So its the end of the year and time for another review.

I think I pretty much covered everything I wanted to say about how the years gone in my previous post.
I've had highlights - Holidays. Fagia. Living with Welshy. and I've had lowlights. Nanny getting iller. STILL being at the museum.
Been a bit of a nothing year really, when in the past I've had huge highlights to talk about and think back on.
My resolutions are the same, but I'm going to try and blog more. I miss it sometimes, even though its a bit of a chore sometimes and hard when I share Welshy's laptop.
Its good to put your thoughts down sometimes. Get them out of your head, when you cant express them verbally.
And have them come out as gibberish when I do write it down.

Never mind.

So a super big FUCK OFF to 2oo9 and bring on the New decade and NEW YEAR!!

Happy New Year!

I had set one of my India injections today.
Now my arm is numb and I cant lift it. Gay.
More to come next week! Booo!
I'm glad I dont really have a problem with needles, but its not pleasant! Welshy is back home tomorrow, providing he makes it through the snow and I can come back on the Saturday.
Cant wait. Fed up at home. Ready to go back.

I feel good about this year ending. I've looked lately at my previous End of year/Christmas posts and they seem so desperately sad. Depressed.
I started this year and spent most of it, feeling the same way. Depressed.
but I feel good now. Positive. I had an epiphany halfway through the year to stop living my life compared to other people and live it how I want.

My New Years resolutions have always been the same. To leave home, to get a proper job, to travel more.
I went to Dublin and New York this year. Dublin is pretty if a little touristy-trappy and New York was, well fucking mental.
I'm glad I went, I did the typical touristy things and ticked them off of the mental list I carry in my head. But America is a strange place with strange people in it, more over the top, more fake-seeming. I wouldnt go back to New York. I'm not cut out for big cities and large crowds.
I did get to move out and in with Welshy, I hate the people we're forced to live with, but a few days at home has reminded me that its loads better than being here.
I like being with him, I hope he likes it too.
I like the effect he has on me, he calms and sedates the part of me thats constantly restless, needing entertainment and to be on the go. Although he complains that I'm constantly tapping my foot or jiggling when we watch telly.
I dont even know i'm doing it half the time.
Its so funny to think that we met four years ago and I dismissed him as being "ok, but no spark" and that he became my almost constant companion for a year before we got together and not one thought of what might happen crossed my mind then!

I still havent got a real job. But you know what? Its ok. I have a test/interview on the 6th (co-incidence that its Dad's deathday? and if I get past that, the interview will be on his funeral day? You decide.)
It'd be good money if I get it.
I want to go back to uni though. I got rejected cos of my lack of maths, but its ok. I'm working my way slowly through the Maths course with lots of tears and tantrums, but its going ok. I hate maths, will always panic if faced with a number higher than 20 but hopefully i'll get that C and then go into clearing.
Once I've done that year long course I want to go do a TEFL course. Welshy longs to escape the UK and live abroad in the south of France, or Italy.
I am an Anglophile. I love travelling and seeing new things, but I always want to come home to what's familiar to me. Foods. Transport. Shitty weather. Plants and animals. Football.
But a year abroad, that appeals.
That's different. That's an adventure. To say that you've lived abroad and can speak another language like a local. To a different way of life.
So if I manage to go down that route, who knows where I'll end up!?

I'm travelling again soon. To India. On the 18th of January for three weeks. I can't wait. it'll kill that travelling bug for now.

