Waking up

I need to wake this blog up to keep an online record of my current health journey.  I've got a hand written journal but my trust in health professionals is so low that I suspect that once they get their hands on the paper copy it will vanish.  I know that sounds paranoid and in truth I could be wrong, but I can only work from past experience...

... and past experience has been pretty shit.  All the entries in the paper journal will be added and back dated so the story start at the beginning of September 2024.  And just a warning - some of this could be triggering. 

I confess to having been exceptionally quiet. Most of my posts related to my former employment and have been kept private.

Regular readers (that is if there still are any after this long hiatus) will be aware that I am a motor-racing fan of long standing. I love my motor sport. I am the nut who sits in front of the TV but spends most of the time looking at the live timing on the laptop and believe me I can follow the race better with the laptop than I can with the commentary. This wasn't always the case. There was a time when the TV coverage gave a good overview of the of the changing pattern of the race. Sadly those days have gone. Firstly, through the retirement of Murray Walker compounded by the inane wittering of his replacement, James Allan, and secondly through the arrival of Lewis Hamilton. Sadly, the TV coverage in the provided by ITV seemed to fall into the sort of nationalistic fervor that is normally only seen with the most unsavory of football supporters. But it's worse than that! Nationalism would imply that all the British drivers are included. Not so. There is only one person who is on the receiving end of the ITV idolatry – Lewis Hamilton. Typically, the programme would start with a welcome to [circuit] in [area of country] for the [country] GP. Then there would be a description of the circuit's attributes usually followed by some comment that this would be perfect for Lewis Hamilton. We would then have a quick review of LH's thoughts for the upcoming race. There might be a 5 minute section on some general issue where we might, if we get lucky, see other drivers being interviewed for quick soundbites. Then its back to LH, a quick review of qualifying perhaps an interview with Antony Hamilton, Lewis's father. All of this is interspersed with Steve Rider and Mark Blundell waxing lyrical about LH to the point that you half expect them to genuflect at every mention of the sainted Lewis. Then they get to the race at which point the insufferable, half witted egomaniac, James Allen, would take over. From here on the Hamilton lovefest was always excruciating – if Hamilton is quicker by a tenth of a second in a sector Allen has him as the fastest man on the track, it doesn't matter that someone else is quicker in the other sectors. If Hamilton had been out qualified then we are told that he was unlucky or the other driver was on a low fuel strategy and would be soon pitting for a refill. There was the famous incident where the TV producer was, quite rightly, concentrating on cars that were fighting for both race position and the potential of winning the World Championship but Allen shouted “come on producer we want to see Lewis”. Well no we don't. We want to see the most exciting and most relevant battle for position at any given moment of the race. If we were to fall into Allen's trap we would believe that there is only one driver and his name is Lewis Hamilton. There has been one voice of sanity in the whole ITV team. Martin Brundell did his best to give a relevant commentary of the race, only to have the Allen idiot bring the whole thing back to LH. Sadly, though, even Martin succumbs to moments of Lewis mania but thankfully as an exception rather than the norm.

The most annoying thing about this is that James Allen has gone on record as saying that those who object this kind of biased broadcasting and knocking Lewis Hamilton are either jealous or racist. I'll be honest I don't like Lewis Hamilton. I don't like his driving style, which although fast is very untidy. I like drivers who are aggressive and yet drive with neat, tidy lines. Felipe Massa fits this bill, as does Robert Kubica, so does Nick Heidfeld (well most of the time). I suppose this is why I liked Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Elio de Angelis, Jochen Mass and quite a few others over the years. There have been a couple of exceptions – Rene Arnoux and Gilles Villeneuve were both capable of driving beautifully precise lines whilst being aggressive (French GP 1979 is one example) but were both equally capable of being all over the track, but they had something else. I've been trying to put my finger on it but hindsight has blurred my memory so the only thing that comes to mind are flair and humility. The whole sense of it seemed a good idea so I tried it and I don't believe I had the ability to pull it off. Yes, they were ambitions. Yes, they were supremely self confident, but to the average race goer there was never any sign of arrogance. Hamilton on the other hand, despite the constant exhortation of Ryder et al that he is charming and personable; a genuinely nice guy; is anything but. He exudes arrogance. Since winning the championship I haven't seen a single comment from him commending the other drivers for the close race and no acknowledgment of the fact that in reality he didn't win the championship - Ferrari lost it by making silly mistakes. Without these mistakes it was likely that Massa would have gone to his home GP in Brazil already World Champion.

