I spent a few days coming up with a new concept for Gay Dad Support Net and I think I’ve cracked it!
The old site was, well, ‘OLD’ and was put together with a decade old software and it showed. There was nothing dynamic about it at all, just bland and inviting.
I’d love to know what you think 🙂
Thanks to the help and imagination of Chris & Sean I have my office how I like it, covered with stickers and licence plates from my trips and other things which are part of who I am.
David Mackintosh Conservative Party
Julie Hawkins Green Party
Kevin McKeever Labour Party
Sadik Chaudhury Liberal Democrats
Rose Gibbins UK I
I know it is tempting to think of the May elections as a choice between David Cameron and Ed Milliband, some may feel they’d be voting for Clegg or Firage too, who know, it doesn’t much matter because, none of those will be representing Northampton or, I suppose, giving a moments thought to the place after the election.
One of the people above will be our the one representing us for the next 5 years.
It is tempting to vote for the ones who always get voted for, if you’re true blue then it doesn’t much matter what you know about David Mackintosh, you’ll vote for him any way, same goes for the other parties.
Now, I only know of David Mackintosh and what he has done with Northampton Council and I am not happy at all. We’ve all see huge cuts in services, road lights off, fewer rubbish collections, terrible roads and all under his leadership whilst, at the same time, we’ve seen these huge cost window dressing properties which do nothing to enhance the town. Under his leadership we’ve seen a bus station which wasn’t fit for purpose built at a great cost along with a totally over the top railway station allegedly to encourage people into the two … how does that work? I mean, I’ve never once considered the state of a station when I considered going somewhere, I am far more interested in the quality of service, the cost of the service and the geography, how easy is it to get from where the train stops to where I am going. None of those issues were solved. We have the second huge cost attempt to get the roundabout by the gas works sorted, huge traffic problems for months and no assurance that the traffic flow will be improved this time any more than last time they did this. The new multi-million pound council offices, we sure don’t need those at this time. The parking situation at the hospital has still not improved.
In short, David Mackintosh has done precious little for this town except get himself in the limelight, he certainly likes the camera. His predecessor, long may he remain out of politics was near useless. I have personal experience of the man and I have colleagues who also share the experience that he didn’t even respond to situations he personally didn’t agree with. He, along with David Mackintosh, is a well off Conservative who wanted and want this town to be all jolly nice for their wealthy pals yet have little interest for the tax payers who pay for everything here.
So, the only thing I know for a fact is, I am not giving my vote to Mackintosh, he’s already got a job anyway and I don’t approve of MP’s being anything other than MP’s.
I still have not done research on the other candidates so I cannot say with any certainty which I will give my vote to. Of course, there is tactical voting, if I know I don’t want a Tory, the only option is to vote Labour on the basis that anything is better than Conservative!
I know right, just rattling these things off in an evening!
To be perfectly honest, I am not 100% satisfied with it yet but … not bad considering I’d never used the software until I wrote this blog!
That’s the link should you wish to take a look. Like I said, a few rough edges and I might play with it more over the next few days
Normal running back and forth today. Cough/cold feeling better today, apparently I’ve sent it to the Philippines as Randy has it now, not nice! Plenty of cold showers for him I think.
I thought I’d do some tweaking with the blog earlier, thankfully I also had an inclination to back up the entire server space. My tweaking totally screwed things up and my blog looked like it was written in notepad!
The back-up file did the trick though and everything should now hopefully be restored!
Meanwhile … earlier on, at a brief loose end I found myself in M&S at Sixfields. I didn’t even know they had a café but they do so, fancying a slice of bakewell and a flat white I wandered over. The general conversation was as ‘one’ might expect. The ladies before me had ordered some Earl Grey and some Green Tea and spoke like they had horses outside, the ladies behind me were similar, beige coat, fur hat sort of thing and a handbag, his wife was dressed similar 😉
I found myself automatically dropping in to posh speak when I ordered my bakewell and coffee, quite relaxed and enjoying the moment. The lady serving, lovely woman, somewhere like Sheffield she came from if I had to guess. Well, she had that put on well spoken voice too. She told me the amount but was a little hesitant until she realised I was paying by card.
“Put your thing in the hole” she said
I replied, “I’ve not had an invitation like that for a while”
Oops, it just seemed to slip out (no pun intended). Seemed to be a bit of an ice breaker as the place came to a standstill for a while whilst both staff and customers composed themselves from laughing so much.
It was good to cross the social divide and create some happiness.
By the way, they do ever so good bakewell tarts and flat white.
Additionally meanwhile … The new SD card for the SatNav should arrive in the morning, about time and let’s hope that works AND, my originally ordered pair of glasses should be with me by next Wednesday, they’ve just taken two months and seems high level, beyond branch management are now involved.
In my next blog entry I am hoping to post some pictures of the newly decorated office with all the stickers and licence plates I’ve been building up here.
One Direction confirm Zayn Malik has left the group | Music | The Guardian.
I guess this news isn’t going to impress many either.
It’s a brave decision though, hope he understand what a normal 22 year old is else he’s going to have a lot of trouble being one.
Jeremy Clarkson dropped from Top Gear, BBC confirms – BBC News.
How typically BBC and it’s Old Boy network that regardless of who Clarkson has attacked over the years they’ve made their excuses and let him carry on yet, he attacks one of the ‘Boys’ at the BBC and he’s sacked!
It says way more about the BBC than it does JC. Even when announcing the news the man from the Beeb was practically apologetic as though, if he could find some way of letting it go he would. I’d not be at all shocked were JC not back on Top Gear in 2016
Now, sadly, this does leave rather a lot of confusion for those booked for a ‘Top Gear Live’ event. I am not entirely sure what is going to happen there but, surely all must be cancelled now? As of the latest I’ve been able to discover, the organisers and promoters are certain the shows will go ahead as planned with the Top Gear presenters, May, Hammond and Clarkson. Whether they can legally use a man sacked from the show to represent it internationally is another question, one which would be a major embarrassment to the BBC.
But, good old Jeremy eh? A bit of a knob says James May, well, that’s kind of an understatement mate. He’s a sexist, homophobic out of touch snob is what he is coupled with a large degree of racism thrown in and total disregard for anyone who doesn’t think how he does.
My personal experience of the man was when he unusually refused to meet the guests on a show he co-hosted with Ruby Wax and his reason was that he didn’t want to spend any more time with that sort of people than he had to … the show was about gay parents.
Perhaps now Top Gear can get back to what it used to be really good at, presenting cars in a fun and entertaining way across the broad range, not just Super Cars. Perhaps it can get back to letting the cars be the stars and not how Clarkson and crew now have it that the cars are almost an annoying interruption to their version of entertainment
I cancelled them nearly 2 months back because they were costing too much … I look at my account with them and it seems they overcharged me, on average, £20 a month based on actual usage. When I left I got charged a £60 fee for leaving and that still left me in credit by nearly £40!
I’ve been trying to get the money back for a while but they say they won’t pay until a 3rd party organisation verifies that the switch was all above board and my meter readings are likely to be accurate! They already done this for gas and I was ‘honest’ there, my last meter readings for electricity were slightly higher than the estimate OVO made so, you’d think they’d take it as a given I am not trying to commit fraud but, anyway …
Stupid me didn’t cancel the direct debit with them, today they took another £163 from my account!
Spoke to OVO, they said they’re entitled to keep taking payments until they finalise everything and they’ll refund me with my last bill which can take up to another 3 weeks!
I mentioned that they are not agreeing with my current viewpoint on the matter (or words to that effect). I then spoke to a manager who said they’d made one or two mistakes and agreed, taking the money was in error as they’d agreed to take no further payments. She suggested I contact my bank. Did that and the money should be refunded this evening. How much longer I have to wait for the final amount OVO owe me is anyone’s guess ….
That said, the council owe me nearly £400, have done for a couple of weeks and I am still waiting for that too. When I pay people, my lovely bank gets it into their account within 2 hours and often within seconds. Strange how many companies ‘cannot’ do the same thing.
Spending too long trying to work out how to do what isn’t really that important, how to change a crew logo to get a transparent background … I know, it’s the riddle of the century!
Well, I worked out and the finished bit says that the background is transparent, just need to wait see if it ever actually uploads to the game now!
The white should be invisible when used in the game so, we shall see.
