All Change

There's a big update coming soon - everything has changed and I will explain it all later.

Have been a tad stressed over the last couple of weeks to blog! Sorry for the neglect!

Friendship

I know I haven’t been very good about updating here recently but there’s been a lot of stuff going on and I didn’t really know where to start.

You remember I posted about Facebook the other day? Well I’ve got in touch with a few people from various schools that I’ve been to and it’s been nice to catch up and everything. Then the other week I found an old friend who I lost touch with years ago – I was 14 the last time I saw him! We chatted for a couple of days on Facebook and text, then a three hour phone call. Then last week he came down to see me and it was like the last god knows how many years hadn’t happened – no awkwardness or anything. It was great. It was like putting on your most comfortable trainers after wearing high heeled boots for hours. The first night we just talked for hours and hours! We had a lovely day exploring Cheltenham and Gloucester and just sat the second night chatting and watching movies.

It was really good to catch up and to feel like the years in between just melted away.

I found a great quote the other night that just sums it up perfectly – “True friendship isn't about being inseparable, it's being separated and nothing changes.” I have no idea who said it, but it’s a lovely sentiment and very true. I have other friends, who I don’t see from one year to the next, but when we do, the time in between is of no consequence because we just slot straight back into the easy friendship that it’s always been.

That’s the best type of friend to have.

Another Pointless Getting to Know Me Meme

I'm very bored, so this is the best I can come up with at the moment I'm afraid!

1. How old do you look? Younger than my age apparently!
2. Where do you live? Just outside Cheltenham for now.
3. Are you waiting for something? I'm always waiting for something - I don't know what, but I will know it when it happens.
4. What’s one pet peeve of yours that is not common? Messy tea and coffee drinkers.
5. Do you want/have kids? I have one beautiful daughter but I would love to have more children.
6. Have you ever thought about converting your religion? I'm nominally a Catholic but consider myself a heathen so ummmm, no!
7. Last shocking news you heard? Michael Jackson's death - but am so sick of hearing his songs on the radio!
8. What was the last thing you drank? A can of Diet Coke - quelle surprise!9. Who do you most look like in your family? My mum!
10. If you could have something right now, anything, what would it be? Someone to snuggle up to and watch rubbish on the TV with.
11. Where does most of your family live? In France.
12. Where did you grow up? In Malawi until I was 9 and then SW Scotland.
13. Where do you want to go on vacation? Scotland - and I'm going in about two weeks.
14. Have you ever had a panic attack? Have had an asthma attack, but I don't think I've had a panic attack.
15. What can’t you wait for? My holidays in Scotland.
16. When’s the last time you told someone you loved him or her and meant it? Yesterday when I spoke to Isla.
17. Have your parents ever smoked pot? No, don't be silly!
18. Want someone back in your life? No, but I'd like a new someone in my life.
19. What do you order at the bar? Smirnoff Ice.
20. When was the last time you cried really, really hard? When I watched Marley and Me - I was inconsolable!
21. Ever licked someone’s cheek? Ummmm, no?!
22. What is your favorite thing to eat with peanut butter? Nothing - I can't abide peanut butter - I'm a Marmite girl.
23. Where were you on July 4th, 2008? I was dogsitting at the house of the shagging love birds.
24. What are your nicknames? Mummy - that's about it really.
25. If you could go back in time, how far back would you go? Oooh, maybe the sixties because I'd have been a great hippy.

Brief Update

Very brief, as I don't have a lot of time today.

Sorry to report that there's not really a lot to tell you, so it's not much of an update! Work is getting busier, which is good, and I can't wait to go away at the beginning of August.

On an up note - got back in touch with a very old friend from school - haven't seen each other since I was 14! Isn't it weird how sometimes that amount of time with not even any contact doesn't seem to make any difference?

Sorry for the briefness, but places to go and people to see I'm afraid!

Meredith Brooks was right...

...I'm a bitch apparently.

I've upset someone tonight and I'm not sure how, or what bit of it that I said upset him but I feel like a total cow.

He didn't call me a bitch by the way - that was me!

I feel bad now.

On a brighter note, I had a lovely afternoon. I went out in the car again - across to Winchcombe and tried to find Belas Knap which is an ancient long barrow - whatever that is! I never did find it, but had a lovely drive through the Cotswolds and took some pictures.

...updated to add...

Turns out to have all been a misunderstanding involving falling asleep at an inopportune moment! Yippee, I'm not a bitch after all!

Up In The Air

I'm feeling a bit strange tonight. It's that sort of expectant feeling when you know something you don't like is going to happen - and I hate that. Sort of sinking butterfly-y feeling.

