Last weekend a couple of friends, Ben and Emma, had their house warming party.  They’ve been living together for a couple of months now, but hadn’t had chance to get around to having a party until now.  When I first found out about them moving in I asked when the party was going to be.  I was told they weren’t having one.  Of course that meant that when I received the invitation I couldn’t exactly say no.

So off I went back up to Halifax for the weekend.  The party was Saturday night and I travelled up on Saturday afternoon.  The plan was to go up on the train to Halifax, walk to their house, stay there the night, and come home on the train next day.  I deviated from the plan sightly to visit my parents on the Sunday (and then get the train from Brighouse), but other than that it all worked out.

The theme for the party was Vikings and Princesses.  Naturally I chose to be a princess.  My costume wasn’t very ambitious: it consisted of a pink shirt and a tiara I sent Miss D out to buy from Claire’s Accessories earlier in the week.  I did try to accessorise through my presents, although wasn’t very successful.  On the journey up there I’d come up with the idea of taking pink champagne with me — after all, what else would a princess drink? — the plan was to buy it once I got there as I knew I’d arrive a bit early. (Here’s a tangent: I caught a great new service provided by the open access operator Grand Central Railway directly from London Kings Cross to Halifax.  It was very interesting.  The train runs fast to Doncaster on the East Coast Mainline before taking a slightly unusual route via Potefract, Wakefield, Brighouse and Halfax to Bradford.  Both legs of the journey were remarkably pleasant (I say this as a regular long-distance rail traveller).  The train had plenty of legroom (if I’m going to be picky, possibly slightly too much — being 6’3″ I’m used to curling my legs up, slumping down in my chair and wedging my knees against the seat in front, however this wasn’t possible because it was just too far away, while there wasn’t quite enough space to stretch them out fully forwards without banging my shins on the seat in front) and comfortable seats.  The conductor was very friendly: I had the same one both ways and he was kind enough to bring me a timetable on the way out, and remembered me on the way back (actually that was kind of embarrassing — it was the next day and I was clearly wearing the same clothes, thus advertising I was a dirty stopout).  Anyway, their service comes strongly recommended by me.)  Unfortunately it seems expecting Sainsbury’s in Halfax to have pink champagne is a little too much to ask, so I had to resort to normal champagne and pink straws.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t decided against going to M&S for the champagne, who would have had it, on the way past.  I consoled myself in the thought that I also wanted to by Southern Comfort and lemonade for me.

The party was pretty standard.  Some people I knew, some I didn’t.  I spent the evening with my camera, and didn’t drink (see, could have saved on the Southern Comfort as well).  As the evening wore on I began to get more tired, and with that more fed up.  If you follow my Twitter feed you’ll know I’m getting too old to stay out all night.  By the early hours of the morning I just wanted to go to bed.  A proper bed.  Next morning I was up before everyone else (this is usual when I stay over night at someone’s house) and did some tidying (this is, historically, also pretty usual and means you usually get invited back).  I got a lift into Halifax with Becca and met my mum at the Minster.

I only spent a couple of hours with my parents, but it was very pleasant.  I got to see their new solar panels, and let my dad know how I was getting on with some work I’ve been doing for him.  I also showed them some photos I’d seen on Facebook taken at my cousin’s wedding which they’d attended the weekend before.  My dad then gave me a lift to Brighouse to catch the train back to London.  I arrived home about half six and, after letting my parents know I’d got back and having something to eat, fell asleep almost straight away.

It was a tiring weekend, and to tell the truth I’ll be glad when this week’s over so I can spend the weekend in bed, but I think it was probably worth it.  It might even end up paying itself off late next year — a couple of my friends asked if I’d shoot their wedding for them.  More on that later.

Events on the main stage in Trafalgar Square were due to kick off at 12noon, so I headed into London in the morning. I had spoken to Miss T the day before and she’d talked about meeting up in the afternoon – she was babysitting for her sister the night before, and so would be passing through London.  I’d agreed to lend her and Mr S one of my old cameras, so this was an ideal chance to hand it over – so I wanted to get plenty of time in before I met her. When I arrived at the square, at about quarter to 12, there were already a lot of people waiting and so I went to find myself good vantage point at the top of the stairs leading up to the National Gallery where I settled down for things to get going.

