Out of Place

Hmm, so, I saw one place last night and four today.

The 1pm appointment was a waste of time. It was one out the paper, and I had a poor impression of the landlord from the off. Having arranged an appointment for 1pm today, he'd asked me to phone him 30mins in advance. Why should I be having to phone him!?
Anyway, I did so, and he said the tenant was out or busy so I couldn't see at at 1 after all. "Forget it, then," I said. He rang back a minute later to say I could go "now" if I wanted after all for some reason. So, the current tenant showed me around - a shy Indian lady who was busy looking after two children and probably hadn't been expecting to do this.

I saw two with one agency after that. Should have been three, but there was a problem getting keys for the third. First one I discounted very quickly. Poorish state of affairs, and there was a large dent in the bathroom door where presumably someone had lost their anger with it at some point in the past. Second one I saw with him was alright, bit small for the money, but includes free use of a pool and gym.

But, there have been two I liked - one last night, one first thing this morning.

Last night's:


I returned during daylight in case you wondered ;)


Would have this view out the window.

Good: Fully furnished down to even cutlery, literally just been redecorated, nice view over the town (as opposed to where we currently are where we're facing the wrong side of the hill ;) ), landlord seemed a nice enough chap (spoke to the owner, he has it as a "pension fund")
Bad: Perhaps a little small, but fully furnished makes up for it. Quite steep getting up there, might be a pain come ice in the winter. Might get knackered carrying shopping up from the car climbing the steps up to it ;) (You can park closer than I have taken the pic, but the steps aren't really visible) And: I haven't actually SEEN it yet. I saw the place next door which his partner owns. The one I am looking at is in the middle of being decorated, so all I have seen is the wrong side of the door (I am mildly concerned by this, but he said should be fine to see next week).

This morning's:


Sorry for dodgy angled+sun in lens pic :)


Would have this view out the window.

Good: Pretty spacious, well decorated, have enjoyed my dealings with the agent who manages the property (they've actually contacted me very swiftly each time and felt pleasant to deal with, unlike most others, surprisingly!)
Undecided: Somewhat more "estatey", in the middle of a whooole lot of identical houses.
Bad: Unfurnished, and at the top end of my budget for which I had originally been thinking furnished.
The problem with unfurnished is the hassle of organising things, and being left with a bunch of stuff I might not want. On the other hand, might be nice to know it's my own things and to do it the way I'd like.

1 is closer to work by a "minute" according to AutoRoute, although on a bad morning or evening I reckon that could turn into 20 ;)
2 is closer to town, and may be in a slightly more pleasant area (My wife prefers the look and area of 2 from what I showed her just now - I've no idea what areas are "rough" particulary)

Despite being unfurnished, I do quite like the size of 2 at the moment, I think, which makes it quite tempting. I've e-mailed them for a 2nd viewing and some more details.
I can get a viewing of the 1st (as in, the actual one I'd be in) next week if I want one.

Time to sleep on it :)

I am KNACKERED :)

Not Again...

This is getting silly, the last few times I've taken a little holiday, I've finished it thinking... I need a holiday! :)

Long day today, and somewhat worn out now. Even had a li'l nap when I got in, so I feel a bit better for that, actually :)

I saw this fellow around today, and I thought Roses and Ing would appreciate the pic ;)



Bigger and taller than me, but I suspect Ing in his body armour and helmet would be more than fair competition :)

He was a bit quiet and motionless, but I think he was just preparing to leap into action should he spot a platoon of Covenant warriors around the corner :)

I gather he's "between jobs" at the moment, hence the reason he's hanging out here in a computer games shop, rather than out saving the world. He does expect things to get fairly busy sometime next year, though ;)

What else did I do? Oh, I bought... some wrapping paper.

And, I was outraged, outraged by BHS's blatant display of astoundingly good value on Christmas cards that left me lost to know what to do.
I thought, since it always takes me roughly six bazillion years to choose cards, that I'd have a quick glance around at the Christmas cards. I find choosing something that 1. I like, 2. I think the other person would like, 3. Has acceptable words, quite awkward :)
Anyway, didn't want to spend £6 on one in Clintons, then saw some nice hand-made ones in BHS for only £2.80 (30% off)!

BUT... BUT... I started picking one up I liked... And it was six, yes SIX for £2.80! Now, as I was thinking of cards for family, I don't want to send those cards to different people! And I also can't send them the same cards for six years! ;)
So stuck in that confusing quandry, I ended up not buying any :)

I'll try to blog again later on other stuff. Right now, I've just put on Shawshank Redemption, and we have pizza :) More importantly, I have Chicken Strippers, Potato Wedges, and Chicken Dunkers :D Yum yum :) Fancied this after a long day, today :)

Right then

That's a little more like it.

- I have one viewing that I'll scoot off to shortly.

- Five booked for tomorrow.

- Cancelled an old phone contract (Well, actually, moved it from contract to PAYG, so that I didn't need to provide written notice)

- Found out I couldn't migrate another old number to a new contract (I should have found out weeks ago, but better late than never)

- Cancelled a credit card (Surprisingly easily! Was quite shocked! Thank you Mint!)

Not bad! :)

Well, so long as a viewing turns into more than that :)

Remain Calm

I can't see that and help but think, "Remain calm, Kryten. This is your CPU speaking. There has been an accident. Both your legs have been crushed beyond repair. Your ambulatory system has been destroyed, and your life expectancy is currently estimated at 67 minutes. If there is any further news, we will keep you updated. In the mean time, here is a little music." [Cue muzak rendition of "Copacabana"]

Anyway. I've spent a few hours looking at places online today. And what progress have I actually made? Measurably? None. Grrrrr.

This is the sort of thing I'm not very good at. I'd normally leave this sort of thing to Mrs M who is better at it. I don't like getting wound up about stuff normally (either do it and be happy, or don't do it and don't bother getting stressed about it), but this is exactly the sort of thing I want to try to challenge myself to do over the next few months, and I'm struggling already.
At least I'm trying, and putting effort in, but I'm still feeling frustrated by it all.

So there :-P

I'd like to say I feel a bit better for that, but all I've done is waste more time ;)

Last Weekend, Next Weekend, and the Bits Inbetween

Well, the weekend just gone, I did roughly nothing.

Yesterday, as you know, I told several of the people I work with. My other boss also knew by the end of the day and talked to me about it too.
I told the other couple of people I thought I should tell at work today (one had already heard rumours off the jungle drums ;) (hmm, who used that phrase recently in a different way?). That only leaves one person, and I don't feel a need to specifically tell him, as we hardly know each other.

Loud Jack (Well, I thought I'd aim for some slightly imaginative pseudonyms ;)asked whether I had another date lined up for Saturday already! lol :) (Neither do I have one, nor would I want one)

He then appeared to "recommend" I "try" some young, single mothers...

lol, it didn't occur to me until I began writing that line, that the description could apply to Roses and Dianne ;) Ok, just let me point out for the record that that IS just a coincidence ;) No offence, ladies ;)

I've not put enough effort into looking for anywhere since Friday. With that in mind, I've booked Wednesday and Thursday off, to give me a chance to concentrate on booking some more viewings and easily having a chance to make them without worrying about missing out on work.

Obviously, there have been some questions so far, but overall, I've had time to "adjust" to the situation, so it's not like they're too difficult or shocking to answer. I suspect the fun will start Saturday night ;) Especially after BB's wife is a couple of drinks in - he said he asked her to promise not to ask any questions, but, well, she has no fear ;)

Saturday should be fun though, and I think overall I'm probably looking forward to it :)

Deep Slow Breaths

Phew.

Well, I just told the people I work with what's happening.

Told three of them in one go, since they all happened to be in the room at the same time, and those were the three I'd wanted to tell first (one of my bosses, two of m' learned colleagues).

Whilst I knew several had suspected something was up, I think it somewhat took all of them aback.

It's my work's Christmas do this coming Saturday (everyone happened to be booked throughout December). This year, as well as the food and drink being paid for, they've also paid for hotel rooms for us all. I decided it would seem odd to go with Mrs M. Of course, it will seem at least as odd not to. I had been hoping I could have been moved out by this point, but, it seems not.

Phew. Was that really only three? Felt like a lot more ;)

Aaaaand relax.

We'll Chalk That One Up To God

Well.

That was a waste of an hour.

You may have guessed it did not go well ;)

Actually, it was arguably worse than that.

I found the place on Rightmove.co.uk yesterday, and ticked the "Send more details" and "Arrange a viewing" boxes. She phoned this morning and we arranged a viewing for 4:15.
"And could you e-mail me confirmation of that?", I asked.
She did so. The e-mail confirmed the time, and the name of the property.

I went back to Rightmove to check where it was on the map that was included under the property's details.

"I'll leave at 4", I thought, "Will probably only take ten mins to get there, and then five mins looking for it."

Well, I didn't count on the London Road traffic actually not moving. By 4:30 I had made it as far as "almost around the corner". My phone rang. I said I was "almost around the corner."
"Ah right," said the voice at the other end, "The person going to meet you is stuck in the same traffic, so she's not there yet either."
"Phew!" I thought.

It had been pretty dismal by the time I left work - it's been bucketing it down all day, so by the time I actually made it to the road it was just plain dark. I had a feeling as to which side of the road it was on (from the map, and the picture of the place). Drove up and down two or three times (and it's a long road) before I spotted a sign for it, on the other side of the road to what I had been expecting.
I was just turning in when my phone rang again.

