I remember, 10 or 15 years ago, travelling, for me, was still exciting and pleasurable. There was the thrill of the flight as I really love flying; the fun of having an expense account and being able to eat and drink, more or less, as I wanted; the prestige of being one of those ‘business travellers’ that you see or hear about.
To keep you occupied whilst I am away, I found this site, yesterday, and loved this quote:
“No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in”
Apparently, recently, I am the subject of nightmares. Worse, the nightmares seem to reflect real life pretty well.
This weekend was spent, mostly, working. My other job that is. To be honest the whole thing should have taken about 2 hours. It took most of Saturday because my websites’ hosters had to do things – but, obviously, only after I’d tried to fix it myself!
And still I can’t make it do what the customer really wants but on this one, other than a fiddly work-around, which really isn’t practical, it looks like there is no way to do it. Damn.
And then there were the accounts to do as Year End has just finished. I found that, in spite of thinking I had been keeping it pretty much up-to-date, I hadn’t. So it took me a little while. Damn again.
So many things have been happening over the last few days. There have been so many half-written posts that never saw the light of day, having fizzled out, become pointless or just saying nothing. And then, at work and at home, I have been busy.
I am so tired. I feel that I am holding myself together, just. Major events that have been happening include:
An evening with Helena Christensen,
Further disclosures following the weekend of ‘retreat’,
A change to the air of things,
The quotes for the moving.
I felt these should have and, indeed, deserve, posts on their own so as not to make this one too long or unwieldy.
I thought some of my regular readers would like to know – I caved in.
We had spent some days emailing each other and, in the end, actually sat down to talk. At the end of that, though I had got no real assurances except V’s word, I agreed to do it.
So, this morning it was (almost) done. There is a chance it won’t work out but at least I have tried. The only thing that may stop it is the fact that I do not have a Carta d’Identita. And, I don’t want one.
Last night I learnt that V’s weekend away was, so he says, a type of retreat. However, he was strangely quiet even though we were out to dinner at a friend’s house. Overall, there was an air of sadness. But he’s a good actor and I’m not entirely convinced.
When we were on our own, at the table, for a moment, he told me that he loved me.
I have two possible reactions to this: a) to take him in my arms and say that everything will be alright or b) to be a little snipey after all that he has put me through in the last four months.
Of course, there would also be the ‘be nice but be firm and stick to your resolve’ reaction, which would have been the correct one and for which one would earn £200 after passing GO!
I chose reaction b). Well, to be honest, I didn’t choose it, it just came out of my mouth and, even as I was saying it I SO wanted to go for reaction a).
The problem is that I then beat myself up about it and think that I am driving the wedge even deeper. Or not? I don’t know. The problem is that, to realise after all this time that, really, he should have not done the things that he did, is not, exactly, late but, well, you can’t expect things to just snap back into place because of the words ‘I love you’, can you?
It certainly is a long and winding road.
Today is one of those days. Whilst everything is going OK (at work and at home, given all the situations), I have this slightly strange feeling that, in a single moment, one little thing could mean that everything starts unravelling and collapse in a jumble on the floor.
Now things have become more difficult. I went to see a flat last night. It is, more or less, the same price as the perfect-flat-on-the-perfect-street (or can be, according to the guy showing me round). It has good and bad points. On the plus side is the following:
On the minus side are the following things:
All very difficult. Of course, FfI, who lives in Isola (hence FfI – Friend from Isola) is quite keen for me to live there and the terrace appeals to her (for sunbathing, bar-b-ques, etc.). She is going to see it today.
On the other hand, I go to see the woman who owns the perfect-flat-on-the-perfect-street on Friday evening, after I have seen the flat-with-the-terrace (so I can see it in the daylight). Decisions must be made.
As you may have noticed, I have decided to go back to the old way of doing posts. I decided that the whole blog looked a little boring and need ‘spicing up a bit’.
So, for those of you newer readers, it goes like this.
Type the title of the post into Google and do an image search. Select an image from the first page – any image you like but always from the first page of results. Use that image.
As I have said in the past, should anyone be unhappy about the use of an image and is the owner, please contact me and I shall remove it.
I’m sorry. I’m sure I do not have perfect habits (in fact, I know I have not) but, certain things I do not do in public and, certainly, not in an office I share with my colleagues.
I do not, even if I am hot and sweating, lift my arms up to smell underneath my armpits. I don’t do it once, let alone several times whilst my colleagues, even if they are at their computers and not looking at me directly, cannot help but see me out of the corner of their eyes. Nor would I exclaim at the same time that I was sweating with a slightly disgusted tone to my voice.
Having said that, the weather, today, is rather superb. There is not a cloud in the sky and it is quite warm in the sun although there is a breeze (you probably wouldn’t even notice the breeze in the UK) and the wind is cold. However, it is supposed to continue like this for a few days yet, so that is rather fantastic.
On another subject, for you lot in the UK and the USA, I guess, today is that dreaded day FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH. Here, it has no real meaning and so, although it crosses my mind, fleetingly, it really isn’t something to worry about. Instead, here, the bad day is the 17th. Also, a black cat crossing the road in front of you is unlucky. Now, S, should any of the bad Italian things happen to her, checks with me to see if it is bad in the UK. If not (like the black cat thing) then she chooses to believe the English version. I must admit that I lied, once, to her when she broke a mirror, saying that, in the UK, it did not mean bad luck. It made her happy anyway. It seems some superstitions are the same after all.