AAAAGGHHHH

*Phoenix breathes deeply and prepares to rant at full speed so be ready for it........*

*starters pistol ready.....BANG*

House sale has fallen through cos the buyers have changed their mind for another house they'd had in mind, which means I'll lose the lovely perfect little home for me and mini me, and she's been throwing up since 6am this morning cos her dad took her to his friends house and friends child had a tummy bug, but he thought it'd be fine,and it's the shittest day ever, and now I need to go and breathe before I turn blue!!!!
*stomps off before she hyperventilates*

Dance like nobody's watching

Well what was shaping up to be yet another boring and somewhat lonely weekend turned out not too bad!
On friday when mini me was going to her dad's I had zero plans and was looking with some foreboding to the 48hour stretch without anyone in this big house but me.
When you live in a family home then suddenly it ceases to be one, it can torture the soul with the feeling of emptiness. I feel it needs to have family spirit in it and it's very much lacking, so is not the best place to be of a weekend, especially when all the friends you tend to accumulate over the years of being a couple, are themselves couples and settled and not very often up for a night on the tiles.
So i was somewhat relieved to get a call from the artist who I now regularly model for, asking if I would accompany him to a gallery opening of a protege of his (on the strict condition that I do not accept any invitation to sit for said protege!) We had a lovely and very civilised evening for me I must say, followed by several soda and limes in the beautiful local village pub (the villages in the area I live in are very chocolate box, full of little thatched cottages and pubs with roaring fires complete with sleeping dog)
Friday night complete and just Saturday to go, so not doing too bad so far. I also agreed to a sitting with my artist on Sunday so that was that taken care of too.
Saturday is now here and as I'm working all day in my little shop I have plenty to keep me occupied till tea time and I then get a call from my one and only single friend who knows I hate staying in when I don't have mini me asking if I'd like to meet up with her and some friends. Fan-bloody-tastic.
Until I get out of this house I think every free weekend may feel like this. I hate the opressiveness of it and the memories it evokes, as they are not unhappy ones and that in itself makes me sad for the loss.
So anyway I go out and we have the most amazing night, helped along greatly by several - but not too many vodka's and the presence of the most outrageously funny dancing guy I've seen. Needless to say I was instantly drawn to him as,and DQ will back this up as we both do it, I always dance like nobody's watching. I love dancing but only if I feel relaxed enough to really go for it and generally have as much fun as possible and thankfully I found a kindred spirit. We danced all night together, I found out his name, the fact he was from Newcastle(which partly explained why even though the music wasn't too loud, that i didn't always grasp what he said)
he lives in a plush part of London, what he does for a living and hey presto his phone number.
He made me laugh, alot! And anybody who knows me knows I am a sucker for a guy who can make me laugh.
So we've spoken to each other today, he made me laugh again even though I'm no longer swimming in Vodka, and hopefully I'll be seeing him again soon for more of the same!!

Perspective

After visiting here I have no problems
Please also visit here for information on helping further. I have been on the bone marrow donor's register for 14 years. A few hours of your time and minimal discomfort could save a life and stop the pain.
thankyou x

WARNING EXPLETIVES IN PRINT

Right I do not want this blog ,for the next 6 weeks to be a woe is me and bore you all to death with the trials and tribulations of moving house, so i'll get it all out of my system now so I can focus on fluffy kittens, pink balloons, hunky knights on white steeds who will sweep me off my feet and my next new handbag. Here goes, now cover your ears if you are of delicate constitution or an estate agent............

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
ESTATE AGENTS AND CONVEYANCERS AND TOSSERS WHO CANT MAKE UP THEIR MINDS IF THEY WANT TO MOVE ARE ALL A BUNCH OF THOUGHTLESS, BRAINLESS, SELFISH, IGNORANT, COMPLETE AND UTTER WANKERS.........****************OH AND I FORGOT, LIARS!!!!!!

Ah that's much better, now where was I, oh yes, I love fluffy kittens XX

I'm trying

Tonight, in my effort to integrate with the rest of humankind after the world of coupledom, I went to .....*drum roll.........*................. A salsa class!!!

