Well I passed the first section of the medical trial, next step is to arrange a blood test. I'm still unsure how I'm going to pass away my up to two weeks in hospital. We'll figure that bit out when/if I get there.
If this works out I could get up to 3,750 quid for it. Which would pay for Mum's car should I pass the test, it would be enough for a horse.
Or more sensibly it would be a sizeable chunk for a deposit anywhere or be savings should it be ages before I get a job again.
I'm assuming that I will be going in 8 days time..... and no feasible interviews lined up.....

Another busy week. Riding. Gym-ing, driving, All going well, I'm still a bit struggling with getting over a new bout of loss of nerve after the rear the other week, but its ok.
Driving too. My stupidity meant I got the days muddled up that I was supposed to go do my driving theory test so that was 30 quid down the drain and unable to go again now for nearly a month.
Second lesson last Wednesday, practised bay parking and emergency stops, all went well, my old nemesis parallel parking went badly, not badly bad just not accurate and close to the kerb enough.
Went out with the N.M.M.C.A.S.C plus one to Leicester and had a lovely time with the boys ending in a bar drinking ice cream cocktails and beer on the way home.
Next Saturday I am going to see TP of which I am hugely excited about and then Charlton are playing Sheffield in the quarter-finals of the FA cup. I can see it being a game too far for us but it'll be a nice excuse to see TP and hang out with the boys.
What else is new?
Well I decided to put myself on the council housing list. I'm expecting to be turned down. In fact i'm 95% sure I will but its the only way of escape I can see at the moment.
I also applied for a medical trial so we'll see what happens there. Pays well for a week in hospital!
I have this week left at work and next as well and then I don't know whats happening. I really need to get some interviews lined up although its not through want of trying!
Welshy is home on the 15th and the end of the month will be a year playing with Vimto!

I am enjoying how busy my week has been. I've been doing something every night and this week looks like the same.
Riding didn't go as well. She did a proper rear on Friday which scared me and today was very windy and i was on edge from the other day so didn't push through it. But I didn't get off, so its a positive.
Football and we won and now i'm really looking forward to the game at Leicester on Saturday.
Found a few jobs to apply for and i'll crack on with those, they have long expiry dates so i'll leave them a bit longer so I can feel justified in adding this work now into the mixture.
15 work days left! Gotta get something lined up for it just in case it doesn't get extended.

So far it'#s been a good week!
Temping has been going ok, very quiet compared to what I've gotten used too, but I need that at the moment I think. Commuting has been predictably hellish but what can you do?
I went to the gym on Monday - Go me!
And riding was awesome, more canter legyields and spirals and shallow loops, lots to work on but yay.
I went for my "first" driving lesson tonight! Glad to know I hadn't forgotten most of it, my first night drive too!
Applied for a few more jobs and booked train tickets for me and the N.M.M.C.A.S.C to go up to Leicester next weekend!
Now I just need to get paid as I'm painfully aware I'm a bit poor lately!

A busy week, had a meeting with a temping agency and it seemed to go well and I have a meeting with a national diabetes charity tomorrow. Goes well and I start immediately for a 4-6 week temping gig. Money is the same as what I would have got at the last job so I don't lose out any and it will keep me running while I look for something else. I must remain focused on that so it doesn't creep up on me and I find myself with nothing to go to.
I rode this week and have been absolutely soaked each time. Good session with my trainer today which made me happy. I did a gym induction too! I went on Thursday but haven't been since. The plan is to try and go on the days I don't go play horses.
Welshy is away for a month now anyway so I need to keep myself busy!
Speaking of keeping busy I start driving lessons again this week! Thursday! And I booked myself into a theory test on the 26th.
I'm going to smash it this time.
We did some tidying and got drunk on Friday night. Daring each other to try a bottle of gin that expired in 1992.
Yesterday we went for a meal at Burger or Steak, the meal was ok, the setting was ok but the waiting staff were rubbish.
Very tired now and I need to do some revision for this so I am prepared for tomorrow.

