...and I like it! 

"With whom?" You ask.

I'm sorry to disappoint, but it's not a boy.  No, no, it's with a band.  Yes, me and 4 lads from Wales have become well and truly reacquainted.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the best of British... Stereophonics

'Performance and Cocktails' was the album that caught my attention.  I then went back for 'Word Gets Around' and the love affair began...

Kelly Jones has the most wonderful voice and I got seriously into them when they headlined at V festival in 2002 (I was in attendance and only 2nd row!).  But things dwindled between us and I lost interest in favour of some American bands and of course moving to the US for a bit.  But thanks to hearing 'Handbags and Gladrags' the other day I have fallen back in love with them and they're a regular play for me at the moment.  The songs above are my all time Stereophonics favourites; although I do think most of their songs are pretty awesome.

I seem go through stages of listening to artists, but at the moment I'm still stuck on my 90's rock theme, whilst dipping in and out of a little Incubus.  All that I'm surrounding myself with at the moment will eventually become the soundtrack for this point in my life, so I'm glad I'm making good musical choices.

As for everything else?  Well I'm a little poorly, I've got a monster sore throat and I'm sounding more and more hoarse at the days go on.  Either I'm morphing into Sophia Bush or I should lay off the singing (belting) in the car and get some early nights!  Things seems to be going well though, I'm happy and relatively content with life.  I do wish though that I could be quicker in pulling my finger out, but all good things....

...I just got to get one of those plan things and then I can execute it.  There's a loose idea in my head of what I'm doing, but time needs to pass before the wheels can be set in motion.  I also need to stop procrastinating, something I am guilty of doing all the time.

Things don't happen for themselves and if I'm not careful I'll end up in the same position I am now... but 6 months down the line.  It's weird how I'm so organised at work, I'm too organised and people regularly comment on my efficiency.  When it comes to me though, I come to a grinding halt.  If I was stuck in a paper bag and had to organise my way out I'd sit in the corner for a bit, daydreaming but knowing that I'd get round to it at some point.  That's kind of how I live my life, just bouncing along.  There comes the odd occasion where I give myself a kick up the backside and get "doing", but it never lasts for very long. Still, in saying that I'm probably better than some people at "doing", but considering I only measure myself against myself I don't care much about them.  

At the moment though, I feel utterly useless.  Most of this will be down to the severe lack of sleep I'm getting, averaging about 5 hours a night and even then it's usually disturbed.  I get to work and run out of steam getting through the day, so by the time I get home it's me, the couch and the TV remote... and I remain there all night.

Yeah I go out too; I'm not a total hermit! But I'm not talking about just filling time, I'm talking about me being productive and doing the things I want/need to do.  When I am at home by myself I should chuck on some music and lose myself in a little bit of writing, rather than aimlessly surf the net whilst half watching some crap TV show and sipping on cider.

I think one of the best ways to combat this, and force myself out of the rut I seem to be getting stuck in, is exercise, (and an early night!).  I'm going to look to join the K2 which is just down the road.  I could go swimming a few times a week, cycle there, cycle back, and maybe do a spin class or some Pilates.  That way I won't be spending the evenings just mooching around the house, and I'll be getting fitter in the process!

So the immediate POA is to go to bed and be asleep before 11:30pm (not 1-2am as it is now), stop drinking on school nights, and write or read in the evenings and leave the telly off if nothing is on.   For heavens sake, I've started watching all sorts of crap and that's not me!

The mid-term plan is to join K2, set some time aside each week for writing and make a schedule for the next 12 months which will get me back to my 5 year plan target.  It's all about rotas, schedules, plans, ha ha, and I say I'm not organised when it comes to me?!  

Most of the time I'm just hard on myself, I'm my own worst critic and don't allow a lot of leeway when it comes to who I am and where I want to be.  Maybe I should lighten up on myself?

This weekend has been many things, and being at the end of it I feel this is the right time to sit down and reflect.  As you know I went to Frasers house on Friday night to chat things through.  I think by mentioning it in my blog a lot of people have got the wrong end of the stick and I've been being asked all weekend how the chat went, as if it were the beginning of a reconciliation.   It was not.

What we talked about is private, but ultimately we needed to just sit and understand what each other was going through.  It was a lovely evening and most of it was spent listening to Slipknot/Stone Sour, watching Big Brother and drinking cider.  I think I should be fair and retract my angry statements from the last week.  I know now that I need not worry about Fras and his plans, he's been thinking hard and seems to have it all sorted out in his head.  It's the first time in years I've seen him have some proper direction and my original cynicism about his trip to Thailand and it being him just running away, well that's far from what it is and I'm glad.

