Pumpkin's Positive Post: Lucky in Love

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Good morning Friends. How are you all today? I've not been around much. There are a couple of reasons for that. One of them is because I've been busy trying to get my study done. I've only got two more assignments to do and, as I failed the last one, I need to work extra hard to make up the marks. I've also had other things going on. Lots of things going wrong and I didn't want to be all ranty and negative. I won't go into all of that but, briefly, I've had a sudden and unexpected loss of income and, after decreasing my responsibilities because I couldn't manage, I'm now having to do more than I'd given up. Anyway, this is a positive post. So, the title of it - Lucky in Love - well, that's because I am very lucky in that department. I've been with D for a couple of months short of two years. He's been a pain at times but he's supported me through everything. He's pushed me when I've needed it, he's given me cuddles and listened to my ranting when I've needed that. So that's one thing. Then I've got my boys. That's not luck though, that's me being a good Mum! :P They're both working hard at school. Mini is doing a lot of things with Cubs and looking forward to his first camping trip. He's even choosing to attend social events. He did really well in the Gang Show last month and he's going to a party for that next week. Midi has just applied for a residential trip to Cambridge. Kids can only apply if they're nominated by a teacher. If he gets chosen, it's an all expenses paid stay at Clare College Cambridge for three days, and he'll get a taster of unversity life. He's really surprised me that he is so independent. He'll be at college in September, hopefully studying physics, maths, and maybe psychology. He's also going to be in a play with his youth theatre group next month. He was backstage last year but he's acting this time. So I'm looking forward to seeing him in that. D said that, rather than 'every cloud has a silver lining', I'm more of a 'every silver lining has a cloud'! Although, as he agreed, I've been grumpy and stressed lately but it's not been without reason. Anyway, I've been in situations before where things have got on top of me and something good has come out of it. So I'm doing that this time. As I'm no longer classed as a carer for Mini (that's why my income has decreased because we're no longer entitled to disability benefit for him), I've had to sign on at the Job Centre. Since doing that less than a week ago, I've been to a CV writing workshop, an interview skills workshop, and I've got an appointment with someone to see if they can help me get on to a computer course (because a total lack of computer skills beyond word processing is quite a big disadvantage). So that's good. I've applied for lots of jobs, and got an interview tomorrow (although that should have been yesterday, and I have been warned by two people so far that they're not a good company to work for!) I mentioned earlier that my income has decreased. Well, I've just had a call about something which should help that. Mini's dad hasn't paid anything towards him since we left. I called Child Maintenance Service about two months ago. They couldn't get in touch with M so they called me to say they'd just use information they had. Anyway, they have finally worked out a payment schedule which they'll send to him. He has to set up payments himself but I can go back to CMS if he doesn't pay. So that's going to help with the income, and it's one less thing to worry about (assuming he does actually set up payments). I was surprised at the amount, although they have backdated it by two months. Now I just have to wait and see if he actually pays. What else is there? Oh yes, during the school holiday, which was a couple of weeks ago now, we had a couple of days out. I took my boys and my little niece and nephew to a local small farm. We fed some of the animals, got some things from the old-fashioned sweet shop, and played in the play area. We went to see D for a bit afterwards. I'd said he could come with us, and I know he wanted to, but I hadn't thought about how many of us there would be. So there wasn't enough room in the car. The other trip was to Wicksteed Park. That's one of my favourite places. There's so much to do. We've ticked off all the things we did and we're going to start with everything we didn't do next time we go! Wicksteed is a huge park. It's sort of part theme-park, part normal park. There's an aviary, crazy golf, boats, a train, and various fairground-type rides. We did quite a bit between us. There were six of us. We had two cars and drivers this time! There was me, D, Mini, Midi, B (Midi's Dad), and E (Mini's best friend). E is a mad little thing. She's lovely but she's also hard work. I didn't mind. I was glad everyone was having fun. Most of the things we did were things that all of us could do together. D was limited to some things because of his health, Mini and E were limited to some things because of their size but mostly, we got to do everything we wanted. Midi wanted to go on the carousel (because he's a big baby!) but that was one where you had to be under a certain height unless you were accompanying a small person. So Mini and E went on so Midi could be their responsbile person! We spent a good five hours at Wicksteed. We would have spent longer but, apart from D flagging and about to fall asleep and having a seizure on the pirate ship because he'd overdone things, I needed to get back as I'd arranged to take my best friend (AO) out for a birthday meal. We'd arranged it before I knew I was losing money! Well, anyway, we went to a place called The Pheasant. It's a pub in a little village a little way out of the next town. Well, I hadn't been there for years but I do remember it was really nice. AO had been before as well. It was still really nice. I had plaice with new potatoes and vegetables. I think AO had some sort of pork curry thing. We both had starters. She had something cheesy, and I had crab and prawn cocktail. The meals weren't as expensive as I thought they might be, and they were excellent value for money. Last Friday was my Dad's birthday. We went out for a meal. That was me, Mini, Dad, Mum, Dory, Mr. Dory, Teenpanda, Dougalrie, and Teenpanda's girlfriend. The place we went was OK, and the meal wasn't too bad for the price. Well, Dory paid for it knowing that nobody else had any money! Dad and I had a steak and Guinness pie, except I did wonder if they'd made a mistake because it didn't seem to contain most of the ingredients that the menu said were in the pie. The pie was also very dry and there wasn't enough gravy in the gravy boat to make up for it. The chips were nice. They were oven chips but I like them. I had honeycomb sundae for pudding. That was quite nice. There were a few puddings they hadn't got. Like the banoffee sundae which was what I really wanted! The honeycomb sundae was a nice alternative though. I also made my Dad a birthday cake. I called it 'make it up as you go along cake'. Well, I know the most simple, basic cake standard is 'half fat to flour' so I started with that. I put some sugar in, and a tin of apricots (because they'd been gathering dust in the cupboard). I added a few drops of almond essence. I then added some more flour because the mixture was too sloppy. I chopped up a banana and added a spoonful of chocolate powder. It actually turned out to be quite tasty! I decorated it with butter icing (which I made myself) and chocolate drops and sprinkles. Well, the boys helped. Mini and Midi both help to prepare it, Midi did most of the decorating. I don't think I've got much more to talk about. Well, one more thing. I've got a downstairs neighbour. He'd been in hospital for six months and I was quite worried but didn't have any way of finding out anything. Good news is that he's been back a few weeks now. We'd heard him talking outside but I only actually saw him yesterday. It's good to know that he's OK. I've been having trouble with the internet again today so, hopefully, this will upload alright! Then I had better get on with some work towards my next assignment as it's due in 15 days. When I've got a little more time, I'll be more interactive around here and will spend more time on other discussions. TTFN Ta Ta For Now