Softly falling

I realised on Tuesday morning that I couldn't cope so I phoned my boss to tell her I was going to take a couple of days off to get my head together. I went back to work yesterday and she was so cool about it all which really surprised me as she's an older woman with no kids/husband - but it was great.

Ginger goes away this evening on trial for 2 weeks - hopefully it will all work out well. It's a bit sad though, I rode her yesterday and she was fantastic. I think I'd have found it all a lot less frustrating if every ride had been like that, but my nerves and stresses get in the way a lot of the time.

We're also tentatively putting the feelers out for somewhere new to live. I don't want to buy yet given the possibility that we might go back to the UK, but we want to get away from here because it's just too expensive and actually I want to be closer to town. It would save us up to 1000 a month which is some pretty good holidays. :-)

I haven't yet told my therapist that I lost the baby - I just can't face his reaction - "how do you feel?", "but how do you feel?"

WD40 lining

I lost the baby at the weekend which was upsetting but the positives are:

i) I know I can do it
ii) losses in the first trimester are largely down to chromosomal abnormalities
iii) I know I'm firing off both ovaries

I was at the doctor this morning and because I'd made an emergency phonecall to the surgery over the weekend she had on her screen that I was pregnant and she congratulated me. It's funny because it also said that I was bleeding - she didn't think this was a definite game-over. Nobody EVER tells you that you may very well bleed during pregnancy. In fact they need to print it on the back of the fucking pregnancy test box rather than letting you run out of your office screaming and threatening to commit hari-kari*. When I spoke to my cousin and a friend they both said "god yeh, I bled loads". WTF? What is this secrets of womanhood pamphlet and why didn't I get a copy?

So damn it, back in the saddle.

Darling BM said to me this morning as I was moaning about something he was doing in reference to our blonde daughter, "I think we'll have a dark-haired child". "Right then", I said, "I'll be home late tonight".

Work is good, apparently not many people took them up on their request for a voluntary pay cut. We've also been told that we're getting shiny new laptops & "clever" phones in August. Thank christ we're cost-cutting and not just firing people!

BM is trying to get back in to the army - he needs to speak to someone when he's in the UK in September. I could see myself being an army wife. *places OMO on window ledge*

*I told BM that my initial thoughts had included "fuck, I'm going to kill myself". He said he didn't want me to do that, that he'd be devastated. He went on to say that if I killed myself he'd have to kill the dogs and himself, he'd start with Poppy, then he'd feel better - at this point, Poppy with her absolutely perfect comedy timing went "oowooah". :-) I swear that dog has an excellent vocabulary!

We've really gone and done it this time

I'm pregnant. :-)

Obviously the fertility clinic pointed us in the right direction 5 weeks ago by telling us which hole to stick it in and to stop using condoms.

Revalation!

Following my appointment at the fertility clinic last month I was referred to a dietitian. I gritted my teeth and said "OK" because obviously if you refuse to go then they write "fat, ignorant, Jeremy-Kyle watching loser" on your notes and underline it in red. My intention was to go along, nod and say Yes, of course. i.e., lie.

But I turned up, went through the usual weighing and measuring - turns out my waist is 4cm bigger than is "required". 4cm? I can breathe in! ;-) I had a quick look around her office and realised she wasn't some bullshit artist so I came clean about the fact I don't eat carbs - believing them to be the tools of satan. She said she totally agreed and when we went through my diet she said she wished more people ate like that. So I came away from there feeling REALLY positive and clutching a book she's lent me. I have another appointment next week where she's going to assess the actual nutritional content of what I'm eating but overall it went really really well. I was expecting to be given some bullshit "pyramid" diet involving "eat 5 slices of bread a day".

I won 200k of new business yesterday afternoon. Yesterday afternoon they announced they were firing 400+ people.

Under pressure

I was NOT at all impressed with the mortgage advisor who neglected to ask a) how much I wanted to borrow or b) what type of mortgage I was interested in. He let it slip that he got a kick-back from the bank so wanted me to borrow as much as possible. I will have to find one who doesn't want me fixing a financial milstone/tombstone around my neck. :(

I've lost 9lbs since my new diet/exercise plan thank the lord.

Slippery slope

A year after I sold my house I feel I'm ready to try again - and boy have I learned a lot in the last few years.

I'm off to see a mortgage advisor on Monday to try and work something out. The house I want to buy is less than twice my salary in a nice end of town and I just want to get my living costs as low as poss.

Zat is zer news.

Shut up and put your money where your mouth is.

Another week draws to a close - a few more things learned.

Is this it?

