Keeping the minutes for the meeting wasn't as bad as feared. I just barely kept up and thats with her going slow.

At least I know that if it came up again I could give it ago, but I'd want to learn Shorthand before volunteering for anything else!

Took Mother to pub quiz last night, I raised subject of us having dog. She said it wasn't fair on me to emotionally blackmail her then launched on her tiresome and endless self pitying lectures and wailing over Brat.

URGH.

Nan had a good day today by all accounts, we are going to a meeting tomorrow about the possibility of her going back to the care home in the next few days. Physio needs to be arranged though and it needs to be one who can specially deal with dementia patients.

Had a lot of crazy vivid dreams last night. One waking me up convinced that I was having a conversation with Mother. Another about a swimming pool and someone shitting in it, they didn't have an arse and it came from their leg? Oh and by the way the pool was on a train.

Seriously something not quite right there.....

If anyone can interpret dreams I'd love to know!

Happy Birthday Welshy! He is in Austria. Probably getting shit-faced now. I'm at home watching Spurs and Sheff United in bed. I'm in bed, they're not btw.

Work is going ok, I have to take minutes at a disciplinary, nervous about that. I got Brat an interview at work and I'm taking interviews for the next couple of candidates. I know he will be called for a second interview and its very hard not to say anything, same as its hard not to say anything about this minute taking nonsense to my work colleagues.

I jumped my biggest ever jump at the weekend, so super excited about that and had a great lesson on Tuesday so really bubbling at the horsey side of life at the moment.

Mother is still here and Nan is still in the hospital, they think she has a skin cancer lesion and are trying to decide what to do. They reckon they'll be able to do it with a local anaesthetic. Knowing Nan as we do, that's not going to happen. You can't get it into her head that she can't do anything and a general anaesthetic will set her recovery back (She's had a little walk on a frame but today was a bad day so no walking).
No idea when she'll be able to go back to the care home so still no idea when Mum will go and therefore no idea when Dog could come. Really conscious that i'm taking the mick with it and I don't want to feel like i'm taking the piss with her as its not the intention at all. But hey ho. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. We just have to take each day as it comes.

And that's about all that's happening in my world really. Just taking each day as it comes, hopefully i'll hear at the next trustees meeting on the 10th more about my permanency but tbh the longer it drags out the better for me at the moment as I get paid weekly and it means I can claw myself slowly back from the edge of that overdraft limit where as I don't have enough at the moment to keep myself going until I'd get a months pay.

Went to see a lady in Colchester about adopting a 10 month old Cocker on Saturday gone. Went really well and we all drove home and went to the casino at the Hippodrome, had a really good Groupon deal, Surf n Turf, cocktail and 10 quid worth of gaming chips for 20 pounds.
Fun night, Welshy liked dog and we agreed to adopt her. Only Nan fell out of bed in the care home Sat night and broke her hip.
Its no ones fault, just one of those things, I guess she got up and had a blood rush. They do take very good care of her in there.
But of course it means Mother has flown home in a panic, is busy annoying everyone, and avoiding all my other Aunts and Uncles and will be here for... Who knows how long?
Ideally Nan would be in a state to be released from hospital tomorrow. Unfortunately because of her dementia and Osteoporosis she's not in a state to be released. She's only just starting to get out of bed, let alone go to physio and is refusing painkillers and not really eating.
Mother doesn't know that we want the dog, we were going to just bring it home and have it here as a fait accompli.
Its not fair on anyone or Dog to bring her home in this state where no one can look after her properly, Mum hopes to arrange a meeting with the carehome team Monday and find out where they stand on being able to look after her, they do have a specialised nursing wing but not sure if they can offer that kind of support....
It could well be a month or so, and God knows if she'll ever be mobile again!

URGH! Just when life was getting near some sembalance of normality.

I've finally paid everyone (bar Mum) back what I owe, so can now work on clearing stupid overdraft and credit card debts. Work did offer me a fulltime job and I accepted but I don't know how long it'll take for the paperwork to go through. To be honest, as I temp I get paid weekly and the longer it takes the more money I have to use as a backup before it then goes to a monthly wage, so am happy for it to carry on as it is, for as long as it takes.
Its an ok job. I do feel a little bored by it, but I can settle, I can clear my debts, I'm close to home and it pays ok, not moving out ok (certainly not moving out in London OK!)
But I think I'm pretty resigned now that I'm trapped here forever, so I just need to stop rebelling with it and make best of bad situation (hence ignoring everyone and getting Dog)

The Council Tax people have made a huge fuck up and demanding money off of us, ignoring the direct debit plan we set up so that could set the finance thing back hugely, but hopefully I can get it all sorted in the next few days.
Then all we have to do is wait for Nan to get better hopefully (and everyday is an improvement, just a lot slower than someone who doesn't have her conditions) and then Mother can go. I'm optimistic that she can go next weekend. But realistically it may be three maybe four weeks. I'll wait and see what Mondays meeting results before I can go back to Dog Lady and give a report as to whether or not we are capable of taking her or if she may need to carry on looking as I feel she's pretty keen to get dog gone ASAP.

Welshy is now away until 28th Feb, which has annoyed me a little as he promised last year that was the end of it, but what can you do?

