Taking Back Control

 Yes, the process of taking back control has begun and just a small victory so far in consolidating a load of electrical bits and throwing stuff out.  It is a little victory but it is also a start and it gets things moving slowly and steadily.  Of course, I found the fuses I was looking for last week and had to reorder! So I now have hundreds of small glass fuses!   Oh well, at least the car adaptors are working once again.

All the lamps are now together in one box which starts to help and the fuses are in two locations with the electrical tools and the small tool box with all the hobby tools in it.  So now, I can start to do one or two things a day and get organised and also start to make a little room.  It's no use doing it all at once as that would be a little depressing and a lot of hard work and the task is monumental.  Little steps, little victories, gradual reorganisation and results will come.  

I feel a lot better, no booze despite the temptation to have some and now the next stages gradually come together as I tackle a little at a time.  I think the overall thing is daunting but if you can just tackle small areas at a time it can get resolved.  I now need to also start throwing stuff away which will make room and giving stuff away too.  It's sat here for months if not years just in case...

"Slowly, Slowly, Catchy Monkey" or sometimes "Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey" comes to mind.  An old phrase you used to hear a lot but not so much these days.  We will get there and if I only do 10 minutes a day - it will be progress.  

A Few Days Away - What The Doctor Ordered?

If you can ever see a Doctor of course.  Yes, apart from a hold up on the M25 on the way and one on the way back adding 3 hours and 1 hour respectively, it was OK.  The carnage of traffic controls ill thought through and the sight of workmen not even working on the road but sat in their vans was annoying to state the least.  It was a bit anxious sitting in crawling traffic surrounded by huge lorries and I hope the Police dealt with the cars and lorries going through the Red flashing lane closed signs.

So I saw my mum, she's looking frail and walking slowly now with her trolley.  Bloody lock-down did for our elderly as she was quite fit until they imposed restrictions and made her more sedentary.  So where we used to quite happily wander around town she now needs to take short breath stops every 100 yards or so.

The good thing is that I am feeling much better, my shakes are almost gone and I feel a lot better and a lot of the stress has gone too.  This is good and I hope that I will now build on this and I have a few ideas what to do and how to tackle things.  There's a lot to be done and I need to motivate myself to tackle it.  Elephant eating will have to be the name of the game and a gradual tackling of tasks will be needed.  

Feeling better so that's good and the main thing, certainly I am not feeling nearly as stressed out as I was before I went. 

 

General Observations

I am definitely not firing on all cylinders at the moment, my voice is gravelly (stress) and I have idiots all around me and worse than that, they appear entitled, opinionated, loud and wrong.

This entitlement is bordering on the absurd and is in no way reflective of the reality of the situation (Recollections May Vary).  When you paint yourself into a corner the only way out with any honour is to understand that you've done the deed to yourself and then to apologise and try and work your way out.  Fighting may be a cornered animal's option but you should have the wit to work out what you've done and how to get out of it but, no, you can't because you are full of hatred and the sad, very sad thing is, you completely did this to yourself and then doubled down - twice.  

I've another who doesn't get that he hasn't delivered once on his schedule in 8 years.  Not once have we hit a deadline or milestone even if I have given him room to review, thinks about it and still, still we aren't there.  A person who slips a deliverable a day before it is due by nine months surely doesn't know what he is doing?  You can have bad luck of course but so often and so similar?  

Hypocrisy is another thing isn't it.  Telling me that you stand for certain inalienable rights and support those who are severely affected whilst at the very same time delivering the coercive behaviour to me you say you so abhor?  Strange that and the irony isn't noticed and once again, it's my fault!   

So 4 days away will sort me out a bit here.  I'm OK with it and I'm sure that I can iron my head out a bit whilst I am away.  I know what I need to do, I just cannot face the reality of that at the moment.  If that seems logical?  It's "Eat The Frog" time again and I'm putting it off and trying to believe that it will all be right when of course it never is, never will be and I myself am now painted and backed into a corner.  I know the way out of it, but I'm a little too cowardly to face the truth of that and do anything about it.  I know just how disruptive the answer is going to be! 

