Den making

When I was little I used to make a den with a blanket drapped over the back of the settee. When I was old enough to play outside I made dens at the end of the garden, using bits of wood and old carpet from the garage. I once planted a conker because I thought it might grow into tree big enough to hold the den holy grail- a tree house. Then, when I got a bit older, I started making dens in the woods and once spent a week making a den in the middle of a hollybush. The hollybush den was so big i decided to call it a base. On scout camp I made a den in the woodpile and shot people who couldnt see me with my waterpistol as they walked past.

Then I got older and forgot about making dens.

Then my sister got married, had two little boys and last christmas I spent most of boxing day making dens with my nephews. I started them off with the classic blanket over the back of the settee, and finished the afternoon with a very spacious blanket over the dining table. The delight in my nephews' faces was remarkable. It was nice to be back in the den making circle. I envied all the den making possibilites that their future holds.

Then yesterday I recieved my ebay-purchased overwrap that fits onto my giant fishing umbrella which will be used in my night fishing trip on Monday. I put it up in the garden to check it out. Separtely they didnt make much, but together, I was delighted to see, they made a den.

Dens rule.

Leaves on the line

Its not quite gone off the rails, but progress in my new life down south has been frustratingly slow for the past month or so.

I wont blame the weather, and will try not to dwell on the wettest June for 95 years, or the severe flooding that has followed it in July. Things have just slowed to a near stop after a frantic first six weeks of meeting people, drinking, and then meeting people I would struggle to remember the next day.

I guess that things run in cycles, and there can't be solid back to back great times, if for no other reason than their regularity would, by definition, stop them being unusually great.

I'm amazed at how close I've got to my French housemate T. I'd had an irrational loathing of the stereotypical french ever since 'they' stole my football while I was inter-railing with friends as a carefree 21 year old. Both the already departed J, and the soon to depart T have been wonderful to live with, and I feel lucky to have met such a friendly and funny pair. Ive had great fun spending a whole evening getting drunk with T, saying 'un bon muff' and laughing whenever an attractive looking girl has come onto the TV. Sad, I know, but somehow it was brilliant. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when T leaves on Weds. Not in the mopping a tear with my hanky type way, but because his room is the first in a series of three that will quickly be emptied and refilled by a girl. A few years ago this would have filled me with excitement at the prospect of rolling round the lounge floor with a new arrived single housemate (happened once in 8 years!), but today I'm genuinely more worried about being in the middle of the winging / bitching / tension that is bound to happen when 5 twenty somethings with no Y chromosomes start interacting.

Still, the cycle will turn around again I'm sure, and it is interesting to imagine what the future holds down here. I hope I can get a neat circle of friends together and start doing some things on the weekends when the weddings and watching le tour de France have run their course.

This might well start next weekend, as camping and then a night fishing trip are all booked in.

3 Shreks, man

Just saw Shrek the third.

I'd partially heard some rumblings that it wasn't very good, but I really enjoyed the first two so thought it was worth a go. Id give it 7 out of 10 for entertainment-generally a bit average, but looked amazing, and a few very funny moments. My favorite bit was when the Gingerbread man thought he was going to be killed and his life flashed before his eyes- his legs got pulled off by some kids and then they had clips of him training back to full health, then running through a field on his repaired legs with tears in his eyes.


Genius. (it is on Youtube, but really crappy quality so no link). There was also a Damien Rice song in there, which was a slightly strange choice, but a nice surprise.

Looking forward to the Simpsons movie- the whole Spider-Pig thing in the trailer probably got the biggest laugh of the night. Most of all though, I simply cant wait for Transformers (Check out the High Def trailer here- I haven't been so excited about a film since Starwars Episode 1.

For the first 10 mins, this post had no title

I had my staff induction today, and it was absolute bollocks. I hoped I had left behind all the corporate rubbish in my last job, but it seems to also have a stronghold at the Uni training centre. If it wasn't for an amusing incident with a spider, I might well not have made it through the day.

It didn't start well, as I was hungover again after another trip to the Drum and Bass empire that is known as the White Rabbit (my dancing had not improved, BTW).

