I’m looking forward to some time off work to do lots of things I’ve been putting off in order to do them over the break. Numerous people have also said we should get together over the break. Then I thought – it’s only two weeks – I can see it disappearing in no time without having achieved half of what I had intended.

It’s difficult to concentrate at work, particularly with some rare blue sky and sunshine outside. I should mow the other half of the lawn when I get home but also need to drop by the doc’s to get a repeat prescription – ho hum.

With all that I have planned I’m hoping no-one does invite me out of town and that daughter doesn’t want to go to Wellington.

I haven’t done anything in the least bit Christmassy. No tree, no decorations, no shopping for presents. I’m thinking of getting an artificial tree for the first time. Pine branches are such a hassle and the ones on sale are so pathetic and droopy. I also seem to have developed a bit of an allergy – itchiness where the needles touch. For the past few years they haven’t even had that wonderful pine smell I remember so well from childhood. BUT, where to get a good looking artificial tree which doesn’t cost the earth? Sigh.

Watching the clock, so bored am I.

Still tired. Neighbours had a party Saturday night and departing party-goers were yelling their heads off as they left at about 3am, waking me up. Cat did his usual 5am wake-up call. Early this morning he miaowed once – at 4am, but it was enough to wake me up, as did the heavy downpours.

Today the sun is shining but the wind is still cold.

The weekend was reasonable. Older daughter came up Thursday night and stayed two nights, taking younger daughter’s rejected boyfriend with her to Wellington on Saturday so he could catch the ferry back down south on Sunday. He gave me a big hug and I fought back tears.

The upside will be that I’ll spend less on food and electricity. But I’ll miss conversations with him. He’s about the only Kiwi male that I’ve actually been able to talk to on a wide range of issues. He’s an intelligent lad. Daughter has lost a good one there. I wonder what new boyfriend is like – she doesn’t talk about him even to me. Perhaps she suspects I won’t like him.

Sunday I drove to a friend’s place to do some belly dancing. I’ve been feeling rather unmotivated when it comes to belly dancing lately. I’ve missed a few classes, including the last one, and was rather pissed off at the dance party held in a Wanganui restaurant the weekend before:

Our group was supposed to get up and dance – we were asked to bring costumes specifically. After the dinner a few dancers got up including a group of 8 who did three dances. We were all dressed and ready but our teacher decided (without telling us) that we weren’t doing it because the music had already been played twice (one of which was totally unrecognisable). I was not impressed so didn’t go to the last class. I felt it had been a wasted trip and the food hadn’t been cheap. Actually it wasn’t so much that we didn’t dance but the way it was handled – our teacher said one minute we were dancing, the next to get ready and up until the last second she mumbled about the CD, until finally she said we weren’t going to do it because of the repetition. Whatever.

So, Sunday practising with a friend to a DVD (along with some wine) was rather pleasant. It got me enthused again and I went home and listened to some middle-eastern music and even bought a CD online at cdbaby.com. I’ll just have to play more music and practise different moves.

This afternoon at work is a struggle. I can barely keep my eyes open and just can’t concentrate. I wish I were home.

Things are a little easier at home. Daughter has started talking to J and not being so abrupt. J’s mother is going to put some money into his account so he can go home to the South Island for a few weeks. He intends returning to PN to flat with friends when he can get some money.

The washing machine has been repaired (yay) and I took the lawnmower in to see what can be done. I can’t afford a brand new one no matter how much I hate the current one. The element on the stove seems to be behaving itself (weird). So, crossed fingers, things seem to be improving.

Update on the game: trekked over to another citadel within the Ghostfence (actually it was a dwarven ruin) and it was much easier to get to and to find. The ash vampire was on the lower level and wasn’t too difficult to get rid of. I think he was the one I got the magical hammer off (another aid to destroying the big evil dude). The next ash vampire, unlike the rest, did not live within the Ghostfence. He was on the west coast of the island south east of a village called Gnisis. That wasn’t too far away or too difficult terrain, thankfully. He lived in an underground labyrinth so it took a while to find him. He was supposed to be the most powerful of the ash vampires, difficult to kill. He wasn’t much of a challenge for my character so it looks like getting rid of the main evil dude won’t be too much hassle. I magicked back to the base at the Ghostgate and saved the game ready for the onslaught on the seventh ash vampire and the main dude.

Not far off actually finishing the game. BUT, the game has two expansions, the extra territory of which I’ve only tentatively explored. Once I’ve finished the main quest on Morrowind, I can head over to the icy island of Solstheim for more missions and quests. Heh.

