 after doing around 90 hours of lessons in exactly 7 weeks. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done and therefore the thing I'm most proud of.

Fight Apathy - or Don't - This post is important as it's the one that caused a furore at work and instigated me going freelance. The post itself seems quite innocuous at first glance but I mentioned in it that I had worked a lot of weekends and this pissed my manager off.

My immediate manager knew that I had this blog (trusting rookie mistake), read this post and went and told her manager about it. I then got called in to his office to find them both sitting there 'wanting to have a word'. They bring up my comment about all the weekends I've done to which I reply to by telling them that, as I actually write the rota myself, it's not as if I've got a huge problem with it and that it's my anonymous personal blog and I can write what I want.

They then decide they don't really have a leg to stand on so my boss says that he doesn't want to see another word on my blog about setting up my own business until I walk in and put my notice letter on his desk. Obviously I'm furious about this so a week later he walks into his office to find my resignation letter on his desk. Prick.

After I left my job I wrote a blog post saying how I felt she'd really stabbed me in the back by telling her boss about my blog and that she could hardly talk as she used to say X,Y, and Z about him. I left the post up for a week or so to make sure they'd both read it - he wouldn't have been able to read it if she hadn't told him where my blog was remember - then I deleted it. I wanted to see how she felt being hauled into his office. Cow. 

Busy And Happy

Man I've been busy lately. I run 2 businesses and I'm in the process of setting up an authority website so I can make a little bit of passive income each month from affiliates. And all this takes time. I've been glued to my laptop for around 12 hours a day (and waddaya know - here I am still) but it's all good.

Both my businesses are doing really well and each month I make more money than the same time last year. This doesn't necessarily mean that I have a ton of money mind you but I do have some fabulous jeans and the cats have a hell of a lot of toys! I remember so many posts on here where I was angry, stressed, and concerned about my businesses, but I've put in so much hard work that if it hadn't paid off then then life would be more unfair than I know it to be.

I'm really lucky in that I gain a great deal of pleasure from working. I know this is unusual as a lot of people I know find it hard to understand how work can make me so happy, but you spend so much time working and for so many years that to do something you hate is unacceptable - well it is to me anyway. Now I can't imagine working 9-5 Monday to Friday for someone else like most people do and like I did for so long. Although I can pick my own hours I work way more hours than I used to for about half the wage - and I love it. Sure more money would be great but I really love what I do.

Sometimes I'm on the bus into town and I see the place where I used to work on the hill - and I feel so smug (see photo for how smug I feel) that I don't have to spend my whole day there any more. Occasionally I have to go into town for 9am and I love seeing all the people in their worky clothes scampering off to their offices. The buses are rammed and everyone is stuck in traffic and most of them look pretty miserable - and I used to be one of them. My heart sings and I remind myself how lucky I am all the time.

The journey into Freelancing wasn't easy but damn it was worth it. I get to help people every day and do what I love to do. I can't imagine going back to working for someone else now and I hope I never have to go back. A lot of people are happy to do something they don't care about or actively dislike all week and live for the weekend, but I've never been able to do that. Sometimes I used to wish I could as I was so miserable but didn't know what job would make me happy.

Well thank God I worked it out cos my work life is brilliant. The only thing that's scary about freelancing is that you don't have a regular income; but that is the ONLY thing. everything else about it is brilliant... I really am very fortunate.

Fancy A Tour Around My Flat?

After 19 house moves, yesterday I realised I'd been living in my new flat for 3 months already. I really love it this flat so thought I'd show you why. Let's start with the kitchen - it's my favourite room even though it looks out on to a business centre so there's no view to speak of. It's south-facing and I've got a little glitter ball hanging in the window and the spangles floating around the room make me feel happy every minute I spend in it.

I only got the (really, really) yellow table a few weeks ago and I love working in here. Before that I had to work at the dining table in the living room but it's a north-facing room and quite cold. Plus I watch TV in there in the evening and didn't want to spend all day and all evening in one room. I'm sitting in the kitchen now actually. I sometimes move the table round to face the window so I can watch the rain or snow, but the sun get's in my eyes otherwise and I can't be bothered to keep moving the blind up and down! I listen to the little radio up on the shelf on the right. It doesn't look much in the photos but it's a lovely room to hang out in.

