so far so so-so

One day you look to find
ten years have got behind you
no-one told you when to run
you missed the starting gun....

In February I had started work as a Head of Department in a special needs school. I loved it and met some strong people who have been good friends since. I felt my career was back on track and that we were headed for the shiny-happy comfort zone.

There was a big happy gathering-of-the-clans on Firstborn's 5th birthday .... somebody got him a red remote-controlled car. It did backflips and took our ankles out. He had his difficulties but he'd started school and his little sinister was a laugh-a-minute.

We had free use of a cottage in Wales. It was full of mice and damp and coal-dust..... a godsend .We went there a lot to gambol and frolic and forage and try to make whole sheep out of leftover bones. Thomas-the-Tank-Engine featured large. My collie turned out to be crap.....teeth-clackingly terrified of sheep , rain and steam-trains. And even though the bedroom ceiling fell on me (and not in a good way)...in my memory it is still heaven .

Within the year Firstborn had been diagnosed, statemented and brutally excluded. I wrote letters in green ink and chewed the table-legs . I was in the foothills of what transpired to be one bitch of a learning-curve which continues to this day. On the other hand, it was serendipitous that because of my job I was in a position to fight back with the Code of Practice and other blunt instruments.

So in 1998 I was looking at life one way and it snuck up from behind and bit me on the arse .

The winds of fate were blowing big fat raspberries........praise be for spoons and squirty cream !

.......and enduring love.

Soundtracks : Chumbawamba/ Tubthumping ; The Verve/Bittersweet

Films : Coen /The Big Lebowski ; Spielberg /Saving Private Ryan