Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

my keyboard became a casualty of the Hogmany party.

Whilst we were out getting supplies for the party we decided that we might save money on photos and frames by buying a printer in the sale and use the frames we already have. I amazed myself by not opening the box until about 6am after almost everyone had went home. Barry pissed himself laughing as ripped a ribbon of flesh from my finger as a tore the box open. Barry pissed himself laughing as I split a pink drink all over my desk and computer. Barry pissed himself laughing as I gave out a loud scream of disgust and confusion as half my keyboard didn’t work. The pink drink didn’t touch the keyboard or any important part of the PC case so I just couldn’t work it out. It wasn’t until 12 hours later and Vonnie pointed out I’d spilled a beer on the keyboard as well at some point during the night. D’oh!

Anyway I got a spare one from my parents so we’re back up and running again.

Also with the start of the new year upon us I’ve got stuck into decorating the living room. I’ve got one wall painted and I’ve spent today stripping the rest of the wallpaper. We’re on our way to having a decorated house!

No tag for this post.

Tags: confusion, Hogmany party, New Year's Day

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

To call it a holiday would be doing all my holidays in the past a disservice. I don’t think we stopped the entire time and Vonnie was going into this with all the present buying etc already behind her so she deserve extra praise for lasting the distance.

To put the last ten-fourteen days into context I can’t actually remember much except for the long nights. I was up until god knows what time on Christmas Eve wrapping presents, baking a cake and making a trifle. Christmas day itself was a complete blur with family visiting and then Boxing Day was similar but for that we went to my parents but after about 8pm I haven’t a clue what went on through sheer exhaustion. The rest of the time just blended into one day with periods of restless sleep and zombie like movement about the house. And to think I managed just 4 beers this entire time. I then spent until 2am on Saturday night stripping the wallpaper in the living room and until after 1am last night painting said living room. Roll on Saturday is all I can say!

I don’t know whats been up with me over this time but somethings stressing me out and I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not the wedding. It’s not work. It’s not the kids and it’s not the house. I really don’t have a clue One minute I’m fine the next I’m not and the main problem I get from stress isn’t anxiety but lack of energy and grumpiness. Never a good combination.

So to sum up apologies to all that have had to deal with me over the last two weeks. Apologies to those I’ve not talked to over the last two weeks as well as if you’ve tried talking to me in person I’ve been spaced out and if you’ve tried to instant message me I’ve been lucky to sit staring at the screen and actually be aware of what I’m doing for maybe 5 minutes during this time. Apologies to the kids for being an a-typical bah humbug type of person this Christmas and apologies to Vonnie for having to put up with my sorry arse.

So work for today…get away from the office asap and get the downstairs tidied up for tonight.

By the way, those that haven’t been invited yet but think you’d be on the list at the door we’re having a soiree tonight to celebrate the bringing in of the new year. Feel free to pop along for a while and say hi.

No tag for this post.

Tags: Boxing day, christmas, Christmas day, christmas eve, energy, New Year's Day

Well christmas and new year sort of faded into one as per usual. Call me Scrooge but I normally cant get that excited about Christmas but historically I’ve always found a way to enjoy Hogmanay.

On Christmas Eve we went down to an italian restaurant in Cambuslang for Dinner with Vonnie’s mums side of the family. Was very nice but I think the food didnt agree with me as I felt a bit dodgy on Christmas day despite not eating anything else by then. Funniest moment was Davie accusing folk of drinking his wine despite noone else touching it. He’d been constantly topping up his glass and didnt realise how much he’d actually drank by the time the meal was finished!

Christmas day was nice but very stressful. Managed to make it down to the parentals in the morning but by the time we made it back home I was struggling to make dinner in time for Finn going to his Dad’s. In the end Finn spat carrot soup over the table and Vonnie was that worked up about alot of things she could barely eat anything. The food was nice though

Boxing day meant the annual family get together which this year was at my Uncle’s in Hamilton. We made it down there for about half 5 and had a very nice night. Its a complete change these days now that the kids have all grown up and don’t really come along and now they’ve built a conservatory theres space for everyone for a change.

