New car GET!

So, I’ve finally managed to retire my old Vectra. She was a good old girl and an ace car to drive, like being on rails round corners, but with 160k on the clock the maintenance was costing way too much compared to what the car was worth.

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So, having looked around at various cars, I settled on getting one of the Mk3 TDCi Mondeos. Yes, it’s true what they say about turning 40, I am about to become MONDEO MAN!

Anyway, I fancied one of the top spec models with all the niceties that come with it, which in the Ford range has always been the Ghia. Or on the newer ones, the Ghia X, which gives you everything bar the kitchen sink. Trouble is, I was slightly put off by all the walnut trim which seemed a bit too reminiscent of my dad’s old Rover about 30 years back. Thankfully, good fortune smiled upon my budget which brought the newer special ‘Titanium’ edition within reach. Basically, the Titanium has the same level of refinement as the Ghia, except they replaced all the crappy Walnut with Brished Aluminium, added sports seats and 18″ wheels. i.e. Much more my cup of tea!

Trouble is, although the regular Mondeo is a complete Clitoris Car*, the Titanium X is pretty hard to come by, especially if you want one with sensible mileage and a full service history. We did look at one yesterday in Thornbury and I did enjoy driving it but it was pretty (very) high mileage and didn’t really feel quite right. Having made up my mind I was dead set on the Titanium X I was anticipating a bit of a headache to find one but again, good fortune was smiling on me and I found one in Southampton so we took a drive down today with fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be a crock of shite.

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(Not my actual car, but a nice pic of the same model)

It wasn’t :)

So, a deal was struck, they are sorting a couple of minor things I wanted doing on it and I should be able to pick it up next weekend.

Vroom vroom!!

* Every C**t’s got one…

Listening to: Ten Thousand Fists from the album Ten Thousand Fists by Disturbed



That'll be a train then..

Hmm, well all things considered my brain is now well and truly kerfuddled, and I’m not entirely sure how to get my head around it all. Yesterday was the first day in nearly seven years where I’ve not spoken to Kel, and come 11pm when we’d usually be on the phone I felt very strange indeed. Honestly, it feels like someone has chopped some invisible part of me away. Perhaps that’s where Phillip Pullman got his idea for the Daemons in His Dark Materials books…

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Suffice to say it seems the light at the end of the tunnel was, in fact, a train. Arse.

Over the past week we’ve gone from last Sunday’s ‘Dear John’, to Kel phoning me the next day, really upset and wanting to sort things out. She basically admitted that she’d been digging her heels in and expecting me to make all the effort and obviously that had been really unfair to me.

She was in a right old state asking me if there was ‘any possible way I’d consider maybe talking about it and trying to see if there was some way to sort things out’. So I’m thinking ‘Eh? What the fuck?’ Err I didn’t want any of this in the first place, after all, who dumped who?

Obviously I still feel the same way and made it quite clear I’d do anything to try and sort things. We agreed that was what we both wanted and that we’d get together asap to try and figure things out, hence my previous post about a light at the end of the tunnel.

So, anyway, Monday and tuesday were fine, we spoke briefly on the phone and things were fine at the school, then on Wednesday I went over to Kel’s for the evening as she needed the cat carrier for Buttons to go to the vet. It was odd to say the least because things were almost, well, normal. You’d almost think nothing had happened and there was no indication at all of anything she’d said on Monday. Cue general feeling of surreal, but I’m thinking ok, just roll with it because the ball’s very much in Kel’s court here..

So thursday comes and we spoke on the phone which is where it went from weird, to weirder. I explained how wednesday had seemed odd and asked if Kel was ok, and her response was almost as if she’d completely blanked all the stuff she’d said monday out of existence and reverted to the ‘I can’t help how I feel’ with a big dose of ‘I want things to be different, but I’m not prepared to do anything to try and make it different’ on the side for good measure. Erk – MORE CONFUSED NOW!

I’m finding this all really hard, primarily because my feelings havent changed. Kel commented that it seemed odd that I was taking things so well but really that’s just a manifestation of the effort I’m making to try and do the right thing for her, and also I think it’s massively important for Callum too.

We had quite a long chat about him last night and I’ve got to admit it’s a really major part of all this for me is the fact that over the past 7 years I’ve been trying really hard to be a father figure to Callum and now, overnight, that’s gone. Not because I don’t want to be, but because I can’t.