They fuck you up, your ex's

Saturday we went kayaking with friends which was great fun. We all got burned to a crisp despite the application of sun tan lotion. Floating down the river in 30 degrees sunshine is just pure bliss. It was hardly the Zambezee which was just as well for my first go.

On Sunday I took Ginger out without a map and just went for it - got completely lost as is par for the course of course and so managed to see 3 countries from horseback - result! :-)

Little M wants me back. Whilst we're more intellectually compatible than BM and I, he was cruel to me. BM never hurts me and is always kind to me. *sigh*

Providing canteen banter

On Tuesday we popped along to the fertility clinic. We were asked lots of questions such as:

i) are you having sex
ii) do you ejaculate inside the vagina
iii) have you been sterilised

Fuck me, what sort of people do they have to deal with that these questions have to be asked? On the other hand, it's nice to know where we've been going wrong ... ;-)

Our answers obviously satisfied her and she wanted to physically examine us... um, OK then. So she told me to go and get undressed, n.b., she used the word undressed. Meanwhile BM was getting inspected. He'd had a shower just before coming to meet me fearing that this might happen, put on clean clothes and met me. To his horror as he pulled his foreskin back he discovered a rogue dog-hair - neither of them said anything. Although I'm sure she updated her notes to read "dog-fucker, does not ejaculate in lady-friend".

Just as he sat back down with salty tears of shame rolling down his cheeks I step out of the bathroom butt naked - he just about fell of his chair laughing and she laughed and said "you didn't need to take that many clothes off, do you want to put some back on?" - by this point I felt it was a bit in for a penny, in for a pound so stayed as I was.

Feet in stirrups somewhat exposed I airily exclaimed "I'm told that by the time the baby comes you don't care who's watching" - this didn't really relax me much.

Dildocam. Wow! - It's basically a dildo and an ultrasound camera - hubba hubba. All my bits are in order apparently and she told me I was "normal" - having been embarassed in my nakedness I decided to turn on BM and ask him "are you normal?" - boy can that boy blush!

She then had a go at me about my weight and despite my protestations of exercising a LOT I could tell she clearly wasn't buying it and she scribbled "Jeremy Kyle watching, pyjamas outside wearing, hob-nob nibbling fat slag". *sigh*

We have to go back in November if I'm still barren - but they won't treat me until I've lost the weight I've put on in the last year, which of course is not an insurmountable task but I was really really raging. If I were to weigh 8 stone and smoke 40 a day and knock back a bottle of gin a day she'd be none the wiser and treat me. I felt really discriminated against actually and thought it was fucking rude.

At least my lady bits weren't full of pet fluff.

This episode has been brought to you by the self-shaming contingent.

============
Work: Some people who were "let go" due to global economics whilst our company is still posting billion dollar profits are suing the company... with the backing of the government. Going to get tasty this one!

Amphibious hornbags

This morning at 2:30 I was rudely awoken by the sounds of BM stomping around the room, leaning out of the window, shutting it, opening it and muttering to myself. "C'est quoi, cheri?" - turns out it was an overly-amorous bullfrog on the dock below our bedroom window soullessly calling out across the river looking for a partner... or at least a one-night-stand. He was still calling at 6am when I got up. We've all been there right?

My neighbours have gone to Italy and totally wimped out by putting the car on the train - when I went it only took me 8 hours to Geneva and then another 2 (?) from there. Trains are for wimps. We've booked our summer hols - we're going up to one of the islands, not as far as Denmark - but pretty close.

I finally plucked up the courage to go to my first Body Pump class on Friday. I'd forced BM to come with me because I wanted to stand behind him in case I was unco-ordinated and dropping dumbells everywhere. As it turned out I absolutely loved it although I should've known when I saw L taking the class that it was going to be tough - her abs classes make me cry. Anyway I *knew* BM was going to put too many kilos on his bar and come saturday neither of us could move without whimpering. I had muscles in my arse which I've never engaged before, through skiing, riding, skating, whatever. I loved it so much I went back again Sunday morning and Little Miss Big Tits was there. She's only about 4'11" and she's a tiny wee thing but her tits (Natural I think) are like fucking water melons. When she turns her back to you her boobs actually stick out either side a good few inches. Mesmerising really! Anyway, I was dumbstruck by the fact that there was more fabric covering each breast than there was comprising her miniscule white hotpants. AND SHE STOOD AT THE FRONT! I think I saw her clitoris. :(

Supergirl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyco2Uva7hI
I got home late last night, but it's alright, I'm a Supergirl - and Supergirls just fly.

