60

"Right then," I thought, "I've got the present ordered. That's sorted. Hmm, I'll get a card while I'm thinking about it and in advance."

I found a birthday card quite quickly. I do seem to be getting better at that. Come Christmas, I can spend HOURS literally just umming and arring over cards. It doesn't help that there are too many card shops ;)

So, I had my card. Within due course, still with loads of time to go, the present arrived through my door too.

Excellent. It was Dad's birthday in a couple of weeks time, and I'd got everything sorted.

The Sunday a handful of days before his birthday, I was on Messenger in the evening. At around 10:30pm, I get a message from my Mum.

Mum says
Don't forget it's dads 60th on thursday

60th. See, she has this habit of reminding me things like that just after I can realistically do anything about it. I work about 15 minutes from town, so I can't realistically pop in for lunch. I work from 9-5:30. There were no weekends between then and me. If I'd actually completely forgotten, I'm not entirely sure what she'd expect me to do about it. "Look Dad, I got you some... Apples! And... a turnip! AND! AND! Some 'sports for schools' vouchers! Hoh yeah. Isn't this just the best birthday ever?"

Well, Tesco's selection of "60" cards isn't great. Certainly not with both "60" and "Dad". Hmmmmmmmm.

So, my little connundrum was solved by posting the (non-60) birthday card that I did have, and making a second card - that way it said both "60" AND "Dad". Hah! I went down that weekend and took him his card and pressie.

But the thing that gets me...

I can't believe my Dad is 60!

I mean... 60? I must have looked up the history of the Messenger conversation at least twice to make sure that my Mum actually did say 60. 60's like ten years older than one of my bosses! And only ten years younger than the other! And I'm only 27 (well, only just... oh! it's a month today until a new number ;) )! He can't be 60.

Can he?

Apparently he can ;)

It was a good little house

I always liked it, anyway.

Ok, so it was "cosy", or as less diplomatic people would say, "quite small", but I liked it none-the-less :)

And ok, so it had more of a steep (almost vertical) few feet of grassy bank instead of a garden... But still. I liked it :)

It was our home. It had four rooms, two up, two down. But it was home.

I saw Mrs M several weeks ago. She was moving the last of the things from it, and they'd hired a van for the day. I almost had the impression I may not see her again. I asked whether she'd be back over this way at any point, and she said "I've not got any reason to."
I asked if she wanted to see me when I was over her way, "Well, there doesn't really seem any point."

Oh well. It's kind of a shame, but I'm not unduly bothered. Whatever helps her get through it, I guess.

Anyway, the sale was completed on Friday.

They've just received the cheque, and she'll be zapping across the amount upon which we agreed to my account once it has cleared. (Without going through official-dom, we agreed a split which equated to roughly 50/50 of major assets that I'm happy with).

And that, as they say, is that :)

Jedi by Night

So, Quna and I were out last night when all of a sudden, much to our astonishment, we witnessed a Battle of the Jedi:


Well, ok, I thought it looked a bit like that anyway :) It was actually fireworks, of course :)



I was pleased that I managed to find a display that was on last night. I'd assumed that they would be fairly well balanced between the 3rd and 10th in terms of proper displays, but actually it was a real struggle to find one - fortunately, my boss knew I'd been looking for a display, and happened to speak to someone else who was attending one on the Saturday, and then txt'd me with details :D

So anyway. I'd wanted to go to one because a few weeks ago Quna had asked if she could come to a fireworks display with me. Unfortunately, we were both busy last week (remind me to to blog about that if I don't do it within a couple of days...), hence the reason for looking for one this week.

So, Quna's been over this weekend. Meanwhile, I've been so busy at work recently. I just seem to be running around all day on a hundred different things. It's kind of nice ;) On the other hand though, I have been there until 7/8pm a lot recently, which makes the evenings very short (Again, contributing to my silence).

My most sincere thanks goes out to all of you who have kept checking for updates and giving me a poke in the comments ;)

Thank you for sticking with me :) Sorry I'm not all caught up on reading other blogs yet, but I do try to at least read them if not comment on them.

