My dog is Dudley, pronounced Dudley - as you should pronounce an 'u'.  Not 'a', not 'oo' but 'uh' as in 'huh'.

My goodness on this other messageboard i belong to, themouthpiece.com, there was had great banter between all us brassbanders!!! These banders from Yorkshire know how to banter!!!

I wirio Codau Post a chyfeiriadau am ddim

I think, BBM, that was an attempt at very bad Welsh

Which we will ignore.

I have a step-grandson aged 18, who is hoping to join the Army shortly.  He came round last night and we had a long talk about it (he's my grandson's half-brother....same mother different father, not related to us at all) and he poured out his feelings on a lot of things.  At the moment he is unemployed and having not worked at school has no qualifications.  I think it would be a really good idea for him to join up for many reasons - the only one I don't like of course is that he might end up being killed somewhere.  Anyway, he's coming round for a meal tonight and we'll talk some more about it.  He wants to go on Wednesday to enlist and would like me to take him along - his own mother being worse than useless.  I shall help in any way I can and it might be the making of him.  Having said that, I'll believe it when I see it.  He's a lot like his mother and neither of them stick at anything for long. 

                           
Or worse, he might end up killing someone, very possibly a civilian or a child. That's what would worry me.

The type that won't stick at anything is very hard to cope with, but there must be something he's good at. I've known people not sort themselves out until much later than 18. Try to persuade him that some sort of qualification is necessary. I know that's probably an uphill struggle, but the economic, materialistic argument might work - he'll always be poor if he doesn't work at something!

That's the big problem Mary. He does something for a couple of months then drops it. Just like his mother.  No staying power.  If he signed up though - he'd have to keep going.  He has no academic qualifications and will never set the world on fire - but he's started a plumbing course, doing gardening, electrical apprenticeship.....stuck at zilch. It's such a new scenario to me because all my family are so motivated and focused and have always been so.

Anyway, he's just left after a good meal and a long discussion and he says we're to go on Wednesday afternoon to sort everything out.  The thing with the army though is they give you all sorts of training options, teach you discipline and the pay would be more or less his to keep because everything is all found. He has nowhere to live and is bumming around dossing on people's floors at the moment.   I daren't have him here because if I make him too comfortable and look after him - he'll never do anything.  I feed and clothe him but I've drawn the line at him moving in.  I looked after him from 10 years old to 15, which is when everything went pear-shaped with the acrimonious divorce, my getting custody of the other child and he was just taking his GCSEs.  He failed them all.

He stayed with my son when his mother left and I took the little one.  However, my son is now in a new relationship and they wanted to make a fresh start.  The boy moved in with his other Nanna - but she is a lot older than I am and can no longer cope.  So here he is, in a mess.  Pointless my trying to get him into other jobs.  I've done it before and he just won't stick with it.  He's a typical teenager and hangs around with all sorts of undesirables that I wouldn't want in my home and that would be a bad influence on the little one.

God I'm peed off! 

Time to take Dudley for a nice long walk to de-stress.