Hedgehogs are cute, right?

I should probably have known what was going to happen the minute the girl on the phone said she'd check if Lisa could squeeze me in.

For starters, who the hell is Lisa? Kate cuts my hair, or Becky, if Kate isn't free, I've never even heard of Lisa before, she could be some girl they've pulled in from the chippy over the road for all I know. Also 'squeeze me in'? There are times I don't mind being 'squeezed in', at a sold out gig perhaps, on the tube, a cheerleader's slumber party, but not a hairdressers, definitely not. The only pressure I want the cutter to be under is the pressure that my eyes, loaded with fear, places upon them to do a good job.

But I want it doing today and I'm in a good mood, so let it pass and decide to take the risk, half remembering some tosh about doing something every day that scares you.

Well, very soon, scared is truly what I become. These people in the salon, I've never seen any of them before, what are they doing here, where are the people I've slowly learned to trust over the last few years, what the hell is going on? I've no idea, as far as I'm concerned these women could just be keeping up appearances out front while some kind of hostage situation takes shape in the back. That wouldn't be good at all, not only would they not know what they were doing, they wouldn't care about how they left my head, they wouldn't care how I felt about it either, which is definitely a worry.

I considered running, but I'm far too English for that kind of reaction, so here we go, eyes closed, palms sweaty, heart beating, let's just get this over with. It's all good to start with, it always is, until that moment. We've all lived that moment, you might not see it actual happen, and often it's better you don't, because a yelp of horror isn't something you ever want somebody stood over you with scissors to hear from you, but at some point, you will become painfully aware that it has happened. Your gaze will return from wherever it had been hovering, to the mirror, to your own head, to the unmistakable evidence that the cutting has gone too far and that this is not going to be rescued, not by a long chalk.

Of course once this has happened there's nothing you can do, no point in complaining, just nod and smile when necessary, pay your money, go home, have a little cry, start the healing process, possibly by pouring Miracle-Gro in your shampoo and just hoping the fortunes smile kindly on you this time.

Those who know me well will know it well that I'm ever the optimist, and in this case there is no difference, and I will tell you now that there is a plus side to a poor haircut. When you're in the pub, and someone pretty across the room starts looking at you, you don't have to go through the whole insecurity regime, don't have to spend time trying to work out if they fancy you or not, if you should go over, if this is your chance, finally, for true love, or at least a fumble in the corner, because it isn't, they don't, they want to know what the hell you've got on your head. Which is great, you can just get on with your night, no worries, no pressures, nobody think you're attractive right now, so you may as well just get get drunk and have a laugh with your mates. Everybody is a winner.

I'm aware that paragraph was something of an example of straw-clutching, but life can so easily get you down if you let it, and sometimes a silver lining needs a bit of stitching if it's going to hang on.

Tonight is New Years Eve, I'm so very glad I look my best.

Toby Jugs and Cockatiels

There's a building on the east coast I'm starting to become quite familiar with. It's a strange place for me to find myself travelling so far to visit, it's not somewhere I ever particularly want to go, it doesn't provide or host any services I have any use for, and while it is functional, it's not especially welcoming. It's not even in a town I have any real connection with.

As a kid, the east coast of England meant holidays, it meant 8 hours in the car with 2 parents, a brother and a dog, it meant fish cakes and spaghetti bolognese and then a walk to the harbour for waffles. It meant long afternoons finding hidden places on the beach after an hour on the putting green, it meant second hand shops. It meant evening strolls timed so the sun set as the fairground lights came into view, it meant pestering for coins to feed arcade machines, starting with copper, then in a few years silver, before finally we needed pound coins, which we needed to earn, or take as cheeky gifts from sneaky grandparents. It meant going to see the donkeys, not on the beach but up the hill, it meant never quite walking all the way to the lighthouse, and it meant making dad wait for hours while we splashed around in the swimming pools or rolled around in skates. It meant falling completely in love with girls from Skegness who'd entered beauty contests and bursting into tears because the fear of talking to them was paralysing, it meant going fishing off the pier and catching nothing but crabs*, seagulls and twenty pound notes that had blown out of pockets. It meant bingo at the legion, shandies outside the half moon, wrestling at the spa and football in the park.

Most of all it meant visiting Grandparents, staying in their houses, living by their habits, and largely destroying the small gardens they'd work hard to maintain with childish exuberance and ball games, and sometimes their neighbours gardens too.