With my week off the idea was to get the house completely sorted but between Christmas and New Year my sleeping patterns been completely off and although Vonnie’s only worked a few days we’ve really had very little time to get anything done. Made a start on our bedroom the other day but we got half way through it and had to leave it for the next day. The problem with this is that we never managed to do it the next day. The house gradually got worse until I had to redo the kitchen a wee bit in order to get my work surfaces back. This meant the living room wasnt tidied though for New Year. We werent expecting anyone over though as our plans were changing right up until the last minute. First off we had to go see family and then round to Daves to see the bells in but at first we didnt have a baby sitter. Then Dave’s party was cancelled just as we got a sitter so we decided to go into Glasgow and see our friends band play in Rockers for the Bells. It came to 7pm and Vonnie was feeling ill and I could barely stay awake so we cancelled everything and decided to chill in front of the TV. That was until Heather came in to say that Georges parents had an open house and wanted to know if we wanted to go over. Finn got his shoes and jacket on and dissappeared with Heather and Kylie over there until 1am while we stayed at home. At was at this point that Vonnie started to Worry about first footers. We spent the 45 minutes before the bell cracking up trying to tide the house. We managed it though but there was several fallings out before collapsing on the couch knackered. And no bugger first footed us!

New years day was round at my mums for dinner where Sasha snarled at Nairn. Shes snapped at him once already so we really need to get something sorted.

Now that christmas is over and done with its back to sorting the house out properly. First up this year is the kitchen. Ours is currently crap and we have no storage space or work surfaces. This has to change so we got the designer guy round from Vonnie’s work to see what he could do. Has he put it there wasn’t much he could really change but he’s fitted in a few extra bits a pieces so it should be all good. Hopefully we’re ordering it within the next day or two so we can get it in the sale. The only problem with this is we can’t afford to get someone to fit it for us. Thats just giving money away so hopefully between Vonnie’s dad and a few folk we know we should be able to get folk willing to help us out for beer hopefully. I’d intended on trying to get some leave to help out over the next couple of weeks but Jenna in work has broke her foot and has a sick line for the next 3 weeks. This means Im by myself until then as Ians got a line until then as well for his broken ankle. I’ll need to talk to my bosses about this as soon as we start thinking about delivery and installation dates

And now onto the bit nicked from Dave Hogg…

Favourite Moment of 2006 - No hesitation its got to be Nairn’s birth. Was a very strange and long few days runing up to the moment but walking out the front door to phone my parents to tell them the news was the first time I can honestly say my face hurt from smiling.

Favourite Book of 2006 - Fatherhood: The Truth by Marcus Berkmann. I can honestly say that without this book I think I would have cracked up. Its a no holds barred look at kids right through from conception to thier first birthday. All the bad bits he actually manages to make you laugh and when they happen to you you end up with a smile on your face. If it wasn’t an audiobook I’d have chosen Bob Brier’s History of Ancient Egypt thats speard over 48 lectures. I need to have another go at that btw as I’ve yet to read/hear anything thats so well done on the subject without getting too technical.

Favourite Gig of 2006 - I went to a gig in 2006? Actually now I think about it I did manage to one gig. The Bloodhound Gang at The Garage was fantastic. Seen them before but theyre support Electric Eel Shock made my night!

Favourite Website of 2006 - I struggled with this one. It shows just how much time I spend on thte internet these days when I pick Alternative Nation for this. Its not that its my favouite its just that thats where I spend most of my time when I am online. Hell I even gave up my supermoderator status in there and I still put it as my favourite. Someone shoot me

Favourite Country of 2006 - Would have to be New Zealand. Looking to the future and emigration is a definate possibility in the coming years with NZ and Canada being the front runners with Cananda edging it in the doability stakes. New Zealand has stolen my heart though in regards to my choice.