The funeral today went reasonably well.
Luckily there was no dramatics and all very civil. I did a reading. Moment of panic when my script was different to Aunt G who was doing the other section.
Afterwards Uncle I gave me a ring. "To remember Granddad by." I don't wear jewellery and I don't need a ring to remember him. It is pretty nice to be fair though, garnet and zirconia. Red and White for football.
Where did the money to get it come from? Why didn't they give me something for Brat? Did everyone get the same thing? Too many questions.
Too nice to wear everyday even if I did wear jewellery and its slightly too big for me. I would lose it in a muck heap or something.
I had to hide it from Mother, will have to continue to hide it.

I got sacked on Wednesday. It was a little unsurprising but yet surprising at the same time. I get paid till the end of the month and can have a good reference.
I cried.
I'm trying to make this a positive thing. I was stressed there, constantly battling to hit the targets and please people that never could be pleased. Its one less thing to worry about.
On Monday I had to meet my Aunts and Uncles to talk Funeral. I felt guilty. I didn't tell Mother I was going. I felt that was for the best. They told me what music would happen, they previously said I could say a few words if wanted but it turns out they had written a script/terrible poem for me to talk about.
I don't care. I just want this over as painlessly and peacefully as possible.
Mother has taken my sacking well. I planned to just take it easy until Tuesday, after the funeral but of course she is busy fretting about the money she is missing out on from me and will continue to miss out on.
I got more fucking sympathy from my riding trainer who hugged me today.
I've applied for a few jobs, but yes. I'm tired, exhausted and speaking frankly. So stressed I've not had a period in 4 months - and I'm definitely sure I'm not pregnant!!!
This is positive. No more leaving the house at 7 and getting home at ten or even twenty past 7. I've booked my theory test. I have joined a gym. I will get another job soon - sooner than the last time I was unemployed I'm sure!
I will cram in as many driving lessons as I can in this period. I have applied for 9 or 10 jobs already and not even looked properly.
Tuesday I will make appointments to sign on, will speak to the recruitment guy who got me this job.
People kept phoning me previous to this bombshell to ask me to interview and I turned them down.
I will not cry and be weak.
I will not cry.

Just booked my first driving lesson in I don't know how many years. Fingers crossed this time we pass quickly and painlessly.
I also learned how to take blood this week.
Just the way I roll!

So let's list everything that's happened over the last week. Starting with family.
My uncle D has threatened to get mum removed as main carer and protector of finances for Nan. He does not think she did the best to care for either her or granddad.
He wants charge of her finances. My uncle J agrees. I dont know what uncle I wants.  Not sure after last Friday he will want owt to do with her ever again. Uncle M is sick of in-fighting and is keeping out and christ only knows what aunt G makes of all this.
So. Mother has run away to Grotty. I don't know when the funeral is and am probably not invited. She is convinced she will have to go to court.
Now work. Well I may not be in my job much longer and I hope its a over reaction but the meeting yesterday did not fill me with confidence.  I am not hitting my call time targets.  I have reached and exceeded all the others.  They are getting a girl to move teams. I fear replacement.  I fear unemployment.  Have started to make steps to look for another job just in case....

My lovely, insane, slightly racist, always funny, dog loving, football supporting, mildly alcoholic Granddad died on Saturday night. Midnight.
I will always remember playing with various dogs, trips with him and my Nan to various parts of the Kent countryside, playing in rivers, hunting butterflies, fishing with pint pots, climbing trees, early weekend walks with the dogs to Maryon Wilson Animal Park.
The lifts to School listening to Radio 5 and Jazz FM. The crazy football trips where he always found someone to befriend. The love that was never outwardly demonstrated. The loud screaming matches with my Nan where me, my brother and ex-police dogs huddled together. Remember growing strawberries, apples and tomatoes in the garden.
Remember how he could never remember my name, or my Brothers.
And sadly I think I will always remember him choking to death slowly and painfully. I was not there for his final moments. I slept exhausted most of Saturday. I did not want, couldn't watch those final moments.
Mother was there. One of her brothers was there and her sister. He knew I had been and that was enough.

Now I need to look after my brother. More revelations have startled and stunned me and I need to find a way to look after him and make things better for him although I don't know how.

