Am I lazy, or just bored? I just thought that, right now, so I thought I’d put it down on ‘paper’. The question answers itself anyway, I would be more motivated if I was more interested. It’s hard to be interested in ringing phone numbers that ring out, or with people on the other end of them that probably would have come back in by now if they were going to buy.

I’m not one of life’s worker bees. I find it hard to motivate myself to do pointless things. Perhaps that’s why I liked working with food. Cleaning and serving food have a point to them, and I always derived a great sense of satisfaction from them. It’s also very active work, which keeps the spirits up.

I’d love to open an Irish version of the fast food place I mentioned yesterday. I genuinely think Irish people would go nuts for it. We love our ‘taties, and there just aren’t enough fast food places that serve genuine ‘dinner’, something not dripping in fat, but filling and tasty. Something to ‘line your stomach’, a very important consideration in a country that loves it’s booze.

So now. Moving on from pipe dreams I can’t figure out how to achieve and do not have money for. It’s a stormy day in Sligo. Gales, sleety-snowy-rainy crap, and the promise of snow either later today or tomorrow, along with a potential dip to -10. Somehow, I can’t see that happening. Also, the fact that Benny heard that on Sky News doesn’t make me any more inclined to believe it. Sensationalist scum.

I wish there were more words and more understanding of depression. I can’t say I’m depressed right now, I’m happy, when I’m home. I’m not suffering from any major anxiety about anything. I’m sleeping and eating fine, and really, I don’t feel too bad. What I am, is totally, and utterly, without motivation. I can barely get myself off the seat in here to go to the toilet, let alone do anything productive. This of course makes me feel guilty. But the energy and the will to do something doesn’t come, and so I sit and stew and feel guilty, and wonder at how useless I am.

Life generally isn’t that happy a place, is it? Work and money and other people and what they think. All the usual aul shite that we all have to deal with everyday. It makes you wonder what’s going to happen when all these spoilt kids grow up. I mean the kind of spoilt that demands and receives sweets and toys after it’s had a tantrum. The kind I spent an awful lot of time looking at last week when I was stuck in that stupid shopping centre.

I wonder what that knack is, tucked away deep in the mysteries of the human mind, (okay, I know, someone has probably done a study on it), that makes us able to slosh about between the negative and the positive so easily. Like, after I had written that line about life not being a happy place, I re-read it and thought of all the positive things. All of the smiles, and observations, the pretty things, the loving things, the large eye’d pool of fur that purrs on my lap and smiles at me every evening.

I’m just a little reflective at the moment. Just watching, not even thinking a great deal. My mouth is happy to stay closed, my tongue happy to relax and languish, bolstered up against my teeth. My eyes are happy not to brighten, the muscles behind them relaxing and not willing to move more than is strictly necessary.

Wouldn’t it be lovely not to have to do a full time job. To have that B&B I dream of, with the cattery/kennels attached, and the forest near by to take the dogs out in. Wouldn’t it be lovely to clean sheets and make beds and put the finishing touches to things, cater for a visitors every needs, to clean cat poo and scrub out pens. Wouldn’t it be lovely to do all this with Benny beside me, laughing and joking through the day, supping coffees and talking shite. Like this morning in the hallway on my way out to work, the Queen song ‘Don’t stop me now’ was playing in the kitchen, rather loudly, and we both simultaneously started mimicking the scene from ‘Shaun of the Dead’ where they beat up the old man Zombie in the pub. Hopping about in the hallway swinging imaginary snooker ques above our heads while the cats stood and laughed.

Yes. It’s that simple. I don’t like what I’m doing with my life at the moment. I want something better. That would undoubtedly make someone feel a little low, no matter how illogical it is to want something you simply can’t have right now. It’s not wrong to want it, or to get a little down about it from time to time. The thing is not to have a tantrum about it, right?

I’ve made a discovery, and, I’d put money on it that no one else has ever tried this sandwich. Ciabatta, with corned beef, Gouda cheese, and Polish pickled mushroom salad. Sounds gross? Hell no!

What an international sandwich though, Italian bread, British Corned Beef, Polish salad, Dutch cheese, inspired by a Russian fast food chain, cooked on an American style grill by an Irish nutter.

It was inspired by the toasted sandwiches I would sell my soul to eat every day, found only in St Petersburg in this chain of restaurants (actually, I’m fairly sure they’re all over Russia, but I can only find them in St Petersburg). Okay, I know you can’t read it, but still, I wanted to have a look again myself.

