Another year older…

May the fourth be with you and happy 38th birthday to me. It’s been a manic few weeks and the blogging has taken a back seat. So what’s going on? Let’s start with the headaches.

55 weeks without a boss!! There are major changes at work, so am hoping something will be resolved. Have decided that having a work-life balance is more important than working all hours. Frankly, I’m bored of constantly fire fighting, arguing with senior managers about why things haven’t been completed or why I’ve had to extend deadlines. I’ve generally been quite forthright in my opinions and stubborn about timelines and how I do things. As long as I get paid each month, that’s all that matters. It likely I’ll be changing roles as well once I have a boss in place. I’ll be trying hard to get a pay rise out of this. All things considered at least 20%!

The biggest headache is the ex-wife. There’s still no agreement with regards to the Boy. We’ve been to mediation where I thought we were making progress. She agreed that the Boy needs to see his Dad more often and that it’s not fair to him that there are eight days between seeing me. I proposed that a 2-2-3 over two weeks arrangement would be best for the Boy. He’s gets to see both parents regularly and the time between seeing each parent is three days maximum. The ex-wife said that too much change would be confusing, but given the seven-day week, you need to have it on a rolling two-week basis. At the end of the two-hour mediation session, we were asked to consider the idea and come up with other proposals. A week later, we returned to the mediator to resume the negotiations. The ex-wife presented her proposals. They were completely different to what was discussed the previous week and what I already said I would agree to. It was totally a waste of time. I challenged her on why she dismissed my proposal. ‘It’s too confusing for me’ was the answer. FFS. I continued challenging her that that answer isn’t in the Boy’s best interests and you know that I would not agree to this. Her response was to pack her stuff. start crying and walk out. The English family law states that couples need to go through mediation before launching court action. So I got the certificate, paid over £500 mediation costs and instructed the solicitor to launch proceeding against her. I got the court date through the back end of lat week, 8th June. Thanks to quirks of the English law system, I now need to get a barrister to represent me in the court. The solicitor has given me a recommendation so I’ll go with them. It’s frustrating it’s come to this. The next thing will be the divorce. After the ex-wife got solicitors involved, I’ve decided to retract the offer of giving her the house. There’s around £30-40k of equity in the house and given that I only took my clothes, Clash posters, PS3, TV, office chair, drill, NAS Drive and the Nespresso coffee machine, there’s at least £10-20k worth of furniture and various other things I am entitled to half of. Realistically, £15-20k is what I am targetting. Given I’ve spent over £2500 on legal fees, this year so far and had to completely furnish a new apartment at a cost of around £5000, my credit cards are looking rather beaten!

There’s probably more things that are causing me headaches, but these are the main ones. What about the good things in life?

The Boy loves his Daddy and enjoys every minute he spends with me! He’s developing into a wonderful little character. He’s no trouble at all, keep him watered, fed and amused and everything is good! He like his sleep, when staying with us, the very lovely Miss B and I, he sleeps for at least 12 hours! The lazy beast did have 14 hours one night after a busy day! He loves going swimming, wondering around the part and being pushed in his pushchair around the city. The Boy has got his Dad’s taste for Ribena! He drinks loads of the stuff in his beaker with a straw!

I’ve got back into jogging again. The weather is still rubbish, but as I live in the north-west of England, it’s to be expected! I’ve started running 5kms every Monday and Thursday evening. Still not at last year’s pace, but getting there! On Saturday, Miss B was at work, the Boy was with the ex-wife, so I was home alone. I decided to go for a run after doing some household chores. I had a couple of routes planned in my head and decided that I would aim for distance rather than time, so I targeted 7-8kms. The run was going well at a steady pace of about 6.50mins per KM, enjoying the run, listening to music and letting my thoughts wonder. In the end, I ran 10.5km in 70 minutes. Pleased with that. As today is a public holiday in the UK and my birthday, I’ve given myself the evening off from running! I’ll be back out again on Thursday night to cover around 6-8kms.

Regular readers will know how Miss B and I got together. We are still all very loved up, living together and enjoying life! Our relationship is absolutely wonderful and I feel human again. We always make time for each other and it feels like I am part of an equal team. We do things to help each other out and we really do compliment each other. We’ve spent the day chilling out on the sofa, suffering from minor hangovers, chatting, laughing, relaxing doing our own thing. It’s been a great birthday! As I said, we are still very much loved up and enjoying each other company and looking after each other. Miss B has been a wonderful support through this stressful time. We’ve been living together from over fours months and we haven’t argued once! We might have the occasional grizzle, but nothing serious. It wonderful waking up next to her, seeing she is awake and getting her lovely, gorgeous smile!

Tune of the day: Utah Saints – Something Good f/ Kate Bush (Original Version 1992)

P.