12 o’clock came and went.  As did half past, as did 1pm.  And still we stood waiting.  Finally, about quarter past 1 our two hosts appeared on stage.  They were two young ladies (Not young young I don’t suppose.  Not what I might have referred to as young before, but from the view of my advancing age, young enough.) dressed in traditional Chinese outfits. It took me a little by surprise when they introduced themselves as Yvonne and [something equally non-Chinese].  Anyhow, they proceeded to introduce a whole load of dignitaries ranging from someone from the Chinese embassy who couldn’t speak English, through to some senior policeman, via Boris Johnson who couldn’t be bothered to turn up but sent us a video message (which we ended up seeing twice, apparently because of technical problems), all of whom made speeches about how great the occasion was and how proud they were to be associated with it.  After around 45 minutes, the painting of the dragons’ eyes and a photo call on the stage, the entertainment started.

The first, and by far the best, act was a dragon dance.  We were told that it was telling the story of a dragon who was sent into the mountains to collect some kind of special tea.  He had to overcome a whole load of problems on his journey and, apparently, was scared for a long period around the middle.  The dance was impressive.  The dragon was made up of two people and the whole dance took place on top of a set of 7 and 8 foot poles.  There were lots of acrobatic jumps from pole to pole accompanied by traditional Chinese drums and thing which no one but the front row of the crowd right by them could hear because it wasn’t amplified.  Following that there was some singing and something else (probably: I can’t actually remember, it made such an impression).

By this time I was losing interest and wanted to wander up to Chinatown, but was a little bit trapped.  Even when they moved the barriers back to make more room on the ground the steps were pretty crowded and I was struggling to escape.  I found my way down the side of the steps in the end, knocking out as few people as possible on the way down. I took some general shots around Trafalgar Square and then my phone rang. It was Miss T.  She was just setting off from her sister’s house and, after a little discussion, we arranged to meet outside of Leicester Square tube.  This was on the right line for her, and was a good reason for me to head that way.

So I did.  I walked up around Trafalgar Square stopping to take some shots of the stalls and people around the edge (as well as taking a picture for some foreign visitors. It seems if you have professional kit on your shoulders people expect you to be able to take good photos on their little instant digital cameras.  This is, of course, the opposite of the truth.), and headed up the (closed) road to Leicester Square.  There was more going on there, and I spent some time taking pictures around there.  The plan was to then go into Chinatown itself, but a little exploration revealed that wasn’t going to work because of the crowds and time.  So I just went to meet Miss T.

Once she arrived we headed off for a break at a lovely little cafe in Covent Garden.  On the way there we spotted a whole load of TV OB trucks parked outside the Royal Opera House so went to investigate. Of course neither of us had realised it was the night of the BAFTA awards; why would we? It’s not like we both work in the entertainment industry or anything. We sat for an hour or so in the cafe, Miss T had soup while I had a very large slice of Chocolate Bombe and surprisingly nice Apple juice.  We chatted and I got to take the weight off my feet for a while.

One thing Miss T wanted to do was get photographs of some graffiti which had appeared on some building site hoardings near London Bridge.  We decided we should head there before the light faded too far.  With those photos in the bag, we walked back along the south bank of the river toward Waterloo, snapping away as we went.

As a theatre and events photographer it’s been a long time since I took landscape pictures so it was a bit of a change for me, but still remarkably enjoyable.  It’s also been a long time since I went on a shoot with another photographer, and it’s always very interesting to see what they spot that you missed, especially when out of the confines of a performance space.

Miss T and I parted company once we reached Waterloo station.  It was pretty late by this stage and we both needed to get off home.  We sorted out who was taking what camera kit (I was still carrying some of the things she wanted to borrow in my kit bag), said our goodbyes, she headed off underground and I went and got my train.

On the train home I sat opposite a photographer who had clearly been on the BAFTAs red carpet.  He was editing and tagging his photos with the help of a celebrity cheat sheet issued by BAFTA.  It crossed my mind that it would be very helpful if something like that could be provided by producers when I’m working with particularly large casts.

I beat Miss T back home for once, although unusually we did start off from my main station rather than hers.

We talked about this in the restaurant and it started off a very interesting conversation between Miss D and I.  At the time I thought about wanting to write it down – it revealed a lot about both of us, including confirming a few things I thought about her relationship with Mr T.  Unfortunately I didn’t then write it down.  And now thinking back to it I’m struggling to remember what exactly was said.