These days, as is the nature of things, what the east coast means is funerals, and next Monday is another one, the last of the Grandparents, and hopefully now the last for some time.

I haven't made the trip to see my Grandad for a long time, mostly because he hasn't really been there. The man I looked up to, the man who probably taught me more about strength, respect, and to some extent stoicism, simply by being himself than anybody else has done with words, the man who played the disciplinarian selflessly to allow my gran to play the humanitarian, the man who made the best bolognese I'll ever taste, he hasn't been there for a long time now. As my mum said in a recent unguarded moment, we said bye to him a long time ago. I probably didn't do it as well as most, I've been busy, and lazy, and inherently selfish, and the east coast is a long way from here, but the old merchant navy sailor and club steward who raised five kids in a two up two down West Yorkshire terrace while keeping himself quietly to himself, only ever asking to be allowed to watch his cricket and read his paper, is still somebody I won't forget.

I'm not sad he's died, I'm glad he's saved himself at least some of the indignity of growing confused and helpless, because of everybody I know he'd have most hated being seen the way he has in recent months, and of feeling like a burden. I'm glad his children can now get back to their own lives without having to sleep in shifts to make sure he's safe in the night, and I'm mostly glad that my mum can now get on with making the most of being a grandparent herself without also having to be a nurse.

I just hope the funeral director gets his facts right for this one.

My apologies, I'm as uncomfortable as you about the serious blog, but it's done me a favour and I don't think many people read this anyway. If it helps take the edge off, I've had a proper shit hair cut today and I'm about to go to a stand-up comedy show where the compere is known for mocking his audience. I might have something fun to write about that tomorrow.

*Don't.

So this is the 28th of December...

That's right kids, it's an end of year 'state of affairs' blog, prepare to be utterly riveted with the story of my year, the story you've been waiting to hear, all year, a year to hear, but don't fear, don't shed a tear, it's here, for you to hear, the story of my year.

It's fun to rhyme.

I finish 2009 as I started it, cold, alone and essentially pointless. The way human beings are designed to be. I haven't made my fortune, I haven't found love, I haven't etched my name in the pillars of history. I haven't even got my own Wiki page, because apparently someone else has to set it up for you, and you have to have actually done something they consider important, or they delete you, which as far as I'm concerned goes against the whole spirit in which Wikipedia was conceived.

I did change one of my pillows though. One sprung a leak sometime in the autumn and after a few months of having a bedroom that looked like the crime scene of some kind of teddy bear massacre I finally bit the bullet and replaced the damaged head comforter. I'm still not entirely happy with the new one, it's too big and firm, it's exactly the same as when you change girlfriend, you get used to the shape and size of one, where your arms are supposed to go, how the best way to fit around each other is so you don't wake up with a kink in your neck, just how much force is needed to 'accidentally' kick them out of the bed if they're starting to bug you. Pillows and girlfriends, exactly the same.

Obviously the biggest thing I did this year is get a job, because obviously jobs are the most important thing in our lives, obviously. I got up one day, put on a suit and asked a reasonably intimidating panel of people if they'd mind awfully giving me over forty hours of things to do each week, push me to get out of bed before my natural body clock would allow, and judge me on all my successes and failures. I then followed this up by reassuring them that no, it was fine they wouldn't have to pay me too much to do this, just whatever they felt they could afford in these harsh financial times. After hearing the same offers from several other people they finally gave in to my charms and enlisted me in their little slave ring.

And you know what, I've quite enjoyed it, the actual work varies, as with everything, from a tedious and over pressured chore, to something I get a genuine buzz out of, sometimes I even go home feeling like I was useful, which is nice. Of course, as my work is connected to a place that serves alcohol it also means that I sometimes go into work hoping that whatever I've forgotten from the night before hasn't earned me Laughing Stock of the Week, but that's a hazard I've learned to live with all my life.

All in all though, it's a nice change to be working with other people, obviously there's all the expected nonsense about teamwork, new challenges, collaborative ideas and processes, six hour long meetings with flip charts, but really it's just nice to have a new set of people to have a laugh with during the day. So I think I'll stick at it for a bit.

