Something interesting to say ? Don't be ridiculous.

Sunday January 5th 2014. 23:56

I am resisting the temptation to commit to, or hint at any New Year resolutions this year. If memory serves - and it doesn't really need to serve, I can just look back on blog entries for the last two or three years - making such commitments has failed in the past. I also note that not making those commitments has failed in the past.

hmmmm

So hard to know what to do. I know. How about, not using some arbitrary date in the calendar to prompt me to change something in my life that I've put up with or been too lazy about for the last x number of days/weeks/months/years/decades.

I am really getting to old to play all these silly psychological games with myself, and I suspect that anyone (I am sorry if you are) reading this will be bored to tears to read about yet another person promising themselves, and the world (because the world really gives a rats arse about what I do or don't do) that they are going to eat less / exercise more / be more creative / get out more.

My great plan for 2014 ? I plan to be more spontaneous. There. Ruined it already, but planning it, I'm no longer spontaneous. Shit.

While one part of my head folds in on itself in what can only be described as an angry though paradox, the rest of me will just sit here typing random stuff until it either makes sense or stops pouring out of my head via my wrinkly hands.

Wrinkly ? No. I'm not THAt old (and don't get me started on the concept of age) I've just gotten out of a two hour bath. So I'm wrinkly. Time for some chocolate milkshake I think.

Desk and lamp. Christmas presents to myself

Desk. The desk was a good idea. It lends an air of 'sit up and pay attention' to what I'm doing when I'm on my (lovely new Macbook) computer. The table lamp also serves me well, by literally illuminating the area of focus.

The cats on the other hand, think that this means it is a sun bed for them. The fact that the lamp is fitted with an energy saving bulb, so therefore does not radiate heat seems to have been lost on them entirely. I don't know if cats need vitamin D, but they sure as hell aren't getting it, or any comforting warmth from the lamp.

2013 has been a year where I went from struggling to get by on what I earn, to becoming comfortable (but not to excess), by a slight raise in my earnings and by doing a butt load of overtime.

The Christmas period has been marked with many things, but it's also been marked with me doing even more overtime than usual, and that being on the bank holidays will be really nice when that hits my pay toward the end of January.

I may have earned more in the last year, but I have also not been as restricting on outgoings as I should have. I have spent too much on 'things'. Gadgets. Although I don't regret the bigger purchases (new TV, new laptop). I am aware that I have not made anywhere near as much of a dent in my credit mountain as I would have liked.

2014 has to be a year of spend less, earn more. Have fun, but rein in the spending.

I am fortunate to be in this situation. There are lots of people in very bad situations, where they are struggling to make ends meet. The politicians will argue, and will blame each other, and will point accusingly at one another, but that doesn't really do fuck all for the poor families trying to keep it all together.

I've found also in 2013 that I have drifted even further away from one of my friends. I had mulled a fair bit during the year about how this person, who has been a constant in my life for the last twenty years is now such a distant part of it. I have seen them about three times all year. Communicated online a few times, but that was it.

People drift into and out of your life, it's an ongoing process. Times change, we all change. Some people are bringers of change, some people don't happily fit into the change in direction. This friend has found something that really makes her happy, and that makes me happy. Something that really gives her comfort, in dealing with the hardships that she and her family are facing. She has found religion. But she has found it in such a way that I do not feel I can  talk to her really anymore because she will bring it up, and as much as I respect her views, and her beliefs, I really don't agree with them.

Because this creates a thing that we cannot talk about, without fear of one of us being really upset, we now no longer seem to have anything to talk about. So it's easier to not talk. Somewhere inside me I feel that this is me failing her, and me letting her down, maybe even that I am prejudiced toward her faith. What I do know, is that it was easier to ignore her spouting on facebook about ill informed political issues - where everything was something personal for her. This is more intimate. I feel I cannot say anything, because what I will say will offend. And I don't want to offend her.

Life moves on. There is nothing any of us can do about it. It would be pointless to try. Everything has it's time. I feel that our friendship may have had its time. There may be a time in the future when our paths phase back into one another. It's just that right now, I can't see it.

In line with me making my life the way I want it to be (instead of it being the way someone else wants it to be, or even what I think someone else wants it to be) I am aware that some things I do, will help me be who or what I want to be. Other things won't. So I will want to, stop spending time and energy on them.

It works the same for people. I am tired of the distracting bullshit of social media. But that's not social media's fault is it. It's mine. I'm the one being distracted. I either take control of that, or I don't. I either learn to ignore it or I live with the constant doubt and nagging feeling that I am missing out on something.

And I'm right. I am missing out on something. I'm missing out on life, being too absorbed in sitting on my arse watching other people talk about how little they are doing in their lives also.

I'm an englishman. So I'm going to make a cup of tea. Anyone want one ?

So cute !!!

Why a picture of a bunny ? I'll explain later

Monday August 19th. 01:10.

So rather than enjoy, or dwell in the last evening of 'freedom' before I return from holiday tomorrow, I went and did six hours of overtime.

