A Fond Fairwell To Words

I was going to start off by jotting down some flippant comment about life being like a woman, but then thought better of it. Instead I will just write a fond farewell.

 

Writing a diary style blog is always a problematic enigma, with no easy answer.

 

If you have time to write it, then its probably that your life's too quiet and thus you have nothing worth writing about, or if you do have enough exciting stuff would reading about, then your too busy actually doing it them to find time to write, { unless you actually stop doing stuff you like to fit in time to write the darn thing }.

 

Normally things go in bouts, such as there is a glut of doing stuff and no writing, followed by a lull in anything to do which leaves time for a mammoth writing session, and then it swings back again. As I said, normally, this is how my life has worked.

 

However recently I have had precious little time to write, and even when I have it has been at the expense of either something I would enjoy doing more or something that really needed doing and was put to the back of the to-do-queue yet again.

 

Each time I switch my computer on, I have to battle and juggle the various temptations of surfing the net for the usual stuff, reading my mates blogs, invading countries in a WWII game, zapping some poor NPC on WOW, seeing if any of my friends are online to chat via messenger, see if my various profiles have viewed and/or been left a message and all of a sudden its 1am ... my eyes are red and stinging, I've missed another meal time and I have to struggle to get up and hope that yet another evenings slouching won't give me chronic back again, not to mention hoping that I can wake the following morning in time to shower and still catch my normal train.

 

Frustratingly, in my view the Internet has now replaced the TV for being the number one mind & time sucking monster device in my life. It's far too easy to switch on, get comfortable and then instead of flick flick flick with the remote, its click click click with a mouse.

 

As a hero in training I have to stand up and conquer my demons before I can face the epic journey of completing my set tasks. I have to be at the top of my game, mentally and physically fit, always able at the drop of a hat to perform some challenging feat, not taking a number or watching someone else do it on Youtube.

 

If time permits, while at work I will do a few minutes surfing or reading, and I might even get to type a few lines too, but right here and now I am temporarily trading in my writers hat in for a stretchy sweatband, swimming goggles and pair of weather worn running sneakers.

 

It won't be forever, but it will probably be until after I get back from my world wide trek, so best not expect too much or too frequent in the next two years. Two years ... it sounds a lot its true, but with so much other stuff to keep everyone occupied these days, I probably will be saying 'Hi' again before most people even realise I went away in the first place.

Busy Doing Nothing

This weekend I have been exceedingly busy doing nothing at all, and I feel that I am quite getting good at it.

On the socialising side, my lodger is away, my dad is tending a wounded wife ( domesticated pet attack, don't ask ! ), my close family had a day at the beach and all my good friends are busy making bread, trotting off up north to see old flames, watching planes go by, planning for weddings - you know, the usual sort of thing.

Each and every one a perfectly respectful and adequate reason to not want to see anyone this weekend but, well darn it the timing of all of them to be busy at the same time is not fair at all.

I could have done my own chores of course, to while away a perfectly good weekend, but I was lied to about the weather. If I had known that it was going to be glorious sunshine both days I would ignored the damaged cycle and gone right to repairing my garden fence.

If the weather had of been pelting down, then I would have been perfectly happy scrubbing the bathroom, shuffling paperwork or turning down the bed.

But as it was, with such a contrast of positive and negative aspects to what should have been, and indeed could have been a blinding weekend, I could only pluck up the interest to do no more than a few small bits around the house, watch a few movies, try to invade Germany as the USSR and read a few blog entries.

I didn't even manage to rouse myself into replying to a few emails that were semi urgent or finding my long lost A-level documents so that I could complete and return my recruitment agency from.

In the words of the 'now' Immortal Homer ... DOH

Two In As Many Days

Well, this is unusual, even for me!

 

In fact, if this keeps up I will have to re-evaluate my whole thinking of the old "milk of human kindness" being a load of old hogs wash.

 

Let me start at the beginning, as I've heard its a very good place to start.

 

This weekend, being unable to visit my dad due to bad timing and ill health, has meant that I was in possession of a costly return train ticket in excess of my current needs, and furthermore being a tight git at times, I had decided to return the ticket and claim a refund  { less a £10 admin charge }.

 

A few clicks of my online account and a refund was successfully registered as being requested, and then all that remained was me sending off the tickets to a postbox in Edinburgh.

 

Easier said than done, for I did not want to bend the tickets or send them by standard post { especially not at the moment with all the postal strike action } and my jacket pockets are not that wide or deep.

 

Sufficient to say that before I even reached the train platform on my way to work this morning, the entire envelope had fallen out of my pocket and left me red faced and aghast at the loss with my train due to arrive at any second.

 

Unwilling to head off into work being an envelope light, I retraced my route onto the street outside but with no luck, so slightly resigned I returned once more to the station.

 

Seeing no queue at the furthest tellers window I figured that I had nothing to lose by asking if it had been handed in and so I quickly nipped over and asked the very pretty and young female behind the counter.

 

As soon as I said it, her face lit up in a great beaming smile and she said that yes, one had been handed in just a few minutes ago, and without any delay or hesitation she passed it over to me.

 

Thanking her profusely, I felt a weight life from my mind, and I continued on down to the platform, passing another happy young guard who also smiled as she let me through the barriers, for of course my own ticket would not have worked on the automatic barriers so soon after my exiting to check the streets.

 

To make matters even better, my train was a few minutes late arriving but more than made up for the delay by the time it reached Victoria so I was able to walk calmly and happy into work, instead of being late and frustrated which is what I feared and felt the very moment I realised that the envelope was missing.

 

So many good things happening to me all at once, was too much and I couldn't resist the urge to smile and sing as I took the thirty minute stroll to my office. What a great start to my day, and at the same time being more than just one in the eye for those who say there are no decent people left in this old crazy world we live in!