Hello world.

What with the Olympics and Fantastic Contraption, I have lost quite a bit of Blog momentum and not posted for a while. This leaves the frequently encountered problem of whether or not to back date a brief history of all that has happened (not a great deal) or write a post on one specific thing and loose any sense of continuity. I have decided to do neither, but to include this paragraph as some form of justification.

One thing that has been very slowly emerging as some form of success of late has been my project at work. We got the fish breeding relatively quickly, but it has taken an age to get them successfully raising their young, rather than deciding to have a kiddie midnight feast. I have spent hours and hours in the aquarium recording what is going on in terms of the parent-parent and parent-offspring interactions which is reasonably interesting, but leaves me with a lot of spare time. Cue my latest craze of photography and playing round with the settings to try and get a decent photo of the parents with their young. It has proved difficult, the biggest problems being the low light and shooting through the glass and into water. However, a high n value, rather than any great skill has served me well and I’ve had a few reasonably decent results. It’s just a shame that the colours darken up quite a bit during their parental stages:

Diary time

So here we are again.

I called the Twin and felt quite sick as she answered in chirpy spirits and giggled down the phone to me. She was driving with The Other Twin so I said we needed to have a chat and asked when was a good time. She called back later and I said what I had rehearsed in my head – that I was enjoying seeing her, but that I didn’t see a long term future, so it was probably better to stop seeing each other. It was quite awkward and I didn’t enjoy it at all. I got a blank text from her about 10 minutes later which said ‘Nothing to display’ which I wondered if was her saying she had no emotion to display to me, but I later experimented and found out that it’s what gets displayed if you send a completely blank text. I thought about her debating whether or not to send me a text and then accidentally pressing send. Ive heard nothing since that text, so I hope she’s good and really wish her well.

The ‘split’ was the sum of a few parts. I’d had a chat to a friend, GR, while canoeing, who I know speaks to the other Twin. She was asking what was happening and I said – we saw each other every few weeks and it was going ok. GR asked if I wanted to be ‘with’ the Twin and I didn’t really know. She said that I should either get together properly or not see her at all – that we had passed the point where it was OK to casually see her. After thinking about this I agreed that she was right, maybe I was being a bit selfish. Another friend said I was ‘using’ her which I think sounds harsh, but there might be some truth in it. I think the bottom line is that I was happy casually seeing her and didn’t realise she was now needing more commitment.

I listened to ‘Everybodys Free (To Wear Sunscreen)' and took some life instructions from it: ‘Don’t be reckless with anybody’s heart’

The same weekend me and LEA got on really well. Over a bbq we drank some wine, chatted, flirted and later on had a bit of a cuddle before bed. I went back to my tent and wondered if I should have gone for more, but then woke up, thought ‘oh my head hurts’ and didn’t think much more about anything. On my way home I got a call from Barbie saying LEA had spoke to him, that she thought I had tried to kiss her goodnight and she had shied away and was now regretting it. Barbie said I should come back to Bris and take her out for a drink and chat. I was half way home and had to do 2 hours in the aquarium so said I couldn’t, but that I would call LEA later on. About 30 mins later a got a text from LEA saying she really liked me, was worried about breaking our friendship etc etc but would I like to go out.

I thought about this all the way home, usually with a big smile on my face. I called her and said I felt the same and arranged to go back to Bris the next weekend. She’s now coming down here tomorrow.

Things seem really good.

So far.

A Tradegy

When I was at Uni up north I used to play 5-a-side football for a staff team. We were generally older, slower and less fit the whipper-snapper undergrad teams, but we partially compensated by having a greater experience of the game and better organisation. The team was quite an interesting mix. We had the local MP in goal who was excellent at debating with referees about their dodgy decisions. I used to play midfield with a chef from Barbados, right behind our striker ‘Fletch’. He was a particularly interesting character – a scouser, an ex-monk, and now a religious studies lecturer. He apparently used to be the monk with the thought of the day on the 90’s breakfast TV show ‘The Big Breakfast’, but I can’t find anything on Google to back this up. We had an average season, but not knowing many people in a new town I really enjoyed playing and having some banter with the guys. Fletch organised a Christmas meal, and everyone, particularly Fletch made me feel part of the team and we laughed and joked our way through that evening and the next season. Eventually work dictated that I move away and I rarely, then never, saw the team.

I got sent a link to a Facebook group I could check the latest season’s results, and I heard that promotion was on the cards and that Fletch had got married and just had a little girl. Then last week I heard that Fletch had been to Australia on a conference, and had died from a heart attack.

Time and distance apart had softened this blow to me, but it’s always a horrible shock when you hear of someone’s death, especially someone who was so young and had just started a family.

'A Tradegy' just doesnt seem to do it justice.