What the hell is wrong with you ? - I imagine you saying. Well, screaming actually.

Hold the fuck on. There's logic to my zany ways.

By sacrificing six hours of my last evening of freedom, (which lets face it, I was going to waste on Second Life or watching some shite on the telly) I get to achieve three very important things.

1) I get a attack the email mountain. When I opened my work email, I had 156 emails awaiting my attention. I now only have 24 - and those are the ones that I actually need to keep.

2) I get paid overtime. Money.

3) I get paid overtime.

4) Did I mention the money ?

Look, the company are happy, the callers are happy - well mostly, I'm happy, hell even the inland revenue are happy.

See. Everyone's a winner.

You might go so far as to say that Chloe and ebay are happy. Because somewhere along the line they figure into the 'dispersal' of the said earned overtime.

Seriously. I am now on a 'not' spending spree. Attack the credit hill. It's not large enough to be considered a mountain, and it's too big to realistically be defined as a 'mound'. Something about that word, I don't like it. Take it away.

MY boss must have known that I was reading her emails, because she sent me a text saying she wanted to catch up with me when she comes into the office Monday.

Oh shit. I thought. (although I did moderate my response when answering her). I've gotten so used to returning from holidays to find chaos or trouble or beatings lining up for me, that I still do expect them.

She literally told me not to be silly, and went on to be complimentary about my 'can do' attitude.

It's not always been that way, and it's good to see the difference. I'm getting used to it, but it is taking time for attitude, aptitude and experience to align.

Hot Hot Hot

It's been super hot lately, and this has coincided with the week that I am on standby for the emergency call centre. I have been in rather a lot, and tonight (Thursday night) is the last night of my stint, but also the only day so far this week that I haven't been called in.

I had thought, or hoped that it not being the middle of winter that I wouldn't see much 'action'. I couldn't have been more wrong. I don't know how the guys out in the field were keeping up with all the problems that were going on. Trees causing problems, fires, lines coming down, over zealous gardeners digging through cables. All sorts of things. You could tell how tough it was getting in the delays that were creeping in for first response to faults - because the engineers were already out on another job.

The most stupid thing has to be someone deciding to prove that the power's out by using a ladder to climb up the power pole and test the supply themselves. Lucky the supply was dead, because otherwise they would have been. Important bit of advice people, don't climb up power supply poles, don't go near the cables if they happen to come down. Don't touch them. They have a really bad habit of killing people.

Having not spoken too much to my daughter this week, I text her tonight for a cursory chat about things. I couldn't call her from my mobile because I have to leave the line open in case I'm called in. The chat moved from sms texting to facebook chat, where I then sent her a picture of my new Chromebook. She then proceeded to lecture me about how I didn't need another device and that I 'just keep buying things'.

The problem is, she may be right. Okay, I have brought another device. But I did buy it ridiculously cheaply, and can always sell it on if I don't want it any more. Having identified a need, that I thought could be filled with my iPad and a portable keyboard, I went for the absolutely cheapest way of filling that need. Not the most complicated or expensive. But she is right, that I have an iPad, and iMac, why, oh why, oh why do I need a laptop. Well I do. I need to be able to type easily. On Wednesday, when I sat in the 'garden' working on a 'Doorstops' script for Beacon, it was on the Chromebook that I did it. I couldn't have really managed to sit out there on my camping chair with my iPad and a bluetooth keyboard. I have done in the past, and it's a thing of managing to balance everything right, setting them at the right angle on my lap so that I've got room to move or sit comfortably and type. Also the heat doesn't really do nice things to my iPad. Last time it actually shut itself down and refused to work until it had cooled down somewhat. The device itself, being made of metal was white hot. Picking it up in my hand, I was genuinely concerned I was going to get branded by the Apple Logo, burning into my palm.

I know that I can come up with loads of different reasons to justify my expenditure. To justify it to myself maybe.

It is finally dawning on me that our holiday is not too far away, and I should really get my arse moving and actually book one. There are emails I get frequently from some of the holiday places, offering me short notice deals, but those are still too close - and not yet for the week that we want.

I am confident that we will be able to get something. Part of me would like to have been able to go to Jersey, but it turned out to be so fucking expensive that I would have nearly had to sell the flat in order for us to go.
I may have just exaggerated slightly. Slightly. There's something special about Devon. Heading westwards has a spiritual draw to it. Heading Eastwards, like we did a few years ago when we went to Hastings doesn't have the same charm. I don't know how to put that into words, or explain it, but that's how I feel.

I would also like to go to Scotland, or Ireland, but there's also the part of me that thinks we should not be heading further North. Further South = warmer. Further North = colder, in my mind. Would I feel cheated spending my summer holiday deliberately going somewhere colder ? So that when I come home, it's warmer ? Now that doesn't make sense.

If it was somewhere more special, maybe Iceland, or Canada, or cruise up the Norwegian fjords, then maybe, just maybe. But to damp Edinburgh ? Nah. Does not compute.

I'm probably talking a load of shite and am about to get lots of comments from very angry people in the Scottish Tourist Board.

Priceless