Eowyn

As of today, this journal is closed.
Someone still reads it with whom i want no further contact. Ever.
I dont want to hear from them, I dont want to think about them, and i dont want to censor what i say to my friends for fear that they may read it.
As far as i'm concerned they can drop dead.

Thank you very much.

Goodnight.

just reminding people about this, as i think it's great!

releasing another two books this week in gloucester, if anyone's aroundt o pick them up....

i must remember the rugby version we wrote at uni...

If you're going to have rules, then everybody needs to stick to them, or they don't work!

I have spent the last 5 weeks teaching a module to Year 8, which nobody else has taught becasue they've been doing a different module. They've been simply working through the textbook, while i have been following the scheme of work for the Autumn Term. And now i am causing problems in the department by needing a different test to everyone else, and our results wont be immediately comparable as they'll have done different topics. And if we make anyone move groups, they'll repeat some parts, and completely miss others.

GRRRRRRRRRRR!
Why have a scheme of work if the whole department igores it? Or at least, tell new teachers that that's what you do, so i can do it too, and be the same as the rest of you!

GGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

#1. I am going back to church on Sunday. I finally feel like i've found somewhere good - i shall wait and see what it's really like during a service on Sunday. I have been wanting to return for a few months now, but this week has really kicked me hard into understanding, and it is now no lnger optional.

#2. In light of #1, it has been made extremely clear to me that i should not let the people who matter to me be in any way uncertain of how much they matter to me, and how much i love them.
As such, i have asked Pippa, Sarah and Alice to be bridesmaids at my wedding. I could not do such an improtant thing withouth my best friends there beside me to share it with me.

And to all of those who know who you are, adn i shall not list you but trust you know, I love you indescribably, and will endeavour to tell you all personally over the next few weeks. Please dont ever feel that just becasue i ont see you very often, that i dont love you. I do.

Michael was one of my best friends from University. He was one of the few people who understood when i walked away from Christianity and became a pagan. He was on the search himself, alhtough his took him the other way.
Michael was working as a volunteer for the Tong-Len project, supporting children in the slums in India. And now he has gone. All i can do is pray that he has gone to a better place, where he is safe and happy.
Although knowing Mike, he'd probably rather be here, so he could continue to make a difference. He wore this world lightly,m and used everything he had to try to make it better for others. He will be terribly missed.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20061129/main9.htm

As I cannot bear to let his life go without it having made a difference to me, and to all the people he had yet to help, I am applying to be avolunteer for the same project. I have sent in a request to be a maths/english teacher for the Tong Len project over the summer holiday.

http://www.tong-len.org/

If you can help, either by aiding the charity, or simply by adding your prayers to the those already ascending, please do.

Others have said it far better than i could. Please visit Alice , Wood , Malcolm for more info and pictures.

I will post more later, when i feel i can.

"Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump. Piglet, meet me in transporter room three. Christopher Robin, you have the bridge."

also, have found the church i want to start going to, and have also joined the gloucester pagans moot for friday's meeting!

had excellent god chats with a vg friend this weekend. Thank you so much blonde!
missed a phone call from Strawberry, which i intend to return very soon, as i miss her lots and lots.

tralala.

You Are Apple Green

You are almost super-humanly upbeat. You have a very positive energy that surrounds you. And while you are happy go lucky, you're also charmingly assertive. You get what you want, even if you have to persuade those against you to see things your way. Reflective and thoughtful, you know yourself well - and you know that you want out of life.

i was expecting something darker, like hunter green, or forest green, but hey. appples are nice.

ok, so after a heartfelt and long conversation over the weekend, Paul and I have decided to bring the wedding forward to 28th March 2008. Which is only just over a year away.

As such, the organisation fo what we need to do has become far more immediate. We know we need to be getting chirch and reception chosen and booked, and save the date cards out. But what else needs to be done with any urgency?

What order do things actually need to be done in, and at what sort of time scale?