I got a coffee, sat down and introduced myself to my table. Within 1.5 seconds there were 3 middle aged women whinging at me about how shit their jobs were, and how under valued and under paid they felt at work. This was depressing, at best. I looked at the floor in the hope that they might stop, but only succeeded in noticing a spider (quite large, maybe a category 2) that had suddenly appeared (as they do, probably out of a His Dark Materials -type window from another world) and was bundling his legs towards me. I tried not to panic, got my feet up off the floor and followed his every move like a hawk. My behaviour attracted some attention and I felt that I had to say something. I interrupted the conversation of the women, which had continued (probably on auto-moaning pilot) in spite of my evasive actions,

'Sorry to butt in, but theres a spider down there' I pointed out, now trying to casually shuffle my chair out of his predicted path of terror. In a moment of genius I decided to move my bag too as I thought he might be trying to get to get under it as a shelter. He was, and I took a brief, but sweet moment of celebration as Spidey's plan was foiled, and he changed course towards the organiser’s bag, which upon reaching he promptly disappeared underneath.

Semi relief. *

'Sorry, I don't like spiders much' I said, and the women all gave me a look which suggested I had lost all of my credibility as someone who was worthy of having them whinge to.

2 hours later and I was sitting through the 3rd talk that was presentation-rohypnol and decided that I had actually reached the point at which I had no further will to live. At this point the organiser guy, who was changing the PowerPoint slides for the speakers, decided for some reason that he wanted to have a fumble in his bag.

Aaarrrggghhhh..... not good.... My mind was desperately grabbing at anything that might have kept it awake, so I started thinking through the possibilities of what lay instore for the next 10 seconds.

If he fumbled too much, spidey might have got hurt, organiser guy might have seen spidey next to his hand and panicked, or worse still, and most likely, spidey might have run out from his hiding place and resumed his march of death towards me. I’m not sure if it was my hangover, or my brain craving for something to do, but I thought it would be a good idea to warn the guy. Since 'Equal Opportunities in the Workplace' lady was in mid-speech, I thought that maybe I should write down a warning. I got my pen, and scribbled down this on the back of my staff induction timetable:













and tried to catch bag fumblers eye as I tentatively put it on the floor with the arrow pointing towards where I had seen spidey disappear.

Bag fumbler wasn't expecting this, and I got my second strange look of the morning. After an uncomfortable 30 seconds of me trying to whisper an explanation that a spider had run under his bag earlier, and that this was not a good thing, organiser guy decided it was best to not talk to the weirdo who was whispering something about a giant spider and turned away to continue his slide swapping over.

Phew, that was close. I had almost looked a bit silly there.

50 more minutes and 'Volunteer Coordinator Widening Participation' woman had overrun into lunch by 17 minutes. She seemed awfully chirpy about this, which, needless to say, I was not. I began considering which of the things available on the tabletop I could have used to kill myself with quickest if she had carried on speaking for more than another minute. Finally she gave out a copy of her presentation in case we ever wanted to refer back to it (yeah, as if) and offered the critical words,

'So, has anyone got any questions?’

Surely not.

Please no.

'I wonder if you could just explain again about where I can find you on the intranet' says the woman who taught me what hate really is.

'Oh now let me see... if you go onto the intranet, I think we're under the 'volunteering' tab’ says chirpy. 'Now just let me check..'

Yeah, funny that, id have never looked for volunteering info under the volunteering tab.

Lunch was good. I didn't go back for the afternoon.

I need some sleep.

*No not that sort (honestly, your dirty minds), I meant I was partially relaxed.

Soz, but once again its all about me.

Some facts about my weekend:

I got changed into a really posh hired suit in a campsite, while 8 old people cheered from their static caravans.

I got up to do my reading during the wedding and the church setting and powerful words reminded me of doing a reading at my nan's funeral last year. This was awkward and quickly uncomfortable as I went from quite casually reading it out to a struggle to maintain my composure. Afterwards, a lot of people said that they thought my reading was 'brilliant' or that they 'loved it,' so I'm not sure if they were being nice, or if the tension in my voice and face added something to some of the words. I hope that most of the drama was in my head.

JA4 was on bail for Affray and Actual Bodily Harm during 2007 and had a darker side that I didnt know about. He dumped LEA and has since been a nightmare towards her, such as hacking into her Facebook account and then demanding to know who her friends were. This is not the guy I knew. I'm confused as to what I should think about him. Even weirder is that I have been summoned to do jury service in the 'Stol for two weeks and it seems likely that this period would coincide with his trial. Obviously I wont be doing it, but I found myself imagining my confusion if id not found out, and gone to court and then JA4 walked up to the dock.

