Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.....

What a fantastic 2 days of music. And sunshine as well! How lucky and blessed were we. Free tickets on the grounds we might be needed to work, but as the weather stayed kind, we weren't required, and altho we had a couple of trips backstage to see..and Dc kept offering..and offering...I persuaded him to accept it and relax and sit in the sunshine and be a punter and enjoy the music for once...Friday was hard work, it was like being with a hyperactive child, but by Saturday he was lying in the sun and enjoying the music too....

What can I say? In no particular order....Bruce Cockburn... Sharon Shannon... The Waterboys... Show of Hands... Bellowhead... Joan Baez... Kate Rusby... Fiddlers Bid... Shooglenifty... Martin Simpson... and many others... excellent music... good food, good company (met up with friends from college days who C and I still see, they had never been to a festival before!!! How amazing was that!) good weather...and not having to work...well, died and gone to heaven....

Going away.......

.....to the Cambridge folk festival. Have wanted to go for 30 years and never been. Back to the folky roots of my youth..except I won't be performing....but listening. Magic. Will tell all on my return.

Check it out....

Click on the picture to link to the website: If you enter the word 'sugar' in the promotional code box to order on-line tickets, you will be able to get a £40 weekend ticket for just £35!!!! See you there!!!

Larks in the park...

I mentioned I had an interesting evening on Monday...DC and I had a meeting for one of the festivals we are working on, and before getting to the committee and reporting on the site spec and site plan we had drawn up, we revisited the park to do a visual check..we had not been since last winter, and now it was mid summer and all the trees were out, making it look very different and having an effect on our plan...the festival is planned for exactly a year hence, July 08, so conditions will be the same...

Thrusting his folder into my hands, suddenly David strides off across the park, measuring out a 27 metre marquee with metre long strides...watching, I know what he is doing, but for the uninitiated he must look like the minister of silly walks..when he reaches the appropriate point, he asks me to walk 30 metres forwards, parallel with him, to mark out the footprint of the marquee..so we both set off across the park, me doing extra big steps to keep up, and we reach the required point. That works...

We plan the backstage area and look to see how we get the vehicles there from the gate...a bit of trackway will be needed behind the skateboard park, so off he goes again, measuring the distance in silly long strides, much to the amusement of the group of yoof sitting in the skateboard park smoking....

As we walk back across the grass towards the bowling club house to check for electric and water supplies, I become aware of a large man in the middle of the park, astride his girlfriend who is lying on a blanket, looking as if he is about to do pressups on top of her...he does indeed lower himself down towards her and kiss her, then back up, commendably, as a gentleman should, taking his weight on his arms....

However, as he continued to do this, it does look remarkably like the sex act only fully clothed and sort of without actually touching...it is 7 o'clock ish and broad daylight with people watching...including me, going, 'what is that man doing?' and DC studying his site plan, going, 'what man?' 'Look,..ooh, look now, he's right on top....' Dc looks. 'I think it's fully clothed tantric sex.' 'Oh.' We continue to measure the backstage area for Heras fencing.

'Ooh, look now, where has she got her hands....' 'Stop looking and hold the pen.' 'Ok. Oh, she's untucked his shirt....he's doing strange things...' . At this point I nearly fall into the park lake, which DC has labelled the Lake of Death and is planning stripey tape along the side....'Will you stop staring and come and look at this small electricity sub station...' 'Ok. Oooh, she's pulling at his trousers, he's still doing press ups, I think he's making contact, don't they care? Do you think they are actually going to do it in the middle of the park?' 'No, they are just practising moves, now will you hold the tape measure?'

Not wanting to stare obviously I get on with measuring the path and seeing how far between trees for the Prayer and Counselling tent, then dodge behind a bush to have another peep... DC notices I have gone and looks round..'For heaven's sake come out from behind that bush, help me find the potable water point here somewhere and stop staring...'

'Oh it's ok, they've stopped, he has stood up and is adjusting his trousers, she is sitting up and smoothing her hair...' 'Good, nothing to look at then, can we get on?' 'Oh hang on, she is sitting up and he has squatted behind her, pressing himself up against her...goodness...' 'Right, the catering vans can go here...' 'Oh yes...oh my, where are his hands now?' DC looks. 'Yes, they are round her breasts, I told you it's tantric sex fully clothed from behind, now can we go?'