Crazy week and yesterday was a crazy day.
Granddad continues to go downhill. Yesterday wass upposed to be the end and indeed he did "die" a few times but his pacemaker did its job and kicked in making his heart beat again. As cruel as it sounds I wish it had an on/off switch. His dying is painful, prolonged and I am once again convinced of the need for human euthanasia.
I sat up all night at the hospital with him. As mum ended up having a fight with her brother and his partner and then came home having a crisis and sobbing about how she's been pushed out and was made to break the promise of being there at the end.
I don't know the full ins and outs of it, and nor do I want to. There is a time and place for infighting and in front of a dying, painfilled man is not it.
So I went to the hospital and stayed there all night, listening to his choking, gargling coughs. I left at 7am and walked home and slept through to half 5. I still feel really groggy and sleepy and Mother is there so I don't feel bad at not being there. I don't want to be there. I am still scared horribly of death. I would be there if needed. If he was alone, if Mother has another breakdown and runs away I will go in her place.
But let's hope it doesn't go to that again.
Kudos to Brat who broke his terror of hospitals to sit there for an hour or so and for Welshy as well who came up with me but left at 2-ish.
Speaking of Brat apparently the revelations of the other day are true. Her name was Summer and was a Prem baby. She lived a day.
I am too tired to think about this any more. I will just sit here and wait.

Been to see Granddad most of the last few days. Peaks and troughs there as well. I hate this waiting. As bad as it is I just want it over.
Mother is home and I don't know what to believe about the story from Welshy. Apparently Brat and Mother sat up late last night and he told her that 6 months before Dad died, he had a girlfriend. Who had his baby. Who lived only 24 hours. He would have been 19 at the time.
Wow.
Somehow this seems to be a way of explaining away his horribleness for the majority of the time I've written this blog.
I don't know any more of the story than this. I get home about 7.20 and Mother was on the phone and then she went to bed as I was in the bath. Best to wait and see if I learn any more.
Kinda dazed and confused about the whole thing.

Happy New year all.
Later than normal but here is my annual year review.
Its been a really good year looking back for me. So many changes and differences. I  think back to this time in 2011 when I knew that things would change. They have continued to change and develop.
Firstly good points - I started the year looking for a new horse to play with, I found Gracie but didn't gel with her and her owner and got a good boot from another horse as well.
Easter came and I found Wonderhorse, I've learnt so much from riding her, continue to learn. I never thought this time last year that I would have semi-confidently have jumped a double fence. Jumped 70cm, done another dressage contest. I've had a bit of a confidence wobble on her lately, which is probably due to the wind and weather conditions but its coming back and I will continue to learn.
Holidays. I've been so spoilt. This was The Year of Thirty, also dubbed The Year of Adventure. Inter-railing with Welshy. Visiting a lovely old spa in Budapest, the awfulness of visiting Auschwitz near Krakow, and the exploration of Prague and trying to sleep on trains.
I visited Paris for a day trip with a friend which was lovely, going to The Louvre and seeing so many great works of art and queuing for hours to get up the eiffel tower.
Welshy took me to Zadar in Croatia for my actual 30th and I taught him to snorkel and we visited a national park with a little cove that we frolicked and snorkelled in amongst waterfalls.
Then to top it all off Dubai. Not a place I thought I'd enjoy but yet an epically good time. Visiting crazy malls, sandboarding. camel-riding. An unforgettable trip to Oman for snorkelling.
I've been a very lucky girl there too.
In May I decided I wanted a new job, and after 13 interviews I got offered a new job in October, and then another job after that which I took. Made new friends there and my probation ends this month. Amazing money, more than I've ever dreamed of earning and the sudden possibility that I'll be able to complete my remaining 30 Bucket List that I've put on here. I don't enjoy the long hours but it'll be worth it I'm convinced, I do fret that I will do something to cock it up and end up unemployed or something but that's silly talk.
Welshy has been here, there and everywhere. I am very lucky to have him.
Mother has found love again and I'm glad for her but yet uncertain as to where this leaves me, but its good. I want her to be happy and she is now.