On another note …
My mystery bug seems to be getting better, yay! I also really do feel Vision Express cannot make glasses! I am sure the lenses are not thinned at all, they are way thicker than my old pair which were no more thinned than the new. With the new pair giving me headaches because of the pressure, I am not a haply bunny!
Pork Adobo this evening all gently simmering, the rice will go on in about 30 minutes
Tonight is also time to watch ‘Arrow’ & ‘The Flash’, can’t go wrong with those two.
Did some cleaning earlier, heavy attack on cobwebs, floors sucked, bathroom & downstairs cloakroom given a once over. (sometimes several times)
I feel no better yet but, sitting on my arse isn’t going to improve matters.
Tidied the garden too, cleared up all the rubbish which had been blowing about for weeks, all except a cardboard box which is currently housing a family of spiders, a LOT of spiders.
Thinking about it, I’m flippin’ shattered!
Not my first solar eclipse, the best one was in 1999, I think it was that year, in the summer so it was warm. The effect that year when the heat went was very dramatic. This year it did still get very cold and quiet. Birds get confused and fly back to their nests.
Yes, my good friend Randy is 52 years old. He’d tell you he’s ancient but, anyone who knows me and remembers that I’ll be 52 in June, will know, he’d never get away with that! I do not consider and will never consider 52 to be old! It’s the sort of age when some of us are still thinking we might be too young to commit to a whole new life direction, that’d be for after retirement and then, a great many people don’t consider gardening their only option when there is a whole world of experiences out there.
I know that we can get to yet another birthday, especially when we’re alone and wonder, is this it? Is this how the rest of my life is going? Well, it could be but then, quite possibly we’ve got another 40 years or so which means we’d have been equally justified asking the same dumb question when we were 10!
Life just switches and changes all over the place, not much easier to predict than the weather. Our attitude to life is what steers us, actually having some ambition will drive us to achieve our objectives and dreams.
So, my very good friend Randy … you’re not old, just 52 whatever significance that has which, compared to 51, isn’t a lot really. Age is just a number, there was a time when we didn’t have months and years like we do now, quite a lot of that sort of thing is very recent in historical terms so, before we knew how old we were, did we care?
Thinking and believing this one sure fact will stop us thinking we will always feel this way. We all remember horrible moments before and now they’re history, this will be too.
Life is like a beautiful flower, it will only bloom when things have got wet and dirty and it’s been through some shit! But, at the end, we have that flower. We learn and flourish by accepting some shit in our lives, it’s our fertilizer, we do need it.
Sure, it feels like it, no one could possibly have ever felt this bad. But, there are billions of people alive now and there were many more before this lot were born. There would be thousands or millions of people who knew exactly how we feel now, they may live in your street, you may know them. Disease, death, moving home, divorce, other people know about this, share with them how you feel, ask them how they feel. You are not on our own and, see (1)
When we feel low we transfer that onto other people. We don’t trust them, we feel they don’t care, we feel that no one understands us. We become so pessimistic we can’t think anything positive, we actively shut out positive thought because negativity becomes our security blanket. We know if we expect only bad things that we can’t be damaged more with disappointment.
As hard as it is, try to think that perhaps others actually might be looking out for you. They may screw up, they might get their timing wrong but each person you come into contact with, thank them for their time, let them know you appreciate it and mean it.
Sadly, some people cannot be changed, can’t be healed, they are too broken, learn to say ‘no’ occasionally to save your strength for the right people, you may avoid getting in this mess in the first place
Looking at things differently can work wonders for how you feel. Maybe think back to a time when things were bad but think, where would you honestly be had you been able to change it?
There is some good buried in each experience we have, look hard for it. Stuck on the motorway? if you have bluetooth, make that call to someone you’ve been putting off for ages. Perhaps listen to that album you keep meaning to find time to do. How about ask yourself, how does weather work? How can that tree be so amazing? How lucky am I to actually see the area around me probably for the first time. Smile at the person next to you just because you can.
Grab those negative thoughts you are having and imagine throwing them into a box, I mean, make them an object, tell yourself those thoughts are now that size and they are going into that box. Each time a thought starts appearing, wrap that box tighter until you can eventually dump it or fire it off into space, just for those few moments, be in control of your negativity.
Smile, it won’t do you any harm, it might do you some good
In my life I can pick a positive outcome to each of my disasters in life. Should someone ask me if there is anything I would change if I could I will always answer a firm ‘no’ because I wouldn’t be who I am now without what happened before. Never forget that, if you’ve something special in your life it is there because of the fertilizer of life.
5. Slow down and breathe.
I want you to copy this, it’s really not difficult
Get comfortable, as comfy as you can manage even if it means in the kitchen leaning against the side.
Close yours eyes
Take a quick really deep breath in and
HOLD IT for a slow count of three
As slowly as you can manage, let out that breath
Let’s repeat that
Keep your eyes closed (yes, you will have opened them to read this)
Take a quick really deep breath in and
HOLD IT for a slow count of three
As slowly as you can manage, let out that breath
This time, as that breath leaves tell yourself, “I am feeling relaxed”
Let’s do it again
Close yours eyes
Take a quick really deep breath in and
HOLD IT for a slow count of three
As slowly as you can manage, let out that breath
As you breath out this time, try to feel for your toes and relax them, feel your legs relaxing all the way up your body
Do it again
Close yours eyes
Take a quick really deep breath in and
HOLD IT for a slow count of three
As slowly as you can manage, let out that breath
Keep concentrating on your body, relax each muscle you can feel with your mind
This keeps you in touch with your breathing, it actually slows your heart rate, it frees your mind to think. Grab this moment, think of the most relaxing or most fun times in your life, allow your mind to dream your dreams. Any negative thoughts, push them away, they don’t matter now, they can’t hurt you, not now, not in this place
This is YOUR bubble, you are safe here. Do this over and over as long as you can get away with.
6. Get rid of your minds clutter
We all have jobs we know are there but we didn’t find the time for yet, find the time!
We’ve all heard of the straw which breaks the camels back. Our clutter is our straw. Not paying the bills, putting off the housework, not having that chat with someone because it’s a bit awkward, not tidying the desk … All little things we know are there but we convince ourselves they can wait. We can only convince our conscious mind, our subconscious still works with it each minute of every day and we’re just adding to it, loads of little tasks stored in our brains waiting to be done and, that part of the brain seems to only be able to manage so much before it shuts us down.
Try it, each day do a task you have out off doing and see how you feel in 7 days, I promise you will feel better, think more clearly, smile more.
Thinking and believing this one sure fact will stop us thinking we will always feel this way. We all remember horrible moments before and now they’re history, this will be too.
Life is like a beautiful flower, it will only bloom when things have got wet and dirty and it’s been through some shit! But, at the end, we have that flower. We learn and flourish by accepting some shit in our lives, it’s our fertilizer, we do need it.
Sure, it feels like it, no one could possibly have ever felt this bad. But, there are billions of people alive now and there were many more before this lot were born. There would be thousands or millions of people who knew exactly how we feel now, they may live in your street, you may know them. Disease, death, moving home, divorce, other people know about this, share with them how you feel, ask them how they feel. You are not on our own and, see (1)
When we feel low we transfer that onto other people. We don’t trust them, we feel they don’t care, we feel that no one understands us. We become so pessimistic we can’t think anything positive, we actively shut out positive thought because negativity becomes our security blanket. We know if we expect only bad things that we can’t be damaged more with disappointment.
As hard as it is, try to think that perhaps others actually might be looking out for you. They may screw up, they might get their timing wrong but each person you come into contact with, thank them for their time, let them know you appreciate it and mean it.
Sadly, some people cannot be changed, can’t be healed, they are too broken, learn to say ‘no’ occasionally to save your strength for the right people, you may avoid getting in this mess in the first place
Looking at things differently can work wonders for how you feel. Maybe think back to a time when things were bad but think, where would you honestly be had you been able to change it?
There is some good buried in each experience we have, look hard for it. Stuck on the motorway? if you have bluetooth, make that call to someone you’ve been putting off for ages. Perhaps listen to that album you keep meaning to find time to do. How about ask yourself, how does weather work? How can that tree be so amazing? How lucky am I to actually see the area around me probably for the first time. Smile at the person next to you just because you can.
Grab those negative thoughts you are having and imagine throwing them into a box, I mean, make them an object, tell yourself those thoughts are now that size and they are going into that box. Each time a thought starts appearing, wrap that box tighter until you can eventually dump it or fire it off into space, just for those few moments, be in control of your negativity.
