Hora, will you haunt me please? Sounds awesome. Keep yer pants on though please…

This is the funniest thread ever. My kid sister, when she was little, used to talk about when she was a big girl called Wendy. She's called Sarah.
Once copped off with a big girl called Wendy, couldn't bring myself to nail a big fat girl that could easily be either a ghost, or my sister's preincarnation.
[shudders]

I should have added, I'm not really the best person to be giving romantic advice, so take my comments with the pinch of salt they deserve! :-)

Commercial clap trap. Refuse to celebrate it unless your SO is of a religious bent and a big fan of the Saint Valentine story/myth/fairytail (delete as appropriate).

Oh man, I'm not even going to go into the laundry backet incident when she mixed up my darks, whites and brights!

Are you some sort of stalker Angela?

Looking at the timings of the posts, you didn't by any chance leave that one on screen for your girlfriend to see did you

My ex wife cancelled our wedding 6.5 years ago. We split up for around 6 months. I took full advantage of my single status and that liaison was during that time.

Thanks Kat. I'm sure she gets the concept, but I suspect most of us in our thirties were a lot less secure about that sort of thing when we were in our early/mid twenties.

Zaskar, she's made it abundently clear that she really regrets what happened and she knows that my actions don't warrant the bad rap I'm getting from her family. She wants to repair the damage, so I'm quite sure she's not going to go to the cops.
In terms of any future incidents, I'm quite sure that if there was an action replay, I'd finish things before they got that far.
Woody, the original argument centred around my friendship with another woman. She's been a close friend and colleague for many years, throughout my marriage, and she's just got engaged. I've tried to reassure S that this woman in not on my radar sexually, and that if she had been, I'd have done something about it long, long ago.
I guess that's probably an age thing – she can't understand how I can have a 100% platonic friendship with a woman, and she feels threatened.
I can empathise to a certain extent, and maybe I'll have to be a bit more careful about that sort of thing, but I've been having more dealings with this woman lately because she's hired me to do some work for the company she works for.

I wasn't really referring to my advice…I really don't care what you do.

Perhaps it would have been better not to say anything then Angela. It came across as quite belittling.

I can see how the conversation would go with her family when you had to drag her out your house. It would be easy for that conversation to morph into "you roughing her up" without her really intending to say that to them.

That's kind of what she said to me earlier today. We spoke on the phone. I get the impression she painted herself into a corner when angry and can't find a way out. We've all done stuff like that, and I have to try and think what it must be like being 24 years old and being with someone who has had a life and marriage with someone else.

And you're right, they are all a bit nuts. Aren't they Angela? ;o)

SO…in true STW style…you come on here with a problem, ask for advice…people spend 5 minutes of their lives thinking about your problem and adding a response, and then you ignore it.

That's a little uncalled for, there are several pieces of conflicting advice – I can't take all of them! If you're offended that I've chosen advice from other people rather than you, perhaps you're a bit unhinged!
I've said several times that I'm grateful for people taking time to share their experiences, and I'm sure most of it is good advice in its own way. But it's very easy for a stranger to tell me to turn my back on the woman I love because she *may* accuse me of rape or boil my rabbit.
Muddyfox Courier's advice sounded like the most sensible to me – if she's worth it, work at it. Albeit with caution. At least that way I'll never look back and regret letting her go over one unfortunate incident.
Thanks again for sparing your time, all comments were useful.

I said this above, but again, you need time to get your head together.

I know, but I can't walk away without knowing I tried it without the additional pressure of my divorce.
To paraphrase the great philosopher Biffy Clyro, I'll take a bruise, I know she's worth it…

Alpin, you don't need pictures. All you need to know is that she's a perfect 10 in my eyes. Mad as a box of frogs, but funny as hell and absolutely beautiful. Just hope we can get it back on track.

I don't blame the sister for being protective, but knowing the way she is, I think she's poured petrol on the situation while my girlfriend (S) was wound up and has played a part in blowing this out of all proportion.

The ringing up shouting the odds at me, threatening me with the cops etc, that wasn't what S wanted. And whilst S had calmed down by morning, the sis has kept adding to the problem – understandably, I might add. The fact that she told me she was "going to make sure S pressed charges" makes me think that S was probably trying to downplay things by morning, but sis wanted to make sure it wasn't downplayed.

Anyway, I'm gonna make a nice meal, have a quiet night in with a film and ride my bike tomorrow. No wine either! Then I'm going to arrange to meet her in a week or two with a view to working out how we might be able to salvage this. I think we need to make a deal that the events of Tuesday night aren't mentioned again, but that she needs to completely understand why what happened did happen, so at least she can perhaps start trying to convince her family that I'm basically a good bloke.

And Munqe-Chick, don't worry – first sign of trouble again and I'll be out of there!

Thanks everyone, for taking time to offer me your advice, and thanks for only taking the piss out of the fact that I own a slightly damaged clothes maiden. I live in a flat! Where the hell am I supposed to dry my clothes?!?

