All bottled up...

...is exactly how I've been feeling lately.

After about a month of zero blog-drive coming from within I've been hit by this massive need to start writing again. So all day, every single frikkin' day, I've been mentally writing posts. Unfortunately the reality of life at the moment is that I quite often just don't have the time to come home and write down what I've been thinking all day. Yes... my life is THAT busy.

Of course, now there's a back log of mental notes (although technically my brain dumps it's memory every 2 days or so to save on resources) and if I started to try and put them all down at once it would just end up a messy, unstructured, text. Much like this entire history of this space really. However, in the interestes of change I'm not going to do that.

Life at the moment is pretty good. After 3 years of waiting for a fantastic woman to finish university and come join me in the UK (and having my friends quietly shake their heads behind my back in sympathy) it would seem I made the correct choices. Things with Natalie are great, and pretty much exactly how I pictured they would be. Sure, we have our strained bits ever now and again but we both seem to be able to quietly deal with them, without words being said. I tend to think that in any relationship most 'discussions' (as my parents used to call their spats) start when one partner is stressed out by an event/situation completely outside of the relationship, and the trick is to realise this and not verbally retaliate to anything that is said in the moment. Sometimes things are just better not said.

The only bit of real stress we seem to be taking is from the fucking UK National Insurances' take on health care and contraception. In South Africa the contraceptive pill is available over the counter. Which is right, damnit. In the UK you need a prescription. WTF?! Of course, to get a prescription you need to see a doctor. But you can't book a appointment to see one. Instead you have take a day off work and call surgery to see if they can fit you in that day. They start taking calls at 08:30. Can you imagine being a receptionist in a doctors surgery at 08:30 in the morning? On my advice Natalie started calling at 07:45 to make sure that she got an appointment. By 08:30 no one had picked up so she walked over to the surgery itself (it's next door to us) and got in as they unlocked the door. Guess what... too late to get an appointment. All I have to say on this matter is... thank FUCK that in the 3 years I've been here I've not had to see a doctor. I may have shot someone through frustration. Actually right now, even though it's Nat who's having to deal with this, I'm pissed off enough to go over there and ask what the hell I would do if I was actually sick?! Take a week off and hope to get lucky 1 in 5 days and get an appointment to see a GP?

Of course this experience has had another effect of me too. When I first came over to the UK I, like all other Antipodean I would think, immediately noticed the MASSIVE number of teenage mothers in this country. I thought it was a disgusting and direct indication of the state of parenting and education here... not to mention this crazy scheme where teenage mothers are given flats and incomes for doing fuck all besides getting knocked up. I now tend to think that a large part of the problem is just that it's nigh on impossible to get any form of contraception besides condoms in this country... and lets face it... they're not the greatest form of protection for people in stable relationships. I'm not going to go into their downsides, it's messy, but suffice to say that if it's STD's and STI's that you're looking to protect against then they're great. If that's not your concern then they're damn nasty.

Enough about that though. Hopefully when the Natster gets back all of this will have been resolved (after an extended wait to see a GP at a family planning clinic which only opens at 18:30 on Fridays - which is EXACTLY when 20-something professionals want to be sorting out their contraception I guess). Fuckit people, it's Friday for God's sake! Their are pubs to go to. Anyways.

So earlier this week I was driving along en-route to a call and I noticed a car for sale. Proudly displayed on the rear windshield was a note proclaiming that both previous owners had been 'ladies'. Whether it was true is not important, but that statement is a favourite amongst private car sellers. I think it's designed to make you think that the car in question has never been recklessly driven, or taken to the red line. Well maybe that's what YOU think when you see that sign. What I think is this: The oil level has never been checked and the car has probably been close to bone-dry for a while now. The radiator water has never been checked. The distilled water in the battery is probably about gone and therefore the battery is probably fucked. The tires are either over or under inflated and thus probably don't have half the life they should have in them. And for the UK, the chassis has NEVER been cleaned, is completely caked with grit-salt, and is liable to rust away beneath you.

That's what I think. Now I know there are going to be some pretty mad women out their right now so let me set the record straight. I sure that there are some of you that do in fact know that your car needs water (in the radiator AND the battery), and who do check their tire pressure regularly. But understand this... I have seen, with mine own eye's, a woman attempt to top up her tires using water instead of air. Believe.