Just walk away.

When I was 15, I was bullied, horribly bullied. I was incredibly naive, innocent and lived a glorious sheltered life.
I signed up for a Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, I forget exactly what it entailed but it was a lot about passing tests and challenges. One challenge was to go camping, for 2 nights I think, with the bare essentials and survive. Oh how I hated the thought of doing that, even way back when, I hated to be cold, uncomfortable and this was not my idea of fun at all, to pass the test I had to do it though, no alternatives, do it or fail.
I signed up with 2 girls, one a friend and the other was HER friend, I really didn't know this girl except that she was worldly and so far from anything I knew that she was a little intimidating, nevertheless, I loved the other girl, Debbie, who I spent a lot of time with, I had been to her home and her family was as ordinary as mine, it would be fine.
We set off on our trip and as the evening began, as it started to get dark, to my absolute terror, I discovered that Debbie and the other girl ( whose name is forever branded into my mind and heart but is so unusual if I even write the first name, she would be led right here if she were to google her own name and I am still a big poopie panty scaredy cat when it comes to this girl ..ha! She is 47 now, some girl! ) well, anyway they had arranged for the mean girls boyfriend and HIS friends to come out to where we were camping ( in the middle of nowhere, on the moors, as stipulated by the rules of the D of E awards scheme 1977) scary girl was going out with a BIKER! In his TWENTIES! and his friends were also bikers, they were bringing alcohol and who knows what else and I was told that I had better join in...or else.
I was such a good girl, I really was, I knew nothing of any of this side of life, I didn't want to know I was so afraid of what would happen and I knew I had to get away from there.
No cell phones, no public phones, no farmhouses, no civilisation, for miles.
My only choice was to walk home ( Have I ever mentioned my sense of direction? No? That would be because I don't have one, at all, none. On tuesday I went to a Mall in Plymouth, a new one I have been to 3 times, I split up from Sophie, Jordan and Mel to go and get some shoes for Isaac, when I came out of the shop I was totally lost, I could not find my way out of that mall to save my life, I went upstairs, downstairs, this way and that and it took me a very long time to get out and find the kids) anyhoo, I left, I walked the way I felt was right and I prayed and I sang hymns all the way along that pitch black road, in the middle of the moors, I sang and I prayed and I sang and I wept and the angels led me home. I walked a mile or 3 and then I saw a phone box, I called my dad and he came to get me. I was safe.
Of course, I had to explain why I had done what I had done, my parents were proud ( and I suspect terrified at all the 'could have beens') and on the following monday they took me to school and they told the head teacher what had happened.
There followed the mos miserable time of my life, to this day the smell of a school makes my bowels turn to water, I heave at the thought of senior school.
Scary girl was mad. She was very, very mad. I have no idea what her parents said or did ( very little I expect) but she failed her D of E and was punished by the school.
She was a mean looking girl, black died hair, pinched face with a long thin nose and nails like witches talons, those were long filed nails and even today I can feel them.
She was scary to many people in the school and as a result of her being mad at me, anyone who was afraid of her was told that if they spoke to me, looked at me or even stood in the same vicinity as me, they would suffer. Then she showed everyone what they would suffer and she did it often, with such delight. She would seek me out and she would grab my neck with her nails and she would punch my face, she would laugh as she did it and she would ask if anyone else wanted some of it.
Every single girl that had been in the least friendly with me would turn her back if I walked into a room, they would either all start this horrendous fake cackling laugh and point at me, or they would ignore me completely. One or two of them would look at me with an apologetic look or a shrug that would almost beg me to understand and I did to a certain extent. Oh but at 15 it hurt my heart so much more than the long nails or the punches to my face.
I didn't tell anyone at home what was happening because I knew that my dad would be at the school immediately and I thought I knew where that would lead, look what was happening because I did that once.
The boys were wonderful, they don't get drawn into stupid girls nonsense the same way, they had no axe to grind and they weren't afraid of scary girl. So they would let me sit with them at break time, I went home for lunch ( and that was torturous because I would have to go back again after lunch). One day I was sitting in the form room with the boys, we were chatting and laughing and in walks mean girl. She walked right up to me, grabbed my throat with those talon like nails of iron and she punched and she punched and she punched some more. This time while she was squeezing my neck and punching she was screaming in my face " Hit me back you bitch! What's wrong with you! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU....HIT ME BACK you STUPID COW!" and I sat there, not even flinching and as her face got redder and redder and she became more and more irate I just sat there and I became more and more calm. I stood up, I flicked her off me as if she were naught but an irritating bug and I said ( very softly and very calmly) " No, I will not hit you back because if I did that I would run the risk of looking as ugly, as out of control and as stupid as you look right now" and then I turned and I walked away.
I went right the tuck shop where my one and only remaining friend worked at break time, she took one look at me, saw my beaten face and my bleeding neck and she knew what had happened ( as well as the grapevine that had sped along throughout the school) she didn't say a word , she just looked at me and shook her head and mouthed the words "I can't"