I don't know why I'm feeling like this. I shouldn't - I have stuff to look forward to. The problem is that I never believe that something is going to happen until it actually does. I try to be optimistic, but judging from past experiences, even when I think that the glass is half full, it normally turns out to be half empty. And that's not just pessimism, it's just the way things turn out.

Even when I went on holiday to Japan, I didn't allow myself to believe it was actually going to hapen until I was sitting on that plane at Heathrow! I kept thinking that there was going to be something that stopped it happening. And that's how I feel about my trip to Scotland. Not that it's not going to happen, but that it's not going to happen like it might. And I know that's cryptic - there's not much I can do about that. I've learnt my lesson on posting every inner thought, which just means that you only know half of what I'm on about.

I know that by the morning I'll have shaken this off - I'm probably just tired. I've had a few late nights in a row and could probably do with going to bed early. I also have far too much time to think - which is never a good thing!

To quote Lost, whatever happens, happens.

I'm On My Way!

I do have other stuff to tell you, other than just rants and random crap! The only problem has been having the time and/or the inclination to sit down and do it. And rather than let the blog become like a chore, I have taken a bit of a step back, mainly until something blogworthy happens!

And it has! I'm going on a wee holiday soon - going to Scotland for five or six days at the beginning of August, and I can't wait. It's been over seven years since I've been back, and it feels like going home - that's how much I'm looking forward to it. I've never lived in England, not since I was three and a half, and it's a bit weird. The food is the same, the language is the same (well, sort of!) but it's all different.

So, I'm going home for a few days to chill out, meet up with old friends, enjoy nights out in my home town, and probably bump in to the odd ex now and again! Considering I grew up there there are one or two, at least one of whom I am bound to see because one particular friend of mine will probably make it inevitable - Lara! Just to let you know, I'm not averse to that - have to lay a few ghosts there I think. Oh, and the other one too - they're much bigger ghosts though.

I'm also going to go and see our old house - for old time's sake!

Probably too much to do in too little time, but it will all fit in, because I'll make it! And there's now nothing to stop me going up whenever I want to (except money obviously!) as I am now on the same land mass. So near, yet so far!

There is a bit more that I haven't told you, but I can't. Now that this blog is all out in the open and public there are certain things I'm afraid I can't divulge! Sorry!

The job is still fine - but bloody hell is it hot at the moment! And a boiling kitchen is the last place you'd want to be! So, am going to spend my afternoon off tomorrow at my mate's house sunbathing in her garden! Lovely!

Facebook and Blasts From the Past

Isn't it weird - all these years you don't give a second thought to people from your past life, but nowadays, with the advent of social networking sites like Bebo and Facebook, to name but two, as soon as something makes you think of someone from your past you go straight to the computer and look them up. Sometimes you find them, sometimes you don't. Sometimes they haven't changed a bit, and other times they're quite unrecogniseable.

I've caught up with a few people that way. Every so often I do a Facebook cull - I go through my friends list and delete the people that I have had no contact with because, really, what's the point of being online friends with someone just to boost the numbers? People stay in touch, or don't, for a reason.

I was going through my friends list last night, while I was talking to Joocey, who apparently henceforth shall be known as Mary Poppins (what WAS she on when she thought of that one?) but we shall carry on, for the sake of you knowing who the hell I'm talking about, referring to her as Joocey. Anyway, we were looking through the list, mainly at people we both went to school with, and there are some of them that I wouldn't know if I fell over them in the street. I wouldn't say that there are any that I would actively cross the street to avoid, because I wouldn't have accepted them as Facebook friends, but there have been a few that I wouldn't make an effort to see. Hence the cull!

Sometimes, however, you get back in touch with people you wish you'd never lost touch with in the first place, and that is where Facebook can be a really useful tool. You can break the ice, see what the other person looks like these days, whether you still fancy them or not, if they're single or attached, and whether they are worth being in touch with again!!

Sometimes, it pays off, and other times you can wish you had never re-opened that particular can of worms.

Fingers crossed it pays off for everybody.

OverJacksoned

or OverMichaeled? You decide.

It is a new term that I have coined. I think it'll take on myself, what do you reckon?

While I think it's sad that Michael Jackson has died, I have to admit that I am so incredibly sick of hearing his songs on the radio. I didn't like his music much before he died (except Black or White which had Slash on guitar so was acceptable!), so why am I going to suddenly change my mind just because he is dead? Harsh? Perhaps, but that's how I feel. A DJ this evening commented that it was a tragedy that he has died. No, it isn't. A tragedy is an aeroplane full of passengers disappearing into the Atlantic leaving no surviors and no clues as to what happened. His death is sad, a shame, but not a tragedy.

Do not make it into something it is not.

Happy Birthday Daddy Dearest

Happy Birthday Pa. 71 today - not that you'd know it!