I’d originally intended on adding a few more categories but it’s taken me about an hour to type this up so far and i’m fecking knackered. And besides I’m supposed to be dong work

Tags: Bob Brier, Boxing day, Canada, christmas, Christmas day, christmas eve, Dave Hogg, food, food didnt, Glasgow, Heather, Kylie, Marcus Berkmann, Nairn, New Year's Day, New Zealand, the Bells, Then Dave's party, thte internet

Been a wee while since my last update. This is purely down to a complete lack of time to do anything about it. At home I’m either busy or to tired to do anything so can’t do anything then and I’m unusually rushed of my feet at work so updates from there aint gonna happen very often anymore. Todays different though

Well we had our christmas party for the Alt Nation kids at the house and we managed to do not to badly with it. I had to dress up as santa though which wasnt exactly a highpoint.

We had a wee problem with the cats picking up some hitchhikers but after a shedload of money spent at the vets on treatments and a visit from the bug man I think we’ve got them beat.

Got ourselves a new sofa as well. Well I say new but its really second hand as it was my brothers. He still had about half of it to pay off and wanted cash for it but my mum struck a deal with him about letting him live rent free for a few months so everyones happy. Helped him move the last few things from his flat as well and he’s now back with my parents until he can find a new place. Probably end up flatsharing with Drew in a few months.

Christmas is very slowly being organised but we’ve had that much on the last few weeks that fitting in shopping, wrapping and all the other general christmas stuff has been virtually impossible. Hopefully we’ll get everything finished today though.

Went to the docs the other day about a few things. Firstly I was going to see about getting fixed so there wont be any more wee Bob’s or little Vonnies running around after this one. They’ve chnaged how that all works from the last time I heard about it so waiting times are right down so I’ve to go back some time during the summer and talk about it again then. I’ve also been hit with another ear infection. Not much I can do about it though so just need to see it through. The other thing and the most annoying one at that was that my shoulders for the last few months have been fucked. Colin Arsecod reckons I’ve bruised my rotator cuff or some other fancy thing like that but my doc isn’t so sure. Anyway I’m being refered to the physiotherapist in the new year so hopefully they’ll sort it out. I feel like Gregory in Gregorys Girl. I can only lift my arms up so far before they lose all strength and if they go any further I’m in a great deal of pain

Tags: christmas, Colin Arsecod, New Year's Day

An update of sorts.

Strange things are going on in my world of DFID. We had part of our mid year review the other week where my bosses boss had to ask me if I was content in the job I was in and if I thought about going anywhere else. That by itself sounds as if they were wanting rid of me but thats not the reason. The way our promotion/posting system works in my work everything is done in clusters throughout the year so that maybe every 3-4 months folk will move on and we’ll get new folk coming in. The problem is that as HR is going through so many changes just now noone wants to come here on my grade so although we’re losing 4 folk we’re only gaining 1 new person. Now theyre trying to shed jobs at the moment anyway thanks to the efficiency review from last year. The problem is that the we dont have enough people at my grade to cover all the jobs in the east kilbride office and we cant recruit direct to teh grade without the union kicking up shit and there arent enough folk capable of being promoted that want to be promoted from the lower grades. All this means we have to carry the vacancies. So all that waffle basically explains why my boss had to ask the questions before the mid year review…they need to know whos going to be here and whos intending on leaving so they can work out how they are going to staff the place.

In the past I’ve dealt with the caribbean, then europe and the middle east, then the caribbean again with latin america, then I was papped over to deal with part of asia and then that got lumped in with the caribbean and latin america again. Most of my experience though is with europe and the middle east and Drew thought id rather thave a different challenge and have a go at africa. Now that would be nice and probably a good learning opportunity but it comes with a slight problem…I’m slow on the uptake if im under pressure. He was quite surprised to hear I wouldnt mind going back to my old job if needed. In fact he seemed to have found a solution to his problem but this was months off and he was only just starting to plan it out.

