Well I am so looking forward to Friday 1.30pm as that is when I finish work for the Christmas break and it can’t come soon enough.

Up until last year I have always worked between Christmas and New Year, but last year the company took the decision to close. After finding out when we came back that it had no adverse effect on business it is now the norm… yippee!!

They are very good about it too. Friday pm, at my own choice I have took as annual leave, Mon & Tues are Bank Hols, Weds the company have given us an extra day’s leave and Thurs & Fri you can take either as 2 flexi’s or annual leave or one of each!!

I have managed to build my time up to take them both as flexi’s, so from lunchtime fri...

So I stood outside the shop trying to see if I could see anyone familiar through the window... nothing.

Do I go in? do I stand here a bit longer hoping I might spot someone? Or do I walk away and maybe regret not taking the plunge in the future?

Well the decision was made for me when my then hubby decided he would take the lead and go in and I just followed.

It was quite a large shop, to the right of the door was the newspaper part of the shop and to the left was like a stationary section and straight ahead were a small flight of stairs leading to the little book section.

I looked round the paper and stationary section but saw no-one familiar... "Oh no" I thought maybe I've come...

A couple of months ago I blogged about the break up of my parents marriage and the aftermath that followed....

Well it is about 23 years ago since that happened and I have only ever seen my dad once since that day when I gave him back the xmas money in his shop..

I know my dad moved away from harrogate sometime after that incident but not sure how long after and the only time I ever heard anything about him was when we went to see my Aunt Mary.

She was a lifetime friend of the family but I grew up calling her Aunty. I loved visiting Aunty Mary as she lived in a massive cottage (which is unusual) in the middle of nowhere...literally, as her house sat right inbetween 2 signs. one saying you were entering...

Why do we get our knickers in such a twist when someone deducts karma?? Strange how it's annoyed me that they've deducted it just for saying that I used to swim with Duncan Goodhew in the well known thread!!

To be honest though what annoys me the most is the fact that the saddo didn't leave their name but managed to leave quite an offensive message.. along the lines of me doing something to duncan if I was a male... get my drift??

Anyway I know it might be a bit sad to let it annoy me like that but hey I'm quite fond of my karma

Rant over

After reading Marg's blog about the "perfect" Christmas reminds me of so many people that I have to deal with in my normal working life...

As a support officer in housing I deal mostly with the vulnerable members of our society. Now the word vulnerable covers such a mixture of people from the undesirables right through to the forgotten elderly and the messed up youth.

I have dealt with some really heart rending experiences especially round this time of year mostly involving young children and social services which because of the nature of the situations I am unable to go into detail on here..

Some of the houses I have gone to you wouldn't allow a pig to live in, some of these are due to complete...