Certainly I'm in a lot better position than I was this time last year (if we ignore the money!) Hey ho. Life will go on and this is a temp setback in the plan of this year being awesome and reaching the rest of my Bucket List goals.

Urgh. Football was awful yesterday. Manager got sacked today. I'm not enjoying football now E isn't coming and i'm mostly on my own during the games.

Today is Granddad's anniversary. I can't post too much about it, except to say that Mother is being investigated and going to court, I fail to see how they can find against her, stupid aunts and uncles. I can't talk about it any more than that.

My friend fell off her horse today, smashed a panel on the fence and had horse run over her hand as he went off.

Ouchie.

Stupid life.

So here we are again. Another sad day for remembering and I don't understand how its 9 years ago now.

Still we get on and endure and wonder what he'd think of it all now. Of us. How broken and dysfunctional it all is.

I still miss him and dream of him and wish he was here, but life goes on as it still does.

My job at the community centre is getting made permanent and to celebrate this, we're meeting a lady on the 17th with regards to possibly rehoming her dog.

We'll see how that goes though.

Time for the end of year round up!

Its been a bit of a shit one to be honest! Getting sacked not once, but twice was certainly not on the plans this time last year. 

6 Months of unemployment was also fairly shit, as was losing Granddad at the start of the year, the ensuing kerfuffle and drama from that probably didn't help my chances of staying at the job in Tower Bridge.

Its still all very dramatic there, while working in Bedford, I learnt that the Uncles and Aunts had put in a petition to the courts to have mother removed as power of attorney for Nan as they thought that she was stealing her money. :roll:

Anyway, the courts laughed at them and threw it out. Its gone to litigators and I don't really know much more than that cos of course Mother remains in Grotty.

My cousin L who has been done for drug use is squatting at their home, although in the last few weeks its been put up on Zoopla, but then of course they can't do that without Mother (on behalf of Nan)'s say so, so yeah.

I wonder if anyone's collected Granddad's ashes cos in all their money grabbing I bet they don't care about that.

Anyway, if I find anymore out about that, it'll be interesting to record.

What else? Oh yeah, there was the well documented problems between me and Welshy. He calls it a "blip" now, his drift into mental illness and then struggle to regain control of it all. It hurt me greatly, I'm trying to forget and move on but its not that easy, I seem to also have gone a bit soppy and affectionate towards him, perhaps an attempt to hide my wariness of getting hurt again?

I've had my own issues with mental illness perhaps in no small part down to lack of employment - I find having a job definitely defines me as a person, makes me feel worthwhile.

Things between me and The Brat are interesting, we have had huge arguments which normally result in me backing down as usual, he's currently making a bit of an effort so we'll roll with that as much as possible.

But then as always, there's been upsides to this. Yes I was unemployed for ages and put myself nearly 4k in debt (mainly due to paying 2k to Mother in Rent, another 1500 in driving lessons and the rest on horseyness), but I had a LOT of interviews, in fact looking back, I had an interview at least every week, if not every fortnight bar May, so that helped the time pass quickly, and gave me hope.

I spent the time wisely, I learnt to drive. I'm not a good driver at all, but somehow I got through the test and have been out on the road since June, with only a couple of minor incidents. There's still a sense of amazement that I can finally do this! And it does make life so much easier! This morning I took Welshy up to Gatwick at 4am so he can go to Russia for work.

I also got to watch all the World Cup - still in my mind one of the best I've seen! I had lots of time for riding and took V to a schooling session at a proper competition venue which was super exciting!

We went to Salzburg and back to Bumpkinville which was such epic fun, foam cannons, showers of wine, Queen tribute concert, a Bullrun (not so fun) and finding out lots of people remembered us and showed us kindness there.

Now I'm employed back in Greenwich at a Community Centre, I have hopes it will be made perm again, there has been talk of that so fingers crossed but I've learnt not to get too hopeful.

I made a list of things to achieve before I was 30. I'm now 31 and I like to think had I not had this enforced run of unemployment - has I stayed at Tower Bridge for example I'd have achieved more.

1. Learn a different language  Still struggling on with my Spic, hoping to do a GCSE equivelant exam dependent on funds.
2. Pass my Maths GCSE 
3. Learn to drive
4. Live abroad for a year
5. Get my own Horse (If I get made perm at Greeny this could become achievable this year, I'd have the money for it [dependent on fixing up my savings and clearing overdraft] so let's see what my review end of this year says!)
6. My own home. URGH. I'm on the council housing list. I dont think it'll happen. Welshy is finally making talks about us saving for a deposit but yeah with London prices the way they are its not gonna happen quickly, if at all.
7. Leave London again.  I tried. I failed. This will be a goal that I'll never achieve, I realise that now.
8. My own dog. Watch this space!.....

So we're getting there slowly - would have been nice to tick these things off before 30 but at least I've achieved a few of them and I have hopes of being able to move on from them as well.

So. Its time to say fuck off to 2014, It was mostly a pretty shitty year. And let's say hello to 2015, now 3 days old, and Dad's (and now Granddad's anniversary) soon to come, Mother plans on marrying TMWMinTW this year, If I get made perm we have ideas for decent holidays and yes - maybe even tick something else off on this list.

So happy Christmas (belated) and happy 2015 all.