Now some of you might have heard me talk about the guy I work with that lived downstairs from Rev. He ended up in hospital the other week and the rest of the section had been off the entirety of christmas and new year. And to make matters worse his colleage is part time, his boss is part time and her boss is part time. It all boils down to the fact that he was usually the only person there. And there was a huge backlog of work from the holiday season. So…the day after my mid year review meeting the team boss requested help and seeing as its the europe and middle east section they threw me at it. This has its good and bad points…

Its good because I get back into the habit of dealing with a busy section again and hopefully it will look good on my report again. The latter part is the main reason for doing this.

Its bad in that I have no idea how long this will be for and depending on when the baby is born it may need to be cut short as I’ve paternity leave to take, which they know about. That doesnt actually bother me but not knowing what job ill be coming back to does a little. Theres also the fact that I’ll spend half my time at work with noone else on the section so its hard to keep up the motivation to get the work done. This blog entry is a prime example of how easy it is to find somethign else to do when you’ve got a pile of work sitting there. The main one however is the prospect of visits to the overseas countries. Depending on when the baby was born there was a trip to Bangladesh that was supposed to be happening during the first quarter of 2006 and I’d sort of been pushed forward for it (purely because noone else wanted to go I think) but I’ve since passed the cut off date for if i was to go so thats out. There are plenty other trips being planned and the intent is for as many people to go on them as possible but if i’m still in this job (unless they intend to keep me here long term) I’ll be last in line for any trips and as the only real offices we have in europe and the middle east are London, Rome, Basra and Baghdad the chance of a trip is really limited. Where as if I get back onto my ‘old’ team sharpish then trips to china, or the caribbean are not out of the question. Its not the be all and end all of this job but trips are great fun, a great learning opportunity and when it comes down to applying for overseas posts are a good addition to your CV.

I fully intend to get an overseas post at some point in time…somehow…just a case of getting a few more good reports and a promotion and I’ll see where the job takes me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I may have done a power of work over the last 4 days but I’ve still got a huge pile left to do and its growing daily.

Tags: Baghdad, Bangladesh, Basra, caribbean, China, christmas, London, middle east, New Year's Day, Rome

With the text of Gibson’s books being readily available on the net I decided to get one I hadnt read before to read during my downtime at work over the new year period. This collection of short stories was perfect for my needs though I find reading on a monitor to be a pain in the arse

Has seriously got me in the mood for a Cyberpunk 2020/spacemaster roleplay though

Tags: New Year's Day, William Gibson

OK..I promised Vonnie I’d update last night but other things cropped up and I forgot :S

So New Year…

Dave had planned his Hoggmany party for ages and Steve was trying to get us to go over to his seeing Kats pregnant as well and it would be a quiet night. If I was going anywhere it would have been the Hoggmeisters but as fate would have it both myself and Vonnie sat inthe living room wrapped in duvets struggling to stay awake to see the bells whilst Finn jumped about like crazy. Only an Excuse and Chewing the Fat were passable this year but that was about it. Turned the TV over to BBC2 to catch Jools Hollands New Year Hootinany or whatever he calls it for the bells. Always a good show that one although he always has the most famous unknowns you’ll ever see on British TV at some point in the show. Just as the bells hit fireworks started going off around our flat so we woke up a little and sat and watched them from the window for 20 mins before dragging Finn to bed and collapsing ourselves.

Saturday past was Mark’s birthday and so he held X-LAN 2 at his house for the lads to go around and have a laugh for the day.Thankfully we didnt touch HALO whilst I was there as I despise the game but Stoo talked Mark into running Splinter Cell which as a multiplayer game amongst us I really enjoyed. Not sure I fancy it as a single player game or an Xbox live game with folk I dont know in other parts of the world though.

After leaving Marks I headed into Glasgow with Vonnie to meet Papazeb for a few drinks as it was his last night out and Vonnie still hadnt met him yet. I’d intended to have a couple of drinks then have an early night but thanks to the range of bourbon on offer in Stavka I got slightly tipsy and vonnie handed me another 30 quid to keep going.