We leave the park, and David pulls me after him as I nearly fall in a waste bin trying to get one last look...we get to the meeting, one of the nice ministers opens with a prayer and asks God to bless this Christian festival as a witness to this town, and as we begin our report on the suggested site plan, I try not to think about what was happening on the grass where the marquee is going to be....

Lvoe it, lvoe it, lvoe it....

...my job that is..I had gone off it of late, it had lost it's spark, but I realise that is because of all the end of year stuff I had to do, reports to funders, annual statistics, analysis, budgets, funding bids etc etc, all desk work and requiring discipline and concentration!!! (I can do it, actually, thank you....) But because we weren't recruiting volunteers recently, and our books were closed for referrals, there weren't so many visits to do, and I was letting N do them while I got on with stuff, and so recently I realised I wasn't getting out enough...

You can probably tell form my last blogs that as soon as I get out meeting people I come alive, it's what makes my job what it is. Yesterday I went out to interview two prospective volunteers, so very different, but with amazing stories to tell, I stayed far too long, and one visit which started with coffee, ended up with me being offered lunch! And that was from a lady who said she was private and didn't open up much.....but then she was talking to me....where did the two hours go??? And she said she couldn't wait to come and train as a volunteer....

And the Bangladeshi mum I mentioned came to a group we run yesterday, which I had invited her to, and I met her children, and she was animated and chatting to everyone, and couldn't thank me enough for visiting and listening and she feels better already.....

Do you know the one thing you can give people which costs nothing but is the most valuable thing on the planet? Your time.

being serious for a moment...

Having just read Merlin's blog, about rich v poor, I totally agree about comparing oneself with others around you... most people we know, if not all!! earn more than we do, and it's been a struggle financially to bring up 2 children and put them through uni...unlike Merlin, we have never managed to have any savings, just a huge overdraft and credit card debts, but we have hung in there, and now, for the first time in our lives, we are living within our means!!

But compared to many others out there, we are rich - at least our debts haven't totally overwhelmed us, and I had the capability, opportunity or whatever, to take on extra jobs when needed..at one time I had four part time jobs as well as managing the house and children! At least we could get affordable credit.

But so many families I meet through work are really in the poverty trap, some could only get the kind of low paid menial jobs which would make it too hard to come off income support, they would lose their housing benefit, and it wouldn't be worth it. Yes, a single mother with four kids by different fathers is 'lucky' enough to be housed by the council..but before you berate the single mother about her morals and the fact that she should be grateful...consider the fact that she has been emotionally if not physically abused by four men she thought would stick by her, they may demand to have access to the children when it suits them, causing emotional chaos, but none of them pay a penny towards their upkeep, and the wonderful council flat may be on the 2nd floor and have no garden, or the house may be in an area or street none of us would choose to live in....they have no choice as to where they get housed, often the neighbours are hell, or they are isolated from family support....

That's the point. Money gives me a choice. I can choose where I live, where I go on holiday, what I want to do with my life..(in theory!!)

Imagine a single mum , who has fled violence in her native country, then fled a violent relationship from another city, has settled in a strange town with her three children, has been given a 2nd floor flat in a non-salubrious area, not her choice at all, but the council has given her a grant for decorating materials, and a volunteer has helped her buy them and helped her paint the whole flat. Yesterday I heard my application to another charity has been successful, and I have been able to give her a cheque to get the flat carpeted, and she is delighted...don't worry, the cheque is made out to the carpet company, so she can't spend it all on drink or drugs....

She was telling me yesterday another organisation has given her a holiday..she and the children are going to a caravan in an English sea side town I wouldn't choose for a holiday - sounds far too cold and windy for me - and of course she is grateful - but she is vulnerable and depressed and going through court cases over access which are stressful but she has no choice...and the thought of being stuck in a caravan with three demanding children on her own and no other adult company is daunting..but again, she is trying to be grateful..and yet again I am struck by the fact that she has no choice...

I hope the weather will be kind, the sun will shine, the kids will lvoe the sea and sand, they won't play up and wind her up, and that she will meet some other friendly families who will make it a good week....I wonder how much spending money she has..she is without a phone at the moment as a recent stressful visit to court caused her to lose hers, and she can't afford a new one....

Busy bunny....

Relaxed Sunday, busy Monday...

Jill and I were going to do another car boot sale, but given the forecast of torrential rain from the early hours, all day, I cancelled at 11pm Sat night. I am a fair-weather car boot sale person. Of course I awoke Sunday morning to the sun streaming in..oh well, I had slept in until 8am - yippee! no bad thing...the expected rain did not arrive, Jill and I dog walked instead, I relaxed in the garden and even snoozed on the sun lounger and felt warm, for the first time in weeks. When we had just a few drops of rain, I headed inside and did some more festival work..