I have to say that, apart from now having very sore legs (dancing on the balls of your feet is good exercise!)and a disturbing vision going round in my head of the rather large man who was dancing in front of me wiggling his behind, I actually quite enjoyed myself.
I have never ever been to any dance class before ,apart from the torturous country dance lessons they make you take at school, and definitely not one where close contact is expected.So I was very nervous and not quite sure how many lecherous men there would be-there were 2-and surprise surprise I got to dance with them first!But once I'd very pointedly told them not to squeeze that part of their body anywhere near me they got the message.I think the Scottish accent in a firm tone can be quite scary.
The way the class works is you learn a couple of moves at a time all standing in a circle and once completed you change partners (hence probably why I got creeps first,think they saw the newbie and thought 'we'll have fun here with this one'!)So you get a chance to dance with everyone in the room. I suppose it's like speed dating to music, if that's what you're going for. Thankfully most of them were there to dance and escape another episode of Inspector Morse, and like me just to converse with other members of the species.(of course if there had been any hot guys there that last line would have read,' and like me to meet a potential date', but there weren't so I'll say it was for company)
Nevertheless it was nice to be able to get out of the house for a few hours, see some new faces, chat to someone other than the cat and feel like I could actually, if I have the opportunity(ex had mini me) maybe begin to have the essence of a social life.
Maybe next time I go Mr Wonderful dating potential will be there too...

confusion

After the last few days of housey stuff I completely forgot about my other much much smaller dilema. Namely it is ex's birthday tomorrow.
Now, because he comes to the house regularly to visit mini me and we are still on relatively good terms my dilema is do I need to still buy him a gift/card? This is the first birthday occasion when we are truly and officially no longer a couple. However we were not a couple last year when he bought me an expensive piece of kit for my ipod and a card saying what a great human being I was, although there was a slight blurring of lines in that I still was deeply in love with him and he couldn't make his mind up if he was or if he wasn't (in love with me that is, he very obviously loved himself) And also we will always whether we like it or not, be linked as we have a child, who has no hang ups with Mum and Dad sitting chatting happily at the kitchen table or taking her out somewhere. So is she going to think it's weird, when we still, in her eyes get on fine, that I give him nothing?
Now I know this might seem even a weird thing to be confused over but if we are friends now instead of husband and wife, would you not give your friend a gift? Or is it simply that we are not friends but that even stranger phenomenon namely the civilised stiff upper lip separated couple who talk like strangers on the brink of crossing the line of familiarity (even though I've seen him in all his naked glory and he me)
My own parents split when I was young and my Father wasn't even allowed within 50ft of the house so I can't ask Mum, but I swore I'd never end up bitter and twisted like that and want my daughter to have as normal an upbringing as she can now (whatever normal is). I don't think I'll ever be that ex wife who's now bosom buddies with Mrs New Phoenix but I don't want to be the Harridan either.
Ah Sod it................ he can have a card and be done with it!!

YIPPEE I HOPE

I got it!!!!!!

Now keep everything crossed that the chain stays intact and you can all come over for a housewarming with real fire in my lovely victorian cottage - as long as you bring a paintbrush x

waiting

Today I am waiting to hear if the very reasonable offer I put in on my first sole owned house will be accepted and to be frank I am kacking myself!
The buying and selling of houses in England is a very scary affair. Unlike Scotland, when you offer on a house down here, even if it is accepted you have no legal contractual rights to that property until the money's in the bank and you have the keys in your sticky little mitts. The same goes for selling. I sold my house 3 weeks ago and contracts have been drawn up and will be exchanged shortly, but even when contracts have been exchanged I could still quite legitimately change my mind and take my house off the market,thus screwing up the moving plans of the people I'd agreed wholeheartedly to sell to, so that contract's really not worth the paper it's written on.
And then there's 'The Chain'.
To those of you who don't already know, this is the sequence of house sales and purchases which lead up to your own sale and purchase, and obviously the fewer people involved in the sequence the better as there is less chance of the whole thing going pear shaped.
Now thanks to the other problem, namely Estate Agents, we were told from the start that the people we were selling to were a pretty good bet because we were told 'there's a small chain so you won't have any problems Mr and Mrs Phoenix'.
Now a small chain usually means two or three other people below you in the chain, maybe four at a push, but to my annoyance this week I found out that there are actually EIGHT other house sales and purchases below ours!! This means that despite all their reassurances, there is a much much much higher chance of someone somewhere down the line either not being able to get a mortgage and pulling out or simply thinking 'don't think we'll bother moving this year dear it's just too much hassle and I can't be bothered getting off my fat arse to do it' thus breaking the chain and house sales collapsing round our ears. Oh how i wish they were sensible and took on the Scottish system of 'don't fuck us about with this or we'll take you to court and take what you agreed you lying basturds!'
So needless to say my stress levels at the moment are through the roof (if I have one), coupled with the fact my estranged husband keeps saying, don't worry I'll get the finances sorted out this week (for the last two weeks!) so if my posts over the next few weeks are erratic it may be because I'm sitting rocking in a corner somewhere with several bald patches and handfuls of hair.

success!

