“ When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions! ”

Hello there!
Someone in the Sunderland area, who uses Virgin Media as an ISP, has Windows XP, and a strangely low screen resolution (800x600!! - get tweaking or a decent graphics card!), has been stopping by now and again, the latest visit was 7.28am today. You could at least say hello!

“Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.” - Jane Austen

“I've developed a new philosophy... I only dread one day at a time.”

Well Chilli, (and hello by the way) you were right , it wasn't so bad. Once again the anticipation proved to be infinitely worse than the participation.

I do have to go for some physiotherapy though. My Sickness harks back to an injury I sustained at work about ten years ago, which appears to have left me with sciatica in my right hip and foot. I should have had physio years ago, but I'm such a procrastinator, that it takes something like this to achieve it.

I've bitten the bullet and put the heating on tonight! It's pathetic I know, a grown man having to work out when he can afford to be warm! It was cold, grey and wet today, sort of like my mood!

Hopefully I'm off to get a load of Canadian Dollars tomorrow (by a load I mean not a lot really) Fun! Fun! Fun!

I couldn't resist another Bob Downe Clip!

“I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it.” - Charles Schulz

“It always looks darkest just before it gets totally black.”

Were it not for my holiday to Canada soon, surely I would have nothing to talk about. I am so dull, or rather my life is! but hey! enough wallowing!
I was so grateful to get away from work today! Sometimes you can sense a bad shift in the air (and of course all the admissions, complaining relatives and unhappy staff were a bit of a giveaway too). I was more than happy to run out on a sinking ship this evening, ain't I a stinker? Goodbye unlucky colleagues - alas I will soon be that unlucky colleague, what goes around comes around eh?
My sickness interview is tomorrow, and whilst part of me knows it is just a formality, the uptight insecure part of me (ie 90%) is terrified!!!
I went to work with a nagging feeling today, when I got there it came to me! - I'd left the iron on! Oh domestic calamity! Luckily I was allowed to run straight home , I had indeed left it on - See I'm an idiot too!

Hey ! Tomorrow I have been with lastfm for a whole year! Where does the time go eh? When I was young it was all fields around here.............

Publish Post

“The skillful employer of men will employ the wise man, the brave man, the covetous man, and the stupid man.” - Sun Tzu

How come these daily Shirley Manson pictures, never get me a google alert?

“Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an ass”

Hello friends! You find me sitting at my Brothers computer, which is in the bedroom I spent most of my childhood in! (I mean the bedroom parts of my childhood, I wasn't locked in or something!). I called in after dropping Billie off at school and found myself trapped - sort of!

Only four weeks tomorrow until my Canada trip! It's over four years since I had any kind of Holiday. However I am trying to not get too excited, I won't be able to relax until I am checked in, and sitting down in my economy seat. Then I can get excited!

I have always enjoyed the travelling part of Holidays. That is the getting to the Airport, looking for gates, the ambience of Airports, buying a book or magazine that #I will probably never read, the tiny food, the worry over who I'll be sitting by (noisy child? chatty old lady?), watching the little plane on the graphics, changing my watch (- WATCH? was that it?). You get the picture!

I've never travelled alone before though (my ex-wife was the most organised creature that ever lived), so I am sure I have / will forget something very important! stay tuned for news on that.

(Depending upon when you read this it may still be un-embellished, as I said before , pictures are back at home on my external drive.) See you all soon?

“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” - G.K. Chesterton

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”

Hey it's a year since I started "writing" this blog. That led to reconnecting with my old friend Claire, she soon vanished, but not before starting my brief flirtation with Myspace. And then I found the wonderful Barbara. Isn't the Internet fantastic?
Such a new and totally unique way of connecting with other human beings, remember the days of penpals!!! However the old blog is still here and although somewhat neglected it will always have a special place in my heart. It used to be that I got in from work, and in lieu of any human contact, I would "complain" at the screen! Now it's like an old relative that you pop into visit now and again, only to be told the same stories you heard the last time you were there! Anyway this ol' blog and the sublime lastfm, remain my favourite places in cyberspace.

I've started watching "Twin Peaks" for the first time since it's broadcast (YES! I did buy the VHS version in the 90's but never got around to watching them again! - what can I say?) and I must say that for once, time has not been cruel. It is still as fresh ,funny and genuinely unsettling as I remember, and has one of the best TV soundtracks ever! and although Sheryl Lee probably looks better now than back in 1990, I'd forgotten how attractive the female cast was, especially Sherilyn Fenn and Lara Flynn Boyle - but enough of my half remembered twenty something lustings.

I'm listening to the Beatles "Love" Album at the moment ( I finally bought it! - £5 for the CD/DVD-A version , a steal!) - That means I now have all the Beatles "original" albums, apart from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, if you see what I mean. Anyway, apart from being a masterpiece of production, it reminded me of how much I want to see the Cirque de Soleil show in Las Vegas. I've always wanted to visit Las Vegas, I love that disposable trashy side of American er.. "culture" and that show gives me one more reason to visit it's holy city!

Billy has left the building...

“Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.” - Philip K. Dick

“Payday came and with it beer” - Rudyard Kipling

In an insignificant street, in an insignificant city, tucked away in the corner of a hum-drum country , our chilly hero sits and types.

Of course the car sailed through it's test, but on the very day I was without transport it poured, reminiscent of the deluge. I did another foolish thing - I wore a wool coat that I have had for ages, but never worn, and it seems that was reason enough for those ancient gods ,who monitor and make such mischief, to wet themselves chuckling! (no car + wearing a a wool coat + rain = very wet and soggy Billy)

It's payday tomorrow - hooray, but by the curse of the direct debit will leave me just enough for maybe a take away and a couple of DVDs, what more could a man want? However I was reading on Reddit.com that of the approx. 6,120,000,000 people in the world, I'm earning more than 6 billion of them (do forgive me if those figures aren't exactly right), so I suppose that puts me in some kind of elite! yippee!

Remember I mentioned that sickness interview I have coming up at work? you don't? oh - well anyway, every time I sneeze, ache, twinge, spasm, or cough, I can't help worrying that it will develop into some terrible illness, and the rules will mean I'll have to crawl into work , barely alive, and grinning through gritted teeth - brave little soldier!

“The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff.” - Britney Spears

“I beheld the wretch - the miserable monster whom I had created”

It's early on a Saturday morning, and that feeling has returned!
I've just dropped my Daughter off at her Mothers early, as they are going on a trip. That in itself always makes me feel empty and sad. I miss having her constantly around, I miss the feeling that she's just in the next room , reading or laughing, and I fear the way her childhood is rapidly vanishing, as puberty approaches. (We were talking about one of her old favourite games yesterday, a toy post office, and she said she doesn't want to play any more - fair enough she is 11 - but suddenly I missed her pestering me to play, realising she never would again, and so regretting all those times I said no!)

I picked up my post as I went to bed last night (as I'd left and arrived via the back door). There was an official looking letter. It turned out to be a summons from my employer to a "sickness meeting". I work under a policy of 3 or more episodes of sickness in a year, and a meeting results with the Ward Manager and a Personnel ..er, person! I'm sure it won't be the witch hunt and sacking that the feeling in my stomach tells me it will be, but I'm worried, especially as it advises me that I can bring a union rep with me!

The darkening nights and cooling temperatures, have also had an effect on my mood. Things don't quite seem so bad when it's sunny and warm! I know that in the grand scheme of things my life is not so bad, but sitting here, alone and cold , killing time before work, happiness feels a long way away.

“A man's as miserable as he thinks he is.” - Seneca (@ 1st century AD)