The Long and Winding Road, with pink and red emotional highlights...

Well, the official invitation to the Palace Garden Party arrived this morning.   This means my ol' mucker and me have passed the official checks and scrutiny!

We shall await the Invitation Proper from the Palace "in 6 - 4 weeks time", according to the letter...

Honestly, the Civil Service Departments have gone down the pan since I left!   Sheesh!

What else has happened.   Ummm...   I seem to be procrastinating about how much work I have to do on my course over the next three weeks...   I've conducted or officiated at a number of weddings, and observed a wonderfully sweet Civil Partnership...   My kitchen and utility room are more or less finished, but not the flooring, blinds or decor just yet...   We've had GJ's successful and intimate 50th Birthday celebration.  

...And, Grizzler has turned 20 - Yikes!   Where did that time go?!

I haven't heard back from Alnwick Garden yet, which may indicate that my enjoyable assessment day there has not been a fruitful one, work-wise...   Tant pis.

In other news, I met up with a wonderful dear friend, Elle, for morning coffee last Sunday.   I was trying to persuade her to turn some of the fabulous stories she has told us for years into a blog.   She is the funniest woman I think I know, and beautiful to boot.   I love her to bits, ever since we first met when I moved back to this northern region from the Highlands of Scotland in the year Grizz was born.   That means we've known each other 20 years.   Amazing.   She hasn't changed a bit.

Through and outside of therapy, I've been reflecting on how our lives take the paths that they do.   For without being pushed from my nested job within government by that cuckoo, David Cameron, and his poodle Master Clegg, I would not have my lovely little job in counselling, albeit as yet unpaid.

Without the trauma therein, I would not be witnessing and celebrating weddings which are such joyous occasions for me, albeit stressful;   Without having to move with my husband's job back from the Highlands, I would never have met Elle, or possibly even Sara of THIS blog and this wonderful PHOTO...  

My life would not be as rich without them and other valuable friends in it, such as Karina, who makes me laugh on FaceSlapBook and whose bags are to die for...   Recently, she's been channelling her inner patriot to make some beautiful things in celebration of the Queen's Golden Jubilee Year, using vintage scarves and ephemera.   Stunning.

And, not to forget, other bloggy friends here and abroad, that goes without saying...

Elle took her own decision to depart from government a year before I did.   She then fell into a number of little jobs to keep her going, but has been sorely let down by a less-than-honest employer.   She now finds herself in the place I was in several months ago.   Trying to find what it is she wants to do at this stage in her life...   I feel for her;   It's an odd, and somewhat scary position for anyone to find themselves in...

Finding who you are.

Do we ever stop, do you think?   Looking out for that little girl, who wants to hold on to those balloons, but doesn't want to take her feet off the ground?

p.s. I don't deliberately intend to miss things out of my blog which have international reverberations, like developments in world news or the tragic death of WH, with whom I share my birth year.   I was personally saddened by her loss, although I did not know her, nor was I a particular fan of her music but I know she did touch hearts with her voice.  

Perhaps that's all that any of us need, to love and be loved and to touch hearts?

And hold on to those balloons!

Out-Laws...

For bold and beautiful Suldog, yes, my father out-law ran himself over in his own car by doing the following:   Dropping my lovely sis-in-law off for her Christmas 'do', he got rather disoriented and lost in a town he doesn't know so well.   Panicking about having to get back to look after his five year old grand-daughter (the man is over 85 and she was sitting peaceably at home with her very capable seventeen year old brother in any case), he drove into an industrial estate where he found a taxi-driver sitting in his stationary car.

He did a lightning manoeuvre to drive up to this man to ask directions before he drove off.   He jumped out of his manual car, not applying the handbrake before getting out, and then slipped on some ice so he was under the back of the car...   Calling to the taxi-driver, while holding the car back as long as he could with one hand, the car proceeded to slowly run over his ankle.

The taxi-driver rang for an ambulance, pushing aside my pa-in-law's stupid insistence that he was all right.   He was many hours in A & E.   I don't know if my sis-in-law left her 'do'.   I'd suspect not.   He was eventually released with bad bruising.   He was in fact very lucky.   He is, and all evidence points to it, an idiot.   Again, we were informed about this accident, rather casually by said sis-in-law, on New Year's Day.   Not when it actually happened.

In similar circumstances, when she was in hospital pending the birth of her daughter - My niece - She had been abandoned by her then-husband, I was anxious for news.   I had to resort to ringing her work-place, to actually find out whether she'd had the baby, or not.   What does that tell you about our state of family affairs, mes bloggy silver birches?!   Hein?

Disfunctional, that's what!

I've very little sympathy for him.   Or even her.   After years of mistreatment at both of their hands.   Christmases ruined.   Accusations and anger - Theirs.   Madness and selfish behaviour - Theirs.   Fulsome neglect of his own grand-son - My son.   And making lots of efforts to put things on some kind of track with them - All mine.   A few years back, I decided to put my own mental health first and I try to be dutiful, but I don't feel anything towards them and their idiocy now.   I don't.   They're not worth it.

Am I bitter?   I was.    I would have wanted some kind of relationship with my nephews, my niece.   I would have wanted to be an aunt to them, like mine were to me...   I valued them so, being an only child.  

Instead, I am a distant auntie.   They have some relationship with my son, admittedly - My nephews at least.    But, even he tired of this family's antics some time ago.   He has both our surnames - My son.   Out and about in life, he chooses mainly to use mine.   He had a magnificent relationship with my father, for which I shall be eternally grateful and thank the stars in the firmament for it.

It is a hard lesson to absorb for a teenager, I fear.   To learn that your grandfather is no hero, but an idiot.   And that your aunt is feckless, self-absorbed and a bit of a waste of time.   I waited for him to form his own opinions on all this - He rarely heard a word from me on the subject.   What he witnessed was enough for his young and fertile mind.