Something in me crumpled right then and I left the tuck shop and I walked out of school, I walked home and when my mum looked at me as I walked in, I merely said " I have left school, I am not going back, nothing you can say or do will convince me to ever go back, I will explain once, to you and the school and then I won't ever talk about it again, just know that I mean what I say, I will never ever go back to school."
I forget where the meeting was held, our house, the school, who cares, I do know that I must have shown that I meant what I said and they believed me.
I was in the final months of school about to take the exams that everyone told me were so inportant, that I would need to be anything or get anywhere in life. Incredibly the school said that I could study at home, work would be dropped off and I could go to school for the exams, I was given a timetable and that is exactly what I did. I went to school , walked into an exam, took them and left.
I passed 11 of those exams, at the ripe old age of 15 and a half.
I trained as an orthopedic nurse at the age of 17-19 and got the letters D.O.N after my name.
I have never been bullied again.I have been so blessed to have real friends. True friends. All my adult life I have been loved and accepted, cherished and beloved by some really great people, men and women.
Many have stayed friends with me for more than 30 years, some have been friends and then somehow the friendships just fizzle out, no sadness just nothing in common anymore and they run out of juice. 3 times the friendships have ended in a spectacular way.
Three times. Every time it has been because I say what I feel and mean what I say and every time it has been met with fury, hurt and then some heartfelt meanness that I know is a way of, on the behalf of the injured party, simply a way to expel some of the pain they think I meant for them.
Each time this happens I am sad that my words hurt, I am sorry that I believed the person on the receiving end of my brutal honesty thought that I said what I did to hurt them.
I never, ever intentionally hurt people, especially those I call friends. I also never ever just say what I think that person wants me to say. I can't, it doesn't feel honest, it certainly doesn't feel good to me to pour insincere words out in order to please. I don't do it to family, I don't do it to my children and I have never done it to friends. I do do it to people that mean nothing to me, I can join in with the best of them with fake " beautiful! Lovely picture! " on message boards and such like, usually I just keep my mouth shut.
That would be an option in a friendship I suppose, I could just keep my big mouth shut. If someone pours out their heart to me I could say nothing, but that to me is as bad as lying.
If I see someone I love doing something that makes me uncomfortable, if I think they are making a mistake, doing themselves an injustice I will tell them and sometimes it is not appreciated.
Most times, when people do it to me ( and they do, my mum never ever says what we what to hear but always what we need to hear) it does hurt and the times it hurts the most is when that person, parent, friend, spouse is right. When they say something that touches a nerve it goes through me like a dagger to the heart. I am quite spectacular in my response to such tough love and should you be curious as to how I react, try telling me a home truth or two.
I always take those things to heart though and after a cooling down period I almost always see what that person who loved me was trying to say. I will go back and ask them what I can do to right that which was or is, wrong.
I am not in anyway trying to say that I know it all, I don't know much at all actually. I get so many things wrong and am the first to admit that. What I don't get wrong is love. If I say something that is wrong, you can tell me and you can show me how I am wrong and I will admit that I am wrong. If you yell at me and call me names, I will assume that I hit a nerve and I will hold fast to what I said.
I know when someone loves me and when I love someone back, it is going to be for always unless you give me that love back.
If you ever tell me that I am not wanted, that you do not care, that I mean nothing to you, you know what I will do?
I will just walk away.
I don't hang around to be squeezed by the neck or punched in the face.
I just walk away.
I have done my share of begging before and it doesn't work. I don't do that anymore either.
I just walk away.
I won't hate you, I don't even hate the monster that abducted my children and if I don't hate that, you don't have a hope in hell of evoking any hatred. Don't even try, you're wasting your time.
I just walk away.
I won't sneak around and try to see if you still care.
I just walk away.
I won't try and contact you or try to get your attention.
I just walk away.
I walked away recently and it was a sad time. I was sorry that I hurt my friend, I tried to make it very clear that what I was saying was with love and with the best intentions, I kept what I wrote until it became very clear that there was no going back, no forgiving, no discussions or working it through. My friendship was returned, I was given back any love that I might have shared and so, I just walked away.
I am 46 years old. I am, I imagined, so far away from that little girl who was ignored and pushed to the outside of the group as it is possible to be.
Until today when I went somewhere where all my friends hang out and once again, I was that sad little girl who was outcast and just watching the fun because one person didn't want me there.
My friends don't even know I was an outcast, they couldn't see that I was blocked from the fun, they didn't have a clue that one person had made it so that I was the nothing again.
So I just walked away.
I am crying more than I did when I was 15. Not because one person doesn't want me there, I understand why she feels the way she does, though I don't agree with the way she is reacting. I hope that she will just walk away. But because I was made to feel like that sad girl again and I have spent years building that girl back up. The first one beat her down again and yet again years more of making her right again, pushing out the voices that make me cower and loathe.