Today I learned how to add links and I was so pleased I ate a whole easter egg!!

Now I feel sick!!

Now my daughter's not going to be speaking to me cos it was her egg!!

Now I'm going to have to buy her more chocolate to make up for the guilt!!

I'm a bad bad bad mother!!

The joy of success never lasts!!

I hope you're all happy now cos it was your fault!!

Impulse

Right, slept much better last night after 2hours cycling, so for those of you who want to know here's what happened with my date-those who don't I'm going to tell you anyway!
As you know the night ended with 'that kiss', and also him asking me what I was doing after work the day after (saturday), as it was my last day there. As I had no plans and work on my own when I'm there, I said this to him. He suggested meeting me after work for a quick drink! Before I could say 'blimey you're keen boyoh' the aftermath of the kiss took over and the endorphins made my mouth say 'yeah that would be great!'. My brain however was screaming at me, 'Woah there Nelly!' For up until recently it has been my plan to move back to Scotland from England and not to get involved with anyone, and as I found out that he's moving to USA in about a year I thought he was ideal as he obviously wasn't looking to form any lasting relationship either.
This was all great you see because I have a tendency to get carried away with the whole romance of a situation and I forget that it's oh so easy to fall for the right lines, actions etc. So far this complete stranger had done everything girls dream of: He complimented me, was gentlemanly the first night we met (know's a lot of people and went round introducing me to everyone in the members only club I'd blagged my way into)went to my shop on the Sunday and posted a note through the door saying he would love to take me out to dinner, then turns up at my door on said date in his Lamborghini!, sorry did I forget to mention that bit hehe (very uncomfortable car and so bloody noisy though)and then turns out to be a really quite interesting guy who I could chat easily with, who also, it turns out, lives in the same village as me!
So anyway, he turns up at my shop the next day and after impulsively buying a lot of lovely and expensive pieces!, we go for a very nice drink, only for an hour or so, then we both head off home, kiss (again, great) and he says he'll call. Now at this point I should have seen the impulsive tendencies he obviously has. All the signs are there but those endorphins are sneaky little critters, and can con their way into the toughest of brain cells. So I thought great.
So the rest of that week I have nothing going round in my head except loveliness ,and surprise surprise..............He called, in fact he not only called he sent little texts asking how my day was, sent lots of these 'x' and this happened daily!.He called me every evening and was equally lovely.Now because I've been out of the dating game for so long I had no idea that this was not usual, I just thought it was really sweet until the Thursday! Thursday's when his impulsive nature became oh so apparent.
He texts me in the afternoon seeing how my day was, and asks if I'm free to talk later, and as he'd been doing this for the last 2weeks I thought nothing of it (in this time I'd only initiated contact twice).
So he calls me later and the conversations going fine and then I get the speech...............'listen I think we should maybe cool it for a bit, I really don't think it's fair on either of us to get involved as you're moving, I'll give you a call in a week or so and we'll talk about it over dinner, ok'
Well blow me down, I didn't see that coming. Here was me having a nice time and thinking only on a day to day basis and this guy,in his head, had us married off in a fortnight. I suddenly realised that I was an impulse gone wrong. He'd thought sod it I'll go out with her even though she's going it'll be fun(I told him this on the very first night) but here he was talking about getting 'Involved'. Now I don't know if that was just a 'let her down gently' line (which I wasn't involved enough to need!) or if he really was getting involved and thinking WAY too much. But correct me if I'm wrong he was the one doing all the chasing, at no point did I suggest to him it was anything other than really good?
fun, I merely responded to encouragement given. Maybe you guys can help out with this one, what happened

switch off

Was going to carry on my post from yesterday about my date but i had such a rubbish sleep last night I'm having problems staying awake and don't want to forget the details.