Then there's this band thing, after a year repeating ourselves in various practice rooms we finally got on stage last month, and it was good. It's strange how twenty minutes as a bit part in an unpaid performance for a bunch of strangers seems to be worth a 16 hour day, of which a good ten is spent on a motorway burning expensive fuel and not getting home until almost sunrise, without any real questioning or feelings of effort. Whilst I will bitch and moan for a goodly number of hours about having to go buy washing up liquid from a shop which is 300yrds away. I've missed that though, I think I've missed the travelling more than anything, missed showing up at new places and not knowing what's going to happen. I'm not sure entirely why this appeals to me so much, I'm not an overly social person so I don't come away from these things with new friends and enlightening conversations that often, a lot of the towns and venues you end up in are less than exciting and quite often you find that your expensive and lengthy round trip has led to you playing to a nonplussed audience of other bands and bar staff, but no matter how many times you do this, the build up to each time doesn't stop being at least a little exciting. I'm looking forward to it in the new year at very least.

I moved back in on my own. I like living on my own, I like the control of my time and space that it gives me, I like deciding who I share it with and when, when I eat, what goes on the TV, how everything is arranged, and what point the bin really does need emptying, But it seems I had become a little used to having people around. It's fine during the usual weeks, because between work and bands and traditional going out patterns I only really end up at home one or two evenings as it is, and I can usually fill those with a quick text message or two, but I have to confess that the holiday's have been a bit of a trial, so I might have to think about this a little before the summer. I'll get to make a list of pros and cons for this, which is really quite appealing.

I must have done some other things this year, but the continuing curse of the memory can make it very difficult to say exactly what those things were. There was a weekend in London and a few night's at gigs, a couple of which were amongst the best I've ever been to. There was Edinburgh of course, the best week of any year, I think one of the greatest things about this is taking a few new people up every year, and watching them fall in love with the place, and with the fringe, in the same way I did the first time I went and the same way I do again with every visit. I'm not a person for looking forward to things usually, I prefer to just enjoy them when they happen without building up unfeasible hopes and expectations, but I just can't stop myself from doing that with Edinburgh, I've already got plans in place for next year and catch myself daydreaming about it on a fair number of occasions.

As for fortune, love and history? I'll probably just have a cup of tea for now. I really would appreciate it if you could get started on that Wiki though.

I forgot to make up a title.

I'm pretty sure I can use anything as an excuse not to do anything else. This week I've excelled at this skill, my washing machine has been out of order, I've used this as an excuse not to do all of the following; the washing up, hoovering, wear a shirt, make a phone call, go to bed, try and fix the washing machine. Oddly I didn't use as an excuse not to wash my clothes, I kept trying, which of course only made the problem worse and the uses for excuse more frequent.

On top of this my glasses broke, yes, it's been an unfortunate week, and obviously this was like the goose that laid the golden excuse to me. It's been brilliant.

So it is with mixed feelings that I've lived through the last 48 hours, receiving my new spectacles and having a man make the machine work again. Even worse when the cause of the broken tumbler was revealed to simply be a kinked hose, and that if I'd been any sort of a man I'd have dragged out the machine, spotted the problem, fixed it, and got on with my life. This would have taken about 5 minutes and given me a great sense of achievement, whilst my actual course of action was to search unenthusiastically for some instructions, give up and spend 9 days half-heartedly playing voicemail tennis with the landlord and various sub-contracted companies, before having to avoid eye contact with a man who came out in the evening, clearly missing out on setting fireworks for his kids, to solve the whole thing in 5 minutes without even deholstering his screwdriver. Which believe it or not did not fill me with a sense of achievement.

Sure I can see and have clean clothes, but at what cost?

It's OK though, my remote control won't turn the sound on the TV up, it'll turn it down, but not up, this probably means I don't have to go to work tomorrow.

Bums on seats.

Do you think bus drivers feel better when their bus is full?

Do they go home feeling like they've done a better days work if they've ferried more people around, like the day has been more worthwhile. Or are passengers an annoyance, a hassle, extra notches of stress. I mean, I prefer driving alone, I don't have the pressure of being responsible for my passengers safety, or their judgement when I make a mistake, I can turn the stereo up and sing along without embarrassment, but essentially my journey is selfish, it helps nobody but myself. A full car/bus would mean more people helped, less carbon footprint (per person) and a feeling of some sense of community created from my task, but would increase my tension levels potentially leading to future health issues, plus if i do balls it up, more people are at risk.

I don't think I could be a bus driver, it's a straight choice between the guilt of the wasteful and the stress of the protector, it's just too much. Hail to the bus driver, bus driver man.

