And the shit goes on and on and on...

Another very long and wearing day for me. First I get an email from STBEH asking me to please not send him any negative emails, sms's or phone calls as he's embarked on a new 'venture' and wants to focus on that during the day and how much he respects me and all that kind of bullshit.

So, I basically told him that I would respect that, however, sometimes it will be necessary to deal with things that can't wait until the evening.

Last night he said that he'd returned all of the files and documents I'd asked for, however, this morning when I went through the stuff to make sure it was all there, much to my amazement, the important documents: birth certificates, children's passports, my UK naturalization certificate, marriage certificate, etc, etc. weren't there!

I sent him an email requesting that he return the documents by midday today and made it clear that if he didn't I would take further action. I then tried to ring him to confirm that he'd picked up the email - he avoided the call - and so I left a voice message.

At 12:00 there were still no documents, so I made one last phone call to him, which he answered only because I used a private number and when I asked him whether he'd read the email, he promptly hung up on me (this is someone who respects me?).

So, as promised, I went to the police and asked them to escort me to his office to try and retrieve these documents.

When we got to his office he freaked out, demanding to know why I brought them along. When I tried to explain that he kept disregarding my requests, he just proceeded to kick up a huge fuss. In the end he said that the documents weren't there, but at his dickhead friend's house.

Now, I don't want to be funny, but why remove these documents from our house in the first place? Reality is that I'm not the flight risk. He is. My family all live here, why would I take the kids out of the country?? He, on the other hand, would have a lot of reason to piss off with the kids in tow and here he is, removing their passports and all other important documentation from our safe.

So, I asked him to phone dickhead's wife who's at home and get her to take the documents out. He rang her, but only after a rather long conversation discussing just how childish I was being along with pathetic and silly and a load of other descriptions of what they thought of me, and EVENTUALLY, by the time the two police officers and I could've played a game of Scrabble, he got to the point.

Off to dickhead's house we all go, STBEH goes in and comes out with a handful of documents, of which only the kids' SA passports and not even their birth certificates. When I pointed out that their British passports were not there, he said that they were his kids too and he was going to hang onto it. Now, I don't want to be funny, but as primary caregiver to the kids, I am rightfully the keeper of these kinds of documents.

Anyway, the police officer explained that there was nothing that he could do about that, but that I should discuss it with my lawyer and take it from there, which will now be my next step tomorrow to take things forward.

And that was my rather eventful day. Add to this the fact that my nanny's son died yesterday and that she came to work totally distraught (understandably so)! I told her to go home and that she shouldn't have come in the first place, but she said that she wanted to keep busy. It really is sad, even though I never knew him, I can only imagine as a parent what it must be like to lose a child. She has lost 3!!! My prayers go to Rose.

Well, tomorrow is another day with it's own trials and tribulations no doubt. Now I just need a nice glass of wine and a good night's sleep. I can guarantee the wine...

Madge