-Me :)

That Still and Settled Place

After she had gone, I found a card that Quna had left hidden for me.

Regarding it, when I spoke to her about it afterwards, she said "I've always quite liked Edward Monkton cards, and he says it far better than what I ever could."

But still, I think that what she wrote inside, and what she told me, was also very beautiful.

Weekend Rainbows

I notice this on weekends when the sun comes in above my curtains. How cool is that? :)

And also: Welcome to Cognidubnus who has (I assume) found his way here from Roses' blog :)

Should get back to normal reading/writing soon. Quna's here for a few days, at the moment... :)

I'm Not Dead

Hello! :)

Yes, I am back, and am not dead or anything :)

I have a couple of ideas for blog posts I'd like to do re. my holiday, but haven't quite got around to creating them yet.

Been busy recently. Part work, part pleasure... Over the last few, erm, months, I've been slowly watching 24 Season 2. It hadn't grabbed me much, but now, towards the end, it did, so the last several nights I've watched an episode or two (erm, or on one occasion, four) in a night ;)

Meanwhile, while I was on holiday, our office got completely done over, and all our PCs nicked.

They even took the Crunchies from my desk drawer (ripped off of its runners). Heartless bastards.

So, work has been a bit busy recently too ;)

On top of that, I'm still cooking (properly) a decent proportion of the time too, which eats another hour (hey, it takes me a li'l while, but I get there) of the evening.

Oh, and I'm back into reading again, too.

Partly though, I've just felt so knackered by the time I get home recently, that I've not really had the time - or energy - to work out what I'm saying. And then it all sort of tumbles out a bit randomly ;)

Fancy that ;)

I feel happy... ;)

Holiday

I shall be off tomorrow, on holiday, to darkest Wales :)

My parents & sister are coming to the end of a week there, and have another week there yet.

I shall be joining them... Although I haven't actually told them this :D

I'm off tomorrow, and all of next week :)

I shall be packing this evening (until about 3am) and leaving early tomorrow morning (say, about 3pm ;) )

My rough plan is to stay there until Thursday next week, when I'll head over to Quna's and bring her back to my gaff for the weekend.

Actually, I really like my flat, you know :) It's not just my flat, it is my home :) Quna says she likes it too, which is cool :) She says it's very relaxing :) I'm quite proud of my little place :)
Once we get our house sold, it would be cool if I had the opportunity to buy this one, but I doubt that'll be possible (Even if the opportunity arose, I don't know that I could afford it).

Anyway, sorry, that was just something unrelated that I'd been thinking about for a while, that just sort of... leaked out :)

So, take care of the place while I'm gone, for me :)

Thank yoooou :)

Leftovers

Made from a few random bits and bobs I had around that I wanted to use up.



(Couple of chicken breasts, end of a packet of mediterranean roasting veg or something, chilli/tomato sauce I made yesterday to go with chicken&rice. Chicken dusted with olive oil, salt, pepper, chicken stock stuff, paprika)

Old Romantic

A cunning combination of crafty considerations culminated this weekend.

Sorry, I seem to have been fancying the odd spot of alliteration recently :)

The second present I bought Quna finally came into its own this weekend, to turn into one really, really exciting amazing present.

Well. Ish. ;)

Back on the second time I met her (hmm, which was after our first date, but had been unsure of how it had gone, so the next time I met her after that wasn't an official "date), I bought Quna a rather special little present.

Then, I knew one thing she'd have liked recently (as a practical li'l present), that I'd bought a few days before she came over this weekend.

AND, while she was over here, I then spotted something else that I said "Ooh! Can I buy that for you?" over.

And so, that second time I met Quna, that gift I gave her then came in useful. And some people may have thought I was mad to buy her a lightbulb ;)

Oh yes, a light bulb, two four-way extension leads, and a small lamp. It doesn't get better than that ;)

Alright Then

Which one of you li'l bastards has been stealing my pillow cases and replacing each one with one of a slightly different shade?

I'm sure I've bought at least a few sets of white ones, and yet I only appear to have two. The rest are all cream, or natural, or beige-ish, or "something that looks mostly white until you put it next to white when you realise it isn't".

