A Wish list

Well with the winter season coming up and everyone rushing to and fro, buying gifts and preparing for Christmas, I have been asked what would I would like in the line of gifts.

I find it very hard to reply, because in all honesty apart from the very expensive next step life purchases I would like to make, I am quite content with what I have right now.

I have thought carefully about what having possessions means to me and while I feel I have everything I'll ever need, I certainly don't have have everything I'd ever like to have. This is different from actually wanting something, which is a point many of us miss.

My family has a wii and a PlayStation, which no one has used for over a year. I really think its recycling time. But will I experience any resistance, I  hope not. Its time to declutter. Now this may be a source of conflict. Why? Well, Jaye and I love books, that we read and reread. We collect them in huge quantities and have now realised a huge collection, that will eventually fill our wall to wall booklined study.

So what am I wishing for this Christmas season. Well to start off with the old cliche' - world peace! of course, if there was world peace we'd have a little less money spent on the war machine and a little more on building sustainable homes, creating sustainable jobs and producing sustainable energy and food sources.

But being a realist and accepting that world peace will not happen in my lifetime, I have wished for a few more mundane things, this festive season.

1. I wish for equal marriage in Scotland - the catholic church and their big mouthed brigade do NOT speak for me.
2. I wish for homelessness to be totally abolished.
3. I wish for personal currency to increase in value and financial currency to stop.
4. I wish for a cure for autism.(For matthew and Sarah)
5. I wish for a cure for epilepsy (For Me)

Now for the more selfish stuff, so for those of you that know me - take note.....

1. A lie in on Christmas morning with hot coffee and mince pies.
2. Book/DVD/itunes tokens/vouchers
3. A ring Mandrel and UK size gauges
4. A concrete mixer
5. Intraocular lens replacement in both my eyes......

I'll stop there, but anyone can see, I'm not asking for a square meal, warm clothes, or toiletries and socks. So if any of the above are out of your reach think about ethical gift giving.

1. Wateraid - provide running water for a village in Africa/India the far East
2. World Vision - provide some chickens and goats for some poverty stricken villagers so that they can make a living and eat.
3. Cancer Care - Despite all our progress in medical science. the cure still alludes us, think about the folks at Macmillan.
4. Dont forget charity starts at home so if you'd like to make a donation to any homelessness charity please send them a fiver instead of filling my stocking, it really is no loss to me and it means even more to them if youre a taxpayer.
5. Finally a dog is for life, not just for Christmas, so please remember those creatures that cannot speak for themselves.

While I am not asking everyone to shower me with ethical gifts, if every stocking had one ethical gift as a filler, how much more would we be changing the world. I would love to hear that there were one million ethical gifts sold this year. That would be the best gift of all.

To err is human, to forgive is divine....

I have made some mistakes in my life. On some counts it was sheer naivete on others stubborness and yes on one or two occassions I ahve made mistakes as an attempt to get the better of a situation. However, many have said that without making mistakes we cannot grow.

Big life mistake number one: This was a mistake that I didnt understand and thus repeated, because I refused to recognise the underlying issue. I got married - to a man. The consequences of my first marriage continue to haunt me to this day. Some mistakes we make are simply set aside and we can ride off into the sunset and forget about them. Others will remain with us to our dying day. For me this was one of them.

It was only after I was divorced from my first husband that I realised that my marriage had been cultivated on bedrock, - nothing healthy and arable. I had wanted to escape my mother and felt needy in respect of attracting some attention. I was immature and not ready for a lifelong committment. I also did not know what I was committing to.

The first argument we had he pushed backwards very hard off the bed and I banged my head on a wall. He rolled over and went to sleep. After I regained my bearings, I washed the wall and went to sleep in a safer place. FUnnt how the first argument or violent experience is the one one remembers so clearly. Well as my other half has told me countless times, the first time is usually never the last. When something happens and it is ignored/excused or justified, the thin end of the wedge is in and the violence sets in to develop a pattern.

But the pattern had already been set. I just had'nt realised it yet. It had alreadyt been emotionally violent for a while. The forgetting to do things I asked. The forgetting of my birthday and anniversaries. The alcohol abuse leading to failed committments in the home.......

