Surprise surprise...

With it being Saturday morning, I headed down to Borough Market, this was planned on Thursday night as usual with Phil at the pub.

A little digression first...

When waking up and going to see if a female friend (when you are male) is awake. When you get there, and find she is watching a DVD in bed, do not, I REPEAT DO NOT, lie on the bed in a half asleep state to see what is on the TV (in fairness it does face the bed) and fall half asleep, scaring the poor woman half to death. In my defense, after a couple of minutes, I headed off to do my usual morning bathroom routine, and at the point where I woke up half way through my shower, I had the sudden realisation of what I had just done. So an apology was delivered as soon as I stepped out of the bathroom (fully robed, before you ask).

Back to the main narrative...

This morning I got up late, as did Jenny, but as luck would have it, so did Phil too, so Jenny and I headed down there and off we went to buy some stuff from the market a couple of hours later than usual.

I'm none too keen in the market after 10:30AM, as it tends to get very busy. We arrived at 11:00! We did what we could as fast as we were able and were out of there by 11:45ish. BTW, I have no idea who invented Bacon (yes, BACON!!!1!one!) and Onion bread, but that person is a GENIUS!

Being the people we are, we immediately started planning for lunch. Having had no breakfast something had to be done quickly... And what with Jenny is living somewhere in the sticks (the wrong side of the Styx? :)) she was very keen on Sushi, as she has been unable to get Japanese cuisine for ages.

Lunch was good, this was the first time I have been able to eat Sushi and not feel sick to the bottom of my stomach (at the thought of the food, not the food).

Next we headed off to the Imperial War Museum. I was expecting lots of things dating back to the development of warfare, but the vast majority of the stuff on display was modern, certainly WW1 and later. Most of out time was spent working our way though the Holocaust Exhibition. This really wore away at my soul, it extremely very hard work. I don't have much in the way of faith in my fellow man, and seeing the systematic industrial scale mechanism for murder that was employed by the Nazis, ate a little more of that faith away.

Jenny and I retired to my place, and then headed out for a Thai meal from a place up the road. I have only been there once (many years ago), and I don't remember being too impressed with the place, but curiously I don't remember being utterly disgusted either, so 'nondescript' I think would suffice as my memory of the place. Since the place has managed to last a number of years, I guessed I must have visited on a bad day, or it must have pulled it metaphoric socks up since my last visit. The meal turned out to be better than good, so this another cheap, but great local eatery added to the list.

We got back to my place a short while ago and Jenny has gone to bed. I have called Sandy and I managed to convince her she wouldn't be intruding and that she should to come over. So while Jenny sleeps, I shall cross town to Waterloo station and pick up Sandy then escort her back to my pad.

Jenny

Jenny (an ex crush of mine, who as it happened turned out to be gay, so is now one of my bestest friends), arrived this evening for a weekend in my company.

Jenny has returned to university to do a degree, and like most mature students, she is busy killing herself with stress in order to get firsts for all courses. Obviously all the younger students are trying to kill themselves with alcohol, tobacco and soft drugs instead. Yay a fun melting pot of self destruction, I think I remember why I quit university now!

Occasionally I demand that Jenny comes to visit, for the sake of her continued mental good health. This weekend is planned to be one of those visits.

This evening we did Jerry Springer the Opera. We both enjoyed the show, and both agreed that the first half was far funnier than the second half. We then popped of to an Indian restaurant and got back a little while ago.

A great evening all in all.

I have invited Sandy to come over too, since her ex-bloke has refused to leave her place until he is good and ready. So far she has not acquiesced to my request, I'm hoping she will come at some point over the weekend. Jenny certainly wants to meet Sandy (as bestest female friend, Jenny believes she has some God given right to meet my significant others (and probably vet them too)), but at the moment Sandy does not want to intrude on the weekend Jenny and I have planned. I have told Sandy that this is tittle-tattle-and-pish, she is invited, hopefully she will get the message and drop by.

Now, I'm off to bed to do some reading.

Comedy paranoia moments of the recovering psyche

There was a time (when I lived with the Siren), where any attempt to change a plan (even if it was a good change) was met with derision, petulance, and quite often a tantrum.

Frequently, when taking place by mobile phone, a tantrum took the form of the call being hung up, and after that, the phone was usually switched off or routed to voicemail whenever I tried to call.

Today, I was arranging to meet Sandy for lunch before she headed off to her place. We had originally arranged to meet at Liverpool Street station, but then it occurred to me that it would make her journey much easier if she were to travel to Moorgate, and I could met her there just as easily from my workplace.