Smile, it won’t do you any harm, it might do you some good
In my life I can pick a positive outcome to each of my disasters in life. Should someone ask me if there is anything I would change if I could I will always answer a firm ‘no’ because I wouldn’t be who I am now without what happened before. Never forget that, if you’ve something special in your life it is there because of the fertilizer of life.
5. Slow down and breathe.
I want you to copy this, it’s really not difficult
Get comfortable, as comfy as you can manage even if it means in the kitchen leaning against the side.
Close yours eyes
Take a quick really deep breath in and
HOLD IT for a slow count of three
As slowly as you can manage, let out that breath
Let’s repeat that
Keep your eyes closed (yes, you will have opened them to read this)
Take a quick really deep breath in and
HOLD IT for a slow count of three
As slowly as you can manage, let out that breath
This time, as that breath leaves tell yourself, “I am feeling relaxed”
Let’s do it again
Close yours eyes
Take a quick really deep breath in and
HOLD IT for a slow count of three
As slowly as you can manage, let out that breath
As you breath out this time, try to feel for your toes and relax them, feel your legs relaxing all the way up your body
Do it again
Close yours eyes
Take a quick really deep breath in and
HOLD IT for a slow count of three
As slowly as you can manage, let out that breath
Keep concentrating on your body, relax each muscle you can feel with your mind
This keeps you in touch with your breathing, it actually slows your heart rate, it frees your mind to think. Grab this moment, think of the most relaxing or most fun times in your life, allow your mind to dream your dreams. Any negative thoughts, push them away, they don’t matter now, they can’t hurt you, not now, not in this place
This is YOUR bubble, you are safe here. Do this over and over as long as you can get away with.
6. Get rid of your minds clutter
We all have jobs we know are there but we didn’t find the time for yet, find the time!
We’ve all heard of the straw which breaks the camels back. Our clutter is our straw. Not paying the bills, putting off the housework, not having that chat with someone because it’s a bit awkward, not tidying the desk … All little things we know are there but we convince ourselves they can wait. We can only convince our conscious mind, our subconscious still works with it each minute of every day and we’re just adding to it, loads of little tasks stored in our brains waiting to be done and, that part of the brain seems to only be able to manage so much before it shuts us down.
Try it, each day do a task you have out off doing and see how you feel in 7 days, I promise you will feel better, think more clearly, smile more.
“There are things we know we know about. There are things we know we don’t know. And there are things that are unknown unknowns. We don’t know that we don’t know”
Many find it a mouthful and confusing but, to me, it’s important that we can clearly define the difference between those things and always seek out what we don’t yet know we don’t know. Always be on the lookout for interesting facts which help us build up a picture of reality.
I’ve been in deep for over a year and today I was able to set a date when I am clear, on the home straight! True, that date is in October 2015 but I am quite certain that by that month I will be back to normal spending limits, no debt …. unless something happens to bugger all that up!
I am following modules on ‘Self Esteem’ and it makes for interesting reading. There are 9 modules and I am on module 6 of the set.
I am finding myself agreeing with everything I have read so far except on the basis of, how I advise other people. Everything I am reading is just stating how I have naturally approached issues of self esteem in others. This is both true but, a little unhelpful. I accept and acknowledge the causes, that’s spot on for me. I was bullied and put down a lot as a child into my teens and my memories are of not being good enough so that obviously will have had an influence upon me but, to be honest, I feel I conquered all that in my 30’s. I stopped making excuses and protecting myself, I really did become a different person and especially from around the end of the 1990’s. Many who’d known me prior to being 30 wouldn’t recognise me as a person today. You know, it’s funny, I do still have some pointless hang ups from my childhood. Part of me still gets a little anxious when I have to buy something because of how often I got ignored in shops as was customary for perceived young kids in shops in the 60’s and early 70’s and, being so short I was always treated as a child regardless of age. That feeling doesn’t stop me buying stuff (I wish it did, I’d save a fortune) but I acknowledge a remnant of it remains. I don’t feel intimidated as I used to, I can give as good as I get these days. Am I over compensating? I don’t know, I think perhaps sometimes I do. I could possibly let someone have it where the situation could have been handled more delicately. But then, that’s a fine line isn’t it? If I deal with a situation with diplomacy and get shit on from a great height and my objectives are not met, does that resolve anything?
A saying constantly comes back to me as I read these modules and it is: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you”. Perhaps there is a bias in such things to always presume that current issues people have and the way they deal with them have a historical protectionist methodology behind them. That coming away from a given situation feels shit not because it was shit but because we merely perceive it that way because of our core beliefs in ourselves. Yes, I am using a lot of big long words.
They give an example of a quiz night invite from friends where a person feels they won’t be clever enough, they are too stupid so will either decline the invitation or resolve themselves to the fact that it’s going to be an utter humiliation. They are advised, during the module to not think that way, instead consider that it is a social event, it doesn’t matter, win or lose, it doesn’t matter if they answer any questions or not. Indeed, answering just one question should be seen as a great personal achievement and how wonderful that friends invited them. All good positive thinking and, in theory, it should work.
I’ve had this experience … I’ve gone into such a thing knowing I might not be able to achieve greatly but that’s OK because they’d be pretty dumb to know me so little they’d invite me along if they didn’t expect to answer some questions themselves! I didn’t care if we won or lost, it wasn’t important as the company and experience were far more pertinent. There was no complicated thought process just a relaxed approached with a little anxiety that we might all look totally stupid! But, that’s not how it turned out. They were all taller than me, we were standing up at (for me) chest high tables. None of them looked at me directly, they just talked to each other. I tried to converse with them but, in their haste to answer quickly they didn’t take the time to acknowledge I existed. When we left one of them commented they didn’t know why I bothered turning up seeing as I didn’t contribute anything! That was hurtful and it made me incredibly angry. Needless to say, they are not friends now. But it goes to show that no matter how much a person changes to minimise a negative outcome, they do still happen.
I’ve done quiz nights since (sitting down) and they were great, just to point that out. My point being, we can change as much as we need to in a way which ensures we have a high self esteem but that doesn’t stop shit happening and it’s a shame they don’t acknowledge that or, haven’t done so yet.
I know I am actually very likable, OK, ‘I’ think that I am and don’t have a reason to think otherwise. I cannot overlook my lack of friends who’d put themselves out for me though. This is where self doubt comes in because I know, for an absolute fact, that I also have friends who I don’t talk to barely at all, actually, fell out with that, if I called them up and said I urgently needed them, they’d be here if they could. I’ve probably got more genuine friends like that than many other people. I’d rather have the handful I have than hundreds of ‘friends’ who frankly don’t want to know about ‘heavy shit’ and only want to be friends for the fun times. That said, I’d love to have more fun times, am stagnating a little here! I’ve also been attracted to younger people, I now acknowledge this is a partial mistake as it places them in a difficult position. England today is very ‘bic’ and ‘ist’. One of those is ‘ageist’. We practically encourage a generational divide from birth. Some are extremely hostile toward age difference. It’s very difficult to include someone in their 50’s into a group of 20 somethings. Some may ask why they brought their granddad along or their dad and, well, I am not out to make my friends feel awkward so, that’s not happening. I have learnt that ageism is one ‘ism’ almost impossible to eradicate as it’s just so acceptable. Younger male friends might think I only want them for their body and, there may be some truth in that I could find them attractive and might not say no but, my friendship with them actually doesn’t depend on the physical, I just happen to believe they’re fun to be around and might want to do some of the nutty things I want to do such as aerial assault course, segway challenges and so on, more so perhaps than someone my own age might. Age doesn’t seem to be such a thing in the Philippines which is perhaps why I like it so much but then, when I speak to someone my age there saying they’re old (Randy), I do despair a little!
So, anyway, CBT is about getting us to work out the causes of our issues and working though methodologies to overcome those issues through honest self assessment and experimentation. Right now though I suspect I am on the wrong set of modules, I don’t think my major issue is self esteem. I don’t think its confidence, in my mind I am capable of doing things that I often discover are not quite so easy when I try them! I’d say that was the reverse of a low self esteem. My expectations are not unrealistic, I just try and run before I can walk. My objectives and expectations of what I can achieve are sound and I genuinely believe I will get there. So, it’s not self esteem, it’s something else …. I need to speak to my man at the clinic again but, I am really edging to this theory it’s as simple as loneliness, needing a life companion (I don’t care for dogs). It’s quite possible to be surrounded by people who love and care for us but still feel lonely if we don’t have a mutually caring and loving relationship … assuming we’re that sort of person and, I am!
