It’s almost four months ago that I ‘downed pen’ and closed my blog.  I didn’t make a conscious decision to do so.  After my last entry which I now see was about the American election, I just never came back.  A web of misery wound itself around me as the winter approached and I couldn’t find the spark that had illuminated my writing.  Life has been very hard on me over the last few months for all sorts of reasons leaving me devoid of the will to write anything at all.  Days, then weeks and then months went by and the longer I was a away from the blog, the more courage I needed to return to it.  Several times I have thought about opening it up but I couldn’t quite make myself.

Today, while sorting out bits and bobs on my laptop, I found myself clicking on WordPress and here I am!  I was heartened by the comments left for me, especially yours Rudi, thank you and to Dave and Lynette and AA.  Seeing that people care about me is heartening and so I’m writing today to say I am alive!  I shall collect my thoughts and will be back with a proper post and some updates very soon!!  Best wishes to you:)

Picture www.visi.com

So, the American people have cast their votes and made history, voting in an African American president.  It has been an incredible campaign that seems to have gone on for an age.  I couldn’t wait to hear the results this morning and it seems that this particular election has got the people of the world completely inspired.  The very fact that an African American was in the running has had a unique effect on everyone as the people of the world saw the possibility that a black man could become the most powerful man in the world.

I can’t imagine that Martin Luther King ever imagined that his dream would come to fruition so soon.  “I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  I’m not sure that this is exactly the case in this instance and in these enlightened days, it was possibly the fact that Barack is black, that made the difference.  But, “with this hope, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope”, is perhaps the case for many minority groups in the country and the world over.  Barack Obama is well aware of this, “those who’ve been told…to be cynical and fearful.. put their hand on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day”.  Not bad.  I wonder who wrote that part of his acceptance speech.  It was lovely, really poetic. 

“An end to slavery and racial prejudice” reported an ITV newscaster though I thought racial prejudice had been banned a long time ago.

The thorn in the side for me, is the enormous war chest Barack had at his disposal.  Some $600 million dollars bought him this election against a paltry amount that McCain had to fight his own campaign.  I think that’s wrong.  The media have been totally biased in Obama’ss favour for so long, especially here in England.  It almost seemed it was a done deal a very long time ago and that must have had an effect on Americans.

No one can fault John McCain’s behaviour as he conceded the election.  He was gracious in defeat which must have been a bitter moment for him.  Socialism is on the way for Americans but then we too have a socialist style government here.  It’s the poplular thing these days.  Take from the haves and give to the have nots and so on, and bail out the banks.

America has indeed shifted on its axis but no one can deny the ‘vitality of American democracy’, as President Bush said, if you forget about the difference in the money to fight the respective campaigns, it’s refreshing to see when compared with our own country.

Good luck America.  Good luck Barack – you’re going to need it.

I’ve been catching up a bit today with other people’s blogs having been too miserable to read any lately.  I was especially inspired by Dave over at Teach my children well.  He writes of a moment of clarity, an epiphany almost, following a scrape in his car when he lost his patience with his children and generally had a melt down.  He realised that he had to make some changes in his life, that he was overwhelmed by his work and young children and had made some bad decisions culminating in the car crash.

It was his ability to pick himself up, take himself in hand, get a realistic perspective on his work and home life and make adjustments to improve himself that struck such a chord with me.  I recognise myself in his descriptions and my biggest fear is that if I don’t take his lead and turn myself around, I will look back with regret and despair that I didn’t take action when I still could.

I recognise that I’ve been dragged down by depression and despair for far too long but equally I know that if I had the same courage as Dave and pull myself up, I would feel a lot better.  I’ve allowed too many things to get the better of me for too long.  Perhaps I’ve let myself become the victim, have looked always on the negative, let the ligitamate difficulties be an endless excuse for lack of determination instead of daring to look over the edge at other, better possibilities; looked at the glass half empty rather than half full.

