Just a quick check in, so as not to let the day go by without saying hello.

No one called, I had a feeling they wouldn’t, what with it being a Friday and all, so no update on the job front.

Ess – the lovely babsess that you may have seen commenting, or from my blog roll, is staying for the weekend with her lovely man J. There’s a raging debate in the kitchen, as I type, about blogging and the motivation for it. Both J and Benny don’t blog, for various reasons, and they’re thrashing them out in there and making it very hard for me to concentrate!

So that’s it from me for the night, I have to entertain real live, in the flesh friends today! I’ll be back to yee tomorrow, have no fear. (And frankly, I’m half cut, so even if I could concentrate, it wouldn’t make much sense).

Take care all,

Lou xxx

I come to the end of the day drained, a touch confused, but generally rather happy. For the update on today’s goings on, see my last comment on yesterdays post.

When I know more, I’ll pop it up here. Right now, I’m watching the end of ‘Die Hard’, and when that’s done I’m off to snoozey byebyes I’m barely awake typing this to be honest.

Take care everyone,

Lou xxx

I worked up the guts to ring our landlord to ask about getting a kitty tonight, finally. My heart was in my mouth ringing her, the original ad for the house mentioned no pets, but I had a gut feeling, seeing as how it was a cat and she likes us so much, that she might bend the rules for us. I am delighted to announce that she did say yes! She endorsed it enthusiastically and without hesitation. She explained she didn’t like the idea of a dog because she didn’t think it was the right environment, but because it was us, a cat would be fine. She also said that because we’re such lovely tenants she’d like to take us out for a meal to show her appreciation, isn’t that amazingly lovely?

But it doesn’t stop there. She also told me that she had heard from one of the partners in a leading auctioneers in the town that they had an opening for a new staff member, possibly office work, possibly showing houses etc. She highly commended me to him (in heartwarmingly glowing terms) and passed on his number to me tonight to give him a call tomorrow. She had actually been planning to ring me about it tomorrow anyway.

What about Blue Forest I hear you ask? Well, we’ll see. I can’t say I amn’t tempted by a job in that sector, I can’t say I amn’t tempted by the opportunity to start Blue Forest as a part time venture and see how it goes while I have a steady income. One of the major things that’s irked me about doing what I’m doing at the moment was how it would effect our getting a mortgage etc. Like I said, we’ll see, it all depends on what the job is, what the pay is, and whether they’ll have me in the first place, so, there is a possibility of much mulling in my near future.

We’re delighted about getting the go ahead to get el moggo. I’ve missed having a cat very badly (as you know), and Benny’s all exira’ an’ delira’ too. As he put it this evening, with wide, excited eyes, ‘I can haz kitteh?’

So there you are. I’m shattered, early night for us. I picked Benny up at lunchtime in town in the car and brought him home for lunch. Just for the heck of it really. That was my first time driving into town on my own – no stalls, no near misses, my confidence and competence is improving at a rate of knots. I’m not sure if I mentioned it last night, but I did an hour of the drive back from Dublin the other night too, so I’m trying to keep the momentum of that success going as long as I can.

That’s me for the night I’m afraid, between the driving and working up the courage to ring herself, I’m utterly drained. Oh, I got some clay modelling work done today, practice stuff really. I’m feel pretty confident on the cartoon style models, so I was trying out some more realistic cat faces today. It’s a big learning curve, the painting and photography I have a lot more experience of, the clay, I’m pretty much teaching myself from scratch.

Take care all

The wanderer hath returned. Sorry about the absence of posting over the weekend. I had a bad attack of mopey unmotivatedness on Saturday, I didn’t get half of the house cleaning duties I was supposed to have completed done. I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a touch of self destructiveness in that funk of not being able to finish anything I’ve started – like as if I’m setting up an issue to scold myself and feel guilty about after.

Katie visited on Saturday night, we had a great chat, about a great many different things. I love our chats. Then on Sunday morning, (more like afternoon due to an unexpected sleep-in), we hopped in the car and made for Dublin. We swung past Darren’s to pick up the laptops and a lend of an SD card and then headed over to my parents (my Dad got the same laptop). Unfortunately the late start meant we didn’t get to see Dar for long, he was off to watch the Man U match with a friend. I got to pet Kai though, but I’m afraid this time she didn’t seem to recognise me. I’d like to think if I’d been around longer she’d have remembered me, like she did the last time. That’s the crappy thing with cats isn’t it?