I’ve got the most horrible empty feeling of guilt because he’s had such a hard time of it with his dad who blatantly just doesn’t give a toss, and I can’t stand the thought that now we’ve become really close, even to the extent that several times he’s told Kel he wished I was his dad, it’s all been pulled out from under his feet. I can’t stand the thought that he might think I don’t care or that I’ve let him down like his dad has, but there’s nothing I can do about it without making things worse.

I just don’t know how I’m supposed to behave towards him now or what’s even appropriate. Crazy example from yesterday – Kel wanted to go visit a mutual friend and I figured she would probably want a girly chat about things, so I just naturally said that Callum was welcome to come to my place as I figured he’d much rather play on the 360 than sit around bored with the girls. As it was he didn’t, but it was only afterwards that I had the sudden realisation that I can’t be that person for him now, it’s just not right is it?

I’m absolutely determined not to be that crazy desperate guy that keep clinging on in some feeble attempt to make the ex change her mind. I’ve seen that plenty of times before and it doesn’t work, it just makes the guy look like pathetic and that’s never an attractive trait at the best of times and it’s certainly not going to work on the woman that’s already lost sight of what attracted her to you in the first place is it? Nope, been there before. Didn’t like it, not doing it again. I’ve already discovered that simply trying to do everything to keep someone else happy isn’t ever going to work if that’s just an excuse for, rather than the root of, your problems.

Ahh well. Fuck it. All I can do now, is figure out how to get a bit of the old me back I suppose.

Happy Anniversary…

Err, yeah. Well today was our anniversary. I say was as it seems Kel losing her engagement ring was something of an inauspicious omen and as of last night, I would appear to be single.

Well yes, quite. Arse.

To pre-empt any awkward questions or speculation, no there’s nothing remotely sinister or nasty about any of this at all. It’s simply the case that Kelly hasn’t been happy for some time. It’s one of those indeterminate things. It’s a cliché I know but to quote – ‘she loves me more like a friend than anything else’. Clearly that’s not a recipe for a lifetime commitment and hence this seems the logical conclusion.

Obviously I’m gutted as I still love her and Callum to bits, but aside from the expected amount of initial awkwardness it’s all as amicable as could be expected and so I very much hope we’ll remain the best of friends. I’m certainly not holding any kind of animosity towards her as I understand a lot about what’s brought us to this place and to be honest I probably wouldn’t put up with me either!

Kelly’s not said anything to Callum yet. Obviously we’re expecting he’ll take it pretty hard and I’m gutted about that as the poor lad’s had enough to deal with recently with his dad being a bloody muppet to say the least. Hopefully in some small way I’ve helped to make up for that, though it’s not always been easy. It’s got to be said, until I met Kel I’d never seen myself as a father. I certainly never had any plans to have kids of my own but since I’ve been with Kel, myself and Callum have grown really close and it’s fair to say I’ve grown to love him as if he were my own son. If there were some magic wand to fix the biological bit I’d happily wave that in a heartbeat. Suffice to say, I’m going to miss the wee man as he’s a fucking star :(

So, anyway, do please excuse me if I’m off the radar for a bit. This is all a bit raw at the moment and there are some fairly far-reaching implications to be considered so I really need to take some time to get my head around it all.

So, err yeah. Happy anniversary babe.

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p.s. There was some slightly more interesting actual news stuff I was going to write about tonight but I’ll leave that for another post in the not too distant eh.

That was the year that was…

[Edit: Oops, how did that happen then, I just noticed this had been posted with a Dec 2009 date and hence hidden!]

Hmm, so it’s that time of the year again, when some arbitrary date on the calendar dictates that we should all reflect on what’s happened over the past year and what we’d like to see in the next.

Hmm…

It’s fair to say that 2008 was an odd one, and to be frank I’m not going to be sad to see the back of it. There was a recurring theme of ‘one step forward and two steps back’ through most of the year, mainly due to me not keeping my eye on the ball, and allowing myself to get distracted by stuff that either didn’t warrant my attention, or to which I allowed to take up way more of my head space than it deserved.

Arse.

That’s particularly annoying for me as in the past during the times when I’ve been on top of my game and made some awesome progress with all sorts of things, personal projects, fitness training etc. My big problem is, and always has been, that I’m very much a creature of habit. When I’m focused and motivated I’m on fire, but if I get distracted by something outside my control, especially something which messes with my plans/routine then I tend to fall right off the wagon and it takes me forever to get back on again. That’s definitely something I need to work on.

