Solid Gone

Thank you, goodnight and may your God go with you.

2009-06-17T20:30:00.001+01:00

This will be the last post here.

I’d like to thank you all for your company and support over the last 5 years or so and to invite you all to follow me to my new beginning.

Solid Gone will stay here for a while until it starts attracting spam comments and then it will archived and gracefully retired.

It’s been a pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen. You lot rock, you know that?

ECDL

2009-05-27T12:20:00.001+01:00

This was the last mandatory module. 7 weeks, 7 passes. Fairly happy with that!

Precipitous

2009-05-26T13:50:00.001+01:00

I got rained on this morning. A more different morning to yesterday you couldn’t imagine. Yesterday was a warm, bright and sunny start to the day, the colours glowing in the light. Today was grey and heavy, the rain skirling between a heavy drizzle and lashing down.

It brought back memories, I don’t know why. Of sitting in the front room in The House I Grew Up In. Sitting on the windowsills actually, which were plenty wide enough for a small boy to sit on. Wide and wooden. Just gazing through the panes at the raindrops rattling down. In the memory it’s got to be a Saturday lunchtime as I’m the only one in the house. My two sisters had left home, my brother was ringing, Mum finished work at 12 on a Saturday and Dad was either at work himself or had gone to meet Mum out and go shopping. This might even have been before we had a colour television. I was considered old enough and responsible enough to be left in the house by myself for a couple of hours.

I’d have had whatever on the television. I wasn’t that fussed about it, a lot of the time, even then. It was company for a small person who felt the weight of the empty house occasionally. Never more so than on rainy days, when the world seemed to shrink into a tight focus of rain bouncing the leaves of the hedge or leaping back from the road in horror at the approach of another car.

If I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window it almost seemed that I could feel the soft fingers of the rain tapping lightly on my head, maybe checking to see if there was anything there.

And the smell of the rain! It tinges everything from trees to traffic. Changing them, rather than scenting them and lingering like a ghost even after the pavements are dry and the bushes have stopped dripping.

Or the strange feeling of security in sheltering from the rain. Under a tree or in a bus, there’s something hypnotic about the dance going on all around.

Far more interesting than sunshine. You’ll very rarely hear me complain about grey clouds and rain.

One Of The Little Things

2009-05-19T20:28:00.001+01:00

Just as a quick break from trying to shoehorn the intricacies of Microsoft Access databases into my trembling brain, I was thinking about this a couple of days ago. I meant to blog it then but didn’t get around to it. It may go a little way to easing someone’s mind….

I was listening to some music the other day. When I say that I mean that I was doing something and had some music on in the background. I can’t remember exactly what it was and it doesn’t really matter. I do remember that I didn’t know all the words to whatever it was. Which is what set me wondering – when was the last time that I sat down and just listened to some music? As opposed to having in on as a background for…whatever. It was probably way back when I was young..

It’s easy to forget how happy the little things make us. Like sitting down with no pressure to get anything done in the next 40 minutes or so and just listening to an album all the way through. One day, soon, I hope to be able to relax again for the first time in a couple of months and, longer term, for a longer term. I think I’ve earned it.

A Few Things

2009-05-13T22:47:00.001+01:00

People think I’m a little odd because I like the rain. Actually, people think I’m odd for lots of reasons and that’s just one of them.

It’s the middle of May and I’ve been putting the bins out in a spring evening rain. Give me that any time over blazing sunshine. I really don’t get the appeal of toasting oneself in oppressively hot climes. Pleasantly warm, by all means but lets leave it at that , shall we?

I’m working on the layout for my next online home. It’ll look similar to Solid Gone, yet subtly different. I really can’t wait to start there but it needs to be ready. There’s a lot of new things that I’m looking forward to – the change of blog is purely an outward, online manifestation of other things.

By Wednesday next week I need to familiar enough with the construction of databases using Microsoft Access to answer 36 questions in 45 minutes and score 75% or better. No sweat! He said.

Oh, and by noon tomorrow I need to have filled in a rather detailed questionnaire, without anyone in the house seeing me do it. It’s got to be done, so it will be. Somehow. By tomorrow afternoon I hope to know a little more about my future circumstances, at least in the short term.

BBC NEWS | England | Devon | Concern for missing autistic boy

2009-05-10T11:44:00.001+01:00

A major search is under way in Devon for a missing autistic teenager.