Half way though the call, she was starting to sound a little stressed as she realised that the ticket she had already bought, was not a valid travel card and would only get her from my place directly home, not allowing a stop-off in central London. As I was discussing this with her, the call was cut off.

Initially I thought it was a fault with the mobile connection, so I rang the phone... Straight to voicemail. Then again every couple of minutes or so over the next few minutes. When I continued to get to voicemail, I assumed that she had been talking to me as she went into the Underground station. So I left it a little while, assuming that she would reach the surface soon enough and call me.

And waited.

And waited.

And eventually I went and bought lunch (at the point I was shaking with hypoglycemia I might add). Ever the gentleman, I left it until the last moment.

Still no answer, so I left a message on the voicemail. Then I sent a text, just in case. (Belt and braces, that's me!)

No answer, so I sent another text. At this point the paranoia express was pretty much full steam ahead. Even though Sandy has shown no bizarro behavioural traits similar to the Siren, I'm freaking out big style. I'm thinking that phone has been switched off, to get back at me for fucking her about. I'm thinking typical Siren behaviour at this point.

Then after a few hours of self induced high drama, I take a step back, chill out, finish the working day, (which on a house level has turned to shit BTW), and head off home.

At home I get a message from Sandy, it seems her mobile was snatched by two blokes running past her at the station, and because she didn't have my number anywhere but on her phone, she had no way of arranging to meet me, so she headed home (to find her ex still hadn't moved out of the house!), then bought a new phone and sent me the text, after she had retrieved my number from her address book at home.

I really do need to treat people as if they are not the people they succeed in my life. I know Sandy is not Siren, but she still is a woman. I can tell this is going to be hard work, but if I don't start trusting women, I'm going to become entrenched in my ways and never recover from the ex-bitch in my old life.

In other news, I had sweet and sour chicken balls with egg fried rice for my evening meal, and the batter on the chicken balls was so fat soaked/oily I couldn't eat the meal and had to give up less than a third of the way in. I think my tolerance for fat in meals has dropped. I think this is a good thing. Either that or I have some hideous disease no doubt! :)

Another short night's sleep, followed by an alarming day...

'Holy Crap, Batman', feels like a line that is highly enough charged to start this entry with!

Today at 1:30PMish I got a call from a friend of my ex-wife (Siren/The Evil One(TM)) saying that she had been taken to hospital with a suspected stroke. Pins and needles down one side, paralysis of certain parts of her body and so on. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel a bloody thing for this woman (that's a lie, I actively dislike her), but the implications of this call were enormous.

My initial reaction was to check on the kids, Angel was being picked up by the friend's partner (as they had two kids at the same school), and I made arrangements to pick up Murray from his school.

Then once the immediate panic was over the enormity of what was happening began to settle on me...

First of all, if Sire had had a stroke and was unable to look after the kids permanently, well shit, what I have wanted all along (custody of the kids) would be happening from the moment I went to pick them up!

Second of all, I thanked my lucky stars that I had not cancelled the life insurance I had on Siren's life, I was advised to keep it running, as her death or injury would still directly affect me when I became primary carer for both Angel and Murray.

Third was the notion that I'm gong to lose this job, here I am dashing off for the second Tuesday in a row, last week it was because of a migrane, now it was parental duty. If I have to leave next Tuesday, they are going to assume I'm up to something! And of course that was not the bigger picture, if I did have to become primary carer for the kids, I would have no one to look after them for me. So I'd have to put my job on hold (if they would let me) until I could sort out some kind of cover. There is no way having been with Sandy for only two days that I'm going to ask her to move in and start looking after my kids, that is sooooo not taking things slow! :)

Anyway, I went and picked up Murray from the school, explained to him what was going on, and the first thing he asked was what was happening to Angel (bless him!), once he was reassured that she was OK, we headed off home, all the while I tried to allay his fears for his mum.

We headed back to my place and he and Sandy started kicking the crap out of each other on Tekken.

I made a call to let iren's friend know that I had collected Murray, and to make arrangements for collecting Angel from her. At this point I was told that Siren had not had a stroke, but had in fact torn some muscles/tendons/ligaments/whatever in her neck, which had seized up, swollen and applied pressure to her nerves, causing the symptoms. Siren was awaiting her prescription (heavy tranquilisers!) and would be able to take receipt of Murray later in the afternoon.

This doesn't surprise me, Siren used to do the most stupidly dangerous things when we were together, rather than ask for help. On a number of occasions rather than ask me for help she ended up doing herself serious damage. At the moment she is moving house, so God alone knows what kind of crap she is 'heavy lifting' at the moment, no doubt she is using the extra special 'fuck yourself up for life' posture (knees straight, back bent, not vice versa) while lifting too!

