Moving on

In the process of moving into Michelle's, I've decided to sort through all the boxes I've unquestioningly lugged from one address to the next over the last few years. There are boxes of pieces of paper, loads of photos (ones from the degree course and from real student life at the time), books, documents, mementoes and souvenirs of trips or visits....

I have decided to apply a new editing policy. Anything that reminds me of the nervous breakdown, or the subsequent depression, and stupid decisions made during those few years is out. Any photographs which are out of focus, underexposed, of people I'd rather forget or times I don't really remember, are also out. I've given myself a couple of weeks to do it before I actually move in here.

Anything still in usable working order is being donated to charity, other junk is binned. So far I have shifted -
1) 5 years worth of bank statements and visa card bills relating to accounts that have been closed for at least 2 years.

2) 4 pairs of glasses that I haven't worn for ages.

3) The "hopeful" clothes at the back of te wardrobe, even if I do get back to being that size again, I won't want to wear those clothes.

3a) this includes the "trophy" dress - the one I've not worn since May 15th 1999, which was also the last day that I wore make-up and shoes with heels.

4) The court documents relating to my small claims battle against my ex-best friend, the straight girl I fell for who treated me first like a walking bank and then like a walking doormat. 5 years since the case, almost finished the group therapy for the depression, almost dealing with the memory, don't really need the proof.

Some of this is stuff I packed up in boxes in 1995, when I went off for my year out in America thinking Mum and Dad might move while I was away. I came home to find them still sitting there.
8 months after that, when I moved out of their house and into the one with Straight-bitch, the boxes were intact.
Moved out of there 19 months later in a state of shock, into halls of residence in Wolverhampton, boxes still untouched, then a year after that, my parents finally did sell up and moved into their campervan, leaving their own boxes with me at the same time as I moved into my 1st student house.
A year after that, I found myself sleeping on my cousin's couch and spare room floor for 3 months, surrounded by said boxes, and then gave up student living, went part time and moved into my own council flat for almost 2 yrs, putting the boxes into their own little cupboard and ignoring them.
I moved back to Leeds 2 years ago and lugged them around still unopened, and when I got into the house I've been in for the last 2 and a half years, I seriously saw it as a temporary measure and so continued living with the boxes all packed up and ready to go.

But now I'm moving in with Michelle, and she has her own fair share of boxes, and I need to lighten the load.

If I'm lucky, I might fit everything into just one transit van trip - furniture and essential boxes. I have been bringing back what i can carry on foot over the last few days.

Higher Intelligence

So it's official - the process of moving into Michelle's began last week, when I moved my Stripy Catboy in (furniture and clothes to follow by the end of the month).
Fagin spent a month around xmas here, but he wasn't allowed out 'cos theoretically he was supposed to be moving back to mine, with me, but that didn't last very long. I was missing him so much I decided to bring him back here, and then decided to stop paying rent on a place I use only as a stoage room.
So, after letting him get used to the smells and feel of the place again, we've started letting him out, to allow him to make this his home. For the first time he is exploring 2 gardens - front and back (we lived in a back to back before), and he can wander in and out as he wants when the security grills are on and the doors are open. He has fences to climb, a quiet road, some kids, more cats and a nice thriving population of birds to threaten. Plus, he has Cj round his little paw and only has to miaow at her in the tone that suggests his bowl is empty and she will instantly refill it for him. Cat heaven.
He first went out on Monday afternoon for a couple of minutes, and I was close behind him. On Tuesday, I sat reading in the back garden while he trotted around sniffing things and rubbing his chin on twigs and bricks. He disappeared into both gardens next door, but dutifully returned when he was called. I put him out the of the other door to let him get used to that side as well, and he went a bit further away, was out of sight and mind for about an hour, but came hurtling back with his tail in the air and a happy bounce in his gait when I called him. Of course he got fussed over like mad.
And then we let him out at night. He was out for a couple of hours in the pitch black with all the tougher cats on the estate, and I was a little worried, but he came back and miaowed to be let in and then settled on the bed exhausted.
All day yesterday he just seemed to want to sleep or doze somewhere warm - sitting on the windowsill in our room above the pipes, on the couch with me while I was reading, on the warm bit of floor where the pipe comes up close to the wood on the landing.
And then last night he was out all night. He went out at midnight when I went to bed. And we heard nothing of him until exactly 7am. Michelle had been awake working on the computer all that time - worrying about him and no doubt also about the fact that she's having teeth pulled today, keeping an ear out, but it was me who heard him. And the noise was coming from the other side of the house. I was dead chuffed at first that my cat had proved himself clever enough to figure out that front and back were not discrete and separate worlds, but could be connected by trotting a few extra houses down to the end of the row and out through the ginnel, or round by the road. So I went to the back door and called him in. I could hear him miaowing excitedly, but couldn't see where he was or understand why he wasn't coming in. I started to worry - was he injured? Trapped somewhere close to the door, unable to get any closer and panicking? And then I looked up - to where the sloping roof for the back door rises to our bedroom window - and there was my boycat's face, and he didn't look too sure of himself.
I dashed up the stairs, and Michelle came out of the computer room looking worried as I shouted to her that he was on the roof. I opened our window and let him in - and he came tumbling through, chattering at us and pleased to be inside, and went straight down to his food bowl with Michelle in tow.
The clever bastard put all that together in his head within a couple of hours of casing the joint from the outside, and by staring out of the window. Apparently the 2 giant cat-flaps we have at front and back for him are not enough. He has decided he prefers to use his specialised personal entrance that takes him directly into our room.

