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In 1990 I met a man.

I was 15 (but-16-in-nine-days).

He was 23.

we looked quite a lot like these two...

I fell in love.

So did he.

‘Tomorrow’ was our song…

Will you be there beside me
If the world falls apart?
And will all of our moments
Remain in your heart?
Will you be there to guide me
All the way through? I wonder will you?
Walk by my side, and follow my dreams.
And bear with my pride, as strong as it seems.
Will you be there tomorrow?
Will you be there beside me
As time goes on by?
And be there to hold me
Whenever I cry?
Will you be there to guide me
All the way through? I wonder will you?

In 1992, 5 days after my 18th birthday, we got married.

and we looked quite a lot like these two...

And Twenty years later, here we are.

I still fall in love with him every time he makes me laugh. Which is a lot.

Of course, I throw things at him too these days. Hey ho.

I look back at the lyrics of that cheesy old 80′s rock song which will randomly pop up on the iTunes and still make us grin goofily at each other and I think… yes. A quiet, happy, confident, loud YES. You did all those things actually.

Our ‘Tomorrow’ has been pretty bloody good so far, thanks.

(And for every single one of you who’s reading this with no clue what the song is, you can hear it in all its loveliness below. Along with a smattering of Joey Tempest and his truly glorious hair)

I just cheated a bit for LittleStuff’s Blog Hop – created a new post, but plopped it waa-a-ay back into 2005, where it needed to be (Yes, I’m still that shonky at back-filling the past. I’ll get there one day, honest).
But if you wanted to go take a look at what The Three looked like back in 2005, it’s here.

It really was the most precious of times. The 3yr old Boy had been…horrible. For months. Honestly. He was awkward, angry and utterly unbendable. And mostly at C. At some point, somewhere, C had committed some cardinal error. We never did find out what it was that he had done. And Boy went from hero-worshipping his Daddy to outright resenting his presence in the house.
But if Boy wanted Juice, daddy was not allowed to get it. If Boy was walking along the road, he would rather step in front of a tractor than hold C’s hand. If he was wet and freezing on a beach in February, he’d rather get hypothermia than let daddy carry him.
It was so bloody HARD. For so long. I tried to stay out of it, thinking Boy would have to relent eventually. It was the worst feeling just watching C try so very hard to make things right – and never getting through. And every single rejection slicing him like a knife.
I dealt with Boys tantrums and rages and general hideous toddler-ness. But never the implacable coldness that C got.
It wasn’t all miserable – there were lots and lots of fun happy times too. Honest. But every single day was marred by anger and fury.
And so little spontaneous affection from him. I have one oh-so-precious memory of a voluntary, out of the blue “I Love You” from a 3yr old Boy. Just one.
But slowly, in 2005, he began to thaw. C kept up his stealth campaign of unrelenting love and gentle affection. And gradually we watched our mixed up Boy gradually unfurl the beautiful, gentle, sensitive inside he’d kept so tightly hidden for so long.
Then, in the August, we went away to Pembrokeshire. And suddenly, there we were. No work, no pressure, no requirements on our days. Just we five.
And Boy finally realised that here, in this mountain of a man, was a soul mate. A man who loved him passionately. A man who protected him fiercely. A man who made him laugh all day long. A man to carry him when he was tired. To cuddle him when he was hurt. To buy him ChipShopChips for the third night running just because its what he likes best in the world. And Boy finally fell in love with his Daddy again.
They’ve not really been parted since.

The picture still hangs on our wall. And still makes us smile.

Look what c just brought home.

Or rather – WHO C just brought home.

We had no clue – he surprised the whole family. I cannot believe he kept this a secret for TWO MONTHS!

*happy*

(by the way, her name is Blue. And yes she’ s Rottweiler. And utterly, wonderfully, calmly, sweetly perfect.)

Blue meets Pink. Mutual love at first sight.

Harogebulls Queen Zena. Of course.

Better known as Blue.

Discovering there's an OUTSIDE. Which is a bit scary.

Okay.

So.

Don’t know where to start really…
No.1 has his SATS next week – school has decided to go ahead with them (and that’s a WHOLE other post), so it has been revision, revision, revision for weeks. Practice papers, homework and stress stress stress. NOT good for my boy, he’s been deteriorating rapidly since the oh-so-perfect easter holidays, and last night was final bloody straw. Sobbing in my arms at 11 at night, desperate for sleep, hurting from head to foot, and for the first time ever he wailed

“it’s not FAIR! Why ME? I just want to be normal, and for it all to just GO AWAY.”

Broke my heart, and felt like wailing and sobbing alongside him.

Utterly impotent to help beyond sympathy. Stress comes out physically in the form of pain with him, of course, and he puts himself under so much pressure. He didn’t get into the high school he wanted, we were refused again on appeal (appeals were last week – what a bloody stress that was, didn’t even have the energy to tell you all about it), and he took it a bit personally, so he’s desperate to do well in his SATS to ‘show’ people. Pre-illnes he was a predicted 5A across the board (highest he could get, national average is 4C I think). When he came back to school he was re-targeted as low 4′s, and having missed nearly a whole academic year and had no friggin help whatsoever from the LEA he has climbed back up to an expected 5C, possibly higher. And no matter how much we tell him how proud we are of him and how we couldn’t care two bat shits abot the SATS, he hears so much at school about results and the impact of them that he’s talked himself into the fact that if he doesn’t get at least 5B’s he’s failed himself. FFS. Wanted to rip his bloody teachers head from his shoulders last night. If I’d had his mobile number I would have rung him and had him listen to what the school has done. No.1′s not the only one – the whole class is looking white and drawn. Is such a crapfest, and I wish No.1 would choose not to go in and do the bloody things.
Have kept him home today, and am lavishing him with cuddles and chat.

Alongside that going on in the house, we are restructuring C’s entire bloody company. You know how these things snowball – disaffection with our web host/designers has gone from having a contractor optimise the site, to having him build a new one, to me building a new wedding blog (now done), a new pregnancy site (finished next week), researching all sorts of stuff we’ve been paying for over the last 7 years and finding that actually we’ve been taken for mugs and spent  THOUSANDS of pounds needlessly. Makes me so angry.
Have fired accountants too, who similarly overcharged, and at the same time got so much stuff wrong, and again cost us even more.
It’s so easy just to keep doing what you always have, believing it works without checking. The design company were cutting edge 10 years ago – but haven’t changed since, and of course the internet has changed a lot in that time. On the up side, the new site is going to be everything C has ever wanted, at a fraction of the price. The downside is the sheer bloody volume of work involved.

Oh, and LS is snowballing faster than K and I can’t keep up with it. She’s got the builders in and is knee-deep in house renovation and moving out for a while, I’ve got all this stuff for C, and LS is snapping and snarling at the tight leash cos it just wants to take off and run.

But I did manage to have a period last week (timed to coincide with schools appeal and Big Meeting with No.1′s teacher – perfect, eh?) and not only did I not take any anti-bleed drugs, but i managed to use tampax instead of industrial strength wadding. So I’m thinking the thyroid drugs are finally having an effect.

There’s probably a gazillion other things, but that’s enough for now!