Night out, an unexpected quiz night and some respite

Nice to meet your old school chums and one had driven for about 75 miles to get to us.  Funny bit was he came into the pub and missed us, went to the other pub in the village and then to my house.  I got a call from Mrs. F. saying he was there, where were we?  We were sat, at the bar right next door to the entrance!!!  Three fat geezers with grey hair :-)  He found us on the way back, he had walked through the whole pub and missed the lot of us......

It was a surprise as we normally are just a few at the pub on the 2nd Tuesday but tonight was the local Church Quiz night and so it was rammed and with money going to the local Hospice we joined in and had, as we always due, a great fun evening.  We cam joint 4th on 69 points a full 10 behind the winners but of course, we were all winners.  It seems a very "British" thing to do, having a quiz (trivia) night at the pub.  We enjoyed the laughs and the banter and just having fun with the people there.  It's one of the things we are good at here.  We can make our own entertainment and just have a bundle of laughs doing it.  It's for fun and you can raise some money for charity at the same time, it's what puts the GREAT in to Great Britain.

I was pretty down when I went out but I'm a lot better now that my friends have cheered me up and that's just great.  I'm entering a bad phase, cystoscope coming up, dad dying, me not being "up for" working normally and having to meet idiots all the time.  I find that the stuffing is knocked out of me for no good reason.  As usual when I get into this mood it is me that is the problem and of course it is "my fault" that I've "let everyone down".  This is far from the truth of course and it's a fault of my personality that I can't easily change or do much about.  I'll happily play at "being the victim" whether it is my fault or not.  I lack the real self belief when it comes down to it - I always give the other person the "benefit of the doubt" and I always beat myself up.  It has to be my fault that something didn't happen, my research, my lack of planning and so on.  Of course, it isn't but that's a happy (maybe) place to be?  Beat myself up for some one else's inadequacies?  That's possible too.

At the moment, my dreams are back in beautiful colour and wonderful dialogue too.  Last night I was in Rome and met a young lady who "only needed to count to 5 and know 20 words" to live and work there.  The bizarre arrangements of the Hotel and Conference Centre (for I was there as a delegate) were so strange but then we met up and walked along the river and across the bridges of the Tiber, through to some place more like Brussels and to a Restaurant where, indeed, she needed just a few words to order food and drink.  This was such a strange dream because it was so very real and I woke to still be able to see her blue eyes, freckled blotchy (almost) skin and pretty face.  

I'm just in a strange place at the moment and I have no idea what the dream meant but there were hints of past business life there and perhaps some sort of subliminal message?  I want things to be comfortable, low stress, low maintenance and to be special and meaningful, fulfilling perhaps.  I wanted so much to accomplish great things in my life and to make a difference and maybe that still may happen.  I felt that I'd done as much as I could to make this happen and yet I'm nowhere near that goal and have to perhaps look to accomplishments closer to home.  

Those would be my daughters I think.  I'm in absolute awe of them both.  Here's today's awe moment and I'll blend in one more as I go.  My dad saved up separately to provide his 4 grandchildren with some money when he died.  It isn't a great deal but I'd term it significant for a 22 and (just turned yesterday) 19 year old.  Neither of them were "happy" to get the money at all.  I had to explain that I'd sat down with the Nan and checked the accounts and that she would be OK and that she had enough money for food, fuel and so on :-)  To me, that meant SO much and yet it is perhaps not such a big deal.  The same happened when my mum said that she wanted them to have a "little keepsake" to remember Granddad by.  They didn't want anything as they didn't want Nan to spend any money on them at all.  I could have cried when they said that.  We are only talking about something small, a few tens of pounds.  As Dad never really would have had anything that the girls would have wanted they were just being themselves.

So there you go a bit of a "Ramble on" tonight - too much happening in my life and I'm just not in a great place.  Roll on some more nice dreams though even if I don't understand what they are about.  I hope to start working on my attitude again tomorrow, I need to get out of this self doubt and low self esteem phase - I'm so much better than that.