I tell you what as a kid I considered a failure, one of many things, getting a divorce and getting married more than one. So, I am divorced twice now and still very open to the idea of a long and happy married life. I couldn’t think like that if I had a low self esteem!
So, we have the ‘Let’s buy a whole host of gullible voters day’ with George Osborne. No doubt we’ll be told how employment is rising, how the deficit is falling, how we’re all so much better off now than we were (compared to what?). We’ll be told that there are still tough times ahead but that only a Conservative government can steer us through them. It will be pointed out how inflation remains low, how not raising duty on fuel has helped everyone as is seen by the current lower prices at the pumps (it’s going up again George). In short, I should listen to this budget later and decide to vote Conservative in May but, I won’t.
Labour certainly did nothing to avoid the mess the country got in but they didn’t cause it. They made the mistake of trying to be too conservative, allowing high finance the freedom to cause a catastrophic cock up for which they took zero responsibility. They made the mistake of allowing Gordon Brown to take the job of Prime Minister, one for which he is totally ill suited.
The Conservative party have only managed to achieve the level of deficit reduction Labour said was sustainable but they have done it in a way which made the lions share of the burden fall upon the poorest and most vulnerable in society whilst ensuring the rich got richer, that is morally unjust. Our level of borrowing is no less under this government than it was under Labour, most likely more yet, they call Labour the party of borrow and spend. Now, let’s look at some common sense here. When you take money away from the least well off they cannot spend (unless they borrow which caused the damn mess in the first place). If the majority cannot spend as they’d like then we have no need to manufacture as we did, no need to employ so many. Reduce the level of manufacturing and employment and the burden on the state increases from increased benefits and reduced tax revenue. Overall, there is less money to play with in the economy so cuts to vital services become essential. Benefits are hit first reducing income still further. Allowing such things as zero hours contracts (I do blame Labour for those) to flourish might make the employment figures look good but it still means more handouts both in direct benefits and in tax handouts. It’s curtains and kippers as my nan used to say, keeping up appearances to hide the fact there simply is no money flowing.
Even at a local level we see the Conservative party doing the same things. Here in Northampton we’ve had huge spending on totally pointless schemes to pretty the place up. We’ve had our ugly but working bus station reduced to rubble to be replaced by a new shiny one which is too small and doesn’t work, it causes traffic hold ups everywhere. We’ve got a shiny new station, it looks great but, we have no extra trains stopping, many just speed through on their way to London or the north. We are having new office developments being built despite us still having an office space surplus because these are prime sites and office blocks look better than gas holders. We’ve the promise of a new University campus in town replaces two of the existing sites bringing new revenue into the centre but … what shops are they going to use? Many of the familiar shops in town have closed and gone elsewhere. We cannot herald the new ‘Next’ or ‘Primark’, nice as they are because they are stores which simply moved from elsewhere. Their loss from their previous locations has caused more damage than what has been gained in the mall. We lost an anchor store, the ‘House of Fraser’ and we lost ‘The Disney Store’ … both should be seen as a consequence of the mismanagement of the town centre as I can’t imagine Milton Keynes losing either there. We’re becoming a town of coffee shops, 99p stores and charity shops with the occasional short lease store for good measure. Then we have the reintroduction of a road in Abington Street to encourage more shoppers to use that part of town which was completed just as the major retailer that end of town encamped in the Grosvenor Centre! There is barely anything down there, I can’t imagine H&M staying for too much longer as they are clearly isolated down there losing trade to the other end of town. We also have ‘quarters’ popping up around and about, art museums, who the hell, except the wealthy, would spend local tax revenue on art? This is the Conservative party though, totally out of touch with where spending needs to happen.
We’re no doubt going to see some handouts to the poor in this budget, increases for apprentices, a rise in the minimum wage, a 1% reduction in income tax for the least well off, a further freeze on fuel duty. I expect to see something for first time buyers and for small business to take some of them out of some business tax. Things which won’t cost too much and which can be balanced by further welfare announced cuts. I also expect to see an increase in inheritance tax and other concessions to the highest earners balanced with harsh words against tax avoidance.The argument that if we compensate them they might pay some tax. The key emphasise will be on stability, gently on the rudder and the assertion that these hard times must continue for the benefit of the hard working family.
So, let’s see how close I am, should be interesting though, I don’t expect to watch it live so will get the edited highlights later.
Still suffering the effects of a nasty virus so, feel dizzy (more than usual, I am generally a dizzy person), sore throat, cough, aches, fluctuating temperature, allergies gone somewhat mad, not sleeping well, you know, normal virus stuff so, unpleasant but not likely to disable me much, I am still doing what I usually do.
Depression? Well, I don’t think anyone who has ever suffered from depression ever really gets rid of it, we just have unmanageable and manageable levels of it. Right now, it’s manageable but there are still times on certain days and especially at night when it’s, well, I’d rather not have it is the truth but situations and experiences change throughout life so I am not going to presume for one moment that how things are now, how I feel now are permanent.
Weight, well, I have conceded that I can’t just los weight right now, not sustainably. So, thanks to Primark I have upped my sizes which makes me feel better about myself and I don’t look quite so much like a fat bloke trying to wear too small clothes!
I am still single, I’d like that to change, I’d like to have the money to explore possibilities with Randy over in San Pablo, Philippines but, I don’t and so that may never happen. This is a shame as we’re so well suited on so many levels, one in which it’s quite difficult to establish here is in dimensions, it would be ideal for me to have a partner my level! We’re the same age, though he thinks that’s old! As the older sibling he’s become head of the house more or less with the loss of both parents. He’s fun and intelligent and damn handsome … sure, maybe carrying a little extra weight but then, see above! Ideally Randy needs to find the money to come here, perhaps to study for three years, that’d give us the best chance to explore possibilities and also work as a boost for his future if there was no future with me. I can visit there and intend to but, it can’t and won’t be like before with Jo. I cannot fund immigration to the UK and Randy doesn’t want me to either which is a refreshing attitude to have. The only other option is to move out there which, in reality, I cannot do easily, not impossible but not easy. I’d have zero income and don’t want to be a burden on his family. I also don’t want to be in the position whereby I couldn’t afford a flight back to see my family when I wanted to. So, it’s all seeming rather hopeless. I understand why we have immigration policies like we do but, at the same time, it’s just so damn annoying as well.
My eyes are sore now, been sitting here a bit too long I think, about half hour, and I might need a nice lemon water.
Feeling somewhat poorly, let’s just say ‘man flu’ because I don’t know what it is, I find it difficult to remain calm and relaxed. Actually, relaxed is not a word which applies at all right now, anything but!
Anyway, I’ve had to deal with silly people over the telephone and am proud of myself for maintaining a degree of humour and understanding for their predicament even when they were so clearly talking complete nonsense. This is not least because Sean now works for such a call centre and has to deal with people like me calling all day and I know it sours his day when someone awkward calls. Sadly, ‘Molly’ at Ovo Energy was extremely unhelpful and I had need to speak to her boss but, even so, once he had sorted my quite basic requirement, I did ask him to speak to Molly and explain that my assertiveness was not a personal affront on her, that I accept I was probably expecting a result beyond her remit, hopefully that was passed along to her. As for the lady at Scottish Power who asked me what I wanted her to do after I reported an illegal breach of the data protection act, well … I had to inform her that working in a data protection department she should be well aware of what to do when her company is seen to be breaking the law and that if I needed to tell her that perhaps she might be in the wrong profession! Some people are just too dense to work with!
So,my abilities are being stretched. I could do what my body is screaming at me to do and, go to bed but, that’s giving up, not something I enjoy!
As for my mental state, I’ve come to one very obvious conclusion, I’m lonely! I am not a solitary person, I don’t do well with just my own company, I need to be part of something intimate and special. Can’t see any amount of medication, CBT or counselling resolving that one! A lottery win, that would work
Feeling somewhat poorly, let’s just say ‘man flu’ because I don’t know what it is, I find it difficult to remain calm and relaxed. Actually, relaxed is not a word which applies at all right now, anything but!