Ended up leaving about 30 mins after Vonnie left though as I really didnt want to go on to the Garage. Got some food, missed the ‘last’ 16, hada 30 min wait for the 18, gave up and phoned a taxi, just as the taxi turned up the 16 went past, got told when I got in the cab thatthe festive fares were still in operation and thought 1/3 onto 12 quid is still only 16 quid which I had on me, got out the taxi at Dunedin as it had hit 18 quid already on the meter which meant it would be at least 20 quid by the time I got to the flat, just as I got out the taxi the 66 went past and the heavens opened. Fuck that…I think someone was telling me I shouldnt have bothered going out at all!

Oh and I bought an Xbox. For those that know me and my hatred for the things…he made me do it! *Points at random person out the window*

Tags: food, Glasgow, Hoggmany party, LAN, Mark, New Year's Day, Oh and I, Vonnie

And technically this blog is a year old…its more than that but this incarnation was kicked into existance over the new year holidays.

Its been a year of surprises and many pleasant things.

In January I set myself the task of of getting on with my life after splitting up with Susie the previous year. It was awkward still living with her at times but I got through it. I seen alot more of a girl that I kind of liked but she’d just split up with her boyfriend and I didnt think I was ready yet. We became good friends and had many a night out together. By February I’d got together with Vonnie. She broke down my defences and I’d fallen for her. To be honest that had happened back in December but various things stopped me.

March seen both our birthdays as well as alot of other folks which for two weeks seen me run about Glasgow trying to go out for Susies night out for a bit and see some friends before rushing across town to spend the rest of the night with Vonnie. It was round about this time that I started to get a bit annoyed with Susie. Yes she seemed to want to stay friends but other than her work I knew nothing about her. Her social life became almost a secret which is fair enough but when I was purposely not going out or arranging things so that we could spend time as mates only for her to not come home or disappear to the pub without even asking me if I wanted to go along…it hurt. I’d lost her as my girlfriend and id got over that but i was starting to lose her as a friend this time. Can’t blame her though, she was trying to get on with her life just as I was trying to get on with mine. Looking back on it I didnt do any of the things I was moaing about her not doing either.

Vonnie got me the most amazing birthday present, a ticket to Download at Donnington in the summer and I took her to see Boiling a Frog at the Tron with her birthday present.

April and May came and went and things were going great with Vonnie. We were planning our future together and nothing seemed wrong with the world. You couldnt imagine…well some of you could…how happy i was. Susie was looking to move out if she could find somewhere although she ended up knocking back moving in with Lou and I started looking into how I could keep the flat on.

June came and we spent a great long weekend at Donnington seeing some great bands and having a good laugh with our mates. Vonnie was convinced she pregnant whilst at Donnington and so done a handful of tests and not one came back positive. A week later it was and my boss had to ask my why a huge grin appeared on my face after I got off the phone with Vonnie. Now I know for a fact alot of people thought this was to soon and I’m sure a few of my friends were amongst these people. I almost cried when I told my mum the day I found out purely because I didnt know what was going to happen next…never having been there before five thousand and one things flew through my head at once and I dont function when that happens I almost cried when I told Susie that night, not because I didnt want to be a dad but because its a damn awkward thing to do..telling your ex that you live with that your going to be a dad and also because it was the one thing we’d agreed on when we were together that there was going to be no kids. Looking back at that time I ran about with my head up my arse for about 3 weeks. Anyone that says otherwise is lying

July seen an aborted trip to TitP after we realised how crap it was after being spoiled at Donnington. I think we managed until about 10am on the sunday morning before giving up and heading home. and August seen the start of the paperwork that meant I was buying the flat from Susie. Never realised how long that would take!

September and October came along and Lizzie moved into the flat in Govanhill with us and we moved out not long after. We still didnt have the flat so we moved in with my parents to try and give everyone some space to actually live in. 5 weeks on a futon does not a happy back make.