A few days will straighten that thinking out and we will see where we go from there.  

A Short Break

 I'm looking forward to a short break I have to say.  I need it and the pressures (inevitably that I heap onto myself) are just making my life a bit of a misery at the moment.  I still feel a little sick, I notice my hands shaking and I know that I need to do something about it.

Hopefully it will get a little easier if I do not think about it too much?  The trouble is that it makes me inactive and I don't do anything to get out of the rut.  It's been like this on and off for years.  I have to come back from this break with a plan to actually do something about it all, the business, my life, where I want to go from here.  

Fingers crossed that I can sort it out on my return. 

Time To Take A Few Days Off

 I need a head straighten session and to get away for a few days to just chill out.  The stress that this bloke has put me under and my software developer failing once again to deliver really got to me yesterday.  It shouldn't because it will be what it will be I suppose, the only thing my developer IS good at is failure by the looks of it.  

So perhaps 4 or 5 days away will resolve it all and no PC to deal with no stupid letters to look at and just get away from it all.  I am concerned though that this latest failure to deliver is just biting into the time I need to sell the App and make some money back after all these years and then I look and think what did I waste my time for, I am meant to be retired and enjoying it, I'm not getting any younger and I should be doing other things.  Oh well.  Maybe that will iron itself out whilst I am away?

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

 It's getting more obvious by the day that the recent bunch of politicians are just not sensible.  I suppose we always knew that they lied to  your face and all the usual but these decisions they make cannot be thought through properly.

Inflation up, jobs down, unemployment up, significant downturns starting to be reported and it was all predictable as they've made this common mistake loads of times before and not learned the lessons of their own destructive policies.  "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but it's likely a misattribution.  Whatever, they double down and make the same mistake again and then again!

Other things you can see are stupid, nanny state stuff for the sake of looking like they are addressing one thing and then something else happens.  I think I mentioned it before, the "Cobra Effect" in colonial India refers to a failed policy where the British government offered a bounty for dead cobras to reduce their population in Delhi. Instead of decreasing, the cobra population increased because people began breeding cobras for the bounty, effectively turning the situation into a cobra farming operation. This unintended consequence became known as the Cobra Effect, highlighting how incentives can backfire and worsen the problem they were intended to solve. 

I red this morning that Red Squirrels are under threat in Scotland as they have enacted an air rifle law over some incident and people have to get some sort of licence.  As the author points out, if you are a Ne'er-do-well you aren't going to bother.  The law abiding citizens now rarely use their rifles as they haven't applied for their licence and good lord, who'd have thunk it?  Red Squirrels are now under threat as the Grey Squirrels that the Air Rifle users were pest controlling are taking over again.  The Grey is an American non native.  

IT won't be the last time either, the stupidity of these people knows no bounds.  I am glad to see that the various councils that Reform have taken over are getting scrutinised for how they spend OUR money.  A sort of UK DOGE unit is you like.  Whilst they are meant to deal with waste they are not meant to be causing it.  There are people with non jobs the Net Zero team and the DEI HR people, you never needed a separate department 40 years ago why do you need one now?  I think they said £140 M they'd found so far.  Many of these councils are approaching bankruptcy and have massive debts and they really don't know how to run the very thing they are employed at great salaries to do.

I have experience in this area having dealt with a couple of councils in my time who were failing and who being offered a solution to control everything in one suite of management software felt that it would flag up too many problems.  Rather than actually know what the problems were and their KPIs, inter-dependencies and risk monitoring and mitigation they were happy to let it be.  It was jaw dropping that the Chief Executive couldn't answer some of the basic questions and bullied his staff - right in front of us to say they didn't have a problem where we'd been information gathering for a day and knew the opposite was true.  Such is the level of "management" we have these days, they appear to be the very opposite of how we were taught and how we worked.