Anyway, I’ve had to deal with silly people over the telephone and am proud of myself for maintaining a degree of humour and understanding for their predicament even when they were so clearly talking complete nonsense. This is not least because Sean now works for such a call centre and has to deal with people like me calling all day and I know it sours his day when someone awkward calls. Sadly, ‘Molly’ at Ovo Energy was extremely unhelpful and I had need to speak to her boss but, even so, once he had sorted my quite basic requirement, I did ask him to speak to Molly and explain that my assertiveness was not a personal affront on her, that I accept I was probably expecting a result beyond her remit, hopefully that was passed along to her. As for the lady at Scottish Power who asked me what I wanted her to do after I reported an illegal breach of the data protection act, well … I had to inform her that working in a data protection department she should be well aware of what to do when her company is seen to be breaking the law and that if I needed to tell her that perhaps she might be in the wrong profession! Some people are just too dense to work with!
So,my abilities are being stretched. I could do what my body is screaming at me to do and, go to bed but, that’s giving up, not something I enjoy!
As for my mental state, I’ve come to one very obvious conclusion, I’m lonely! I am not a solitary person, I don’t do well with just my own company, I need to be part of something intimate and special. Can’t see any amount of medication, CBT or counselling resolving that one! A lottery win, that would work
I may double entry here occasionally but generally speaking I’d like my readers to go to http://ruright.org.uk/blog/ where there is a link to subscribe to email notifications of my blog, it will be more generally updated than this place and is a much better site technically
For some reason today has not been good. Last night I was up a little late but, that’s normal for me. Thing is, I felt physically ill and weak. That’s carried on today as well, no doubt some sort of bug. I had a nap earlier, was meant to be a quick, hour or so catch up, it was several hours and I felt I could stay there all night.
Damn depression has kicked in again, been pushing myself through it rather a lot, that’s quite tiring.
Somewhat fed up with what the doctor reckons are the symptoms of allergic rhinitis but I am not so sure. I get very sore spots all over the place, itchy to the point of wanting to scratch my skin off and scabs on my head like I have a serious flea issue (I don’t) Generally just rather unpleasant, not sure what else to do about it if the doctor seems convinced it’s the rhinitis and just wants to keep experimenting with new meds.
With some good fortune I might wake tomorrow feeling altogether different. I don’t have any plans this week other than trying daily to communicate with Randy which just seems to keep not happening. It’s his birthday Friday, no doubt he’ll be convincing himself he’s just one step closer to the grave because he’s an old man! He’s the same age as me, I thinking I’ve only just taken my first steps out the cradle … glass half empty or half full?
For some reason today has not been good. Last night I was up a little late but, that’s normal for me. Thing is, I felt physically ill and weak. That’s carried on today as well, no doubt some sort of bug. I had a nap earlier, was meant to be a quick, hour or so catch up, it was several hours and I felt I could stay there all night.
Damn depression has kicked in again, been pushing myself through it rather a lot, that’s quite tiring.
Somewhat fed up with what the doctor reckons are the symptoms of allergic rhinitis but I am not so sure. I get very sore spots all over the place, itchy to the point of wanting to scratch my skin off and scabs on my head like I have a serious flea issue (I don’t) Generally just rather unpleasant, not sure what else to do about it if the doctor seems convinced it’s the rhinitis and just wants to keep experimenting with new meds.
With some good fortune I might wake tomorrow feeling altogether different. I don’t have any plans this week other than trying daily to communicate with Randy which just seems to keep not happening. It’s his birthday Friday, no doubt he’ll be convincing himself he’s just one step closer to the grave because he’s an old man! He’s the same age as me, I thinking I’ve only just taken my first steps out the cradle … glass half empty or half full?
Sir Philip Green sells BHS to Retail Acquisitions – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31851887
That Starbucks is likely to open one of their largest ever coffee shops in Northampton not so long after they claimed repeatedly that a Starbucks in Northampton at all wasn’t a viable prospect! So far we got the first drive through which is always heaving and another outlet at sixfields!
Of course, I am thinking perhaps we need more than coffee to sustain the town centre, some decent chain and independent stores is what we really need! We are a county town struggling to be a village! These places shouldn’t have to think too long about coming here, it should be unthinkable to them that they’re not here. It would also help if the management and ownership of the Grosvenor Centre had the first clue how to attract and keep new concepts and established brands. Losing existing high profile stores such as the Disney Store & House of Fraser is plain idiotic. Failing to cement the deal on Ed’s Diner is just as stupid! Yes, we have a lovely shiny Primark and Next but, we had those stores already. It may have been a coup for the management to steal them from Market Walk and Abington Street but, it does not a lot if anything for the town and how we’re perceived. Right now, if I were choosing a town to live in based on the town centre, I’d give Northampton not one moment of my consideration, it just doesn’t offer what so many other towns do. For a County Town, that’s just unacceptable!
Having a pee and noticing movement out the corner of your eye, looking and seeing a spider on your shoulder, well …. That!
Have just received my 2015-16 council tax demand, it’s wrong!!! I am just totally flummoxed as to who exactly at Northampton Borough Council cares enough about their position to get the job done right.
Jeremy Clarkson ‘punch’: Top Gear episodes to be dropped – BBC News.
Why can they not just sack this horrible man?
Why is one man more important than a show which existed prior to his joining it?
Top Gear cancelled for the rest of the series because of this one man so, no doubt, they can sneak him in again next series as though nothing ever happened!
I can’t help thinking that the BBC still courts celebrity too much and, whist he’s not a child molester, isn’t it time the BBC put standards before popularity?
On the left of the page now should be an easy way to subscribe to the blog.. Each individual entry also has the option now to share to Facebook, sent to email or to print.
I am done testing now unless someone lets me know of a problem 🙂
You should now see a really obvious subscribe option over to the left … if I got it right, it’ll will work!
Watched the first episode of ‘Constantine’ last night. It’s potentially a little scary but, a good series, well, looks like it could be so, another to add to the ever growing list of TV I am either watching or intending to watch …. total fail so far on ‘Breaking Bad’ which I have not even started despite there now being a spin-off series, I need to get going on that.
Currently on Season 6 of Stargate SG1, half way through that and still enjoying it.
My new found love of watching TV comes with regaining control of my lounge, it’s a huge benefit to me to have somewhere to escape to. I do think that I need to leave my phone out the room, can’t seem to ever watch anything all the way through without interruptions. As I’ve always said, if it’s REALLY urgent we have the house phone.
‘Agents of Shield’ is back, we need to watch that, not even started on ‘Agent Carter’ yet, same goes for ‘Warehouse 13’. I am up to date on ‘Bar Rescue’ and just find it so easy to watch.
I have not and have no plans to watch any soaps or mainstream TV, certainly not ‘as it happens’ as I do not do adverts!
To your left, in the section marked ‘tools’ you should see an option to ‘register’ which will add you as a subscriber. There are also options for RSS feeds which you can use that will offer you updates in your favourite RSS reader.
I’d quite like this to get off the ground, it certainly has a lot more options for feedback. The software is new to me though so expect some weird stuff happening. I can tell you that the photography section is screwed up already. It might look OK but it’s totally not doing what it is meant to be doing in some browsers! The video section seems to be working OK and I’ve managed to get the entire archive from my old blog here going back to 2004!
This software also has some stuff I totally don’t get yet so be prepared for some weirdness!
http://ruright.org.uk/blog/ is the location of the new blog which I hope shall replace this one. It’s significantly different in just about every way containing not only blog entries but also pictures and video too on separate pages with more to come shortly.
Unlike the current one which uses some convoluted way to get messages out to you which, apparently, stopped working for two years (You have some catching up to do), this one has to be subscribed to. Thankfully, this should be a simple procedure as the ‘register’ option is quite near the top of the page, just under the calendar section. I can only hope that by subscribing you do actually get messages, this seems to be the most difficult thing to achieve!
Have spent most of this afternoon getting creative so I hope it works.
I’ve not seen it without being logged in but, I think if you want to subscribe there should be an option
If you are getting this, please let me know, especially let me know if you get the same post more than once
Apparently, the system for entries to get sent out stopped working in 2013! I may have something working again now but, any posts since then, you probably didn’t see them unless you subscribe to my blog
I am currently working through modules on Self Esteem. I can honestly say, it’s tough reading!
So much does relate to me it hurts to read it. Already I am wishing for answers that I need. It’s like, I know and understand what I am reading and acknowledge it as a fair representation of my current state but, where is the hug? The reassurance that it’s all going to be OK?