I’ve been probing my strength over the last few days.  On the one hand, I am pathetically pleased to have secured two tiny jobs but on the other I feel annoyed that I can be so pleased about so little.  I went to see the man that needed a cleaner yesterday.  I summoned all my strength, had a bath, put on make up, found some reasonably decent clothes (ie, without holes in) and suddenly had a moment of panic.  What if this man was after something other than a cleaner.  He had rung in response to my ‘Lady seeking local work’ card I’d put up around town.  I suddenly felt that the wording I had used sounded like those ‘girl seeking man, man seeking girl, man seeking man’ type of ads.  I was about to go to a complete strangers house on the basis of a short phone call.  I ran a few scenarios through my mind.  He could suddenly pounce and not let me out of the house.  He could be a psyco with a knife.  Or, he could be an older man needing some cleaning done.  That’s the trouble with having an over active imagination.

I left the address and phone number with The Other with instructions to call the police if I didn’t return and drove off.  He was absolutely charming.  He worried that I might feel cleaning was beneath me, he assured me that he felt we were equals, he had no illusions of grandeur, master and servant attitude, that perhaps it was the start of a good relationship between us, then he took that back fearing I might take the comment the wrong way.  He offered me more money than I asked for too.  All in all, for a first walk into uncharted territory, it could not have gone better.  I don’t have the same expectation of my other tiny job, shopping for an elderly lady.  I may be wrong but she sounded as though she could be quite a challenge and has offered a pittance for my service.  I will only have to spend a very short time with her though, and as I need to take on whatever I can, I have agreed to collect her shopping list at the weekend.  So I have mixed feelings about it all, swinging from delight that someone actually wants me, to feeling that I really ought to have better standards for myself.  I shall see it through though, if for no other reason than that man deserves my best efforts.

It didn’t help that not only, after all this time, did I walk past my old colleague that stabbed me in the back  but that my friend who also worked with me there for a while rang to ask if I’d seen that he was advertising for an Operations Manager in our local paper.  If you’ve read my post about it, you may remember that I was out of a job in the blink of an eye when the company was supposedly bankrupt and was closing down immediately.  I’ve resisted in the meantime looking to see if it is still going.  I have stopped myself looking to see if the website is still up.  I couldn’t face the huge betrayal of that vile man.  The company provides a winter service and when we had such a mild winter last year, I felt sure that he had gone out of business even if he had misled me and carried on behind my back.  To see him yesterday, our eyes meeting so fleetingly that in a minute we had walked by each other and then to see for myself later, the advertisement, brought all the bad feeling well up in me again. 

Since I left the company, I have wished many horrid things to happen to him.  I’ve wondered why I didn’t sue him and wondered if I should now.  I’ve analysed my feelings and realised that what that I most resent is how much the whole episode dented my self confidence.  The effects are still feel raw and the hurt still hurts.  I know I didn’t deserve to be treated like that and that is some consolation.  I also take comfort in the sure knowledge, that the company won’t succeed, I know this because of global warming.  I know he is ultimately in the wrong business.  I also beleive in Karma to some extent.  What goes around comes around.  I must be patient.

I wanted to thank Dave and Lynette and all the people who have bothered to try and cheer me up lately and left kind and helpful comments for me here.  And to say, that I am going to try and turn things around as Dave has done.

One day at a time.

I take Skinny down through the fields on our usual walk completely oblivious to my surroundings only aware that despite the cold, it is a beautiful sunny morning.  My mind is occupied with a million thoughts, tumbling over themselves, spinning round and round coming full circle only to go round and round again.  I think about how useless I’ve been all my life at earning money and keeping jobs and tell myself I should never have had children since I can’t look after myself never mind them.  Tears well up behind my eye lids and my chest gets tighter and tighter, I struggle to breathe.  After a few minutes I begin to panic, the struggle to get my breath is worsening, I feel a tight band strangling my lungs.  My mind tells me I am feeling acute stress, I have felt this way before.  I need to release it somehow and I stop walking, turn towards the hedge and cry.  I pray I don’t bump into anyone and glance around me.  There is a tractor spraying something that I hadn’t noticed before but with relief I note he is too far away to see my tears.  I stand there alone, Skinny unaware of my turmoil is happily visiting her usual haunts and I am grateful to let the strain wash out of me on my own.  The tight band relaxes a little and I can breathe easier. 

