James decided he wants to go back to live with Linda. I really can't quite believe it. That poor boy has just made probably the worst decision he'll ever make.

Trouble is, you can't apply an adult's logic to a child's decision making process, which is what he is, no matter that he's 6 foot 2.

"Children will forgive a lot in a parent," Oona said when I told her about it. And she's right, they will, and I should know that. Still...

Also extremely upset to note that at some point he's nicked £40 out of Simon's xmas money which was hidden in a video box on top of the bookshelf. Not sure when that happened but there's no other explanation.

Simon is very upset, although he seems to be calming down now. I'm also pleased that he didn't really speak to Linda at all when she came to collect James. And Pat left her standing on the doorstep for 20 minutes in the pissing rain while James collected his stuff, hahahaha.

It's been a nice xmas this year, if a little spoiled by a) not having any time off apart from xmas eve and xmas day (i.e. the weekend) and b) not being able to get down to see mum and grandma.

Still, it was relatively stress-free, mainly due to being quite canny this year about shopping online for the vast majority of pressies and doing so early enough to not be panicking in case they didn't turn up or were sent wrongly. (In fact this did happen with one of James's present - I ordered, via Amazon Marketplace, Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory, and when it arrived, they'd sent Meteorea instead. Luckily, he doesn't have either album and was just as happy with that one, but I wasn't impressed by either the mistake, which would have been understandable, nor the vendor's completely ignoring my mails >:-[ Fie on you, market_plus!

Well, the day itself went well, both Simon and James were very happy with their goodies, and despite Pat's protests of "don't bother getting me anything" he was pleased with his Gladiator box set and YSL shirt. (Plus biccies and allsorts and things from the kids.)

But I was the most chuffed I think. I had asked Pat to get me a MP3 player which was compatible with Napster to Go (which are quite a bit more expensive than a run-of-the-mill player) but due to my motherboard and hard drive failing a couple of weeks ago, he'd said to me, look, we're not going to be able to afford it - maybe for your birthday or next Xmas. So I was like, yeah, I know, don't worry, and I'd just forgotten about it.

Well of course he'd only managed to get me one! A beautiful 6gb Rio Carbon which I spent most of last night transferring my tracks onto. w00t! So now I have no excuse not to join a gym in January. Which I desparately need to do since I am rapidly exploding out of my pants :-p

Pat cooked an extremely nice dinner, we decided to have a pork and a beef joint so as to keep everyone happy and give us all a choice. I bullied him into cooking about 4 more vegetables than he'd bargained for, but honestly, if I left it up to him we'd have had peas and carrots and that would be it, unless you count potatoes, which I don't. So we also got sweetcorn, broccoli, roast parsnips and roast onions. Oh, and Pat made a carrot-and-turnip mash, which I would never have thought of, but was actually very nice. As usually happens, we had tons left of some things and ran out of others, but we didn't have too much of an imbalance, and we're not cursing our idiocy today, so that's all good.

Had a pleasantly quiet evening watching Dr Who and then an early night for me due to working today. Bah! I did NOT want to get up this morning, not due to over-indulgence, just all-round "It's dark and cold and my man is still asleep in a warm and cosy bed, it's not far"-ishness.

OK enough rambling, I must go and see if I can scare up some work. There's really nothing doing here at all...

I found out it wasn't my boss making me look an arse... well not on purpose, anyway.

I thought he'd either given me completely the wrong instructions in the first place, or changed his mind about what he wanted after I'd completed a project. However it turns out that it was HIS boss who decided to change the direction.

So now I am just slightly annoyed at my boss because he didn't stand up to his boss and say "Hey no, we've spent a lot of time on this, you can't just change things around without considering the impact" [which is huge and will cause me a shitload of extra work]

But at least he's just being spineless/political and not actively out to stab me in the back.

In other news, we sat down with James and Simon last night and laid it on the line to them about their behaviour, which recently has been FUCKING AWFUL... to the point of Pat feeling very depressed again...

Explained that this was their last chance to make things work and that if we couldn't, then the family will be splitting up. It's THAT serious... James was immediately very contrite and promised to do better and help around the house and walk away when Simon is annoying him instead of escalating the argument.

Simon however was the sticking point. He has still not learned to control his tongue or his temper and seemingly cannot perceive the value in behaving well. Does not seem to understand how his behaviour hurts others. Will not pay attention when being told something serious. He just has no sense of... I'm not sure... conscience?

Anyway we'll have to see how it goes, so far today he managed to earn 24 good behaviour points and then lose them all in one session of door-slamming back-chatting disobedience, soooo....