Don't take my word for it. In this video from the BBC Lewis has had a bad performance at a kart race. Look at the sulky, petulant way he deals with his father. How many parents would put up with that behaviour from a child. Next a look at the 2007 McLaren launch (it keeps appearing and disappearing - the joys of take down notices). You'll see he stays half a step behind Alonso and then gives his team mate a sneering look of contempt. Surely the assembled press should have been able to predict the fireworks within McLaren after seeing that. Then look at all his interviews in that first year, and they way that he subtly paints Alonso as the bad guy, at the way he used the focus of I'm a team player but Alonso isn't to drive a wedge straight through the team leaving a 2 times world champion to be treated as a rookie whilst he, the actual rookie, is treated like a king. Look also at the way he speaks about the stupidity of rules every time he is caught out by one. Case in point. Canada 2008 when he ignored the pit lane signal and ran into the back of Raikkonen. The rule is there. Everyone knows about it. Two drivers were disqualified for leaving the pit lane under the red light the previous year and Hamilton's comment “it's a stupid rule. It's a shame because I was leading. I was breezing it” Erm no, he was 3rd. If he were leading he would not have had Raikkonen and Kubica stopped at the red light in front of him. This incident at Canada brings me back full circle to the appalling coverage of F1 by ITV. After LH had crashed out Allen's first suggestion was that Raikkonnen had stopped when he didn't need to, then spent the rest of the race talking about what could be happening if LH were still running. At the end of the race he was more concerned with LH's bad luck than the fact the Kubica had driven brilliantly (tidily aggressive) to take his maiden victory at the same circuit where he had crashed horrifically only 12 months earlier. Scarce mention was made of the BMWs being 1-2 and how strong they were looking at that part of the season. Since then, at the end of each race, it seemed that the only interview ITV wanted was LH even to the point that he got preference over the winners press conference. Alternatively, ITV leave the press conference as soon as LH had spoken.

All I can say is thank Bernie that ITV have lost the rights to the coverage. Lets hope that the BBC team who take over from 2009 will do a better job and from their announced line up it's looking promising. Meanwhile I'll keep supporting my tidily aggressive drivers at BWM, Ferrari and Williams and hope that just occasionally they will notice my boys enough to give them a mention.

Blog title

Most of the bits I've been posting lately are not being made public for various reasons so it may have given the appearance that I had abandoned this blog. It's not the case.

This post is quite brief as it is giving a reply to an email I received asking about the blog title.

It's the title of a poem by Stevie Smith published in the 1950s and which is reproduced below.

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

I've always liked this poem, it speaks of the chaos of modern life, of the effort of keeping one's head above the endless tide of inane tasks required in todays world.

There will be a couple of blogs before christmas, I have a long rant brewing about the state of motor sport that I need to get off my chest and also a general update of life, the universe and everything.

Things that make you go hmmm!

If, as a company, you find that you have a department that has had 5 of the 18 administrative staff leave in a period of about six months (three of whom left within a six week period of each other) wouldn't you be asking hard questions of the management?

Yes?

I know of a business where this has happened (see post below) but they are not looking to see if there are problems with the management, but are instead saying that the staff who left are to blame for not being motivated, etc. No one is asking why the staff are not motivated. No one is paying any attention to the admin staff, not even when they are complaining to the Harassment Officer. But of course there is a very good reason for this. The manager who is responsible for these staff started as an admin assistant in HR and is a friend of the HR manager, in fact, the Harassment Officer is also a friend, so one of the admins was asked if she could put up with the bullying rather than making waves.

Personally, I'd be putting the manager through the disciplinary procedures, but I have no influence so my opinion counts for nothing.

Not Quite the End of an Era!

Well that is it! I have finally had enough of the bullying from my employer. Even when a new person was brought in to add another layer of management, the person chosen was someone who clearly has the same ethos. It was only on Friday that the new person decided that it was completely appropriate to admonish me for being late to a meeting in a public stairwell, during a period of high movement (lots of people around) and in a patronising manner that most people would be ashamed to use on a five year old.

Now I know that some of you will be thinking that it must be me who is being awkward, touchy and getting what I've asked for.

But let me put it to you this way.

In less than a twelve month period the line manager was reported for harassment (not by me) twice. The company chose to do nothing about this. Partly because the line manager started work for the company in the HR dept and so was friendly with the Harassment Officer, and partly because the company culture is that the higher up the food chain you are the less likely anything will be done to you.

