Highs and Lows

Monday, November 28, 2011 ~ Comments Off

Well that was a pretty, damn epic weekend.

Friday night involved mulled cider, lipstick on boobs, and other nefarious goings on including realising it was time to go to bed because daylight was returning. It was one of those unexpectedly good evenings of making new friends, and probably involved a little more whisky than was sensible but everyone involved had a great time. Not sure I could handle doing that every weekend mind you… getting old … but as you are only as old as the woman you feel… well I’m a lot younger than most of you

Saturday involved not enough sleep, hangovers, chocolate Santas, an afternoon snooze, and an evening with a Mr. Bill Bailey who was tear-inducingly funny as well as bloody talented. I won’t spoil any of the jokes, although some of the funniest moments was him reacting to the Glasgow audience, including an (I think) off the cuff story of a Glasgwegian friend of his trying to order a pint of lager in Holland, in typical Glasgwegian brogue delivered at 1000mph. The tour was called Dandelion Mind, worth catching it on DVD when it comes out (if it comes out).

And finally a lazy Sunday which involved a bit more sleep, and a wedding reception in Perth. It was the wedding of the daughter of my parents close friends (close enough that they are ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’ by name). So good to see the bride so happy, she deserves it, and she even gave us all a wee song. Shame we had to leave early but some of us had to be in work this morning.

But wait! Even though it’s now Monday, Kirsty and I have decided to extend the weekend to include tonight, which involves poetry delivered by a friend of my sisters. He’s bloody good and I’m really looking forward to hearing him deliver his own material.

Alas, amongst the highs came the sad news of Gary Speed. A young man (he was 42), who was successful, universally liked and whose suicide came as a real shock. The presumptions (I’ve not seen it confirmed anywhere and it’s almost beside the point…) is that he was suffering from depression.

Long time readers and close friends will know I too have had my share of ups and downs with the dreaded D word. I was going to write more about that, and I probably will. But not today.

Today is for focussing on the highs, finishing the weekend of awesome (as it will heretofore be known) and counting my blessings, for I have many.

Getting around

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 ~ Comments Off

Boston in the fall. Lovely, even though I only had a few hours to wander the streets and take the duck tour. Gorgeous place, friendly people, definitely one to revisit.  I was a little bit spoiled by the fact it was around 21C in glorious sunshine but, nevertheless, Boston has a charm that is almost European (understandably so). Winding streets, glorious parklands, and an air of history. Yes, I liked Boston very much indeed.

Chicago in the fall. Grey, cold and regimental. Whilst it was nice to have the opportunity to visit (I was visiting some of our customers in the US of A last week) I was less than impressed with Chicago. Again, the weather played a part but the city itself seemed very anonymous. Again, I only had a few hours to wander so without doubt I didn’t get the best of what it could offer but I won’t be hurrying back.

It’s been a hectic month. Between struggling to build a website (I’m a month behind schedule, which I hate), things at work being even more mental than normal (which is a good thing, we are TOO busy), and the last week of travel (London, Boston, Chicago in the same week), suffice to say I’m reeling a bit.

Hopefully the next couple of weeks will ease me into December nicely, and then onto 2012.

Almost Christmas!

Monday, October 10, 2011 ~ 3 comments so far

I have a terrible memory, if I didn’t have access to a calendar (app/website) I’d be completely lost.

The flipside of this is that, because everything goes into my calendar, it’s easy for me to see that between now and Christmas I have something (a gig, a wedding reception, nights out and other commitments) planned every single weekend bar one.

This is not a bad thing, but does force me into having to plan more and more of the rest of my life to make sure everything that needs to get done, gets done (things like paying bills, cleaning, etc) and that I leave time to do things that I want to do, some of which are scheduled, of course, but many of which are less time constrained.

It does mean I struggle, at times, to “go with the flow”. Because my life is scheduled, part of me is always aware that there is SOMETHING that NEEDS DONE by a certain time or date. It’s hard to switch that off, but I’m learning.

In fact, I’m developing a weird sort of schedule where I’m marking days in my calendar as “do nothing” days (or evenings, if needs must). Is that weird? It seems weird…

One thing I am definitely trying to do, but struggling to schedule, is to keep up the cycling. I’m not all that keen in going out in howling gales and hailstones (as we had here last week) but I’m sure I can handle a bit of drizzle now and then. Alas with the weather being somewhat unpredictable at best, I can’t really schedule it. Can I? Should I?