Since Pat removed the wireless router from being connected to my PC and plugged it straight into the telephone socket, and "upgraded" me by giving me a wireless adapter, I've had nothing but trouble getting connected on my PC.

Up to last night I was able to connect (for some reason) by switching on and connecting Pat's PC, then switching mine on - it was unable to see the network unless Pat's was there. Pat purportedly fixed this last night by fiddling around with various settings. However this morning it appears to be on selective startup and does not even load ZoneAlarm or LAN Monitor, let alone connect. So I apologise for any typos in this entry, as I am using Pat's machine, and am in rather a hurry.

It's James' first day at school today - we thought he was going to be able to start yesterday, but the year 11/12 head phoned me last Friday and said they weren't happy with him starting until they had something formal from Social services as to his legal status with us. Which is a lot more bothered than Social Services themselves were - they didn't even ask to come and see him or for a copy of the letter from Linda or anything. So we were thinking, oh shit, this is gonna drag on for weeks and he's not going to get in there before Xmas, but hallelujah, they obviously were told by the SS that it's all okay, as she called yesterday and said he could start.

He's obviously a bit anxious but I think he's also keen to start as he's aware that this is a critical year for him and he's missing out on meeting potential friends. He asked me to get him up at 7am this morning, but when I went to bed at 1am last night I was disturbed by some talking which sounded awfully like Simon and James. I thought, nah, it's 1am, it must be the telly (of course Pat was still up.) But it carried on, so I got up and went to investigate, and what do I find? Simon had dragged his bedding into James' room and the two of them were wide awake and whispering together! Surprisingly, though, I have managed to wake James up and am going to get Simon up now. So I'd better go and get ready as I'll be taking them both to school at 8.30... I'm on lates this week.

I hardly know where to begin...

Last weekend I took a day's holiday from work on the Friday so that I could drive Simon down to Linda's. I decided to break the journey by stopping over with Mum on Friday night and visiting Moggy on Saturday. She took me to Brighton Pride - it was great fun! Pity I couldn't have a beer but there we go - I had to drive back Saturday as I didn't want to leave Pat on his own for 2 nights in a row. So I trundled back home, making it a 600 mile trip in 2 days.

Now when we sent Simon down to Linda's this time, we had talked it over with him throughly beforehand, having had the experience last time of him wanting to come home within 2 days thanks to Linda's fuckwit husband, Ray. However, Linda assured us that Ray would be working so she would have plenty of time for Simon and there shouldn't be any problems.

It turns out Ray had quit his job last week - he was asked to clean a grillpan out in the kitchen where he was working and refused to do so. (Oh, the indignity!) So on Monday night, I got home from work to find Pat on the phone with Simon, begging and pleading to come home. Ray had got hold of him, twisted his arm up behind his back and thrown him on the bed, he said.

Well, Simon has been known to exaggerate from time to time, as all kids do, so Pat spoke to James, Linda's eldest child (15) to double-check. He confirmed that this had happened, and that Ray has regularly been slapping and punching James since the day he moved in, and the little girl as well. In addition, Linda hadn't fed them all day Monday because "only good boys get to eat in this house." (Stupid bitch! If there's one thing that kicks Simon's attitude off, it's missing a meal! He's like a bear with a sore head when he's angry!) Also, he had been swearing at both of them, calling them little shits and little bastards.

Now we had said to Simon that he would have to knuckle down and behave himself because we couldn't come and get him this time. But this was too much. Pat spoke to Linda and demanded that she bring Simon back up on the train. And also... how we agreed to this I'll never know, but we've also ended up with James. o.O

OK I didn't really want a 15 year old son all of a sudden. But Pat is really the closest thing to a father that James has ever had, and after hearing what's been going on, I cannot in good conscience turn him away. Simon would be constantly fretting and worrying that James was "getting it" from Ray. We had this before, when Ray had first moved in, and Simon came home crying that Ray had been punching James. So we reported this to Linda and she told us Ray had promised not to do it again. But clearly this isn't the case.

I cannot understand Linda! I never will if I live to be a hundred years old! How can anyone allow their children to be mistreated this way? How can anyone say to a child, "Go on then, fuck off and live with someone else, I'm sick of you"? I am so angry at her and that bullying pig that I'd like to take them apart with my bare hands! But I can't because we need to do this properly and without descending to their level.

Anyway, we're going to give it a couple of weeks and see how things go. When the boys got back last night - we went to pick them up from the station at 10.30pm - they were almost speed-rapping, talking about Ray and Linda, they were like survivors of some horrendous disaster who can't stop talking about it. James is obviously on best behaviour as he wants to stay here, but who knows how long that will last? We'll just have to play it by ear.

But oh man... I feel too young to have a 15 year old foster son! *waaaah*