"I think I've just got here. I'm next to a sign for it now. Has Whats-her-name arrived then?" (I was speaking to someone at the Agency, rather than the person I was actually meeting)

"Yes, she's been there about 15 minutes now, and she has another appointment to be off to soon."

I described what was around me.

"Oh. You're in completely the wrong place."

" ! "

"You're at the Sales & Marketing Suite. The actual place is further up London Road, about three miles away."

" ! ? ! But... This is where it was in the map on Rightmove, and I was never given any more information than that."

"Well, it's about three miles away, and Whats-her-name has another appointment to get to."

"Oh. Well, she might as well get going then, and we'll arrange another appointment. What about tomorrow?"
By then, I was concious of the fact that I was already going to be away from work longer than I had expected, and was thinking of the time myself.

"Well, I'll tell you what, I'll give her a ring and check."

Minutes pass.

"Yes, she's had to go on to her next appointment, and I'm afraid we're fully booked for tomorrow."

"Right. Well. I'll contact you if I want to make another appointment then."

So, as I said... That was a waste of an hour ;)

I checked the details I had available to me. Even now, I have no idea where this place is actually supposed to be, they simply haven't given me the information. I'm not convinved I'll bother looking at any more of the properties that they have advertised ;)

Time For a Quick One

Viewing today @ 4:15pm. Absolute top-end of my budget, but may be furnished to the degree you see on "property porn".

Humph

Just found out that the place I was interested in already has a deposit on it.

The landlord is abroad at the moment so had been awkward to contact. When the estate agent did reach him, he found out another estate agent had already taken someone's deposit even by the time that I looked at it.
Apparently the landlord isn't entirely convinced that the other person will meet the credit check, and they'll get back to me if not.

Bit of a bugger, as it had a lot of good points. On top of that, it means I've 'wasted' most of today simply waiting to find that out (I began worrying at lunch time when I noticed the property had disappeared off the website). Had been waiting for the guy to call me anyway, e-mailed him this morning, called at lunchtime, then called again now at 3pm to finally find out - wish they'd have at least just told me asap. Ohhh well. Onwards and upwards!

Itsa Bitsa!

Does anyone remember that programme? I think it came along by the time Tony Hart had stopped doing stuff really. I think I was a little old for it by then, but my sister liked it.

Anyway, this is a bit of a "bitty" post :) But I can't remember why. I was GOING to start writing it a few hours ago, but one thing led to another, and that led to something else, and then that thing led me back to the first thing which had led me onto the other one, and frankly it all got a bit confusing after that.

Nuhmbar three tonight... It was ok. 1 bedroom, not a poor size (not great), location not bad. BUT, not available until around middle of December, AND, this is advertised at the same price as #1 I saw today.
Hmmm, that's a difficult comparison... #1 has double the bedrooms, and both the main bedroom and the living room are larger... Oh wait, not so difficult after all ;)

So, as it was only 5 mins away from #1, I swang back there on my way home. Just to "scope it out" at a different time. I got out the car and had a tiny wander. Nothing struck me as wrong. Can hear the main road all of the time, but I don't think it would be an issue. So, I think it shall be my intention to pursue it some more :)

As for how I'm feeling about the whole process at the moment in terms of the "relationship" aspects... I'm not feeling much. I think there's that element of concentrating on the "doings" so not being aware of it. I don't know though, hard to tell ;) As for Mrs Monkfish, we were talking about it earlier and she said she has started to realise that yes, it looks like I really might be going.
"Yes," I said, "I am."

The conversation started by her asking her what needed to change while I was away for me to arrive at whatever decision. I said I think it wasn't so much about change at the moment, so much as time. To work out where I want to be.
Wanting more solid things to work with than that, she asked about this and that, and I went over some examples I had given before and some new ones.
For example, I don't really mind what she eats, but she does eat excessively at the moment; it would be nice to see that solved (It is a shame - this time last year, she was en route to arriving at the lightest she has been since I've known her - she has now returned to the heaviest - she tried so so hard, and it's such a shame to see all that effort wasted, and, of course, it upsets her too).

Slightly smaller things included the TV. She had her therapy tonight. After she left, I turned the TV off. I don't really like it on when I'm not watching something specific, as I tend to watch whatever rubbish is on. The moment she got back in, she turned it on, without considering I may have wanted it off.
Now, the tricky part, is that overall, I'm not strongly opinionated on this in itself. After all, if she wants something on and I don't, then I simply wouldn't bother arguing because I don't care that much.
The problem comes from the fact that on a daily basis, I really don't mind all that much. But when you take a whoooole lot of days and stick them all next to each other, you do think, "Well, I wish she'd think of my viewpoint for a change".

Same thing with takeout food. I don't mind it occasionally. She knows I don't really like it though (I'm not especially keen on the food, nor am I especially keen in spending the money on it), but I really can't be bothered to argue that anymore. I can't be bothered to put up with the guilt & unhappiness (she tends to almost feel punished by this) at saying I don't want it.

Sorry wasn't really intending to rant specifically, but I think I did so ;) And I was planning to rant on a different subject!

Ordered a new GPS box recently to connect to my PDA (had one before, lost it - don't ask). Ordered the bit that gets the signal and a car mount for my PDA, both off of eBay.
The GPS thingy itself arrived today. The car mount people sent me an e-mail to tell me it wasn't in stock.

THEN WHY DID YOU PUT IT ON EBAY? Huh? :) Honestly. :) AND I know it said "In Stock" on the auction item at the time. What a fun waste of time ;)

Oh dear, been rambling far longer than I intended, best stop, time for bed :)

The Hunt is On

Viewed two more places this morning, and I have another scheduled for this evening.

Nuhmberr Wohne (Sorry, had an urge to 'say' that in an American accent. Think it's a random recollection of a tiny part of a TV programme many moons ago)

Fairly happy with this. Location is decent, relative to work and town. Close enough to work that I could theoretically walk to work, but I realistically would not do so (steep hill to climb, tight corners, no path in places I think, people drive too fast). Nice enough journey by car though ;)

3rd/top floor. Surprisingly spacious. Not specifically well presented, but well furnished. Two bedrooms - theoretically both double, but would be a squeeze in the second. Approaching the upper end of my budget, but location is good, it's furnished, and it's got two bedrooms, so it does a good job of justifying the price to me.

Standard term would be six months. Will find out about three, as people may just be keen to have someone in over Christmas. I'm more open to six now, though. Seems like something I need to consider, and I can at least come up with a use for it - if we decide to get back together, may make a useful temporary jumping ground to somewhere bigger to help break the "property chain" up a bit.

It was "bought to let" by the owner, but is managed the agency. Contact would be via them.

Nuhmbar Twoh (Still in silly accent ;)

Within very easy walking distance of work, which puts it into a very desirable postcode. The price reflects that. Absolute top end of my budget. Smaller than number one, but still two bedrooms. Unfurnished (The description hadn't specified). Again, contact would be via the agency. Heard it was unfurnished before I got there, but thought it would be worth a look anyway.
Would not say I was especially interested in it - I feel it's almost "too close" to work (Mrs M couldn't see how you could be "too close" ;), and I'm not sure I'd want to live in such a "desirable" postcode, regardless of price ;)
Even if it was the same price as number one, it's still both smaller and unfurnished, and I don't think I could reasonably justify the price to myself.

I expect this evening's to be more similar to number one than two, but will have to wait to find out. So, I'll find out what that looks like. Initial impressions are that I quite liked number one and will give it serious consideration on either three months or six.

Will update later, following number three :)

How was it for you?

Well, it was... "ok".

By no means great, nor was it quite as good as I was hoping for. But I could be at this game forever if I go looking for exactly what I want. I do need to be a little more spontaneous with this sort of thing.

In terms of "essential" furnishings, I think the only thing it didn't have was a bed. Had wardrobes and kitchen appliances. I don't mind needing to get one or two important things, though.

The minimimum let period is usually six months, and this is true with the majority of lets that this estate agents deals with. Said I was more thinking three at the moment. (I've no idea what's going to happen, ... )

Estate agent will speak to landlord this afternoon to see about that. I added that I was keen to get things moving as fast as possible if it was a goer.

Not sure how I felt about it overall. Not enamoured by it, and I don't think I'd want to live there "long term". Might "do" for a few months though.

There were two doors and two staircases into the building, and presumably two doors to apartments located on the other side of each of those staircases/doors.
The door to the apartment next to "mine" (as the estate agent would say) appeared to have lost its glass, but its owner had thoughtfully put some newspaper in its place for a little light reading.

So, overall, not sure, but need to find out whether three months is a possibility anyway.

---

Update, 16:10
Have requested details on a bunch more places. I liked the location relative to work of this one, and price-wise it seemed pretty reasonable, but having seen it I'm not so sure.

Bingo!

(Well, I was thinking of "House!" ;) )

A Well Presented 1 Bedroom Apartment Situated To The East Side Of Town.

Entrance Hall, Kitchen, Bedroom, Bathroom, Sitting Room Communal Garden And Allocated Parking.

Part Furnished. Available Immediately.

I have booked an appointment to see that at 1pm tomorrow.

There was another I liked the look of in the same area - I'm thinking ideally on the other side of town to here so it's convenient to both work & town, but also don't want to be right on a main road (What? IDEALLY I mean, don't HAVE to get all this ;) - but found out it had already been nabbed :)
Tomorrow at 1pm didn't sound bad when I said it, but all of a sudden it feels like an awwwwwwfully long time to wait ;)
AND I realised it means I'll be missing out on the pub! Tsk! ;)

I'm thinking furnished or part-furnished, subject to how much of a "part" "part-furnished" actually is ;)

I noticed this on one, which made me chuckle, "Flexible Furnishings".