I’d taken the boys to the bus stop earlier to catch a bus into town.  On the way, the younger Teen had made comments which, over sensitive as I feel, I had taken to heart.  I had my sun glasses on and neither Teen noticed my despair; I never let them see my tears.  I left them and realised I had to get some shopping from the supermarket.  I hoped I wouldn’t see anyone I knew.  I always hope I won’t.  I hope I won’t because I know they will ask me how I am, how the Teens are and how The Other is and I can’t bear to be asked this because I am not ok, the Teens are not ok and The Other is never ok.  I am just picking out a tin of cat food when someone taps me on the shoulder.  It is an old friend, a friend I haven’t seen in a while as I no longer see many people nowadays.  All my old friends catch me at the supermarket.  It’s where we all shop at one time or another.  She asks the usual questions, apologises for not being in touch for so long, as they all do and I say it’s fine, we’re all busy aren’t we and yes, where does the time go, not to worry.  The platitudes roll off my tongue, the smile is fixed on my face and my emotions are under control.  I move away intact, no embarassing scenes or breakdowns but a cloud of strain is building and when I finally get out into the sunny cold air, it escapes.

I was told by a doctor years ago that I was suffering from depression.  I didn’t need her to tell me that, I already knew.  I do not have clinical depression or bi-polar depression as some people do.  I have depression from a life time of low pay, no pay financial difficulties.  I have depression because my life hasn’t turned out very well, because I had a child who was more than difficult to raise diagnosed with ADHD and because I recognised some of his troubles in myself.  I was depressed when The Other became ill and everything fell on me when I felt least able to cope.  I feel depressed that I haven’t done a good job with my children, that my elder Teen is struggling and not making a good life for himself.  I’m depressed that I have been a bad tempered person for so long that my younger Teen doesn’t much like me.  I feel depressed that I haven’t been able to create a normal family life for the Teens in recent years.  I feel depressed that despite my willingness to work hard for anyone, I never really succeed and find myself in situations where I am taken advantage of.  I feel depressed that I feel depressed when I see that compared to other people in other parts of the world, I am not so badly off.

But…there is light at the end of the tunnel.  The cards I put up begging looking for work have produced a tiny, weeny response.  Someone out there wants my help, an old man that can’t manage his house wants a housekeeper/cleaner.  It is a tiny branch held out to me, a branch that could start me on the road to better things.  A few more branches offered to fill up a few more days for other people or local businesses is all I ask for now.  I am too fragile to take on any serious work but a gradual increase that will help to bring back my ’self’, in time will enable me to climb back up out of the darkness.

Well it’s been one the worst weeks I’ve had in years.  So bad that I haven’t had the inclination to write here at all.  I’ve been holed up in my house, thankful I have a roof over my head but miserable having no money.  I’ve been stretching out the tiny income I have, trying desperately not to run out of food for the dog, chickens and ourselves.  The Teens are sick of me buying cheap bread and finding the fridge empty and sick of me going on about having enough petrol.  It’s one thing being poor when you only have yourself to look after, it’s quite another when you have children.  Both lads need clothes and half term is next week and is looking pretty dull.

Of course, I haven’t just suddenly become poor.  I’ve been on a tiny income for some time, it’s just that The Elder Teen is back home and is another mouth to feed, some of my income has been reduced and I’ve had to extend my overdraft at the bank which means they have been busily charging me huge fees, taking me further into debt to the point where all my money goes to pay them back the minute I get it and then I start borrowing off them all over again.   It’s a vicious circle really.  When you live on a small budget, you notice when the price of food goes up which it has done so much recently and I’ve only just recovered from the appalling price of petrol in the summer.

My efforts to find a job started out quite hopefully.  I thought I’d get another office job and went off for a couple interviews.  I got neither job and in some ways I’m glad.  Both jobs, one a trainee vets nurse which I would have loved were highly demanding and thoroughly inconveneint.  I would have made it work for the vet job as that is really a vocation but the doctor’s surgery, that was a disgrace.  For fractionally above the minimum wage, I was expected to arrive very early in the morning on some days, go to another surgery miles away on another, have to work Saturdays at the same wage and generally put myself out in every way for a pittance.

One of the things that has always infuriated me is the low pay for admin work.  It is usually around minimum wage, full of responsibility, requires numerous skills – all apsects of secretarial work, sometimes basic accounts, smart dress code, good telephone manner and there is usually too much work for one person but companies are too mean to employ another one and yet the wage has remained the same for the last 15 years.  Why?  It never changes, year in year out, the same poor pay.