All I want is a couple of cheap cases each for my bottom pillows, and a cheap one again to go underneath the top pillow's "outer" case. Is that really so much to ask? And yet despite the hundred I seem to have, they don't appear to match. And no, I haven't buggered their colours up in the wash ;)

Note to self: Buy more cheap simple white pillow cases.

Note to self: Hang on a minute... Didn't Prince George always run out of socks because Blackadder was selling them on? Hmm, probably a ridiculous notion...

Warped Time-Space Continuum

As agreed, "if you're very nice, maybe I'll even post some pictures when I get back!"

Well, unfortunately, there was clearly a twisty warpy thingy in the time-space continuum (thingy) since then, which meant that somehow it bizarrely appears as though I am posting these pictures a week later. Pfsskch! Which clearly I'm not. Clearly.

Ok, so, maybe I do get juuuuust a little distracted and other things overtake me and I don't get around to blogging ;) I thought I might have got around to doing something this weekend, but then decided to hop over to Quna's on the Saturday :) (and, to answer SandDancer's question, yes, she does know I call her Quna online - why? it doesn't have connotations of which I am unaware, does it?)

My to-do list for this evening includes:
- Take short network cable back to work
- Submit support tickets for both my router and my wireless card, because they're both big piles of smelly smelly poo.
- Change bed linen (hopped home at lunch, stripped it, and stuck it in the machine already, so that's half-way done)
- Read book
- Play Oblivion
- Tidy
- *mumblepayparkingticket*
- Oh bollocks! I meant to go bloody shopping! I plain forgot. Right, that's something to do when I finish this then.

Got my first parking ticket last week. Whoo. Hoo. ;) I was five minutes late back to the car, and found the bloke printing it as I got there. Apparently they give you four minutes grace. D'OH!
"Don't let it spoil your day," said the traffic warden, "because it spoils mine when we have to do it to a nice person." (I'd been pretty much "Ok, well, fair enough, it's your job, not the end of the world" about it)

I took Quna here last week:

Which is such a cool place over that side of the country :) I used to love running around there when I was little :) And... I still do ;) We spent an hour or two having a slow meander around (well, relatively speaking, there were short dashes and such things within it :) ) After we'd had the picnic that I'd prepared (French baton, bread rolls, butter, cheese, sausage rolls, set of cutlery, couple of beers [she chose beer over wine for that occasion], quiche, nice thick ham, kettle chips, flask of tea, jam doughnuts, fruity slicey latticey thingy, fresh strawberries & black grapes), we split up for a bit - she wandered around with her camera, whilst I ran around with mine ;) AND, AND, she let me get my walkie talkies out, so we could each say random things at the other as we were around and about.



It was a lovely sunny day :)

The next day, I'd planned on going to the beech, but due to other arrangements that then popped up, we didn't. Instead, Quna took us to this park near to where she lives.



Of course, with the amount of food I'd bought, I still went home with a load too! But, as I went home via my parents, most of the remainder got eaten for tea there :)

Oh, and here's a pic, which I took on our first date, that I quite like. I only took it on my camera phone, but I printed it out to put in a frame recently :)



That was somewhere near to Quna before she moved. Glorious day, it was. Everyone at work took the piss out of me for getting sunburnt ;)

I saw advent calendars in the shops again, in about the first week of September. I was thinking about this recently, when I realised it's quite cool to be able to look back and see what I was doing "at this time last year", and how some things are different and some things are the same. I should try to blog more, and on time ;), so that I continue to keep such a record :)

Office Humour

So, I'd been talking to One Of Them Downstairs about the fact that when generating a new e-mail via a certain method, it didn't include the signature.

OOTD decided to try a couple of things and sent me an e-mail test - I'd mentioned that one problem could arise with images, and their looking ok on the original PC, but not working on the recipient's PC.

The following chain of e-mails ensued...

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

6:

At this point, I decided to walk downstairs again. I decided to try to remain serious as I entered the room. I'm never very good at that.