I was on leave for most of July. Shortly after my return to work one of the secretaries in the team handed in her notice. About a week later another handed in her notice. A few weeks passed and then a third handed in her notice. That's three secretaries from a team of fifteen who left in a six week period. Or to put it another way a fifth of this particular line manager's staff!!!! (It's actually worse but the others who left were retiring so really don't count in the dissatisfaction ratings)

And no one in authority is asking questions!!!!

Since she is so crap at managing staff she has added another layer into the management and this new (junior) manager is the one who thinks it's okay to speak to staff at though they are at kindergarten and who seems to think that micro-management and punishment are the way to treat staff who are thoroughly demotivated by the years of mismanagement by the (senior) line manager.

Sorry if that is a bit hard to make sense of, but obviously I'm not going to name names.

Anyway, I have handed in my notice. I am leaving at the end of February - unless they want to pay me to stay at home, which is no skin off my nose as I can do a lot more work towards my MBA.

Casa di Giulietta , Verona

Perhaps the strangest thing we encountered on our recent visit to Italy was La Casa di Giulietta in Verona. The house originally dates back to the 13th century but has been modified over the years including a 1930's reconstruction of a renaissance balcony. The original owners of the house were the Dal Cappella family and their coat of arms is over the arched entrance to the courtyard. The similarity between the family name and Capulet, led some to surmise that they may have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's story, however, it was during the inter war depression that the legend really came into it's own. The City Council, or what passed for the tourist board in the 1920's turned the property into a museum, began advertising the new attraction as Juliet's House in the hope that the increase in tourism would kick start the local economy, and create a few jobs. However, it has taken on a life of it's own. Visitors flock from all over the world to touch the right breast of the bronze Juliet statue (for luck) and leave messages asking for Juliet's help in matters of love. These notes are stuck to the walls in the entrance archway by means of gum which has been chewed by both partners in a relationship for maximum effect. Not to be outdone the 13th century convent of San Francesco al Corso, which by 1935 was controlled by the Civic Museums, was opened at the site of Juliet's tomb. Even here the walls are graffitied with messages and requests for help in matters of love.

Okay I confess that I paid money to go into the tomb, but I should say that the convent complex has been turned into a nice little museum/gallery and was in itself worth the three euro entry fee. However, the museum are cynically perpetuating the racket by virtue of having one room, a restoration of a complete set of mural decorations rescued from a riverside palazzo's that was demolished to make way for flood defenses, which is hired out for wedding ceremonies.

I suppose what I find most disturbing about this is that this is another example of people not being able to separate fact from fiction. Just as the Da Vinci Code has visitors flocking to Roslyn many of who are convinced that it has links with the Priory of Sion (which doesn't exist) and the Freemasons (who exist but apparently have nothing to do with Roslyn), the house and tomb have people visiting who are so blinded by their own fantasy that they not only want a fictional character to be real but they also want this figment of a dead playwright's imagination to fix their broken hearts and relationships. From an anthropological view it is interesting as this is effectively the creation of a saint/goddess together the associates pilgrimage and ritual, but on the other hand it could also be said to be a study of just how gullible people are.

Password thief about

It seems that someone is making a concerted effort to break into my blogs. Three alerts from blogger in the last hour that someone has been requesting the password for the various blogs. Now it could be someone who has got the name of their blog wrong, but given that I have three blog accounts and there has been an attempt on all of them makes that unlikely. The other alternative is that someone is trying to hack into random account and I've been unlucky, which makes slightly more sense. The third, and most paranoid, option is that someone is targeting my accounts to either see what is being said about them, in unpublished posts, to make statements in my name to make me look bad, or to lock me out of my accounts altogether. Given that someone was actually stupid enough to suggest they they could, or rather they could get someone else to, hack into my server, despite doing so is a criminal act, you can see why I could be forgiven for the paranoia. Anyway the passwords have been changed, so the accounts should be safe.

I'm almost officially a student!

Today I received my offer of a place on the Edinburgh MBA, which I am very pleased about. What I'm not please about is the mess up with funding, so I might have to defer a year because of that, which is not a very pleasing prospect. Hopefully I'll be able to work something out but having just had the expense of a long break in Italy there isn't much left in the way of savings.

Sorry doesn't cut it anymore.

I'm getting to the point where I am ready to give up on humanity. Just as I think that I've got rid of the scheming, mixing, sickos out of my life, they reappear, don't accept being blanked and then play at being innocent and wounded that you would think badly of them. If that's not enough they start putting the blame onto the very people that they have gone out of their way to hurt.