So then I lowered my expectations and I looked at other type of work.  I looked at ‘home’ based work and found myself entangled in the world of the rip offs and scams on the internet.  There are thousands of them, all claiming to be ligitamate but all requiring money up front for some wonderful way of earning hundreds of dollars (aways dollars) in minutes.  Where are the real home jobs or aren’t there any?  I became completely despondant looking at these fake jobs and looked again on a dozen employment agencies for anything I could do.

I conclude that there is some sort of conspiracy going on.  I thought I might offer myself to old people, maybe cook for them or drive them somewhere or clean for them or something.  But it seems even for the lowest of low jobs you have to have various certificates, ‘food handling’, ‘care giving’, taxi licence, criminal records checks at your expense, cleaning, must have previous experience and so on. And as for working with children, forget it.  It seems we are all potential child molesters.  It is seriously difficult to find anything to do at all these days. Anything to do with the county council requires endless forms and checks.  I was interested in a library assistant job on a saturday, just five hours a week and the form was 22 pages long and CRB check.  This country is in such a state of over protection that it is nigh on impossible to get ordinary jobs what with health and safety, child protection, elderly protection, germ protection it’s a wonder anyone has a job. 

On top of all this The Other has been incredibly ill this week.  It started off last weekend when he accidentally picked up a bottle of surgical spirit and drank it mistaking it for some other medicine.  He was in agony but wouldn’t let me take him to hospital.  I was worried it would kill him, but it didn’t.  He then developed some problem with his throat where it swelled so much he couldn’t swallow anything, not even water.  I took him to the doctors and he has antibiotics but he’s been very ill all week.

I’ve just about had enough one way and another.  I’ve now put up a notice all over my town listing all the things I can do and am hoping someone out there will give me some work.  This is not a life.  This is an existence.  Something has to give.

I had intended to leave the post, ‘Strange but True’ up for a few days before posting again.  But I need to get a message out on my blog in the hopes that someone out there sees it and can help.  Along with a lot of people, I’m in a bit of bind financially speaking, well actually, in a bind generally speaking too, but the financial issue is now so pressing it’s not funny.

I am not in the best position to take on any jobs since I have The Other who is ill and now have The Elder Teen home who needs a certain amount of investment to get him up and running with a job of his own.  I’ve been off to two local interviews which I would have moved heaven and earth to accomodate, but neither job was offered to me.  So I have assessed things and concluded that while I find an appropriate job that is not too far from home and that I can fit in with the demands of the family, I need to have some ‘home’ work.  I have already looked on the internet and am finding it hard to find any genuine ‘work at home jobs’ – lots of them are just scams and time wasters or don’t pay cash, (you can’t eat air miles).  I have thought about what I can offer.  Other than stuffing envelopes and other such work sometimes handed out to people like me, (which I am willing to do, but can’t find) I can offer the following.

I have a computer with internet and a telephone, a scanner and printer, a digital camera.

I can type – fast and write reasonably well.  For example, I can write  descriptive blurb for catalogues or items for sale, I can write articles or copy writing.

I can prepare CV’s.

I can proof read.

I am an excellent letter writer.

I can transcribe and audio type.

I can write up notes.

I can type up students or teachers/professors’ notes.

In short, I can provide a secretarial service in a virtual way.  I am a Virtual Assistant.

I am willing and able and just a bit desperate.

I can stuff envelopes and lick stamps.

Benefits of a Virtual Assistant

I can start immediately, I will not be too expensive.

You will have none of the usual expenses that occur when employing someone on site.  And there are a lot of expenses.  You need only use me when you need me, with no other obligations.

If any readers out there, have any work for me or can either pass on my request for work, think of anyone they know that may need this type of service, ask their colleagues if they are interested, ask their wives and husbands; please, please, please do so. 

Thank you.

P.S.  I have done work at home jobs before, one of which was soldering wires onto a circuit board, so I am quite flexible!

It is such a glorious day that Skinny and I are drawn outside by a welcoming, beckoning, warm October sun.  We take our usual route down the lane between the fields but this time feeling drawn away from any potential encounters along the way, we walk far out into the stubble field.  The sun is so warm, the air so clear, I have a strange feeling that I am walking through summer and not Autumn.  There’s a slight breeze and I breathe in deeply and suddenly I am hit by a strange feeling.  I have a strong sense of others who have walked these fields in days gone by.  Carried on the air, I sense men in old fashioned farm clothes with flat caps and cloth trousers, neckerchiefs around their necks and straw between their teeth.  I smell the sweat of the giant horses, straining to pull a plough, leather harnesses, greasey reigns rubbing across sweet smelling hair.  And then it’s gone.  There’s just Skinny and I and the sound of my footsteps as I stride through the dry stubble.

