I knew it was coming. In fact, I am sure I am pretty instrumental in him making his decision.

However, I still don’t want it to happen.

LELI is leaving.

I can’t really complain - after all, it is a bit of a double standard, because it was entirely possible I’d have moved away with my job. And I know me leaving work and getting another job gave him the shove he needed to move on, after 4 years of constant moaning about it.

But I still don’t want him to go.

It was really hard, because he was asking me for advice, and using me as a sounding board for him to make his decision. In the end he had two job offers, one in London, one back in his home country.

Of course, he had to go and choose the one back home didn’t he, making it even harder for me to go and visit.

Still, I will get to go and do some serious shopping when I do go and visit!

When I was driving back from Brighton, I paid a visit to my old house.

Even from the outside I could see they had done a lot of work - things we’d talked about but never got around to doing (or had the money to do), like knocking the garage down and having it rebuilt in a much more sensible place and putting in french doors to the dining room.

I also noted it was up for sale.

I love the interweb, and the fact that all estate agents now put their properties up on it…..

It’s funny how different people see things in totally different ways! We spent a fortune on having a new kitchen fitted, including having some partial walls knocked down, and the doorway into the hall bricked up, leaving the archway into the living room. They have unbricked the dorway into the hall, and bricked up the archway, blocked in the old back door and redesigned the kitchen. What is funny is that they have actually put the oven/hob in the place where it was originally when we first moved in, and I hated it because it was such an impractical place to have it.

When we moved in, there was the orginal coal fireplace there, with a beautiful slate fireplace surround. We couldn’t be bothered with all the mess, so we had a coal effect gas fire installed right into the fireplace. They have taken the whole lot out, and have one of those gas fires that is fitted into the wall to look like a picture.

And they have made a tidy profit! Not that we can complain - we bought the house in 1994 for £69k, sold it for £145k in 2001, so more than doubled our money. It is now on the market for £305k - looks like it takes 6-7 years for the house price to double!

Well Yeehaw!

Mammoth journey to Texas - 23 hours door to door - and when I got there not nearly so hot, nor as dry as I was expecting. I always pictured Texas as having very dry, almost desert-like heat, but San Antonio was pretty humid. One day it was actually raining mud, and the specks haven’t come out of the white tshirt I had decided to wear that day, even though I have washed it.

Conference was okay, although I didn’t go to anywhere near as much of it as I should have done. It’s funny, but when you are paying for it yourself, and it coms down to one more hour in bed, or a stop off at Starbucks on the way, or an extra hour shopping, the conference lost every time!

My presentation went well - it was funny watching the people walk past - there were two groups of people - one type were really interested in what I had to say, and really wanted to chat about it - in fact, one lady was waiting for me to turn up, she was so eager to talk to me about it. The other camp were not even remotely interested, and barely gave me a glance even though I was the only one there in a cowboy hat (thanks, S, I felt like a cock, but a promise is a promise!). It was very satisfying, though, to have been there, and if you now google my real name (along with S’s, to cut out all the extra crap) you will find me.

I wasn’t that impressed with San Antonio - it was quite a small town, not a whole lot going on, although I get the impression that visitors there consider it quite lively. There were some nice restaurants, but they were mostly chains that you get everywhere. I of course managed to spend a fortune in shopping for clothes that I don’t really need - plus I bought two cowboy hats, one for me, one for S. I was going to go for the boots too, but they were damn expensive.

One night went out with the group who went from my new company. It turned into a very drunken affair, with several hours spent dancing in an Irish bar to a superb two piece band, who had the whole place rocking. It was two guys - one with a guitar and singing, the other playing drums - with his hands! On leaving that bar (after the band finally gave up after giving us two encores) we went to a club that had been recommended. It was supposed to be 70’s and 80’s, but obviously not the night we were there! It was truly awful 90’s techno-tronic music. I managed to attract the attention of the bloke in the bar who was wearing a skirt! I also managed to convince my boss that the bloke with the bleached blonde mullet and skin tight trousers really was Rod Stewart - can you say gullible?

The conference also put on a party for the last night, with free drinks and a band.

It was truly awful. The band were dreadful - they would have been better off hiring the two guys from the Irish bar. When it got to the line dancing, free drinks or not we were out of there.