Honestly, people like that should be locked up for the safety of the wider society, because their malevolence clearly knows no bounds and like a cancer they will spread their viciousness out to the wider world infecting and destroying all that they come into contact with.

Last.fm - The replacement for MOG and the nature of friends

I've just added a link in the sidebar to my last.fm radio station. So now you can get an idea of the type of music I like. If you follow the link to my profile you can also see what music I've been playing in the last week on iTunes and if I can get the plugin working there will also be information about the stuff I pay on my iPod (there isn't that much difference). If you like last.fm and consider signing up for the service (it's free but there are benefits for paying the nominal subscription) you are more than welcome to add yourself to my friends list.

This leads me onto another topic - online friends. I find it rather odd to refer to people with whom my only contact is last.fm, livejournal, orkut, this blog etc as friends. In some cases the people are not really friends. This is not to devalue the place that these people have in our online lives, as usually when we have any kind of contact though comments or email it is because we have common values or experiences. Alternatively it could be that we are going through something that generates an emotional response in another person to the point that they want to reach out to let you know that you are not alone, or as a confirmation that they are not alone. These "friendships" can be fleeting, maybe only lasting a few days, but at times of distress and turmoil can be more important that the responses of the people who are friends in the traditional sense. This, I think, is because of the spontaneity of the response, which will always seem to be more genuine than the measured and, dare I say, expected comments from those who we share our lives with on a day to day basis. Given the flighty nature of these online friendships, I find my reactions to a de-friending as strangely un-nerving. Why does it bother me that someone I don't know has decided that our path of commonality has come to an end? The reality is that this has little or no bearing on my life, it's just a few pixels on a screen, but even so there is a sadness that someone who was listed as a "friend" has removed that tenuous connection. Perhaps in the light of the myspace generation society will reassess the nature of friendship but in the interim I suppose all we can do is observe the patterns of relationships with interest.

Finally, as the dirty whore ex-mistress or her friends seem to have stopped sending me threatening emails and the like I'm re-opening comments, though they will be moderated till I see how things are.

So much for that

MOG is a disaster! The software doesn't work, the website is a mess and the staff don't seem to be able to keep things running. I've got an alternative piece of software that I'm testing right now so that will be added soon (ish).

MOG

I've just added MOG into the side bar so you can see what music I'm playing in iTunes. Rather you will be able to see what I'm playing when I can get it verify my account, a task that is proving harder than it should.

New Start?

The new year started with wimper, many of the firework displays and associated events being cancelled due to gale force winds and torrential rain.

I thought I would use this time to review last year's resolutions and start on the new ones for this year.

So here are the resolutions and how well I did.

I will lose weight. I did okay on this one though I have to admit that much of it was from the upset over the summer. I started the year at over 16st and I now weigh in at just over 14st. Of course, this means that I have very few clothes that fit me now. Once my sewing machine is returned I'll have to start taking seams in.

I will learn to programme. Never happened. I got a few ideas as to a programming language but it just seemed to fall by the wayside as so many things do.

I will recycle more. This counts a a success but only just. I'm recycling more but I could still do better.

I will give more to charity. Again this is a technically a success, but morally I could proably have done better

I will lobby my MP, MSP and MEP on important issues. Failed miserably. My MP is a waste of space and I've become very disillusioned with the political process. Roll on the revolution.

I will spend less time gaming on the computer. Success. I'm reading, knitting, and doing needlework instead of gaming. I haven't completely cut out gaming but I'm doing less of it.

I will read more. Success. I read about twice as much as the previous year.

I will not buy anymore books until the "to read" pile has been reduced to less than a single bookcase. This started out well, and the "to read" pile was significantly reduced, so I started to let myself have little rewards, which slowed the reduction. There is only single shelf more that than the bookcase at the moment, and some of the purchases are reference books so they don't count.

I will complete at least one piece of needlework before starting another. Success. Sort of. I finished one piece then started three new projects. Then I went back to knitting

I will blog more often. I did blog more often, but there was a lot going on. The challenge is to find something interesting to say when the world around you is just trundelling on at it's own pace.


So now on to the resolutions for 2007

• I will get my weight down to about 13st (about 180lb or if you want kilos about 82.5)
• I will continue to increase the amount I read.
• I will aim to complete at least one cross stitch and one knitting project each month.
• I will build my web site.

