Updates

Hello peeps.

It's been a while, I know.

Things I have been doing include:

1. Frantically editing short films with yoof in them.
2. Reading Freud case studies.
3. Listening to neighbours arguing about scaffolding.
4. Wondering why the weird cat has started weeing in corners.
5. Fretting about Christmas and the mother-in-law situation.
6. Appreciating the Autumn sunshine.
7. Driving to the middle of the Bath countryside for a hen weekend.
8. Realising just how young people in nightclubs are.
9. Loving my therapy,
10. Browsing flats on the interweb.
11. Revelling in half term.
12. Fighting the horrible hormonal effects of a new pill.

So.

The landlord situation (if you could please read "situation" with a french accent, it would be most helpful, since that is how it is pronounced in my head). Although he has now increased the rent only by a tiny bit that actually won't kill us, I think we are still going to keep out eyes out for somewhere else. We don't feel quite safe here now, and also (with the encroaching winter darkness) it is becoming clear how very dim it is, being a basement flat and all. And Miss Tickles don't do terribly well with dimness.

The mother-in-law situation is the same. She is still outrageous in her claims and actions. But now her mum (hub's nana) is very ill so it's a bit more complicated. Really I think we are trying to work out ways we can keep her in our life without her being entirely draining and destructive. Hub is ace and strong and only very occasionally furious. I am proud of him.

I have had a tricky few weeks with the lady-hormones. I went to the doctor because I have started suffering from menstrual migraines, and she advised me to try the mini-pill. It was all okay until around period time and then I suddenly turned into a churning mass of anxiety and weird night sweats and not sleeping and head all strangely leapy. It is over now, thank heavens, and I am holding in mind that the doctor did say it would take a while to settle down.

Bloody buggery hope it does though, because it was really terribly yuck.

I am loving my course and finding it intense and challenging and thought-provoking and glorious. And also prone to inducing a peculiar variety of psychological hypochondria, whereby we learn about something and then immediately diagnose it in ourselves (it is a course-wide phenomenon, and not just me... We are all as sensitive and wonderfully loopy as each other). Anyway. It is good, and I am slowly feeling more confident with it all. Also discovered that telling people that one is training as a counsellor/therapist means that they immediately tell you their dreams.

What else....

The weird cat has started weeing in corners.

It is weird.

The Man

I like to think the best of people I come into contact with. I look for reasons that might cause people to behave in destructive or painful ways, I am interested in where they are coming from, I genuinely believe in human vulnerability and the bollocks we construct to help ourselves through that.

But sometimes, I wonder if I am wrong.

Sometimes, when hub is railing against the man (as he can often be found doing) and I am saying things like "Well maybe the man just hasn't had a very good day", or, "Maybe he had an argument with someone he cared about last night", sometimes, a little tiny shadow of doubt trips across my consciousness, scattering question-mark shaped confetti as it goes.

Sometimes I can't help but consider that maybe the man is doing really quite well actually. And can have chinese takeaway whenever he wants. And can afford to go to his friends' birthday parties. And has enough money to have, say, a dog.

Maybe the man is sitting comfortably on a sofa somewhere chuckling to himself.

The last week has been very odd. The landlord raised our rent by 10%, then when we said there was no way we would be able to stay, he lowered it a bit. Then when we said that actually we needed a bit more time because giving us a week to decide what we wanted to do felt a teensy bit like short notice, he lowered it again.

Which makes me think that everything he said last week about fixed rate mortgage coming to an end blah blah, cost of replacing the boiler blah blah, forced to do it blah blah, might not really have been entirely accurate.

I feel shaken by this. And we still don't know what to do. Because we have to let him know by 9am on Thursday otherwise he will "retract all offers" and while we can afford the rise in rent as it now stands, and we know we still want the flat, we're frankly not altogether sure we want the landlord.

I feel oddly naive.

A bit of a mug.

I just want to feel safe, y'know? Secure and settled for a bit without the fear that things are going to be pulled from under our feet at any second.

But I'm not sure I trust that man anymore.

Pubs. Gawd love 'em.

Hubling is writing a story.

At the heart of this story are men in a pub.

We have been chatting and talking and analysing what exactly it is that men like so much about pubs. And also people in general. Obviously. (Although his book does focus on a group of chaps).

So.

User generated content.

Web 2.0.

The technological future!

Let it help us with our discussion, in all its glory! In all your glory, dear generating users!

Tell me, what do you like about pubs? What do you think men like about pubs? Why are they so very important to us?

I await your answers with baited breath...

My kingdom for a house!

So.

More trouble at (the) sea(side).

It looks like we have to move. Again.

GRRRRRR.

We got an email from our landlord informing us that he is putting the rent up by 10%.

For goodness sake!

Hub and I are currently in discussions about what to do, since this would take our rent up to a figure we would find more than a little painful.

Should we stay or should we go?

We were both very angry given that we have only been here six months, and given our having-to-leave-the-last-flat experience. It seems we are suffering from some kind of bad flat karma.

So tomorrow we are off to look round a few flats, see what is out there, see what we can get for our money, as we have until Wednesday to let the landlord know what we're doing.

Is it too much to ask to stay in one place for more than seven months, is it? I mean, is it?!

It has been a crazy few weeks with horrible in-law drama, troubles with my own parentals, a training weekend meaning I am now on my twelfth consecutive working day, and now more annoying flat stuff.

Oh the urge to swear is upon me, dear readers.

Fortunately, I am a model of restraint.

Overheard morning conversation.

Radio 4: And it looks like John Terry will be unable to play this evening.

Hub: (To weird cat) Oh my god, what are they going to do without John Terry?

Weird Cat: Silence

Hub: I know, they don't stand a chance.

Weird Cat: Silence

Hub: He's solid in that line-up. Would you like a bit of ham?

Weird Cat: Myeaooooow.

The thing is, hub really hates football.

They were having an ironic conversation.

Drama and all sorts

It has been a little while, I know.

Things have been rather intense.

I started my counselling course last week (hoorah!) and in addition to the one day a week which will be usual, had a study weekend too, which was wonderful, but which now means I am well into my second week of no-day-off. So I'm a bit floopy and eyes-all-sleepy.

Plus we had all sorts of dramatic family crisis last week involving my mother-in-law going mad.

Frankly, and as I think I might even have mentioned, she has always been a wee bit potty. But has also always hidden it under the appearance of being an open and in-touch-with-her-emotions hippy-type who simply says how she feels, man.

But last week it all went a bit, well, dark, and it became clear that the over-emotional hippy no-boundaries stuff does in fact hide some rather more Serious Issues. And poor hub has been in the horrible place of his mother doing something truly unforgivable to his father (they are twenty years worth of divorced), but also constructing a fiction so complex that it is very difficult to confront her with what she has done.

So it was quite a busy week with backwards and forwards phone calls and discussions and emails to social services and all kinds of nasty things that he, or anyone really, just should not have to deal with.

I have been trying to be as supportive as I can, and to be honest, he is doing amazingly well. He is a strong chap, my hub, but nonetheless I have been ensuring he has regular and reliable cuddle access.

It will be ongoing, this situation, but we have at least got through the bit where immediate decisions had to be made.

And of course having just leapt with glee into the world of psychodynamics, the whole thing has given me endless fodder for pondering. And I'm sure hub appreciates my wild break-offs into enthusiastic introductions to psychodynamic theory in his own quiet way. I'm just sure of it.