We talked about how, in a relationship, both parties have to get about the same amount in return for what they put in.  This lead to me trying to dig around to find out what she thought she got from being with Mr T.  Although she didn’t say directly (I don’t suppose that’s much of a surprise), it did re-affirm my theory that it was more his family which she got the most out of.  She’s a long way from home and her family, and having a family home she can go to at the weekends seems to be important to her, even if she doesn’t realise it.

Miss D’s always hard to get information out of when it comes to talking about her feelings.  She just doesn’t want to talk about it.  While I appreciate that’s her choice, and perhaps I am being a bit nosy, sometimes it’s not so good.  There have been times she’s been upset and I’ve tried to find out why but she just wont say. That makes it very difficult for anyone else to do anything about it. Perhaps in these situations it’s because it’s something to do with Mr T and she knows I don’t like him. Perhaps she thinks I wouldn’t be much help, but I’d much rather know – and I can do sensitive when needs be – because there might just be something I can do to make her feel better. You never know until you try.

So my birthday passed off relatively uneventfully. The important people remembered and, even though Mr P did end up forgetting, his memory was jogged by something later on meaning he did manage to send me a message before the end of the day. I rang my parents to say thank you for the card, and although my dad didn’t realise what day it was, he’d not forgotten. It reminded him to de-flea the cat.

So now I’m 25. Next year is the last time I can renew my young person’s railcard (16-25 Railcard is the official name now, apparently). Maybe I should learn to drive before then.

In the last few days of her life my Grandma had been telling the staff in the hospital that she was a Salvationist.  She had been a member of the Salvation Army for most of her life.  Her parents were officers and she’d met my Grandfather at the officer training camp herself.  I’m not sure exactly when she stopped being a practicing member, but I do know that she’d started to get a bit mixed up with Christian Science later in her life (she had, in fact, told the nurses this was a mistake in her last few days).  My mum had asked the local Major to visit her in hospital just before she died.  I don’t think he made it.  So my mum decided, seeing as my Grandma had decided in her last few days that this was her true feelings, she should have a Salvation Army funeral.  Salvation Army funerals, as far as I can tell, are pretty much the same as any ‘standard’ Christian funeral, except the quality of the music and it being a celebration of the deceased’s life (in my opinion any funeral should be).

It was a small funeral (compared to her brother’s – he had died almost exactly a year before, but had been a professional footballer and international table tennis player!), with probably about 20 people at the Salvation Army hall.  After the service the immediate family carried on to the crematorium where we had a very short few words before committing the coffin to the crematorium oven (likely the queue for it, but it’s the symbolism which matters here).  After thanking the Salvation Army major and his wife, we headed back to my Grandma’s flat.

A few of her close family – her sister in law Molly, Molly’s children and their partners – had headed back there for a small get-together.  This was quite interesting.  We got out some of the photo albums we’d found the night before for them to look at, and to try to identify some of the people we didn’t know in the wedding photos and things.

Once they’d gone we started to sort through some of the paperwork my Grandma had built up during her life.  She used to teach accounting and was a secretary for a while and everything was sorted.  Literally everything.  Well over 20 year’s worth of stuff.  As well as all the bank statements there were some fascinating bits of history.  We found the details of her house in Southend-on-Sea from both when they bought it and when they sold it again, along with the receipt for the funeral of my Grandfather.  We also found the obituary of my Grandfather.  The thing which really struck me – I had to wander off into the spare room and have a little cry – was the line “he leaves behind a widow and 15 year old daughter.”  This was my mum.  I never knew my Grandfather, but I hadn’t realised that he’d died when my mum was just 15.

Another thing we found which I found fascinating was an email which Mr T, my mum’s cousin, had sent my Grandma a few years ago with some research he’d done into the family tree.  It wasn’t very complete and he’d asked my Grandma to fill in any information she had.  She’d written a few things, but nothing all that illuminating and a few of the notes were in shorthand which no one could read.  This did set me off on a very interesting path doing some research of my own.  So far I have got back to the 1840s with concrete evidence, but have some information which points to people dating back to the late 1700s.  There’s loads more I need to do but it takes time, and at the moment time’s not something I have huge amounts of.  All being well, work permitting, I should have more time to work on it again, and I’m going to do some while I’m at home this week.