I wish her joy, I have always wished her joy. I was her friend. If I hadn't cared I would have said all the trite nonsense I think she was hoping to hear, it wouldn't matter to me what she did or does, what she thinks or what happens to her. "There there, all better. how splendid you are" Bollocks.
I am not her friend anymore. It is over, done with and I am not at all sad about that, she gave me back my feelings and made it clear that all along it had been a fake friendship, a manufactured one that was nothing worth fighting for.
I am sad that it has infringed on mutual friendships and I felt I had to leave a lovely group because I was not and am not, willing to go anywhere that brings any kind of feelings of uselessness and self loathing. I will not put myself in a situation where I feel negative in anyway.
I just walk away.
I still have all my friends, I don't doubt that they love me and accept me and my big mouth, warts and all, we are all old enough to know that the days of " don't like her or I'll punch you in the head " have long gone. Hallelujah.
I never walk away from true friends, I will fight 'til the bitter end for friends that are mutually thoughtful and willing to give and take, I only ever walk away when I am told to, when you give me back what I handed to you, when you make it clear that I have nothing to offer, I will, without a word, just walk away.
Even if I sob while I am doing it.

Is very exhausting.

I can't tell you how tiring it is to be funny all day. I do tend to see the funny side of life, especially when not much is actually funny. I hear things that make me laugh, see things that make me snigger and imagine things that make me hoot outloud.
The more important, serious, worrying or sedate the occasion, the more I will find to laugh about....see your sister leaving to have a hole drilled in her head ? Crack a joke.
The more sad I am the funnier I can be....how bizarre is that? So the past few days have had me finding humour in all kinds of ways. We were sitting with Leah yesterday when the young girl came around to ask about menu choices. Now, you have to visited the west country to know what I mean when I speak about the Plymouth ( Plymothian?) accent . It is out there on it's own. I love it, in a train crash kind of way, could listen to it endlessly, prayed my children would NEVER develop it. They have their own words even and add words where you don't need them. They go UP at the end of a sentence everything sounds like a question? They say things like " where's it to?" ( where is it?) and " I'm going up over Asda" ( I'm going to the supermarket) a favourite is " You going.. or no?" " you want that....or no?"
I wish beyond wishes that I could let you hear this accent, I do it well, my sister does it well and we have had endless conversations in this accent and to this day we never faail to make each other actually wee with laughter at the things we say and recall hearing.
Yesterday this young girl came around and asked all 4 ladies in Leahs room, what they would like for dinner. Beef bolognese? Soup? Sandwich? Cauliflower cheese? Decisions were made and boxes were ticked and then
" What choo want for afters? Em, yoghurt, chocolate pudding, ice cream or fruit? "
I couldn't help it........the devil made me do it, lucklily after she had gone out....
I looked up and said " Bleddy 'ell! I am 'eard no-one ask about afters since I lived here! D'you 'ave afters up your 'ome or no? We have dessert up 'ome......what choo ave up your 'ome?"
It won't sound funny to you because you won't have heard that accent ( except for Gemma, who reads this but NEVER comments, who lived there and did have that accent but doesn't now!) but it made us laugh and mum and I have snorted about it at least 3 times today, in the 7 hours we waited at the hospital to see Leah for 8 minutes. I write about it because in 5 years time, when I read it again, I will laugh again, you had to be there.
