Wildewire

MANY years ago, something unusual caught my eye in a shop. It was a timepiece which used ball bearings and pivoted chutes to tell the time. I was intrigued but the shop was closed and it was in a place I happened to be visiting but didn't expect to revisit any time soon. I kept an eye out for it but it was a few years later before I found it again.  I have a bit of a trait in that; whilst I'm not particularly interested in amassing physical stuff I will sometimes get it into my head that possessing a particular thing is somehow important. I had it about my 'om' ring and it happened over this clock. When I eventually had the cash and opportunity to buy the clock I could no longer find the one I originally saw, which was made from blue plastic and, I think, wider than the one I eventually purchased. I remember being very pleased to have finally acquired the piece, but I think I elected to have it in my bedroom which proved a mistake: when the hours (in particular) change,...

I rarely do anything out of my usual routine for Christmas. I don't eat meat (fish sometimes), I don't like getting stuffed full of food anyway, I am single, childless and try my best to avoid being invited to 'Christmas celebrations' with well meaning friends who erroneously imagine me pining away like Johnny Nomates. Hmmm... it is true that I often get pangs of boyfriendlessness around this time of year, but it is what it is. In fact I am a bit of a coward: Christmas gatherings too often hide tensions which are released by excess alcohol etc. My lodger will be spending at least a few days with his father so as long as I could count on a supply of festive greens, I expected to be content. In 2022 I expect to be caring for a foster child- that will be different: I've always said that if I had a kid to look after I would go all out to make Christmas and New Year as magical as I could. There was talk that my friend who has been experiencing a brutal divorce for almost...

Grrrr! My fostering plans have been postponed because the police still haven't started to process my DBS application and the fostering panel won't see anyone who has not been through that check. The good news is that my lodger has said 'yes' to a flat in the centre of the city- close to the place I rented before I moved here. The bad news (sort of) is that the place is to be renovated before he will move into it and he doesn't know when that will be- "in the new year". As I now won't face the fostering panel until a couple of days after my birthday in January, at least I will be getting some rental income for a while which will be very handy.  After the song and dance to get started as an 'Approved Landlord' I admit I expected something to happen to put me off my more than six month process to become a foster carer. LOL and social services wonder why people are put off from fostering. I suspect that the administration is more onerous than looki...

I have adopted a "watching" brief reguarding the Gay groups to which I have belonged. This was prompted by their indifference to the murder of George Floyd and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter and their dismissal of my requests to address ethnicity in their activities. In the case of the Fae, an argument with their defacto leader precipitated an instant withdrawal, with ECC it has been more gradual as I realised how little they've developed in over thirty years. Today, I found myself 'liking' a FB post about Botswana's government rejecting an attempt to recriminalise LGBTQ relationships. I was shocked to then find that not only was it on the Fae page, but it had been posted by its 'High Priest'(sic) himself. I thought about it briefly before un-liking the post. I have noticed that few of the couple of thousand members ever participate in the FB group, part of me did not want it to seem more interesting that it is (LOL). I just did not want to conne...

   A couple of months ago,  I wrote about "drifting"; it was a feeling that my days were morphing into one another without the sense of achievement to which I have grown accustomed when I have been employed. Not a HUGE amount has changed since then, I suppose that I am quietly accepting a lower set of expectations for myself.  I've had the last pre-selection  session with my supervising social worker before an online 'panel' where they will interview me and review paperwork etc. I hope there will be no issues- my run-in with the potty- mouthed woman in 2015 that led to ME getting fined for calling her a "Fat Slag" has been mentioned. I suspect nothing will come of it as it was a six month suspended sentence so has been vacated long ago. There are things about interacting with public sector agencies that are immensely frustrating when their actions are held up to even basic 'common sense'; individual operatives fear deviation from rules and procee...

Most of the 'training' so far has been reflective: I've been asked to describe circles of contacts, relationships, sources of support etc. I've noticed a strong emphasis on 'family histories' which I found a little uncomfortable- not because I don't really want to talk about it- which I don't, but more because there seemed to be an unrealistic emphasis on what I said about my family relationships. I resist this. I am happy with my decisions to distance myself from my birth family. I reject the bullshit that says that you have to love/respect your biological family- not if they're knackers you don't! I've made my own family! OK so, moving to Newcastle has reduced the number of people on whom I know I can unequivocally call, but that is better than the death by a thousand financial cuts I was experiencing from my mother and brothers before I disappeared to Newcastle, (it was a year before I contacted my mother to tell her I had moved out of Lon...

  A drunk friend contacted me last week. He'd called me when I had visitors and I'd sent him a message explaining why I hadn't been able to converse. We ended up speaking for a couple of hours! We've had an on/off relationship in part because of our different backgrounds but similar creative and professional aims. It turned out that it had been a traumatic couple of weeks for him with three or four people he knows having died. He had decided to contact people with whom he doesn't have a lot of contact to let them know his feelings for them. He ended up inviting me to see a performance at the end of a rehearsal period for a piece of dance he'd been choreographing. I've got a collection of music on 'Spotify' I call 'Choreography' as I see complete dance pieces when I listen to them. I'd shared the collection with him last year and he'd used a couple of pieces in the dance. I got to the venue and encountered a couple of people who were a...