Eventually November came along and we moved into the flat in EK. Took a full week to get all the boxes from Govanhill and my parents house up into the flat and it took the entire month to be able to see half of the living room. Actually now I come to think of it thats 8 weeks the flats been full of boxes and ive still got about 25% of them to sort out. At the end of Novemeber our tumble dryer blew up. It was old and had probably been hanging on my a thread for years but it was gone not to return. This caused us a problem as we hadnt budgetted for a new one especially with christmas coming up. Eventually managed to get my parents old dryer but that too blew up after a few weeks. I just did not have any luck with electrical devices in 2005!

Tags: christmas, electrical devices, Glasgow, New Year's Day

Apologies dear readers for the lack of updates recently. Yes I’ve got net access and my own PC back but I’m either sleeping, unpacking, tidying up, or playing pirates. Not much free time to do much else although in saying that i’m getting to the stage with pirates where i’m getting a bit bored with it so I’ll probably have some free time soon enough to unpack more stuff!

So yeah…catch up time.

Went round to Dave Hogg’s flat on friday night after being kicked out by Vonnie so I can see my mates. Headed orund there with Mark who had to wait for me downstairs as they’ve installed the secure entry system finally but we dont have a phone yet to let anyone in yet! Seems it was supposed to be ‘live’ already but after locking myself out last night taking the bin out it seems the front door is still open at the moment so for anyone heading round to the flat go to the door you guys dont usually come through.

Saturday we were supposed to finish of moving the gear from the flat in Govanhill up to EK. Last time we looked there was maybe 2 car loads but it turned out to be slightly more than that but I’ll get to that in a minute. The plans ended up being something like this…I was getting dropped off at the flat to sort everything out whilst Vonnie took Finn to his mates birthday party. They would return with the van and we’d pick it up in one trip and then head to Glasgow Green to see the fireworks for bonfire night.

Iit didnt work out like that…

First off we had lost the invite for Finn’s party so we were struggling to find out where he was supposed to be but thankfully after gutting the car we found it. Then we left the van key in EK so Vonnie had to fight traffic to get to the govanhill flat to let me know she was heading up to get the key. She was stressed out by alot of stuff such as screaming kids at the party and deadly traffic only for her to arrive at teh flat and see the mountain of stuff I’d got ready to move. We knew the cupboard had to be emptied but what we didnt realise was that was full. And by full I mean 7′ tall by 6′ deep by 4 foor wide. The bedroom ended up holding approx half a van load rather than ‘a few boxes’. This done it for Vonnie who almost cracked up on the spot. Bonfire night for Vonnie is like her birthday, christmas and new year all rolled into one so the prospect of sitting in the back of the van whilst I loaded up up all night really didnt appeal to her but she went to get the van key anyway. Vonnie got to EK only to realise I hadn’t gave her the flat key so ended up at her mum’s where she was going to kill something. Mark….thanks for sticking about in case we needed your help when we got to EK.

We’d been spending all day running the car on fumes so there was hopefully enough to get Vonnie to EK were she could get my bank card (which id also forgot) and stick some in. When I hadnt heard form her in ages I started to get worried that the car had ran out somewhere and she was stuck but I eventually got a txt from her letting me know what was going on. We were giving up for the night and coming back the next morning with her family to get it over and done with.

We picked up Finn’s dad and made it to the fireworks just in time for it to start only to find out they had been delayed a wee bit. Met Ryan and a few others so we had a bit of a laugh which I was most grateful for. It was the first time I’d seen Vonnie smile or relax all day. The actual fireworks were a bit of a let down…the Viking Festival ones were better though there were far more actual fireworks on Saturday night.

Yesterday we managed to clear the flat in Govanhill in 25 mins and have it all up in the EK flat with an hour or two. That’s 99% of everything done now. Just leaves my airsoft stuff and Finn’s bike at my parents to get I think. It also means that as there was so much stuff to lift on sunday that any headway I’d made in clearing the flat and unpacking has been wiped out and we’re now buried further than before. Mind you the kitchen seems to be 90% done as regards unpacking and Finn’s room had more work done on it today to make room for his stuff.