My meagre amount of cookery books. Note the word 'Greedy' in 2 of the titles. I don't believe I have made one recipe from any of these books although the most likeliest contender would be the meringue one. I can report that the photos in that book are incredible.

This is my beloved printers tray. I've had this for years and is the one and only cluttered place in my entire flat. Well, ordered clutter anyway! I don't like things lying around the place but everything up here means something to me in one way or another. Shells from my friend when she lived in Bali, the name tag of my darling cat Fraidy, things given to me by other friends, rings from my past. All sorts of stuff. This is one of my most treasured possessions.

Still in the kitchen. One has to have a declaration of one's geekness otherwise one would not be a responsible Trekker.

Out on the landing this is where I hang my hat as it were. I bought the box unit for about a fiver and just screwed some hooks in to the side and underneath. Perfect for hats, gloves, and scarves don't you think? People comment on it a lot yet it was cheap as chips.

There's not much going on in the bathroom cos it's diddy. I did buy this fantastic striped shower curtains to cheer up cold winter mornings though. I'm not usually into much colour but something was needed in here. The pink thing is a cupcake shower cap (obviously!) that's hanging on some little stick-on hooks that I put on the side of the cabinet. I do like a bit of extra storage. 

These are the shelves in my bedroom. There needs to be more going on in this room and I'm looking out for a writing desk so I can work in here sometimes. It's also south-facing and now has a glitter ball hanging in the window too. It's lovely and warm and the spangles look brilliant. The picture on the top is the one I mentioned before of (who I think) is a famous female serial killer. Nice.

My bedside table. The crochet flowers I made are a little faded now so I'm going to make some more, and the photo is me with my Mum when I was about 4 and she was 20.

This is a print in my bedroom. It's a photo of a snowy Brighton Seafront that I took with my camera phone a few years ago. Brighton is very photogenic but when I lived with my boyfriend he wasn't keen on having pictures of where we lived. But I can do what I want now.

This is a frame filled with empty sugar sachets from around the World. People have been giving them to me for about 18 years (like you do) so I recently decided to put the most colourful or meaningful or interesting in a frame rather than keep them in a box where nobody could see them. The picture needs hanging and I'm now done collecting sugar! Making this was brilliant fun and people stare at it for ages.

I don't really have any decent photos of the living room. The carpet and suite are both orange and the room can be a little dark so not really conducive to taking a nice photo! It's pretty big, needs some pictures, and has a massive TV which is the best thing. The photo above was taken on New Years Day hence the Christmas cards on the window and the one below is the snowy view of the tree outside taken last month.  

It's great being in this flat, and I adore living here. The neighbourhood is lovely, it's right by the train station and it's nice and quiet. The living room and bedroom still need some more furniture and pictures up but it's a work in progress I guess. I like living here a little more each day and I really hope my client renews the lease and lets me live here another year after this lease is up. For now I'm just going to enjoy it though.

I Found The Ring!!

After months of searching and just a couple of days after writing about it on here, I have just found my beloved ring. I can't believe it - I'm so happy!

I have a small long-strapped bag that I used to take out with me when I went for a jog. It's got loads of compartments so is perfect for just keys, phone, money, gloves etc. I've recently been using it again for walking the dog as I can put his little poo bags in one of the pockets. 

Anyway, today I got back from a long walk with Wilson, emptied out the bag as usual, and there at the bottom of one of the pockets was my ring. As soon as my fingers closed around it, I knew what it was. I cannot tell you how happy I was to see it - you could see my grin from space

I feel slightly bad that I suspected my ex's daughter of stealing it, but I was just going through every possibility and I had actually looked in the bloody bag! I had looked everywhere and more than once as well. It was plausible that she had it... anyway, she didn't and I have it back. Now I just need to lose some weight and the damned thing might fit on my finger again!

My First Christmas Tree

I love Christmas but my ex, although an armchair Jew, hated it and therefore pissed all over it. Not happy with despising it himself, he had to constantly tell me why it was crap as if repeated slating was going to change my mind. Well I'm sorry but it takes quite a lot to change this girl's mind and I'm not budging on Christmas - so piss off grinchy and cop a load of my new Christmas tree!