So, I had 7 ash vampires to kill before tackling the big evil lord below the volcano. I prepared myself by training in blunt weapons and grabbing a few spells and potions. Then the long trek to the spooky Ghostgate and marking the Redoran hostel as my base. It took a while to find the first one – the back entrance to a citadel I’d been before but from the north. Finally I found it and opened the door to find the first ash vampire with his back to me. Couldn’t have been simpler. The second happened to be on my way back and this was also fairly straightforward. I rested at the base before embarking on the next difficult-to-get-to citadel.

It was just as well I have powers of levitation so I could fly over a mountainous bit to join a long path which double-backed on itself for the third ash vampire. Luckily these ash vampires seem to hang around the surface and not in the depths of each place. He was also fairly easy to kill. I now had three magical items looted from the bodies. The fourth ash vampire was on the way back from the third. I knew the weapon I was after (a weapon essential for the destruction of the evil lord) was in the tower so I made my way there once inside. The room was locked but my character can get into any locked place. Suddenly the weapon was there before me. I hadn’t encountered any beasts or vampires. So I double-backed and headed for a main doorway opposite the entrance. I spotted a creature lurking to the right, sneaked up to him and started fighting. To my surprise it was the ash vampire I’d come to kill. I retrieved another magical object from his body and magicked back to the base.

Four down, three to go. So far, so good.

I expected to be enjoying some warmer weather, some more time spent outside, tidying the garden, winding down for the year and looking forward to some time off work, Christmas at my brother’s, New Year’s eve somewhere, etc etc.

Instead I shiver with cold, feel depressed about the expensive things needing doing and extremely saddened about my daughter’s break-up.  Her boyfriend has lived with us for 1 1/2 years and he’d become part of the family.  He’s spent Christmas with the rest of us at my brother’s place, been there several times and joined in the games of Siedler (aka Settlers of Catan), been part of the foursome of my two daughters and their live-in boyfriends.

And my daughter goes and dumps him.  It came as a huge shock to both of us.  It feels very weird being the mother of a dumper.  He has no money, no job (he’s been searching and is starting a course at polytech next year) and has nowhere to go (family lives in the South Island).  So at the moment he’s still living here and I see his pain and re-live my own so many years ago.  At least he talks to me and can share his feelings – he’s a rare male that can.  What came as the crushing blow was for him to find out she’s been seeing someone else.  Even I didn’t know that.  She hasn’t spoken to me about it at all and that hurts as well.  Even now she continues to use the excuse that she’s staying the night at a girl friend’s house when her (ex) boyfriend and I know she’s highly likely to be spending the night with the new guy.  It’s upsetting to say the least.

I needed someone to talk to and hoped a friend would be online but no-one is, of course, so here I am.  In a short while I’ll have breakfast and head off to a hardware store to get some supplies.  Hoping J (the live-in ex boyfriend) will come with me but he’s catching up on sleep – he hasn’t had much lately.  It’s not pleasant seeing my daughter ignoring him or hearing how cold and callous she’s being to him.  She’s her father’s daughter in that respect.

I wonder if meditation will work?  I need to get back into looking after my inner self.  It’s been floundering in darkness lately.

I’ve been playing Morrowind lately – a computer game that I used to play a couple of years ago. I even blogged about my progress in the game back then.

It was a good time to re-start it as it takes my mind off home and family issues which are just bringing me down. Oh for the escape routes of books and games. What would I do without them?

I hadn’t got back into Morrowind for a while because I’d forgotten what I was up to. I had achieved the top level in just about every set of quests or missions. I just had Temple missions and the main storyline to finish. I finally figured out what I had to do next and re-started the main mission. I then discovered that I could not complete the Temple mission if I continued with the main mission (as I become an enemy of the temple). However, the next temple mission was very difficult and time-consuming so I figured I’d forget about it and spend the time on the main storyline to complete the whole game – something I’ve never managed to do – actually complete a videogame. (I’m sure it must sound very weird that a woman of my age is interested in videogames – I just haven’t grown up!)

I haven’t taken any screenshots of my progress so far, but it has involved a lot of time trekking through desert, traipsing through islands and across water, to battle nasties and retrieve objects. Last night I came home to an empty house so I went further in the game, convincing leaders of tribal groups and elven lords that I’m the hero come to rescue the land from evil nasties living beneath the central volcano – all very fascinating (you might not think). I had the most difficult fight to date in the game with a particularly nasty elven lord who lived atop a tree-like structure surrounded by heavies. I magicked myself out of there as soon as most of them were killed (including the main guy) before my health dropped to zero. Phew. Next comes the long trek back to the main tribal wise woman who will guide me on the next mission.