Police, dogs, divers and Dartmoor Rescue teams are looking for Richard Eckton, who was last seen in Eggesford, Chumleigh at 1830 BST on Saturday.

The 17-year-old, who has a mental age of three, carries a blue folder with pictures to help him communicate. His condition often draws him to water.

He is 5ft 10in, of slim build, with mousy short hair and blue eyes and was wearing blue jeans and white T-shirt.

Devon and Cornwall Police said Richard was walking along a footpath which follows the River Taw and the Tarka rail line when he ran away from his two carers into nearby woodland.

BBC NEWS | England | Devon | Concern for missing autistic boy

Oh my God! That poor kid must be starving, frozen and terrified. I’m sat here actually close to tears thinking about it. As some of you may know my Younger Daughter is profoundly autistic. This is just the sort of thing that could happen to her. She gets so excited when she’s out that she charges about and might well find it funny to “play” with her carers by hiding. If she was lost in woodland overnight anything might happen. Someone as far along the autistic spectrum as that has probably very little, if any, sense of danger. My daughter would love playing in water and if there’s a river nearby…

If I had the right, I’d be praying that this lad turns up safely. I can’t get the awful pictures out of my head, now. Please, God……

Message In A Bottle

2009-05-09T16:57:00.001+01:00

It’s a strange experience, keeping in touch with someone who can’t talk back! I don’t mean face-to-face, obviously, more’s the pity. I mean a friend who is having issues with their mobile phone provider and is currently unable to ring or text. Add this to the fact that their internet is a little “unreliable” due to, maybe, being in the middle of nowhere and you begin to get the picture.

A lot of the time I’m sending texts with fingers crossed that it’ll actually arrive and that they’ll check their phone within the next few hours, find it and have it make them smile. It’s quite an exercise in faith, to be honest!

My friend’s internet connection seems unwilling to talk to Facebook’s servers, which kind of cuts that out and recently they’ve had trouble connecting to their email account, at least when they’re at home and obviously this sort of thing is not exactly encouraged in their place of work.

So here I am. Throwing a blog-shaped bottle into the sea in the hope that it’ll wash up near to them to remind them that they’re always on my mind. Every possible good vibe, good thought and all the blessings that it’s in my power to bestow are packed into this bottle. It’s wrapped up in shiny, sparkly stuff to make it visible from a long, long way away and should they find it and pick it up they’ll find that it’s not grimy with the detritus of cyberspace but is clean and honest and dripping with love.

Tempus fugit

2009-05-02T09:54:00.001+01:00

It seems barely possible that it’s May already. So much still to do. I’d like to get my ECDL finished in time for them to get my certificate to me by July but that’s cutting it a little close. The learning to drive thing has been put on the back-burner for a little, for reasons which may become apparent this summer.

I know I’ve said this before but Solid Gone will be closing over the summer. I’ll still be blogging but it’ll be elsewhere. And not any of the elsewheres that one or two of you may know about, either. New beginnings call for new beginnings. I have a fair idea of people who read Solid Gone and I’ll be sending out notifications but if anyone wants to make sure that they know where I’m going, leave a comment to that effect, please.

For now, I’m going to Tesco…

Woof!

2009-04-26T11:15:00.001+01:00

The things we learn over the years, eh? Like Pavlov’s Dog, conditioned responses and learned behaviours come to dominate our lives. Breaking free of these is one of the biggest challenges a person can face. Be it the assumption that no-one is really going to care what our opinion is and will contradict it if we voice it, telling us that we’re stupid, to the presumption that whatever we do or say is going to be wrong in some way, there’s probably never going to be a harder task placed before someone.

If we’re lucky we’ll have the support of friends and that one special someone as we try to overcome these hurdles. If we’re really lucky we might be able to help them past their own as well!

Life can be a long, winding path before we get to where we’re supposed to be. That path might look dark and foreboding until we realise that there’s someone waiting to take our hand and walk it with us, putting back together not just the pieces of our broken heart but of our broken selves as well.