And so I found myself in a ten year marriage that because I was constantly reminded of my own faults, I blamed myself for my discomfort therein. I blamed myself for its failure and only ended it  because I felt that I would never have been good enough to rescue it. He still balmes me for it but thats his problem.

The marriage produced three children. When we separated I took my children into a refuge for battered women and then proceeded to have a nervous breakdown. The children were taken into care and he capitalised on my "mental illness". He has ever since. The children are now teenagers and tells them frequently that I am retarded because I have a history of "mental illness". For what it's worth my mental illness was depression and one in four people suffer from this severely in their lifetime. But then wife beating is recognised as a trigger for depression.

It is not so much the past that is looked at through the tinted glasses of the observer, but rather the present that and its impact on the future that concerns me now. I dont feel guilty that I ended both my marriages to men and as with time, I move further away from them I am astounded at why I didnt do so sooner. I experience guilt when it is apparent that my mistakes have impacted on the lives of others - in my case, my children.

For ten years, I have been involved in the upbringing of my children, without his support. Not a penny in child support. Nada. Zilch. Zero.Sweet Fanny Adams. During those years he has pranced around the war torn world, as a contracted medic, in places where a telephone is yet to be heard of. Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zimbabwe and several other dark corners of Africa. Now while I am not bothered about his choice of work, he has chosen to blame me for the lack of contact with his children. Yet he was always able to contact us and find us. He seems to think that I should not have moved house because I could not have known when or where he would have exited the african jungle. He has told our children that we moved house without telling him, but failed to mention that we were unable to tell him because he was uncontactable. Rather he chooses to suggest that the house move was deliberate in order to cut him off from them.

Despite not paying a penny toward them - and I really mean not a penny.(He has never given up a pack of cigarettes to afford the cost of sending the children a birthday card!) I took my children to South Africa, provided them with a weeks visit and I thought at the time established a civilised rapport with him - mistake within a mistake.

He tries to justify the failure to send a letter or a birthday card with the exchange rate. From where I'm standing a pack of cigarettes is a pack of cigarettes whether you're in Britain or whether you're in South Africa. Sacrificing a pack of smokes to send your kids a birthday card is not a big deal -or is it?

Following the 2006 visit, I really believed that interacting with him was going to get easier, I didnt realise I was setting myself up for more trouble. And the story would be very funny , if it were'nt so tragic. The next few blogs will cover the story, with the relevant facebook quotes and post identifiers (Many have been removed, but the post identifiers show anyone investigating the archive points for these posts) as well as the emails and the tragedy of how anger and malice hurt children just as seriously as physical violence. In this case how children often do not realise the damage being dome to them until long after the fact......

Revenge - deliciously cold

When things go pear shaped for us, quite often we tend to fall into the classic knee jerk reaction. I can honestly say that one of the greatest lessons in life I've learned is to sit back and wait. All good things come to those who wait.

Well I was really the model ex wife. That is until I discovered that my ex mother in law was attempting to or rather should I say succeeding at covertly (and sometimes not so covertly) destroying my attempts at doing business within the Glasgow Jewish community.

Another important lesson that I've learnt in life, and in fact it complements the first one mentioned above quite well, is that half the truth is not the truth at all.

So really getting through tough times is not just about standing back and regrouping, but also assessing your situation for what it really is. I sometimes have to tell myself off for being such an idiot blinding myself by emotional clutter.

When my ex informed my XMIL that we were getting a divorce, she instructed him to "retrieve" my rings. Of course he being the dutiful son did as he was told. Considerable amounts of conflict arose around that ring, but his scheming mother also waited till I was out of town, and she turned up with his "lawyer" and intimidated the woman that was looking after my children as a result of my ex husband having been bailed to his mothers house for assaulting my son. She was rude and aggressive, but then so was the "lawyer" they had hired to muscle them through the door.

Thinking she was achieving something, the vile woman started to take an inventory of things that were in the house and their so called "lawyer" did not see anything wrong with waking up the children and disrupting them in their bedrooms. Breach of the peace or what? They then selected several items and removed them from the house, without my agreement or consent. That was the moment that they changed the rules.

Well I lost my sanity realising the trap they had created, knowing I was 300 miles away and unable to put an immediate stop to this. It really showed how little my mother in law had ever actually cared about my kids. Note; that they remembered her birthday, she has conveniently forgotten theirs during this last year.

