hopeless

How are you? I know it’s not part of the set up, but I do welcome occasional feedback on progress. I think if I had about 30 seconds weekly I could tell from the hectoring tone of your voice that you were up to your usual levels of ‘stuff and nonsense’ lecturing and w**king on a regular basis. So instead I imagine you plastering walls, cooking something without any ‘e’s in your slow cooker and listening to very loud and what is to me obscure music.

I am hopeless again this week. The one ray of light is that I’ve booked to go to Istanbul on my birthday in March, but otherwise I have been dreadfully maudlin – a word used by the long suffering FP last night when I rang him very tired and a bit squiffy. I’m not really plastered at these moments. I just got back from work about 9pm after a really good rural partners meeting (they loved my draft Rural Strategy and Action Plan) and having picked up J1 and A*, and knocking back a glass of wine at that point just goes straight to my head. I am also having dreadful problems with the Scarman computer which has come back extremely downgraded (no doubt in an attempt to stop the boys abusing it) and I can’t send emails, can’t print etc.etc. so that part of my life has just ground to a halt for the last 2-3 weeks which is highly irritating. I do like things to function so I can have a good productive hour before I go to bed telling all the hopefuls of east of England that no, I can’t give them any money.

A* goes to Israel on Thursday in spite of the Tel Aviv market bomb. I’ve had all the usual stuff from friends that ‘it’s not about you’, ‘it’s about staying with her dad’, ‘it’s a great experience’ blah blah and today at least I seem to have exhausted my angst past that point. I’ve been told to start getting angry at FH who is really the person to blame for my fractured family life. That’s what I am currently mourning. I asked J2 last night if he felt we weren’t a proper family anymore and he looks at me like I’m mad and informs me that of course we are – just a different sort of proper family. Then I asked him if he got upset when I got home late from work and he just came straight back and said, ‘but Mum, you have to work or we wouldn’t have any money at all’. Out of the mouths of babes. I am sure I do feel the most lost about it all. Anyway, I am not so ignoble that I actually strop publically about it and I cover my moodiness by saying I’m tired.

Siobhan goes to court today to fight for her share of the money and to put her side of the story. She couldn’t work for 3 days last week she was so upset. A third of the nation must be incapacitated by relationship splits if we are anything to go by!

At the week-end I have Noo Noo coming to stay for 3 weeks while her owner goes to Australia. This is an elderly lady I met when I was running a project for The Children’s Society and we have stayed in contact since. She does all my sewing since Mum died and is a lovely salt of the earth woman – a bit like Tracey – who isn’t remotely self-pitying, but actually owns nothing and has been in poor health for years. Noo Noo is very cute rat dog variety and I just hope she doesn’t peg it while in my dubious care.

Nothing else to report – I’m not reading anything. I saw ‘The Governess’ on Saturday night which is the only bit of telly I’ve watched in weeks. I’ve been following the speculation about what may happen in the world politically if one or the other American candidate gets in via the Independent which I find really interesting. No VSO jobs at the mo. I got a job off the web yesterday in the Congo which I was qualified for, but I know a Congolese refugee in Luton and it sounds extremely dangerous there.

I forgot to say, aka the wedding – Jill Dando she was not – a chin like Jimmy Greaves! However, she wore a lovely duck blue trouser suit which was really elegant and was nice to her kids which is always a redeeming factor. Her husband seemed lovely – a bit like John Cleese, but warm and funny. It was mild and sunny and based down near the docks in Southampton in a beautiful hotel – lots of lovely champagne, gorgeous food and nice conversation with her mum (who was one of 11 children) and the people at our table who had both adopted and had some interesting stories to tell. I enjoyed myself.