I read through some of my earlier posts lately and I cringe at them. How pathetic and childish I was.
Now I realise how much me and my friends have grown and changed.
CL is married two years now to UDOBF (I posted here about how it wouldn't last! How she wanted another man when she first slept with him!) Now she has his child.
I miss MH still a year after we fell out, She was the last person back then that I thought would let me down. But I can't forgive or forget the cruel way she acted.
TP and TJ have their own house, comfortable with their hens and dogs and being in the countryside. I cant imagine any man splitting them up, anymore than I could then.
JF has been living with her bf for two years as has STF. (I still remember him declaring "Charlton this one's different! I dont wanna cheat on her!")
He hasnt neither.
Two cousins that I played with as children have either married or got kids of their own. OF has got married. I am not in touch with her at the moment. I miss that easy friendship we once had.
I started this blog when I was twenty. I am now twenty-six. We are all grown up, no matter how I try to pretend different.
I started this obsessed with a guy who didnt deserve my blind devotion. I havent spoken, nor thought of him for years. Last I heard from MH was that he'd had a kid with the sister of the girl he was seeing at the time.
Lucky escape for me I guess.
I then got involved with a guy who didnt care about me and vice versa. I went to him for comfort that no one could provide for me, when I felt like the lonliest person in the world and when I felt perhaps I could open up to him, he shattered that.
I stayed in touch and we parted as friends, speaking occasionally. But I grew a backbone and got rid and dont regret it.
I have Welshy. My best friend. Maybe not the person I expected back then. But better. (I'd better say that as he reads this)

Its six years since we were the Rowditch Avenue gang, when MH and I did Pound A Pint mondays watching football, eating Pizza, and she cried on the end of my bed after leaving Jena, after a year together, after STF cheated on her. I miss that carefree time, but I dont dwell and wish for it back like I used to. Life is for looking forward. Not back.
I think about the girl who started this blog and I wonder what she'd have thought of my decisions to leave animals and try and become a teacher. She'd be horrified and refuse to believe it probably. But as long as I have animals about me, I'll be ok.
She'd not believe the twists and turns and how friends could turn out to not be.
I am a different person now. Changed by my experiences.

It is four years on the 6th since Dad died. I miss him. Perhaps I'll mention it then, like I've done on here in the past. But at the moment I do not feel sad about him dying. I am glad he lived and was my Dad. Mother feels ready at last to scatter his ashes and we're going to do that in the Summer.
Another sign of moving on...

2009 is ending better than it started, when I feared nothing would ever get any better and I'm confident 2010 will be even better.
My resolutions remain the same. Home of my own, travelling, new job. We'll see how it goes. I still want to achieve the 6 goals I set myself to do by the time I'm 30.
Will I still be writing this bollocks in another 6 years? Fuck knows. But it'll be interesting to see what will happen next...

more horrid and dangerous conditions today. Rain and Snow on top of the ice we already have. I waited nearly an hour and a half for a bus home, only to have that bus terminate after twenty minutes when we'd not moved as he couldnt make it up the hill.
I didnt fare much better, I had handrails to hold onto and hauled myself up with those, I saw a private ambulance slide back down the hill, smelt the rubber tyres burning as they tried to dig in.
I nearly got run over by a car stuck in a hopeless skid as I tried to cross the road. It was ok though. it missed me and it was going too slow to do anything but bump into pavement gently.
I was very scared though.
In total it took me over two hours and forty minutes to do what takes normally half hour on the bus or 40 minutes walking. And I only waited for the bus as I feared walking that hill anyway!

Still I'm warm now and busy putting Beatles songs onto my iphone. I'd like to know how to blog by using that but I cant seem to master that. I have problems working the damn ting anyway. Technology and me dont mix well.

Back home for Chrimbo...
Can't believe that just across the river, like three miles from home is my flat and yet there is no snow there. Here its covered and with glass like ice thats just as slippy.
Yuck.
Injections for India are booked, hopefully Welshy can get my visa sorted when he goes up to do his and then its all systems go! Go! Go!
I've been looking up diving centres there and picking at the remains of the scab from where Fagia bit me nearly 4 weeks ago now.
She went for me again when I was rugging her up but I dodged this time! Hurrah!
I do enjoy riding her, she's very different from the other scatty beasts I've been on, who if they get scared of something WILL not go past.
You can almost feel her thought processes as I go round...

"Jesus, shitting Christ!! What the fuck is that? NO WAY in hell am I walking past that pole/jump block combo. Its going to kill me. Look at it. Its evil. Are you mad? I'm going to run! I'm fast nothing will catch me!
Hey wait, why are you circling me around it, didnt I just tell you how evil it is? There is no way I'm going near it. Nope. No way. No. I'm stopping here. Where its safe and then as soon as its not looking i'm going to run.... NOW!
Again? Shit what is wrong with you? Well if you say its ok, I might believe you, but i'm walking EXREMELY FAST... oh alright we'll go at your speed, if you reckon its safe i'll try for you but I'm not convinced.
Hey I lived!"