Friends dropped by for afternoon tea, and we were able to sit out in the garden, always good with a hyper-energetic 6 year old boy around....then Clvie suggested eating at the pub, no argument from me, altho steak and ale pie and chips followed by hot chocolate brownie and ice cream won't look good on my diet diary I am keeping for the nutritionist I am seeing on Friday - did I mention that????

A busy Monday with work, including a meeting where both Rosemarie and I lost the will to live....I was not feeling brilliant and considered at one point either punching someone or walking out..however I clung on to professionalism by my fingertips and lasted the two hours ten minutes...ggrr...

I also visited a young Bangladeshi mum, living with her family in a council flat in a village nearby, on an estate where they are probably the only non whites!!!! She was born and brought up near me, and went to the same schools as my kids, but is in between in age so doesn't know them...fascinating to listen for an hour and a half and have a window into someone else's life (as I am so often privileged to do) but feel sad as she describes standing at the nursery gate and being totally ignored by all the other mums, most of whom probably don't realise, by looking at her in traditional dress, that she can speak English. In fact, with her college education and work in a bank, she is better educated and speaks better English than they do....if she could only be housed back in St Albans, only a matter of 5 miles away, she would not experience the isolation she feels in this village.....unbelievable in this day and age, but maybe fear and suspicion is worse now with recent events.....

Anyway, after a brief visit to the office, I departed for my evening job in festival events, and an interesting evening it was too.....

Mmmm...a better day....

Started my Saturday morning in the usual way, in bed reading or on laptop, listening to radio 2, Brian Matthew's Sound of the 60s..my kind of show, and full of interesting facts and stories and insights into familiar music and artists...I continued listening whilst cleaning my building-site-cum-kitchen which I am very happy in, altho it is far from finished, and is short of a window, it lacks a pillar which makes me happy...room to move!!!!

I am interrupted mid-clean (which always makes me happy) by my business partner ringing to say he will be over at 10.15am to do the work we didn't manage yesterday, due mainly to his non-arrival. I duly set up laptop on dining room table, put kettle on and wait...goodness, he is only 20 minutes late!!!! We really work very hard on one of our festivals, getting ready to report to the management committee on Monday. Despite the fact that I have the concentration of a gnat, and keep trying to distract by being playful (silly) or simply getting things wrong so that I am the cause of much amusement, he manages to keep us focused on work, which is the right thing to do, and by 3.30pm we are allowed to finish and I can get my lunch..I have an action list for suppliers to contact...

At one point he caused me great amusement, there we were in front of our matching pcs, screens full of spreadsheets and action plan and time plans, and I am sourcing suppliers, and he says, 'Have you got a bit of paper for me to write the suppliers on?' I look, incredulously. 'A bit of paper? A bit of paper? Why don't we write the names on post-it notes and stick them to our screens?' Pause. 'What do you think our laptops are for?' And I thought I was blonde....anyway, soon the potential suppliers are on another spreadsheet with columns for the quotes, and David's head is back in techno land where in belongs.

I like being busy. Once DC had left, I was at a loose end...the sun was out but I had done enough sitting for one day..I know, I'll do some gardening! Like I used to, once upon a time.....I had bought my dad a present one year, a small green stool that you can sit on in the garden when you need a rest..the seat is a little hinged lid, when you open it there is space for small garden tools, like a little trowel, fork, secateurs etc.... The wheeze is that, you can turn the stool over and it becomes a little padded kneeler with sides to lean on..I lvoe it, and brought it home when we cleared the house so now it's mine.....and it looks a bit like this.....

..so I took it into the front garden and knelt on it and weeded..and weeded...and weeded...and filled three little yellow tubs full..(well one yellow tub three times) and while I was weeding was thinking one reason for feeling a bit low is, I haven't seen Laa for a while, I know she's busy but I miss her, and want to phone her, but don't like to be 'needy' to my children - James had rung that morning for a chat, he does often, which I lvoe - and as I was feeling so down I hadn't rung her..but as I was weeding, I was willing for her to come and surprise me and drop by for a chat....I got bored with weeding and my back hurt but wouldn't let myself stop until all the chippings were weeded..a car pulled up and I looked up hopefully..but it was for next door..I weeded a bit more and thought about Laa and wondered what she was doing....a car pulled up and I looked....and it was Laa!!!!!

