Sad start to the year

The year ended with a difficult two days and so starts off with a largely negative tone. Two days ago, Linda and Emma were booked into a Spa for a "mother-daughter" day while I had a day of study planned. Just after they had left, they phoned to say the windscreen on the car had broken and they were coming home - would I take them to their spa day? Well of course I did do, though it took nearly four hours and largely wiped out my own plans for the day. Still, on going to get them in the evening there was a beautiful crescent moon just below Venus. Almost made it worthwhile just to see that.
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After making them a nice tea, I went outside for a couple of hours trying to take some pictures of stars. This was not a great success as I couldn't find the camera tripod and had to use the telescope one instead. But one of two test pictures came out ok. When I do find the tripod, I should be able to get some nicer pictures.


A 30s test shot of the Orion region, with Sirius in the lower left


And how Orion looks photographed properly (not by me!)


I somewhat naively assumed that they would both be grateful for what I had done and so, the next day, as I did some study in the morning, I had thought I would be left undisturbed. Sadly that was not the case and I was repeatedly interrupted. When I pointed out that I was working and would they mind not disturbing me, they both got really annoyed, basically saying that what I was doing was unimportant compared to whatever the pressing matter was that they needed to bother me with - such is the life of the mature student!

But things continued to deteriorate throughout the rest of the day. Back from dropping Emma at the station for her trip to a party in London, I was settled in the lounge reading my newest secondhand book - the quite gorgeous Panorama of the Renaissance, £5 - and watching Sour Angelica which I had saved to our new Sky+ box. Linda sat down next to me for a few minutes and then announced she was going to ring her mum and dad. I had assumed she would go and do this elsewhere but no, instead she stays put - her only comment to me being to turn the sound down while she is on the phone. A continuation of the contempt with which I seem to be held these days

Later I cooked us a really nice meal. Salmon parcels with salmon flakes and a mustard dressing followed by fillet steak and a cream and whiskey source. Mid way through the main course, a huge outpouring of rage and anger from Linda about all manner of things - so a somewhat subdued end of the year.

Such little examples, of such little importance in and of themselves, across just a couple of days are clearly a symptom of the many problems at the moment. I suspect the time is fast approaching when some sort of drastic action will have to occur and I am beginning to ponder on life going forward on a very different basis. So sad that after 20 years together it is all falling apart. And such a surprise to me that the last two years have turned out so badly when I had thought they could have been two of our best years.

So much to think about again . . . .