I think that's enough for this year.

Open message to friends of the whore who tried to steal my husband.

Dear low lifes

You may think that you are helping the whore by trying to split me up from hubby but it isn't working. Even if we do split up he does not want contact with her at all. You are actually making him hate her and if anything are making our relationship stronger.

I know it takes time to keep setting up these new hotmail (and yahoo mail, etc) accounts in order to have an "anonymous" email to send messages to me, and I know that if I search the originating IP address it will just be some random internet cafe so you're spending money on this ill thought out campaign, but it isn't working. After the scene she caused whilst I was in hospital hubby reported her to the police, and I have reported her to the college. If you continue this she will end up being thrown off her course or even being arrested and getting a criminal record (we WILL press charges).

For the record I wasn't fooled by the claim that he had been paying her course fees. I have sight of his bank statements so would have noticed an amount that big going out of the account. Your little lie was completely wasted though we had a really good laugh over it.

If you really want to help the little bitch, the best thing you can do is help her come to terms with the fact that if you've been seeing someone who still decides to marry their long term girlfriend, they aren't going to break up the relationship to be with you - after all you weren't good enough to stop them from getting married so you aren't likely to be good enough to be a cause for divorce. Stop giving her false hope and in doing so making things worse for her.

Most importantly stop pestering me. Your plan isn't working and you are beginning to look like an idiot.

Happy Hogswatch!

It seems as though half the good stuff for the Christmas period has already been shown on TV, including Terry Pratchett's Hogfather which was broadcast on Sunday and Monday. Given that there was some good stuff on the box, that our existing TV was beginning to show it's age and a friend was most disparaging about it's (lack of) size in our huge living room, hubby and I decided that we would sacrifice pressies for each other and collectively spend the cash on a new 32" LCD HD ready widescreen TV. This rates as rather good. On the other hand hubby has got a cold and is coughing away and generally doing what men do when they are a teensy bit sick, ie moaning that he isn't feeling well. I had a similar bug about a month ago and despite the feeling that I really couldn't get out of bed still managed to drag myself into work each day with one exception which was when the pressure build up in my sinuses caused me to have a massive nose bleed. Even then I was in work by lunchtime, and carrying on as normal.

If also seems that we were lucky that our plans to go away for the Christmas period fell through as many flights from UK airports have been closed due to sever freezing fog. Apparently visibility at Heathrow was less that 100 metres for much of the day. If it carries on like this we'll have another definition of white christmas.

In other news I'm really struggling with all my craft projects because I have absolutely zero motivation. I've tried knitting socks but that has been more of a chore that a relaxation amd even though I've finished knitting a little donkey jacket I can't be bothered blocking and stitching together the pieces. I've a moss stitch baby blanket to finish which is driving me nuts and I've started on a stole in a cashmire silk which is beautiful to knit with, however, the pattern is a complete sod.

So everyone have a happy holiday because at the moment it sure looks like I won't

Long time no blog

There has been nothing much to say or, to be more accurate, there is nothing that I can safely say in this forum due to not so veiled threats. There is of course the closed forum where I can speak freely and name names and should the suggestion that getting someone to hack into the account to see what is being said is followed through, then the authorities WILL be notified and prosecutions for criminal activity likely to ensue.

Anyway, back to what I'm really blogging about.

Hubby is being very nice to me at the moment. It makes me wonder what he is playing at and what he is trying to hide. There is still no news on when we will be assigned to another couples councillor so we are just carrying on being increasingly distant. We had another row, this time about all the stuff he has done that has screwed up my life and how it's okay for him because my sacrifice has put him in a position whereby he can get by without me, but I'm in a position where I'm in effect tied to him because my chances of getting a high paid job flew out of the window when I quit my degree to support him. Fifteen years on and there is still no mention of his promised provision while I return to get a degree and when I asked him how we would stand if I just quit work he said he'd rather I didn't do that becasue he didn't want to be spending all his money on maintaining the apartment, etc. Nice, eh?