I promptly emailed my mother in law the pictures of my ex husband giving head to his male lover that he had met on the internet (I have the emails and wonder whether I might make some money publishing the whole sordid story) as well as the pictures of him engaging in intimate relations with a woman that he and his male lover were paying for sex.

Naturally I involved my solicitor. Everything went quiet. I got my simplified divorce. He insisted on coming around and splitting the spoils of the marriage. He went to town. He wanted the fabulous dinner service and the expensive food processor. I wanted out of the relationship with minimum conflict and conceded.

I got to keep a few nice things and all the rubbish but he did well out of the chattells. But not without a twist.

I was rather annoyed that not only did he take the nicest things, right down to the digital camera, but he had no shame in being so greedy.

I had my first Christmas last year, and the treatment that I received from the Jewish community generally resulted me in turning to my new partner for comfort and I turned my back on Hannukah. We had a great time and decided that a festive occasion deserved all the pomp and ceremony. We started off with prawn cocktail, followed by smoked gammon roast and of course a dairy based ice cream. Yes you guessed it - on the (now very non) kosher dinner service that he coveted and took.

I cannot wait til I bump into his mother at M&S again, just so that Jaye can tell her how fabulous our Christmas dinner looked on the plates she thought she would eat off, may already have done so and certainly wont ever again once she knows what's been on them. That's the closest anyone gets to blatantly serving suckling pig at a Jewish Wedding!

I still however have a heart and since my ex was childless, I did not stop him from having contact with my children. This resulted in us being rather civil to each other and of course me harbouring my little secret about the dinner service.

He then started to make me feel bad about money. Lets clarify a few things here. He was receiving a student allowance of nearly £400 a month and for nearly two years he spent it on himself, while I used our income to pay the bills, feed him and keep a roof over his head. When we parted ways there were several outstanding bills from the marriage. While he enjoyed a comfortable pocket money, I struggled to pay the bills and then he still came back to me asking me to pay for things that he had squandered the allocated money for in the first place, it has subsequently become evident on paying for sex for three in a bed romps that definitely did not include me!

I still helped him out in some situations. But the straw that broke the camels back was when I realised that only half the truth and assumptions from the half truth were resulting in major damage to my business and professional relationships with other people in the Glasgow Jewish community. My XMIL has become adept and passing vague and not so vague comments that naturally develop as they get whispered down the proverbial Chinese telegraph.

Lets get a few things straight.

1. I did not bankrupt him, he was £30000.00 in debt when I met him and he just could never control his spending.
2. He has not lost out on possessions, he actually got the pick of our chattels, particularly our wedding gifts.
3. I was not unfaithful to him, he slept around behind my back for at least four years before the marriage collapsed, using the services of whores and online frustrated housewives on the side too.
4. I did not leave him for another woman. The divorce was happening before Jaye and I became involved.
5. I spent months working on his appeal to get him unexpelled from University for cheating in an exam that I discovered last September he HAD cheated in because I discovered the stolen original exam paper when moving house.
6. He repeatedly lied to his mother because she would criticise everything we did down to the brand of bread we bought.
7. His mother would ask him to help fix a computer problem that "shouldn't have taken more than half an hour" and he landed up spending five hours there on a Sunday afternoon, repeatedly destroying plans for family time together.
8. I didn't make him homeless. He did. He assaulted my son, he argues in self defence, but was nevertheless arrested and told not to return to the house. I placed a trustworthy person to care for them. He could have moved into the house, I would have moved the kids to England if he had only asked but....... he couldn't afford to pay for a big house on his own.
9. I'm still paying for debts that he should share responsibility for, never did and never will.

After self funding my divorce, he now expects me to pay for the religious procedure too. No way Jose'. We're divorced and not financially connected at the hip. I paid for the civil divorce. I don't need a religious divorce. In case anyone hasn't noticed my taste for men has been drained. HE needs the religious divorce and for once in his life he can do something to get what he wants rather than expecting everyone around him to provide it for him. He can pay for it.

But it gets more interesting. You see it turns out that when a Jewish man proposes, the ring has to be his. He has to own it outright. Although it is permissible that ownership can be implied e.g. when using an heirloom, it is accepted that the ring is "owned temporarily" by him and then returned after the ceremony or as agreed by all parties.