We had a pleasant time with my parents, got my Dad set up with the laptop, Mam made us a spectacular monster fry up.

We headed back at about seven, home for ten, got the wireless connection set up on the laptop and watched some Family Guy.

Sorry for the blow by blow. I’m wrecked from yesterday, and finding it hard to shake off the mopeyness of last Friday’s sickness and Saturday’s lack of activity. I’m at a new stage with the business, where I get to start on the creative part while I’m waiting on the bank aspect to sort itself out. I’ll have to wait til me and Benny can work on that humongous piece of board that we’re turning into drawing and cutting boards before I can get into the painting side of things. So I’m gonna get started with the clay tomorrow. I have this weird glitch in my psyche that likes a fresh start and a good long run at something I’m starting from scratch, so after getting home from meeting him for lunch I found it impossible to motivate myself to make a complete mess out of the desk for the sake of an hour and halfs work. Decided I’d write this instead, save some time for later.

Anyway. He’s off early today (5) so we’re off to Lidl to stock up on bottled water and do the weekly shop. I’m starting to wonder if my sick stomach (which still isn’t completely cleared) isn’t from the mucky shite tap water down here, he heard someone complaining in the shop earlier and feels there might be a problem with it that hasn’t been announced yet. Bluergh.

Not much to say for myself today then. It happens. I’ll leave you with a little video from the car on the way down. I don’t know if you can really make it out, but the statue is quiet beautiful and had been adorned with a Sligo flag much to Benny’s amusement…

I’m callin’ in sick this morning, my stomach feels shite, I can’t concentrate, I’m just useless. I hope I’ll wake up later.

I heard this song again this morning and it may have been one of the things prompting old memories to surface. I think it perfectly captures that young love, ‘fly in the face of everything’ feeling, particularly the line at about 2 minutes 30 – ‘by the time that we get through, the world will never ever be the same’ and the lines immediately preceding it ‘our friends will all make fun of us but we’ll just laugh along because we know that none of them have felt this way’.

It reminds me so much of that time, six or seven years ago now, that I never thought could become ‘history’, it was so powerful in the moment, I couldn’t see how it could ever stop being ‘now’.

Such a sweet song, put a big lump in my throat this morning when I was doing the washing up, I think it had the same effect the first time I heard it a few days back. I hope you enjoy it too.

Another song came on this morning that reminded me of back then too, someone has a (c)rap song out that has a sample of Daft Punks ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ at the moment. I love the original Daft Punk track, and every time I hear it I am transported back to a favourite memory of when I first moved out of my parents house and into that little room in Glasnevin with long term boyfriend number 1. I spent the day painting the room a week or two after I moved in, I danced and sang through the whole process listening to the album that track is from on repeat.

I had little Eddie cat at the time, my sweet little white cat that went missing, he was only a tiny ball of fluff then, determined, and succeeding in getting his paws covered in magnolia paint. Oh the fun I had getting that off. The tiny ball of fluff turned into a tiny ball of claws and wriggle, bless him.

I never found out what became of him, he went missing one night about eight months after we got him. I walked around the estate for days calling his name (he had always come when I called him before that).

I have a habit of making up new words for songs, and at the time I had recently seen ‘The Grinch’. In it is a song with the line ‘where are you Christmas, why can’t I find you?’. It’s pretty heart wrenching in it’s Grinch format, but if you heard it sung by me, in my cutest voice, with ‘Eddie’, substituted for ‘Christmas’, it’s pretty damn heartbreaking. I used to sing it to myself when I was sad, and make myself a hell of a lot sadder. Brought a little tear to my eye just thinking about it. My god I’m a soppy depressed git at the moment.

Back to the present.

While doing the washing up I couldn’t help but be enthralled by the line of cement trucks across the river waiting their turn to back up to the big mechanical spider-leg pump-jobby. So, my first picture with the new camera is of them, not wonderful, it’s taken out of a salt-water stained window, but there you go. (There is a tiny amount of memory built into the camera that allows a few shots, just in case you were wondering how I got around the SD card issue).

I’m in a really funny mood this evening, and I really can’t figure out why. I had a very productive day, I decimated my to do list and chiseled a ridiculous amount of long term monkeys off my back, but yet, I finish the day feeling really not with it.

Maybe it’s a bit of a bipolar thing, big high, feeling of achievement, temporary low, feeling of disorientation. I’m actually confused by it. And it’s not like me to be confused about such things, not for very long anyhow.

