the_happy_pig

I think I need to sit down and have a word with myself. Something along the lines of 'Don't be such a mentalist, you idiot!'

I need things to distract me, and they should be on their way.

Dave has now moved out, leaving the house a bit subdued. But with an extra room, which is going to be where Ben is going to keep all his bike bits, I'll keep all my sewing stuff and Adam will just keep his crap. This means that we finally get our dining room back, and somewhere to hang out the washing to dry in the winter (Which, as mundane as it sounds, is one hell of a boon). But, the house is really falling apart. It's been about 6 years since the letting agents actually did anything to keep up their end of the contract, there's wallpaper falling off the walls, the bathroom ceiling is about to fall in, the kitchen floor doesn't work and all the paintwork in the house has gone from the regulation Magnolia to Brown. So it looks like we may take it upon ourselves to repaint and sort out the wallpaper and the kitchen ceiling and try and fleece the agents. Ben also has the rather ambitious plan of knocking down the garden wall, removing all the earth from behind it, rebuilding said wall and replacing the earth and turning it into a kitchen garden. Good idea, yes. But will it ever happen? No, I doubt it very much. But I can see that we'll probably get very stoned and talk about doing it at great length. But that's how these things go.

Download coming up. I'm still waiting for the guy at work to email me back as to whether or not I can have the Wednesday and Monday off. If he doesn't allow it, I fear that I may be struck down with some kind of illness.

Which then brings the spectre of my family holiday looming over the horizon. To say how much I don't want to go would take up far too much time. I know why I've been asked to go. I'm going to be the referee. As always. There's a few things I'd like to do when I'm over there, visit Knossos, the Souda bay war Cemetery and maybe explore the mountains inland. Will I be able to do them? I doubt that very much. In fact I'd ask, no, beg for anyone to come with me so I'm not in purgatory on my own, but I wouldn't wish my family on anyone. Two weeks. Two bastard weeks. No friends, no internet access, and nothing but a lot of Ouzo for company. But it'll keep me occupied until I can have that Summer I've been planning on for what seems like years. I hope to be seeing a great many of you over the rest of the year, I feel another tour of this green and pleasant land coming up.

Once the summer is over, I should have shifted onto despatch at work, a couple of months of that and then I fully intend on being able to move.

That's the plan anyway.

And yes, I know that the definition of a plan is 'a list of events that never occur'. But a man can dream, can't he?