To add to my problems, I'm now morbidly hung over. :o(

I think I know good advice when I hear it, and I'm sorry Munque Chick, I feel your hardline approach is a little too harsh. I can't just switch off, walk away, change my number, change the locks. She made a huge error of judgment in the heat of the moment and the consequences are killing her.

Trying to step back and play devil's advocate to my own situation, I can pretty much see how events panned out. When I tried to drag her out of the flat, she's ended up with a bruised arm. It's just where I held onto her arm, but I did hurt her none the less. I'm really not proud of that, even though it was pretty unavoidable.

She's gone home, and her sister (big Jeremy Kyle fan!!!) has lapped it up and no doubt fanned the flames. She rang me the following morning saying she was going to make sure her sister pressed charges! Now the dust has settled, my girlfriend has tried to tell her that what happened was her fault, and not as bad as she painted it, but the sis isn't prepared to listen and has told the rest of her family.

That's why I'm so gutted – a silly, repairable situation has mushroomed into this huge drama, and now it's going to be practically impossible to move forward because the sister isn't going to want me in their house and her family won't approve of her seeing me.

I prefer Muddyfoxcourier's slightly more pragmatic approach to this. I love her because she's so passionate, lively, vivacious, absolutely stunningly beautiful… Maybe I'm gonna have to accept that you have to take a bit of rough with the smooth – 'passionate' has a flip side. I wasted a lot of my life with a completely unpassionate, soulless person, I wouldn't want to go back to that for a gold clock!

I agree that I need to be mindful of the fact that this sort of behaviour can repeat itself and has the potential to escalate, so I'm not going to just welcome her back with open arms and tell her to forget about it!

So here's my plan at the moment. I'm going to stay away from her for a few days/weeks, long enough for her to try to put her family straight and long enough for her to really understand how much damage she's done. If she can convince her family that I'm not some sort of Chris Brown, I'm thinking we could try starting from scratch, but only after my divorce is finalised at the end of next month.

I think we need to rebuild from the ground up, without the pressure of my divorce, and see if we can get past her insecurities. I'm hoping that if she knows I'm prepared to do this, to overcome the family obstacle, maybe she'll see how important she is to me and it might help reassure her. Obviously, if it fails, I'll know it's a no-hoper, but I think we deserve another shot at it. If there is the slightest hint that the pattern is repeating itself, I'll know to jump ship straight away and follow Munque-Chick's advice.

The prize is an amazing girl that I love to bits, the risk is a bit more heartache a few months from now. I think that's a gamble worth taking.

TJ, I know you've recommended this sort of thing before, is it something you have experience of? Do you think it would help in a 'young' relationship like mine? I'm all for making the effort if it might help…

There's no rationing of time Edukator. We spend most of every weekend together – she works every other saturday – and I'd normally see her once or twice during the week. I don't know how I can make her feel more sucure, I've tried really hard.

She really is the most beautiful and lovely person I've ever met (false assault allegations aside!!!!!) and I don't so much as look at other women when I'm with her. But she still sees every woman I know as a threat, in spite of the fact that I've known most of them for years, and if I was going to make a play for them, or vice versa, it would have happened long before now.

I fully accept that I was an arse over the situation that led to this row. I fully accept the fact that I scared her when I dragged her out. And I understand how she's gone home, fired up, angry and hurt and her sympathetic sister (with whom she lives) has been all to eager to hear what a bastard I am.

I know it was avoidable, and maybe we're not right together. I'm just gutted that what she's done means it's almost impossible for us to ever have another chance. I love her to bits and I feel so sorry for her, cos she knows that her actions have had these consequences. And I know that things would have got far better after the pressure of the divorce had been lifted from both of us.

:o(

Can't just switch off.

Angela, I don't mean to sound patronising. I think I worded that badly. She lives 50 miles away, when we're together, things are so perfect it's unreal. But during the week, when we're aprt, she seems to start stewing over thing, cooking stuff up in her head. Then it all goes wrong and we end up having a row on the phone.

My reaction – bear in mind that I'm of the opinion that while I'm going through a very messy divorce, I don't need any more hassle – is usually to end the conversation and knob off on my bike. Not because I'm indifferent, it's because we talked about her issues and she admitted that she has a short fuse, and if she parked it for 24 hrs, she would usually realise it was a storm in a tea cup.

But she's done this a couple of times now, when I've asked her to stay out of my way for a few days, she thinks it would be a great idea to drive over and confront me.

I'd go for Steven "Acquited" Gerrard.

She let herself in, while I was out riding, with a key I'd given her. I'd kicked off about something of nothing earlier that day – she'd been pulling her face about a friend/client of mine (female) who is no threat whatsoever – we'd even been out to dinner with her and her fiance over christmas. She got an email from an ex who had been pestering her, and although she told him in no uncertain terms to clear off, I got the wrong end of the stick and didn't give her chance to explain. So I accept, I did play a part in the whole row.