Okay, lets see if I can write it out of my system. What were the thoughts that were swirling? Well, I was walking about the house today thinking about how spoilt we are to get to live here. It’s too nice. Were it a tiny bit bigger it would be approaching a dream home. It’s got the wooden floors, the water virtually in the back garden, the almost permanently sunny, spacious kitchen. I have my books about me, the bedroom is easy to keep tidy, I work from home. It’s all wonderful. And I became conscious today, in a slightly different way than before, that some day, and probably not terribly far away, I will have to pack up and leave. I mean, we can’t pay rent forever, a mortgage is the only sensible option in this country. This is a thought that’s been niggling me since I started on my business plan. Self employed people do not get mortgages easily, if at all. Even if we could get one, how long before we could ever afford something like this house? It’s such a tease to have gotten to live in the dream home to have to give it up for something tiny and crap.

Of course, there’s no way of knowing what tomorrow may bring, no way of knowing what’s around our corner. Circumstances change and you find that the things you worried about last year are almost laughably obsolete by the time you’ve come to look back on them with your suitably tinted glasses.

So why worry about it? Right? But not worrying about it at a time when I am making the first real career decision of my life seems a little foolish. I explained this worry to Benny last night, and he rightly pointed out that I have the necessary passion and drive to do what I’m doing now, I may never get an opportunity like this again to try it. This is true, and made me feel better.

So why am I still feeling offy tonight? Perhaps it’s just tiredness, we accidentally went to bed late and didn’t sleep well last night. I haven’t felt tired like this for ages, perhaps I’m just not used to it anymore.

I suppose I just have a lot on my plate at the moment. I got a brief reprise from worry due to the elation I felt on Tuesday after the weight-lifting conversation I had with the business mentor. When I sat down to work yesterday the list of things to do to actually commence the business was more concrete, more attainable looking than it has looked at any time before now. Perhaps my worry-demons are just making sure I don’t lose the run of myself, making sure I’m still grounded. That sounds very like the way they usually work, nibbling and whispering away at my subconscious until I stop and think and access everything.

Yes, reading back over everything there, that seems about right. Never lose sight of the insidious, unsettling effects of stress. You think you have it under control, but it’s there, fueling the worry-demons, massaging the guilt muscle and sapping your strength and inner peace.

I still don’t think I’ve put my finger on it precisely enough. Perhaps it’s just one of those feelings that takes a day or two to marinate before you can really see what it is fully.

A lot of old memory’s have been coming back to me over the past few days. This is always a good indication that some sub-strata of my consciousness is preparing a case, ready to submit to whatever level is most in charge. It starts with the little subliminal flashes, then the pictures get brighter, eventually I start to see the pattern. Start to see the link between the images that crop up. I think I’m starting to see the link, and it’s to do with my past, and in particular, my previous relationships.

Something just occurred to me. Perhaps the return of memories that I haven’t dwelt on for quite some time is an indicator that my mind is beginning to settle properly. It’s a long time since I had a really settled routine, a really strong rhythm to my days and evenings. I’ve had little snatches of routine, but nothing permanent for the past year and a half. Particularly the past eight months. I was only just saying that to Benny last night, and again tonight, that I feel that we are finally starting to settle into some kind of pattern with the way we live down here in Sligo. So, just as it’s starting to look like it’s settling down, my mind is wandering to previous times of feeling settled, and I’m simultaneously feeling sad for the old routines and worrying that the new one might suffer the same fate. Mua ha! God damn it, I think she’s cracked it!

There it is. I have had two long term relationships before this one. Really good, strong relationships that I hoped would last forever. I feel guilty for the abandoned futures I had planned, I feel awful that those nurtured dreams have faded and drifted away like forgotten birthday balloons. I have not had time to reflect like this before now. Not in a long time. And now, just at the point where me and Benny’s relationship is starting to reflect those relationships in terms of achieving a settled routine – the inevitable thought must cross my mind that I do not want this to go the same way. And this is not a desperate need, nothing like it, I’ve known for a long time that being older and wiser I will not make the same mistakes, that I know myself and what I need and want much better for having had those wonderful relationships that did not work out. But I could not help but feel unnerved at entering into this territory again, I do not want to fall into ruts, get sucked into stability at the cost of keeping invigorating challenges in my life and in my relationship.

I don’t think it’s so much that I’m worried that there is any chance of this relationship going that way, it’s more that it is a time to reflect and let go of some feelings of guilt that still linger. Time to trust myself that I have learned and matured. Time to forgive myself for not knowing any better in the past.