It has been one of those infuriating days that gets you no-where, trying to see her and missing her as didn't go to the operating room, waiting for doctors to finish doing rounds, trying to stay out of the way, getting back to her room just as she WAS leaving to have a hole drilled in her skull......waiting another 2 hours for her to come back and when she did get back having to leave to get back here before the boys went to bed.


Sore head, machine that peeps and flashes a number that tells us the pressure in her head -1. 2. 3. 7. -2. -4. dear Lord stop me looking at that number, I don't know what that number means, why am I staring at the number......ho hum, in come nurses having a chat about machine and number......blah blah, wavy line, numbers, nothing to worry about, if the number ever gets to 15 I want to know, it won't but should it....tell me.......blah blah......
Leah. little moan, am OK, no doesn't hurt....groan, ow, no I am fine.....-2. -1. 0 Ow 4...3 -1 -1 ow ow 4. 6. 9. 12. 13 ...........uh oh nearly at 15.....

Me.... agh....um.....
WALK quickly.....excuse me number is 13.....she says her head hurts ( can I go home and pretend none of this is happening please?)
She is fine. She will be more fine and perhaps won't even need a shunt.
As I walked out to get the car I felt such panic, not because of Leah because we are so sure she is alright and will be home soon, feeling better than she has for months, even years.
What happened is a remembrance of how I had to be brave when I was so ill. Stupid first husbands who left when I had gaping holes in my body, having to leave tiny children while I had to keep going in and having minor surgeries, having to send my baby girl to mum for months while I tried to get well.....having to cope with stupid husband leaving 2 days after another surgery, learning my boys had been abducted and abused......and still having gaping wounds and infections and never being able to just lie in bed and have flowers brought to me, not a bloody grape or magazine, just fear and pain and such sadness that my heart breaks NOW to think about it, when it was all happening I couldn't think, I just 'did'.
18 years later and a rogue memory brought it all flooding back with such clarity it took my breath away. Minds are incredible things, the way they take these things that are so sad, so hard, so unbearable and store them away, hide them, bury them until the day that you CAN cope.
Sometimes I wonder what is still in my head that my heart can't cope with. Every time I think it's done, finished, dealt with....something like today happens and what do you know? Here we go again.
I do know though, that when these things come back to me they don't destroy me. They come back, I feel what I should have felt at the time, allow myself to feel sad and move on. I think I am better. Than I was. Very good then.

Tomorrow you may be in for a treat. I am not going to the hospital, I need to be here, because........because my baby, last fruit of my loins, has to don his uniform ( aged 3-4 black smart trousers, aged 3 polo shirt and ExS, that'll be extra small, sweatshirt and smart shoes) pick up his book bag and spend an entire morning in BIG SCHOOL, real life BIG SCHOOL, with teachers and story mats and all things BIG BOY, he will be going every thursday until we leave for our holiday ( in 3 weeks, TODAY, 21 days or 20 days because today is over) and then when we come home, he will go EVERY single day for the next 11 years at least.........a treat because I will take pictures. I think though that my womb may cry a little and contract in a way that might make me wish I could start all over again ( yeah right....we're going the grandbaby route thankyou!) and my arms will ache a bit, my eyes may even be a little leaky because he still lisps and sucks his thumb, he STILL needs a nap every day. He still says 'tan I doe?' instead of 'can I go?' He is still such a baby, in so many ways, my baby.