My biggest challenge over the past 12 months was was dealing with my mum’s ill health. She’s been in hospital three times in the past year, properly poorly, the most recent stay a couple of weeks back for a pretty major operation. Being an only child, just about everything has fallen in my lap. It’s not just the obvious practical stuff, but also the emotional roller-coaster that’s accompanied it and I’ve not always dealth with that as well as I would have liked.

Still, I’m certainly not making any apologies for the fact I’ve been preoccupied with my Mum’s welfare given the fact she’s pretty much the only family I have left now. Sure there are a few cousins etc. floating around, but none that I’m close to. No grandparents left, Dad’s gone, and no kids of my own so it’s just me & Mum now. I don’t think people really understand how that feels, unfortunately that includes Kel.

Still, it’s not all been bad. All I’ve really got to complain about it putting all the weight back on that I managed to lose last year! there have been a few properly good bits too..

Me & Kel got engaged, which to be honest surprised me almost as much as it did my mates. I’d always subscribed to the ‘don’t see the point’ camp, when it turned out what I actually meant was ‘when you meet the right person it makes a lot more sense’.

I got myself into a new (old) hobby in the form of photography, and so far I’ve been pretty pleased with the results. I’ve just started noodling with a new gallery site where I’m going to host some of the better stuff. In the mean time there are a load of my noodlings over on my flickr account.

Kel did a proper sneaky and conspired with a friend of ours to buy me the best present ever in the form of my completely brilliant cat, Mischief:

Lazy days

We finally got to tick off one thing from the wish list and had an ace few days in Prague. Definitely fancy another trip out there, and hopefully I’ll be able to make that happen sooner rather than later.

Finally, in November I managed to sidle may way into my forties, which was far less painful than expected. In fact, I’m happy to report it feels exactly like your thirties, except you stop worrying about turning forty any more :)

Anyways, enough of the been-there, done that. So-long to 2008, time to draw a line under it and look forward to getting back in the game for 2009. Happy new year folks.

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Listening to: The Fire Is Waiting from the album Secret Machines by The Secret Machines

It doesn't rain..

Just to add a further stone in our path.

Kel’s just phoned to say her uncle (Mum’s brother) had died yesterday. It was totally unexpected and so now they need to do an autopsy etc. which will mean they have all that to deal with over xmas before then can sort out a funeral etc.

He was only in his fifties, with both parents still alive too. Man, that’s got to suck :(

Normal service will be resumed…

… just as soon as I’ve figured what ‘normal’ is.

I may be a bit off the radar over the next couple of weeks.

Mum’s in hospital today for an operation. It’s all related to her previous stay in the summer when they discovered she had an aneurysm in her stomach. Turns out it’s fairly serious, in the trade it’s known as a AAA (Abdominal Aortic Anerysm) which basically means the main artery running down from her heart, which is normally about 20mm across, has a bulge in about the size of a satsuma.

The specialist told her that there was basically no choice but to have the op, as otherwise her would expect it to rupture (which is fatal in 95% of cases) within a couple of years. Thing is the operation itself has quite a high risk involved and anything from 10-20% of people don’t make it through the op itself. Apparently there is a higher risk in women, smokers, people on BP or various other meds and obviously due to your general state of health. She ticks all those boxes too.

Obviously it’s all a bit of a worry really and hence if I’m not around much you know why.

Think I’ll go do some exciting paperwork or something now to distract me a bit

welcome home

image1077044303.jpgNo sooner had I shut the car door last night when a small furry creature was up on the kitchen worktop to let me know she was:

a) very pleased I was home, and
b) very cross that I’d left her for four days.

Still, I seem to be forgiven now and normal service resumed this morning.

proper festive

image1475947313.jpgWe definitely chose the right weekend to come out here. Xmas Market started today and it’s quite an experience. Highly recommended.

I think we’ll be back at some point for a bit more exploring further afield too. Maybe when it’s a bit warmer so that Kel’s not feeling quite as much like a snowman though eh ;)


Mobile Blogging from here.


Right, that's me packed, let's go..

Packed

Off to Prague tomorrow for a long weekend with Kel & Callum.

We’ve wanted to go for ages and having a fairly significant birthday this month seemed like the perfect excuse to get off our butts and book it!

We’re staying in a hotel about 10 mins from the centre, just over by Charles Bridge which should be great for some old-town sightseeing.

Fingers crossed for some snow this weekend! I love all that Bavarian architecture and it would be awesome to see the place looking properly festive :)

Data roaming Off : Check.

Free WIFI in Hotel: Check.

Hotspots marked on the map: Check.

Right, we’re good to go. Expect much nerdy bloggage from the phone and about a million pics online sometime next week!