So last night he insisted that we go out for a meal. There is a restaurant called "First Coast" close to where we live that we keep saying that we should check out, so last night that is what we did and we really wish we hadn't bothered. As we arrived we were taken to our table, the girl just pointed to the coat rack and said "you can hang your coats there" before heading off. We dealt with our coats and were just sitting down when another girl appeared with menus and before we had even a chance to open them there was a guy there asking if we had decided what we wanted. Answer = no. What about drinks he asked. I gave him a look and hubby said we needed a few minutes. Sheesh talk about rushing you. The menu was very limited and whilst everything individually looked interesting it was so badly thought out that there was no way that you could create a meal that had a nice balance of flavours and textures. In the end we chose to just have a main meal each, hubby having the fillet steak and I had that pan fried breast of duck. Hubby said that the steak was okay though the "Sizzling Scot" (next door to "First Coast") does steak better and my duck was, at best, disappointing. It was over-cooked and tough at one end and under cooked and barely warm at the other, the beetroot mash was increadibly salty and ranged from piping hot on the surface to warm in the middle, and the vegetables were mixed between warm and chilled. It takes a special kind of incompetence to cook THAT badly in a restaurant. The guy who was rushing us came up at one point to refill our glasses, which neither of us wanted and so asked him not to. He ignored us, so hubby lifted his glass off the table. Then the waiter moved to refill my glass. I covered it with my hand. He still tried to position himself to pour the wine. I kept my hand in place. He went to lean over me to pour into hubby's glass (which was now back on the table) my hubby covered his glass with his hand. In the end I said "please do not do that we can pour our own wine if we want more" but he still hovered for a few seconds clearly not sure what to do when patron's refuse to be bullied into drinking faster that they want. It was the same waiter who cleared the table when we had finished the meal and yet again he was leaning over me and almost pushing me aside. And all this at over £20 per head. Well we said we'd check out the place and having done so have decided that we won't go there again.

Meanwhile in other news I have the job of rebuilding the website for the local knitting circle, all I need now is some input from the arty one's so that have a design for it.

Work!

There is still no "official" news as to when (or if) I will be allowed to return to work. However, I had a phone call today from a colleague, who said that the temp who is covering for me has been told that she will be there for the long term and there is the anticipation that I will be working for months on a part-time basis. This is not good and yet again goes completely against the medical advise that they are being given, but because being at home is making me more depressed they are stupidly thinking that they were right in their actions. My line manager has pissed me off more than words can express and I sure as hell don't trust her any more, in fact, I really don't even want to talk to her.

So I spend each day sitting at home, brooding about how the world and his dog thinks I'm totally incapable of making decisions or even doing anything, so they are just saying the same thing that my step-father drilled into me for years as I was growing up. And if everyone is saying it then it must be true.

Still waiting

Still no news when or even if I will be allowed back to work, which is particularly interesting given the figures released late last night for World Mental Health day and published on the BBC News site. So I'm back to waiting, wondering and getting depressed again.

Update

I seem to have a date to go back, just waiting for the "official" letter.

To the sick bastard who keeps messaging me

No I will not kill myself to please you or Charlotte. If and when I kill myself it will be for my reasons, on my terms, and one thing is for certain even if I'm out of the way my husband would never go back to that psychotic bitch. After all when he had to make a decision as to who he was staying with, knowing that whoever he chose the other was likely to try to kill herself, he chose to stay with me. On that basis you could say that if he could only save the life of one of us he'd let her die. On the other hand it could be that despite her emotional blackmail saying she was going to kill herself if he didn't leave me, he knew full well that it was only a ploy to get lots of attention.

So whoever the fuck you are - BACK OFF

*Sigh*

I don't think that my marriage can be saved. My husband seems to think that he has the right to dictate the healing process, and that everything can now get back to normal. He's being his old secretive self, so I can't take it on trust that he is working when he is late home, and I'm always wondering whether his Japanese class is just a cover for something else. It's really not doing me any good at all, but I don't know if I can make the break. I still get the feeling that I don't have a job to return to, though I have finally got an appointment with the OHU doctor, so things may be a bit clearer after that meeting, at which point I can start making decisions about what is going to happen with my life. I have an appointment to see about alternate housing and the name of a solicitor who is apparently very efficient in arranging divorces quickly. Hubby doesn't know yet that I've done this (though I appreciate that he will if he reads this), and I need to find a time to discuss this with him. He will most likely go quiet and get all upset in an attempt to make me feel guilty, but I'm not going to play that game. That's what he's continually been doing to keep me under control and make me miserable, well now he can reap his reward. Unless he is prepared to change and stop treating me as a worthless commodity there is no way to get around this. So I suppose the ball is in his court.

UPDATE

Appointment with OHU doctor was disappointing for various reasons, however, on the plus side he has agreed (in line with what my health care providers have said all along) that I should be allowed back to work. Now it's in the hands of the catberts and my line manager, so I'm still in limbo.