I think the way these thoughts tie in with my feelings about having to leave this house are fairly straight-forward. It’s a fear of having to uproot again that’s tied in with a fear of having to lose the relationship in the process. In both previous long term relationships I left my home when I left the relationship – you can see how these thoughts collided.

Friends have said to me in the past, when I’ve counselled them on worries and distressing issues in their lives, that I appear psychic at times, that I seem to be able to see into their minds better than they can. That I am almost reading their thoughts. I always explain that I can only do this because I put so much time into thinking about my own thought processes. I hope that this little exercise tonight might go some way to show them how that process works in my head – because you just read pretty much exactly how I worked out what was wrong with me, in as near to real time as my typing and the formation of the sentences would allow.

I say semi, because it felt busy for an hour or two earlier on and then just degenerated into a big pile of doing nothing.

We registered Benny for his driving test anyway, done online, but now we have to worry about going to the government buildings to re-register our licences for down here. We figure there might be an issue with that when they go to allocate the test. Another fun thing to add to the eternal list.

I also ordered a large piece of pine board (can’t think of the technical builder name for it) which will hopefully be delivered in the next few days. I’m going to sand and varnish part of it to turn into boards for stretching my watercolour paper, and use the remainder for cutting on. I bought a mega roll of high quality watercolour paper a week or two back as this appeared to be the cheapest method overall, but I didn’t want to fork out for a cutting mat – so, for the grand expense of 15 Euros 11 Cents I have covered both needs in one go. To have bought the mat and a drawing board (which would have meant I only had 1 board, and I really need several and of different sizes) would have cost somewhere in the region of 50 – 60 Euros. I think I done good .

The other little errand we had to cover was going to the mail centre to pick up the package I missed delivery of yesterday. I am now the proud owner of a nifty little black Panasonic DMC LZ7, not quite as fancy as Old Grey Poet’s lovely birthday present, but sufficient for my needs at present. I was going to hold off on this slightly luxury item until I had actually started bringing in some money, but whilst researching other items at Komplett.ie I found it for 75 Euros cheaper than in Argos. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t risk making a saving of 75 Euros. I really don’t have that kind of willpower.

I had picked out a SD card for it at Komplett but found one cheaper at Dabs.ie. I’m not sure what to think of Dabs really, they have an odd attitude to their Irish customers, seeing as how they pay for returns on faulty goods in England, but not here (although, I understand they pay to send the repaired item back out to you) (I noticed the returns policy issue myself on their site, but read more about the issue here). Now, that doesn’t make them any worse than Komplett (to the best of my knowledge), but it still sticks in my teeth a little. The one thing they have going for them, and it’s pretty persuasive, is their prices. The SD card was 3 quid cheaper with them, which I know isn’t much, but we’re talking 11.40 for a 1GB SD card – I rang a local camera shop and they quoted 15 quid for a 512 card (eek). We took a spin up to Currys and PC World to see what their prices were like and they’re charging in the region of 39.99 for a 1GB SD card. It pays to shop around, to put it mildly.

I’m putting off the order at Dabs (I’m going to get my scanner with them, it was again, a good deal cheaper than at Komplett) until I have the second bank account set up. So I have a camera with no card at the moment, not the end of the world, but I wanna play with my toy dammit! *stomp*

Speaking of the second bank account. As I said yesterday, I’m going to just open a second personal account rather than twatting around paying a fortune for a business one. I found out today (and I really should have thought of this) that my status as a self-employed (and currently not earning) person will make this difficult. I’ll see what I can do with setting up a second one with my current bank, failing that we’ll probably open it in Benny’s name and I’ll be a named user on the credit card side of things. If anyone sees any glaring fault in this plan (other than saying Benny could run off with all the money) please let me know.

I also resolved the irritating laptop issue today. It’s a long and tedious story as to what went wrong with the previous order, so I wont bore you with it, but suffice to say, the new order will hopefully be completed by next Wednesday. We also made a saving of 90 Euro on the amount I had originally budgeted for, which is super nice. This, of course, still leaves me with the issue of how to find time to collect it, but I have a cunning plan which I will reveal to you in the fullness of time.

We’re rather excited about the laptop though, it is going to make life so much easier around here, being the computer junkies we both are, one machine was never enough. And one machine routed to the tiny AV room just doesn’t make sense considering the sheer volume of avi files and live streamed content we watch. I know, I know, why not just burn it to DVD etc. I couldn’t be arsed people. Not. Arsed. Similarly, Benny has a lot of projects he loves working at that are online and well, you all know how much time I spend online. It’s all within budget anyway, so no need to fret .