My ring was his grandmothers and his grandfather gave it to us.He GAVE it to us. Allegedly. When his mother took the ring, she denied theft stating that it was never mine, and by taking possession of it also made it clear it WAS NEVER his to give away. This means that no exchange of property took place at the ceremony and I would therefore argue that my marriage was null and void! Through all this crap it may well turn out that we never in fact were married!

I can honestly say that I cannot recall my XMIL saying anything particularly nice about anyone, and I have no doubt that the people she talks about, share in her gossip about me. Well fortunately I learned about it all sooner rather than later and they all deserve each other.

The 26th of November is the next big day of my life. I say goodbye to Glasgow's Jewish Community and I start my life anew.

Standing back, telling it like it is and revealing the money grubbing scumbags that liken their rabbis to the Taliban, is revenge enough for me, but I am rewarded with one extra little piece of Shadenfreude, watching my XMIL squirm when the JT and the JC report on a woman's challenge to the actual validity of her marriage and why she is challenging it. There are many ways to skin a cat. And thieves suffer consequences too. Revenge , deliciously cold.

And Now for something completely different........

My children sometimes are embarrassed by me. But then sometimes, they think I'm quite cool. I'm open about my sexuality (obviously) and to some degree other aspects of my lifestyle. I enjoy attending Club Noir. and occasionally turn up at Violate. Then I have certain ideas on saving the planet (I'm a self confessed tree hugger) and also kindness to animals (Peta have some great ideas, but perhaps go about things a bit awkwardly)

Now anyone can pop down to Primark and get a jumper, but those of us that like to stand out shop at places like Osiris and Hellfire from time to time are looking for that something completely different. But the online market is expanding faster than I can type this post and so I am going to share a few of my less orthodox shopping habits with you.

If you like the darker side of dressing then my most recent adventure in online shopping is for you. Yes Angela I'd love to share this with you, everyday that we shared, the way you are, the way you dress, the feelings you share have made me better for who I am, so This post is for you and the friends that influence my ability to say and do what I want!

Home and Away

On Thursday evening, I sent my son to stay with his father's family in South Africa. The decision wasn't taken lightly and it in fact took a year to reach this point. I love my son dearly and I made it clear that he was'nt being sent away, but rather being shared.

Now the sceptics amongst you might say that's euphemistic speech, but I feel that I must clarify. Sharing my fifteen year old son is not like handing over a six month old baby to be baby sat. I had to share the responsibility of raising a boy that has been having a rather rough time of growing up recently. For the last ten years I have essentially done it all on my own. Too many irons on my fire (or should I say teenage children) hampered by a predominnatly female household and a lack of male role models has led to me having to admit that I needed some backup.

His father and I have our differences, but then we share a lot in common too and I have no doubt that I shall watch his dad make the same mistakes as myself but also come up with solutions that I had not thought of. After all isn't that what team work is all about.

I worry about all sorts of things and today had to deal with his school in Glasgow explaining that he would not be returning. There are a lot of unplanned side effects involved in this decision, but in the long run, I believe it is the right one.

We chat or message online almost daily and he so far appears to be relatively happy, the weather being most appealing. I already miss him terribly abd his younger sister misses him too. I wonder if this life experience will teach him to appreciate the relationships that most of us take for granted. I love my boy and hope that he settles in well and gets on with his family in South Africa.

THAT FREEGAN FEELING

Today, Jaye, Sarah and I went out into the woods and in true Freegan spirit collected a huge tub of blackberries. Last year Jaye made a few truly awesome apple pies from the apples that grow wild in the woods. This prompted me to regale my family with the memory of our down and out days when my benefits claim was lost/delayed in the government behemoth and I needed to feed my family. Clearly I was not enough of a needy person despite having three children under the age of eight and no money to feed them with, simply because I did not abuse the DSS clerk sufficiently or would have been difficult to eject from their offices due to inebriation or an unpredictable high. but I digress...

During those hard days, I found a fabulous recipe for nettle soup in my local library and yes also found some apples growing wildly, but I made the deal of a lifetime when every Thursday, I would go to my local greengrocer and relieve him of all the slightly off colour, mishapen fruit and veg left in his shop for the princely sum of a pound. Even twelve years ago that was a fabulous bargain.