Rewards

Today I'm wearing a pair of tailored work trousers I've not been able to get on since before xmas and look mate, no rolls woohoo! ;-) Small victories et al.

Yesterday morning it was pissing down, the river a raging torrent and black skies. In a moment of madness I decided to ride out figuring there'd not be too many people around - there weren't - we only encountered a few people with brollies (scary) and a descending 747. Not scary. Saturday I rode out and couldn't find the brakes - pulled the muscles in my arms & shoulders trying to stop her - it was fucking good fun though.

If the river doesn't go down significantly between now and the end of the week there's no way in hell I'm going kayaking - I'm a reasonably strong swimmer but I'll be damned if I'm going to fight for my life in that. Tskarama.

My friend B has a son who is 10, we are always surprised at how much she babys him. She told me once that she'd had another son when she was in her 20s - he's about 18 now - she said he's "weird" and she "doesn't like him". I always thought that was a strange thing to say about your own son, he lives with his father and B herself admitted that at that point in her life it was the best place for him. She has very little contact with him and he never visits her in the country in which she lives. BM surmised that maybe the reason she babys her youngest son so much is because of the guilt she feels for leaving the older boy. The younger one is getting 2 doses of mum's love.

Baby names, is there ANY woman in 2008/2009 who is NOT planning to call her little girl Amelie or Grace? Stand up for yourselves women - go wild! Call your child Sarah, or Clare, or Lucy tra la la. Not Lucy-tra-la-la obv., although that might be OK in Islington.

Blown Away

I've been sleep-walking it seeems and have totally missed out on the SunDance film festival blurb about "Precious" (Sapphire's Push). I watched the trailer last night and again this morning at my desk and I cried. It's not even going to be released until November and it's going to be fucking outstanding.

I can't help but feel it's just what our society needs right now - a little reminder of love & family.

BM and I have been watching the Badminton Horse Trials and I'm full of renewed enthusiasm right now and had a fantastic ride last night on my big, beautiful powerful beast.

B is back in touch - he always does this - just when I'm feeling settled I mean. Meh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8Zku3BHmGo

With mogwai comes great responsibility

I am so in over my head right now at work. I've got 48 hours to hand it over come what may - oh, and conduct a meeting in German. Ich bin ein Berliner.

Had a bit of a shit day yesterday - in previous times I suppose I'd have done something "bad". Started the day with an argument with BM regarding some obscure Glaswegian word he used which I didn't understand - it was 7am and I wanted to be out of the door to the gym - he's not a morning person, in future I'll go on my own. All day long I was harassed by an american fucknut and a vile Scottish bully because I applied logic to a situation. Furthermore work was just horrendous - I felt like nobody had my back all day - although I did meet a very, VERY attractive Englishman. To relax I hit the stables after work and whilst I was getting her ready "special needs kid" stood in front of me holding her horse to tie up to groom. I mean ffs, when that's me I tie it up somewhere else and get on with it, so in essence I felt rushed. Then I went in to the arena and the bitchiest girl in the world [tm] was having a Dressage lesson from the scariest man I've ever met. He's got a real Sargeant Major thing about him and I'm always terrified he's going to scream at me "YOU, GET DOWN OFF THAT HORSE YOU IMBECILE!" - which is probably unfounded because he's always terribly polite.

A bollocks day all-in-all.

We're going kayaking next week woop woop!

I think I'm a grown-up now

The fertility clinic sent questionnaires which make it seem all a bit real and grown-up. Scary.

Well the promotion thing they talked about at work the other week appears to have come to fruition already - I thought it would take months and months if ever to appear. But by Friday morning it was on my desk.

Read over the weekend that my client is about to go bankrupt.

Nice.

What's up doc?

So I went to the doctor and was expecting to be chased out of the surgery with the words "you? YOU? Have a baby? Not over my dead body" type stuff... instead she was really helpful and I have an immediate referral to an infertility clinic - because I'm ancient y'see. ;-)

BM will be required to spunk in to a pot - but quite frankly, when you're surrounded by nurses in uniform how difficult can that be for a man?

No other news - the thing I was hoping for didn't pan out. C'est la vie.

Young vs. Old

I'm letting my hair return to its natural colour for the first time in years - it seems I have NO grey - hurrah.

Am going to the doctor on Thursday to try and find out why I can't get pregnant - as much to my chagrin a British woman in Laos jail who's been there since August is 5 month's pregnant - I can't even get pregnant in my own bed. Anyway, I expect the outcome to be, "you're too fat and you're too old".

This could be a really good week if everything goes to plan.

Blessed are the meek...