Well, that was a lot of detail you really didn’t need to know, wasn’t it? I dunno, I guess I was just in the mood of typing tonight. I’m trying to think of what else was rattling around up there today, there is usually at least one writerly/insightful observation floating around the grey matter on even the most mundane of days.

Ah yes, of course, the first visual that flashed into mind was St. Petersburg. I’ve been dwelling on it again. I do like to dwell. I was thinking of the first cafe we went to on our first ever day there together. Well, it was Benny that put the thought in my mind after we picked up the camera. I was pointing out how this one will be his when we’re on holidays, for taking all those little details it seems such a fuss to lug the beast out for – the cups of coffee, the meals (we always take pictures of all the meals we have on holidays) (it’s fun, if you’re into food), the oddly shaped pigeon poo that looks like someone you knew at school etc. Okay, I’ve never seen pigeon poo that looked like someone, but if I had, I’d want to take a picture of it. When we were talking about using the camera on holidays I realised that all the images that were coming to mind we’re of St. Petersburg, I mentioned it to him and he was having the same experience, thinking of that first cafe in particular.

So, it’s probably best to leave you with a picture of just that.

Nighty night all xxx

I met with the business mentor today. I felt, walking out of his office an hour and forty five minutes after I had entered it, as if I had just passed an exam. Wonderful feeling, been basking in it all day. He answered all of my questions, and not to put a tooth in it, I’m as happy as a pig in shit now. No worries about what I’m doing, all that was hanging over me in relation to vat and tax and prsi and general accounting is happily lifted and poof!, gone.

I have been knackered all day since though. I didn’t sleep well for the latter part of last night, probably irrationally worrying I’d sleep in and miss the meeting or some such poop. And I was just generally wound up by the whole thing. I had this nagging worry that he would say something that would throw the whole thing into question and force me to go back to work in some godforsaken call centre.

We were total piggys this evening and had a take away, he had his usual quarter pounder with cheese and chips, and I had my usual batter sausages with curry chips. And about half a gallon of tomato ketchup to dip the batter sausage in (sorry Kate, I know how you hate it). I feel full to the brim some four hours after eating it. Why does such dangerously fattening food have to be so satisfying? I wont be the first, or last, to point out the injustice of that equation.

We have tomorrow off. I’m looking forward to collecting a little package from the post office that I missed delivery of today. And we’re going to hopefully get him registered for his driving test (which, knowing the waiting lists in Ireland for a driving test, may happen in 4 – 5 millenia). I also want to get some boards for cutting and for stretching my watercolour paper. Oh, and I have to open a bank account for the business. I’ve decided to open a second personal account, as I genuinely don’t need any of the features of a normal business account, I really can’t justify the expense of one for the charming novelty factor of seeing ‘Blue Forest’ written on the statements. There are two bank account packages in the Irish market at present that don’t have any bank charges so I’ll be making my choice between the two in the morning.

We spent some time this evening looking at mobile phones. My lovely little ancient Sagem ‘my x-2′ is finally giving up the ghost (after four years good service). The screen has been cutting out for a month or three now and it’s getting to the unusable stage. I really don’t want to give it up, I don’t need any of the features that modern phones have to offer. Well, an FM radio would be pleasant, but that’s about it. I had picked out the Nokia 6103 about a year ago as a possible successor to the Sagem, but none of the Irish providers are carrying it anymore. None, and I mean none of the phones I saw tonight appealed to me. I think I liked that 6103 so much last year that nothing else compares to it now.Urg.

Anyway, that’s my lot for tonight, talk to you all in the ‘morro

Crap. For the first time in my wordpress blogging career I’ve just lost a post. I went to hyperlink something, and because I’m downloading the connection timed out on the little window for creating the hyperlink. I couldn’t get it off the screen so I had to just refresh. Even though I was fairly sure I had hit ’save and continue editing’, I discovered I had lost the whole thing.

Oh well. It was just some waffle about the sun today and how I’d had a pleasant evening watching documentaries. There was more to it than that, but I’ve completely run out of time now. It’s a little upsetting.

I don’t have it in me to rewrite it, I just tried to think of where to start, but I can’t do it. I’m sorry. Grrrrrrrrr.

*a curse I like to utter. No idea where I got it, though I have a feeling it’s one of my Mothers. My mother is wonderful for turns of phrase and general odd/old Irish words. I’m not sure this one is Irish though.