After noticing that the Freegans have had substantially more publicity than in the past, I was wondering how many people out there have truly thought of making small adaptations to their lives that in the long run will make a huge difference. Think about this.

This afternoon we went out foraging for food. We collected enough to feed our family of five, walked the dogs, got plenty of excercise, enjoyed a social experience that involved sharing of ourselves and it didnt cost us a penny.

I'm not saying that we should all go digging in Supermarket bins, but if a lot more of us did, even if only to help the needy amongst us, and more of us used our natural environment to sustain ourselves, the'red be less demand on the planet and on the food economy. Therfore there would be more money to spend on less easy to produce items such as clothing and household goods.

But even there is a great way to save. I am a person that uses freecycle religiously. Its become a way of life to many. I am about to set up a business with a huge amount of resources taken from freecycle. The only thing that I will sell that was resourced from freecycle are second hand books and trinkets, with the objective of also supporting charities that our business will contribute to.

I have done some growing of my own veg this year, alhough the patch was neglected while I was abroad and we have some fruit trees planted in the garden, that although producing fruit will really only be viable next year, but from then on provided they are cared for, the residents at our address will enjoy fruits of the earth - Free.

SO before you throw anything away think..... Can someone else use this , Can I use it for something else, can it be f/recycled and does it make a difference?

Making a Stand

Most of you, who pop over to my blog to find out how things are going, simply because I am really bad at writing letters, know that If nothing else Jaye's and my wedding will make a stand against homophobia in South Africa and in particularly against lesbians.

This decision was not consciously made when we decided to go to SA to marry, but rather because South African law allows us the choice whether we marry or enter a civil partnership. We are both committed believers, so making a committment to each other HAS to take place in the eyes of God. The UK ironically denies us that right - South Africa, where legislation affords us that right also ironically cultivates a culture where violence against lesbians is not only considered to be right but in fact many view it as necessary.

So I have to ask a few questions here. As a South African firstly would I be prepared to forgo my personal safety to exercise a right that the country in which I live denies me - The answer is yes, and there are many reasons for this.

Firstly when we stand up to bullies in any situation, quiet supporters in the wings tend to make their views known and bullies tend to realise they often do not represent the majority. Furthermore once the taboo has been thrown out, more closeted people will start to "out" themselves and often these bullies will realise that they probably know, love or care about someone whose sexuality they are bashing and into whom they have driven the fear of death.

I dare compare my experience as a person with Israeli nationality with the realisation that most Palestinians are law abiding, peace loving individuals as the rest of us are and that it is the highly visible, loudest noise makers that appear to represent the majority. I lived in the occupied territories and I depended on an Arab to repair and service my car, another Arab to help clean my home and help out with my baby, and yet another to keep my garden alive since we were effectively living in the desert. These people always wished me happy holidays, shared food and drink and laughed and cried with me and I with them as our lives unfolded. We all understood that we needed to love and live and the conflict within our society was a thorn in the side perpetuated by a minority on both sides that were either ignorant and had nothing better to do or had a lot to gain from keeping the conflict going. I still stand by this premise.

The same applies to homophobia. It is used as a tool to divide and instil fear into communities, to detract from the real issues, such as world hunger, lack of healthcare and basic human needs such as safe homes and clean running water. Gay people love and live too. We enjoy good food and have a sense of humour. We love our children, go to work, pay taxes, worship God. We are labelled as different simply because of whom we have chosen to love. Is it any different from labelling people different and an abomination because they are colour blind or Albino? (Many African countries persecute albinos too!)

When those that persecute homosexual people realise that gays and lesbians, have the same feelings, likes and dislikes and are good people too, then what happens in the bedroom becomes a non issue. Seeing the humanity in gay people is what is going to change homophobic attitudes.

I cannot resist but to refer to the recent uproar about the sentencing and subsequent reprieve of the two gay men in Malawi. If they had of been serial murderers would the king have pardoned them? I think not. Even if there had of been international pressure. But their "crime" didnt hurt anyone so common sense prevailed. I have to ask then why does it take pressure from developed countries to force common sense to prevail, in a country where the emotional health of it's people is part of the key to defeating it's poverty and health needs? If it doesnt hurt people and indeed emotionally fulfills others then, why is it a crime? I just don't get it?