I can see the pub from 'ere!

Have I ever told you about my clock before?

It's got a radio receiver in it, or some similar fancy technology, which means it automatically learns the time from time signals in the ether. I never have to set it, or correct it, it just sorts itself out. Neat, eh?

Well, since the clocks went back last weekend, it has taken to just spinning constantly at the rate of about 3 hours a minute. This can mean only one of two things. Perhaps time itself has disappeared, we now exist in a timeless space, 3 dimensions and that's it, which is an awful lot for my head to deal, for one, do i go to work tomorrow or will it still be today which is my day off although i it has been today all week then why did anyone show up all last week. It's possible, I'm no expert on these matters, but like the emotions of a lady, I've no real hope of understanding it.

Assuming that time still exists, it can only mean that for the last 7 days I've been hurtling, at quite a speed, into the future. I had no preconceptions of what this might be like, so I'm happy to accept that this is indeed the case, I am by default the most amazing human being to have ever lived and you should be honoured that I am communicating with you from the future. I can answer any questions you have about the future, but essentially, it's still raining, James May is still on TV and yes, your bum does look big in that.

Enjoy the present chumps, see you when you catch up.

Down at the Bottom of the Garden

Early today I was offered salvation by a boy in a white shirt and black tie, he asked "What's the most important thing in your life?". All I could think of was the fact I'd just eaten one finger of Twirl and saved the rest for later, and whether or not that makes me King of Everything or whether it further marks out my decent into adulthood.

He had an American accent, both him and his friend, who was busy exclaiming his disbelief in other's disbelief. I wonder if it was just a coincidence, or if this particular faith based organisation actually fly over agents to recruit on the mean streets of Preston, and do they do this because they have no locally based affiliates, or because they believe that the use of home grown talent is essential to the success of the mission. Maybe it's the accent, maybe it's hard to take someone seriously with a familiar North English accent, or it's too easy to brush them aside. The sincerity and movie star tones of someone who learned to talk in the US of A however, catches your attention, makes you think Bruce Willis is talking to you and so you better damn well listen to what he has to say.

Maybe. It didn't work on me though really, I didn't even break stride, just continued on home full of Twirl based musings and the dilemma of whether I should, as he might have said, 'take a nap' when i got in, or soldier on through. His question did hang there a little, but only as much as a recent expulsion of gas from the digestive system, rather than an in use noose.

Homicide Fidelity

There's a hierarchy of sentiment in pop songs that seems a little misplaced. 'I need you', is considered superior to 'I want you'. 'I would die for you / can't live without you', is believed more potent when serenading your potential mate than 'I'd like to live for you / with you'. To claim that you are 'nothing without him/her', suggests somehow that the person in question is more important to you than if you claimed that you 'felt more complete when they're around' or even, if we're pandering to the dramatic, are 'everything' with them. 

Are we stalkers because we listen to pop music, or do we listen to pop music because we are stalkers?

The singers spurt out these sentiments with vim and vigour, eyes closed, fists clutched hard against hearts, we join in while we do the washing up, only with a little less exuberance, for fear of getting soap suds on our tops. Our George's thought police would have a field day with all this flying around. A lover or a fighter? Same thing you're honour, throw 'em in the cells and don't let 'em out 'til St Swithun's Day.

I admit, it's possible that a love song which read 'I find you attractive physically, mentally and spiritually and your particular personality makes me feel a little better about myself and the world. The fact that you seem to have some connection to me is definitely a positive thing in my life, and whilst I'm sure I could quite easily live without you and, had I not met you, I can't imagine I'd have spent all my days trying to fill a you shaped hole, but as you are around, I'd prefer you to stay around.' might not fly off the shelves quite as fast as 'I Can't Live (If Living is Without You)', but I'd feel a whole lot better about my kids listening to it. 

The Mystery of a Speeding Heart

Capital cities I have been to, however briefly: London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Bucharest, Sofia, Reykjavik.

That's my intro and I'm sticking to it. I may have chosen to do it to show off my travels, to paint myself as a man-of-the-world, or at least man-of-northern-and-a-little-bit-of-eastern-Europe. I may have chosen it to suggest that what comes next comes not from some country boy who has never seen a big city before and as such is too overwhelmed to really pass the comments he's about to... erm, pass. I probably did it because I just like lists.