'Hello', she says, 'I was a bit bored and wondered what you were doing.....' I hugged her a big hug and we made tea and sat in the garden and chatted and talked about all sorts, and shared and chatted, and went to the garage and shopped a bit, and sat in the car and talked a bit more and it was lvoely...just what I needed...then Jacky rang and asked if I wanted an evening dog walk so I did, and we walked, and I stayed for supper and we sat in her garden and talked..and I came home a happier person....I so need to have people to talk to..not about anything in particular, it's just that I'm a girly, and talking is what I do best (well..almost...)

After fall sleep watching tele, I came to bed with my laptop and caught up on blogs and said hello to a couple of peeps..then played solitaire til I was falling asleep, but had 'won' one game..it is sooo addictive....

Now I am talking to you this morning...must get up...not going to listen to Steve Wright's Sunday morning Love Songs, they always make me cry in the end....

Not a good day...

Have spent too much time on my own in the office this week, I think. Have been Mrs Angry, been Mrs Upset, and up and down in between. Friday was worst. Seem to have spent most of the week waiting somehow, waiting for calls, waiting for texts, that might come eventually, or not at all, and I really, really, shouldn't mind as much as I do. Still, I had a lunch date on Friday, that would make up for it all. Except it didn't. Waited a while..then went and got a sandwich and ate in on my own in the office and sniffed a lot. I should get a life. And what did I say last week about removing myself from relationships which damage me?

Still, I went swimming and Rosemarie and did 20 lengths to her 50. Doesn't sound good does it? But given the mood I was in, I did well to go at all.

Was tidying my bedroom before, listening to music and doing ok..ish...when I suddenly imagined, don't know why, that the phone might ring, and it would be my mum, saying, 'Hi Sal, how you doing?' in a chirpy way, and we would chat for ages...the pain of the realisation that this will never, ever, happen again hit me with such force it blew me apart....good job most of the time I can think of her without that happening.....

But the good side of that is that I am starting to think of her again as she was....well, fun, a friend, before she got old and sick and crabby and anxious and downright miserable....that is good....

But the gone forever bit sometimes really gets through the defences, even now....

Doh!

Every time I clicked on Steve's blog, it said, 'This blog has moved to here. Sorry for the inconvenience.' That's ok, I am here too, reading it, no inconvenience. It has said that for a few weeks now, and not much else. And then it dawned on me, if I clicked on the here, it took me somewhere else. To his new blog, in fact. As I said, Doh.....

Um...should those cracks be there????

Was on the phone in the office, that's the home office (which is in what would be the third small bedroom in a 30's semi) which Clive uses..it's over the corner of the house as you come up the stairs, directly over the corner where until last week, the pillar was there, holding up the house....

Well a couple of days ago I was in there talking on the phone when I looked up and something caught my eye..that is a crack all along the top of the wall where it meets the ceiling into the corner, and then down from the corner, a jagged crack to the corner of the window...then on the other side of the window, a crack from underneath the sill going down the wall.....so that will have happened when they knocked the pillar down them before the steel lintel went up?

I did a 'Clvie, come and look at this...' in my best 'don't panic' voice, and he did, and he went a bit quiet..then on Tuesday when John the builder came round to talk buildy things, I invited him upstairs to look...he did the classic 'oh, that's ok,' 'yeah, just surface cracks....if the outside isn't cracked, it's ok,' and then dismissed us with look that accused us of being neurotic and worrying over nothing..I knew he would.

But then it's not his house..and anyway it's Clvie's office, I'm not going in there any more....perhaps I should get a surveyor in??????

Keeping busy...

..with the tennis, when I could stay awake..seem to be doing a lot of sleeping....have an eye infection apparently, have to throw my contact lenses away and wear glasses for a week..yuck....been to choose tiles for the kitchen floor. Thought I knew what I wanted. Thought I chose something I liked. Got it home. Didn't like it. Not sure what I want now. C is losing patience. But these things are expensive and you only buy them once. At least I do.

Looking at appliances. Drawing kitchen plans. Sleeping. Missing Wimbledon. Car boot sale (got up at 6.20am, impressive!) Sold some things. Sat in the sun. Drank coffee and ate pastries. Could have sold the dog and the chair I was sitting on. Are some people really stupid???

Working. Going out for lunch. Evening committee meetings. Mec's birthday - tea and chocolate cake, yay!!!