The issue, for me, of doing this sort of thing is that it highlights possibly the greatest issue I have, I am alone. Someone special to hug up to, to talk to when I need it, well, I don’t have anyone. Perhaps that is a good thing because, right now, I’d probably question all their motives, what is their ‘real’ agenda? Even knowing where those feelings come from, where they started and so on is not yet helping me to overcome them. I’ve become somewhat insecure and full of self doubt, all negative stuff. Frustratingly, I can damn well see it too, it’s like there are two of me, am sure someone would say that’s because I am a Gemini. Part of me is full of this stuff I have in me which prevents me from valuing myself whilst another part of me sees the results of my existence on others and feels I must be getting something right.
OK, let’s analyse this a little … I do recall a lot of critical comment growing up. Every school report said ‘could do better’ in every subject. This was repeated by parents and spoken off around the wider family. I remember some nightmare additional maths lessons with an uncle one summer listening to the rest of the family having fun and glorious summer evenings whilst I was forced to ‘do better’. Needless to say, I never did do better. I have been told by historical family that I am a failure and a disappointment. I am sure I was told a great many things but that sort of things stuck with me. I remember many of the women in my life as a child were positive. That said, my Nan always used to say, ‘You are the best boy in a girls class’ and that always left me feeling inadequate. To me it meant that, in reality, I’d not achieved at all because being the best boy in that girls class meant I was also the worst, it was nothing more than standing still.
I can think of a lot of things which left me feeling ‘less’ throughout my life. I actually thought I’d licked it all, sorted it all out, come to terms with it being just misjudged comments from people thinking they were helping. Of course, it wasn’t always words which damaged me, hearing loss and height have been another two important factors. It’s quite difficult to keep up with a conversation that can’t be heard properly when I also have the issue of everyone else speaking over me, physically over me. Talking to ‘a’ taller person is easy enough, when everyone in the group is taller and all are standing then, they talk on ‘their’ level leaving me with a desire to slip away unnoticed. It’s a horrible feeling. Coming more up to date we have the Facebook generation where others say the most horrible things. When I have read from several different people of how awful I am supposed to be, after a while I’ve found myself questioning my former belief that I am actually an OK guy. I’ve been accused of being a control freak, obsessed with money, superior (in a negative way). Some downright insults such as being fat, ugly and so on. Some who I allowed to get close to me emotionally abused me, stole from me and generally made me feel like utter crap. As much as I tell myself that it was them, not me, still I have this feeling, this questioning of, what if they are right? What if others just tell me I am OK because they want to be supportive but really I am a complete wanker?
Another issue is, being 50+ is when we perhaps like to think we’ve sort of worked stuff out. When we have learnt enough life skills to know the good from the bad people but, I reckon the contrary is true. I believe that the older we get the more desperate we get to make things right. I know I have been terrible certain that I have to get others to love and appreciate me, that there is something really special about me and if I just try a little harder they will see it and be my BFF! Oh, come on, that’s obviously complete nonsense so, why do I find myself doing it over and over?
Accepting kindness and support … I question it all the time, if not the person offering it then the opinions of others seeing it. If I accept a kindness off someone, a ‘freebie’ then, will others think I am just using them? Why should I worry what others think? Why indeed! But I do. I don’t want to, I want to honestly not give a damn whether they approve of me or not but, I have this stupid need to be approved of. Approving of myself just doesn’t seem to be enough.
Dreams, I used to always believe that no one has the right to take our dreams away but, of late I have amended that to, people have the absolute right and often do destroy every tiny bit of happiness I have. If I am having ‘me’ time then others will think nothing of making it ‘their’ time, even if briefly. If I travel alone then others will make a point of having zero interest in what I’ve done. It was really upsetting, more than I think anyone realised that I did this huge trip in 2014, made up a reasonable video for it and only one person watched it with me, perhaps a handful watched it alone or parts of it, no one spoke to me about it. It was the same with Florida in September 2012, because of the person I went with, no one was interested in my stories. It means any pleasure I derived from an experienced is destroyed, I feel guilty all the more so for enjoying myself at all. It enforces my belief that me having a good time just isn’t on, I am not here for me, I am here for everyone else. I sometimes feel I just need to accept this but, you know what? I really don’t want to. I want someone else to take a genuine and deep interest in my life without any other motive than they just value me as a person. Sure, I want a life partner but, I also need a friend who just enjoys my company, where I am not the one they don’t invite along to the pub because I don’t quite fit in with their other social group, in truth, some genuine best friend not in love with me, not wanting to shag me, just a friend. Maybe one who has a partner, who has no other reason to like me other than enjoying my company. I feel I sometimes get close but, never quite there. It’s one of the real issues of Facebook indeed, I see those who say I am a great friend ‘like a brother’ and yet, every weekend they are off out with their mates and, not me. In life we’re lucky if we have one close friend. I do have at least one but, each friend I have, and I value them and adore them dearly, with possibly one exception, does have their own issues they need me for (I really don’t mind that at all).
That seems to be terribly ungrateful to those in my inner circle, it wasn’t meant to be, remember, this is how I feel, it’s not stating any facts, I could be a million miles off the mark with my assessment but, if I don’t share my feelings then, well, how does someone get to know me? Can you see the low self esteem though? I mean, even when logically I have some people who just value me as me, I will immediately look for the cracks, the underlying reasoning, the negativity. I dislike it muchly and, why ‘muchly’ isn’t a word is beyond me! I don’t have enough friends my age, not close anyway and I mean geographically close here. It’s obviously difficult for someone in their 20’s to relate to me not least because a huge part of their thinking will place me more in line with their parents than them, that’s ageism but, understandable as it seems part of the British culture to have to pigeon hold every difference on a level of acceptability, I really don’t feel I am going to change anything.
Well, this CBT stuff has 8 modules, I am currently on module 2 and finding it tough going!
I am currently working through modules on Self Esteem. I can honestly say, it’s tough reading!
So much does relate to me it hurts to read it. Already I am wishing for answers that I need. It’s like, I know and understand what I am reading and acknowledge it as a fair representation of my current state but, where is the hug? The reassurance that it’s all going to be OK?
The issue, for me, of doing this sort of thing is that it highlights possibly the greatest issue I have, I am alone. Someone special to hug up to, to talk to when I need it, well, I don’t have anyone. Perhaps that is a good thing because, right now, I’d probably question all their motives, what is their ‘real’ agenda? Even knowing where those feelings come from, where they started and so on is not yet helping me to overcome them. I’ve become somewhat insecure and full of self doubt, all negative stuff. Frustratingly, I can damn well see it too, it’s like there are two of me, am sure someone would say that’s because I am a Gemini. Part of me is full of this stuff I have in me which prevents me from valuing myself whilst another part of me sees the results of my existence on others and feels I must be getting something right.
OK, let’s analyse this a little … I do recall a lot of critical comment growing up. Every school report said ‘could do better’ in every subject. This was repeated by parents and spoken off around the wider family. I remember some nightmare additional maths lessons with an uncle one summer listening to the rest of the family having fun and glorious summer evenings whilst I was forced to ‘do better’. Needless to say, I never did do better. I have been told by historical family that I am a failure and a disappointment. I am sure I was told a great many things but that sort of things stuck with me. I remember many of the women in my life as a child were positive. That said, my Nan always used to say, ‘You are the best boy in a girls class’ and that always left me feeling inadequate. To me it meant that, in reality, I’d not achieved at all because being the best boy in that girls class meant I was also the worst, it was nothing more than standing still.
I can think of a lot of things which left me feeling ‘less’ throughout my life. I actually thought I’d licked it all, sorted it all out, come to terms with it being just misjudged comments from people thinking they were helping. Of course, it wasn’t always words which damaged me, hearing loss and height have been another two important factors. It’s quite difficult to keep up with a conversation that can’t be heard properly when I also have the issue of everyone else speaking over me, physically over me. Talking to ‘a’ taller person is easy enough, when everyone in the group is taller and all are standing then, they talk on ‘their’ level leaving me with a desire to slip away unnoticed. It’s a horrible feeling. Coming more up to date we have the Facebook generation where others say the most horrible things. When I have read from several different people of how awful I am supposed to be, after a while I’ve found myself questioning my former belief that I am actually an OK guy. I’ve been accused of being a control freak, obsessed with money, superior (in a negative way). Some downright insults such as being fat, ugly and so on. Some who I allowed to get close to me emotionally abused me, stole from me and generally made me feel like utter crap. As much as I tell myself that it was them, not me, still I have this feeling, this questioning of, what if they are right? What if others just tell me I am OK because they want to be supportive but really I am a complete wanker?