This strange feeling of the past comes to me unbidden and unexpectedly from time to time.  It comes from the air itself as I breathe it.  I see it as some kind of long forgotten, little used sense that we all must have to some degree or another.   Often it is a faint, wisp of something I can’t quite make out, as illusive as a word on the tip of your tongue, so frail that if you dare to think of it, it will be lost to you.  Sometimes what I sense is strong and consists of many thin threads that weave into a picture. I see a knight on a horse, men in a battle, monks in a monastry all of which could stem from imagination and prior knowledge or at least be inspired by surroundings.  But whilst I am imaginative, these things usually come upon me when I am thinking of nothing whatsoever.  When I am just soaking up the environment, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the birds, thinking nothing at all.  Over time I’ve learnt to distinguish the differences and fine lines between a spooky feeling, a chill up my spine or a sense that I am not alone, and this particular sense that comes along unattached to any pre thought or suggestion.

It is odd, I know.  It doesn’t happen too often either but always takes me completely by surprise.  It is more of a feeling rather than a thought.  I have always thought of it akin to a dog’s ability to sense things on the air and I think our ancient ancesters would have had a much more developed sense at their disposal.  It is similar to instinct and gut feeling but not quite those.  sometimes it is so strong and others a mere ghost passing through my mind, leaving tiny footprints that I cannot follow.  A pale wash of something and nothing.

I’ve always been very sensitive to my environment.  I always said I could never live anywhere ugly.  Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder but for me, ugliness lies in modern, bland, functional buildings; 1960’s tower blocks and social housing, municipal buildings, green/gray paint of hospitals and courts and police stations.  I lived in a tower block once in north London.  It was up on a hill overlooking the city in a bleak landscape of smaller blocks.  These were places of despair to me.  Poverty was everywhere from crying babies to cars up on chocks with wheels missing.  The corridors were painted the inevitable gray/green, ill lit with ugly strobe lighting and the lift was covered in grafitti and stank of urine.  I sensed the underlying violence and hopelessness in the ugly words and dreadful smell.  It was winter then and the wind whistled through the building clearing the smell of a million lives in tiny shoeboxes.  Smells of cooking, spices, fat fryers, sounds of TV’s echoing, children shouting and adults arguing.  I had to get out of there.  I was so afraid.  Afraid to go home at night on my own, afraid of the anonymous people that wrecked their own lifts and corridors and cars and families.  So strong was the sense of awfulness that had I stayed there, my own soul would be lost along with theirs. I did leave.

I’ve written previously on my blog about ghostly experiences I’ve had and I do believe that I am slightly ’sensitive’ to ghostly goings on.  Mediums and psychics say that everyone has some psychic ability and it is a question of developing it.  I think this is true and I think this mystery sense that I have from time to time is similarly something we can all feel and is left over from when the human being was more in tune with instinct and senses and nature, more like animals still are.  We are all animals and we share the same sense of fear, loneliness, joy.  Some of our ‘animal’ senses have diminished as our lives have changed and we have lost those that are less obvious and well hidden deep within ourselves.

People think of ghosts as imprints left within the atmosphere where an incident has occured, especially a violent episode which gives the feeling strength and the emotions left to be felt by others.  I wonder if, in fact, there are invisible holes where these past existences are being played out in another dimension and occasionally, when the wind is right, the magnetic fields in place, I sense them around me but not with me.  Maybe that is an explanation.

I can see that people might be wondering if I’ve lost my marbles at this point.  Maybe I have but in that case I never had them to begin with.  We are, according to another commenter on a different blog, in ‘Mercury retrograde’, though I don’t really know what that means.  It can, apparently, account for strange happenings and we are also coming up to Halloween so if nothing else, it’s a good time to be discussing the unusual. If anyone else can relate to what I am talking about, let me know.  I’d love to hear about anyone else with stories of the unusual.  Tales of the unexpected perhaps.

Well honestly, really, I am absolutely pathetic!  The Other woke me up with a cup of tea yesterday (nice of him I know) so that I would be on time to leave for Heathrow airport to collect the Elder Teen whose plane was due in at 2.30pm.