I've spent the last four months having fun, and just accruing ideas, but suddenly it's get very real and very SOON (comparitively, anyway), and i'm not at all sure where to start.

Any help gratefully welcomed!

so, yesterday was phil's birthday. And i remembered.

now, which direction do i take this post from there?

I don't hate him. there is more than one person in my life who really thisnks i should, but i don't. I still quite like him. He behaved atrociously at the end of our relationship, but then, so did i. And despite all the horribleness that happened when we were together, there was also a lot of really great stuff that wasnt broadcast as much as the crap, because, well, when things are bad you need to moan, but when they're good you tend to just enjoy them and forget to tell everyone. And also, there seems to be some sort of taboo about saying 'actually, yeah. my life is great and i'm really happy'. nobody does it. but that's another post.

SO, without really thinking about it, i sent him an email. it just said happy 25th, with nothing personal. In my head, someone i knew was having a birthday, so i sent a note to say be happy. Didnt think any more of it. Should have done.

Paul, sending me an important link to something, then checked my email account to make sure his email with attachemtn had arrived safely. Found the reply from Phil.
Not a happy bunny. Understandably so. When phil and i were together, and i found out that he was still speaking to people who had seriously hurt me, it made me feel like my feelings and opinions didnt matter. ANd that must be how Paul felt when he saw tat i was still talking to phil. Which i so didn't mean it to.

But as much as i care about Paul's feelings, and what is important to him, i just can't hate Phil as much as he does, and am not sure that for my sake, i want him out of my life. For Paul's sake, I really really do. Phil hurt both of us tremendously, especially when we were going through the maybe baby stage. And as much as i cant forgive him for the hurt he caused, i also dont hate him for it. I've just taught myself not to remember it.

I find this far more difficult when i'm in gloucester, as all of the memories are still there, infront of me, and i still look over my shouldr whenever i go into town incase i see either him or his parents - who i did run into a couple of weeks ago, in gloucester town centre, when i was just going about my business. There, right in front of me where the people i had hoped to have as my in-laws. And it had all gone wrong. So we had to stop, and chat, and remember the old times. I was kissed and hugged like an old friend, even though i have been told repeatedly how much they hate me for hurting hteir son. So either they have far better manners than most, or no longer hate me.
So, to avoid futher such encounters, and escape the memories, when i return to the west, we shall not be living in gloucester. I shall not elaborate, for fear of leaving trails, but it wont be gloucester.

So i really shouldn't have sent that email. But i did. And for myself, i dont consider that to have been a bad thing. But for my fiance, i do. and ow i don't really know what i feel or think.
Do i regret sending it, becasue it hurt someone who is immeasurably important to me? Or do i not, because i know what it meant to me, and that it touched someone with whom i shared, and still in some respects share, a bond like nothing i've ever known?

Any opinions?

10 months yesterday. And been angaged for just under 4. Yay.

He's done somehting. I know there is something arriving in the post today, but i don't knwo what it is, and i haven't decided if i actually like surprises yet. Hmmmm.

On another good note, school is finally sorting itself out, and i might actually survive until xmas.

BEAM!

Editted to add:
when i got home, i discovered a huge bunch of 20 roses waiting for me. Red, pink, yellow and ivory. So beautiful.
BEEEEEEAM!!!!!

linked from Richard. This is wonderful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dOszwPVCNo

(yes, i know, im not a member so it doesn't have the little box in my blog for you to watch it. How much extra work is it really?)

Pamela Roberts


Pamela Lockley


Now I'm REALLY looking forward to being a Lockley!