London. I went to London this week. Not for the first time, but you get a fresh take on a place every time you visit, same as you get a fresh take on a person every time you meet them, well, at least for the first four times, people don't have as much depth as cities. 

London is not my favourite city, but it's better than Paris, which seems to be entirely based around pouring too much salt in your dinner and worshipping a giant pylon, personally I blame the wine. London does have an incredible appeal though, and it's one that its inhabitants probably hardly ever see, one that a lot of tourists probably miss, with their maps, destinations and plans. Everyone has plans in London, everybody needs to be somewhere. It's a terrible place to be when you need to be somewhere, it's crowded and confusing, it's noisy and over complicated, it's constantly running out of time. Look into the eyes of a Londoner, they're tired and they're beaten, they have to spend hours of their days fighting for position and pushing through a crowd. Unless they work in Pret of course, where they smile, they smile the painful smile of a being with their most sensitive body parts inches from a bear trap that will snap closed if the edges of their mouth ever drop in angle. Pret a Manger is the gateway to hell, though they do make nice food.

My point. The best thing you can do in London is get lost. Have yourself a vague destination with no strict time scale for arriving there, throw away your map, and go on instinct. There is something impressive, interesting or entertaining around every corner of our capital city, and only half of it gets in the guide books. The buildings, the squares, the shops, the parks, the people, the pianos. Then if you're really lucky, you'll chance upon the river, the shores of which make up one of the most incredible sights on this earth. Nothing makes you feel more humble and more proud at the same time as what lines the Thames, I challenge you to challenge that and mean it.

Look at me, gushing hyperbole.

To sum up though, don't go to London with an agenda, and don't try and go for a night out, the place closes at 11pm, probably because everyone is tired from their agendas, if you go, get lost.

This blog is dedicated to everyone that had to wait an hour for me because I'd left my map at the hotel.

I write small blogs because I have a small mind.

My spelling gets worse on a daily basis, just like my vocabulary, my memory, and my imagination. I'm seriously considering running screaming into A & E and shouting "HELP! MY BRAIN IS TURNING TO MUSH!" But A & E is quite far away.

It's the little things.

When I was a kid.. 7 or 8, I'd only ever known one Sarah*, I thought it was the greatest name in the world, and that I would definitely marry a girl called Sarah and call my daughter Sarah, obviously the 7 year old me didn't consider this might be both confusing and a little weird, and rather over optimistic.

With every new Sarah I meet, my heart still sinks a little.

*This probably isn't true, but both my adult memory and my childhood attention span have colluded to make it so in my head.

Pride, the Final Frontier

Doors. The natural enemy of man.

As long as there has been man, there have been doors. Apart from before there were walls, which came after man, unless you subscribe to the theory that God created walls and man simply worked out how to put a door in them, which I think is a belief only really held popularly in Rhyl.

So, there was me, and there was the door, and the door wouldn't open. I pushed, I pulled, I yelled OPEN SESAME, which annoyingly didn't attract any attention what-so-ever. I wagered it was one of those you had to press a button to unlock, if I rang the bell maybe the secretary would 'buzz me in' so to speak. But no, no obvious bell/intercom paraphernalia to be seen. I just don't know what to do.

Then, as if by magic, a small child appears on the other side, he must be about 5 years old, certainly no older than 6, but he looks at me, I look at him, and I know, despite his years, he understands my predicament. He heads to the left of the door, there is a release button! He pushes it. The door is released, my nightmare is about to be over. I grab the door handle and I pull...

Nothing.

I push!

Nothing.

Crap.

Then, the child looks at me again, but not with the same understanding. Now there is confusion on his face, he doesn't know why the door isn't opening either. Maybe it's broken. That would explain it. That would get us both of the hook. We won't have been bested by the door, it is simply failing in its purpose of being a door, it has become, if anything, a wall, and as we all know from our friends in North Wales, walls are made by God, in fact, walls ARE God. Neither of us can be expected to triumph over God, nobody will judge us for this.

No. It's not broken. The child's confused expression has faded and, well, things are not looking good for me at all. Looking back I don't think he actually sighed, but he may as well have. He looked to the floor, reached out an arm, and pushed the door open without difficulty. Then he looked up at me with that expression.