But, as I went downstairs, I thought I was going to manage it. As I walked in, I began to smile, as did OOTD when he looked up at me. Within about half a second, we both creased up laughing.

Ho hum ;)

Whilst I Want to Write More...

...At least this is something until it gets fleshed out a little more :)

I'm honestly not sure where the time goes in general these days! Hmm, I think I seem to spend quite a lot of time on the phone... :)

I want to keep you all updated as to just... erm... whatever, really :)

...Bu-uuuuut..

I have Friday off work and am heading away Thursday evening t' Quna's. I have stuff ready for a picnic on Friday, and possibly again on Saturday :D But shhh, because I'm refusing to tell her where we'll be going ;) (Well, ok, she knows "beach" or "not beach" ;) )
It's nowhere like super-exciting, just a couple of places I remember from over that way :)

Maybe if you're nice to me, I shall post some pics upon my return... :)

Good Film, Good Wine, Good Pasta

Yum, that was rather delicious :)

Nice glass of wine, good film to enjoy (Crimson Tide, not watched it for several years, enjoyed watching it again :D ), and delicious pasta :)

And, and, AND...



I even made it ALL myself, even the sauce! (And it's a proper sauce :) ) How cool is that? :)

Ok, I had a little help, but not much. No, really! I don't mean "a little help" as in "someone else made it and I stirred it when they asked me, while I put a film on" ;)

I was wandering around the supermarket and thinking about what to have for tea, and what I already had in my cupboards, when I decided I'd have tuna and pasta :)
I've attempted this before, but the "sauce" has been a bit, uh, "jazz" ;)

Well, this time I thought back to the rather delicious cheese sauce that I had observed Quna (thought about a name for her, decided to invent one, came up with that, I'm thinking it's pronounced Koo-na) make the other day. So I gave her a quick ring and confirmed what it was and how it "worked", and then got it all under way, with a couple of extra tips ("You've got some whole-grain mustard, haven't you? Put a couple of tea spoons of that in.") along the way.

And, I've still got enough left in the fridge for another couple of meals :)

Yum yum yummy yum yum :)

Hello Hello

Hello!

How are you? I hope you're keeping well.

Phew. I'm pretty good, thank you, just seem to have been so busy recently!

I think I have two draft posts I started over the last few weeks but didn't finish. One about when I met Mrs M a few weeks ago, and one about my Nan.

One reason I've been quieter than average recently is that I'm trying to concentrate more at work. I had got into the bad habit of spending a little time pissing about online from work ;) Made an effort over the last few weeks to not do that so much. Maybe that's good, as I got a payrise on Tuesday :D

Good job I am working hard at the moment, as things are quite busy. Trying to write a specification whilst simultaneously assigning work from it to two other people, support the existing system, handle on-going random support issues, and all the other things that get thrown at me. Busy busy! Still. Good fun though :)

Probably for the best that I got a rise the other day, as I spent about £500 within about a week the other day.

Bought an XBox 360 Elite :D So, that's where I've lost some more time ;) Also managed to spend two hours and £115 in a big Tesco, but I got some nice new bits and bobs for me gaff :) Speaking of which, I had a flat inspection yesterday, but all went well :)
(In spite of mentioning that two heaters have got the arse with me, and I also had some peaches die in a bin [Tesco bag] on my kitchen floor, that managed to transfer the writing on the bottom of the bag onto the floor :S Attacked that with all manner of substances but failed to shift it)

Have also been getting around the country a bit recently. On top of having seen my parents a few times...

Wait for it...

The girl that I'm dating* has been in the process of moving from living about an hour west of me to about three hours east of me, so I've been helping her out with various odds and sods (whilst also being a bit odd, and a bit of a sod), as well as just randomly having time occuppied on related matters ;)

* Official Vocab Guide: The terms "dating" and "seeing" have been approved for use by me at this time ;)

It's Only Bloody Friday

Thank goodness, I think I need a Friday :)

I was just absolutely exhausted yesterday. Bizarrely, it felt like the first day this week where I didn't feel tired and sleepy... I just felt exhausted.

