Spot the birdie!

I've overdosed on birds and birdsong this last week and now I'll be happy to enjoy them without needing to identify everything that I pass. Identification of birds, flowers, moths and butterflies is interesting, it has it's place, but that place is not every half-mile of Hadrian's Wall :-)

I received a phone call from the company that organised our trip, and we agreed an amount that will be refunded for their mistakes. It'll go into my account, and that's where it'll stay until Steve gives me my jacket, sunhat and spare waterbottle back... and possibly after that!

I called round to his place to collect my belongings. He was definitely in, but didn't answer either the front or back door, or his phone. I left him a pre-prepared note and then I turned mobile data on and an email came through from him. After four paras of utterly insulting codswallop the final one said that he'd put my stuff over my gate when he'd got time. I wasn't to contact him in any way ever again. Good grief, as if!

P.S. this Steve problem has reminded me of this blip.

P.P.S. I'm adding this because I imagine that some of you are wondering why on earth I've walked across the country with this deranged man?

In 2015 our relationship began romantically, or I believed so at least, but over the course of a year it slowly and insidiously changed with Steve becoming more and more critical and, yes, controlling. Unless it's happened to you, it's hard to understand why I didn't just get out of it, but it's not that easy. It confused me, I didn't know why I wasn't myself any more, I'd try to have conversations about our relationship but it didn't help. Eventually he said he'd had enough and we split on bad terms.

I didn't understand what or why and it niggled me, so much so and for so long on and off, that when we bumped into each other last year and decided to go for a walk, I saw it as an opportunity to lay it to rest in my mind. We had a discussion, he apologised, I accepted the apology and we began to do outdoorsy stuff together again.

Because I'd gone back to being myself, if you understand what I mean, and was no longer pliable (and there was no love/sex involved), there began to be friction between us. I wanted to walk Hadrian's Wall and he asked if he could join me. Unfortunately I said yes and we booked in January. After we went climbing in Spain I ought to have insisted that we cancel the Wall walk, but I'm the eternal optimist and thought it would be ok. Hmm.