morning!

Life's been kinda frantic lately. The new job as I have mentioned is working out really well, there a nice level of busy-ness without the arse clenching "ahhhhhh! I've only got five minutes to get this report straight and out to client!"

The new job is in house not outsourced which means there's none of this 'them and us' attitude that was sadly prevalent throughout my previous career. It wasn't meant to be like that of course, but there only so much of "Payrolls fucked up again!" you can take from the client before you start saying "Hang on a minute! wasn't it actually your equipment that failed again?! Aren't you using an easy target i.e. the only outsourced thing in your company, to avoid talking about the massive internal issues that are wrecking our chances of delivering you a good payroll?!"

Shit. I hope no one from the previous job reads this blog!

Anyway, new place totally different, bit further to drive but its not so bad, the only really bad thing is I don't really get a chance to write anything at work. I can tell you this now I've left, I wrote all of 'notes from the road', most of 'switch' and all the other crap in quiet moments at work. I'd write everything in a textpad document and email back to my personal email account. Now I don't have that oppoutunity(at the moment). Oh well, the job itself is much more challenging so I guess I'll have to start writing at home! Boo!

This weekends been quite quiet so far badders on Friday followed by watching late night tv with beer (alcohol is the only sensible solution to Friday night tv) Went to another garden centre yesterday morning (I am, in fact, fifty) then hung out with some friends we haven't seen since the wedding and persuaded another couple to buy a Wii (at this point I'm wondering how much commission I need to charge nintendo!) then watched England struggle and strain to turn France over in the rugby semi final.

Hey ho, although if England do retain the world cup I'll be turning my tv off for at least a month to let the commentators Hyperbole die down. Nothing against England but imagine if you supported Everton and EVERY SINGLE COMMENTATOR WAS PRAISING EVERY MOVE LIVERPOOL MADE. It would piss you off after a while. It may in fact happen as I'd far rather watch the world paint drying championships than watch football. Every year we go to a barbeque on FA cup final day and I'll watch the game to remind myslef why I don't watch the games. And then I'll fall comfortably asleep in the second half knowing I won't miss anything.

I didn't always feel this way, when I worked in Liverpool it was the football chat every day. But not any more. I've seen the light!

A long day ahead of family visits, six solid hours of gaming with The Pedantic Crew (We roll four deep), finished off with Chinese food and Argentina versus South Africa or as I like to call it, heaven.

Happy birth-daze.

Had a great birthday spent in the bosom of my family and friends whilst simultaneously in the bosom of the pub. How could things get better you ask? Well some poor fools bought me all the kit I need to start brewing my own beer! Its bubbling away now, like a giant vat of fun waiting to be matured and drunk in the next 3 to 4 weeks. I've always wanted to be the mad scientist type, rubbing my hands manically in front of vats of coloured liquids with electricity sparking off in the background.

I may even cackle.

Anyways it was a wonderful way to celebrate being thirty, and today in work I got given cake! woot! I should birthday more often.

About a third of my way through Harry Potter, not from any great love of the series but because it is a cultural event. How many books can claim that? There's always a must see movie or a must listen album, but a must read book? The measure of it is if people who rarely read are compelled to do so. It's very different for we bibliophiles that devour any material that hoves into our field of vision. So Potter as a phenomenon should be appreciated and studied but I don't think there will be anything quite like it again, in spite of the multitude of pretenders to the throne, there won't be certainly in our lifetimes anything approaching the Potter mania that is currently manifest.

Having a weird brain day were its hard to focus on one thought for longer than ten seconds, I'll blame the hangover from yesterday.

Going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo, How about you?

Had a great stag do yesterday, spent all morning in Chester zoo looking at the animals looking at us. We followed a bunch of scousers around the Chimpanzee enclosure who kept offering the Chimps out for a fight.

As Ed will tell you Chimps are seven times stronger than even your biggest Scouser and they tend to pull each others fingers off for minor transgressions of established Chimp behaviour. I think your average human would last less than thirty seconds against an enraged chimp but these guys were so annoying I was willing to let them put it to the test.

After establishing that the spider monkeys and rhinos were actually in collusion and about to take over the world, we beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of Ed's garden and set up the barbeque.

Few images remain clear in my mind after we cracked open the third case of Peetermans Artoisbut a few things I am certain of;

1: Lightsabres are about a thousand time more fun if a guy who teaches stage fighting shows you a few basics and then tries to hit you. Also it helps if you have five of the heavy weight master replicas on hand, including Darth Mauls double bladed one.

2: Sticking your Ipod to a set of speakers and hitting random is bound to piss at least one person at a party off. Better to create a tracklist that will offend as few people as possible.

3: Two burgers= good. Three burgers = Better. Four burgers = Too much.

4: Some people are actually surprised when strippers aren't invited to a Stag do.

5: Good people have good people as friends. Even if you've never met them before you have at least one thing in common. And usually several.

Sundays are best used recovering from saturday. Hoorah for hair of the dog!

Boo to work tomorrow.