I’d spent some considerable time the day before preparing for this journey, checking the route on multimap and setting up the sat nav just to be on the safe side.  I’ve only used the sat nav once before as I so rarely go anywhere I don’t know and am not too familiar with the set up process.  I typed in the airport address but since the last time I tested the machine, it tried to take me home via heavens know where, I wasn’t too confident about using it.  The trouble was I wasn’t too confident about a couple of complicated looking junctions either so thought it would help me there.

It was pouring down with rain and The Other made a comment about having a rotten journey and I only just held back a resentful remark about the fact that it was a Dad’s job to drive to the airport but obviously he has long since given up on any parental duty and responsibility.  I was feeling bitter inside but kept my trap shut. He hovered anxiously over me as I filled a flask with coffee, gave him a demo of the sat nav so he knew I could operate it (sort of) and waited while he checked the oil and water in the car (yes, he does still manage that), before setting off.  I was feeling sick.  I hate going places I’m not familiar with but told myself not to be such a weed and that it was really only three roads between home and the airport, though quite a lot of miles.  How could I possibly go wrong, it was almost all motorway and ‘A’ roads.

I knew I was panicky when I stopped at the garage, sure that my tyres needed air.  I got out in the rain, fiddled with the air thingey and couldn’t read the meter properly as it was so wet, it looked like there was plenty of air so I don’t really know why I was fussing.  Back in the car, I was now soaking and the windows were steamy.  I got myself organised again, sorted out my ipod, got my fags at the ready and the flask to hand and set off to the sound of Pink Floyd to calm my nerves.

I knew the first third of the journey, a road I travel often but wasn’t sure about the huge junction onto the M25 and so I left the sat nav on and the annoying man’s voice kept interupting Floyd all the way along.  As we, sat man and I, approached the first of the junctions, his wierd voice shouted at me (I had to have him loud so as to hear him over the music) to ‘bear right’.  Bear right?  I thought I was going left!.’  I stupidly decided to take the sat man’s advice since this junction was the first junction where I felt I needed his help.  On I went, feeling strongly that I should be turning onto the M25 at any minute and thinking how clever the sat man was in avoiding all that complicated road system.  And then I found myself heading into London.

I had a strong urge to turn around but the traffic going the other way was appalling so on I went.  After a mile or two I realised that the sat idiot was taking me all the way across London (how utterly stupid of him) and I pulled over and got out the map.  I struggled to read the tiny print and eventually got out my very unflattering reading glasses which I usually strongly deny that I need.  Now map reading is one of those things I find really hard.  I have to turn the map upside down and I can’t tell right from left to save my life which also makes the sat man and I struggle to communicate.  I’d been practicing the day before in fact.

I see that I need to find my way onto the M11 and that it’s quite a long way away and the Sunday traffic is awful.  I curse the wretched machine.  It was supposed to make this journey a piece of cake.  I stare resentfully at it.  I daren’t try and re-route it for fear I will end up in Cornwall or Scotland and I daren’t turn it’s volume down incase I can’t get it back up if I need it later on.  It’s astonishing what you can do when you really have to.  I managed to find the M11 (with the help of a man from a garage when I got lost again) and soon I was on the M25 – phew!  Needless to say the M25 was busy, it was packed, spray from the car in front made it a dangerous nightmare.  What were all these people doing on the road on a Sunday?  It was stop and start the whole way for no apparent reason.  I was begining to fret about being late and coupled with the mad mutterings from sat man who, at every juction told me to ‘take the next exit’ the entire way, was close to having a breakdown.  Fortunately Heathrow was sign posted the entire length of the M25 and when I eventually reached the M4, I knew the sat man was finally talking sense.  He got me right into the terminal though I really didn’t need his help by then and I got into the arrivals hall at 2.30 on the dot.

An hour and a half later as I watched numerous people coming off a dozen planes, all being greeted by family or taxi men with signs, The Teen trundled towards me.  Seeing me, he dropped his bags and flung his arms around me, hugging me so tight he nearly strangled me.  The top of my head was firmly held in the crook of his neck as he is so much taller than me and he gave me the biggest hug of his life.  Finally it all seemed worth the awful journey, the mean and stupid sat man, the rain and the worry. 