Now I see this expression quite often. I see it when I stall my car and get it stuck in the middle of a pedestrian crossing. I see it when a girl realises I'm just not going to be able to rip that condom packet open by myself. I see it when I've opened my mouth to share a common confession and it quickly becomes apparent that it is in fact 'just me'. I see it most of all when I drop things, all over the floor, scattering and rolling about the place. I am, in many ways, not an impressive man. I'm used to being looked at with that combination of weary pity and slight disgust. But usually from people closer to my age, people who have had the time and the practice to master the simple things I seem to find so difficult.

"Thank you.", I managed to say.

"It's OK." and off he walked, i didn't look, but he must have been shaking his head as he went.

Like a kid in a sweet shop.

So today was day two of Operation Do What Everyone Else Has Been Doing For Ages And Make A Big Deal of It. And the challenge is so far staying intact. I got up when my alarm went off, well, almost, certainly within reason considering the time I went to bed. I did a full days work, ate fruit and veg, spent the evening getting on with a project instead of wasting it and I'm about to go to bed.

Having nothing to write is starting to get very frustrating, who says misery breeds creativity (or something), I'm far more creative when I've got nothing to moan about, when I can just let nonsense fill my head and pop out again in.. in... Oh, I can't even finish the sentence.

Maybe this healthy living isn't what it's cracked up to be, I mean, it's been 48 hours!

Duty Free

I promised myself I'd write something today, so this is it. I don't really have anything on my mind worth a blog, but I'm tired of putting things off.

I promised myself a few things today, as we often do after a heavy weekend which leaves us feeling like left over spuds. Obviously not drinking ever again was in there. Well, not quite, but taking a bit of time off to let the humours settle themselves seems well and truly in order, plus the hangovers are too often framed in regrets of late, which isn't so good for the mojo. May as well combine this with a bit of health too. None of that exercise nonsense, but how hard can it be to actually stick to your 5 a day? Even horses manage that. So, y'know, all the same promises that get made by half the adult population once a month or so. Nothing too interesting, but probably worth while anyway, like Weetabix, or socks.

I'm pretty tired and, I think we can all see that this isn't going as well as I'd like it to. So let's just consider this a promise kept and hope things pick up tomorrow.

A stiff space-bar can take all the fun out of typing.

There are no take-aways in Bretherton, at least not that I can see, not even a chippy. So the people who live there have to plan their tea every day, or get in a car. That's a big responsibility to take on as a human being, to never be able to just 'not be arsed'. It's troubling.

My world is full of little nuggets like these, tit bits, if you will (should that be tid bits? tit bits sounds more fun). Little happenings or noticings that, while not being entirely uninteresting in themselves, are neither big nor developed enough to become a tale to tell. You can't entertain your mates or impress a girl by telling them that there are no take-aways in a village they've likely never heard of and that this makes you feel for the local residents. At very best it shows your compassionate side, at very least is tells them you're a fatty at heart, but whichever way, it's gonna have most people's eyes darting round the room looking for someone better to talk to.

For instance, just from today I could relate the tale of how the hesitations of a learner driver left me stranded at the lights and embarrassingly placed in the middle of a pedestrian crossing, or how I got replies to every text I'd sent during the day in the same 2 minute spell, whilst obviously I was driving. Or I could spin the saga of my seat-of-the-pants run to the loo roll shop and back that could have gone devastatingly wrong at any moment. This is all good solid stuff, for at least 2 sentences, but it's not going to win me a congratulatory pint or a journey to the centre of some knickers.

It's a shame.

I moved house recently, I guess that's probably the interesting thing I should talk about. I've moved house lots of times though, and as with most things in life, each repetition is less interesting than the last, less to learn, less surprises, pretty much just more humping stuff up and down stairs. I did rediscover my love for the feeling that physical labour gives you, and how much better that first pint at the end of the day feels when you've actually earned it, but that's really about as much blood as I can get from that particular stone.

What I have done is moved back in with myself, as opposed to sharing with a friend. Now it comes as no surprise that by-my-self is my natural state of living, as a great devotee of 'the easy life' it just seems the logical way to live. But I have to confess that it is taking a little getting used to this time round, and I'm very worried about my Pro Evo form suffering.


It's probably worth noting that while writing this I am also shouting at my TV screen. Grand Designs is the program, these people commissioned a beautiful layered wooden staircase that was built by an artist as a sculpture, took 4 months to build and cost £40,000. Then they painted it, matt white, the whole thing. If I'd been the artist I'd have torched it where it stood as soon as the first layer went on. Very annoying.