At the time she was in a ward Middlesbrough.  The ward wasn’t the best place for her – there was nothing to do, she was getting bored.  Although she was ill she was still basically mentally fit when prompted.  Yes, she couldn’t always remember things very clearly, but she was a very clever woman and when we visited as a family and talked to her about things she enjoyed (we did the crossword together, for example), she was fine.  On that visit we found some photos from her first wedding in the cupboard and my mum took those with her on the next visit to show her, and she remembered quite a bit about it, although couldn’t remember where abouts in Leeds the photos had been taken.  So my mum kept on at the hospital to get her moved somewhere nicer, somewhere nearer home, to the hospital I was born in, the little town hospital in Guisborough.

A couple of weeks after my visit they found a bed in Guisborough and she was moved there.  The room she moved to, I’m told, was much nicer.  The whole hospital, my mum reported, was much more friendly, much more set up for long term stays.  She had her own television and the staff asked what she’d like to watch to make sure she didn’t miss it.  She even had her hair done by the visiting hairdresser.  This was an important point – when we’d visited her in Middlesbrough she’d commented on how it had got a bit flat because she hadn’t been able to see a hairdresser.  I can imagine, for a woman who’s always had perfect hair, this was a major concern.

My mum visited every weekend from then on and I kept in contact with her.  She told me that the nursing staff had heard her praying.  I think this was the point I realised that she’d decided that was enough.

She died not long after that, peacefully in the day with my mum there.  My mum had been to see her in the morning and she wasn’t really conscious, but she knew my mum was there.  Apparently she could move her feet a little if she wanted to acknowledge something.  My mum left her for a while to go into the town centre – she had a few things to do – and on her return she was greeted by the nurses who told her they were just about to call her.  My Grandma’s breathing had slowed, she was obviously pretty close to dying.

My mum sat with her and put the radio on.  My Grandma had always been very musical and played the piano very well into her old age.  Radio 3 were playing piano music.  The sun was shining brightly outside, and my mum read some sections from the bible.  Her breathing became slower until it finally stopped altogether.

My grandmother died peacefully on the 19th September 2009 in the same hospital I was born, almost exactly 25 years later.

And the best bit of all?  He demanded she ring him back.

The Blood Bowl site is nearly complete — I should have it all wrapped up by next week — which is a relief.  It’s been more work than I was expecting in all honesty.  I’ve done most of the updates for the theatre school website, but failed to get a ‘quote’ to them before their last committee meeting as I promised.  One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest has been and gone (you can read a review here and another one here).  My dad’s starting up a company and I went to a meeting in York with him and my brother about their marketing and publicity.  Actually I had two reasons for going back up north that weekend.

My Grandma isn’t very well.  She’s 88 and has been getting slowly worse for wear.  The last year has been most noticeable with her mental health going a bit down hill.  She was diagnosed diabetic last year and had been given a whole range of tablets to take to help.  When she was being forced to take them she was generally OK.  She was keeping on top of things at home and looking after herself.  When she was left to her own devices, however, she didn’t take her tablets and got worse.  She claims there’s nothing wrong with her (I think this might be something to do with Christian Science, although I’m not totally sure), and so would choose to leave the tablets.  When she doesn’t take them her blood sugar goes haywire and she starts to lose her grip on the day-to-day running of her life.

A couple of weeks ago she was found, by the neighbours, in her night dress in the bath.  She was just lying there with no water in it, and when asked why, she said she thought she was in bed.  They took her into hospital in Middlesbrough.  After some tests they found she’s got cancer. (I’m not sure quite what kind, but it doesn’t matter.  They don’t know where it started or how long it’s been around, but it doesn’t matter.  They only found it by chance so it obviously hadn’t been affecting her very much.)

So, a couple of weekends ago, the whole family went to visit her in hospital.  She was bored.  Stuck on a ward with no interesting conversation and nothing to do (it even turned out that she didn’t have her glasses with her so couldn’t even do crosswords or anything!).  When we were there talking to her she was fine — she asked my brother and I what we were doing, and we told her about our recent activities (I told her about the set building, my brother about his involvement with some music event) — she kept up with the conversation no problem, and we even did a bit of the crossword as a family.  Of course they’d been making sure she took all her tablets when she should.

This week she was moved to Guisborough hospital, incidentally the place I was born.  I’m told it’s a much nicer hospital where she has her own room with a TV and slightly more attentive nursing care (not that they weren’t good at the James Cook Hospital, but they were a little busier and so couldn’t pay as much close attention to each patient).