And then we do the whole process when she reaches it again, or if she sees a killer sparrow.
Funny old thing!

CL had a baby this morning! She's called it Emily Grace. its 7 pounds, pretty ugly looking to be fair and apparently it was a tough labour. Been a tough old pregnancy for her, her first as well.
Congrats to her. I'm still very determindedly anti-child. I have far too much I want to do before I get round to even considering the idea and I'm only going to consider it when Welshy can carry it and give birth. Like a grumpy sea-horse.

I know! Mega long updating breaks!
Welshy's laptop is no nearer being fixed and iphone doesnt seem to have an app for blogging.
Anyway!
So I failed in all my attempts to go back to uni, its ok, there's clearing in September. I'm pretty depressed about it really, it'd have been nice to have a semi-concete offer at least.
I've actually quite enjoyed volunteering at her nursery, although the kids seem to spoil all my fun when I'm cleaning out the stinky fish tank or making sandcastles.
So fingers crossed that i'll get clearing cos really the museum is getting worse and worse daily. Our big main galleries are closing to be replaced by cafes/shops/wet play areas for kids and the main displays are being sent on loan to who ever wants them and our Visitor Services department, already under-appreciated and hit on by higher-ups is being thrown further into disarray by the recruitment of volunteers to do our jobs.
We got our back dated pay increase a few weeks back. I was really pissed to find that apparently I was only deserving of 3% despite doing over 18 added tasks and people that do nothing or loads less got 4%+ so I went to see the head of VS and asked her how when the initial pay offer came through it stated that average GAS would recieve in the region of 2-3% while those above average in the region of 5%.
She then went on about all the added tasks so I then hit her with my list and asked her why so and so got more for doing less.
Anyway, they're reviewing my pay in the New Year so Wheeee!

Speaking of the New Year, I might be off on my travels again. Some of Welshy's friends are heading to India, and it looks like we might be joining them!
We're gonna head to Goa for a week of beach/sea based fun and then I'm leaving Welshy with his mates as "why do I wanna see the Taj Mahal? I've seen a picture in a book and I saw a tiger at the zoo!"
So then, and fingers crossed cos E is still waiting on her leave. She's gonna come join me in Mombai/Bombay and we're gonna backpack about for two weeks before rejoining Welshy and flying home!
Its gonna be epic! But I have so much to do before the New Year... Flights/Visa's/ Injections....

Injections... I need my Tetanus updated.
I've been riding a new horse, Fagia, she's an imported Arab racehorse from the states, she's green, convinced EVERYTHING is about to kill her, loves her speed and hates stopping.
I'm used to all these batshit mental horses. But there's nothing about this horse to love.
I have a scar on my arm from where. And I'm quite convinced about this, she tried to kill me.
Its not an exaggeration. I've been around horses for the last 20 odd years, I know when they're grumpy and when they just don't want people about. I've been kicked and bitten and thrown off.
anyway, nearly three weeks ago now, I'd just gotten off her after a ride and had brushed the sweat off and was unfolding her rug in the corner of her stable.
Minding my own buisness, one eye on her, doing nothing to frighten or spook her, when BAM she swings her back end round and catches me off balance, luckily I didnt fall, I put my hand on her back to steady myself, but she shoved her weight against me again, trying to push me into the corner.
She could have kicked me there and then and it'd have hurt and broken bones but this was a deliberate thought out action, to pin me into the corner and then lash out.
And I dont fancy much being whacked with metal shoes with half a ton of angry horse behind them.
So I darted out under her neck, and she grabbed me by the arm with her teeth and dragged me a couple of feet.
Luckily I was wearing a thick, loose hoody and although she broke the skin with her teeth and left marks I wasnt too badly hurt.
I was totally shaken up and bemused by her actions, like I said. I know when a horse is acting out of fear or anger but this was pure evil.
I was shaking and then thought "I'm not gonna let you get away with that" and I went for her, slapping and hitting every part of her I could reach and I chased her round the stable screeching at her!
I rugged her up and left her in the end though.
Evil bitch! I'm on her again next week, lets see what games she pulls then!