I booked the day off today, and we made good use of it with a trip to Enniskillen. I got a little packet of catnip mousies for the bobtails, and they’re supremely happy with them. They’re also pretty happy with the cat milk and the return of their walking cat beds (us, well, our laps specifically).

Early to bed for me though, I’m brewing a cold, sigh.

Nighty night all, x

I leave you with another Russian puss, this time from the Hermitage.

(five uploads, and a resave of the original picture later, and this still wont load up properly. I’ll try again tonight)

We weren’t suppose to have been there, it was the station before the one we wanted to get off at. But the line ended suddenly and we found ourselves looking at another of St Petersburg’s many faces. Where it is not an elegant city, it is still striking. I know I run the risk of romanticising, but I do genuinely feel a resonance with this cold, powerful, concrete space, and I do find it beautiful. It is frank, busy, efficient, used and homely.

Busy weekend folks, big family gathering on Saturday night, big day of relaxation today. Should be back on form tomorrow

A picture from outside Витебский вокзал (Veetyebski Vauxhall), the train station we use to go to Pavlovsk.

Even though everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong, and even with a second tester in the car – I did it.

Relief doesn’t come close to describing what I feel right now.

Thank you all for your support, I’ll hopefully write a bit more on it later.

The not writing is partly to do with the nerves over the test. Also, I’m tired, and the second in command here is being unhelpful and snappy, which is only serving to make the work related tiredness weigh down heavier on me.

Ok, that’s me, I can’t write when I’m this nervous about something. The way I usually write these posts – I ask myself, what have I been thinking about, what would I like to share? The test is the only thing I’ve thought about, and I don’t want to talk about it because my stomach turns into a quivering, pulping, washing-machine-of-doom every time I think of it.

I’m terrified I won’t do it properly, I’ll forget indicators, mirrors, balls up the corner, not read signs, arse up a junction, whatever. I have to get over this lack of confidence – I have to go in there knowing I can do it, otherwise, I’m screwed.

Why am I getting like this? I’m allergic to anxiety. I avoid it at all costs, it’s my least favourite feeling in the whole world. I’d rather be burnt or cut or kicked than feel that bubbling surging barbed-wire adrenaline eating at my heart and stomach. And the bloody depression of it, like a big stinking famine blanket, waiting to suffocate each and every pleasant thought, or moment where I forget about it and relax a little.

Yes, I’m exaggerating it. But those little moments, where it does feel that bad, where the panic grabs you and you can’t think clearly, they are truly horrible. And I’ve had to many of them this week for my liking.

It’s funny though, I said up there that I couldn’t write, but I’m a stubborn bitch. I go to war with the anxiety and the depression, sometimes I suffer it so it will pass – let myself feel it to release some of it. That’s what I just did there, and do you know, I feel a little better. It’s as if the effort of keeping it at bay is more draining than just letting myself feel it.

Yuck. See, you probably could have done without hearing that. Or perhaps it strikes a cord. Everyone no doubt experiences their own version of it.

Right, back to work.

I couldn’t write last night because I fell into the most elaborate conversation with Benny, on everything from Giftedness to the universe – including black holes, God, Paganism, folding time, string theory, fractals, terrorism, creationism, taking out the ‘death’ gene (and whether or not you’d still need food, and lots of other gory stuff), the Basques, the internet as a means for communicating without speech or type (a sort of emotional interface where you could exchange emotions and mental images), the possibility that aliens are us, either from the past, or the future, which had something to do with light speed if I recall correctly. And they’re just the first things that pop into my head.

I’m having a flat out day in work today, and when I eventually get home this evening I’m going out to practice for my driving test, which is on Friday. Lord.

So, back to it, take care all, x

It seems like every time we go for a walk lately, we discover something new, in places we have already visited many times before. Today, in an effort to break up the day, we headed for Strandhill, for a walk on the beach.

It was wild, and thunderous, as Strandhill usually is. We sat for a while on the rocks and listened, and looked. There was a heavy mist/spray coming in over the beach, lending a strange atmosphere to the place. We thought we’d have a walk around the sand dunes before we left and found, on the other side of the dunes, the most beautiful calm beach. It was twilight when we got there, and the water was completely still. With the mist and the lights of the houses on the mountain spilling over the glassy water, and the mountains, all draped in misty clouds and surrounding us, it felt ethereal, like something from Tolkien.