Stream of consciousness

2009-04-17T18:51:00.001+01:00

This isn’t actually the stream that it started out as but, hey…

I saw a headline on the cover of a “Women’s Magazine” today - “Do Men Really Prefer Skinny Lovers?”. For a second, I was tempted to buy it. Anyone who has read Solid Gone for any length of time will probably have come across one of my rants against the current vogue for women being as thin as possible. I appreciate that it’s purely a personal opinion and that there are guys out there who find skinny girls to be the sexiest thing but, honestly! It seems to be almost defeminising, the way that any kind of figure is frowned upon by the fashion industry and the media. Give me a woman with curves any time. Every time. The kind of curves that it’s almost impossible to stop on…..

Yes, I have a specific woman in mind but that’s a digression.

I passed the first module of my ECDL earlier this week. 75% was required for a pass and I scored 83%, which I was a little disappointed with but as a first step back into learning, I suppose it’ll do. I sit the test for the second module next week.

I emailed a picture of myself to someone today and was looking at it for a while before I sent it. My hair really is turning rather silver at the sides. I can live with that. I kind of rather it didn’t recede any more at the front but I have no problem with going grey. I rather fancy the idea of being a man of, say, 55, ridiculously happy with my life and proud of my shock of silver-grey hair! Or “platinum blond” as my late father used to call it.

Dad would have been 86 today, had he lived this long. It’s strange that early this morning I found expressions of his coming, unbidden, into my conversations. Hi Dad!

I’ve got my iPod on “shuffle” and The Air That I Breathe by The Hollies has just come on. Great song. Excuse me a second while post it to Facebook, if it’s on YouTube. It is. It’s a song from way back that has always stayed in my mind. Not just for the lyrics but for the whole sound of it. A love song has to sound right to be effective and this one ticks all the boxes.

“All I need is the air that I breathe, and to love you.”

Safer Down There

2009-04-09T11:54:00.001+01:00

I'm sat in the kitchen and can hear Buffy on the TV in the lounge. Riley Finn is trying to "get close" to Buffy. He's just said to her, in response to her isolationist Slayer crap, that he thinks she wants to "stay in the dark place because it's safer down there".

Ouch! That was far too close to home for comfort.

I've been thinking too much this morning so far. I left school at 18 having pretty comprehensively wasted two years. Once I discovered that, in the 6th form, I wasn't going to get pressured into doing work, I simply didn't. That which I did and handed in was enough to keep me out of trouble but nowhere near enough to get me close to passing my A-levels. So, of course, I didn't.

Through what is called Good Fortune, a few years later I fell into employment at a place where talents were recognised. And exploited a little. Despite internal interviews, I never got off the shop floor. What I had done was to make myself a flexible asset. I could and would provide cover for Team Leads, unpaid and unthanked, and come up with ways to ease the burden of paperwork on Assembly, while still doing what I was paid to do.

I was trained as a Facilitator and had a degree of success at it. I was earmarked for further training to get formal Training Qualifications due to my success in training the entire Assembly shopfloor staff in a new computerised stock-control system and making sure that it was rolled out, on a practical level, with no hiccoughs and dealing with issues as and when they arose.

About the time when the company twigged that they had to make the most of this talent that I appeared to have, I started to take more and more time off to care for family members who needed it. At exactly the time when I was being asked to travel to Europe representing the company to their suppliers and to extend my Training capabilities, I was drafting letters handing in my notice.

Fast forward 15 years. I can't do the thing that I left work to do for much longer. Every day, every hour, every minute I'm thinking about something else. The day to day stuff here is starting to affect me adversely both physically and psychologically.

It's safer in "the dark place". I can say to myself "I'm fucked for life. I have no prospects of ever getting gainful employment again as I don't have the pieces of paper to show what I'm capable of and I'm in my mid-forties, so I may as well stay here and wallow in the pit of misery that my life has turned into."

Safer.

I won't do it, though. At the risk of sounding egotistical, I'm too good, too intelligent to go nowhere. I want a life back. I know where I want it and I know with whom. I intend to use every iota of my strength and intellect to make it happen.

This is exactly the kind of intensely personal entry that I haven't felt able to post here for years. Maybe I've now reached the stage where I really don't care who reads this. It may be my subconscious trying to provoke something. All I know is that when I got back to the house this morning I was sinking into "the dark place" again. Not going there. Not no more, not ever again. I am sick and tired of that darkness and it's not going to have me. I know where my sunshine is.

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Spring Rising

2009-04-08T21:35:00.001+01:00

Spring appeared here again today. In fact it was that special kind of spring that I remember so well from childhood. Crisp mornings, giving way to days with the first hint of real warmth. Dew like diamonds in the soft velvet of new grass.