Trip home was awful, with me sitting in the coldest seat on the plane - right under an icy cold draught. Given that I already had a cold on the way, I was not best pleased. And very pissed off with the airline staff total lack of interest in doing anything about it. While I can understand if the blowers aren’t working (and that was clear, as when I was not in my seat it was actually quite warm), but after years flying with Virgin, where they actively encourage you to stand up and walk around the plane, they didn’t even bother switching off the seatbelt sign. We were told to olny stand when we neded the loo, and if we needed drinks we were to call the staff. Standing in the aisles or walkways was stictly forbidden. The plane wasn’t full, and it wouldn’t have been that hard to have found me another seat, yet despite croaking to 3 members of staff that I had a cold, and sitting under an icy blast was going to make it worse, I was met with complete indifference. Luckily the seat beside me was empty, so I had two blankets (one of which I had over my head, the other wrapped tight around me, so that all that was visible was my eyes), the bloke behind me asked for an extra blanket and was told there was only one per seat. For god’s sake! There were empty seats, they should have gone and got him extra!!!

Needless to say I don’t think I’ll be flying with them again.

Then the last two days I have been to see Kinky K in Brighton. I haven’t been back there for 4 and a half years, so it was a bit odd seeing what had changed and what hadn’t. Almost having a head on crash was no fun - but how was I to know they had changed the street to one way only? Also met up with D, and it was fun to be sat with ‘my boys’ again after so long.

Got back home this afternoon, exhausted, still coughing after the stupid cold episode, and three loads of washing later. I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight!

About 10 years ago, we were visiting the outlaws for Easter. In a bid to get out from the stifling atmosphere, the ex and I headed to the Metro Centre for some shopping.

Driving down the A1(M), I saw something a bit odd in the distance. The ex was his usual, no-idea-what-is-going-on-around-him self, and was whittering on about something, but I was watching this - thing - drive towards me.

As it got closer, I realised that it was, indeed what I thought it was.

As it went past, I said to the ex “Did you just see that?”

“What?” he said, hopeless as ever, turning around in his seat to try and see what I was talking about.

To this day, whenever I tell anyone what I saw, I am greeted with hoots of derision, and the unanimous question of “What were you on?”

But today I got proof.

Proof that I did indeed see a huge Cadbury’s creme egg driving towards me on the motorway.

…is within reach. Do I make a grab for him to pick him up, or do I risk him making a swift retreat back into his hidey hole?

…is only as good as the idiots who use it.

Apparently his battery died.

LELI is back from his holiday - I have missed him. I will miss him even more, as he has been offered a job in the Big Smoke. Although, to be fair, I didn’t know I would be spending so much time at home, and if I had been travelling more then he would miss me much more than I would have missed him.

Weeks we’ve been dancing around each other. Lots of texts, some phone calls.

Of course, there is a lot of baggage - and recently been finding out there’s more than I first thought. It’s almost like encouraging a kitten that’s been kicked too hard and too often.

The more time I spend with him, the more I find we have in common. This scares me, because this has happened before, and early on you always do see that, because it’s what you *want* to see. So I can’t tell how much of it is for real.

The trip to BP the other week - 13 hours non stop contact with someone - I know for a fact I couldn’t spend that long with LELI, much as I love him to pieces - we got on so well.

Yesterday, meeting for coffee, spending hours in Starbucks, then wandering through town, catching sight of some exhibition in the museum, and spending another hour wandering around there.

Today I surprised my mom with a visit for Mother’s Day. I know he was taking his mother out for lunch. I texted him when I got back, asked him how his lunch had gone. “I’m still on the piss with my mum!” I replied, “I like the sound of your mum!”

The phone then rang, it was him. However, when I answered, there’s a woman, laughing. “He’s just run away now…..” “I guess that’s mum I am talking to?”

She is very drunk. She has invited me down to the pub, says I am to turn up, not tell him, surprise him, then take him home and “look after him”.

I wouldn’t turn up without him knowing. I guess I am just not that confident. Plus, like I said, he is more damn scared than I am.

BUT….. he has obviously been talking to his mother about me. Enough for her to want to invite me down the pub. When I sent that last text, he passed his phone to his mum for her to ring me, even if he did run away to the loo/bar/have a fag. He came back, and spoke briefly, then it sounded like he hung up on me. He is now not answering my texts.

God. So confused. So scared.