Tinkering

It's nearly 2 in the afternoon, I am still slightly hungover after spending the evening at the Grove and Scabby Taps with Janice, Steve and their ex-next door neighbour Rich, and I have to go to work in a couple of hours.

So I thought I'd tinker a bit and put the writing I did on here yesterday in the right place 'cos it was annoying me.

All done now.

Michelle wants a big fat fried breakfast to kill her headache. I wouldn't mind the veggy version, but it's a bit late to start looking....

Recovering from Ingleton.

As I write this, I'm sitting in Michelle's office (she'll wake up shortly and demand her seat back, kiss me and request (another demand really) that I go and make her a coffee), wearing nothing but tousled hair and my big blue dressing gown. And my glasses.

My limbs are all slightly achey, but the worst is my arse (is it an appendage or a limb?). I slept really well last night.

Yesterday, Michelle, Anna, Simon, Rich and I did the Waterfalls walk at Ingleton. We set off from here around 12ish (after a few cups of coffee and driving around Leeds getting everyone's kit together) and got to Ingleton around 2.30ish. We stopped at the Inglesport Cafe for a preparatory breakfast, and lit out on the walk after Michelle had to dash back to the booth to get her change, at around 3. It was one of those crisp and sunny winter afternoons, we didn't really need all the layers we were wearing, let alone our waterproofs (I hate mine anyway, so left it at home) and the walk is only about 4 and a half miles, so it was a mere amble compared to, say, crossing Jura.

We got up to the top just in time to catch the long shadows and golden light on the Pecca falls. There were the remains of the clouds from rain which we struck in the valley as we headed up from Leeds, and they turned pink, orange and purlpe as the light sunk out of the sky, but mostly we were under a bright blue sky.

I was shooting for the first time in ages, starting in b&w, taking the sun on the water, deciding it was too late to give life to any shots of the falls 'cos the sun had left the valley and the woods before we got there, and then changing to colour for the descent. I hope my shot of us all against the orange sky comes out. And I'm looking forward to my shots of Michelle ("This will be the jacket shot on your first book!*snap*") because she looked really cute.

We needed to get out. I've put on a stone since Michelle and I got together - too much good food and alcohol, and not walking the daily 45 mins to and from work I used to do from Burley when I was full time. I've come off prozac now, and need to be getting regular exercise to keep my brain chemicals from giving up completely, and I noticed yesterday that my running injuries from last year, however tiny and annoying they were then, are still annoying now. Michelle, meanwhile, has lost weight. She was tiny to begin with, but hasn't been too well - lost her appetite, sleep pattern and the urge to do anything. If she could just do any one of those things, the rest might fall into place. So when Simon and Anna asked if I fancied it whilst we were drinking at last orders at the Grove on Monday night, I jumped at the chance, and talked Michelle into it as well.

She swears she hates walking, as though it's her duty, an article of faith. She has spent the last 6 months telling me how camping is fine as long as a sensible proximity to porcelain is maintained (i.e. it's less than 100 yards form a toilet). So I was surprised and delighted when she suggested returning to Ingleton with a tent in a few weeks so that we could get a good start on the walk and take some better photos in the light. It was so good to see her out, active and happy.

I got a proper endorphine rush as we emerged from the woods on the way down, and felt the evening air and the quiet. Except, what really kicked it in for me was that the "quiet of the woods" is anything but. Rich and I were talking about the shots we'd got, and we were being marked by a cock robin just checking our passage through his territory. A pair of blackbirds were fighting over a female and sending the dry leaves flipping and swirling like a miniature whirlwind ("My black feathers are better than your black feathers" "Not when they're broken they're not!") I decided to walk on ahead by myself just to be selfish, wishing the others were all further behind so I could decide to stop and wait for them if I wanted. The fact that they were never more than a minute behind was starting to annoy me when we emerged from the woods and I found myself standing above a clear, slow part of the river, after the gorge. The air was different, the sounds were different, I'd earned myself a good heart rate, had a great day out, and really felt at ease. I was standing there enjoying the relief of not being anywhere but there, and Michelle was the next one out of the woods, and she came to kiss me to say hi. Absolutely lovely. I couldn't help smiling. I'd even taken photos of people - these ones, anyway - because I wanted to, to remember the day, and as I did it, I felt excited and relaxed, not nervous or guilty or detached. How many years since that's happened?

As Simon drove us back in the pitch black, I was the only one apart from him awake. Rich had first nodded off with his head hanging down, and then thrown it back into the classic fly-catching mode. Anna was lolling in the front seat, and Michelle had curled up in her coat, leaning her head against my shoulder, which eventually went numb under the weight. A quiet sleepy ride in the dark, watching the streetlights and headlights, after a good tiring walk. Again, a treat.

We picked up Fagin from mine, to move him here permanently, settled him in, ordered curry, had a bath and then hit the sack by midnight. Fagin woke me up a couple of times in the night, and a spring has popped through the old mattress on our bed and left a puncture in Michelle's bum, causing her to wake up shouting, but otherwise, we slept like logs.

I'm about ready to get up now, and we have stuff to do today, so I'd better get 'er nibs moving. I bet she'll be stiff as a board. Poor love.

Oh dear

I cut down my hours at work for the finance company so that I could concentrate on writing my MA, and then discovered that the topic I'd chosen wasn't big enough for all my ideas. Since then, I've been "working on those ideas" - i.e. drinking with my partner and talking a lot of bollocks.
Few words? Talkative but not dead confident, attempting to be intellectual, enthusiastic with nowhere to put it. That help?
Don't take the favourites below as in any way permanent. I watch lots and read lots and all sorts can get me going. Anything that raises me above the humdrum of normal life can send me into rapturous adoration about it until the next ace thing comes along.