We stayed for a while before picking our way back out through the dunes in the rapidly darkening twilight. Emerging back out into the roar of the waves was wonderful – coming from the stillness and unnatural quiet of the sound dampening dunes, the crash and pound and drama of the waves was invigorating to say the least.

It is good to have the extra light in the evenings to do this kind of exploring again, it reminds me of why we’re here, and why it’s worth our while to be here.

I’ve marked the route in red, note how the mountain comes right down almost into the water, it really is breathtaking. The contrast of the thundering beach behind and the total quiet and eerie calm of the sheltered beach is fascinating to me.

(The map image is of course from Google maps)

The all pervasive smell of diesel and the squelch of dirty half melted snow underfoot encouraged Jack’s eyes upward to the winter morning sky. Above him a retina-searingly theatrical sunrise of brilliant whites and egg-yolk yellows were efficiently dispatching the last silky blue remnants of the fading night sky. The sun sat perched in the middle of the showy display, like an approving god surveying his beautifully crafted stage, and the millions of ants below.

It was ten o’clock in the morning, but that’s what the sky likes to get up to in this part of the world thought Jack, a phenomenon which he was struggling hard to get used to.

He had been in St Petersburg four days, his back hurt and his feet hurt, the tightrope act that was picking a safe route through the partially frozen snow grinded into the city’s footpaths was taking it’s toll. He had left the hostel without his Mp3 player again, but he was starting to think that was not such a bad thing over here, there was much to listen to; the dance music pouring from the octagonal CD stalls that lined his route to the college, the ever-present rhythm of the traffic, the mingle of a multitude of voices, the language sounding so different over here than in his books, in the college rooms back home.

But his favourite thing to listen to so far was the underground, the deep rhythmic rumble of the impossibly high escalators, the screeching, screaming, howling departure of the carriages, the recorded voice of the metro-man warning that the doors were closing in his grumbly elongated Russian. There was something at once alien and reassuringly familiar in those sounds which captivated Jack’s imagination. Of all the things he had encountered in these first few days of utter and total differentness, here, in the metro, he had found something almost homely in the sounds of the city’s vast, cavernous, opulent underground railway.

Homely or not he still had to hold on pretty tight to the handrail on the way down the escalator, the vertigo-like sensations that the sheer height of the escalators extracted from him was something else to be gotten used to, as quickly as possible. He watched enviously as people on the opposite escalator stood facing each other, each to a step, hands in pockets or poking the air to make some point. He wondered if he would ever be able to do that. Of course I will, he scolded himself, it all looks new now, but I’ll get the hang of it. He remembered his observation about the bus route he had taken home every evening as a child, how one evening he had tried to look at it with the eyes of a stranger, that he might remind himself when faced with a new journey not to worry, what appears strange and unsettling at first is only a route waiting to be memorised and naturalised. The perceived strangeness an illusion waiting to be soothed away by time and repetition.

The journey through the underground was a short one, he had one change to make mid way, filtering through the underground halls with some of the five million of the city’s other commuters. Seamlessly, like a river of minds and limbs, he flowed with them, squinting in his efforts to decode the Cyrillic as quickly as he could, hoping he had picked the correct route to the platform he wanted. He was in luck this morning, making it to the platform just as the doors were closing. Hands tugged his arm to help him through the closing doors which had very nearly come together on his backside. He couldn’t figure out who to thank when he turned from checking his coat hadn’t gotten caught in the doors, the faces in front of him were impassive. He thought this slightly odd but adjusted his big puppy dog smile rather rapidly to a more suitable disinterested grimace.

Help me I think I’m falling, in love again Joni Mitchell’s cinamon-soft voice suddenly picked up volume in Jacks mind, he realised then it had been playing on a loop on and off for most of the morning. He closed his eyes and let the sound of the rumbling metalic screeches of the train hurtling downhill vibrate through his soul, but the words would not leave him. Why is she coming back into my mind, he frowned, why now why here.

It was an old memory, nothing left from that time, no love particularly, no link with today, that should have caused it to come back to him like this, blazing away in the front of his mind, riffling through his senses , filling him up with nostalgic echoes. The feel of the throw on the couch in their little room, the texture and colour of the bubbled red gloss paint on the fireplace, the corner of her mouth, the feel of her hips under jeans.

Blinking like he was waking from a hungover sleep he peeled himself out of the thoughts and mentally shook himself as the lights of the train turned off and on to signal the coming stop.

He emerged with the flowing crowd onto a street dusted with snow, tiny flakes settled on his black wool coat, glittering like miniscule dew drops. He’d made it on time.