It's the bare faced lying and obvious lack of grasp of their subject that is astonishing.  Politicians now just stuff it in your face, cannot answer questions, lie continuously - the list goes on and wonder why they've lost any respect (not that they had much left) from the public.  Finally, they seem to be waking up and seeing this Chimera before them.  The worst is yet to come gathering by the figures I am looking at not the glossy weasel words.  Go look at the real figures on employment, inflation and business investment and then be afraid because it is heading for a crash and not all countries are.  This is of their own making and I am waiting for something like "We are going to borrow more money to pay the debt we have!" or something like that.  

Their answer will be to come back to the people for more tax which will disincentivise the people further and with the recent hit on energy and food prices, people will rein in their spending and the death spiral will get started.  They said they were going for growth - the only growth I see is mould and moss over the deserted landscapes of our towns and cities and the loss of more jobs because people just wont be buying stuff anymore.  The latest splashing of our money is going to incentivise us to buy electric cars.  There's more discounts to attract people and allowance to let you (those who live close to roads) have a gully to safely take your electric charging lead to your car.  Again, they don't live in the real world at all.  Ask anyone who lives with road parking how often they actually get to park their car anywhere near the front of their house and you'll find that once in a blue moon is probably the answer.

People know that electric cars are meant to be the future but now they've had them for a while, the expectations are turning to disillusionment as it comes home to roost just how unpractical they are.  My daughter's car was worked on every month for 18 months and eventually they gave up and she got another car, a petrol one.  Mostly you are paying more for an electric car and so in these hard times, knowing that to own one of these is going to give you little or no return and they depreciate so fast that they realistically lose you a lot of money.  I only know of one person who likes theirs and even they've had three or four call outs this year on minor problems.  People aren't buying it and are suffering from all the other taxes imposed on us, the worst burden since after WW2.  

Their ideology is diametrically opposed to the reality but, none of these people have worked in business (or if they have they were juniors) they mainly come up the lobbying and local government route and they have their heads full of Marx and Keynesian economics which are not what is needed at all.  The whack of taxes has pared back business owners, the slew of employment laws coming will also do the same, none of it make sense and it is hurting present and future growth, the opposite of what they said they wanted.  The slow train crash continues before our very eyes and the wide eyed naive politicians seeing the curve ahead ope the throttle fully in the hope they'll stay on track.

We all know what's going to happen and who will feel the pain.  That pain needs to be transferred back to the policy makers and advisers.  As I am oft reminded by Edmund Blackadder "I wouldn't trust him to sit the right way up on a toilet!"  So full of it, I doubt they've ever been to a toilet and warning tags are attached to their backsides stating "Don't give enema!" on the supposition that if you did all the sh1t and wind would be knocked out of them and they'd disappear altogether! 

Now It's Sleep That's A Sort Of Problem

 I can fall asleep OK but once I wake up and my mind clicks in, it is difficult to get back to sleep.  If it's 2 am that's not normally a problem unless my mind has been wrestling a particular scenario.  If it is bad I can get up and go downstairs.  This morning I was awake well over an hour earlier than normal and it was easier to get up and throw some clothes on and wander down here for an hour and a bit until the alarm went off and I could return to some semblance of routine.

My mind is in a spin as it is working out all the various permutations of things with the business and it is also, now, playing various outcomes of the business now that I have been left to fend for myself.  There are a lot of variables involved and it's playing those through that is giving the challenge - lots of paths, lots of outcomes.

Hopefully it will be short lived and I can get back to a slightly more even keel.  

Looking At This All Wrong

 It struck me as I continue to analyse things, possibly way too much, that I am looking at this all wrong and taking a view that there is something wrong that needs to be answered and that it is my fault and that's actually not what it is at all.

The current nastiness is not caused by anything that I have done it is because the other party has unilaterally taken action without thought and after some time realised that the consequences of their own actions have backed them selves into a blind alley and painted the exit.