Had a couple of days off last week and to my delight on Friday I managed to fit in to my pre-op jeans. 9 months on - tsk! So I suppose my going back to the gym and beasting myself is working. Did a lot of riding over the weekend and it's all going brilliantly. I rode out on Saturday on my own for the first time this year and we were only about a mile from the airport when a 747 took off - no problems - we did however put on a display worth of the Spanish school of dressage when we passed a field with two Shetland ponies in. Those Shetlanders - with their fiersome reputations et al! ;-)

I've started running again because it really is the only thing which shifts my weight rapidly - although this is easier said than done given that my ankle is still giving my trouble 9 weeks after I bust it. Darn etc.

A pretty blissful weekend all in all, long walks, lunch in town, BBQ by the river, making the dogs swim in the river, horseriding, lazing around.

Saved by the bell

Had my appraisal yesterday and it went really well, they want to promote me asap and apparently all is going well swimmingly. So I had a minor rant about my wages, so she pulled up the figures on her monitor and I pointed and ranted. I'll be getting a payrise if the US mothership doesn't do a total lockdown on the euro coffers.

So I'm not going to jump ship just yet... she knows I want to go to Amsterdam next year and I'd rather not do the commute now... makes sense to get the company to pay for me to move house.

Sunshine

Sunny sunny sunny sunshine. :-)

Paranoid

I wonder if when I was ill I was so paranoid. (?)

Someone I knew thinks I'm "stalking" them because I noticed they'd changed their username on a messageboard. People write in such a distinctive way and of course have certain hobbies e.g., for me, you'd find me in the skiwebworld and smellyhorsey.com type places. ;-) If a "newbie" turns up and posts 20 things within 20 minutes sticks out like a sore thumb right? *sigh*

It's a bit sad though.

Work is weird right now - I'm supposedly doing some really complicated stuff but it's a piece of absolute piss. I think so many people are just fucking dumb.

I'm back in touch with a girl I went to school with - one of the ones I meant the other week when I said I should apologise for past misdeeds. She was seriously clever - always top of the class - me, her and one boy battled for #1 smart arse at our grammar school. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that it's so refreshing to talk to her - I think I got caught in a bit of a trap where upon when I tried to form friendships with other women they were just so damned dim! Liz is a total "brainiac" but we certainly didn't see it as particularly unusual - we went to grammar school - everyone was bright. At uni, my King's College uncle came to visit and said that most of my friends were "dumb as rocks" - which was a bit harsh coming from an autistic nuclear physicist. Although fair I suppose.

What is going wrong with modern women? How is it possible they hold degrees and yet you can know them for years and the only thing they're able to discuss is clothes and make-up? Why are they degrading themselves? We don't need men to put us "in our place" when they're doing it for themselves. *sigh*

Getting fit

I'm enjoying the gym again. 5 mile bike ride to get there, lift 20,000kg, 30 minutes HIIT - all good. :-)

Sometimes I struggle with being mentally healthy - when you're not - it's easy to behave like a selfish twat and blame it on your illness. Of course it's not fun being mentally ill - but it's not much fun taking responsibility for your actions either.

Sunny side up

Sent my CV off on Friday to another job I liked the look of - similar sort of thing but a smaller start-up company. She rang this morning to tell me that she loved my profile but was nervous about my lack of fluency, but wants to think about it and get back to me. I am seeing positives in this - CV sent out twice, two "good" reactions. Perhaps gone are the days when I'd not even receive acknowledgement. :-/

Glorious weekend - bbqs & beer. Horses, bicycles, monstrously behaved dogs, foals, lambs.

My dad says I should leave my hobbies off my CV, he says they're too "expensive sounding". I've heard that some people list "shopping" on their activities. Give me fucking strength! haha

Am going to the gym again regularly and popped in yesterday morning - note to self, don't attempt the gym on a bank holiday monday. The carpark is shared with my office - I've seen fewer cars at 9am on a regular weekday morning! The place was heaving - there's something quite disconcerting about seeing a colleague in lycra skipping. :(

I got BM's handicap wrong - it's 5, not 4.

Crossing the line

Yesterday I allowed someone who is much like my sister to vent their rage on my blog. Much like my sister, the words are irrelevant - but the message remains "I want to hurt you". So whilst I have done nothing wrong and I have nothing to hide, I've removed the comments because I don't need anyone trying to hurt me. I remove such people from my life, I can certainly remove their comments from my blog!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend - it was 25 degrees here yesterday - absolute bliss! :-)

I am fucking howling with laughter.

