Entry tags:
Update March 2020
Hello, chaps, how are we all doing? This year is going great so far, isn't it – not. And we haven't even reached the Ides of March yet! Sheesh.
It's been a while since I updated, so I can't even remember what I've noted here and what I haven't. I don't even know where to begin!
In fandom news, I am All About The Sci Fi at the moment. In recent months I have completed a Star Trek: TNG marathon, binged The Mandalorian (thanks to![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
galathea_snb), caught up on the latest series of Doctor Who (alas, this era has yet to rise above the level of 'meh', for me, but I live in eternal hope) and am currently following Star Trek: Picard from week to week and absolutely loving it (go watch it, folks!), while eagerly anticipating the final season of Agents of SHIELD later this year. My only foray out of the sci fi realm recently was the second season of Craith on S4C – the English language version, Hidden, is now on iPlayer and well worth checking out.
As for Real Life…well, it's all a bit stressful just at the moment, innit?
First of all, work. As some might recall, over the last few years, my team has repeatedly wavered back and fore between 'short-staffed' and 'critically short-staffed'. For a vanishingly small window of time over the winter, we came perilously close to actually being fully staffed…and then one of our shiny new young receptionists got head-hunted by S4C, and thus normal service resumed.
We are currently even more short-staffed again because one of my team members went to Rome the weekend before last, and has since come down with a cold – she came into work on Monday with the cold…and was promptly sent home for the week as a precaution.
What a thing it is to be in the midst of a global pandemic! Work are taking it very seriously – I am on standby to work from home if need be, and all our meetings have gone virtual. My main concern is for all the vulnerable people I know. That, and the prospect of a travel ban, which may or may not happen, but if it does…
What really, really worries me is the possibility of a travel ban that might prevent the family gathering for my cousin Gareth's wedding next month. A wedding that has already been arranged as quickly and as early as humanly possible, and which cannot be delayed or deferred until later, because there isn't going to be a later, not for them.
That news came through last week. Gareth was diagnosed with lung cancer just before Christmas. Not curable but treatable, was what they said at first. When his mother came down to visit at the New Year, she was very optimistic, but it turns out that optimism was premature. Or possibly just a manifestation of denial. Then last week came the (online) wedding invitations – accompanied by the worst possible news.
And honestly, as soon as I saw the invitation, I knew. It is a terrible thing to be invited to a wedding and have your first reaction be, "Oh crap, that's bad." They have been together for 20 years, never wanted to get married – choosing to do so now is about making a happy memory for their kids, and about making the future a little more secure for them after he is gone, because…
Stage four lung cancer, which has already spread to the brain. The prognosis is terminal – and short. Realistically speaking, the wedding next month is likely to be the last time we in the extended family ever see him. I just hope to God we are allowed to travel to be there. Not just the family here, scattered across the UK, but there is also Gareth's brother, who lives in Japan and is currently scrambling all his efforts to get his whole family over for the wedding…if only they are allowed, by then.
It is just all really sad and really stressful.
Gareth turned 50 less than a fortnight before his diagnosis. He's got three kids. Thirteen, eleven and six. It is going to hit them like a freight train. His partner is being a tower of strength, bless her, but she is crushed, and it is only going to get worse.
So, that's my main real-life update: mostly doom and gloom, I'm afraid.
In slightly brighter news, however, my sister and her husband have now had the children living with them for six months and have finally been given the go ahead to apply for an adoption order, hooray! There have been all kinds of ups and downs over the last six months, inevitably. The children's social worker has been extremely rubbish, for the most part, having only just taken over the case as they began introductions, so she not only doesn't really know the children (who associate her 100% with being moved) but also has no experience of working with adoption, and she has made the whole process about fifty times more difficult than it needed to be. Also, all through the winter D was dogged by a woman in town who kept latching onto her whenever she went out with the children, shouting things like, "Those aren't your children," and "I know who those children are, you've stolen them," etc – which was not only distressing for D and the kids, but also highly alarming, because it looked as if their location had been disclosed to the birth family. D&R were on the point of requesting an early transfer to get away from the area. The police got involved and took it all very seriously, recording it first as a harassment offence and then upgrading it to a public order offence. They tracked the woman down – and it turns out she has no connection with the birth family whatsoever. She has dementia, keeps giving her carers the slip, and thinks Miss E is her great-granddaughter (they look very alike, apparently), which is why she thought the children had been stolen.
D&G are still planning to request an early transfer, once the adoption is finalised.
Never a dull moment!
We had a weekend up in Yorkshire at the end of January for Miss E's 3rd birthday, which went swimmingly apart from me being violently ill after spending the day at a farm park! We are due to all meet up again in West Wales just after Easter, encompassing Little G's 2nd birthday…as long as there are no pandemic-related travel bans in place by then!
The rest of the family are all okay. Little Sis is back in college and lives most of the week with a friend in Barry. She still talks about stepping up to take over the parenting of L-M 'when she is ready' but shows no sign of understanding what that actually means. In the meantime, we carry on as we have been – L-M lives with my parents during the week and with me at weekends. How long we can carry on like that remains to be seen. She is a bright, lively four-year-old and my parents are 70. I work full time and can't afford a second bedroom to put her in. So that is all quite worrying, as well. For now, though, we plod along as we are.
And right now, I am looking forward to spring, whatever it may bring. A spot of sunshine would be nice, after all the storms and floods in recent weeks!