It always used to drive me crazy, as a kid, that the mornings would be cold enough to need a coat, maybe but by mid-morning even a jumper might be too much. I'd moan endlessly about it, as kids are wont to do, as if my complaining and bitching could make the slightest difference or someone could change it for me.

As I've grown, I've come to appreciate the contrast. The way that the chill gives way, steadily, imperceptibly to a warm that seeps into one's very heart.

And maybe not just with the weather.

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I Bet She Is!

2009-03-29T12:28:00.001+01:00

"The Home Secretary is to pay back parliamentary allowances claimed for pay-per-view television services, reportedly including two adult films."

BBC NEWS | UK | Smith 'sorry' for expenses claim

I always thought that she looked a bit of a goer! Eh? Know what I mean? Eh? Eh?

There's a smutty joke here somewhere about "open and visible" politics but I'm not going there.

Oo-er.

And having just consulted with my lawyers, Messrs Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, I wish to make it clear that this entry is purely for cheap, smutty laughs and I in no way suggest that the esteemed lady had any knowledge of the films that were on the bill. Okay?

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Weakend

2009-03-28T09:15:00.001Z

This was written last night but I obviously forgot to click on "publish". I can't be arsed to go through and change the tenses etc so......

I may have mentioned something about this before. I feel very strange on Friday and Saturday nights sometimes. When I was a young man, even if I was out every night, there was something special about Fridays and Saturdays. It seemed that all the really good stuff happened then. There were friends, fun and laughter all the time.

Obviously, the fact that I don't currently go out to work has an impact on this but I feel that the weekends have lost their lustre. I'm not talking about the recent times when I've been "away" at weekends - they have been, without exception, magical. I'm referring to every other weekend.

On the rare occasions that I go out in town with friends it seems a little surreal. I can get into "the life and soul of the party" mode sometimes, to the extent that I have been referred to as "the man"! I assume this is a compliment. It doesn't seem real, though. It's not like I'm deliberately putting on an act but it feels almost as if I'm performing for someone, like someone needs entertainment and I've been switched on like a clockwork toy for their amusement.

It sometimes feels that if I don't do it, no-one will. We turn into a bunch of middle-aged people sitting in a pub reminiscing about the wild times we had there 20 years ago. How sad is that? In both senses of the expression.

Maybe even that's better than what I feel tonight. I have no enthusiasm for the television but it'll be expected that I sit in front of it for a while or there'll be an inquisition. Weekday nights there's always some kind of preparation to be done for the following day but on a Friday and Saturday night I don't have that excuse. Other people may be entertaining friends or going out dining but as friends no longer call, really, there's just the house and the household. Don't even get me started on why friends no longer call.

So here I sit, trying not to think too deeply about anything. I feel so "tightly drawn" tonight, like an over-tightened guitar string. Everyone and everything here is annoying me tonight. Not to the extent of confrontation but sufficiently that I can feel the tension rising in nearly every part of my body.

Away with me, to bury myself in housework or to close my eyes and doze on the sofa. Anything to keep myself busy and away from social interaction. If it wasn't raining I'd go for a long, long walk.

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Struggling a little...

2009-03-27T07:37:00.001Z

...with what passes for reality around here, at the moment.

Part of the problem is that I had such a lovely time last weekend when I was away in London. It was always going to be a stretch to settle back into routine after staying here

in the room (suite actually. Was upgraded for free!) dead centre of this picture, the right hand window overlooking the terrace, with it's own balcony.

Of course, a nice hotel is only a start. The fact that it was in Little Venice, in London, near to Regent's Canal

made it even more perfect. As did the fact that nearby was a little Italian restaurant that served, aside from completely delicious main courses, desserts so scrummy sounding that it was impossible to decide between them

so the order was for three of them!

The weather was reasonably kind and all in all it was a pretty damned wonderful weekend. Now, where's the key to my time machine....?

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Double Trouble

2009-03-25T22:12:00.001Z

"Japan has certified a man aged 93 as the only known survivor of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both hit by atomic bombs towards the end of World War II. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on 6 August 1945 when a US plane dropped the first atomic bomb.He suffered serious burns and spent a night there before returning to his home city of Nagasaki just before it was bombed on 9 August."