I had some non-game-related thing to add but have now forgotten. Perhaps an update later, when I remember.

Feeling mightily depressed. It’s not just the constant rain and cold, which is bad enough. I look forward to some warmer weather and sun at this time of year and it’s just not happening. We get one day of sun followed by a week of cold and wet.

Got the car’s brakes fixed yesterday – close to $300.

Had yet another dental appointment this morning for a small filling – another $160 (for 20 minutes’ work).

The washing machine needs fixing.

The (fairly new) stove has an element which is malfunctioning.

The “sunroom” has a leaky roof.

Just love that all these things come at once towards the end of the year when businesses are beginning to close.

If all the above were not enough, younger daughter is breaking up with live-in boyfriend so the atmosphere at home is anything but congenial.

Off to have lunch and try and cheer myself up. I have no fiction to read so I doubt I’ll feel any better.

I actually watched TV last night and wasted a few hours. A movie was on – “Man on Fire”. I started watching it and thought it might be good because Denzel Washington usually does an ok job. I had doubts when I realised it was yet another helpless-kid/woman-gets-kidnapped storyline, this time, of course, set in Mexico among toothless brown people. But naturally the Mexican rich guy had a white American wife and a precocious white daughter. The white wife liked Denzel’s bodyguard character because he was “American” unlike the useless Mexican bodyguards, presumably. (Don’t ya just love the insidious racism in yank movies?) Then the next half hour or more was all about the bodyguard bonding with the cute kid before the inevitable kidnapping. All that could have been wiped – all the mush and sentimentality that yanks are so good at with the soppy music. Oh please. Just get on with it. Then the rest of the movie was about the bodyguard being ruthless and unnecessarily violent. Incredible how yanks can mix mush and violence so casually.

I gave up to watch “e.r.” on the other channel but even that had mushy meaningless musical interludes. It seems I can’t watch American shit anymore – I just can’t stand it. After “e.r.” had finished I flicked back to the movie (overlong with numerous ad breaks) and again gave up, at about 11pm (the movie had started at 8.30 but still looked like it had another half hour to go.) What a complete waste of time.

Back to reading books and playing Sims 2, I think.

I’ve realised that I’ve been moaning a bit lately – particularly yesterday. I’ve moaned about the new work website, the proposed work function for Christmas, blogging, biscuits produced by Griffins, and probably other smaller things. I blame the weather – I’m so very fed up with grey skies and cold winds. It’s the worst spring I can remember. We seem to have a couple of days of sun and then it’s back to the gloom. It’s extremely depressing.

I’m also not getting adequate sleep, I don’t think. The older cat had an annoying habit of miaowing loudly at 5am. He seems to have shut up now that we’ve locked him out of the main part of the house. But now the younger cat, who looks so cute on my bed when I’m ready for sleep and so is left there, is waking up at 5am wanting to go outside. I’ll have to chuck her out as well.

Then there’s my waking up about 4am, roasting. It’s either the new bed or hot flushes. I had a couple of hot flushes in the old bed but woke up sweating. When I’m waking up these days I’m not sweating just very hot. The trouble is, it’s cold when I go to bed so I wear layers and then get overheated. I’m wondering if the top layer of the bed is nylon – it was a cheap bed (all I could afford). I wish warmer weather would hurry up. I’m so sick of it all.

I’m feeling rather glum and nothing is cheering me up. To add to the annoyances, daughter’s father won’t cough up for her car oil leak to be fixed but tells her to drive to Wellington to get a cousin’s husband to have a look at it. Just great.

I can’t concentrate on work this morning. Had a gutsful of the whole working year.

I’ve been feeling a bit disgruntled about the work-related blog lately. Only three out of seven of us post regularly. Originally there were five of us then we opened it up to more people to get more posts. But the result is not more posts at all. One of the new people has taken over as a regular poster and the others still don’t really bother. The blog’s been up for 27 weeks. Of those weeks, one has posted 29 times, I’ve posted 26 times, another 19, the remaining 2 of the original 5 have posted 12 times and 10 times each. Of the newbies, they’ve posted 11 and 3 times each. I’m just a little fed up really.

So, we’ve decided we’re going to change the blog to a free-for-all instead of an allotted day each. Good luck with that, I say. Let’s see if any posts at all go up apart from one person who will blog every day quite happily. I’ll watch with interest…