It's been a while since I updated, so I can't even remember what I've noted here and what I haven't. I don't even know where to begin!
In fandom news, I am All About The Sci Fi at the moment. In recent months I have completed a Star Trek: TNG marathon, binged The Mandalorian (thanks to
galathea_snb), caught up on the latest series of Doctor Who (alas, this era has yet to rise above the level of 'meh', for me, but I live in eternal hope) and am currently following Star Trek: Picard from week to week and absolutely loving it (go watch it, folks!), while eagerly anticipating the final season of Agents of SHIELD later this year. My only foray out of the sci fi realm recently was the second season of Craith on S4C – the English language version, Hidden, is now on iPlayer and well worth checking out.As for Real Life…well, it's all a bit stressful just at the moment, innit?
First of all, work. As some might recall, over the last few years, my team has repeatedly wavered back and fore between 'short-staffed' and 'critically short-staffed'. For a vanishingly small window of time over the winter, we came perilously close to actually being fully staffed…and then one of our shiny new young receptionists got head-hunted by S4C, and thus normal service resumed.
We are currently even more short-staffed again because one of my team members went to Rome the weekend before last, and has since come down with a cold – she came into work on Monday with the cold…and was promptly sent home for the week as a precaution.
What a thing it is to be in the midst of a global pandemic! Work are taking it very seriously – I am on standby to work from home if need be, and all our meetings have gone virtual. My main concern is for all the vulnerable people I know. That, and the prospect of a travel ban, which may or may not happen, but if it does…
What really, really worries me is the possibility of a travel ban that might prevent the family gathering for my cousin Gareth's wedding next month. A wedding that has already been arranged as quickly and as early as humanly possible, and which cannot be delayed or deferred until later, because there isn't going to be a later, not for them.
That news came through last week. Gareth was diagnosed with lung cancer just before Christmas. Not curable but treatable, was what they said at first. When his mother came down to visit at the New Year, she was very optimistic, but it turns out that optimism was premature. Or possibly just a manifestation of denial. Then last week came the (online) wedding invitations – accompanied by the worst possible news.
And honestly, as soon as I saw the invitation, I knew. It is a terrible thing to be invited to a wedding and have your first reaction be, "Oh crap, that's bad." They have been together for 20 years, never wanted to get married – choosing to do so now is about making a happy memory for their kids, and about making the future a little more secure for them after he is gone, because…
Stage four lung cancer, which has already spread to the brain. The prognosis is terminal – and short. Realistically speaking, the wedding next month is likely to be the last time we in the extended family ever see him. I just hope to God we are allowed to travel to be there. Not just the family here, scattered across the UK, but there is also Gareth's brother, who lives in Japan and is currently scrambling all his efforts to get his whole family over for the wedding…if only they are allowed, by then.
It is just all really sad and really stressful.
Gareth turned 50 less than a fortnight before his diagnosis. He's got three kids. Thirteen, eleven and six. It is going to hit them like a freight train. His partner is being a tower of strength, bless her, but she is crushed, and it is only going to get worse.
So, that's my main real-life update: mostly doom and gloom, I'm afraid.
In slightly brighter news, however, my sister and her husband have now had the children living with them for six months and have finally been given the go ahead to apply for an adoption order, hooray! There have been all kinds of ups and downs over the last six months, inevitably. The children's social worker has been extremely rubbish, for the most part, having only just taken over the case as they began introductions, so she not only doesn't really know the children (who associate her 100% with being moved) but also has no experience of working with adoption, and she has made the whole process about fifty times more difficult than it needed to be. Also, all through the winter D was dogged by a woman in town who kept latching onto her whenever she went out with the children, shouting things like, "Those aren't your children," and "I know who those children are, you've stolen them," etc – which was not only distressing for D and the kids, but also highly alarming, because it looked as if their location had been disclosed to the birth family. D&R were on the point of requesting an early transfer to get away from the area. The police got involved and took it all very seriously, recording it first as a harassment offence and then upgrading it to a public order offence. They tracked the woman down – and it turns out she has no connection with the birth family whatsoever. She has dementia, keeps giving her carers the slip, and thinks Miss E is her great-granddaughter (they look very alike, apparently), which is why she thought the children had been stolen.
D&G are still planning to request an early transfer, once the adoption is finalised.
Never a dull moment!
We had a weekend up in Yorkshire at the end of January for Miss E's 3rd birthday, which went swimmingly apart from me being violently ill after spending the day at a farm park! We are due to all meet up again in West Wales just after Easter, encompassing Little G's 2nd birthday…as long as there are no pandemic-related travel bans in place by then!
The rest of the family are all okay. Little Sis is back in college and lives most of the week with a friend in Barry. She still talks about stepping up to take over the parenting of L-M 'when she is ready' but shows no sign of understanding what that actually means. In the meantime, we carry on as we have been – L-M lives with my parents during the week and with me at weekends. How long we can carry on like that remains to be seen. She is a bright, lively four-year-old and my parents are 70. I work full time and can't afford a second bedroom to put her in. So that is all quite worrying, as well. For now, though, we plod along as we are.
And right now, I am looking forward to spring, whatever it may bring. A spot of sunshine would be nice, after all the storms and floods in recent weeks!
no subject
6 months has gone very quickly.
no subject
no subject
no subject