This is an ongoing problem for me, as when anything either slightly exciting (i'm definitely not used to a lot of that!) or more often than not something remotely stressful happens, I know I'm in for a sleepless night. My brain seems to go into overdrive and completely untrue scenarios begin playing in my head, like a loop tape that just wont switch off. Now don't get me wrong this can be quite enjoyable if there's imaginings of a romantic nature and I'm happy to let them play for a while before wanting to roll over and sleep it off, but the stressful ones are a completely different story.

I tried everything to shut off the reel but the more I try the worse it gets to the point I can get myself into a virtual state of panic about all the things that could happen. Is this just me? I also find that when I do eventually fall asleep that the dreams take over and I tend to wake up very early and try as I might my brain has been switched back on and point blank refuses to switch off. I am trying music at the moment and started off with some nice slow background stuff but found myself listening to the lyrics, again not switching off, and then I found this cd called sleep.It's the kind of music that you hear in a beauty salon when you go for a facial (I've only ever been for one and hated it but the music was nice!) and is like very gentle percussion with a couple of whales thrown in. I must say so far it's working quite well-not quite sure how they got the whales to perform like that but they're very talented! Working well in the way that it can actually get me to sleep initially but it's when I inevetably wake up again that I just cant switch off. I know a lot of this is to do with stress but I actually feel quite good at the moment and think it has more to do with the past year of upsetting circumstances that has now conditioned my body into this state of unease.

Your task is now to fire as many suggestions to me that I haven't already tried to shut my brain off (and before anybody suggests it I don't own a gun)

ps does anyone know how to change the time at the bottom of my posts because anyone saying no wonder you cant sleep posting at that time it's because the time's wrong!

being myself?

Hullooooo *peers nervously around the door*
aahhhhemmm
It's been a while since I've been here and it's a bit daunting I must say. I wondered what to write on my first post of my new blog, but I reckon you may be so used to my rambling(previous commenter's on my deleted life blog that is) that anything remotely trying to be clever or thought provoking may be laughed at, so I'll just give you a bit of a catch up on what I've been up to.(I'm saying 'you' like I'm assuming people are going to want to read this!)
Well where do i start. I am now a happy singleton instead of one who thought it was absolutely the worst thing ever on the planet, and no longer think having my heart broken was something I'd never survive. In fact I'd go so far as to say I'm actually enjoying myself for the first time in.... well lets just say it feels like a very long time. The broken part of me is now safely stored in the lessons learned part of my brain,only to be used when repeating the same mistakes later.
I'll start with dating:
I've taken the first tentative steps into the scary world of dating and landed somewhat lucky in my first attempt by not having to even look about for him. He came into my then place of work (that's changed too!) bought something,then commented on my lovely glasses. I thought he was lovely but thought no more of it until that night,when out on my first night out in 8MONTHS! he was the first person i bumped into!
We talked all night, he got a peck on the cheek (I'm a lady!)and that was that. Next day there was a note through the door asking me out for dinner. yippee I thought a real man asking me out for a real dinner. But when it came down to calling him back I confess it took me 2 days!. I had been in the same relationship for 13years and to be frank i couldn't bloody remember what to do. How do you have conversation? Is there etiquette involved? do I leave it a bit longer to call? Do I kiss him at the end of the night or the beginning or would he expect more if he's taking me out to a swanky restaurant.Will I talk too much or not enough(i have a tendency to do both depending on the mood) Shit!
Now you all might think that this is just a little bit melodramatic but I was seriously panicking, then someone told me 'just be yourself' and made it worse! I could try that I suppose if I could remember who that was. I've been Mum and wife for so long I'd kind of lost myself in the ether.Now I know I can have fun, have a laugh with my friends, drink too much and make a fool of myself, but that's with people I know, and 9 times out of 10 was in my own home.Shit!
So I did the only thing I could think of, I put on new clothes, put on my best slap,downed a triple vodka and pretended it wasn't a date but a meeting with an important client.
Now I don't know if it was the vodka ,the very expensive new trousers I'd just broken the bank for,or the fact I had put the whole thought of it being a date out of my mind, but I felt super confident after that and found myself actually enjoying the conversation. In fact I'd go so far as to say it flowed! So much so that he left mine at 2am after coffee more chat and the most amazing kiss I've had in years.
Now you may want to know what happened next but I've got a lot of time to catch up on so you'll have to wait, just remember though I'm single for the first time in a lifetime and want to have some fun so don't have me married off yet! x