Instead of going for a traditional tree I decided to have a modern, minimalist twig tree instead. The main reason was that when I saw it in the shop I fell in love with it, plus I reasoned that (despite the snow on it) I could creatively keep it decorated with other non-festive bits and bobs and it would continue to make me happy all year round. It's bendy so you can twist the branches in to whatever shape you want.

I need some more things to go on it but this is it so far. A couple of people have seen photos and said it looks a bit Tim Burtony, but people that see it in my house say the photos don't do it justice and that it looks absolutely lovely. 

I mean just look at this little fella - what a cutie. The little birds and birdhouses would suit all year round and perhaps the bells might also stay. I'm looking forward to making some paper and crochet decorations, plus hanging up anything small that might look good on it. I like that it's something that can keep me creative. In fact, my flat is still quite bare so I'm already aiming on making some other things to homey it up a bit.

Below are some ideas of things I might hang from it after Christmas is over (use free Picmonkey to make a collage like this). I wanted to have a go at doing something like this before using real twigs. But when I went out, I couldn't find the right sort of trees to get the twigs from! They were all bendy with not enough hooky-bits coming off them and were not fit for the job. Rubbish wussy town trees...

I've always liked simple colour-schemes and minimalist designs so I think this tree suits me down to the ground. I also adore a more traditional Christmas tree with lights and baubles, but this house move has cost me a fortune and I have other things to spend my money on - like presents and food. This tree will be a good all yearer and perhaps I might get another tree next Christmas. Of course I have to put it on the kitchen counter when I have Dotty as I've already found her spread-eagled under it!

Man Up Woman!

I write this post from my new flat. I'm sitting up in bed on a grey and dreary Saturday morning in my toasty new bed that arrived yesterday. I haven't written a post in bed since before I moved in with my old bf. 

His bedroom was pretty dark and boyish so not the place I ever wanted to linger of a morning - I used to head to the living room as soon as I got up as it was a bit brighter in there. Basement flats are a bit dull like that.

My best friend is coming to visit for the weekend and later this evening up to 15 laydees are coming over for wine and cake to warm my new flat.  I still need some more furniture, the landlady has done a shonky job on painting the place (woodwork gets sanded first people!) and  work has been scant this month so I'm skint - but I am all settled and as happy as I can be in the circumstances.

my ex came over yesterday as he helped me put up the bed. Our relationship is now in the realms of tricky and grey. I don't know if he's my boyfriend or if it's over. Did we call it a day or are we seeing how things go now I've moved out? We're actually getting on very well now - no bickering because there's no point. 

I thought I'd feel free and happy once I'd moved in and I don't somehow. Maybe it's because someone else is helping pay for the flat that I know it can't last for ever and I'll have to move again. Maybe it's because I thought I'd found 'the one' then it went to shit. Maybe it's because I don't have familiar things around me so feel a bit adrift. I know I miss Dillinger - I don't feel lonely but I do feel alone. 

I don't feel completely discombobulated, but I do feel a little out of sorts - yet I don't quite know why. I'm a little sad to find myself back in this position ("hello back where you started, I remember you") yet I chose to do this cos things definitely weren't right and I wasn't happy. Tip: if you're not sleeping with someone then you're not really in a relationship, you're in 'other'.

Last night I decided that Martha Gellhorn or Bette Davis wouldn't sit around feeling glum and out of sorts; they'd tell me to man up and pull myself together. So this is what I will do. I made the decision to leave, I know it was the right decision, so now I will get on with it.

Maybe to feel more settled I just need more furniture... or a dog.

I've Found a New Home!

Good news - I have found a new place already. I know I work quickly, but damn I'm good!

It was a flat I went to look at a few days ago and it was perfect. The only problem was that there was no access for Dillinger. Yesterday however, I decided that it felt like it had my name on it, so I emailed the landlady, explained that the situation had changed and that my client would be paying for it but I would be living in it and would that be ok? I figured I had nothing to lose and I really didn't want to be worried about living in a house I shouldn't be in.

She said no worries at all and that she trusted her gut feeling which said that I was ok. I cannot tell you how happy and relieved I am. The flat has a one south-facing large bedroom, a very large lounge, a little bathroom, and a small south-facing kitchen. It is perfect. It's right by the railway station, and right by a little coffee shop. The road is quiet, and she is going to paint it white for me.