When he steps through those doors tomorrow it is the beginning of my having to share a huge part of his life with the world. I think I mind that, more than I will admit.

The horse came fourth....

Need I say more?
Jordan watched the race and said it ran about as well as I would have. Go figure as the saying goes!
We went to see a house today that from the outside made us a bit hopeful, understanding that wherever we go from this house is going to feel like a come down, we were ready for feeling a bit sad about moving anywhere else that we can afford, this house is neared to school, still close to town, seemed big enough, looked OK. When we got inside we were excited to see a beautiful kitchen, with HUGE gas stove, 6 burners, double oven, front room and dining room that is small but would do if we got rid of half our furniture ( is like a pain to have to give away anything we have so carefully built up) I have 'started over' far too may times, I feel unable to even think about doing it again, having to yet again give away the things that I thriftily bought and lovingly fit into our home. I don't want to lose anything else, damn it.
We went upstairs and that was when the misery really hit, no way can we make it work, one room was quite literally a box, no bigger than 4' x 5' .....the main bedroom was hideous, bright red and one wall covered in mirrored wardrobes, dear heaven, that's all I need, wall to wall ME.
No thankyou.
The bathroom was revolting too, the doorway was so small that it didn't even have a proper door, it had one of those foldy uppie doors that caravans have.
We are going to see one more house on thursday. Heart breaking that whatever we have to rent is going to cost pretty much as much as this one and be a third of the size, I continue to be horribly sad about the whole thing.
As far as the legal help goes, we can go for it but risk making everything worse for ourselves, I can't even bear to go into it really, not today.

Humour in all things.....

You woulld thinnk, wouldnn't you, that whenn evicting a family from their homme, that people would take the timme to check spelllings?

I am temmpted to repply annd simmply say... Go to helll.

I'm gonna pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again......again.

Just as soon as I have had a bloody good moan and a whine and even a swear perhaps.
Our landlady came today and told us that she is selling our house, you know, our home. MY HOME. This one that I love and is perfect and big and posh and right where we need it to be.
I wanted to write about our trip to London, on our own, with no kids and show you the picture of H's ice cream at Harrods



and tell you to look at his hands and grasp how HUGE this thing was, with its apricot sauce and it's fancy berries, with the sorbet and cream and stuff, but MY HOME!
8 weeks, that's how long we have to find somewhere and secure it and pay all that money for search fees and credit checks and guarantors. Removal vans and ..........so then, can't think straight to show you H's donut at Covent garden



I would have taken pictures of what I ate but who wants to see dry crackers and a lettuce leaf ( and if you believe THAT you need your head testing, or to get out more or something)
What about the men with trousers around their ankles and tutu's on...



No, can't tell you any of that because I have to tell Jordan that the time is right for him to move on and find a place of his own. ( actually, he just came home and hugged me tight and said that he is very ready to have his own place, he will do everything he can to help us find somewhere and he loves me)
Also, because some things never change, I have to tell Sophie that her days of not going to college and staying in bed and waiting for the fairies to make it all OK are over. When we move it will be H, and me and 3 little boys. Sophie is going to have to get a full time job and a house share. She has been more or less living at this woman's house anyway, so hopefully she can move in there and pay her way.

