Jools

Well after the last rant I had here things are looking a little more positive but it will be a week or so before I can say for sure what’s happening with my niece and the holiday.

Last night I went outside with the dog and spent a little time in the garden. It was a pleasant evening, clear sky, reasonably warm for the time of year and there were no sounds of traffic close by. Whilst the dog snuffled around in the long grass I walked around and looked into the pond we made last summer. There was some frog spawn, so soon we’ll have tadpoles and then froglets, which is great news. There were lots of birds singing but the loudest was a blackbird sitting in the top of the old oak tree. It was obviously having a singing contest with the other blackbirds round about, or maybe it was a conversation? Whatever it was it was great to listen too.

I’ve missed being out in the garden but the weather has been awful all winter and the ground has been waterlogged for much of the time. Yesterday we changed the clocks and now it’s officially British Summertime…more rain for us then At least there will be more daylight in the evenings to get outside and do something if the weather is nice. The grass needs cutting, the flower borders desperately need weeding and there’s a shrub that has to be moved…that’s just the start of it. There’s a veg plot to dig over and potatoes, peas, onions, carrots and tomatoes to plant. The greenhouse needs cleaning out and more tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and chilli plants can go in there. Normally by now I would have many trays of seedlings growing but this year I decided to just buy small plants at the garden centre, it saves so much time. Pricking out seedlings as they grow is time consuming and it can get boring too. A lot of the plants in the border just outside the front window are perennial, they come up every year without fail and we get a great display of geraniums, plumbago, bleeding heart, and other stuff whose names I forget right now. I like to plant things that attract the butterflies and the bees and I’ll be looking for more plants like that at the garden centre.

Well for now I’ll leave on a good note and say that I have my new glasses now, it’s been 4 years since I last had new ones and my eyes had gotten worse. So with stronger lenses and fancy new frames and I can see properly again

Ok I’m afraid it’s rant time. I’m not going to name names as such but most of you will have an idea who I’m talking about.

Why do some people just not see the blindingly obvious? They think that when someone tells them they hate them and don’t want to go anywhwere with them that the person will suddenly change their mind and go to Morroco/Spain/Rome/Disney or wherever it happens to be in each conversation.

Oh sod it I’m talking about my late sisters ex husband, the useless piece of crap. His daughter lives with my parents but he has her passport and won’t hand it over to my folks and without it I can’t take her out of the country. He applied for the passport but it was issued against everyone’s wishes to his address, it should have gone to my folks to be legal. The passport office don’t seem to be able to do anything and so if I really want to take her abroad I’m going to have to apply for a bloody court order. Argggghhhh.

Well he can think again ‘cos I’m not going to do that. If he thinks his daughter will go anywhere with him he’s in for a shock. She even told him last night that she wouldn’t go. He can’t seem to make up his mind where he would go anyway. My parents lawyer requested the passport be returned and he sent a bloody photocopy!!!! The customs and immigration people aren’t going to let me use a photocopy to take her away are they. He’s a useless piece of crap…did I say that before?

Last year it took ages to get the passport off him and we had to book a holiday at very short notice, we had a great time but it was far too stressful and obviously more expensive as we had less choice of flights and places to stay. This year I wanted to take my niece to Paris but it looks like it’s not going to happen. I want the holiday booked by the end of March so that we have some choice in where we stay etc. Niece has been warned she may have to take her holiday in the UK this year, she’s dissapointed of course but she knows we’ll have fun wherever we end up.

I mean my niece has even refused to see him since last November so why would she change her mind? Why would he even think she would? She’s told social workers she hates him because he doesn’t look after her properly and that she’s scared of him. They told her if she doesn’t want to see him she has to tell him..and she does, every time he’s supposed to come and take her out she tells him not to bother. He never questions her about why she doesn’t want to go, which I find rather strange. If she didn’t want to come and see me I’d want to know why and what I could do to help her change her mind. I know when she gets older she may not want to go on holiday with us it’s to be expected.

At least I have won the battle in one way….she does want to see me and go on holiday with me and she won’t go with him.

Ok rant over…for now!

On a good point, I have a whole week off work and I’m looking forward to going out and about later in the week and maybe seeing some places I haven’t been before, hey I might even get some photos put in this blog too

What does it mean to be a friend to someone?