I just have visions of a large coffee table ;) "Well, you can lay on it! Or sit on it! Or even use it as a table!"
Failing that, I guess it means "Bean bag" or "Poorly made furniture which cannot remain upright" :)

Flotsam and Jetsam

Had a few thoughts wash up along the shore of my mind:

• Pondered what Dianne said about it also being about not being heard. Yes, that's definitely true. Yes, sometimes I wish she would hear things without my saying them, but it hurts more when I do say them but she does not hear them. I cannot tell you how many times I told her I was unhappy, how many times I told her that I did not have infinite patience, and how many times I told her that things HAD to change, because I could not go on like this forever.
  I can understand her not knowing what do do with that. I can understand not having any idea how to change things. But you know what really hit me recently? When she said, "This is all kind of out of the blue to me. I mean, I thought everything was ok really, I had no idea things were this bad."
  I was somewhat stunned by that.
  "Well... Well what did you think I meant when I told you how unhappy I was? What did you think I meant when I said I couldn't go on like this? When you saw me be unhappy all weekend, and you KNEW why it was."
  "Well... ... I don't know... ... I didn't think you meant you might leave me though."
  "So... What did you think I meant?"
  "...I don't know."
  
• There's a lot of stuff that hurts. Some in general, some around specific events (e.g. what I wrote above, here, here, and other random things that still clearly bother me that I haven't got around to writing). Some of this is (IMO) justified, some of it (IMO) is not. Some of these things I have forgiven, some required forgiveness every day, some old wounds have re-opened (if someone stabs you once, you may forgive them. If someone stabs you 100 times, the 100th time is more difficult and makes you wonder about the previous 99 times), and some perhaps I have simply not forgiven. Some things used to seem so easy to forgive, it didn't even occur to me that they required forgiveness (e.g. if someone steps accidentally on your toes, I wouldn't think specifically to "forgive" them, because it was only an accident and it doesn't matter - but that is forgiving them), and the same things now are a strain to forgive. This is something I'll have to work on.
  
• She bought a car yesterday.
  
• I guess we're just waiting for me now, then. I've been looking at places online and requested some details, not got around to actually ringing yet, but I'll get there. This is all new ground for me.
  
• Her parents have been booked to come over this weekend for some time. We're not ready to tell them yet, so happy faces all round, please...
  

Just a mix of information and thoughts there. This post serves the purpose of allowing me to get my thoughts in order, and for you all to see what runs through my head :)
Hmm, I notice as I go to push the Publish button that it's 12:51. I'm going to have Strokes songs running through my head now ;)

Crispy Ramble

I was recently in a conversation with some Americans about crisps and favourite flavours. I remembered that conversation as I was doing my shopping yesterday, whilst staring blankly along the crisp isle.

That's why I decided to take this picture:


So, it's not like I randomly or often take photographs while I'm at the supermarket or something *cough*

But the thing is... How unfair is that? I mean of all the flavours, why can you get a packet of 26 Cheese & Onion but not any other single flavour? Like, especially, Salt & Vingear!
And, just to rub salt (& vinegar) in the wound, both types of variety 26 pack come with *4* Salt & Vinegars, but *5* Cheese & Onions!

It's so unfair. :-P

Also, keen observers may notice that you can get 14 bags for £1.99 (working out at just over 14p/packet), or 52 bags for £4.00 (working out at less than 8p/packet).

Now, I have to say, maybe it's just me, but even if I only wanted 14 bags, I don't think I could convince myself that it wasn't worth buying 52 ;)

Love Is Not Enough

Oh, how little did I realise that those words would haunt me when first I spoke them. This phrase has been echoing around my head for several weeks now. So I'm not intentionally disagreeing with Dianne ;)

I guess it actually occurred to me months ago. It was the first thing I said to Iona. She was talking about her arranged marriage and had said something like, "Love will see us through". I hadn't really been paying attention to the chat, and was just heading off when I saw her say that, and I dropped in "Love is not enough."

lol, the poor girl, she asked me what I meant by it, but I had to be off. I had a very apologetic e-mail from her the next day, most sincerely apologising for her blunt question.

Thinking about it even more, I guess I've known that for ages. It was, after all, effectively the point of my first post.

So, what did I mean? After all, how can any relationship built around two people who love each other have any serious problem?

Well, love is a stonkingly great big important part of a loving relationship. Probably the most important part. But that doesn't mean it's enough on its own. Bricks may be the most important part of a house, but that doesn't mean they're any good without mortar to hold them together, wood for the frame, or glass for the windows.

To name but a few other aspects in no particular sequence: Shared interests and activities. Honesty. Trust. Respect. Appreciation. Physical closeness. Understanding. Consideration.

Love should not be given conditionally. But there comes a point where after seven years, I cannot carry on trying. Too many other ingredients have been missing for too long, to hope that they may all of a sudden materialise now, even if now is starting to be the most likely time for them to materialise.

And I have tried to acknowledge that things are likely to get better now - she is on medication for her depression, and has started seeing someone about it. That's great, really, but that hope and the love we have has been all that has kept me going for so, so long.

I know she loves me, loves me more than I love her, and believes that I am wonderful. That too has kept me going for a long time.
I know she has been more positive recently, I know she has started to have more "up" moods. Her anti-depressants dosage was increased by 50% last week, and as she moves forwards in her own therapy, things can only be bound to keep looking up overall.

But right now, even if she were brimming with energy, loving, doting, and lottery-winning nymphomaniac, even if she got everything right, I think I would still look upon her with the negatives in my mind.

That is why I have to look at my own feelings now.

For as long as I can remember, I have always felt that I would know when everything was right. I would know when I was with a woman whom I loved and wanted to marry and spend the rest of my life with.

I have never had that feeling.

It's time to work out why.

On Saturday, we came up with a list of "practicalities" of things we would need to do if I were to move out. I had hoped that this exercise may have caused me to really think about it and realise what I was thinking. It didn't.

Yesterday at Relate, we did not book another session.

What now?

Well, for starters, we need a second car and to find somewhere for me to go.

Not doing anything now, or dragging our heels, doesn't make it feel like this decision has not been made, only that it it has not been carried out. After all, since this first seriously occurred to me, I have effectively made that decision every day not to go. But, she said, it still "felt like limbo".

What next?

Well, when I've found somewhere, I need to go there.

Is it all over?

No. I need to work out what I want. That doesn't mean that I will decide I don't want to come back (although it is a worrying possibility). The theoretical idea is to get some space for a time.

How long?

Well, it's hard to say, but a figure of one to three months has been bandied around.

And then?

We start seeing each other again. Work out what we want. Well. What I want.

She has... accepted the state of things as they are now, as much as she can. She cannot even consider, and will not talk about the possibility, that I may not wish to return.


Please do not think that this will be easy for me.

I do not have to do this. I do not want to do this.

But I believe that I do need to do this.

You Have To Let It All Go

Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.

Something, unfortunately, I have had trouble doing.

It's there, you see. Everything. All of the time. Lurking. You can try to ignore it, but that doesn't mean it's not there. And I have found no way to fight it.

Take the weekend before last, for example. She was actually quite cheery and positive on Friday. When she has energy like that, she often tends to want to do something with it. She had decided that it was time to decorate the bathroom!

Thinking about decorating the bathroom, is really not where I'm "at" at the moment ;) I told her this.

The next day, she was still charged with positive energy. She suggested going shopping, and that perhaps we could go to storage for me to get some different DVDs out to watch at some point.

I asked what type of shopping she meant, and why she had thought to want to go to storage.

Well, it transpired that "shopping" meant going around DIY places looking at paint. She wanted to go to storage because she wanted to get some decorating stuff out, and thought I could look at DVDs at the same time.

I pointed out that these were both things she wanted to do, with me tacked on as an after-thought. She agreed that they were... But only because she didn't know what we could do, so had tried to turn things she wanted to do into us things.
Ok, actually, I know, she is putting some effort in there (as she pointed out when we talked about it on the same day); she can't "just" think of things for us to do, so turned things she would like to do into things we could do.

But the bit that hurts is that it was still her that came first. The simple example I have given a few times recently (well, to Mrs M and to Relate), is of... The Chocolate Orange. A few weeks ago, perhaps a month, when Mrs M was off work for two weeks, she bought me a Chocolate Orange.
She bought me a Chocolate Orange because she had seen them on special offer and thought "Ooh, I'd like a Chocolate Orange! Oh, wait, I suppose Mr M will want some of it. I'll buy him one too!"

And, see, I know I should be thankful that I'm in there... But frankly, for the time being at least, I am really rather tired of always coming second.

We discussed this at the time, and we went through it again at Relate last Wednesday. At Relate, Mrs M did add another part that she had felt embaressed/shameful/guilty (one of those) to bring up alone.

"Before," she might not even have thought to turn those things from just "her" into "us". I know that's progress, really, I do, but I just cannot see it. I cannot let it go.

Last night we went for a meal out together.

She said I looked sad.

And I felt it.

Because I can't let it all go.