(yes, i do have important stuff to blog about. And yes, i am deliberately procrastinating so i don't have to think about that yet.)

the mean old pooter finally let me get all the way through.

i'm starting to wonder if soon i'll be in the only happy couple left in the country.
Had a mad half term, but from my point of view i quite enjoyed it.
I went home with my lovely boy, and spent Saturday asleep recovering from the madness of 7weeks teaching on a 90% full timetable (the shock of going from 70% to 90% with no biuld up, and having ultimate responsibility for a lot of things was just exhausting).
Sunday the boy was ridiculously ill, and was banned from leaving the flat, so i moved him to the sofa and opened the bedroom windows to give the germs a blow out. He was then wrapped up warm to stop him coughing, and dosed up with medicaments and soup and nice bread and the requested chocolate (i know he's not ok when he want chocolate). lots of orange juice and no alcohol.
Then i left him there and went to Swampea to see Blonde and babyBlonde for a couple of days. It was great to see them, and lovely to realise that BB still remembered mwe, which means I cant have left my visit toooo overdue this time. Took her a birthday (belated, i know) present, wine, gak, and chocolate. Had a lovely evening of chatting, foot gak, drinking and watching films - i have now seen Breakfast at Tiffanys! Yay. Sad to say that her perspective of that week was not as jolly asmine, (but not becasue of me), and i wish her all the bst, much love andhugs and whichever bevarage seems most desirable. I also got to catch up briefly with Sazzle, which was most excellent. I miss Swampea, and all the lovely Swampea family.
Didn't manage to get to see Pippa, but i shall do again soon. I miss youuuuuuuuuuuu!

Returned to Gloucester just in time to turn around and head back to Mid-Wales with the boy, to visit his parents for a couple of days. Had a lovely first day going round al of the local churches seeing if we wanted to get married there, and i really really think we do. We found the most perfect place in the Elan valley, wiht gorgeous scenery, a wwaterfall right outside, the reserviors where they tested the bouncing bombs for WWII, and a tiny little church with no electricity, jst gas lamps and candles. And it's part of the Swansea and Brecon dioces! (sp?)YAY!
Then had an ....interesting....evening, and went linedancing with MIL2B, which was cool. Home again on Thursday morning to clean and tidy the flat ready to work nice and hard on Friday.

Had a phone call on Saturday to tell methat my brother had split up with his girlfriend. THat made two couples in a few days, and Paul was starting to worry that bad things come in threes....then found out about the sort of third separation, so he was relieved, and i am worried about half of my friends and my little brother! Fun.

And now, bakc to school, with the wonders of small people hystericaly high in the sugar collected last night trick-or-treating. grrrr. rant about that later!

Also, wondering about actually asking the wonderful women I want to be bridesmaids if they would do the honours.....

if ever i needed another reason to not buy factory farmed produce, adn to favour home grown, home raised, or at least locally produced free range food:

http://www.cluckingdisgusting.co.uk/

I have always wondered what hapened to Lizzy and Mr Darcy after the end of Pride and Prejudice. Do they live happily ever after and have the children prescribed by their wedding ceremony? Or does Lizzy discover that Mr Darcy is in fact not at all house trained, and brings muddy boots through the house and is far too pompous for his good looks to compensate when he is her main source of company?
I wish there was a sequal.

When I was younger and dreamin gof being a grown up, I always left the dream at that point, too. I'd met my Prince Charming, and fallen in love, and he was tall dark and hansome (SP?). We got married, and the daydream ended. What happened next? What does happen next? is that the end of the fantasy romance? Does everything become horribly familiar and commonplace?

It's something I'm starting to consider. I miss the familiar, commonplace parts of living together. He's in Cambridge for this week, and then I'm back in Gloucester next week, so I actually get a fortnight of lovin. But hte bits i'm enjoying the most are the bits like waking up in the middle of the night, turning over and him just beig there. Talking baout our days over dinner. Watching tv with a cuppa before bed. Holding hands as we wander down the road, rahter than being with mum or all alone. The routine he has upon waking which makes it impossible for him to fake sleep to me, that no-body else knows about. Always knwing where his watch is, especially when he doesn't.

I'm really looking forward to all the big stuff, like buying a house, having a family, laeving work to take care of them, having a garden to be as self-suficient as possible during that time.

I wonder what Lizzy was particulary looking forward to when she was leaving the church in her carriage with her new husband.....