Another issue is, being 50+ is when we perhaps like to think we’ve sort of worked stuff out. When we have learnt enough life skills to know the good from the bad people but, I reckon the contrary is true. I believe that the older we get the more desperate we get to make things right. I know I have been terrible certain that I have to get others to love and appreciate me, that there is something really special about me and if I just try a little harder they will see it and be my BFF! Oh, come on, that’s obviously complete nonsense so, why do I find myself doing it over and over?
Accepting kindness and support … I question it all the time, if not the person offering it then the opinions of others seeing it. If I accept a kindness off someone, a ‘freebie’ then, will others think I am just using them? Why should I worry what others think? Why indeed! But I do. I don’t want to, I want to honestly not give a damn whether they approve of me or not but, I have this stupid need to be approved of. Approving of myself just doesn’t seem to be enough.
Dreams, I used to always believe that no one has the right to take our dreams away but, of late I have amended that to, people have the absolute right and often do destroy every tiny bit of happiness I have. If I am having ‘me’ time then others will think nothing of making it ‘their’ time, even if briefly. If I travel alone then others will make a point of having zero interest in what I’ve done. It was really upsetting, more than I think anyone realised that I did this huge trip in 2014, made up a reasonable video for it and only one person watched it with me, perhaps a handful watched it alone or parts of it, no one spoke to me about it. It was the same with Florida in September 2012, because of the person I went with, no one was interested in my stories. It means any pleasure I derived from an experienced is destroyed, I feel guilty all the more so for enjoying myself at all. It enforces my belief that me having a good time just isn’t on, I am not here for me, I am here for everyone else. I sometimes feel I just need to accept this but, you know what? I really don’t want to. I want someone else to take a genuine and deep interest in my life without any other motive than they just value me as a person. Sure, I want a life partner but, I also need a friend who just enjoys my company, where I am not the one they don’t invite along to the pub because I don’t quite fit in with their other social group, in truth, some genuine best friend not in love with me, not wanting to shag me, just a friend. Maybe one who has a partner, who has no other reason to like me other than enjoying my company. I feel I sometimes get close but, never quite there. It’s one of the real issues of Facebook indeed, I see those who say I am a great friend ‘like a brother’ and yet, every weekend they are off out with their mates and, not me. In life we’re lucky if we have one close friend. I do have at least one but, each friend I have, and I value them and adore them dearly, with possibly one exception, does have their own issues they need me for (I really don’t mind that at all).
That seems to be terribly ungrateful to those in my inner circle, it wasn’t meant to be, remember, this is how I feel, it’s not stating any facts, I could be a million miles off the mark with my assessment but, if I don’t share my feelings then, well, how does someone get to know me? Can you see the low self esteem though? I mean, even when logically I have some people who just value me as me, I will immediately look for the cracks, the underlying reasoning, the negativity. I dislike it muchly and, why ‘muchly’ isn’t a word is beyond me! I don’t have enough friends my age, not close anyway and I mean geographically close here. It’s obviously difficult for someone in their 20’s to relate to me not least because a huge part of their thinking will place me more in line with their parents than them, that’s ageism but, understandable as it seems part of the British culture to have to pigeon hold every difference on a level of acceptability, I really don’t feel I am going to change anything.
Well, this CBT stuff has 8 modules, I am currently on module 2 and finding it tough going!
I finally discovered why my PC wasn’t working. Not that your interested in techie stuff (but I am going to tell you anyway) … the Power Supply (PSU) wasn’t able to cope with the hardware I needed to add to the PC so I took too long working that out but once I twigged, I got the one that came with it swapped over for my older and more powerful unit. It still objects to some of the hard drives but they do now all work and it can get the updates it needs, seems to be running OK.
Am loving the new headphones, I can now listen to music or watch a video in privacy and quiet so I get some valuable my space and others don’t have to be woken up by loud music at 1am!
What is it with the Tories? Have they become so arrogant that they feel they can afford to be blatant about it? At least previously they tried a little pretend to not openly say they believed they were above mere mortals, now they don’t seem to care! Cameron and his announcement of what democracy we can expect with TV debates! What a complete and utter arsehole. As for the SNP and their thinking they might well have the right to run the UK if they take enough seats from Labour well, they can go do one because the UK is not going to be run for the benefit of Scotland any more than it should be run for the benefit of England and the SNP will only be interest in the Scottish self interest! Now, which MP was it who told us all recently we need to stop tactical voting and vote for the person we feel is the right one for the job? Damn fool idea that is! You’d get people voting the Greens (Who can’t recall their own policies) or mad UKIP, a party who have a set of policies they only share with the voters and not anything their candidates seem overly concerned by, they are far more interested in getting rid of all those nasty immigrants (except their own immigrants who are OK), if they can get the poofters out too then that’s an added bonus and then they want to go home to their women who they believe should be raising children and doing the cleaning! Liberal Democrats seem to have some strange notion that they have been in government achieving things, how weird! All they have actually achieved is to hold back the Tories on some (and only some) of their more nasty policies and they’ve managed to get themselves blamed for just about everything which went wrong since they got their jobs! Not that anyone could have seen that one coming! Perhaps had they been less interested in arse licking and keeping their jobs and more interested in a moral standard and policy things would have been different, Clegg can only suck Cameron for so long before the voters stop seeing him as anything more than a dick who sucks up to a dick! Labour, bless them … the wrong man one as often happens in party elections so now they have an uphill struggle to convince people that a man who always sounds like he feels sorry for himself can run the country. He should have gone seen a voice coach, it worked for Thatcher and would have done for him, he needs to speak less apologetically and more assertive.
Medically, back to me for a bit, I am getting CBT, it means not a lot of one to one and a lot of reading on the other. It’s good to read stuff anyway if I am honest. I do wish it wasn’t written like I only had one issue, one complication in life. It makes it quite difficult to relate things to my own set of unique circumstances. It also means I read a lot that is stuff I’ve already been aware of know it doesn’t work for me. Saying ‘no’ more often merely reduces one aspect of a problem because some issues do not justify a ‘no’ because those needing me to do something don’t have someone else and me refusing just screws their life up too and I need them for me as well, it’s more complicated that it seems, not everyone who is a pain up the arse doesn’t also have values which are important to me, not everyone who asks for my help is a taker and if I don’t remember that I end up chucking the baby with the bathwater.
I need to keep a check on the glasses situation. These are OK but not having the vision clear when I look down has meant me walking into things sometimes, no damage done but rather awkward! That said, the other day I heard Danny getting rather upset, I could hear him but, hearing aids being crap like they are, I couldn’t work out a direction so I had to walk around … poor love, good job I wasn’t walking fast as I walked right into him!
Weight loss isn’t really happening. I am not huge but am still uncomfortably on the large size and I really don’t like that look when I sit down and my belly pop out my t-shirt.
Missing Anne and the kids so am going to try and visit again this afternoon. I speak to Matt quite a lot one way or another so that’s OK. It’s one of the issues not being on Facebook, I don’t get to find out what the kids are doing, see the little videos and such like and I do miss that.
Hmm, meant to have seen Tyler just after Christmas for a coffee, it is long enough after Christmas yet or didn’t we agree on a year? LOL
Nearly got all the new stickers I need to colour my office, have gone for a very specific theme of stuff which makes me smile or reminders of what is important to me so, should be quite good and will place a uniqueness on the room. I discovered a site called ‘redbubble’ and they are a great source to get hold of things I’ve just not seen anywhere else, stickers, t-shirts and other specific things and they don’t take the ‘P’ with pricing either!
As for pricing, noticed that the price of fuel seems to be creeping way up again, around £1.18 here again now which is strange as I’ve not read the price of oil going up again.