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Man survived both atomic bombings

This poor guy has really been through the mill, hasn't he? I know that this isn't funny in the slightest but just imagine - you've lived through one atomic bombing and then the bastards drop another one on you! WTF??

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Sharing

2009-03-20T02:43:00.001Z

So here I am again. This late night thing is becoming a habit. I don't mean my being up and about at this ungodly hour, I mean blogging this early in the morning.

One of the things about it is that it's one of the times of day that I'm least likely to get interrupted or called away, so I can let the stream of consciousness flow, man. Of course, around here, there's no guarantees of not being nterrupted when one is doing anything at any time.

I think it was the first comment that was ever left at Solid Gone. Someone told me that "mph is so yesterday". It took me a few months to work out that "mph", in this context, meant "my personal hell". I got a little snippy about it if I recall. It may have sunk in at some level, though. Even now, not only do I consciously try not to whine here, I try not to burden other people with my woes.

One person in particular has said to me that I'm not to bottle things up but am to talk about them. The fact that this person knows me well enough to tell when something is wrong from the sound of my voice makes it hard to keep things from them. Not that I ever try to keep things from them, it's just that there are occasions when this person's life is quite full enough without hearing that something has happened here that has happened before. In many ways this person and I are startlingly similar. I can tell within a sentence when something is bothering or has upsaet them and, like me, they'll try not to bother me with it. Even when I do get them to admit that something is wrong, I then face the quandary of knowing how much to push the issue without seeming to pry.

I guess that this is something that this person and I are going to have to work on/work out. Fortunately, God willing, we have years to sort this kind of thing out. Between us, we have a tendency to make each others "issues" vanish like mist in the morning sunshine, so I don't see this as an insurmountable problem.

On that note, good night. Or good morning.

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Late night randomness

2009-03-18T01:50:00.001Z

It's very late and I promised a Lady I'd get straight to sleep. I'm not breaking that promise, I've got to wait for the iron to cool down before I can put it away. I really ought to have a shower as well. I must have one before I go anywhere in public tomorrow and I won't have time in the morning, unless I blow dry my hair. I hate to blow dry my hair. It's fly-away enough as it is.

So I'm sat here with a glass of whisky, listening to music, wishing I were miles and miles away.

I was Lost In France, in love.
Ooh la la, ooh la la la dance

Not necessarily France, that's just the song that was on. It's never a great idea listening to music, chosen at random by a piece of software, at this time of night when you're a little drunk and a little heavy of heart. There seems to be something programmed in that picks songs that are guaranteed to tug at one's heartstrings.

And at the end of the day
I hated sleeping alone.
There's nothing worse when you're lost
And you don't wanna go home

...which is a good case in point. Neil Diamond's "If I Don't See You Again" which I actually made a video of myself singing and playing on the guitar. And no, before you ask, I didn't get all the way to the end without fucking it up. My singing voice is never going to make me a living but it's better than my guitar playing!

Just let me get another whisky....

So, yes, where was I? Nowhere really. Just wittering late at night. Well, early in the morning, technically. Currently 1.24 GMT although Central European Time is an hour ahead of that. Not that that'll make any difference to any of you.

I'm sure that I've mentioned, in the dim and distant past, that I tend to suffer from a skin complaint not dissimilar to psoriasis. It reacts badly to stress so it's easy to gauge the levels of discomfort I'm working under, in any given photograph, by looking at how spotty I appear. I was always told that bad skin was something I would grow out of and it'd be left behind with my teenage years. Pah! Another crock. Not a craic, a crock.

Paragraph. It seems to work, this blog editor built into Flock. I can't be arsed to link to it. Google it, if you care to.

Either the keyboard on my laptop is playing up or I'm more tipsy than I thought. The "r" key isn't always showing and if I hit "shift" to make a capital, as often as not I get a blank space instead. Oh well.

But I'm not above
Making up for the love
You've been denying you could ever feel
I'm not above doing anything
To restore your faith if I can

Billy Joel. Highly talented. A piano man. I had several years of piano lessons, in my early teens. Wish I'd kept it up. In fact I wish I had some kind of proficiency with any musical instrument. Music is such a big part of what keeps the temple of my reason from crumbling completely that I wish I had some way of creating it myself. Oh well. Again.

If I'm having a shower, I should go and have it now, I suppose. It's real late. Or real early, depending on your point of view.

