New Year, New Stuff, New Me (I wish!)

I think I should be more attentative to this blog as I've not written for ages.

It's been a really shitty few months and I'm glad to see the back of 2007 as it was a struggle.

BUT 2008 is here....doooo...doooo...doooo...doooooooo (that's meant to sound like a fanfare!)

I finish university next year...Wahoo....

My hubbies brother had a massive heart attack last year and we thought he was on his last legs (well I did, because my hubby and all the other males in his family are so selfish they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves - I think I should stop now before I go on a rant), my mum broke her ankle and was completely disabled by it and then had flu so we were only a few days off booking her into a nursing home (not really mum!)

I had a lovely skin thing that made me come out in nasty pustules on my hands and a rash on my body which wasn't attractive at all. It's just about gone now but I look like I've got the hands of an eighty year old. Hey ho.

Christmas was lovely but odd because I didn't cook at all as we visited everyone else. Result!! But I like doing the family thing so I was a bit lost.

My 'baby' is 16 this month. Wow, I feel old but he's such a cool dude with a sharp sense of humour and a real good sense of what's good and bad. He's our future and that makes me very proud. He's so fair and kind but he looks like a vampire in his full length leather coat, he he.

Somebody told me the other day that I was 'kind' which is nice, I think.

I've been having the most bizarre dreams lately, lots of very physical contact with people I sort of know; what does that mean? There must be a subliminal message there somewhere. There is one person that keeps coming up (sorry, no pun intended).

Thanks for listening xxxx

We had a great holiday in Sherwood Forest (hubby refused to wear green tights to amuse me though) and now the kids are back at school and I'm back at uni in a week and a half.

Summers over but I love Autumn. I want to cook and make things and light the fire.

I've released baby Primrose and Daisy tonight so I'm feeling a bit sad. They are sooo ready to be released so I should be happy but I can't help worrying. Hopefully they'll live long happy lives and I'll see them at the feeding station most nights (there's a hedgehog there at the moment so it could be one of them)....

What a day

I'm feeling numb today.

We were up at 4.00am this morning as we had to go to Sheffield for my Uncle Pete's funeral. I say my auntie for the first time since her breast cancer and stroke and she looked very frail and vulnerable and completely broken and lost.

My mum and I were asked to sit in one of the funeral cars with my auntie and I felt really angry on the way to the crematorium. It's so unfair. My uncle was a really fit, outdoor-type man who loved nature and walking and bird watching and so was my auntie. Within the space of a couple of years, both of them have been struck by cancer, resulting in my uncle's death and my auntie's stroke. Niether of them are even near 70 and I still think of my auntie as my dad's little sister.

I get home to a text from a friend who tells me his dad has died today too. Is there anyone left in their 30s or 40s who still has a dad? What the fuck is going on?

I loved seeing my cousins and their children. My two boys get on so well with them you'd never guess they've only met a few times.

I loved the landscape up North too, it was just beautiful. I felt higher up (that sounds very mad but I'm sure the atmosphere must change when you're north of the Watford gap!)

I went into Tescos and the first Northern person I spoke to apologised for walking in front of me. He said 'sorry duck'. If I was at home down south I would have received an angry scowl, although there are lots of lovely people 'down south'.

I don't mean to sound bitter but I'm just feeling a bit raw that's all. It was a long drive there and back (about nine hours) and I'm very tired. Emotions were running high as I went to Yorkshire for the first time in years and saw all my Dad's family, although of course he wasn't there.

I've been worrying all day about my cats and dog who have been let out by a neighbour and the hedgehogs who I didn't even have time to check on this morning before we left. I felt so relieved when I got back and they were all still zzzzzing away!

I put little Dylan hoggie in Tumble and babies' run tonight while I cleaned him out and when I went back outside the girls had come out to see him. It was very sweet but he looked very scared (they are bloody big babies!!!) He needs worming again too as I've heard him coughing a couple of times.

Looking forward to releasing Tumble (my blind hedgehog) in a lovely enclosed garden not far from where I live and as soon as she goes next Friday the babies can go too as they're all ready now really.

I need sleep now.....night night xx

I got up so late today, I think I'm becoming nocturnal (I'll be growing spikes soon :)) My tea was cold again but I'd been dreaming about Sean Bean so that ok!!!

I've been sorting our my pigsty of a bedroom and it's so funny to come across diaries and comments written years ago. I think I've always been a lunatic! Oh dear, what a shame things haven't got any better but hey-ho, who cares. Maybe if the whole world took Prozac it wouldn't be so nasty.

We're going on holiday soon and I can't wait to do some traditional family stuff but before that I've got my uncle's funeral in Sheffield on Thursday. It's incredibly sad. He was a very fit man that I didn't know well at all but my auntie is my dad's sister and we've spoken a lot over the last few years as she's had breast cancer and a stroke. She's the final link. My dad died suddenly at 63 (10 years ago) and she always tells me I'm like him.

They loved the natural world and were keen bird watchers (and I think she's a closet witch like me). My cousin's can now join the 'My dad died' gang which is absolute shit. Poor buggers, I don't like being in this gang but we have no choice. A lovely man on our forum joined the gang today too as his dad died yesterday.