My mum visited her in Guisborough at the weekend.  She said she was very weak and isn’t eating much (when we were there she said she didn’t have much appetite).  I guess there’s no getting away from the fact she’s dying.  Of course it’s sad, but she’s comfortable and seems quite happy.  I guess she’s had a while to come to terms with it — she’s had friends die and her brother died last September — and it seems to me she’s pretty much accepted it.  The doctors have given her three months from the cancer, I suspect it’ll be less than that just from old age.

One of the things I’ve been doing which has been getting in the way of writing this is re-vamping a website for my brother.  He’s part of a group which run a large Blood Bowl league and last year I made a site which they used to manage the league tables and match reports.  They’ve grown a lot in the last season and now need the site to manage a lot more complicated things than it did previously.  This involves doing quite a bit of rebuilding of the output and processing side of things although at least I can reuse a lot of the back-end code.  I got the brief and some design documents a good few weeks ago and the deadline is the end of September.  In my mind that’s quite a while away, so I haven’t been too bothered about rushing with it (in fact it’s probably fair to say I did nothing for a long time, to be honest).  Occasionally my brother would give me a nudge about it, and I’d say something like “yeah, it should be ok” or “I did some last night, I’ll have something to show you soon”.  After a while I started to run out of excuses and had to do some work.  I worked late on the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night and then emailed him with a basic version of the site.  This seems to have worked — he did say something about being worried about the deadline in his reply — but at least it’s put his mind at rest that I actually am doing something.  I suppose I should do some more soon.  Maybe tomorrow and Thursday.

I can’t do any on Friday because I’m off to build a set with Miss T.  She rang me while I was out with Mr P and Miss C last night and we had a long chat.  I’m glad she rang — I’d been worried following a short conversation on Friday night.  I’ll write about that more soon, but Sunday’s conversation ended up with me offering to help her build the set for the upcoming Sedos production of One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest.  I think it’ll be quite fun — certainly better being with her than being stuck at home all bank weekend by my self (Miss D will be off at Mr T’s parent’s house) — if a little tiring.  I’m meeting her on Friday night in London and staying at her house so we can get a whole day’s work in on Saturday and Sunday.  I’m not quite sure what I’ve let myself in for, but I’ll let you know how things go.

Talking about art, I’ve been following the events up on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in the last few months.  The One & Other project is a living art installation consisting of a different person occupying the plinth for an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week through until October.  There’s a live web stream so you can watch and listen to the person up there from the comfort of your own home.  It’s been quite interesting.  Some of the people are certainly art while some I’d wonder.  I think, in general, it’s got better as time has gone on with more people being creative than just sitting reading a book.  Having said that it is supposed to be a reflection of the UK at the moment, so I do believe that sitting quietly is a perfectly acceptable thing to do… it’s just not very exciting to watch!  There’s a very interesting collection of photos building up on Flickr of the project.  I’ve also been following the project on Twitter.

Talking of Twitter, I’ve jumped on that band wagon.  All being well you’ll see the latest tweet at the top of the front page of this blog.  I find it’s quite good just to drop random thoughts on to — small thoughts I just want to put out there but don’t necessarily have anyone around to say them to.  I know a lot of people who have Twitter accounts — most of my friends are on there — but having connected it to this anonymous blog I can’t really follow them.  That’s a bit of a shame, I’d certainly be able to have more friends, but it’s a choice I made to carry on being able to write this blog without feeling restricted.  If you’d like to add me then please do — @CarregsBlog.  I might, at some stage, add another account as the real me (although all my normal usernames seem to have been taken, so I’ll have to come up with something else), but I’m not really sure what I’d write on that one!

I think that’ll do for now.  I’ve lots more to write about, but at least that gets some of it out of the way.  Sorry I’ve been so useless.  I’ll try harder from now on, at least for a little while, I promise.

And why does she just behave as if it’s perfectly normal?

Am I missing something here?

We were told about it quite a long time ago, and Miss D had spoken to Mr T about him going.  He’d not been very keen on the idea and had initially tried to convince Miss D that she shouldn’t go, simply because he didn’t want to.  Thankfully she stood her ground and said she was going, and that it was up to him if he wanted to.  He agreed to come along after he’d finished work and made his way back from Birmingham.  She offered for him to give both me and Mr P a lift back after the reception.