I know it's wrong et al, but once in a while you see someone do something so utterly fucking unbelievably stupid in the name of a bad decision that it just makes you laugh your naughty little head off. :-O

Insomnia

I barely slept last night - I tossed and turned and apparently kicked BM in the back twice. I told him I wished I had a mother I could share things with... he says I should use his mum. I'm panicking about the future - things I cannot control. Neither of us slept well last night - and both think it may be the amount of beer we drank this weekend - not a huge amount, but a lot for us. We're still blissfully happy though - what's that all about? No drama, no big fights, no hurt - it's all good.

I rode a lot this weekend and also got dragged up to the golfcourse where upon I hit 8 balls, one of them nicely. He really is rather good having a handicap of 4 which I understand is really rather special - in the UK he wins ~10k a year playing - not quite Tiger Woods territory of course. He doesn't just hit these little white dimpled balls, he aims them at specific things. And hits them. Clever lad!

Am supposed to be going to Berlin in July to see Leonard Cohen which would be bloody brilliant! :-) Classic happy happy joy music. ;-)

Yesterday we did these horsey/golf things and wondered about the poor lost souls on their way to retail therapy (shops are only open one sunday a month here) - looking to fill their empty souls with shiny, plastic crap.

12 steps self-discovery

I feel like I've spent the last few years working through a 12 steps programme, but it's been me who discovered each step. These days I want to apologise to all the people I hurt along my path - but I doubt half of them would even remember me. If they did they'd probably not understand the depths I was in and so never understand anyway.

People float in and out of your life and not all are welcome. I've been lucky enough to be able to remove most of the negative influences from my life, if not perhaps all... but I suppose what I really miss is really good friendship with other women.

BM and I plan to sit in the garden tomorrow and get pissed. That's the height of my current ambition.

*A note to 12-steps: Rachel's Wedding is possibly the worst film I have ever been subjected to for in-flight entertainment, including a 22 hour flight to Australia where "A river runs through it" appeared to be on a loop. :(

Job app

So I re-wrote my CV, wrote a killer covering letter and emailed it off. They got back to me within 30 minutes saying that my profile was EXACTLY what they were looking for but that my lack of total fluency would be a problem for the client. Fucknuts.

I took the positive from that though - that they liked my profile, they didn't just bin my application or ignore me as recruitment leeches so often do.

So... it's given me the motivation to try again - the next time I see a killer job I'm going for it. :-)

A job I'd like...

Yesterday I saw a job advertised which I'd be really good at and it's an area I'm interested in - medical research. I haven't applied for a job in over 8 years though so it's scaring the shit out of me... I'm currently brushing up my CV and am going to send it off and see what happens.

It's a huge increase in money and I'll probably blow the interview like when I turned up at Guys pissed for an interview. :( Fine line between "one for dutch courage" and being shit-faced at 10am. :(

It's a 2 hour drive away from home but it has many, many, many positives and we were planning on moving next year anyway.

I shall get on with my CV then shall I?

Any advice/encouragement WOULD be received on this ocassion. :-)

Boast Post vs why do I underestimate myself?

I was being a good girl and so at the gym this morning and still suffering feelings of self-doubt. On Saturday BM had videoed me riding and I was really impressed with the results... when I ride in the arena I do watch the mirrors but am so fixated with the size of my arse that I fail to see anything else. The video was good, I was good!

I'm not sure if I said before but when I was in Colorado I bust my ankle on the first day - falling over in the street - how fucking ridiculous! Anyway, rather than lose my holiday I hobbled on and forced myself to walk over a mile on it to keep it moving, 36 hours later I shoved my poor swollen foot in a ski boot, strapped it up tight and got skiing again. I skiied fine on piste but was having trouble in powder or bumps because it hurt like hell. I lost my confidence a bit and so ended up taking a lesson with one of the top instructors at the resort. Put it this way, he'd been teaching for 25 years and was a professional racer! Anyway, he videoed me skiing and asked me what I thought, well I said "I'm skidding the turns, and I'm doing x, y and z". He looked at me and told me to stop being daft and look again, then he said "there is nothing I can comment on, you're skiing better than people who've had lessons for 30 years". That with a bust ankle and all! So damnit, I know I'm good but I'm so quick to let my confidence get undermined.

There was an older English couple in the hotel who really thought they were the dog's bollocks and all - kept asking me where I'd been skiing (today) and I was saying this face, this face, this hill etc., etc. They kept saying things like "oooh that's steep" or "We never go there" and it became quite apparent to me that they simply did not believe me... fat chicks can't ski et al.

I wish I could get over this caring what other people think. :-(