Saturday mornings,

Saturday morning is as close to a sacred ritual as I get, I'm aways up by 7 having no disposition to lie in. I've tried to do it a number of times but unless I'm actually comatosed I'm always up. I start thinking of things to do or read or write or muck about with and I just can't lie still.

I think if you spend most of your week waiting for the weekend spending a goodly portion of it in bed seems counter productive.

Or maybe I'm just weird.

Did a months worth of course work in four days. I feel like my brain is leaking out of my ears but I've completed the reading material for my course next weekend. It's a residential coure so I'll be away for a couple of nights and all the people that have been on the course before talk about is the atmosphere in the bar after the sessions are over.

Sounds like everyone relieved their uni/college days which is fun but besides the point of being there.

Speaking of which if you ever get the chance check out Fandango.

Yes it has Kevin Costner in it... Wait! Where are you going? Come back! Its from 1984 before he got crap!

Anyway but its a really entertaining story of four and a half guys who finish college and go on a road trip that deserves to be a lot more famous than it is.

Anyway off to a stag do at a Zoo, where else could we get genuine stags for the barbeque?

Laters

...And we're back

Hooray!

sorry for the recent lack of updates. I've ben busy as a beaver who hasn't filed has tax return OR rebuilt that damn dam, with work and when that all calmed down thursday time blogger decided it would very kindly only publish the title and labels for posts and not the main body of the text.

My inane ramblings of the past few days are lost forever!

And yet, somehow, we will learn to cope.

Went to pick Em up from a works do in the pub late yesterday evening. Its not often I walk into a pub after half eleven totally sober. Its a scary place, I don't know how you teetotalers do it. The bouncer opened the door and let me in with a look of either pity or distain I couldn't work out which and I plunged into the sweaty throng. The smoke may have gone but the strench of old beer and wasted friday night dreams still hangs heavy in the air which was puntucated by glares and stares of all sorts in my direction.

As I walked around I was jostled and barged around which is normally fine after a pint or two but it felt really personal last night. I found Ems table and stood their for a while but you know when everyone else is on one sort of vibe, happy and joking and you're totally oposite I could feel I was bringing them down so I belive the journalistic phrase is 'I made my excuses and left.'

Its always surprising how much of a mood alterer alchol is especially making you much more social than you would be under normal circumstances.

Anyways busy day today with the FA cup barbeque today. Don't get me wrong I don't particularly care about football but burgers and beer I can get passionate about.

more later

Sunny Day

Yet another gorgeous day here in Rhyl. A couple more like this and we'll actually be allowed to keep the tag 'Sunny' Rhyl. 'Scummy' Rhyl is more appropriate but I'll leave that for another day.

I keep getting these odd whiffs of random smells that are triggering off the old memory banks. One is the smell of the Bar I worked in when I lived in Liverpool. It's some particular type of cleaner they used to get the Stella/cocktail crap off the floors at the end of the night mixed in with old beer and cheap ciggies.

I was going to send you to the home page but it's a flash monstrosity that I think is best avoided.

Why I can smell that particular smell today is totally beyond me but it is a reminder of happy days making cocktails, flirting with the customers and staying afterhours for a few bevvies ourselves.

We stayed up one saturday to watch the late night boxing and I drank so much I woke up in Milton Keynes Train Station. Apparantly I'd got it into my head to see a girl I knew in Bath and no-one at the bar could stop me or rather could be bothered to.

Anyways lots of characters lots of fun and a fair amount of drinking, thats what a bar job should be about!

Camp-age : The Return

Back now, smelling slightly of smoke and ever so faintly of good whisky.

Its funny how weekend when you stay in the time seems to just fly and they're gone before you know it. Other weekends when you go and do stuff seem like they last forever!

Up early on Sat and did a couple of hours on my coursework, then loaded up the car and headed out to Llyn Gwynant which is a small lake just by the end of the Snowdonian range.

When ever I go to the mountains. I take the coast road for one reason. As soon as I pass Conwy you hit the mountains of Penmaenmawr which jut out over the road, looking like they'll spill down into the sea. As soon as I see those mountains my whole body relaxes. All this tension I carry around like luggage just eases and my soul soars.

Sorry. Its true though, I see those mountains and I'm home.

Anyways we wound our way along the coast to Caernarvon and then took a sharp left up towards Beddgelert. One of my favourite things about driving in Snowdonia this time of year that you can drive for miles without even seeing another car. Its like those adverts where they show all this beautiful open curving road streching out invitingly ahead. Driving up there is an absolute pleasure, even in a 12 year old car!

We hit the campsite and then walked up to the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel where they serve probably the finest pint of best bitter in the northern hemisphere. It could the hours walk uphill from the campsite that make me say that, all I know is beer never tases as good anywhere else in the world. Maybe the Time square brewery in New York or the Hobgoblin in Reading might come close but its the Pen-y-Gwryd for me everytime.

Then a leisurely stroll back to the car for some supper and a tot of good whisky or two by the fire before bed.

My idea of heaven.

Back to work tomorrow and I've had such a good weekend I don't care. And isn't that the idea of a short break?