I got my hair cut at lunch. Was a little slow so didn't get time to have any proper food, which meant that when I got back to work lunch consisted of a packet of crisps and a Mars bar :) When I got home, I just went into "It's time to chill out!" mood, which I really, really needed. I started with a beer and biscuits. Went for a lovely warm shower (fortunately, I was just finishing as the hot water began to run out...). Ordered from Dominos. Sat and watched Spiderman with a glass of wine and chickeny things and potato wedges... I never got around to even opening the pizza box, so at least I know what I can eat tonight :)

Just a couple more hours left, and then it's the weekend...

In fact... Iii can't wait for the weekend to begin... :)

Periscopes

Things seeem very bizarre now. As one thing seems to resolve itself, another seems to break. It's like something's trying to maintain balance, but someone forgot to take off a heavy item from one end of the scale.

There are a lot of things all going up and down.

A number of things also seem to be getting booked:
- Tuesday Evening: Mrs M is coming over
- Wednesday unknown: New desk gets delivered (they failed to call last week prior to delivery, so I wasn't in to receive it)
- Wednesday lunchtime: I have a meeting with a solicitor to discuss divorce-related-stuff for the first time.
- Next Tuesday: Funeral.

All Good Things

I've had Nelly in my head today. I have her on loop for a bit now :)

It really is quite strange, though. The various threads of my life seem inexplicably intertwined.

Several weeks ago, new threads appeared and old threads began to come undone. Each thread unrelated to its neighbour. And yet, they all became apparent at once, within days of one-another.

Now, weeks later, each one of those threads seems to have wound its course, its change apparent. And, as each thread appeared at the same time, they all seem to have reached their ends at the same time.

I know that this is hardly the first time a number of things all seemed to have happened at once. But it is strange, you know?

I guess fate really does wield a tangled skein.

Release

I know a lot of you have offered your thoughts and prayers with regards to my Nan, and I thank you all for them.

Mum phoned me about 10 minutes ago to let me know we've lost her now.

I decided not to crack, "Have you tried looking in a different ward?"

It would have been six weeks tomorrow since she first went in, so this really is a release, both for her, and my Mum in particular.

Mum said she wondered whether to tell my sister yet, as she finishes work at 7 anyway (it was 6:35). I said that I'd have preferred that they told me about Grandad sooner (they waited until I finished work) when he died, but on the other hand, it wasn't much time.
Mum said she wasn't sure about my sister driving home, etc. I said "Well, you can just sort of go into auto and that's not really an issue. Would you like me to phone her?"

"No, no, it's ok, I just wasn't sure about her getting home and so on. I don't mind phoning her. ... Have you got her number?"

"No... Uh, would you like me to phone her?"

"Ok then"

My sister answered the phone, and I was pleasantly surprised to realise I actually recognised her through the worky voice.

I phoned Mrs M to let her know too, as I knew she had been concerned.

And then I thought I'd let you guys know :)

Thank you, take care. I think I'll be heading around the M25 now...

Self-Righting

Whilst my post on Monday was somewhat reflective, and definitely do feel an overall "Gosh, look how far I've come" feeling about these things, I was also feeling a little stressed by a few things.

I "pulled a sicky" yesterday to give myself some space, and was able to use the time constructively to arrive at some worthy conclusions.

There have been a number of things going on my life recently that I decided not to blog about for a small multitude of reasons (I like that word, "multitude", it's a good word :) ).

Some of these things have been going on for months, some for weeks.

Some of them were really great, others really sucked. More often than not, they managed to be both really great AND really suck. Niiice. ;) There were a couple of times I began to blog about these things, but then they actually changed so fast the post would no longer have been relevant. Oh, what fun. :)

I apologise for cryptically teasing y'all with information, but this was something I felt I wanted to say. It is time for me to put all of these things behind me and move on, because all of the great bits have gone, and only the sucky bits are left.

I shall stand up again, and I shall stand taller and firmer.

I find that these lyrics keep drifting through my head:

Knock me down I'll get right back up again
I'll come back stronger than a powered up Pac-Man

It's time to eat some ghosts.