I have been looking at the details and not the bigger picture on this.  These actions are neither logical or well thought through and they are scatter gun in nature, there's no obvious solution to their actions.  It's quite a different scenario when you helicopter view this.  

I cannot solve their problem which I wanted to do, I want to take the path of peace but no, they don't want to do that as they've assembled on the field of battle ready for war.  I've offered negotiation and they don't want that.  Realising that, I have to do..... Nothing, no thing.  It's not my actions that have got him where he is, it's not in my gift to repair whatever "wrong" there might be because, that isn't made clear and in fact the whole thing is a muddle.  I'm surprised at whoever is advising him for taking this massively aggressive approach when a reconciliation is what they should be trying to achieve.

So this epiphany struck me last night in the middle of copious note making.  I write all the time and it gets it out of my head on to paper and then moments like this occur.  At times like this the absurd is never far from my mind and it brought to mind 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' film.  Do you remember the Bridgekeeper at the Bridge of Death, they are asked three questions. The first is, "What... is your name?" The second is, "What... is your quest?" and the third, for some characters, is "What... is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Mine goes something along the lines of "What do you want?" no more, no less.  If you resigned from a job and left it with immediate effect and cut off all attempt to communicate (your choice), washed your hands of the part of the project you were doing and walked away commercially and physically with no further communication as a demand.  How is that anyone's choice but your own and how is that my problem?  I've been left with a part finished project and Hobson's choice on completing it.

Now, he wants something but it's not clear what he wants?  He threatens me but wants me to enter into some sort of third hand correspondence and is demanding things that he has no rights to?  Plus he didn't want any contact after he left abruptly.  Oh well, there's me, trying to do the right thing and actually, it doesn't deserve any more of my time.  There's no remedy requested, no apology for his disgusting behaviour, no way forward and nothing that I can do to relieve him of the consequences of his dire and crass decision.   

It's taken a while to get here but when you boil it down and look at it over and over enough times and play the various scenarios you eventually hit on the truth of the matter and then you have a light-bulb moment and intuitively recognise what you missed before.  

Green Eyed Monsters And Adaption

Once again I am reminded that people are a strange combination of gullibility and greed, although that may be the wrong word.  I read someone explain Climate Change nicely and can actually concur.  I have been to Finland and I have been to the South of France and Spain when the temperatures were -44C and +44C respectively and people live across these ranges.  So that's an 88C swing and yet we adapt and survive these.

It's uncomfortable for us Brits either way but like the current heat spike (how can it be a heatwave if it lasts a few days?) we have temperatures of around 30C and actually whilst it is a little uncomfortable, the very people who complain are the ones jetting off to higher temperatures elsewhere - make it make sense.  So how a 1.5C increase is even noticeable in the overall scheme of things I have no idea.  

The green eyed monster rears its ugly head again as people just think they can get money for nothing and not have to work for it.  They are like vultures circling overhead and whilst I am working flat out to make things happen and sell and thereby make money they stand at the sidelines throwing stones but also expecting to be fed from the trough that I will create.

Anyway, it's getting warm and its early in the morning so I think it will be an easy day.  I've done all my admin for the day (and its Saturday)!  

Imposing Your Will or View Onto Others

 I'm pretty much sick to death of this.  Does no one ask politely anymore?  Since when has it been acceptable to just come out with some random demand and expect obedience?  What's the point?

I'd expect it from ignorant people but these people aren't that.  It's as if these past few years since Convid have allowed people to act like the Stazi and lord it over others.  This isn't management in a business, this is full strange "Do this" or "Don't do that" or "Do what I say not what I do" and frankly, I've had enough of it. Sick to death with it.  

SO how to deal with it?  Well, it's me so I just don't speak to them and ignore them which is OK for me, I can live in my INTJ world.  Only communicate when needed. Only do what I want to do, don't look out for them.  Best I can do as it is upsetting that they even think all of this is acceptable.  Turns out we've got cr@p government and some of my acquaintances are trying to be worse than that and succeeding too.  