Somebody has painted the wooden beams in this flat too, the ones I continually bang my head against as I fail to get used to the fact that I now live in a slope-roofed loft conversion, that, whilst a very nice space to be in, can be hazardous for the tall and dim-witted. They've painted them a kind of stone colour though, so it's ok mostly, and the huge skylights that let me look at the moon, and anyone on the roof, more than make up for it. They've also left in a handy metal arch thing, should I ever feel the need to hang myself, which is nice.

Lost in the Supermarket

So I mentioned I'd been cooking. It's probably time to elaborate on that a little. 

I bought a couple of recipe books and I'm working my way though them, it's been a couple of weeks now and I've pulled off some decent efforts. Cottage pie, fancy hot salad, something with lamb and red wine vinegar, and a dish that was essentially vegetables in vegetable gravy, which was without doubt the healthiest thing I've ever put on a plate. I'd like to say I've added several dishes to my repertoire, but that would suggest that I can cook them from memory whenever I fancy, when we all know the only way I could cook them again would be with the same recipe in front of me, because otherwise I would have to store new information in my leaky mindbrain. 

As it happens, so far I haven't had to deal with too much out of my comfort zone in terms of ingredients or techniques, well until this week anyway. Let me be honest about this, it wasn't like I purposely decided to step things up a gear, that's not how I work. I should probably explain how I select the recipes. I get the internet to generate me a bunch of numbers corresponding to the pages available in the books, I then leaf through to the selected pages and choose whichever recipe in the book looks most appetising. If I wanted to wax on (wax off)* about having philosophies and make myself look like an interesting person, I'd say I do this because I believe in leaving life to the fates, to let chance guide you into strange and exciting places. But really, it's because decisions are hard. Anyway, so far, as you have seen, it's been quite reasonable in what it threw up. This week, Pad Thai, Polenta, and some kind of pitta bread wrap with cheese I've never heard of and vegetables from jars.

The actual cooking is not the most fearsome part of this, it's the ingredients. Buying ingredients you've never heard of from a supermarket shelf can be daunting, as it was today.

Now don't get me wrong, this blog isn't about to become an anti-shopping tirade. While in general I'm not a fan of the high street, I really do enjoy the supermarket 'big shop'. Ever since I stopped having to tag along while my parents did it anyway. It brings out the 8 year old in me. I love pretending the trolly is a racing car, i love pushing off and standing on the rail at the back, narrowly avoiding collisions. It's brilliant. As a student I used to love plundering my overdraft and dragging home an elephant's body weight in bags only to discover I hadn't actually bought anything I could make a meal from. I love trying to get a smile out of the check-out girl. And since I discovered the shopping list, I love the challenge of finding what you need in the most efficient way possible. 

Today's list however, was almost more of a challenge that I could handle. 

After grabbing the basics and the straight forward stuff, I found myself with several items on a list, some of which I had no idea where to find, some of which I had no idea what they were. In retrospect I probably should have taken the recipe book with me, it has pictures in you see. After 20 minutes of stubborn male searching I decided to ask a man. He obviously pointed me straight back to the aisle I'd spent 15 of those 20 minutes walking up and down, trying not to look like an illiterate in a library. Further searching commenced, googling on my phone for clues was resorted to, I was definitely getting in peoples way. It was getting dire, I was this close to dialling the phone and crying "Mum, I'm out of my depth, I want to come home.", and bless her she'd have had me a meal on the table when I arrived. 

But, readers, you'll be relieved to know, I persevered I did. And I found every last one of those ingredients. Well, excepted 'Sliced Roasted Aubergines in a Jar', which I think is probably a made up thing. I bought sliced gherkins and fresh aubergines instead, thinking I'd somehow combine them for the same effect. I'm not sure what I was thinking. But regardless, the day was won, as far as I'm concerned.

And on a day when the President of the USA, the new hope for the world, had to redo his inauguration vows, because they'd managed to cock it up the first time, as the whole world watched. I don't feel so bad for being a 30 year old mortal who had a bit of a struggle in Morrisons.

*Don't pretend that doesn't happen in your head too.

Don't touch me, I'm sick.

I read the news today oh boy, 4000.. something something something that rhymes with Lancashire. There's a problem down at the NHS, turns out that this week it has become unacceptable to have mixed sex wards in a hospital, some woman was worried that her recovery might be hindered by worrying about whether she looks good, or whether she was showing her bits to men she didn't know... like she'd never done that before. 