The evening came around and we went to the reception.  I wasn’t much looking forward to it and had managed to get myself into a bit of a bad mood before the evening got started.  Miss D and I hung around together not doing much until Mr P arrived.  Once he was there things picked up a bit, we sat around and talked as a group.  Miss D and I were getting on very well, at one stage she even leaned on my knee while talking to Mr P (this is unusual — she’s normally very physically disconnected, the few times I’ve tried making friendly contact with her, the way I happily do with my other girly friends, she’s moved away).  About 9.45 Mr T rang Miss D saying he was on his way, he just needed to get changed and set off from his parent’s house about 10 minutes drive away.  An hour later he rang again asking where the hotel was.  There was some confusion while Miss D tried to explain to him how to find the place, but in the end he turned up.  This was about 11.

Mr T got himself a drink, Miss D attached herself to him, and he and Mr P started chatting, and I felt left out.  So I went to talk to other people.  The talking to other people went on a while, but I was starting to get restless.  I’d been working all day and was tired and getting grumpier.  I just wanted to go home.  After a few attempts at trying to speed up the leaving process I stomped off into the garden and sat in the dark on some steps somewhere for a few minutes.  Once I’d wallowed in my own misery for long enough I turned around and headed back.  On the way back in I bumped into Miss D, Mr P and Mr T heading out looking for me.  They’d finished, presumably noticed I was missing, and come to look for me.

So we all crammed into Mr T’s little car and headed off back to the flat.  It was too late for Mr P to get the train back home so he stayed on our floor.  On the way back the conversation turned to politics.  Mr T has some very right wing and often poorly informed views which can at time really get on my nerves.  I decided that, because I wasn’t in the best mood, I’d keep quiet, so I sat in the back of the car biting my lip.  Throughout the journey I was aware that Mr T was occasionally looking at me in the rear-view mirror.  I wasn’t sure if he was trying to get a response out of me with what he was saying, or if he just expected me to say something, but I wasn’t the only one to notice his looks — when I spoke to Mr P about it a little later he said he’d noticed too.

Once we got back to the flat Miss D started fussing about, offering Mr P toast and various other things.  I tried my best to politely get rid of both her and Mr T: “It’s ok, I’m sure we can use the toaster”, “we’re both grown ups, I think we’ll be ok”; but it didn’t work.  They stood there and Mr T started talking again.  He talked for about another half hour while I stood there keeping quiet.  After a while Miss D started saying things like “I think we should leave before Carreg falls asleep”, and everything looked reasonably promising.  Just as they were about to go someone said something unwise about the Ireland and the Euro.  Mr T turned back and started talking again.

I’d had enough.  “Can we talk about this some other time, there’s another 2 hours work of conversation here.”  I can’t remember who said what next, but it was my response that was the problem. “Are you going to stay all night?” “I can if I want.” “Yes, but are you?” Miss D didn’t like that much.  I’m not sure too much thought went into it prior to saying it, but I think perhaps the next move was going to be something like “if you are then I’ll give up pretending to be polite and go to bed”.  They left pretty quickly. It just reached a point I couldn’t hold it in any more.  Mr T annoys me anyway, and the whole evening put together was just too much.  I would have been fine, with a little bitching at Mr P later on, had they gone then, but I just reached the point it was too much.

I know I shouldn’t have done it. I felt bad as soon as they’d gone and I sent Miss D a text saying sorry. I bought her flowers to try to make up for it; we’d been talking earlier in the week and she’d said it would be nice to have flowers around the house more often.  I made sure I wasn’t in when she got back on Sunday, I thought it would be best to leave a little note with the flowers and get back after she did, I thought it would be easiest.  Sunday night was still a bit quiet and awkward.  The same of Monday night.  I tried to talk about just other things, but it didn’t seem to work very well. On Tuesday we talked to each other on Windows Live Messenger and we cleared the air a little (we weren’t in the same room at the time whilst talking on MSN, I’d like to point out!).

One thing which was good to clear up was for me to know that she knows I don’t much like Mr T.  Before that I’d never really been sure if she really knew what I thought.  While she might not really appreciate exactly what I think (although I think she probably does subconsciously, just doesn’t want to really admit it — I’m still holding on to the thought that once her and Mr T are no longer an item she’ll come back and say I was right all along…), it’s kind of good to know she sees the friction between the two of us but can cope with that. As I’ve said before, I’d never win if it came to a choice between me and him.  Rightly or wrongly, that’s just the way it goes.