Cancer and Mental Health

 You may find this podcast interesting or read this  transcript.

If you read the early stuff I did you'd know that it isn't easy to describe it but you go low and down and whilst it isn't mental health in the way we'd know it in a clinical sense it is real and difficult to deal with.  I mainly dealt with it on my own but I know I affected those around me whether knowingly or just by the way I was.

I still have highs and lows and I still get the odd flash back because it is this time of year, when I discovered the problem, saw my doctor with varied reactions as he was not a bedside manner guy and then met the lady who diagnosed me, got me into Hospital quickly and did the Operations and all the treatments etc.

There's things like waiting, worrying, letting your mind (I am particularly bad at this) per mutating all possible outcomes and then much to my personal shame, there's the fallout of divorce and quite a lot of wasted time and energy when I should be doing good stuff and celebrating.

Anyway, if you are having a bit of a rough time of it, have a listen - you are very much, not alone.

What Is Going On?

 What is wrong with people with their trivial problems that they need to project onto you.  They make huge mistakes in their own lives and it's your fault!?  WTF.  Since when is this acceptable behaviour and since when is this my fault?

Then, there's the list of demands on what you should and shouldn't be doing.  Frankly, if they act this way they should up sticks and go move to North Korea or somewhere that would appreciate them.  It's getting annoying in the extreme now and it's the new norm. 

Their logic even goes so far as asking you to do something about their problem, get them out of the fix they've got themselves into. Irony is lost on them and they do not seem to actually understand that they are the ones being unrealistic and weird.

Suppose they'll have to learn the hard way.  

Monday Night

 Friends from Australia on a stop over suggested an evening meal.  It wasn't too far for us to go and the traffic was so light that we were able to do he journey 10 minutes quicker than normal.  The Hotel / Pub was nice, I haven't been there for 40 years or more so I don't remember it at all - apart from its facade.

Food was good and plentiful and the company was excellent.  Like the UK, Australia is turning very sadly away from being the world of Crocodile Dundee and I imagine that the way both our Governments are behaving with their cult like Net Zero and here too our NHS worship that a collapse is on the cards.  In both cases the (I can't bring myself to call them politicians) creeps and dunces in charge know how to get us out of this, they'll tax our way out of debt!  National Debt Clock is an interesting and disturbing watch.

Here, companies are leaving, those choosing an IPO are going elsewhere and you can see why.  The price hit of the combined raising of minimum wage, national insurance and the change in when that kicks in put a huge problem for small business.  New labour laws will do the same.  It isn't sustainable without growth and no one is growing apart from more public sector and they don't produce anything, they don't keep the populace healthy so they can go to work (quite the opposite).  You have to wonder whether this is all by design?

Oh well, it was nice to see our friends even though this year on a fleeting visit.  They've held off plans for moving or buying a second house over here based on their view of the UK.  Interesting times ahead and choppy waters too. 

Twenty Years On

The 7th July 2005 and I was in the vicinity of Aldwych, London.  I'd gone up for an interview and was on a carriage of kids who were all due to go to Baker Street and I imagine Madame Tussaud's and the Planetarium.  They were advised to catch the train back as there was a power outage and a fire and I think they duly caught the train back.  I wandered up the road to the interview.  There was a BAR F1 Car in the window of an office block - the sort Jenson Button drove as I recall (perhaps wrongly).

It was an early interview and I immediately realised that the two guys that were interviewing me were way out of the depth.  By that I mean that they hadn't prepared, hadn't read my CV and had no real grasp of the job that they were asking me to do.  It was like sending the cleaner to hire a Brain Surgeon.   The interview didn't last long as they couldn't answer my questions and the little creep was also sneering and I could see had no idea of what I was talking about.  He also didn't like the questions I was asking them about what their roles were to be if they hiring the overall Programme Director, what part in the Programme were they taking and would I be reporting to them.