All Caught Up

See now, this is what I need :) Got no electricity during lunch here at work. Means I can finally force myself to concentrate on writing something here! :) (I'm writing this up in Notepad on my laptop in case you wondered at the logic there ;)

Actually, I had been meaning to write something last night (well, and for many nights before that, but particularly last night), but all of the time appeared to sort of disappear a bit :) Hmm... Can something appear to disappear? :)

Oh, looks like the power may be back already. Well, I'll just have to leave (Hmm, wrote "leave to have" the first time there - I do appear to be mixing my worms a lot when typing recently) my computer alone and turned off :)

As I (think I) mentioned before, we have another Relate session this evening - the first in 2.5 weeks.

But let's get y'all caught up on the bits I still haven't said. It's been long and I'm determined enough to get caught up, that I think I may even manage to come down from my usual level of perhaps too much detail :)
So, just to summarise the last Relate session I described, we didn't really figure which of the choices that we could come up with we should pursue - we pretty much eliminated the Psycho-Sexual Therapy, leaving getting some "space", or moving forwards into Couple Counselling instead.

So there was some irony that a couple of days after that we ended up having a bit of a snuggle that turned into a little more fun ;) Without going into too much info, I had a little fun, and whilst she felt she probably could have had some herself, she didn't really want the stress of having to "worry" about it (which I do understand, although it's also kind of a shame because I really miss it). In the... month I guess, since then, there have been a few occasions lasting two-three days where she has "thought" (said with a smile and a wiggle) about stuff, but nothing else. Yes, I know that where we are and the amount that's going on for both of us, that's pretty reasonable, but it's still kind of difficult not to get your hopes up sometimes. The last time we both had any "fun" together is still back in March, and I know the time before that was last Christmas, so I'm fairly confident that makes it twice over the last year now, which is by a long(ish) way the "slowest" year we have ever had in that regards.

Anyway, I digress. She decided she'd like to go visit her parents for a weekend. Her parents were free either "this weekend" or "next weekend" (relative to this taking place a month ago). I decided I'd like my sister to come over while Mrs M went to her parents, as I was already thinking about talking to her about stuff by then (as I said at the time). My sister works every-other Saturday, and she didn't work "this Saturday", which meant that Mrs M ended up seeing her parents "this week". It was a slight shame that the timing worked out like this, for two reasons - firstly, we'd just had our little fun together, and secondly, we wanted to think about what we our Relate-related decision before we actually got there. As Mrs M was off work at this time, she decided to make it a long weekend and went up Thursday night, returning Sunday evening.

My sister came up Friday night and went home Saturday afternoon (Mrs M and my sister weren't avoiding each other, was just how the timing had happened to work out). Got through a bottle of wine between us, and I an extra can of beer. For the amount I drink and my size, I was somewhat surprised I didn't feel all that drunk by then, but decided to make do and plucked up the courage to tell my sister that Mrs M and I were having problems. She listened well and was very understanding. As the person who knows both Mrs M and myself best, I think part of me was kind of wondering? hoping? that my sister may have been less understanding towards me. "You lot" ;) are understanding, but you have only my words to go on, so it feels [to me] like you have only half the story.

At the Relate session the next day, we decided to move forwards into Couple Counselling. Like I wouldn't have told you already if it were the other option ;) In terms of what to "bring" into Couple Counselling to talk about... The fact that I was thinking about moving out. Fortunately, the lady we were already seeing is indeed trained in that as well as Psycho-Sexual Therapy, so we didn't need to see anyone new or recount our histories again. Which was nice. :)

Skip forwards a week (that may be the shortest I have ever written about an entire week ;)) to our first Couple Counselling session (this is the last session we had, 2.5 weeks ago). Upon leaving, this was the most positive I have felt after having finished a Relate session so far. Unfortunately that feeling had faded after about an hour. But still, it was an interesting session.
I'd kind of like to go into more detail here, but I want to try to summarise still, or I'll (and you'll ;)) be here all day. We (my wife & I) spend a lot time in the same room. However, we were told to simply think about how we are interacting - are we doing something together, individually, or just sort of there with each other. Most of the time, it is probably the latter.
Was also interesting how we are each affected by the other's mood. When she is sad, I try to be happy to cheer her up. When I am sad but she is happy, she feels guilty about feeling happy (like it's just "rubbing it in", she said), so ends up also feeling sad. I have to say, it hadn't even occurred to me she thought like that. She admitted that when she is sad and I am happy, it does tend to cheer her up, so I found it strange she hadn't thought of that. It was suggested that we should each consider that we don't have to feel how the other is feeling, and it's ok to feel sad or it's ok to feel happy, etc.

Once it had all sunk in, I eventually felt kind of like we could both probably learn a lot of useful "tools" from Relate, that could perhaps improve things to a point better than they have ever been before... I am still not so sure whether that will be far enough.

Over the last couple of weeks, I feel there have been several times where I was unfairly irritated by things Mrs Monkfish did. I think there's an element there of no matter what she had done, I would have been irritated by it.

So, still been thinking about some space.

On Monday Mrs M had her first appointment with a counsellor/psychologist/therapist/person (I'm not sure what the differences are ;) regarding her depression. I gather it went well enough, and she has another session next week.

PHEW! I'm glad to get caught up. Err, even if it did take the best part of two hours. I don't think lunch break is quite that long... Anyway, as I said, I'd have liked to go into more detail on some, but then I wouldn't have ended up catching to as far as now, today.

So, perhaps I'll even write later on how tonight's session went ;)

Ssssh! I's huntin' wabbits!

So not only have I not written anything us recently, but I haven't even put up a good ramble! :)

I've had a few "rambly" generic posts in my mind, but I don't seem to have got around to writing them yet. Sorry about that :)

I think I've also been doing a poor job of actually leaving comments on the other blogs I read. I'm still reading them all, and often think of things to comment upon as I'm reading them, but then think "Ahh, I'll just write a comment later". And "later" has a nasty habit of never quite arriving ;)

I was off work Friday & Monday (had a little more holiday left than I realised and thought "Sod it, I'll take some then!" :), but I didn't really do anything of interest over that time. But, at the same time, it was quite nice to not do anything of any real interest :)

In terms of writing "relationship"-related posts, I think the "edge" got taken off of that by my now talking to my wife about most things as they occur. Nothing of any significance has really changed yet.
I'm feeling less emotionally "tangled" by it all at the moment. I think these things come and go. Of course, at the same time, I am still aware that I tend to end up thinking about it when I shouldn't, avoid thinking about it when I could ;)
Some of my biggest concerns seem to have settled down a little at the moment, and I'm back to feeling a bit more positive about things.

We had no Relate session this week, and the next one isn't until a week today. Honestly, what gives these people the right to think that they can have a day or two off ;) I demand that they be available to my every beck and call, 24/7! ;)

Actually though, perhaps in some ways that is indeed a good thing. I suppose it does help to have the indirect result of what some people suggested (Thank you Roses, Jen, Northern Monkey and Dianne for your comments and sorry I didn't get around to writing a proper reply to them - I'm glad someone else remembers Plop, Northern Monkey! :), in terms of giving us a little time to relax for a week and not be forced to think about it all.
Yes yes, ok, being forced to think about it all may to some extent be a necessity, but it is indeed good to have just a short break from time-to-time ;)

That's all (for now) folks ;)

Plop was a Barn Owl

And Plop was afraid of the dark.

And do you know what Plop used to ask more than anything else?

"That was nice. What's next?"

And, as "What's next?" seemed like it might be a pertinent question following my last post, I was reminded of young Plop :)
It is certainly not my intention to muddy the name of an innocent young barn owl (and especially not one who is afraid of the dark) by associating him with this story, but I felt it made a change from leaping straight in. It makes a change for me to ramble, doesn't it? ;) Well... Ish. ;) I have to say though, "Plop" is a fantastic name for a barn owl :) Well, actually, it's a pretty fantastic name for almost anything :) Although I don't think I'd consider naming my own child "Plop"... Hmmm, then again... ;)

Ooh, I's proper cultured, in't I. Talking about children's books ;) Does anyone else remember Plop? :)

But, as for what happened next... (Hello, gone a bit "Question of Sport" or something now)

We had a brief follow-up conversation later that night in bed. "You do make me happy," she said. But still, she's not happy in general. There's always at least one thing wrong, one thing worrying her, and a hundred things she wants that might make her happy. I think that's kind of the "point" of depression. But still... It doesn't really make it any easier.

Little was said on the subject after that until I brought it up again on the Sunday morning. She said that she had started trying to make more of a specific effort to try to think about things positively. I said that I had been wondering whether perhaps we had some individual problems we should try to look at solving ourselves, and that perhaps "our" issues couldn't really fall into place until we had made progress with them. I told her that I had been almost wondering whether I should move out for a bit to give us some space to look at those issues alone.
(See also: The irony of this compared to some of my earlier comments)

The next day, we talked about this, and all the thoughts and feelings over the last week, with Relate. Now, at this point, the Relate sessions had still been about trying to establish where we were, and how Relate could help us to move forwards, before seriously attempting to help get us there.
So, three options seemed to present themselves:
1. Continue with Relate into psycho-sexual therapy, as was our original intention
2. Continue with Relate into couple counselling
3. Get some space

1. Whilst this was our original intention when we first went decided to get some help and go to Relate, enough has changed that I (and RT) am no longer sure this is the most sensible action at the moment. I believe I have too much else on my mind to really concentrate on this at the moment.
(There we are again with the irony)

2. Now, something I learnt that I felt was interesting about couple counselling is that it seems you wouldn't "just" go to couple counselling. You go (or at least start) with a specific issue in mind to work on tackling. See, I'd always just assumed that you'd just "sort of go", but I can see it makes sense if you have a specific thing to focus on too. Examples of "things" you could "take into" couple counselling are the sexual issues ('though this would be less to do with the "physical" side, as with psycho-sexual therapy), or the fact that I think I want some space. I guess it's about equipping you with the tools to help communicate in general, as well as to do with a specific issue.