Now I’m going to die as I’ve done my back in lifting the spare tiles for the damn bathroom floor. Why didnt I bin them last time I went near them?

Tags: bank, christmas, Dave Hogg, Finn's party, New Year's Day, Viking Festival

I dont get to see them anywhere near as much as I’d like. I don’t even get to chat to them on MSN because im never near a PC nevermind signed in anymore. Over the last 5 months Ive barely seen anyone. Where I used to be guarenteed to see everyone at least once a week im lucky if I get to see everyone once a month and even then thats rare.

It’s not even just seeing them that I miss its the chatting to them on MSN or txt as well. Whenever im signed in im lucky if ive got one close friend online to chat too and half the time they arent even there…theyve just forgotten to log out.

Just before Susie and myself split up I could see it starting to happen. We had no cash and no real want to go out as neither of us were really enjoying it. We’d have a mediocre night and then come home and if we were lucky fall asleep at the same time otherwise one of us would be up on the PC or watching TV….it wasnt good. So we very rarely went out and if we did it was very rare for us to do it together. Looking back I should have seen it coming a mile off rather than Susie just turning around one day and and saying…and i’m paraphrasing here…”I dont know what i want but I know I dont want you” or words to that effect. It got a little worse after that. I didnt see my friends that much because I didnt want to lie and say things were all right when they werent but at the same time I didnt want to tell them that things werent going well. I hoped we could sort it out and deal with it ourselves. By the time things got to far and we had to end it I’d only told three people. One was my mum just in case I needed somewhere to kip for a night or two, a girl called Ruth that I used to work with in DFID who was going through the same thing herself and Mark…who, for whatever sin he committed in another life, always seems to get hit with these things first when Susie wasnt about and in this case I certainly couldnt go to Susie…I did try though but it just seemed to make things worse.

Once our breakup went public I swore id see more of my mates. Over the years i’ve let good friends drift away and bad friends stick about. About the only good friend ive kept over the years despite not seeing them has been Barry and I didnt even manage to tell him Susie and myself were no more until about the end of January. And ive only really seen him a handful of times after that and thats been mostly over a few beers talking about us never seeing each other and promising to do more about it. I think I managed to see more of my friends over christmas and new year without them thinking I was using them as a crutch or whatever and then I met Vonnie and the world was all smilie again but ive went back to barely seeing my mates. Hell it was the only reason other than painitng that I got back into wargaming (to damn expensive) just so I could spend more time with my mates

With Wilbur and Ang moving away to the back end of Hamilton it was always gong to be awkward to get to theres without a lift as I just dont know anything about public transport outside of EK.. Wilbur has also been working his arse off for uni which limits things as well. Again Marks job has him working his arse off in a job that im sorry to say ive never really talked to him about other than to take the piss out of his works website when he first moved there. Clares got herself a new job as well and with that and family parties etc I rarely see the two of them as well. I’ve actually seen more of Dave since he got himself a girlfriend but even at that its never intentional as we just find ourselves in the same pubs for 10-15 mins at a time. Stoo and Laura have cocooned themselves in their new flat and are as loved up as they always have been. Think ive seen them abotu twice since new year…nowhere near enough. Then theres Susie…over teh last 5 months I’ve realised that at the end I was feeling similar to they way she was feeling. I wasn’t bored but the spark wasnt there anymore. I could look back as far as February last year and easily see that we were just friends that happened to live together and constantly piss each other off. These days we get on alot better than we used to when we were together and I love her to bits (purely as friends) because of that….just not entirely convinced she could or would say the same thing. I rarely see her these days as when im in the flat its a 50/50 chance of the two of us being there at the same time. I miss the fact that I can tell her anything but these days I just wonder wether she is ok with that.

These days I seem to be getting alot of new friends….which is always nice…but im frightened im losing my old ones as they make way for the new. I dont want that theres room for everyone…just need a crowbar I think to fit them all in

I’m an arse at times but I dont always know it so tell me when im am please…

Tags: christmas, Hamilton, New Year's Day