We will see.

Meander

Monday, September 26, 2011 ~ Comments Off

What a funny word… meander.

Anyway, Saturday saw us doing just that, walking from my flat, down Byres Rd, stopping off for a coffee, a peek round some antiques shops, and on to the Riverside Museum where some mental people on bikes were flying through the air.

After that, we wandered… sorry meandered… back up the road, stopping at a couple of pubs on the way for a beer or two  (tip for Bloody Mary lovers, try the one at Brel on Ashton Lane, spicy!) before giving up and jumping in a taxi for the last stretch back to my flat.

I quite like days like that, no real plan, only a rough sense of some things that we could do. No rushing, just taking our time. Of course it did help that Saturday was a gloriously sunny day.

Plan for a plan

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 ~ 3 comments so far

I’m a planner, a goal oriented person. Sometimes it really pisses me off but even subconsciously I’ll break down the simplest thing and give myself a goal. It can be handy when it comes to keeping up with chores (I won’t sit back down until I’ve put a wash on and cleaned the bathroom) and it’s definitely handy when I find the motivation to exercise (competitive? me?).

But sometimes that need to know what is next, what the plan is, what the goals are, means I spend too much time worrying about when things “should” (by my own weird interpretation) happen, rather than relaxing and just letting things happen.

So I’m trying to relax a bit, and only worry about the things that actually need to be worried about.

A good example of my quandary is our upcoming trip to Glastonbury. Yesterday the full lineup, including times, was announced.

Given that there are four days, and 34 different areas, with performances running from 10am through to 6am there is simply no way we’d get to see everything we wanted to see, it’s just impossible. So there are two choices.

Choice 1
Highlight the performances we really want to see and pull together a list of times and locations. That way I at least know that one a certain day, at a certain time, I need to head to a certain area. That way I’d have some level of a plan to keep me happy and the rest we can make up as we go.

Choice 2
Don’t plan a thing. Wander round and stop when something grabs our attention.

We are aiming at mostly Choice 2 (exception being made for Elbow) as it’d be good to just experience the entire thing, than spend four days rushing about from area to area.

So, that’s the plan. Mostly.

Which means, sneakily, there is still a plan!

So I win.

Or do I?

I’m so confused.

Time flies…

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 ~ 6 comments so far

Hard to believe that’s six months of the year gone already.

But it has and that means that Glastonbury is only three weeks away! I really need to buy me some wellies.

Other than that, life is good. I’m on the verge of, finally, buying a bike through the Cycle to Work scheme, which I’m just waiting on being launched at my workplace, and I’m managing to get to the gym a couple of times a week with the odd game of badminton thrown in for fun.

Still not really reading all that much, and my new camera has been severely underused, but that’s mostly because my new role as webmaster for the ISTC is taking up a fair bit of my downtime. Still to find the balance with that but it’s fun, particularly as I’m going to be rebuilding the entire website very soon.

Starting to think about the next holiday too, money will constrain me a bit, so likely to be a long weekend city break type thing, but where? Those things can be costly, so another option is a cheap and cheerful package somewhere hot and sunny. A week in the sun, reading, drinking and generally lounging around… yeah I could cope with that.

What else do you do?

Thursday, May 19, 2011 ~ 2 comments so far

If ever I needed proof that I am not a bastard I need only look at what I tend to do in my spare time. For not only do I look and crack the same crap jokes as my Dad, I also seem to have the same need to be busy that he has.

Admittedly, looking through the archives of this blog, that’s something that is fairly well documented here but a recent development has finally cemented this quiet thought in my mind.

After agreeing to take over the running of the ISTC website (including a rebuild and redesign which are underway), I’ve recently agreed to serve on the Council of said organisation. That means reports, budgets, minutes, meetings and the like. Thankfully it’s not a huge commitment of time and it doesn’t really change my main focus but, knowing me, I’ll need to be on the lookout to make sure I don’t take on any further tasks.

I still have a couple of other things to finish off too, and hoping to get a clear run at them this week to get them out of the way.

There is one other thing I must do though.

Remove Football Manager 2011 from my iPad. I’ve already lost about two entire days to it.

Focus man, focus!