3. Not much more to be said, other than that we would get some space apart from each other for a while. I have a number of "reasons" to help "justify" this step. I'm not certain how many are actually reasons and how many are more... excuses... but that's my business ;) The main one is that I feel it would do us both some good. It would help give Mrs Monkfish some space to tackle her issues (i.e. depression), and I think would help her to be more aware of how she's doing than being together. For example, I think (hope) that it would largely solve the comfort eating. At the moment, simply my presence around her can stop her from over-eating. But I'm obviously not around her 24/7 (what with, y'know, working or, say, showering - little things like that), and its the times I'm not there that she'll eat somewhat more than she needs (it was this sort of thing that meant I did know I couldn't solve her food problems for her).
At the same time, I'm not sure that if she were to actually change her personality at the moment, whether I would actually see it, because I have got too caught up in how things have been for the last seven years (as of a few days ago we have officially lived together in this house for seven years, and there was a month or two before that of living together but with her parents) to see when they change. On top of that, I'm also concious of a number of issues I have with myself.
There's a lot of stuff that I do (or, more often, don't do), that I feel I want to challenge myself over. For some reason, I don't feel I can challenge myself with it together. I mean we're both terrible at cleaning the home for example, and I'm also absolutely terrible at just tidying my own desk and stuff. I want to take my excuses away and force myself to do some of these things, or accept that it's my own fault and that I can't blame it on anything else.
Blimey, it's a bloody good job there was "not much more to be said", or I could really have rambled on there ;) I could keep going, but for now, I'll leave that there.

So anyway, of those three options, we had to work out which one to pursue. RT and I were against 1. That was slightly surprising to Mrs M, as she had thought for so long that it was the only problem. As I pointed out, for a long time, it was pretty much the only one. It was only recently that things seemed to (d)evolve into more.

And what option did we decide on? We didn't. We ran out of time ;) So we were set the task of considering it amongst ourselves to work it out for next week.

I'd been hoping to get a bit more covered than this, but I think that'll have to do for now. There's always more than you think to these things! :)

Wait, what's that I hear you say? "That was nice... What's next?" ;)

Only the Crumbliest...

So, just now as I ate a Flake, which was being all crumbly and flakey (which was interesting, because the last one I had wasn't especially crumbly or flakey), I found my mind wandering back to the infamous "Flake Girl" advert in the bath.
Under usual circumstances, I'd provide some sort of linkage to the advert here, but unfortunately I have failed miserably to find a copy of the advert online at the moment. Although I can tell you it's from 1991 :)

Anyway. So. Right. Ladies, I'd like your imaginations here, please :) Imagine this... You're in the bath. Relaxing. Forgetting about everything else going on in the world, and just enjoying the moment. You close your eyes, just enjoying doing nothing for a minute. You open your eyes... And there it is. A Cadbury's Flake, just sitting there. Begging to be delicately unwrapped, to be slowly eaten and savoured.

"This," you might think to yourself, "is going to be delicious. For it is the crumbliest, flakiest of chocolate!"

And then... "Bugger that!" would you not think? "I'd get chocolate all over me tits!"

I mean there you are enjoying a bath, do you really want bits of chocolate floating about in the water? :) I mean how are you going to get clean if every time you move you find a lump of chocolate trying to attach itself to you? :) And well, let's face it, if you've another half about the house, you couldn't possibly let them know that not only are you having a nice bath, but you're also getting covered in chocolate. I mean that's just asking for trouble isn't it ;)

So, am I wrong, or have I just shattered the illusion? ;)

A Long Thursday

Gosh, has it really been a week since I last posted a summary of recent events? I'm not sure why I've got so bad at this recently. I could try to guess, but that's all it would be, and I don't think it really matters.

So, Mrs Monkfish discovered she had depression, and a week later got signed off work for two weeks due to stress.

In terms of how I felt at that point... Well, it was kind of odd, y'know. Depression is one of those things I have never really understood. I suspect it's one of those things you can't REALLY understand unless you've suffered with it.
I remember when I was about 16, soon after I first started using Internet chat, one of the regulars in a place I visited was always talking about suffering from depression. I remember thinking, "Well stop harping on about it and you probably wouldn't feel so bad!"
So, perhaps a slight lack of understanding, but overall, pleased that it had been identified. I mean that's obviously a positive step on the road to doing something about it. Things are looking good now, y'see? We're going to Relate to sort our issues out, and she can start doing things to help sort her issues out. Sure, it's still difficult, but I'm still managing to feel positive...

The next day (Thursday 28th September) was a fairly long day. It was just one of those busy days at work, with a lot of short tempers all round. Fortunately, I didn't get anything directed at me, but it still makes for a stressful day - especially if you have a lot on your mind anyway. Driving home, I remember feeling tense, too much energy. I thought I might go for a short walk or even a run when I got home.
When I got home, I decided I was too hungry to bother doing that sort of thing immediately, so I just got changed, got some food, and watched some TV.
By the time my food had settled and the TV programme was over, I felt less tense, but still irritable. Random thoughts were still pounding my mind from all directions. I decided to go for a walk anyway.
Despite it being dark by then, I decided to walk up the hill, past what I'm told is one of the roughest pubs in the area. I couldn't really be bothered to worry about that, and it was a fairly clear night, and I just figured there'd be a nice view from up the top of the hill.
Sure enough, I leaned against a broken street light and gazed out at it all. You can forget what a place is actually like when all you can see are twinkly lights gazing back at you :) And the moon was looking pretty cool too. I always used to enjoy walking at night. I have happy memories of going to/from friends' houses from when I was younger :)

But it was out while I was having that walk that a few things really properly sunk in and hit me at a concious level.

I did know that I couldn't really solve her problems for her (although perhaps that didn't stop me trying), but I always tried to provide whatever help I could to help her solve them. And in general, I'd just try to make her happy. Or provide her with encouragement to try to get over the things that made her unhappy.
But at this point, I properly realised... There will always be something that she is unhappy about. I can't make her happy.

Certainly, one thing I used to think about all the sex was that at least it would give me one thing to be happy about, to help give me the energy to continue trying to make her happy with all the other things she feels are wrong with her life.

When I got home, I pretty much told her all of that.

"I'm like a pizza," I said, "I can only give you short-term happiness."
"I am happy with you," she said.
"Yes," I said, "But you're not happy."

Obviously, this conversation went on for some time, but I don't remember every detail, and you can gather the gist of most of it yourselves. She said that she'd need a couple of days to absorb what I had said.

It was at this point, that things suddenly started feeling a whoooole lot more difficult.

Oh, and that was on top of the fact that it was today that the ADSL died ;)

Ahh-ha!

After more conversations with BT yesterday trying to figure out why they had closed the fault when the ADSL still wasn't working (when I had been previously told that the ADSL not working would definitely be fixed by BT, as it was them what "broke" it, and that I definitely did not need to contact my ISP).

Call Centre Monkey #1 (who put me on hold some five times during the conversation) kept telling me to contact my ISP about it. Every time I asked "So what's changed for the fault to be closed today when the phoneline has been working for the last five days?" he seemed to put me on hold, come back, then answer a different question, before each time telling me I had to get my ISP to fix the problem.
He eventually agreed that he'd get his supervisor to call me back, as she was supposed to have been dealing with the problem anyway (I spoke to her on Saturday).

Just as I had given up hope of her phoning back, she phoned back. She explained that the ADSL fault had indeed been reported to BT Wholesale (who provide ADSL to other ISPs who then resell it as their own), so I did not need to contact my ISP to report the fault.
However, because it was no longer a line fault, the existing BT fault had been closed, and if I wanted to track the ADSL status, I had to contact my ISP to find out what was happening, and BT Wholesale could provide them with updates (BT Wholesale obviously isn't allowed to speak to normal BT).

Well, that seemed to make sense, so I accepted that they closed the fault, and that they could close the new one. (I had to report a new fault to be able to talk to the call centre, as if it didn't think I had a fault on the line the automated system just kept telling me to sod off :)

So, I immediately contact my ISP to let them know. "Well," said the bloke at the other end of the line, "I've never heard of BT being able to report a fault to BT Wholesale before. ... Wait, have you ever actually connected using us? It says here your ADSL is due to be activated on the 17th."
"Ummm, ye-eees..."
"One moment..." [on hold for 30seconds]
"Ok, it looks like what happened is that BT had to replace the line, so they had to issue a cease & reprovide order on the ADSL, and you'll have to wait for it to activated again on the 17th."
"I see. BT suggested it would be fixed Friday...?"
"Well, depending on how busy they are, they are often able to activate the line ahead of schedule."
"Ok, thanks for your help!"

See now if someone at BT could simply have said, "we've had to replace your line and order a new ADSL activation on it", I'd have been (relatively) happy, but they never gave me an answer as straight forward as that! They have to send you 'round the houses with all sorts of meaningless gibberish that they make up as they go along.

Anyway.