Northampton Borough Council are really annoying me! They are so incompetent it’s unbelievable! No way should someone running a department dedicated to calculating the facts be unable to put the facts into figures and reach the right results! If the man at the top can’t do it, what chance for everyone he is employing! Apparently, despite several letters to the contrary, despite physical proof, they still insist Daisy is earning £96 a week and in receipt of tax credits she stopped getting three months ago, even though they know they have this information! Do you know, when we lost our last bit of housing benefit when the bedroom subsidy was introduced what they told me was that they couldn’t pay any more housing benefit because of our circumstances … what they didn’t tell me was that if my circumstances changed I’d have to reapply for Housing Benefit. Even though in countless phone calls and letters they acknowledge I am notifying them of a change which might affect my benefit entitlement, at no time did someone mention I needed to apply for it! All they told me was that I was not entitled to Housing Benefit. What they were doing is like this scenario:
Someone walks into the jobcentre and tells staff they got to the end of their contract and now are not working and the nice person at the counter notifies them they don’t have an entitlement to JSA. That statement is perfectly true, they don’t. But, the key part deliberately not being mentioned is that they are entitled to make a claim and, if they do, they most likely then will be entitled to JSA!
So, this is what happened, they didn’t tell me the true nature of the claim so were honestly telling me I didn’t have an entitlement whereas what they should have done was advised me to make a new claim so they could assess it properly!
They know they made cock up at every opportunity there and have agreed to back date the claim to August last year and get things right. But, as they have failed to do this thus far with council tax, I am not overly optimistic they’d get any housing benefit entitlement sorted.
Robin, Ford were messing him about just like they did with me when I tried to get a car from them, their dealers have no control over the delivery process and, as such, no way of telling a customer how long they have to wait. Robin had been waiting around 3 months with no assurances of how much longer this might be, they were voicing a maybe for April some time! Anyway, that car got cancelled and it looks like he might be getting a lovely Nissan Juke. He might have to wait up to 14 weeks for it but, the attitude of the sales people is totally different, they leave Robin, and me, feeling like they care what happens. The attitude at Fords was that they do customers this huge great favour taking an order then sitting on their arse all day looking at a computer screen!
Time for lunch I think
I finally discovered why my PC wasn’t working. Not that your interested in techie stuff (but I am going to tell you anyway) … the Power Supply (PSU) wasn’t able to cope with the hardware I needed to add to the PC so I took too long working that out but once I twigged, I got the one that came with it swapped over for my older and more powerful unit. It still objects to some of the hard drives but they do now all work and it can get the updates it needs, seems to be running OK.
Am loving the new headphones, I can now listen to music or watch a video in privacy and quiet so I get some valuable my space and others don’t have to be woken up by loud music at 1am!
What is it with the Tories? Have they become so arrogant that they feel they can afford to be blatant about it? At least previously they tried a little pretend to not openly say they believed they were above mere mortals, now they don’t seem to care! Cameron and his announcement of what democracy we can expect with TV debates! What a complete and utter arsehole. As for the SNP and their thinking they might well have the right to run the UK if they take enough seats from Labour well, they can go do one because the UK is not going to be run for the benefit of Scotland any more than it should be run for the benefit of England and the SNP will only be interest in the Scottish self interest! Now, which MP was it who told us all recently we need to stop tactical voting and vote for the person we feel is the right one for the job? Damn fool idea that is! You’d get people voting the Greens (Who can’t recall their own policies) or mad UKIP, a party who have a set of policies they only share with the voters and not anything their candidates seem overly concerned by, they are far more interested in getting rid of all those nasty immigrants (except their own immigrants who are OK), if they can get the poofters out too then that’s an added bonus and then they want to go home to their women who they believe should be raising children and doing the cleaning! Liberal Democrats seem to have some strange notion that they have been in government achieving things, how weird! All they have actually achieved is to hold back the Tories on some (and only some) of their more nasty policies and they’ve managed to get themselves blamed for just about everything which went wrong since they got their jobs! Not that anyone could have seen that one coming! Perhaps had they been less interested in arse licking and keeping their jobs and more interested in a moral standard and policy things would have been different, Clegg can only suck Cameron for so long before the voters stop seeing him as anything more than a dick who sucks up to a dick! Labour, bless them … the wrong man one as often happens in party elections so now they have an uphill struggle to convince people that a man who always sounds like he feels sorry for himself can run the country. He should have gone seen a voice coach, it worked for Thatcher and would have done for him, he needs to speak less apologetically and more assertive.
Medically, back to me for a bit, I am getting CBT, it means not a lot of one to one and a lot of reading on the other. It’s good to read stuff anyway if I am honest. I do wish it wasn’t written like I only had one issue, one complication in life. It makes it quite difficult to relate things to my own set of unique circumstances. It also means I read a lot that is stuff I’ve already been aware of know it doesn’t work for me. Saying ‘no’ more often merely reduces one aspect of a problem because some issues do not justify a ‘no’ because those needing me to do something don’t have someone else and me refusing just screws their life up too and I need them for me as well, it’s more complicated that it seems, not everyone who is a pain up the arse doesn’t also have values which are important to me, not everyone who asks for my help is a taker and if I don’t remember that I end up chucking the baby with the bathwater.
I need to keep a check on the glasses situation. These are OK but not having the vision clear when I look down has meant me walking into things sometimes, no damage done but rather awkward! That said, the other day I heard Danny getting rather upset, I could hear him but, hearing aids being crap like they are, I couldn’t work out a direction so I had to walk around … poor love, good job I wasn’t walking fast as I walked right into him!
Weight loss isn’t really happening. I am not huge but am still uncomfortably on the large size and I really don’t like that look when I sit down and my belly pop out my t-shirt.
Missing Anne and the kids so am going to try and visit again this afternoon. I speak to Matt quite a lot one way or another so that’s OK. It’s one of the issues not being on Facebook, I don’t get to find out what the kids are doing, see the little videos and such like and I do miss that.
Hmm, meant to have seen Tyler just after Christmas for a coffee, it is long enough after Christmas yet or didn’t we agree on a year? LOL
Nearly got all the new stickers I need to colour my office, have gone for a very specific theme of stuff which makes me smile or reminders of what is important to me so, should be quite good and will place a uniqueness on the room. I discovered a site called ‘redbubble’ and they are a great source to get hold of things I’ve just not seen anywhere else, stickers, t-shirts and other specific things and they don’t take the ‘P’ with pricing either!
As for pricing, noticed that the price of fuel seems to be creeping way up again, around £1.18 here again now which is strange as I’ve not read the price of oil going up again.
Northampton Borough Council are really annoying me! They are so incompetent it’s unbelievable! No way should someone running a department dedicated to calculating the facts be unable to put the facts into figures and reach the right results! If the man at the top can’t do it, what chance for everyone he is employing! Apparently, despite several letters to the contrary, despite physical proof, they still insist Daisy is earning £96 a week and in receipt of tax credits she stopped getting three months ago, even though they know they have this information! Do you know, when we lost our last bit of housing benefit when the bedroom subsidy was introduced what they told me was that they couldn’t pay any more housing benefit because of our circumstances … what they didn’t tell me was that if my circumstances changed I’d have to reapply for Housing Benefit. Even though in countless phone calls and letters they acknowledge I am notifying them of a change which might affect my benefit entitlement, at no time did someone mention I needed to apply for it! All they told me was that I was not entitled to Housing Benefit. What they were doing is like this scenario:
Someone walks into the jobcentre and tells staff they got to the end of their contract and now are not working and the nice person at the counter notifies them they don’t have an entitlement to JSA. That statement is perfectly true, they don’t. But, the key part deliberately not being mentioned is that they are entitled to make a claim and, if they do, they most likely then will be entitled to JSA!
So, this is what happened, they didn’t tell me the true nature of the claim so were honestly telling me I didn’t have an entitlement whereas what they should have done was advised me to make a new claim so they could assess it properly!
They know they made cock up at every opportunity there and have agreed to back date the claim to August last year and get things right. But, as they have failed to do this thus far with council tax, I am not overly optimistic they’d get any housing benefit entitlement sorted.
Robin, Ford were messing him about just like they did with me when I tried to get a car from them, their dealers have no control over the delivery process and, as such, no way of telling a customer how long they have to wait. Robin had been waiting around 3 months with no assurances of how much longer this might be, they were voicing a maybe for April some time! Anyway, that car got cancelled and it looks like he might be getting a lovely Nissan Juke. He might have to wait up to 14 weeks for it but, the attitude of the sales people is totally different, they leave Robin, and me, feeling like they care what happens. The attitude at Fords was that they do customers this huge great favour taking an order then sitting on their arse all day looking at a computer screen!
Time for lunch I think
This from my daughter - Daisy April is FND Awareness month & Autism Acceptance month. As someone who lives with both I wanted to raise...