Her main problem is that, based on her insecuities, her knee-jerk reaction whenever there's any sign of trouble, is to fly round to talk to me face to face. Maybe it's an age thing, and I know from experience that it's sometimes better to stand back and let the other person calm down a bit, but i think the way she deals with problems makes minor rows snowball into something huge.

BTW, I'm 36, she's 24.

When I say 'trashed the place', she broke a glass, smashed a picture frame and tried to smash my mobile by throwing it against a wall. And she knocked over a clothes maiden, tore some papers up, stuff like that. Nothing too bad, but it made me scared she might do worse.

This morning I wrote to her, detailing my side of the story in a calm, measured way, why I had to use physical force to restrain/remove her. And I asked her to show the letter to her family. She agreed to do this, so I know whe regrets what she did.

I told her that if there was a 0.01% chance of fixing it, I was going to go for it. Even if it was just trying to put right this obstacle she's put in place. Then we can start working on the rest, right?

Thanks for the advice so far, and thanks for not taking the piss too much!

i dont think much of the dado rail

That's not a dado rail, it's a picture rail. They're very 'ickle, remember?

Are you umpah lumpahs, or are those bikes both 29ers in a huge room?

I have a cheapo clip-on lens from the far east via ebay. Results can be spectacular but as has been said, it has a very shallow DOF. Works better on a bridge camera rather than my SLR. I'll see if I can root out any pics…

Not very long ago, one or two Glaswegians went on holiday to Manchester and made a mess.
Maybe has something to do with why you're not being made terribly welcome!

I like that Shibboleth!

Yes, I rather enjoyed it to. Best cup of tea in years! ;o)

Tribalchief, that was long before she came along. Weeks in fact…

I'm a big old romantic at heart, and my favourite thing is notes. I've left them in her purse, behind her credit card so she finds them when she's at the checkout, in her dressing gown pocket, in her makeup bag. I've sent her off to work with some lunch in a tupperware tub so when she opens it she sees a note saying "I love you more than lasagne its self"… things like that.

She tells me it's romantic because it makes her smile when she's busy or feeling tired and fractious first thing in the morning.

And I put toothpaste on her toothbrush if i get up first…

And I've just broken up with her and I'm utterly devastated. Romance f*****g sucks.

I once got drawn into a rather racy game of email truth or dare with a little brunette that worked for a client of mine. After she'd emailed naked pics, and dared me to make a vibrating rubber cast of my Old Fellow for her, I dared her to tell me her ultimate fantasy. She told me it was to come round to my studio, enter without saying a word, perform what the papers might call a sex act, and then leave, without saying a word.

I was about to leave on an overseas business trip, but thinking about this helped fill a few private moments in my hotel room, especially a she kept texting me telling me she was going to act out her fantasy on my return. I joked that to make it perfect, she could flick the kettle on on her way out!

So, the following week, I'm relaxing in the loft apartment on the top floor of my offices, dozing and recovering from my jetlag, when I'm roused from my slumber by the unmistakable feeling of my button fly being unbuttoned.

True to her word, she performed said act – with considerable aplomb, I might add – and having succeeded (pardon the pun), she stood up, turned on her heals and left. I dressed and descended the stairs just in time to hear the sound of the kettle clicking off and found a cup with a teabag in it ready to be poured.

What a girl!

I have one (coil) and I love it for big lakes rides and scottish trail centre etc.
Also ride a Blur which I prefer for more XC stuff, but I love riding the Moment – absolutely plush rear end, magic carpet ride and, as long as you're not a 'masher', it climbs really well.

EBay is most certainly not your friend unless you are buying from private sellers i.e. they have a single set of clubs for sale or a recognised online Ebay shop.

Ebay is stuffed full of fake clubs – I know, I've bought two of them.

Sorry, my earlier post should have contained the following caveat "Ebay is your friend, unless you are the sort of person that buys too-good-to-be-true new golf clubs from dubious far-eastern sellers. If you've got half a brain, you'll be fine."

Follow my example, buy from a little old fella in Stoke-on-Trent whose son bought him a new set of clubs for his golden wedding and is selling his old ones. Or similar. It's not rocket science.

Ebay is your friend – left hand clubs often go for buttons. I got a full set of Big Bertha irons with graphite shafts, plus 1, 3 and 5 woods (also Big Bertha) and a putter for a hundred quid.

Maybe people should post a real and looky-likey pic for comparison…

I've been told a few times that I resemble Matt Dillon, Jesse Metcalf or Enrique Eglasias…
God bless alcohol! ;o)

Good luck!

I was a big fan of Forking Our Souls.

I think that if you buy that, the doggy steps and the incontinence shield, you've got all the makings of a great weekend!

Nope, I scanned it out of the catalogue myself jonv. I think it might have been Innovations catalogue, but could have been Kleeneze, can't remember. It was a year or 2 back.

This was my favourite…

She needs to shave!

As for VP, I'd like to push her up the Hovis Hill…