Stand up.
Rise up from the dust
from the mud
from the cold, hard ground.
Stand up and receive the salute
as all are gathered to honour
and respect,
we breathe life into you,
and in your memory
we hope
that one day there will be
nothing to forget

But if the rain reaches up here there'll not be much left to stay for. All night it rained. And on and off all day. One minute crisp and clear blue skies, the next rain hammering on the windows like it's after my famous galaxy cake. 

Something about living in the sky makes weather more real. You certainly can't ignore it. It's getting colder and colderand before long i'll be struggling to get up to the top of the street because of the ice again. How lovely.  Seriously.  It's real life. Not the cement grey middle ground of the city.

Still, I'm going to have to go out on a cat food and medication mission tomorrow, so I hope there's a break in the clouds for me.  

So honestly it's not just a liquid tea. But I never feel hungry when I get home past half seven on my own. I wonder what I would be like if I wasn't with someone. J always had to eat, regular as clockwork, three meals a day, or at least two. And Mark is always hungry it seems. Me - I don't know what I'd eat if it were up to me. I pick at things. bread, cheese, olives. Or make soup.  Long time since I just looked after myself (for the most part.) 

Of course I'd drink like a fish. But probably wine at home instead of beer in pubs.  But still. And there'd be the inevitable cheesecake or hagen daaz moments.  But it's not like it's any different now.

I'm enjoying my project at work at the moment. Writing a paper on web 2.0. Doing proper research things. I really should go back to studying in some fashion, it focusses the mind, and makes me feel vaguely intelligent again. Wish I could have got people more engaged with the process - it was meant to be a collaborative thing but I'm not convinced anyone else has really got what that means. And now I ask for comments or contributions for the paper - because I don't want it just to me polemicising - but no one seems to have anything to say.

Maybe when it's done. 

Well, the first half of the evening was a success. Gym, swim.  Then back and too much chinese food and hours of hallmark and bejewelled blitz. It's kind of like meditation. like the trance i get into while swimming. Randomly trolling through work and home problems, pondering the past and the future, wondering what it will take to iron out the creases in my mind.

I'm tired. I should go to bed. Going on the otley run tomorrow, but the thought of more drink is making me tired even now.  Times like this I wish I belonged to a more sensible nationality.

http://www.the-millinn.co.uk/index.html

I am recommending this place to my parents who are heading up to Penrith for an anniversary weekend shortly, I don't know if I've mentioned it here before. Fabulous food, and wonderful setting. They did possibly the best cheesecake I've ever tasted.  Went there with J, OJ and V when we went up to stay in the lovely farmhouse in Berrier ( Bells Farm ) - ill fated though that week was in many ways, it was a pleasant stay for those of us who went. 

I blame you, America. Or is it just the train I am on? No. I prefer to blame America. I know this may seem unreasonable and a tad bullying, but I have decided to bully them until they vote themselves a decent healthcare system. At least they've voted in someone with not only a brain but big enough cajones to attempt to give them what they need.

Anyway. That was a random rant from our sponsors, my early morning brain. It is early enough for me to be not entirely convinced that the world around me isn't a hallucination, so I may spout some oddness in the meantime. Please be patient, normal service will be resumed forthwith.  Although, considering my rubbishness at updating over the past couple of years normal service is nothing to write home about I suppose. I promise to try harder now I have my little wandering friend.

Funny phrase that, "nothing to write home about." I find the best things to write home about are the little things. Rambling thoughts of the day that you want to share with people you wish you could spend more time with.  But anyone who's received one of my letters will tell you i perhaps take it too far. If it weren't for email i'd probably have been resposible for the singlehanded deforestation of the amazon basin by now. My record i think was 84 pages.

Which is really more of a novella.

Which is what i could end up doing on here today ifI don't at some point decide to be more productive and a) read and make notes on some more web 2.0 articles, or b) crack on with E.P. Thomson. But I woke up at quarter past sodding four and my brain is scrambled, so it may take intravenous tea for a couple of hours before I am any good to man or beast.

Why am I alive so early I hear you ask. (or is that the voices again?) Today I am going to a seminar thing in London hosted by the good people of Sirsi Dynix. I do wish the good people of Sirsi Dynix (sounds a bit like a star, or a city out of a fantasy novel), and indeed all London colleagues would remember that starting meetings before ten makes things very unpleasant for those of us outside the M25. Yawn.

So far we're in Retford. And it's coming up to 7 o'clock. I am resisting the call of all the silly games on facebook because I think they will be the downfall of mankind.  Yes, I know my butternut squash will wither, and my Triple berry cheesecake will spoil, but I have to be firm. Somewhere out there a scientist with the potential to cure cancer or create, clean, infinitely renewable energy is harvesting their artichokes.  Or playing bejewelled blitz for the 98th time in a row.  Of course writing a rambling pointless blog is not exactly changing the world but at least it is gradually warming my brain up for human conversations which will undoubtedly have to occur later in the day. 