The release the hedgehog instinct was very strong today, it's time for my gorgeous Tumble to go, and her babies and Dylan won't be far behind. They are all so fit and ready it's becoming unkind to keep them (well, Tumble's blind so needs an enclosed garden and I'm hoping that will all work out...)

My big sis had a boob job today (that's so extreme, I know) so is now snoozing away in a London hospital...but she's got great tits! (lucky her :))

She's in her 40s and isn't going for the Jordan look at all, just trying to defeat nature. Oh, how I wish I had the courage, I'd have loads done lol.

I'm do happy pottering, doing hedgehog stuff, making bread and soup and feeling nostalgically autumnal I wonder what the hell I'm doing training to be a teacher but it's a sort of calling (I hope none of my lecturers read this, I'll be chucked out for being a nutter!)

Ali x

Saw Maggie today, she told me Andy has decided he wants to leave her again. Maggie is my neighbour who is very spiritual. She's a really kind, earthy person and when she told me this earlier I couldn't believe it. The same thing happened last year when Andy decided he loved someone else (the same person) but this time Maggie is so strong, thank goodness.

I met a mad couple today who brought a little hoglet to me. They were absolutely lovely and very concerned about the little hoglet. They bought me a bottle of wine and said if there were any vet costs I was to let them know. How lovely is that? Unfortunately, the little hoglet was dead within about four hours of arriving. Of course, I am blaming myself for doing something wrong but I'll never know. Poor little girlie, it's such a terrible waste and she was such a beautiful little hoggie :(

Hubby has made me a special cupboard to put all my hoggie stuff in so it's not all over the house. I'm determined to get organised before I go back to uni as our house looks like something out of the Young Ones at the moment.

We've just decorated our boys' bedrooms. The youngest has got two shades of blue, like the sea. He's a bit of a surfer dude! The oldest chose black and red. Yep, you guessed it, he's 15 and going through that gothic sort of stage and has hair like Neil out of the Young Ones (oh no, it must be something to do with the state of our house!!) So I'm pretty pleased that I've got a couple of the big jobs on the list ticked off before the end of September.

I haven't had time to watch the foxes today but yesterday they were bundling in the field behind my house like my old dogs used to. Just beautiful.

Must just add that we had a visit from the mother-in-law yesterday....

Oh dear

I've read my post below and I sound quite bitter but I promise I'm not. It's sort of liberating to be honest to yourself. xx

A year of truths...so far

This has been a very truthful year so far, a time for facing up to stuff and being true (to myself mainly but also less plastic and more honest to other people).

I've changed a lot. I feel I'm fitting in to my own skin now at last (it's taken long enough!), and am not afraid to admit my eccentricities. I'm sick of being stifled by normalness and am happy being me. If people don't like my sentimentality, my love of animals, my soppiness and passions and my earthiness then that's a shame but I can't carry the guilt for that anymore.

I think I've been odd forever. I analyse everything far too much and most people I come into contact with affect me somehow quite deeply. I think it's because of my openess that people see me as an easy target but that's ok as long as I know.

Take for example the bumptious twit who lives next door. When he was 16 he used to escape to our house because we we're 'cool' and he had no friends. It probably helped that we drank and partied a lot too! Then, a few years on he decides that he's going to become a full-on friend of ours because he wants to. It also helps that he fancies my friend (he was 22, she was 30 and I'm older :o/) This friend, incidently, was also totally full on emotionally and told me she couldn't finish the college course without me as I was so strong The bloke next door was practically a virgin and a total emotional fuckwit.

So they got together but it didn't work (of course, I was mediator, marriage and sex counsellor, etc., etc....) He barely talks to me and she hasn't contacted me since she's had a new friend who's younger than me and single and open for girlie pulling nights out. By the way, this friend also snogged his younger brother who was only 16 at the time (that sounds wrong to me but hey ho what do I know, however, she is training to be a social worker?)

Mmmm, can you see something obvious here? Well, he had a barbeque on Saturday for loads of friends but didn't invite us (us being me and hubby - that's nice, thank you) so guess who's feeling hurt? Yes, it's me, kind of, except I knew it was coming so am feeling slightly smug at my 'rightness' of his judge of character. Guess who will not be invited back here for lots of free drinking and smoking after we've bumped into him at the pub. Who's loss I hear you say...well not mine. That's what I mean about truth. I admitted I was hurt to begin with and now I think 'fuck you'!

And guess what happened today? The brother of 'boy next door' (16 year old - who was snogged by my friend - who's now 17) asked to borrow my 12 year old sons bike today too - don't they get it that they've been rumbled for being a pair of using sods?

I spent years pretending that people's actions didn't bother me and now I've given myself permission to hurt...and then move on. It helps.

Had a chat with the doctor today about pains I've had in my eye and face and she thinks it's the optic neuritis raising it's ugly head again and asked if I was still under the neurologist. Not sure if I want to go back again as he told me I'd be diagnosed with MS if I had more symptoms so I said I'd let her know if the symptoms got worse or changed. It's good to note it on here as I don't want my kids to see anything written in the house and I have to keep a note of it.

Goodness, this all sounds quite mad but truthful and that's the main thing.