Possibly vomit-inducing in Juggling with Hedgehogs

I have to write here, because this stuff needs to come out, but I don’t want to make all my friends in the real world, or on facebook throw up in my face. There’s something about people being really happy that tends to induce that kind of reaction - although I’ve been fortunate that after my god-awful depression and suicidal tendencies back in April and May, most of my friends are just glad that a) I’m still here and b) I’m genuinely happy living my new life.

But I need to write a catch-up entry anyway, so here goes.

I’ve been working on clearing the house a bit more since Nigel left. It took him 3 months to shift his gear out of the house and garage, and half the garage is still full. I can, however, finally get my car in there for the winter, with a little bit more shuffling about of stuff. I haven’t tried it yet, but I intend to soon, because I really don’t want to be having to start scraping ice off my car at 6:15 in the mornings.

I’ve sent the papers off to start the divorce 3 times now. The first time, I sent it all to the wrong place and it came back within the week. The second time, I sent it to the right place, but by then, I had changed my name, and it was rejected for that reason - that took a month to happen. This time, I have ensured all the paperwork is correct, signed, dated, and have retained my cheque and called them to say I want to pay by card (who pays by CHEQUE these days anyway?). They said if I enclosed a covering letter and my phone number, they would call me to take payment, so that’s fine. Nigel and I have agreed to do a DIY quickie divorce because we have nothing to dispute and no claims to make on each other’s property. So there will be the simple court procedure, a clean break agreement, which we’ve split the cost on, and absolutely no solicitor involvement. We don’t have childcare to organise, no custody issues, nothing like that, so it should (in theory anyway) be easy.

I have seen him a couple of times over the past few weeks, and we get along fine. We’re not best buddies or anything, I wouldn’t want that anyway, but I’m past hating him (I’d have to have some feelings in the first place, and I just feel nothing now) or being hurt by it all. I am still processing some of it though. Occasionally, things will pop into my mind, things he used to say, jokes we shared, that kind of thing, and then I’ll feel sad at the waste of 21 years and the possible future we might have had. And then I remember the state the house and garden were in, and how it looks now that Paul is in my life, and I just think ‘hey ho’ (or ‘heigh ho’ as Paul writes it - neither of them are wrong btw, another of the wonderful things I admire about Paul is his command of the English language).

So…to Paul.

What can I say that I haven’t said before? He’s just wonderful. Physically, we continue to have the most amazing connection. We’re compatible in so many ways, and whilst I worried in the beginning that the ‘first flush’ would fade, as it generally does, it really hasn’t. If anything, it’s got stronger, and turned into something truly special. There isn’t anything he can’t do, and there doesn’t seem to be anything he’s not willing to do for me. He loves gardening (I hate it) and has taken on my jungle of a garden as a project. He’s improved it immensely, with steady, regular weekend work. He goes out there with the weedkiller to keep my patio clear every time he visits me. He spent Sunday out there with the strimmer and the rake, turning my awful lawn back into something resembling grass again. He has put up curtain rails, blinds, pictures, and is in the process of redesigning my office so that I can edit my photographs in there. For my birthday, he bought me a monitor, keyboard, mouse, docking station and hard drive dock - 2 hard drives for photographic storage and backup, and is rebuilding the desk arrangement in the office for me so that I can conveniently edit, store and share my photography. He helped me build my home gym, and brought me a cross-trainer that he picked up on freecycle (brand new, never used, electronic one that measures your heartbeat and everything - brilliant).

We spend our weekends together, mostly just loving each other. It’s been difficult recently, because he has had a rather large job to do (he works for himself) so our evenings have been restricted, and he’s been so very tired that we’ve had a couple of weekends that didn’t start as early as they normally do, or finish as late. But we’ve stayed in touch regularly via the usual Facebook link - it’s our favourite way of communicating when we’re not together - and we try to get together at least one evening in the middle of the week, no matter how busy or tired we both are. My job in London, and the long commute, tend to leave me quite weary in the evenings, so we usually just chat from our beds late at night and plan lovely weekend stuff.

The birthday weekend in London was just lovely, and he was so grateful. He held a party at his house on my birthday (which was also to celebrate his 50th) and I got to meet his brother (who is lovely) and all of his friends (who are also lovely) and he met some of mine. It was a brilliant evening, and we spent the night before happily cooking up yummy food together. I baked cupcakes, my daughter made us a birthday cake, and we just chilled together, cooked stuff on the barbecue and played garden games. His friends are protective of him - which I like. One of them spoke to me a couple of weeks ago about what a lovely guy he is, and how much crap he’s put up with in the past (which he has told me about, obviously) and I got the feeling he was sizing me up to check I wasn’t going to break Paul’s heart. I hope I was able to put his mind at rest. I struggle to let Paul out of my sight. I’m aware that I’m in deep trouble with this, because I’ve never felt quite this vulnerable before. All that stuff in my previous entry about not trusting marriage any more etc etc…well it’s still true, but I think it depends who you’re married to. I would marry Paul in a heartbeat. I just don’t think he will ever want to change the status quo. He lives in his mother’s house (he rents it from her) and I live in my dad’s house (rent free) and we both have our freedom and our space, and we get together whenever work isn’t getting in the way.

Anyway, I have to get divorced first. I’m working on it!

Oh, and we’ve booked our first holiday together. We’re going on a photography tour in Turkey (provided of course Islamic State haven’t blown the whole place up by then!) next April. The area we’re visiting is called Cappadocia. If you haven’t heard of it, google it, you’ll be amazed. We’re going for 8 days, it’s not a sunshine, laze by the pool holiday, it’s a tour. We’re going to see sights and take photographs of them. But 8 days. Abroad. Together. It’s going to be bloody amazing.

And for the first time in forever, I’m looking forward to Christmas. Those of you who know me will know just how stonkingly mind-blowing that is as a piece of news!