I'm gone. Solid Gone. See what I did there?

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Happy St Patrick's Day!

2009-03-17T12:27:00.001Z

I'm not drinking Guinness, if I can avoid it, on principle. An Irish ale, then, with a measure of Jameson's. Slainte!

Musing.

2009-03-16T13:38:00.001Z

So maybe using this new blog editor is the kick in the posterior I need to start blogging more frequently again. It seems ages since I've been able to write much here.

Those of you in the know, will know (doh!) that there's "stuff" going on that I can't discuss freely here. That really shouldn't stop me from scribbling here from time to time about other things.

We'll have to see how it goes. For today, at least, hello again!

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Birds of a Feather...

2009-03-15T18:38:00.001Z

This is just a test post from the Blog Editor built into the Flock browser.

Hence the witticism of the title!

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Away From Me

2009-03-03T21:02:00.001Z

Not an official video but a pretty set of pictures to go with a song that seems to fit, far too often for comfort.

If Your Life Was A Movie And It Had A Soundtrack....

2009-02-23T12:24:00.001Z

In the absence of anything particular to blog about (although I do have an idea, which is dependent on my using some image-manipulation) I have shamelessly filched this from Ms Blogs, as it seemed like quite a fun idea….

How to do it:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, et.)
2. Put it on Shuffle.
3. Press Play.
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button.
6. Be honest.

OPENING CREDITS
Even The Bad Times Are Good – The Tremeloes. Okay, not sure I’d have picked that as an opening but let’s be honest here, right?

WAKING UP
Train Kept A’Rolling – Aerosmith. Well it’d certainly get me going in the morning. Or whenever I woke up.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
Still A Fool – Muddy Waters. More appropriate to “last day at school” I guess!

FALLING IN LOVE
C’mon And Love Me – Kiss. Honest, that’s what came up. “Came up”? *giggles*

FIGHT SONG
Hey You – Pink Floyd. Hmmm. Depends on what kind of “fight”.

BREAKING UP
Concerto for Flute & Harp in C, 2nd movement: Andantino – Mozart. Lovely. And I can see that as a heart-breaking “break-up” soundtrack.

PROM
River Deep, Mountain High – Katrina & The Waves. Yes, I’d dance to that. It’s not a “smooching” song but…

LIFE IS GOOD
Whiskey Man – Molly Hatchet. *hic* Hell, yeah!

MENTAL BREAKDOWN
Bad Case Of Loving You – Robert Palmer. The late, lamented Bob Palmer! Great song.

DRIVING
All Night Long – Rainbow. Works for me.

FLASHBACK
True – Spandau Ballet. Although I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a “flashback song” that would seem to fit…

GETTING BACK TOGETHER
Waterloo – Abba. Incidentally, looking at these songs, the word “eclectic” springs to mind!

FINAL BATTLE
Rock & Roll Suicide – David Bowie. Hardly a battle song, I don’t think.

DEATH SCENE
A Change Would Do You Good – Sheryl Crow. Bwahahahahaha but maybe not that kind of a change!

FUNERAL SONG
California Dreaming – The Mamas and The Papas. Wouldn’t have been my first choice but if someone played that at my funeral I wouldn’t feel the need to come back and haunt them.

CREDITS
To Know Him Is To Love Him – The Teddy Bears. Now you know that I’m being honest with the songs! Okay, it’s a sweet song but for the closing credits to the movie of my life? That’s not for me to say…

So there you go. It’s a bit of fun, that’s all but it filled a space here. Sorry it’s been awhile, guys!

Happy Valentines Day

2009-02-14T11:44:00.001Z

I saw this gloriously tasteless bear locally. You don't really get the scale from the picture - he was about 3 feet high!

All Revved Up With No Place To Go

2009-02-07T09:42:00.001Z

Weekends. All well and good, I suppose. For those of you that go out to work during the week they must be very welcome – a chance to have a lay in, maybe, spend time with the family, go visiting or go to parties, or just chill out a little.

Currently, I’m finding weekends a bit of a trial. There seem to be fewer distractions from what passes for normal around here beyond the thought of people out having a good time somewhere. The mornings are bad enough but as the day progresses it’ll just get worse until by about 9 o’clock tonight I’ll be ready to go out and sit under a tree somewhere for a couple of hours, just to get a break from “it”.

For now, shopping calls. Oh joy!