It's working now! :)

At bloody last ;)

Meanwhile

If I can believe what BT told me on Saturday, we should have our ADSL fixed around a week from today. If I can be bothered trying to speak to them, I might ring them this afternoon to check they haven't changed their minds on that ;)

Got around to checking my regular e-mail account yesterday. Just the odd 4,094 e-mails in the nearly two weeks since we lost the 'net. I'm almost pleasantly surprised to be honest - I was almost expecting more!
Still, I'm slowly wading through the spam (normally a whole bunch of filters set up to waft it out) and pulling out the genuine stuff. So, I'm sorry "Minnows G. Outflanked", "Boss C. Reasonably", "Exterminated E. Vortices", "Foulness D. Perversity", and by no means forgetting "Lushness R. Breaststroke", and the many other crazy names in my Inbox, but you're all getting deleted. ;)

Bah. I just finished reading all the short bits I was interested in. No exciting big new articles. And then someone goes and asks me a bunch of random questions while proceeding to tell me the story of how he got to asking me those questions in a random sequence and missing out random bits, and giving way more information than I need at the rest. Oh well. Back to weeding out spam for now, I think.

Catch Up Continued

So. So far, I've caught y'all up as far as... The 18th September, which was my last solo Relate session. Hmm. If I was at school, I'm sure someone should remark, "Could do better." ;)
Part of this is because I just haven't absorbed all the information myself yet, and part of it is because I either don't have the time, and/or just haven't put the effort in ;) Focussed rambling clearly requires more effort than my usual type ;)

The next day, my wife had a long and stressful day at work. But it didn't stop there, oh no. I decided to leap in and get telling her about my blog over and done with. She could understand why I had started it and its purpose and didn't mind that. She was a bit upset that I had a new community & friends to talk to that she didn't know about. She was most upset when I said that I couldn't really remember what it was I like about her anymore.

So, that was a fairly long day.

But the long days didn't end there, oh no (again). The next day (Wednesday) she had a doctor's appointment. Indirectly, this was as a result of her yearly check with regards to her throxin levels, however her basic attitude towards that was that "if there were anything wrong, they would tell her".
However, I had been telling her for some time that she should talk to the doctor about how she felt in general, and then the Relate lady strongly suggested this to at our first meeting.
At some point before this, after Mrs Monkfish had been wondering why she needed to talk to the doctor and what he could possibly do for her, and I had at some point snapped that she could have depression or something.
Just prior to her going to the doctor, I found out that she had been onto the NHS Direct site and looked up the symptoms of depression. Of the say ten symptoms, I think she said the only ones she didn't tick were something like "Suicidal tendencies", "Constipation", and "loss of appetite" (she had a chuckle over that one).
The doctor had a similar list of symptoms that she also ticked off one-by-one. She came out of the doctor's with a set of anti-depressants and an appointment for the next Wednesday.
The anti-depressants will take a few weeks to kick in, and have a "fun" looking list of side-effects as long as your arm. Touch wood, she seems to be ok so far, and has seemed a little cheerier recently. I'm not sure how much of that is due to a concerted effort from her, and how much is a result of the anti-depressants. I guess it's probably a bit of both.

She continued to feel stressed at work, but overall, not much happened until the following Monday (25th September) at her second solo Relate session (her first one had been during a cancellation spot on a weekday morning).
She spoke to RT about what the doctor had told her, and RT gave her a lot of helpful information - in fact, I think she was more helpful than the doctor! (She felt the doctor was sympathetic and understanding, but I don't get the feeling he really gave her much advice as to a long-term solution)

The bit that hit my wife most during this solo Relate session (my wife & I talked about it afterwards, in case you were wondering) was that RT asked her, "what do you think other people think of you?"
My wife couldn't really answer this, and said "Well. I don't know what other people think of me."
So RT then asked, "What do you think of yourself?"

Now, my wife knows that physically she doesn't have a high opinion of herself. She doesn't like her body, which is why she's always flip-flopping into/out of diets. I have said many times that I don't care what she looks like so long as she's happy.

But in answering this question, my wife suddenly realised that it wasn't just physically she didn't have anything positive to say about herself... She didn't have anything positive to say about herself, at all.
"And that," I pointed out afterwards, "is a symptom of depression, if ever I heard of one."
This realisation was somewhat upsetting to her, though (As I'm sure you can imagine).

I don't remember what my wife said that she said about her parents exactly. In summary though, her Mum is an optimist and her Dad is a pessimist. I wouldn't be surprised if he suffered from depression too, to be honest. Her Dad is fairly negative, and often puts both Mrs Monkfish and her mother down. I don't believe he really means to hurt them, it's just the way he is. You can see he misses "his little girl" being around, because sometimes for example, as we are leaving after having been there for a weekend (it's a 2.5-3hour drive), he will have to run away quickly.
Sometimes, even although he and they half-know he's joking about some stuff, I will tend to throw it back at him when he says stuff about other people. For example, if he says something about his weight, he might blame it on "these big dinners she keeps cooking me".
"Oh yes," I will say, "I'm sure it has nothing to do with the large pork pie, sandwich and packet of crisps you had in-between meals."
Oh dear, I appear to have just soaked my keyboard in a hearty dose of sarcasm, please bear with me while I mop up ;)
Psychologically, I can certainly see my wife will have inherited some issues from her Dad. I mean, one that I really can't understand is one I mentioned at the end of my last session to RT.
I mentioned it because I wasn't sure my wife would remember (in general, I have a better memory than her, particularly for conversations, although this was obviously no normal conversation), and also because I just wasn't sure she'd mention it.

Some years ago, while my wife's parents were still "over here", her Dad was walking my wife back to the car (I wasn't there), when he told her, "years ago, [before my wife was either born, or was at least younger than two years] you know your mum had an affair with so-and-so."

Now, I can't imagine what would possess someone to say that for any reason in that manner. It's something my wife has never talked to her mum (or dad) about since then, and she didn't really have anything to say at the time. Her opinion is that he was just in a bad mood and wanted to lash out, and that it wasn't even true.
I personally cannot even comprehend someone saying something like that for reasons so petty.
I said to RT that I almost wondered if it was true. With her mum being an optimist, and her dad being a pessimist, I can obviously see a reflection of us there. I wonder... Could you keep going easier, if it was based on guilt as well as love?

This was apparently something my wife didn't mention. She said she thought of it at some point, but because she believes her Dad only said it to hurt her, she didn't think it relevant. She said that in general, she answered RT's questions. I think that's a subtle point when being "truthful", and I imagine it's what is meant by "the whole truth". You can truthfully answer someone's questions, but that doesn't mean you are giving them "the whole truth".

So anyway. That was (yet another) long day. But did it end there? Ohhh no ;)

Two days later (Wednesday), my wife was still feeling stressed by work when she went for her doctor's appointment. She talked about some longer-term solutions to the depression (i.e. talking to someone) with the doctor, and she intends at some point (i.e. when we have Internet access back again) to look up psychologists/therapists/whoever it is that you speak to about such things in our area.
She also told the doctor how stressed she had been feeling at work. This is mostly because there's a major project that she's supposed to be managing, but she keeps on not managing. She wanted the "Manager" title in her current position, but she's decided she doesn't actually want or like the responsibility. The doctor gave her some anti-anxiety pills (there were often times she was feeling stressed and tearful about it all), and he asked whether she had much holiday available. She said that she did not (ooh, that was cunning, she's got like most of it still available!), and he signed her off work for two weeks. So, she went in for the rest of that day, and used two days of holiday as well. So she had that Thursday & Friday off, all of last week, and now she'll still be off all of this week.
All that time and no ADSL! What a tragedy of circumstances!

lol, as an aside, I had to laugh on Saturday. My wife had asked me to speak to our neighbour to see whether we could latch onto his wireless connection. She asked me to ask him because I know him marginally better, because when our neighbours moved in, I set up our Internet connection so that they could use it wirelessly for a few weeks until they got theirs installed.
So I was probably going to speak to him about this on the Saturday... When all of a sudden, he was at the door... "Alright there mate, I was wondering, would you mind if I used your wireless connection again? See my mate's got this new Dell PC, and it needs all the WindowsUpdates, but we cancelled our Internet connection a few weeks ago due to the move, so don't have it at the moment, but thought it might be easier to do using ADSL. So would you mind if we used yours again?"
"Ah," I said, "I don't mind in theory, but there is ooone smallll proooblem..." ;)
(He broke up with his partner a little while back, so is now in the process of selling the house to move back in with his parents for a while, as it's a bit expensive to keep going on his own).

Right then. Overall, I think I've put in a lot of information there, and I think I'll leave it there for now (so that's left umm 12 days ago, taking us up to 27th September).

Sorry for standard rambling in-between, but there was a lot to get out there and it was difficult to concentrate on the main bits ;) (You know how it is, you start saying one thing, then you remember something else, then all of a sudden another bit hits you, etc. etc.)

Thanks for reading. Now, go rest your eyes for a bit ;)

Oh for #!?$'s Sake!

So, having been speaking to BT some more today....