I started to write this post this morning, full of the stuff I have been doing lately, which has kept me from blogging for a time.   Some very positive things that are helping me move along somewhat, after years of treacly grief and 'being strong' for others and neglecting myself.

Maybe I just needed these few moments, to mourn the passing of what might have been with them, and get this bile out of my system...

Sorry but, for listening:

 

There's nowt as queer as folks...

This past week has been feckin' awful challenging in many respects.

Some twats enlightened people on my course decided they would play up during a presentation a fellow student, (who's also my good friend), and I were delivering about the treatment of depression.

She wrote a note to him saying she was stupid bored and wanted to go out for a skive smoke.   They smirked and giggled, passing notes...

I was watching the audience to gauge their reactions to what we were saying, but failed to notice them, but their behaviour was brought to my attention during a break by my friend, who had seen it all.  

In the cafe I tried to tackle him about his bad behaviour, when he came to sit next to me and bore me with tell me tales of his own abusive childhood again and again, ad nauseum.

When we returned to the class-room after the break, they chose to come back ten minutes later than everyone else.   The tutors tackled the group on this, without naming and shaming.

I was very sad hopping mad livid.

She asked me for a lift home afterwards.   This has been a pretty usual occurrence for us, as I take pity on her and we are travelling pretty much the same journey home...   No skin off my nose.   I could scarcely be civil to her all the way home.   I was furious and barely holding back my anger.

I know that, in the scheme of things, this whole episode amounts to little more than a hill of beans. 

I know that there are worse things happening in the world, even in our enchanted Blogworld, concerning those we love.

I know I should rise above it, not rise to their bait in a game of one-upmanship and competitiveness because they both are, of course, perfect and self-aware.   They are going to make shit great therapists with their attitudes!

I am angry with these people for how they behaved and treated me and my friend this week.   I am appalled at their lack of respect and childish collusion.

I think I am, in the very bottom of my heart, just sad...

On Saturday I attended a crochet workshop, to do something creative and have a little fun, rather than just work, work, work on my counselling course.

I had fun. 

In other news, some other shit also hit the fan also not so very nice things happened this week.

...I might take my new crochet hooks into college this week.

It turns out that I am so crapilola at crochet, that I might just find another use for them!

Back to Black...

During my quiet time away from the Interwebs, I was rocked by two news items...

I mainly gain my news via the Internet, so I did miss it when I could not, but with 24 hour rolling television news stations, you're never too far away from a story. Or so it seems.

I was in tears at the news of the terribly early death of lovely little Amy Winehouse.

I know her story has been everywhere, but I could not let it pass without saying that I feel so strongly that she should not have died.

How can someone so young, so pretty, so talented, so bright, have burned out at such an early age?

I loved her music and felt she harkened back in some ways to a sweeter, more innocent era in some respects.

Unfortunately, the lure of drugs is never innocent. Or sweet.

Suffice it to say, she has left a little legacy of treasure.

I really feel for her loving and long-suffering parents and family. And Amy herself, who seemed to me like a little girl who was afraid to grow up, and who seemed not to be able to love herself enough.

Now sadly she never will...



The second story concerns our neighbours in Norway.

I mourn for your tragedy, my friends.

I am so sorry for your grave losses.

I mourn your country's lost innocence in some ways...

Life will never be quite the same again, I fear...

So much talent. So many beautiful and bright young things.

Lost to a right-wing madman.

I am so sorry for what path your lives must now run along, my friends.

Such treasure now stilled...

May you all find peace in time.

I wish this for you, along with love.

The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine...

Having just recently learned of the death of an artist, a beautiful and yet tortured soul, I felt I had to put pen to paper... It doesn't sound so romantic when we say 'put fingers to tippy-tappy', does it?

This from my cousins born to my mother's soeur, Auntie Beeb:

"French-born American sculptor Louise Bourgeois has died in New York, at the age of 98.

Based in New York since 1938, Bourgeois gained fame late in her long career and kept working to the end of her life.

Her giant spider sculptures have been exhibited around the world and earned her the nickname of Spiderwoman.

Her abstract explorations of themes such as birth, sexuality and death made her one of the world's most influential contemporary artists.

Bourgeois suffered a heart attack two days ago.

Although she had long been regarded by her contemporaries as one of the world's most important artists, it was not until her seventies that she began to attract a wider audience.

Bourgeois titled this 30-ft (nine-metre) tall spider "Maman"

Her spider sculptures - some of which are three storeys high - have been exhibited around the world, including the Tate Modern in London.

In a statement, the gallery said: "We were deeply saddened to hear of the death of Louise Bourgeois this weekend. Always at the forefront of new developments in art, she pursued a wholly personal path and was powerfully inventive, working in dialogue with the major avant-garde movements of her time".

I first saw the work of Louise Bourgeois only a few months ago, when I watched a somewhat cryptic film about her art, entitled Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine...

Her life and art spiralled around the facts of her bourgeois childhood, with her father fathering a child by her governess who lived in her home, while her mother attempted to ignore the situation... Her work dealt with relationships, motherhood, birth, death and re-birth...

I saw Louise speak about her life and her art, not without wit, while she whittled away at a wooden piece which she had been working on for many years, much like those she is surrounded by in the photo above...

A womanly figure emerged from the shavings. A totem. She also used metal and rubber, stone and even fabric in her life, somewhat fitting as the daughter of tapissiers...

Louise went on to influence many among of the modern circle of artists, including Rachel Whiteread, one of my favourites, who is fond of making casts of interiors of buildings and objects. Rachel won the Turner Prize in 1993, with this piece, House:

I hope Louise had a wonderful life.