Oooh LC how beautiful dont worry about the drive thats tomorrow, have a really fantastic weekend
Starting thats awful about your xh , I think although there is plenty of distance between you and his current activities there is a sense of humiliation that you were once married to him and that he is the father of your dc. Approaching a friend of yours and the dc is beyond belief though. It will pass and just thank your lucky stars that you are shot of him and as you say dont let him mess with your head.
Tea and Starting hats off for doing college courses with such young dc 
WQ glad everything is going so well, thought long distance friend wasnt boyfriend material ?
Patience sorry you sound like you are having a bad day, I hope you have something really nice and pampering lined up for your dc free time tomorrow
Tea sorry about H's job falling through , hopefully if he pulls his finger out he can pick up some Christmas related job to get you over this period ? It really helps me stick to my serenity with xh when I read how you communicate with your xh, I dont know if you realise how fantastic you are on that score.
So I spoke to him about dd not wanting to go to his place and kept my tone warm and calm which was quite a feat given a couple of things he said 
. He was describing how when she gets in the car she is unresponsive and sullen and he told me "she lacks any communication skills or social grace ". So I explained to him that maybe there was a message in that for him and maybe she still has resentment issues that at 11 she struggles to articulate and at home and school she is a pleasure and outgoing etc so the behaviour he was describing was confined to him alone. The problem is she feels left out compared to ds who is older and has generally dealt with our split more stoically. Also he and xh share a lot of interests like football and cars and a lot of time they are with him is spent on football either ds's ,xh's or matchs on TV.
I encouraged her to tell him how she was feeling on Wednesday so this news wasnt totally out of the blue for him. She told me they had spoken and he had said he was aware of this and had said they would go away together just the 2 of them. So I said there you are you see Dad is interested in how you feel and she turned round and said Yeah but hes all mouth 
. What could I say xh does make a lot of promises he doesnt keep.
Anyway I told him all this and that I thought having ow and her son there wasnt helping because dd feels even further down the pecking order. I also told him that ds talks about him all the time but dd never mentions him at all which he was silent at.
So in Dumpling style I told him I would do whatever I could to help and just advised him to do things to make her feel special. I reminded him that at my end I was ,as ever, maintaining his dignity and doing all I can to make his relationship with them strong. I hope he was listening to that because that was and remains the hardest thing to keep up !
So I am hoping dd will settle back down into going happily for her sake and also because gettingeasier has grown to enjoy her ds free time 
Have to go am off to look at a couple of houses , not really hopeful but atm there appear to be about 23 houses for sale in *** !! Hopefully the market will revive in January.
Waves to all