Indian 1: "Can't do anything, there's already an open fault."
Me: "Yes, but nothing has happened for several days and I wanted an update."
Indian 1: "Well, the fault is still open so they are still doing something."
Me: "Yes, but I phoned twice yesterday, and I was told that you need to speak to the fault centre to find out more."
Indian 1: "Yes, but the fault is still open."
Me: "Can you tell me the date that something last happened?"
Indian 1: "I said, 'the fault is still open'."
Me: "Erm, yes, but can you tell me the date that something last happened?"
Indian 1: "The date?"
Me: "Yes, the date"
Indian 1: "I don't have the date."
Me: "Right, well we first reported this fault on the 8th September, and we lost ADSL on the 28th September, to have our phoneline restored on the 2nd October. I haven't heard anything from BT since the 19th, when we had to re-report the fault. I was told twice yesterday that you needed to speak to someone else, but the first time I got cut off while on hold, and the second time I was told the other department wasn't open."
Indian 1: "I see. I'll have to speak to someone else."
Me: "Ok."
[lalalalala, silly on hold music, lalalalala]
Indian 1: "I've spoken to the engineer. It will be at least two weeks until the fault is fixed."
Me: "Two weeks!? So that will be three weeks with no ADSL, and a month and a half since we first reported the fault"
Indian 1: "Well, I'm very sorry..."
[I ask some technical-ish questions, such as whether this affects just us, or other people at the exchange too. I eventually get fed up with a lack of answers, and ask to speak to someone who actually can answer my questions]
[lalalalala, on hold music again]
Indian 2: "Hello, I'm the fault report manager."
Me: "Hello, [summarises history of fault]."
Indian 2: "Well, it says here that on the 28th they had to disable your ADSL because that caused the fault on the phoneline. You need to contact your ISP to get the fault fixed."
Me: "Excuse me?"
Indian 2: "Well, it says here that on the 28th they had to disable your ADSL because that caused the fault on the phoneline. You need to contact your ISP to get the fault fixed."
Me: "Why has nobody told me this before!? I've phoned three times and not been told this, and last week my wife phoned and was simply told, 'we can't do anything while there's an open fault'. You're now telling me the fault won't get fixed until I contact my ISP?"
Indian 2: "Well, I don't know why you weren't told, it's in big letters on your file."
Me: "So, let me get this straight. There was a problem with the phone, which BT solved by turning off the ADSL - but you didn't actually get the ADSL people to investigate the fault!?"
Indian 2: "Oh no, we're not authorised to ask BT Wholesale to investigate an ADSL fault."
Me: "But.. the ADSL was fine until you turned it off on the 28th!"
Indian 2: "Yes, because the ADSL was causing the telephone fault."
Me: "So you couldn't report the fault to yourselves!?"
Indian 2: "Oh no, we're not authorised to speak to BT Wholesale."
[This conversation lasted a few minutes]
Me: "Right then. So, before the fault can get fixed, I need to contact my ISP to get them to ask BT Wholesale to investigate."
Indian 2: "Yes."
Me: "So will we still receive compensation for this? We were told we'd receive £1/day." (Doesn't sound much, but by now we're talking about almost £30!)
Indian 2: "Well, the fault is still active, so you'll still be receiving compensation, yes. You'll have to claim that at the end."
Me: "Right. I see. So even although the phoneline is now working, because the ADSL isn't working, we'll still receive compensation?"
Indian 2: "Yes, we'll leave the fault open until then. I imagine those engineers will still need to do something anyway."
[blah blah blah, more questions, including asking why nobody had told me I needed to contact my ISP, and I assume they will ensure this doesn't happen to other people in the future]

[I contact my ISP]

My ISP (whom I actually trust): "Well, I don't know why BT told you that. Phone faults take precedence over ADSL faults, and BT Wholesale refuse to investigate a problem while there is an open fault on the line."

Oh God :)

IT'S ENOUGH TO DRIVE A PERFECTLY SANE PERSON CRAZEH!

Grrrrrrrr :)

On the plus side, I finally got around to fixing our tap last night.

I had previously bought a large selection of washers, but still didn't have one to fit the existing tap innards/pipe. So, it was time for... INSPECTOR MONKFISH'S FABULOUS TOOL INVENTION NUMBER TWO! Whoo! :)
(Number one was a device consisting of: A washing up brush, two cable ties, a squidgy sponge thing, some kitchen towel - used for cleaning the outside of our upstairs windows, which cannot be reached from outside)

And what was it? Well, it was a work of art, I tell you ;)

Ingredients:
Two files
One hand drill
Several toolboxes
One washer (slightly too large)
One wrench

The problem:
The hole in the middle of the washer is slightly too small. The overall diameter of the washer is slightly too large.

The solution:
1. Enlarge hole (easy to achieve through use of drill bits, or anything else that fits inside hole but is slightly larger than the existing hole)
2. Consider: How to make a round thing smaller using a straight file.
The answer?

• In order to make a round object evenly smaller, we'll want to evenly shrink all "sides", or we'll end up with something which doesn't fit.
  
• To do this, we'll want to rotate it.
  
• Using a drill? Seems most practical.
  
• How to attach it?
  
• Well, the handle of the small file fits securely through the middle of the washer.
  
• The other end ('business end') of the small file can fit into the hand drill! (Cunning, I thought ;)
  
• We then have a device for quickly rotating the washer which must be shrunk!
  
• Using the larger file, secure it in a position which is able to be used in conjunction with the infernal contraption (drill+file+washer, probably a good 50-60cms in total length)
  
• This is achieved using a combination of the wrench and the toolboxes.
  
• Using drill, rotate washer against the larger secured file.
  
• Eventually, the hole in the middle grew too large, and some manual filing was required (still, I'm sure you'll agree, it was a great idea in theory ;)
  
• After quite a bit of work, I eventually had a replacement washer to fit the non-standard cold tap! (The hot tap is perfectly fine, and I had already placed its innards - for some reason the cold tap and hot tap are actually COMPLETELY different taps!?)
  
• Finally... Success! Bwaahahahahahahahahahahaha! Take that you bloody tap! ;)
  

See, that's what happens when you have no Internet and the wife has gone to her parents' for a long weekend ;)

Tomorrow... THE WORLD!

(Preferably using some sort of innovative "world conquering" device, which I shall attempt to fashion from two junk mail envelopes, a short length of network cable, and an out-of-date bottle of barbecue sauce)

Failing that, I could just make do with providing snacks to my parents who are dropping my sister off for the weekend. (She apparently needs a new steering rack in)

(Well, I say "she", I actually mean "her car")

(Anyone who thought my sister was in need of a new steering rack should probably consult your GP to obtain further information on the difference between people and cars)

(Nor was it slang. I am not going to start talking about my sister's rack, thank you very much!)

(Yes, I am feeling better for all these bracketed sentences and extra-strong rambling ;)

Have a good weekend, people. Looks like I'll still be without the 'net for a while yet.

My Parents (& Sister)

"What," asked RT, "is your mother like?"

I grinned. "Daft," I said.

I then made my apologies on her behalf, but really, she did fall for the old "Did you know they've taken the word 'gullible' out of the dictionary?" ;) And don't get me started on the story about "Oh, that must be the electrician's phone number..." :)
Anyway, having been done with being rude about her, I moved on to the rest.

Caring... But I used to feel she was too caring. Perhaps over-protective. Optimistic. Trying to describe how someone is, it's all of a sudden quite difficult to do :)
A basic example I gave was how when I was younger, I had some friends a year younger than me, but they would have watched films that I wasn't allowed to watch, etc.

"And what is your dad like?"

"Ermmm. Errrmmmmm. Hmm. He's... just... sort of like my dad" :) I eventually managed to say.

I mean it's not something I'd thought about before! :) I'm not sure what made it easier for me to pick some words out of the air about my Mum that I couldn't do for my Dad, but clearly there must be something.
I mean my Dad's always been around and everything, it's not like I didn't/don't know him, it's just that I felt at a loss to DESCRIBE him.

In the end, the best I managed to say really was that in recent times, I've noticed I seem to take after my Dad a fair bit in terms of different bits of my personality :) We have a similar sense of humour (i.e. terrible ;), and there are other things he's said that strike me about myself.
For example, he was recently saying about how when he used to work at a factory, he would sometimes wander around the floor and look at other people doing their jobs. And sometimes he would realise someone was getting something wrong, or could help someone, or that two people doing similar things could work better together and that sort of thing :) But he wasn't like 'important' in terms of 'rank' at the factory. Just another person doing another job. :)
And my Mum and sister were laughing at this, because rather than concentrating on his own job, he was 'buggering about' getting in other peoples' way ;)

But I'm like, "I do that!!" :) At my company, I am sometimes known as "The Wandering Man" ;) ... Normally just as I have wandered into or past a room, and someone has then started a sentence with, "Although, while you're there..." :)
This is only a small company, but after my two bosses, I tend to have a better idea of what everyone else is working on than anyone else does. And there are often times I'll wander along to someone (especially if I can hear them swearing ;) and ask what they're working on, and be able to help point them in a new direction (if they want it, that is... I don't just stick my nose in... well... sometimes, perhaps... ;)
My Mum and sister had a good laugh at all of this, as they both thought we were quite clearly completely loopy ;)

ANYWAY :) (I didn't go into that much detail at Relate ;)

I have believed in general that I come from a fairly average and normal background. Recently, disappointingly, I have begun to wonder exactly how "normal" that is these days.

See, I have never had any doubt that my parents don't love each other. I'm not saying everything has always been perfect, they'd have perfectly normal disagreements sometimes, but I don't ever recall having observed any serious problems between them.
I realised in recent years that my birthday is some seven months after they got married (ooh, the shame! The shame! ;), but I don't think for a moment that that was why they got married.

