The One Where I Meet Annie

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{Just want to say all the books I feature in my entries are ones that I’m enjoying/have enjoyed and would recommend although the fact remains that ‘a good book’ is still a very personal thing and obviously depends what you’re into.}

So.  The annulment.  I bit the bullet and wrote to the Deacon of the Diocese asking for the discrepancies in dates to be corrected and explaining how concerned I was at the overall view of the marriage as portrayed by Boyd and received a very nice phone call back to say the dates had now been corrected and it still wasn’t too late to have an interview if I wanted.  I said (in a nice way) I was not prepared to travel to Glasgow to which he replied he could arrange for someone in Aberdeen to interview me but there was no rush – it would probably be a month before someone contacted me so there was plenty of time to change my mind if necessary.

We left it at that but I figured it would be far worse if Boyd and Bev were to find this out from them than from me because as far as they were concerned, I wasn’t getting involved in the process so I e-mailed Boyd.  Well that set the cat among the pigeons right enough ……

He can’t understand why I’ve changed my mind when I said I wanted nothing to do with it and the outcome doesn’t affect me anyway and did I know how much it had cost them so far and why the hell did they have to travel to Glasgow when I don’t and he hopes that doesn’t get added to their bill and did I realise he went through hell in that interview and don’t I think Bev is entitled to worship whichever religion she wants and DON’T call him a liar and so on and so on.

I think it’s fair to say he’s not a happy bunny!

What really bothers me though is:

(a) that he can apparently ‘go through hell’ in a 2 and a half hour interview discussing our marriage in great detail 3 years after we’ve divorced so that Bev can be a full member of a church he doesn’t believe in yet he couldn’t sit through a 50 minute session of counselling discussing our marriage in a much gentler way while we were still in it to try and save it.

(b) He’s going through a process that he’s hating and doesn’t believe in for the sake of someone’s religion when he’s always been against religion of any kind and is a confirmed aetheist.

(c) I worked bloody hard to keep that separation amicable when it happened because we both agreed we didn’t want it ever to reach the court stage or have 2 lawyers talking to each other instead of us and now this organisation comes along and starts digging it all up again causing friction between us because of their stupid rules.

If anything would put me off a religion that would.

On the health front, the sertraline has got the heave-ho.  Out of 80 days and 2 different doses, I had 25 slightly better ones, 46 absolutely miserable ones and 10 half and half so the doc and I concluded that that was an abysmal record by anyone’s standards and has suggested trying another one, citalopram.  This will be the fifth one I have tried over the years and each time the side effects have been just horrible – the common side effects of citalopram look to be similar to sertraline so I’m not looking forward to that by any means but I’ll give them a go.  If it doesn’t work I’m not trying another one because it’s exhausting and I hate the ‘obliterated’ feeling they give me – I feel like I’ve gone AWOL somewhere and have zero energy – by teatime I’m fit for nothing but lying on the bed reading.

Mind you one good thing about that is that I’ve got through a lot of reading material and also renewed my severed relationship with the main library.  It’s nice to see a pile of 10 books by the bed again and get through most of them before the month is out although I’m glad there’s a limit on the number you can borrow because I think I would stagger home with a mountain otherwise!

And I’m very happy to report that the 5th August was one of my better days which I was sincerely glad about because it meant I was able to meet the lovely Annie (alias Ainetheon) for a couple of hours while she was at the start of her well-deserved holiday from her new job.  We arranged to meet at Mains of Drum Garden Centre for lunch, fairly near where she had camped the night before – all went smoothly – I recognised her straight away as she did me and we hugged, delighted to meet at last.  At the car I was introduced to Millie who wasn’t the slightest bit interested in me and quite comfy sprawled on the back seat, not moving for anyone!

Here’s a pic of the Centre:

We made our way up to the restaurant chatting away and settled on a lovely bowl of lentil soup and bread plus a delicious cracknel cake which I’d never tasted before all finished off with an elegent cup of Earl Grey tea while we yapped away quite comfortably as if we’d known each other for ages – don’t you just love it when that happens?  We had a lot in common and shared many similar thoughts and opinions but she was also very easy to talk to and the time passed quickly. After we were finished, she suggested popping back out to check on Millie so as it was a nice day, we took her for a walk round the grounds.

On our travels we came across a gardener hard at work.  I asked him what a certain plant was called and that turned out to be us for the next 20 minutes as he told us all about the rest of the plants, what worked and what didn’t, how the trees had been dying this summer because of their location and the weather, how the pond got there, where the stone thistles came from (China!) and how badly signposted the place was! Then he got onto his dogs (2 boxers) and their hilarious antics which kept him going for another 10 minutes but actually he was really funny and kept us entertained until we became aware of the time and I had to scoot off. It was just so nice to talk to someone who enjoyed their job so much – he’d been doing it for years and it was obviously a vocation to him – lovely to see.

Annie and I parted just after that – unfortunately I had to meet Nikki back in Aberdeen for a hospital appointment she had (I was babysitting Lily) so couldn’t stay longer but I really enjoyed meeting her and hope she’s having a whale of a time with Millie on her travels as I type!

Here she is looking relaxed in holiday mode.

And the children – big and small (Nikki, Joel and Lily) -are at this moment also relaxing but over in Spain – and as far as I know everyone is still alive!  (It was a dubious point on Sunday when everyone was departing for Edinburgh to stay overnight for an early flight on Monday morning – stressfest didn’t cover it ……)

Here’s Lily having her first meal in Spain – and isn’t that a cool alternative to a high chair?

She’s now standing (as long as she’s got something to hold onto) – pulling herself along furniture and attempting drunken walks holding onto willing hands above.  I’ll try and get some photos up sometime – my phone is bursting with pics but as all my evening activities have been suspended for so long I’m way behind with everything (here included) so desperately need to catch up.

Here she is trying out the villa’s pool – I think we like it!!

I’m missing that cute wee face this week.