catch up

Its been a while so here's a few things to catch up

My baby boy JA (he's now about 6" taller than me) has just two years left at school, when he goes back in September the hard work gets harder as he begins preparing for his GCSE's in 2012. At the start of the month he had a 5 day sailing course which much to my relief he loved.

ET how is it possible he is officially a man now at 18 but he will always be my timid little boy scared of everything. He is working part time at M & S for the summer then in September he is going back to college (I hope he sticks it out for longer than a term this time).

OJ is quite the independent young man at 19 son to be 20 he is doing well at Uni and is currently in Thailand with some of his Uni friends for 5 weeks. When he gets back here he will be moving into a house that he will be sharing with the same friends he is with now.

DC I don't see or hear much from him these days he is busy living his own life. He has also finished his first year at Ui and has already moved into a house with friends. He is also working through the summer (at last).

Mum is slowly recovering from her last knee op, she can now walk short distances without her stick, but she does suffer when she has done too much walking about. She drives short distances ie around out town and maybe to the adjoining town. But no further, her driving worries me and I always insist on driving whenever we go anywhere together. Last weekend I took her for an overnight visit to my grandmother in the Cotswolds.

Grandmother is now 91 and thankfully stopped driving last year. She still lives alone and seems to manage but her memory is not great. She talks a lot about her father and her sister. But also her little boy and her daughter. She asked me if I ever met her little boy (he was my dad). She cried when we were leaving ..........she doesn't think she will see me again.

SF is not my favourite person right now. In the last 3 months he has paid me only £50 towards the upkeep of our children. He is meant to give me £100 per month so he is £250 short. He says he has no money and anyway I earn more than him and have a laptop and run a car. I was thinking about going back to the CSA to get money from him when I received a letter from them advising of a new calculation of what he should be paying. I have called them asking that they collect the money from him. It would mean that he can't miss payments plus I would get more, not a lot but it all helps.

Sailor He is getting used to living on his own, spends a lot of time with his daughters and grandson. We see each other when we can, last weekend we went out sailing (with Plumber) it was the first time I had been out on the open sea.

Plumber........what can I say except that he loves me, he wishes I was his wife.

My garden is about to get a make over, very soon, a gardener is going to dig up just over half of my garden and paving it for me. A week later a contractor from my housing association are finally replacing my fence. (It has only taken since November).