Recently a couple of friends had some sad news, they couldn’t work out how to tell other people this news so I offered to do it for them. I passed on the news and several people have said thanks for doing it. I don’t want to seem ungrateful but I don’t want thanks for doing that. It’s what friends do, help each other out. I’ve actually never met these two people for real, they’re online friends but we share similar interests and I hope that I will meet them one day. It was relatively easy for me to pass on their news as I am an ocean away and not emotionally involved in their situation. I can’t say it was a pleasure to help as it was a hard thing to break to others without being too dramatic about it. I just did what I usually do and kept the news brief and to the point.

Today while I was at work I was thinking about what makes a good friend, as I have few who live locally, so few I can count them on two fingers and I don’t see them very often. When we do meet up or chat on the phone it’s easy. However, they have kids and their lives, naturally, revolve around the routines of the kids. I used to go shopping every Friday with one friend but as soon as her first child came along we haven’t been able to do that, it’s been almost 5 and half years since we shopped together

Those friends have seen me through some tough times and I hope I’ve done the same for them. They stood by when my sister died 5 years ago and listened to me when I went on and on and on and on. They tried to offer advice but the situation my family found itself in was tricky and all these years later it is still not resolved. My friends still try and help me when I need it.

Being a friend isn’t just about helping each other through the tough times though is it? You’ve got to be able to laugh and enjoy each others company, in life or online. I have far more online friends but probably because our interests are so similar. I’ve met some already and I care for them as much as my real life friends.  People who I associate with at work just aren’t the sort of people I’d want to be friends with, they just want to go drinking all the time and have no other hobbies that I find remotely interesting. Some are shocked when I say I read books, like to draw, take photographs and travel, but to me these are my basic requirements, if you share these interests then it’s likely we’ll have something to chat about, if you don’t then I can’t see much of a conversation developing.

Sorry if I sound a bit miserable today, I’m very tired and a little stressed but it’ll be normal Jools back soon, I have a week off work coming up and I can’t wait

You know we Brits love to talk about the weather right? It’s too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too windy, too calm and so on, we’re never happy with the weather here. Well what a funny old day we’ve had so far today. At 4:30am when I got up for work it was trying to snow, this was after a night of heavy rain by the way. By 7am we had clear skies but a dusting of snow on the ground. At 8:30am as I set off on delivery it was starting to rain and the snow turned to slush. There was a biting cold wind but it wasn’t as strong as the previous days. The sun came out and it actually got quite warm, I took off my hat and scarf and stuffed them in my mail bag. I undid my jacket a little and removed my gloves, big mistake….less than 5 minutes later the sky was very dark and huge flakes of snow were falling. Out came the hat, scarf and gloves and the jacket was done up again…sigh. I got a text message from my hubby saying the weather was bad at home too and I should take care. I sent a text back saying thanks but I already knew about the bad snow etc and guess what? The sun came out and for 10 minutes there was another clear blue sky, until it started to rain…again. See never happy are we? It really has been like all 4 seasons in a morning though

I can see this is going to be a good idea in the long run but not being the most clued up person when it comes to computers it’s going to take me some time. Slowly, I’m getting the hang of it, I’m lucky I have a patient hubby to help me out.

When I was at school, many years ago now, computers were just being introduced to schools for the under-achievers. Being in the higher grades meant we weren’t allowed to use the computers unless we took a specific computing course, which I didn’t.

So now I am faced with a world that operates, it seems, with computers, even shop work these days involves computers for ordering and taking payments for goods. Sometimes I wish that things were more simple but, and it is a big but (no pun intended), I have met some wonderful people and all because of computers.

I now know folks all around the world who I never would know otherwise and last summer I was lucky enough to meet a bunch of online friends ‘in the flesh’. It was a slightly nervewracking couple of days before the actual meeting, wondering if people would be how you expected them to be or not. Some were taller or shorter than I imagined but I can say in all honesty that I liked every single one of them. Some keep in touch more than others but that’s the way of the world.

So I guess it’s up to me to dig in and learn more about ‘computer-land’ and be able to do stuff on my own without asking dear hubby for his help all the time. I can email and shop online no problem, it’s all the other stuff that baffles me