In terms of Relate, RT asked whether I knew how they "dealt" with problems. No idea :)

RT asked whether I would have talked to them growing up, about sex or anything. Not really; it would have been embarressing. Little odd talking to your parents about that sort of thing - I'm sure they wouldn't have MINDED, but, they're like, your parents ;)
In general, if I had anything going on in my life, particularly with regards to those girl thingmies, I would have wanted my mum to be the last to know. Because she'd have taken (gah! ;) an interest. Of course, I'm sure we've all been there ;)
My parents had talked to me about sex though, and the day before I first met my wife with a view to staying overnight with her, my Mum tried to give me some condoms (Oh, the embaressment! ;), which I said I would not need as it really wasn't that sort of thing (and I had already bought some anyway ;)

In terms of growing up in general, RT asked whether they ever smacked me or anything. They did, probably particularly as I was actually a bit older (teens) (that seems slightly odd now in some ways, thinking about it), and I would be particularly frustrating by never doing homework. Of course, being a teenager, whenever my Mum shouted at me, I would just shout back, which obviously did not help matters calm down. My Dad was ok mostly, but it would all really annoy my mum - I guess she knew I was clever, but didn't bother putting the effort in. I am not however conciously aware that I carry any particular issues as a result of this. Was just part of growing up, and I was never seriously hurt at all.

Oh, I think there was a bit on my sister, too. She seemed to get everything easier, although I mostly ascribe this to the fact that me, being two-and-a-half years older, had already fought most of the battles that she then fought herself.

My sister and I could also get very shouty at each other before I left home, and this wasn't usually helped by the fact that usually my Mum and sister would be on the same "side", leaving me in a corner of my own.
Despite this, my sister is the only person I would have considered talking to about any every-day or "life" problems, I think. Even now, of people I know in real life, she's the only one I'm seriously considering talking to about everything, although it would be a little strange what with her being my sister ;)
Today, she at least has the advantage of knowing both Mr & Mrs Monkfish ;) On that side of things, if I spoke to her, at least I'd feel she had a balanced view, but on the other hand I might feel a bit guilty about telling her everything about my wife.
Anyway, I'm not asking for opinions or advice here really, I just mentioned it as it was related ;) It's something I'm still thinking through a little.

When I was still living at home, I definitely always felt I wanted to move out when I could. I love them all, but we did drive each other up the wall ;) I think I've said before we definitely get on much better not having to permanently put up with each other ;)

Right, well, there we go. That's... pretty much everything, I think ;) I think I've at least mentioned the questions RT asked, and how I answered them, as well as having given a whole bunch of additional information as well ;) See, aren't you all lucky :) (or bored. One of those two ;)

The most important part of this post to me (that necessitated this one being written before some others) was that, to the best of my knowledge, my parents love each other, and are happy together. And I think that that has perhaps an enormous effect on how I think a relationship should be (unsurprisingly, I should think).

Where Am I?

In short: Catching up. ;) There's been quite a lot to absorb over the last couple of weeks, which is part of the reason why I haven't got around to blogging about it yet... Can't very easily write about it if I don't know what I'm thinking ;) Well, ok, that doesn't usually stop me ;)

With regards to Relate, these first few sessions have been more about "learning" about us than anything else, so nothing too directly helpful yet, as the "meat" of the therapy is yet to come. Some of the questions asked (such as those I mentioned here) have made me think a bit about the answers.
I guess it helped push me a little into telling my wife about my blog and everything. RT hadn't directly suggested I do that, but I had wanted to say something about it for some time.

I think the thing I've learnt so far more than anything else I had already learnt from what people had said to my blog here (thanks people :). Communication. With telling my wife all about my blog, it opened up the floor for me to be honest about everything else again.

Years ago, I started telling my wife I wasn't happy about how things were, because I knew it was the right thing to do. To talk about the problem and try to find a way to solve it together - if there was anything she thought would help, or that she thought she wanted from me, I would get/give it. And then a few weeks would pass, and we'd have the same conversation again.
It was only recently, as I started getting seriously worried, that I began more of "not saying things".

But anyway. Communication is key, even (or especially) when difficult. Well, and preferably doing something with the information learnt during such communication ;)

Where we are with Relate now... Well, you'll just need to wait for me to try to get caught up in my writings :) But I'm working on it! ;)

My Relate Session, 18th September

Gosh, this is getting confusing. I think about things to say on one subject, then I realise they're related to another subject, so I think "Well, I might as well just summarise it rather than detail" then I think "Yeah, but I had been intending on writing a post about that, and it seems silly to go to the trouble of summarising it only to go into detail the next day - surely more sensible to start on the detail, and refer back to it."

Well, I defeated myself with that logic ;) See, I had been planning on writing this post at some point anyway anyway (one of three days from last week that I thought people would like to hear more about), but then I thought I'd spend my time talking about wedding and marriage, following Northern Monkey's lead. Well, until I realised that some of what I was going to write there was related to this.

Now look at that, I've ended up saying the same thing twice... The summary the first time and the detail the second... What a stupid thing to do ;) I should have simply written the detail first and then referred back to it ;)

Anyway. This was my second (and a half) solo Relate session and, having spent enough time rambling about all things current (such as my blog), RT was finally able to get around to asking more "historical" and general questions.

I'm blogging this for a few reasons:
1. It might be interesting
2. There were a few questions that I wasn't really "prepared" for, not big things, just things I couldn't think of an answer to on the spot. Now, perhaps that's the idea ;) But, well, I thought they were mildly interesting things to muse over anyway :)

From memory (I didn't take notes ;), the conversation went something like this:

• Briefly: A spot on my blog (a blog spot, if you will ;)
  
• Dealing with stress
  
• My parents
  
• My wife
  
• Anything else to say or ask
  

Well, you all know by now what my decision was already with regards to my blog :) I checked with RT that she had no preference as to whether I told Mrs Monkfish at home, or at a Relate session together. My preference was to do it at home (hah!), and she agreed that sounded best. So I decided I'd tell my wife some time between then and my wife's solo session the following Monday.

The next question I got asked was about how did I deal with stress.

Well that was one I hadn't really thought about before :) So the best I could come up with was "Umm... I guess I don't really think about it". I then 'clarified' with, "But in a different way to my wife. She probably thinks about not thinking about it, whilst I just don't."

Pretty poor answer, huh? ;) In the time since then, several more bits and bobs plopped into mind of their own accord. I don't think I'm a "stressed" person by nature (whilst I don't think of myself as being so specifically, I'm probably too laid back most of the time ;), so I think that's why I hadn't considered specifically what de-stressed me.
Of course, thinking about THAT some more since then, I realised that people who aren't stressed by nature are probably the type who most likely need a way of dealing with it when it hits them. People who are stressed all of the time probably have their own ways of dealing with it already well defined.

I think overall, doing almost anything which doesn't cause me to feel more stressed helps me to relax and unwind a bit. So whether it's watching a film, playing a game (on a loosely related note, I finished single-player Halo for the first time last night :), working, walking, wa..just kidding ;) But I even quite enjoy doing the boring old weekly shop in general :)

I'd like to say that in general, if something stresses me out, that I attempt to fix the problem (the cause of the stress) rather than the symptom (the relief of the stress). In reality though, I'm just not aware that I'm stressed by stuff that often, and in this case, it's not exactly a problem I can easily do something about.

My parents... I'll "deal" with that post separately, I think :)

My wife... Now here a question hit me. One that had occurred to me before, but I had eventually managed to realise that it was a fruitless exercise simply trying to remember. The question exactly was, "What do you like about your wife?"
I thought about it for a bit. I thought about it for a bit more. I answered, "I... don't know. That's part of the problem. But I recognise that I'm not exactly in the best of 'places' to attempt an answer right now."

When we later had the conversation about my blog and everything, this was roughly one of the things I told my wife. It was the thing she took away from that conversation as being most painful.

Anything else... I thought of one thing not directly related to me. I may mention that in the post about My Parents.

The Waiting Game

Rumour has it that as of today, our phoneline now appears to have been fixed (and actually fixed this time, as opposed to the "no bloody difference" last time they told us it was fixed - they even left the divert in place, clearly showing to my mind that they knew it wasn't fixed at all!), but ADSL is still dead.

BT engineers do worry me sometimes. I mean the first time I got a phoneline installed, not only did they have to replace the telegraph pole outside (taking out the phones for the entire road for a day), but when they then installed the line, there were FIVE major faults with the thing... Ranging from the socket having been wired up incorrectly, to problems at the exchange!

And when we got ADSL installed originally (some years ago before it was really popular - you had to have an engineer come to your house, rather than the "wires only" approach today), the night before installation, they managed to knock out the phoneline completely for some thirteen days. Cue three engineers turning up the next morning (each with their own van), each looking rather clueless.

So come on BT, pull your fingers out and sort it out :)

Meanwhile, I'm afraid I didn't get anything written this weekend. It's been a busy few weeks, and there's still quite a lot that I'd like to write about, if only for the sake of keeping my faithful followers fully.. formulated. Sorry, decided to take a run on the alliteration there ;)

I may try to get some more written today, but but but I notice I have missed a lot of IDF happenings (that's the Intel Developer Forum, but I bet you all already knew that ;) recently, so there's probably tons of exciting stuff to read about there ;)

No, really, there is! :) ... If you like that sort of thing. ;)

On a different (key?)note, we have our first joint Relate session tonight following on from the solo ones that we had. It's been a busy few weeks. We have a lot to talk about.

PS. I mean when you hear about silicon photonic interconnects doesn't it just sound like something made up for Star Trek? :) I mean, what does it mean!? :) Lasers built into computer chips!? Crazy stuff. What's next? Communicating with people all around the world without even leaving my desk? Oh... :)