The break-up is the right thing for both of us, it's just difficult losing a live-in friend... but now that we know we've still got each other it's not so daunting.  I'm really pleased we cleared the air on Friday and it just makes it easier to deal with everything, especially as we continue to be mature about this and understanding of each other.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm fine and it doesn't seem to matter how many times I say "yes" I can tell that people don't believe me.  It's like they think that it's only a matter of time before I fess up and become a big mess that they can all rally round and deal with.  Well it's not going to happen, because I really am fine!  When relationships break down it's normally a negative thing and there are tears, accusations, emotions, hurt and all sorts flying around.  This isn't one of those break-ups so please all stop acting like it is and trust me when I say I'm fine.

So Friday night kicked off what has been a pretty good weekend for me, well... an OK weekend.   I spent most of Saturday with Lisa, we had lunch and mooched around the garden centre (she eyed up hanging basket plants, I looked at the scented oils and food, lol).  I took us both to Tesco where we could pick up some bits before I dropped her home and then returned to my place.  It was all going swimmingly until I reversed into someone's car!  Long story short... I over steered and scrapped my back offside wing right along the side of this woman's R reg Rover.  BOLLOCKS!

It looked worse than it was I'm sure, but I did the decent thing and owned up, left my details and as I was about to put the note under her windscreen wiper she returned to her car.  Needless to say, she wasn't impressed but thanked me for being honest (like I would ever do any different) and she explained that people have hit her car and just driven off.  I'm hoping and praying that she doesn't try to fleece me for all she can, and I don't want to go through insurance as I'll lose the no-claims I've been building up.  Fingers crossed on that one.

So apart from all that really, I've had a quiet one... just me and a few passing visitors.  I chatted to a friend for most of Saturday night, drank wine, oh and captured a Tarantula wannabe in my living room!  Today I've had a boring Sunday, but it's been a typical Sunday.  I took Cedric, in his clingfilmed glass, to Tesco Express with me and let him out near the recycling.  He ran for dear life, in the opposite direction to me and I hope found some new friends to play with.  This time if he finds his lanky legged way back to my house I'm going to have to drive him to Scotland and dump him there!  I won't kill a spider, they're not bad little things and if a small one is in the house I'll just leave it be... but ones with big legs, fat pincers and faces, no I can't deal with that. 

On another note... I got very uncomfortable at work on Friday and when I went to the ladies I discovered I was bleeding from my wound.  I can't believe it, I'm sure it's not opened fully again but it should be closed!  I'm going to take the last of the antibiotics I've got in the house and hope that they are enough to close it up.  I'll need to make sure that I'm careful not to spend too long sitting down as the pressure is too much on the new scar tissue.  It's already healed wonky :-(  Of course this also means that I'm going to be stuck in big knickers for a while yet.  Before April I only ever wore big knickers when I was going to bed, ill, or mooching around the house in a vest during the hot season.  But since April I've worn my nice underwear only once and I'm getting so sick and tired of feeling like I'm wearing a bloody nappy!  They're so unattractive and unsexy... it doesn't really make me feel like a minx.  Bridget Jones better watch out, she's got a contender! lol

Things have calmed down since last night. When I woke this morning I had a text message and a missed call... I assumed Fras wanted to chat but I was running short on time so just ran out the door, plus I assumed he was probably sleeping. When I parked up I looked at my phone and saw that he'd tried to call me already, so I dialled his number.

He was apologetic about the conversation we had last night and I appreciated him telling me that. It's just hard for him to deal with all this and I think for the most part he's lost and doesn't know what to do with himself. I advised that telling me to f*** off isn't the best way to go about things and also that running away all the time won't find him happiness. I worry that he thinks going to Thailand will solve all his problems. Yes, he will gain perspective, but he won't find the answers out there... for that he needs to figure out what the question is and then look within himself.

I've agreed to go round to his for dinner tonight. We're going to talk, get things off our chest and hopefully walk away feeling like we've got closure a little bit. I also want to try and help him make a plan so that he doesn't just bounce around for months, wasting time. Whether we stayed together or not he'd be in the same predicament, only I'd have acted as an easy distraction if we hadn't split up.

Tonight I was supposed to be heading round to Lisa's for a girly night with wine... but I think this is more important and feel like he needs me more than I need wine. Plus I'm hoping to organise a naughty Ann Summers party soon and have an excuse to get all the girlies round :-)

No-one said this was going to be easy, and I'm still trying to stay strong... I'm just not sure I'm strong enough for the both us!