I paid the exhorbitant £6 for an hour and half’s short stay parking and we got back to the car. I briefly told The Teen about the sat man but The Teen, coming from laid back Kiwi land and a 27 hour flight was completely chilled and when I told him the Younger Teen and I got lost on our way out of the airport when we dropped him off he said, “hey don’t worry Mum, it’s all good” as I set the sat man on course for home.  In all our chatter, I didn’t hear sat man and again I got lost trying to exit the airport.  ”It’s next LEFT Mum, LEFT Mum” shouts the Teen while I turn right.  In all the excitement my ability to find left and right have completely deserted me again.  We giggle away at this typical piece of behaviour and eventually with The Teen’s help, (sat man’s gone crazy) we finally get onto the right road.  The journey back is so much easier than the way in and I turn off sat man.  The Teen keeps me amused with tales of all his exploits, some of which he really shouldn’t tell a Mum, but I don’t care.  I laugh in all the right places, so glad am I that he is safely back and ignore things I should be cross about.  I tell him that his friends have been visiting me in all these months while he’s been away which he had asked them to do before he left.  We were both impressed with how they had continued to do this after such a long time.  “They love you Mum, your a legend, they can talk to you about things they can’t with their own parents, hell, they consider you an extra Mum” he says and I know it to be true though part of me feels I should be more grown up and less of a Teen myself. 

As we near home, I’m anxious to find out if the Teen’s friend has picked up the Younger Teen who has been away for the weekend.  We turn into the drive and ominously there is no sign of his car.  The Elder Teen is disappointed, hoping to see his friend and brother.  We go into the house and they are both there. I realise they were teasing us and have hidden the car.  Lots of hugs and hello’s ensue and then the friend, looking awkward gets my attention.  “The Teen and I had an accident today” he says nervously.  “Yea Yea”, I say laughing at him but I finally see he is telling the truth.

Another journey has unfolded earlier in the day.  An American has made the same trek from the airport in a hire car, hours before us.  Just as my Teen and friend round the sharp bend only a mile from home, the American pulls out of a drive and rounds the bend on the wrong side of the road.  The two cars collide.  I thank God that while I was so wrapped up thinking about the Elder Teen all day, that inspite of a head on collision, both lads were wearing seat belts and though the friend’s car is a right off, neither of them are injured. 

That’s how things happen.  When you least expect it.  In the blink of an eye.  Thank you God for bringing my Teens home safely to me.

BTW, I checked out the sat man, as I was puzzled that he found it so hard to get me to the airport.  Someone, oh alright, me, had told him to get to me to the airport avoiding all motorways!!!

It is sometimes said, that we English don’t learn other languages, arrogantly assuming (rightly) that any country worth it’s salt will speak our language so we needn’t bother.  I have another theory.

The Younger Teen, poor lad, has a dragon of a French teacher.  She is really quite vile, ticking him off in the very first lesson of the term and continuing to do so in each subsequent one thereafter.  But that really is neither here nor there to the point in question.  The point is, my Teens have been learning French since they were dot;  a dot of about three actually and I remember back then, them learning such things as counting, un, deux, trois and so on and various vocabulary, le Chat, le chien, la table.  Fairly basic stuff of course.  And the problem is, the French really hasn’t progressed a lot since then.

Ten years later and I am doing helping The Teen with his prep, the dragon is on the war path and threatening to put him in detention again, if his work is not handed in at the crack of dawn.  I remind the Teen about the prep throughout the evening as I see no sign of him getting on with it.  Finally, at ten o’clock he comes down in his p-jymmies waving a piece of paper at me.  I sigh.  It’s a bit late to ask me to help.  Of course he has no intention of asking for help; he just wants me to do it for him.

I look at what he has to do.  I look again.  Can this really be GCSE French?  There are three parts to the prep.  The first are half a dozen jumbled up words with pictures next to each.  Mjbano, putloet, gerfmoa.  (It looks more compicated here than it does on the sheet with the pictures)!  So that bit is easy.  Next there is a short piece with gaps to fill in with the appropriate words which are along the top to choose from.  All of this is in the present tense.  Je prends–(petit dejeuner)——— dans la cuisine.  Au college,  je prends-(picnic)—-.  Le soir, je mange avec ma famille.

The third part is to write what you eat and where in your own home. 

