So the good news is that we got our visa- Yay!

I cannot write here how relieved I was when I opened the courier package to find my visa right in front of me, I cannot express how happy I am now that I know I can spend the rest of my life with Jen!

These things are huge. The last seven months have been heavy going for both of us so we are both immensely happy about the outcome.

But- We still have some more waiting to do! We still have to wait for me to sell my boat until I can jump on a plane & properly celebrate with Jen! How long that’s gonna take is out of our hands. The visa expires in mid-April, I cannot fucking wait that long to see Jen, honestly! But what can I do- I may have to put the boat on Ebay for 99p then live off of Jen til I get a job! No, seriously, the sooner I sell the boat the sooner we can get on with our lives but until then we have to do what me & Jen are so good at– Waiting!!

Last Saturday my sister held a family dinner/get together to say goodbye to me kind of thing! Which turned out to be a surprise party with all my mates, family & even a DJ! I was so impressed by this, I was buzzing! this went on til about five in the morning. It was a great night….

Apart from: (and here’s the bad news!)

When a few of my mates decided to leave to go home they were greeted outside by some of the hood-rats that live on my sisters’ estate- You know, the kind that don’t work, hang around, give grief to anyone that so much as makes eye contact with them? To the point that they tried to mug one of my mates for money & his phone! We heard the commotion & all piled outside to support our friends, only to be confronted by these two youths who had hardly started shaving, threatening us that we’re all gonna get stabbed or done by shotguns for being in ‘their yard’.

Please? I think they both had ’small-man syndrome’ or some shit. They then noticed me & said that when they see me on the estate later that they are gonna stab me! At first in my head I laughed at this but as time went on I couldn’t help but think that that could happen. You only have to look in the papers to see the number of people being stabbed on our streets for the slightest of reasons. I’m more exposed than any of the people they threatened, I don’t drive- I do have to walk through the estate day to day. Plus I have to walk the dogs when I get home from work- If they wanted to do anything to any one of us I would be the prime target.

All of this got me thinking about stuff, about mortality, about what it would mean to me in my life right now to be stabbed by one of these little scum-bags & end up dying as a result!

When I was going though the darkest days of my life, when I was surrounded by depression, when I thought about suicide on a daily basis I remember thinking that I really wouldn’t mind dying- I couldn’t take the plunge myself by taking my own life. Not because I was scared of dying but because I was scared it would go wrong, wouldn’t work & then I’d be in even more pain, which kind of defeats the object really! But amongst all this I couldn’t help but notice how very little I cared for this life. When I think about this same question now in my life the differences are huge! I have so much to live for now, I climbed out of the hole I was in & got my shit together! But above all of that I have a woman in my life that has enriched it in ways I felt were impossible, I have never felt this content in my life ever. So when these little scum-bags threaten to take what I have away from me, things that are worth so much, well it kind of brings things home for me!

I’ve had tears in my eyes writing this whole blog- I never want to lose what I’ve got because this shit doesn’t come around all that much!