The 6.05 train is notably quieter than later versions. The train guard even gives you the option to go to sleep and leave your tickets somewhere visible so you need not be disturbed. That would have been sensible, sleep on the train instead of burbling. But i would end up feeling worse when i woke up. At least now I can benefit from the space cadet stream of consciousness.  Must take pill.  Though I'm sure they're making me really hot. As in warm. If only a pill could suddenly make you hot as in attractive. Though I suppose there's booze for that ;-)

I should eat. But I can't really be bothered. Have piles of books around me to sort, things from the storage unit. Listening to "smooth" classics - what they mean by smooth is clearly slit your wrist depressing classics. Probably not wise when surrounded by remnants of the life i so cleverly fucked up.

But all that's a long time ago now. Longer by the day. Still, even though life moves on and new things occur - somehow I can never stop these sad moments. Never stop feeling so sorry. For myself? For him? Everything I suppose.

I guess if it didn't hurt it would be a sign it didn't mean that much in the first place. Which I know it did. Well, one of me knows.

Finally! Mobility! I am blogging at lunch from the wardrobe. The bar that is, not the big wooden cupboard in my bedroom. Poppy wouldn't like me blogging from there, it's her hideout. Ah my lovely little friend. I am glad I finally gave in and bought you.  You are serving me well so far, though your left shift button seems a little sticky. But after all this time with my ageing laptop I think I can handle a few idiosyncracies.

The Macmillan cake bake went well. We raised £121, and much yumminess was consumed by all. I want to try and make our charitable efforts a bit more planned, do more. I think I will make my target for next year £1000. We've done about £500 this year.

Last night Mark and I went for a few drinks about town, Hole in't Wall and Nelsons, then got takeaway. Naughty but nice. totally dehydrated this morning of course, was wide awake at 5, then comatose again, was fortunately woken in time for the bus by the mooing of the cows in the field down the road as the farmer came to move them.

Tonight I have to go visit my grandma in hospital. She's not doing so well by the sounds of things. 

Today didn't go quite as well as planned. but the plan was a little ambitious for a sunday which after all should be a day of rest. Or so they say. Got up about ten and spent a while leafing through recipe books to decide what to bake. On deciding on my usual milk chocolate cake, plus a spiced apple effort, realised i needed to buy almost everything, so headed off to town. Walked to one of the other bus stops down the road so we could feel apples to the hrosses. They were very cute, but there was a big white one which was greedy and insisted on nomming everything and wouldn't let the little foals have any.

After the shop we went for lunch at Mooch, (gave J a phone tutorial in cheese sauce making mid way through) and then to the Trades Club for some games of pool, in which I played reasonably well. However we were out a bit longer than expected, so my initial plan of heading back out to the Crafternoon thing at the Hole in t'wall didn't pan out. Set about baking the cakes when I got in, interspersed with pointless game playing on Bejewelled Blitz.

After the cakes came out we headed over to the Hare and Hounds to pay the deposit for the walk we're off on in a couple of weeks, more pool, more beer. But back after not too long really,

Mark cooked a lovely pork mince biryani for tea, and we watched the end of Watchmen. I liked. I especially liked nice blue man Dr Manhatten. Mmm. Very handy trick that turning into multiple versions of your self. Very handy indeed.

Tired now, should go to bed but that means monday will come twice as quick. But I suppose there's nothing to be done about that now. It's not such a bad week now I suppose. Though lots of work to do.

Tonight a change from the usual routine, Massinet's Werther performed by Opera North at the Grand Theatre in Leeds.  It was interesting. Very bleak. I've never got round to reading the Goethe, I wonder if the Opera does it justice. For the plot is pretty pedestrian - or is it just that it is one of the oldest stories of man. Man loves woman, who is betrothed to other man, woman falls for man but will not betray other man, man eventually loses hope but woman reveals her love in the end, just that little bit too late.

However, the plot is not the fault of the performers and they pulled it off well, Werther was well done, by a man who troublingly looked like a cross between Nick Griffin and Nathan Lane - though that combination in itself gives me amusement. Charlotta sang well - I love that Opera gives a space for women who are not fragile little sparrows, though she was by far from the fat lady. Very beautiful - and her tortured third act where her love for Werther is driving her mad with sorrow was very moving. 

I cried at the final scenes but as Mark says, I cry at everything so that's not necessarily an good or bad thing.  It's not a very dramatic or exciting piece. It would probably work better for me as a play, but it was an enjoyable evening. Good company helps, Mark, Jamie and Eric - (the latter much more an afficionado than the rest of us, standing in for an absent Helen) 

For some reason the auditorium smelled of yorkshire puddings and italian food all the way through, driving us wild, but the last train home didn't allow for food buying before hand, and I can't eat this late without paying the price with a night of indigestion. So now to sleep, to dream of all manner of edible things no doubt.