I sensed an unusual parental urge to look after my parents who came to the wedding reception, but didn't know many people. I kept looking to see if they were alright or on their own, which felt strange, but good*.

I felt a twinge of unexpected attraction toward one of my friends who was looking particularly hot*.

I came home to find out 3 of my housemates are moving out; French T I knew about, but Gay A (AKA Andre the giant....) and M & N downstairs are also leaving. I am gutted T is leaving as we get on really well but I am happy that the others are leaving.

*A large quantity of the local 'Summer Ale' was almost certainly responsible for exacerbating these emotions and dwelling on them more than would usually be deemed appropriate.

Socially separated friend

During my lunch hour today I was organising and booking camping pitches for wedding #3, which is on Saturday. A few of us have decided to camp nearby rather than get a taxi home as there are no local hotels. I started a group email with about 15 people who are going to the wedding, and very quickly 'reply to all's began pinging into the inboxes up and down the country.

One couple not in the email list are LEA and JA4, two friends who I have got to know quite well over the past 3 years. LEA went to Uni with another friend Barbie, and through him, about 15 weekends away and several bottles of wine I have become really good friends with them both. They’ve recently bought a new house and I was emailing LEA last week about a possible night out in the homeland. She also confirmed that her and JA4 would take one of the camping pitches.

The next email is from Barbie saying that LEA and JA4 have split up.

I'm shocked. I have to read the words again to make sure I have understood correctly. There are no details, Barbie just says that he found out on Monday, and that LEA will still come to the wedding on her own.

I spend the rest of the afternoon wondering what has happened. I consider emailing one or both of them, but think better of it. I feel sad for them both. I am also sad that my friendship-through-a-friend with JA4 is effectively over. Although in theory it would be OK for me to speak to and hangout with him, in reality we became friends because of the fact that he was seeing (in fact practically married to) LEA who was good friends with Barbie. There is just not going to be the opportunity for us to hang out. Its really sad, but the chances are now that ill never see him again.

Ive got quite a lot of female friends, and thinking about it now I can recall at least 3 other guys from the past who I've got to know for years, grown to consider them as really good friends and then have them socially separated from me by a break up. This seems awfully unfair, especially when there are people like Mr Negative knocking about who I also spend time with because of their relationships with my friends, but who are complete dicks.

(Reading this back I guess I should be caring more about LEA feelings and what has happened rather than acting like its all about me.

Dam it.)
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On a separate note.

Do you ever jog up the stairs, get halfway up and then just loose all rhythm, get scared you might trip up, and then with your confidence in tatters have to hold the bannister and slowly start climbing again?

Oh, just me then.

PP Episode 4

I did my first ever Olympic distance triathlon on Sunday morning. As I walked from the race briefing to the swim start I tried not to think about what the next few hours was going to bring.
The swim very hard for the first few minutes and several times the thought of stopping and getting out crossed my mind.

The cold knocked the breath out of me, peoples flailing arms knocked my goggles off and the crowded start knocked my confidence. But after a few minutes the bodies spread out a bit, my head stopped protesting when I put it under water and I really started to enjoy swimming without having to stop every 25 metres.

I got out in about 25th place, managed to get my wetsuit undone but took forever in transition and lost a lot of places before I even got on the bike. I did quite well on the ride though, and just about kept up with the people around me. The run was more like a hike, and the organisers thought it a good idea to include the steepest hill ive ever seen, yet alone thought about running up, about half way in. I got to the top (of the aptly named ‘Murder Hill’ I later learnt) and started to experience my first ever cramp in my quads. It felt like there was a tennis ball being forced between my skin and the muscle, and I could barely waddle along for about 2 Ks. I tried to stop and stretch it off, but this seemed to make it worse and I feared I might have to walk in the rest of the way. After a while though it seemed to work itself loose, and by the time the final mile approached I was enjoying both unrestricted running and the knowledge that I was going to succeed in making it round. Ive thought about doing a ‘proper’ triathlon for years, and now I have.

My legs are knackered, but the feeling is sweet.