Bad points to 2013? Well Granddad's illness coming on strongly and suddenly, I know he will not be with us longer. If he makes it to the end of Jan I will be impressed. The poor run of form Charlton have had this season also does not make me happy, but you can't have everything!

Its not often that you can sum up a year and have more good points than bad but I have had an amazing 2013 and now I'm off to start to put one of the remaining bucket list items into place....... Watch this space! Toot toot!

Granddad is still hanging in there. Peaks and troughs. Welshy was home for 24 hrs but then went to Wales for Christmas.
TMWMinW is here for Christmas which means my brother isn't. Lovely Christmas dinner listening to in-jokes about breasts and watching them fondle each other like 16 year olds.
Got some clothes and I don't mean to be ungrateful but the coat is kinda chavvy and I'm starting to feel a bit old for novelty cartoon tshirts. (when did that happen!?)
Also. The novelty cartoon tshirt is also an injoke between the two of them...... No idea even to begin expressing that in my head let alone on here.
Anyway. Work is going fine. I got paid and got commission on Christmas eve which was unexpected. I am also a little sad about how much I lost to tax and student loan and pension blah blah blah. Almost half the bonus!
Sad times.
Looking to start driving lessons when I get paid in January. Also toying with the idea of joining the gym. I have become slightly aware that spending 9 and a half hours sat still eating shit is making my clothes rather small.
We'll see on that front......... Laziness will undoubtedly strike.

My Granddad has been pretty poorly. His dementia came on suddenly and strongly, unlike my Nan's who is still happily demented in the care home in Charlton.
He was taken to QM in Sidcup over the summer, where he didn't do too well. Growing angry and attacking the nurses, trying to escape repeatedly.
Just under a month ago they moved him to QE where he was closer to Mum and home. There. I'm sorry to say they mistreated him, leaving him naked in his own faeces. Not feeding him properly, or not taking the time to feed him. He caught pneumonia and diarrhea.
He was moved back to QM this week and I went to see him for the first time in quite a shameful while.
I was shocked tbh. I was expecting poorlyness but he has completely lost the plot. He didn't know who we were. Just sitting in a chair, mumbling and nursing a ragdoll that he'd found from somewhere.
Sad. Sad. Sad. A shadow of the strong vibrant man I knew, even six months ago.
He is being moved to pallative care tomorrow and that means days, or weeks.

Went to see The Hobbit part two. Still lusting over Legolas, despite him being totally wooden and a shit actor. Two Orlando Blooms for my money acting terribly. It was better than I feared, although I can't fall for them the way I did with LOTR and Harry Potter, the way A Song of Ice and Fire is currently obsessing me (books, not the Game of Thrones series).
Rather odd elf/elf/dwarf love triangle going on which was totally unnecessary really. Still. It was ok in its own way.

So after making a total tit of myself and thinking the worst. It turns out to be a cyst.
Relief all round.

Went out drinking armed with only a cheeky packet of monster munch at 10am.
I got wankered. Someone asked how Mother was and then the whole sorry drama came spilling out. How rejected I feel. How hurt that she doesn't even want me at the doctors and wants TMWMinW instead.
How stupidly it makes me so sad the different way she treats him to Dad. How I am already prepared for the worst come Monday.
I cried to several people and ruined their nights. No one wants to be the one looking after the weeping drunk girl at parties.
AND at the end of it, I walked home alone and barefoot from Greeny at 1am and wasn't even drunk.
Up at 6.20 am to get to work boo.
Ho hum. Tomorrow is another day and They will be back.

Mother goes for her test on Monday. I am so not ready to do this again. Feeling rather down and miserable about it all tonight. Long, tiring day at work. Good though. In the midst of a 12 day stint. Going for cocktails tomorrow with them and then drinks with the nmm crew Friday before going to do a BLS weekend course.
I feel like getting smashed out of my face.

4 reasons why this might be the nicest Sunday ever.

1. Jumped (with some persuasion) my first 70cm jump. Yes it was messy and untidy but wheeee!
2. Mint matchmaker Mcflurry.
3. Hull beating Liverpool
4. I do love a good roast dinner.