Got a funding bid to write. Families to visit. Volunteers to recruit (got 2 potentials at the car boot sale!). But for now...more sleep.... zzzzz.

Tears before bedtime....

..I always think long and hard before blogging 'I am ok now, I really am ..' because I have done it before, and it tempts fate....but I truly felt ok, and different so I wrote my previous blog in good faith, and strangely enough, as soon as I had written it I felt miserable!!!

And yes, there were tears before bedtime...and I was cross with myself, but hey, sh*t happens, and sometimes a good cry is what you need..doesn't mean I'm not better, cos I am still dealing with some difficult stuff, and the bit about walking away from relationships which damage me, that's hard, but at least one person acknowledged their own part in the tears (a very big part) and I now have a large bunch of flowers in the middle of my building site, sorry, I mean kitchen....

Mainly, I have been tired this week, stemming from last weekend and being up until 2.30am both nights!!! And not sleeping that well this week and having evening meetings, yesterday morning in the office I had trouble with a contact lens and simply couldn't see to read..I decided to go out for a walk for fresh air to wake up, and popped into Robert Dyas (he was surprised I can tell you) as I need a new iron..any excuse to shop..and i stood in front of the shelves with about 32 different steam irons of different sizes and colours and simply lost the will to live. I couldn't choose one to save my life, and felt quite tearful.

That's when I decided to do my lunchtime visit to a volunteer, pick the Sophie dog up from the vet (another morning of blood and urine testing) and go home for the afternoon. Actually by the time I was driving home my eye was really hurting and closing up, so I rang my Chair and informed him of my decision to be off sick, sod it, I was not wasting TOIL time with a poorly eye...

I took the lens out but the pain didn't go away...I put on my glasses and made a cup of tea and curled up on the sofa and put on the TV and lo, the men's quarter final with Federer and Ferrero (know as Roche to his friends) was about to commence, and I was in possession of a large bar of Cadbury's wholenut as it was my mum's favourite, and she lvoed Wimbledon and we spent many an afternoon together watching it and having cups of tea and sharing chocolate, so I did it in her memory..drank the tea, ate the chocolate....and the match....well, when James rang me and woke me up it was match point......um..I needed the sleep....

Space, space and more space.....

Quite a few of my blogs have mentioned space recently....emotional space and physical space. It is a bit of a theme....there is a great deal of 'stuff' going on in my head, but in the background, while in the foreground I am getting on with life....

But....it seems to me....after the incredible emotional ups and downs of the last..let me see...five years...when the illness and deterioration and death of my parents, and finally clearing and selling the family home, took every ounce of my emotional capability, and physical, constantly driving to Bristol, just about coping with them - the depression, anxiety, the shouting, the tears, the panic attacks, the not breathing, the alcoholism, the falling over, the denial, the cancer, the incontinence, the memory loss, the confusion, the loneliness, the helplessness..I cannot begin to describe really what that has done to me....

All people saw, probably, was an emotional mess, without ever really understanding what that was about. And after it was all over, I had lost myself. All the things I used to do I gave up. Stopped seeing people. Became a couch potato. Cried a lot. Wondered where I had gone - the real me.

Whenever I have blogged that 'I am ok now, I have had a good week', it has inevitably been followed by an emotional collapse or deep depression, as if I have been on one of those swing-boat rides that has gone back and forth constantly. But if you allow the swing to slow at its own pace, eventually the distance travelled lessens, and the swing gradually centres and then stops.

So with me, after Laura's wedding, which obviously had emotional demands!! and the second anniversary of my dad's death, and after the most amazing care of real, true friends, which continues to this day and I can never repay them....I have come to the point when I can say, I have come back to myself again. To the strong person I was. To be happy in my own space, it doesn't mean things aren't annoying me or upsetting me or making me cross, but I am saying my piece and not falling apart over it. I am protecting myself from relationships which hurt and damage me and have truly moved on.

I am able to get up in the morning now and face the day. In fact, this morning, at 7am, I made the decision to go swimming before work,. for the first time ever. History in the making. I rang Rosemarie in the hope that she might join me. She informed me that the pool was closed due to broken glass.

So...recovery...the ability to move on...but always, always, be careful of the broken glass someone will put in your way....

Space at last....

The final prop holding up the ceiling has gone, and the bin has been placed over the hole in the floor, and finally the kitchen seems enormous.....

...and you can see the difference from last week to this...

And then.....

..the pile of rubble in the driveway got bigger.....

and so did the kitchen!!!!