Once Murray had been returned to his mum, and I had said a brief hello to Angel, I headed back home to spend the rest of the night with Sandy...

We had a lovely evening. We popped out to the supermarket, bought all the required items to make a lovely Chinese meal, then headed home to cook it up and have a lovely dinner together.

Later Sandy noticed that I looked a little tense and asked me if there was something wrong, god this girl is observant, she'd seen me stiffening up a couple of times during the evening. As it happened, I was still thinking about the earlier events with the kids and also having difficulty switching off from work, something big came up yesterday that I was still trying to get my head around.

So about an age later (may have been 1-2 millennia) when the back, neck and shoulder massage finished, I was kinda relaxed again (read as: practically comatose). I'm feeling relaxed now, just typing this up. :)

Again tried to get an early night, but no joy, we ended up laying in bed chatting till the early hours again. I must make an effort to get a good night's sleep tonight, otherwise we will run out of things to talk about sooner rather than later! :)

Sharing your life is kinda cool

Yesterday evening was strange.

I got home from work, and Sandy had been at work around the house, poor thing had nothing to do all day while she stayed at home, so she filled her time with house work and chores that I had let pile up. I came home to find that the remainder of my ironing had been done, the living room had been tidied, and that dinner had been cooked, amongst other things.

It was quite an eye-opener, a bit like married bliss from my previous life (which lasted about 3 weeks I can assure you). I said to Sandy that I didn't expect this from her, that there wasn't a charge for staying at my place that involved sex and housework. :)

I was quite hard to adjust too, I'm used to not living with someone around all the time, with stuff being moved and the housework pixies visiting again. I'd forgotten about all to compromises that come with someone in your life all the time. I'll get some space and readjustment time on Thursday or Friday when she heads off to her place to see what damage her ex has done. In the meantime I'm just having a good time, enjoying being close and intimate with someone for the first time in a long time.

We tried to get an early night, but ended up chatting until 3:30AM.

It is nice to be appreciated. I do hope this carries on, I like it.

Yay I is both thinner and lighter!

Another 2 lb (~1 Kg) lost over the last week, I'm back in the the high 15st range once more. Only another stone to get to my all time personal best in the high 14st range. :)

Happy happy joy joy!

Movement on the 'seeing someone' front...

Well Saturday's semi-update is a tad irrelevant right now... (Bet you're intrigued...)

Yesterday the kids and I had a lot of fun, we went to the park and had a lovely Sunday lunch (I'm soooo getting into cooking up roasts, and I'm improving too! Went for a lamb and rosemary roast this time).

During the trip to the park, Sandy texted me and asked me if my offer to come and stay for a few days while she separated from her bloke was still open. And of course it was, I'd never turn away a damsel in distress. :)

So I dropped the kids off at six as usual at their mother's place (who somewhat amusingly had to run downstairs half-naked to answer the door, I wouldn't like to comment on whether she was in flagranté or just having an afternoon nap).

Then I headed down to the train station and picked up Sandy. It turns out she had had the final row with her ex-chap, and as she left had told him she was going away for a few days, and to have his stuff out of her place by the time she got back.

So we had a long conversation (face to face and everything!) where I made it quite clear I wanted to give her space to do her rebounding, no pressure, etc. I also said that I understood that she would be a little emotional for a while, having just finished a long term relationship... And so on, you know the type of thing, the typical new-man caring stuff. If I'm not a new man, I don't know what is. (Well apart from 'Dave Day' when I may have been a 'New Lad'.)

She said that she was just relieved that it was over, and now we could move on.

So we ended up in bed. (See, told you yesterday's update was irrelevant!)

So it would appear after more than two years in self imposed exile, I am now officially seeing someone.

So much, for taking it slow! But I am trying, I don't think I'll ask her to marry me within five days (like I did with the Evil One(TM)), nor ask her to move in with me within the month (like I did with the Evil One(TM)).

In essence everything is cool, I'm not dumb enough to convince myself I'm in love just yet, I'm very much at the like stage, which is slow for me. :)

Bunny boilers...

Had a big heart to heart with Sandy via IM this evening, I think we are both borderline bunny boilers, we both think this is a good thing, we both want it to start, but she has big things to sort out.

In other news, the day went well, no mopey kids, we went to a jungle jim (gym? sp) and they are both exhausted.

I also bumped into someone there who wants to put a little freelance work my way! Yay!

Too shattered to update properly now, maybe tomorrow evening I shall give the full update...

If you are lucky. :D

Night night dear reader.