I was going to tell you all about how we got off the train at Piccadilly circus and were surrounded by police cars and fire trucks and sirens from all directions......someone had thrown themselves in front of a train, think about what I could have made of all that if I'd used my imagination ( because thankfully we didn't see it, just heard the announcement " due to a person under the train services on the Piccadilly line have been suspended")
But I have to leave this house that has been the first place that has felt like home for years, the house that we all fit in and love.
That has chandaliers and big hallways, 2 bathrooms, oh twoooooooo bathrooms......
As the landlady arrived the men that had just finished draft proofing and insulating the house were leaving. So, the people who are here next winter won't be pumping £60 a week in the gas meter. It will be warm and cosy and cheaper to run. This work was done by the council, free of charge because we have Isaac, so they just improved and increased the value of the property for our landlady, it's alright for some, isn't it? We won't benefit at all from that little project although it was me that did all the paperwork and dull admin.
I look really old today, weary and worn down.
I don't feel as though I can do this all again and for what? A year somewhere else until we get moved on again?
I was so excited to tell you about the boys waking up at 4.30am on tuesday and thundering down the stairs yelling " See if Daniel is here !!! DAAAAAAAAAAAANIELLLLLLLLLLLLL !!!"
I was longing to tell you how he took them to the park and on a nature trail for 2 hours, how he told them that they could look at the lake but not go in it....SPLASH...Elijah.
How he had gone to visit Gramma and Eli ( who had been with gramma) saw him and insisted that he needed to be with Dan and not stay at gramma's and watch High school musical.
How he had them standing on logs and was telling them some tale and then " I need a WEEEEEEE!" said Elijah as he dropped his drawers and let nature take it's course.
How he looked exhausted when we got home at 10 pm with Eli fast asleep on his lap, Isaac fast asleep in bed with ALL his clothes on because OH NO.....can't get changed or undressed if mum or dad aren't here here.How he smiled and said " Sorry it's messy, I really tried but ... hell.....I learned that no matter HOW fast I clean it, they can unclean it even faster"

My head though, is just full of MY HOME and my envy of landladies and lords ( who thought that stupid thing up? Lords and Ladies, my arse) and how easy it is for them to change peoples' lives at the drop of a hat and leave us feeling so helpless and bloody worthless and stupid because damn it, if we didn't make choices that mean property and money and 'stuff' have always been low down on our list and family and tons of kids, battered old cars and rental properties have been what we have because that's just how it is. Ha ha look at the stupid people who hand us their money and pay our mortgages and leave themselves open to any kind of problems because they aren't smart and money wise and are so STUPID!

There are toilets on the coaches to London, teeny tiny little toilets that make me feel like a whale because I can just about fit in and pee if I am really desperate, ( and I ALWAYS get desperate because as soon as I know that I can't pee because that means using that horrible little chemical toilet, oh no, bladder is filling, can feel it filling....must not need wee, cannot stagger along coach and try to squeeze in that little loo) but make me sweat because one bump in the road and I could fall against that door and show the back of the bus just how tight that fit is and how white my big fat bum is.
A man went to for a pee and if I wasn't so consumed with the whole home being snatched away from us thing, I would so tell you that he was HUGE, he looked like a massive aboriginal warrior , he went for a wee, I know this because my seat was right opposite the toilet door, I could have knocked on the door if I had so chosen or even shut the door for him while he wee'd because he didn't, shut the door that is. I think he may have thought he had but he hadn't and my eyes almost flipped inside out in their efforts to look anywhere but at that gap and don't listen ... LOOK AWAY!!!! Ewwww he didn't wash his hands either, good job I am an English lady because I ignored him and looked away and won the battle over that urge to tell him he isn't in the outback now and over here, on our coaches to the Capitol, we wash our hands after we have done a wee and we DEFINITELY close the door.
We also don't fling ourselves at the feet of pretty landladies who at least had the decency to come and tell us face to face that we have to leave this house, we don't weep until they leave and we smile and say oh, that's a shame because we LOVE this house and of course we will be in when the agents come TOMORROW to measure up and ...no we don't mind at all having a FOR SALE sign outside out front door so that every time we look out of the widow or leave the house we are reminded that this may be our home but it isn't our house, so we have to leave. Don't give us another thought ...... I wish I could use my stiff upper lip to beat the crap out of something, my stiff upper lip that along with the quivering bottom one has broken out in 3 humongous cold sores in the last 4 hours.
So, we had a lovely time in London, my husband and I. I wish I could have told you all about it but we're losing our home, again. 7 homes in 7 years, here's to number 8.