Now I can't help but think the NHS has better things to be worried about, life and death stuff, like life and death. To have to turn attention, resources and badly needed money to separating the sexes in wards, no doubt leading to badly needed beds going unused because they are in the wrong ward, along with all the admin and re-organisation costs going into it, because a few people are over-sensitive about who they sleep in the same room as, as a pretty sad thing to consider.

Obviously that people are self-centred is no surprise to any of us, but over tolerance of this is just as sickening. Bigger pictures are important, you're not the only person in the world, you're rarely the only person in the room. Of course, at this rate, soon you will be the only person in the room, all the time, every moment of every day, because your tolerance for the needs of others, for the needs of the many, have been whittled away by the indulgences of groups and institutions so scared of losing face, or court costs, that they'll let your germ-free, insular, arrogance dictate the way life happens around you until you finally die from rejecting your own personality.

Grown ups too.

Mid-Life Stasis

Life has changed since the end of 2008. It wasn't a deliberate, conscious change. There was no intervention, no epiphany, no dramatic decision that things just had to change. It just happened, though it was sudden, then gradual, but not slow. 

I couldn't sleep on Christmas Eve. This was the start. Well, I slept for 2 hours, then woke up and couldn't sleep again till the sun had come up. There was no reason for it, I wasn't excited about Santa, I didn't have an early appointment to meet, all I had to do was get up sometime before 3pm and drive 5 minutes down the road to be fed and watered, as is the tradition of the season.

But this persisted until New Years Eve, awake all night, asleep for the regular 8 hours, then awake all night again. I figured it might be because I was worried about something, or my mind was cluttered, so I figured I'd use the time eliminating all possible causes, I organised my life, completely. Every box, every CD, every piece of paper, every cable,  every computer file, everything. I discarded everything I didn't need and organised everything else, got up to date on my accounts, on my washing, on my planning. Everything. 

Then comes New Years Eve and the traditional obscene drinking that, despite being a semi-intelligent, almost self-aware, being, I didn't manage to opt out of this year. The resultant hang-over and paranoia, resulted in 24 hours in bed, missing entirely the first day of the year. Which, I'll be honest, wasn't a great start. But it did do something, sorted the sleeping patterns. Well, when I say 'sorted', it wasn't a return to the status quo of 4am bed, 2pm rise, it was actually a development to what is often considered 'normal sleeping patterns', up at 9/10, tired by 1/2, bloody crazy if you ask me.

And that wasn't the end of it.

No. Worse than that. I actually changed into one of those people. You know, those people who say "I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep". Those blithering idiots who clearly have a malfunctioning brain. After all, getting back to sleep in a morning is the easiest thing in the world. You wake up, you feel tired, you remember the all round horrors of being awake, you assume outside your window the weather is dismal, you recall the rather nice dream you were in the middle of, you roll over, and, zzzzZZZZ, in full on cartoon style. Well. Apparently. Not any bloody more. No. Eyes open, mind and body become alert. That's it. No choice, no option, no logical process resulting in a return to living in your glorious head. Nothing but... the start of the day. Ridiculous.

Now. Turns out, when you're getting up, awake and alert, in the AM after 7 hours sleep and you have a whole day at your disposal before the evening and the dark bring easy excuses for laziness and indulgence, there's a lot of hours to fill. Even more so, you're naturally 'on a roll' as it were. You may as well do some proper shopping for proper ingredients, you may as well look through some recipes and cook some real meals, with vegetables and everything. You may as well be a fully rounded human being who is choosing a natural vitamin enhanced life full of garden colours and omega bloody 3.

Well, you're doing that everyday, it's only right that you do some exercise too, maybe turn the TV off and catch up on your reading, bit o' fiction, bit o' fact, bit o' learnin'. If the TV is on, get yourselves some documentaries, check the news, figure out what a recession actual is and why it's happening. I even, and get this, had conversations with people. By golly. (Is that racist?). By something anyway.

Then, in a moment of pure nonsense, I applied for a job. I real one, with the council, in an office, with a salary, 9 to 5, responsibilities, shirt and tie. And I found, and still find, my self excited about the idea of doing it, if I'm lucky enough to be offered it.

I've been 17 years old for the last 13 years. Overnight I became 30.

Well, let's see what happens next.