Arrivederci Roma!

Well, here I am in 2009 and I can barely draw breath I'm that exhausted. I spent a lot of time over Christmas and New Year sobbing my socks off, despite the lovely holiday, as a lot of what has happened finally surfaced and hit me like a speeding train.

I had a fab time with my Mum in London over the weekend of my anniversary although she proved, once again, that her talent for seeking out the most random of random situations is alive and well. She, after getting us stuck in the staff lift, managed to disappear after a bottle of amaretto into a Polish restaurant to inspect the quality of elk meat as well as looking like a contestant in Supermarket Sweep on the trolley dash in Primark on Oxford Street. She also managed to argue with a waitress in Harrods about said waitress' attitude towards the serving of canapes and to get us an upgrade to a suite after charming the pants of Ahmed on the front desk of our hotel. I have a lot to learn from that woman. She even got given an "injured jockeys" calendar on the tube near Bond Street by a wealthy irishman who had taken a shine to her as well as ending up hugging a beautician from Cornwall in a fish restauarant after she had told her my story and it had made the poor woman cry. Me and the Cornish lady's husband just kind of shrugged and ate our dinners whilst my mum and the lady acted like two long lost Jeremy Kyle guests. I also had the delight of seeing my mother on ice skates being told off for eating a Bratwurst she had smuggled onto the ice at the ice rink in the winter wonderland park near speaker's corner off Oxford Street. you have not lived until your mother has been berated by a youth in a fleece for illegal smuggling of smoked German sausagemeat.

However, Christmas was a different matter and I spent a lot of it in tears and feeling very strange. I didn't even get a card off any of ST's friends or family and despite putting on a brave face it stung an awful lot - not just because I'd blown my life savings on feeding the damn lot of them only a year earlier at the ruddy wedding!

ST has texted me recently to say that he misses me and is very lonely but that he doesn't want to come back and never will. That really confused me but, despite the fact my heart would have him back tomorrow, my head (and everyone who knows me) is firmly of the opinion that falling under a bus woudl be too good for that little worm! Needless to say though, it's been a tough few weeks and I'm glad that I'm no longer under pressure to put on a cheery festive face and stare at baubles with tears in my eyes and a wobbly lip. I now just stare at pine needles in my carpet as I seemed to have bought a tree with alopecia this year and I now have a carpet full of needles that i can't seem to shift.

Tom's continued to be lovely. The holiday was amazing and I've included the link to the hotel so you can view the gallery. We stayed in the yellow deluxe room and yes, that was our view! He also told me I could have anything I wanted from Gucci, Prada or Dolce & Gabbana but (I can only blame the cold air here) I declined as he'd already paid for the holiday as well as all of our snowboarding lessons (he's taking me to Switzlerland in February). He's a complete diamond and has even booked me and my teacher mates in for afternoon tea next Saturday at a swanky hotel so we can "de-stress" after the first week back. My mum is utterly in love with him and says she half wants to hug me she's so happy for me and half wants to kill me in a jealous rage as all she gets off my dad is romantic gifts such as a sack trolley and a suitcase. My brother adores him too - not least because Tom bought him a giant remote controlled car for Christmas that my brother is now addicted to driving round the garden that he's meant to be landscaping. He's also listened to all the crap from the entire ST story and cannot believe some of the finer details - he says it makes him love me all the more though that I'm strong enough to come out of the other side of it and I must admit that for the first time in my life I'm seeing what it feels like to be looked after and cared for rather than used and chucked away.

I'm also back at work now and am loving the distraction as I must have been the only teacher over Christmas that would have given anything not to be at home! The kids are all completely over excited though and one day back with them has certainly highlighted the fact that I won't be having much trouble sleeping again.

Anyway, thanks so much to the people who have wished me well, both on here and via e-mail. It's weird but wonderful to think that there are people I have never met who actually care - thank you for keeping me going this year.

Happy 2009 and I'll post again soon if I have anything to report.

Much love
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P.S My top tip for staying in the hotel is to check your shoes before entering Reception. I mistakenly thought everyone was admiring my shoes which I thought strange as they were only from Tesco. They were not. I had trodden on the champagne metal casing from the cork in our room and had it wedged on my heel. The lovely doorman had to tell me discretely but not before I had strutted through the whole bar and lobby. I remain a class act.

Here's our hotel from rome! Go to tour of the hotel, then photo gallery and ours was the room with the yellow sofas which says "deluxe room" in the bottom right of the photo when you've clicked it. It's got a table on the left hand side of the sofa with a tie and a laptop on it.
http://www.romecavalieri.com/