pockets of sadness and a creeping of yuletide cheer

Still feeling pinches of deep sadness.  Thank you for the kind comments on my last post - that's really nice. 
Today I am going to start Christmas.  I don't feel very Christmassy - largely due to feeling bloody miserable I suspect, but Oliver has his Cubs Carol Service tonight (early this year) and he has a reading to do.  This is very exciting for me, being that type of proud parent, and he will also be receiving his cub silver award from the district commissioner (who?!), which he doesn't know about - so he will be extra chuffed.  So, because of the inevitable singing with joyful voice tonight, and because Mark chucked down the Christmas decs from the loft at the weekend, today the tree will go up and we will have crossed the threshold of Yuletide blessings....

Even though I am two days earlier than normal, and this is waayyy ahead of the rest of my friends,  romans and countrymen, Julia 'I can't be doing with Christmas' Pollard has stolen a march on me and been and gone and Started.  Christmas.  First.  Wow.  Get her mantlepiece.  I am, of course, jealous.  I have no mantlepiece at all. Sniff.

I can't even blog you a pic of the finished decs later, as we have a new computer following last week's minor explosion of compu-innards and Lordy knows how to cyber-transfer pics from my memory card into this baby.  No doubt Mark will know, if I can persuade him to assist.  He hates my bloggy love affair - he blames it for the demise of the last computer.

I have taken the plunge after years of being a bit scared of it - and taken my first steps towards joining the local WI.  Oh yes - I shall be knitting macrame baskets from my knickers before you can say 'pass me the pinking shears Marjorie.... '  An update on that after Thursday.

And this morning I have 'done my roots' and I think that this particular (crap) brand has just dyed the rest of my hair the same colour as the roots, and not the other way round.  Why I am even surprised at this eventuality I really don't know.  You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  Bet I will be able to macrame a basket from knickers soon though tee hee.

I want my dog back

I am sitting here trying to control the panic I feel when I am gripped by missing Harvey.  He was my little sidekick, and I gave him away.  Can't even describe how much I hate myself for it.  Got to try and keep a lid on my own misery until I get used to him not being here.  It's all my own fault.

Don't it always seem to go

that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
About 18 months ago we adopted Harvey the Jack Russell from the Blue Cross.  I have never had a dog, and was quite unprepared for the adjustments I personally needed to make in order for him to fit into our lives.  He attached himself to me as his 'person' and I felt stifled and irritated with him most of the time.  He was a tie and an emotional and physical responsibility I reached screaming point with many times. The stress level I was feeling and subsequently passing onto Mark and Oliver was something I realised we could not live with indefinitely, and so yesterday, we took him to his new home - a nice family who live in Newton Abbot.

This has been a completely horrible weekend.  I never believed that that bloody dog could be so missed by his absence.  All he ever wanted was to love, and to be loved, and I fell way short of the standard.  I failed him.  My misery is compounded by the unhappiness Mark clearly feels, and the sudden waves of sadness and tears are feelings of grief, which I never expected to experience.  I thought of him as the bane of my life, when the reality was, he was a loving part of it which I stupidly took for granted.

I used to think of all the things I could do if I didn't have Harvey.  Now I am just consumed by the pain of all the things I will never do again because I don't have him. 

Such regret.  So sorry.

Et voila!

Not quite the done to death 'ta dah' - but boy, am I feeling just a little bit smug today!  It has taken me four months to do, and it is the first real proper hobby I have embarked upon, stuck to and finished something 'real' and usable.  Hurrah for me. 

The granny stripe blanket - 87 stripes (a teeny rebellion in the final number there), edged with a deep shell of my own tweaking.  To fit our king size bed, and to drape artfully around the sofa.  Ahhhh.  sigh. 

We have had Halloween since my last missive: 

He was Darth Maul, for the non Star Wars aficionados.  And the annual pumpkin mess amid much cutting, scraping, puffing, panting and swearing. 

Would show you the bonfire night (Guy Fawkes night for the puritans) pics, but they are so crap, it is embarrassing.

There was a resources day with the home-ed group yesterday - a good idea,  where people bring in the things they use as educational aids/materials.  Always interesting and encouraging.  I have come away feeling freshly enthused.  Have felt like that about home-ed quite a bit lately.  I have bought a couple of sketchbooks for Oliver and I to use together.  I have read several times that it is a good idea to work alongside your child, so they will follow your lead in methods/means blah blah.  I am no artist, but think I am quite capable of expressing myself visually well enough to encourage Oliver to do the same.  We shall see. 

Tonight Oliver will be attempting to swim 800m during his swimming lesson, which I am impressed with.  I love watching him swim - he now looks like a real swimmer when he streaks up and down the pool doing front crawl.