The rent is £780 per month of which my client will be paying half. With my income and the money he pays me alone, my rent should be minimal and I'll just have bills and food to think about. I emailed my client to ask if the price was ok and if he minded signing a one-year lease and he said the flat sounded great and to snap it up before someone else did. I don't think he really cares as he just needs a flat for tax purposes. How effing cool is that?

I do feel bad about my little kitty, but he is far more independent than any other cat I've ever had and I don't think he cares where he is as long as he's comfy and someone feeds him. I'd like to travel more next year and, as a friend pointed out: yes I have a responsibility to him but I can't allow the next 12 years of my life be dictated by a cat. My parents said they'll even take him and, although they have 2 large dogs, they also have a 100ft garden leading out to open fields. I think he'll be fine.

Me with short hair in Sorrento a few years ago

I haven't told my boyfriend that I've found somewhere yet - I'm meeting with the landlady again tomorrow to discuss details and deposits and I'll take it from there. We did address our relationship situation today though and have pretty much broken up. I said I'd prefer us to be good friends rather than rubbish partners. We've had a good try and it's simply not working out. He's pretty sad about it but overall it feels like a smooth transition and I think we'll stay friends.

We're also still going on holiday together in a few weeks and are both still happy to go. I said I would buy him out if he wanted, but he said no. I'm pleased that everything seems fine and we're going as friends. There's much less bickering as friends and no expectations on the other person! We're going to Sorento where I've been twice before and I'm really looking forward to eating nice food and reading my Kindle overlooking the bay of Naples with a glass of wine and some cake.

Although it feels sad that something that was once great and could have been greater has ended, I do feel like I'm about to embark on an exciting adventure... and I can't wait.

Tales From The Tower

The White Tower

I love to read history books and the Tower of London makes an appearance in nearly every historical tale of intrigue, murder and treason I read; so it was kind of odd that I knew so much about the place but had never actually been. Well that all changed yesterday when I finally took myself up for a little jaunt.

I'd been thinking of going for a while but yesterday I decided to actually get off my arse and do it. So I hopped on a train to London Bridge Station (around an hour away) walked across the bridge and joined the tourists piling in to the 1000 year old Tower of London.

Henry VIII 

I'd made a bit of a faux pas by going on a Saturday when it was rammed full of tourists, but I went in around 1pm so after a few hours it was much quieter which really made a difference. It's nice to me able to get a sense of the place without so many people around as well as getting a clear shot when taking photos!

Memorial on the Tower Hill site looking towards the Jewel House on the right

The place was absolutely amazing. It was atmospheric and rammed so full of history that I could hardly bear it. Not all of it was 1000 years old of course, as it had been rebuilt and added to over the centuries, but you just felt like so much had happened there. So many people's lives were played out there - so many ends of people's lives as well.

One of my favourite places in a kind of macabre way was the Beauchamp Tower which had been the last stop for many people destined for the block. Many of them had carved their names or messages into the walls and these were still there protected by clear plastic - some were written 500 years ago. It's not often you get to see or think about something like that.

Obviously I also went to see the crown jewels which were in a series dark rooms protected by the thickest doors I'd ever seen. You go past the rows of crowns on a moving walkway which I guess is to stop people crowding round them and blocking the view. They were the sparkliest things I'd ever seen - very bling.

Traitors Gate

There was some stuff I wasn't so interested in like the gold plate and the weaponry, but seeing the armour that Henry VIII, Edward VI (his son) and James I wore was the stuff of dreams for geeky lil me. And finally seeing Traitors Gate where Elizabeth I was bought in to the Tower on the order of her sister Mary was pretty cool as well. She must have been terrified - no wonder she wasn't fond of staying there once she became Queen.

London Skyline From the Tower

We are lucky to have so much history readily available in this country. We have castles, palaces and stately homes coming out of our ears; we can go to a 7th century Anglo Saxon royal burial ground, see Henry VIII's 500 year old flagship the Mary Rose, and see stone circles that are almost 5000 years old if we want to. We live amongst our history, and I love that we're surrounded by ancient reminders of who we are, how we got here, and the people we came from.