I’m honestly taken aback at this.  Only last week, The Teen had to write a small piece about himself and his family and where he lives etc, all of which he seems to have been doing since he was dot.  Je m’appelle— J’habite a la campaigne avec mes parents et mon frere. J’ai un chat, et un chien.  J’aime le sport.  Je n’aime pas l’ecole! 

I mean really, this is the stuff of fourth year.  No wonder so few of us ever speak another language.  You really can’t go around speaking in the present tense all the time having failed to learn any other and there’s only so much you can say about your cat and dog!  Maybe I’m missing the point here.  Maybe this is revision, but somehow I doubt it!

So I called the Teen this morning.  It is evening in New Zealand, about 8 o’clock and it’s his last night there before flying out tomorrow.  I hear noises in the background, laughter, chatter, girls voices, guys talking loudly and I imagine him in a bar somewhere, drowning his sorrows, having one last night on the raz, saying farewell to friends, afterall why not? 

He hasn’t received an email from the guardians asking him to meet them at 9am tomorrow (tonight here) complete with shiny clean car which he is supposed to be returning when he collects his ticket and passport from them.  What are the chances I wonder to myself, of him getting everything sorted out in time and arriving at 9am ready to make these exchanges?  Well I think it will be a miracle if a) he gets there on time and b) he has cleaned the car to a suitable condition for resale.

I mention this pressing job to him and he is ready with excuses.  “I didn’t know I had to be there so early” he says and I come back with nagging authority, (crikey! I’m nagging already), ”well you should have phoned to find out what the arrangements were, you idiot.  How are you going to get the car cleaned up and get there on time.  And you better not be late, they have a busy day and won’t be pleased if you turn up after 9″. 

There’s still lots of noise on the other end of the line, the sound of people having fun.  The Teen tries to get me off the phone with various assurances that he won’t be late and he will clean the car, “I can’t give it back in this state” he says and I can just imagine what state, given his bedroom that I’ve just cleaned.  Clearly he had other plans for his last day.  He wants to distribute various belongings that he can’t bring home, to friends and presumably he was going to clean the car – probably at the last minute.  But having, as usual failed to make contact with the guardians and more importantly to make arrangements, he will now have to do it their way, which means an early start and no car for the rest of the day.  It’s a shame that he still hasn’t learnt to communicate with people properly.  He may as well not go to bed since he has lots to do and a 27 hour flight home in which to snooze.

On the other hand I feel slightly, a tiny bit, annoyed with the guardians.  Why have they chosen to be so busy on the very day that the Teen is leaving?  Granted, thye really don’t want much to do with him anymore and vice versa but you’d think they’d make sure that if he needs a lift to the airport they might be available.  Instead, they expect him to be there at the crack of dawn – 9am is a bit early on a Saturday after his last night in New Zealand and are leaving him to sort out arrangements to get to the airport.  Since their biggest complaint is his disorganisation, it might have been more prudent to put him the plane.  This way they are almost guaranteeing that his last dealings with them, will end on a sour note.  Equally, given the Teens behaviour, he really should do all in his power to leave on good terms, acomodate the guardians and make sure he doesn’t cause them any further irritation.  But he is a Teen.

Meanwhile here in England, the Teens friends are buzzing like bees to honey.  One of them is coming down from Uni and another even offered to drive me to the airport to collect him.  Much as I appreciate all this loyalty and devotion they’ve shown to my son, I rather wish they’d let me have him to myself at least for a while before decending on us.  I managed to tactfully decline the offer of being driven to Heathrow and had to smile to myself when the younger Teen told me the lads were worried that I might give the Teen a bollocking on the way home and thought they might prevent it if they were in the car too.  I have no intention of doing such a thing – that will come later!

We all have mixed feelings about his return.  The grand parents are obviously relieved that he will no longer be on the loose and safely under our roof again.  The Other knows he has some serious talking to do which is long overdue and the younger Teen is worried that his brother is going to come back and boss him about and interfere with the life he has established without him, though he’s kindly offered to come with me on the long drive to the airport.  And I, I can’t wait to set eyes on my first born again but know that any good will, will be short lived once he starts hassling me for the use of our car, pesters me for money I don’t have and probably intends to carry on much as he left off 8 months ago. 

We are all going to have to think carefully before we speak and count to ten before we shout!