Once you realise that there isn't a hope in hell, then go on the attack and make them work hard to close down the interview etc.  They said that there had been an incident on the underground and just up the road and so I thought, as it was relatively early I'd go back to Charing Cross and just go home.  The sound of sirens was all around and when I got to the station the dooors were locked and a Policeman was guarding it.  I asked what was going on and I think he said security incident, that Charing Cross was closed but Waterloo was open so I walked across the bridge to Waterloo and then found that whilst Waterloo was open (that's the East station) they were actually running trains out of London Bridge - the next station on and using Waterloo East to turn the trains like they'd do at Charing Cross normally.  So I walked on but the other side of the station saw the largest numbers of Fire Engines, Police Cars and Ambulances all lined up.

The mobile phone network had been turned off and so I didn't get the frantic calls from my mother, brother and wife.  I could not call out either.  I walked in the mizzle towards London Bridge and as I arrived there, a train came in and I was able to head home on a reasonably empty train.  The phone eventually rung as I got nearer my destination and it was my brother and so I briefly explained where I was and that I was on the way home and got him to ring my mum and my wife so they knew I was OK and making my way home.

I came out of the station into the local pub and grabbed a beer and they had the TV on so I was able to finally see and hear what had gone on.  Not for the first time I had been in London during a multiple bombing.  I drank a second beer and wandered home and watched the horror unfold. 

 It was a horrific attack and the Bus in Tavistock Square was the nearest to where I was - still around a mile away I'd guess - possibly a little less. A sad day, the dead, injured, those affected and the emergency services all caught up in the events.  

If At First You Don't Succeed.....

Then Sky Diving is not for you as the joke goes.  

I find myself doubting what I know intuitively to be right.  It creeps in and I find myself doing my heavy analysis bit to check, recheck, invert, recheck, send it into another dimension, recheck and recheck again.  

I know that these comments and requests aren't all that they appear to be.  That's at the heart of the matter, it's a three dimensional game of chess in many ways or perhaps cards.  I dropped the trump card last time and that has done a lot to temper this second letter but now I re read this for the nth time I see things that can only be there for the wrong reasons.  

Regime change is an interesting thing and it requires a certain amount of knowledge which he doesn't possess.  It always looked as if he was being manipulated and this second letter proves it.  The first one pretty much pointed to it as well.  What is interesting is that the wording has changed and the attack point but it still doesn't add up.

It's taken me a while to just work out what I need to do on this.  In reality, that is nothing but a change in ploy is now required that allows me to deal with this over months not days.  They've take their time to respond and so I shall take a similar time. I might acknowledge the letter though even them, maybe not.  What's the point?

It's all messy as you like and not of my making.  It's just annoying and takes up too much of my time when the outcome is likely to be the same as the last time. The John Cleese phrase in Fawlty Towers "You started it, you invaded Poland!" flashes through my mind to pull me back to the reality of the situation.  This is now the third attack and whilst the first was shocking, the second really was devastating both business and personally.  This third one strips down to a few key elements and the traps are baited, because answering them leads to another form of action opening the door to prolong things.

You know it is a trap when you look behind what these questions actually mean.  Using probing questions to provide information that they are not entitled to is also an alarm bell.  Trying to establish figures to enter into their spreadsheets can wait.  

Oh well, I know what I can do now as their precedent is set in terms of timing and their strategy / game plan is becoming clearer through the obfuscation of the first letter and the probing nature of the second.  As luck would have it, I don't actually need to answer any of it as it concerns no one but me.  

Disappointing Isn't It?

 I'm pretty fed up at the moment with this chap still writing through a solicitor.  It's a typical thing when someone's made a big mistake that they cannot let it go.  I can see his point but as I used to say to people, "I'd like to see your point of view but I can't get my head that far up your arse!"

It's now making me a little depressed as rather than just walking away, they are firing off stuff at me that isn't really important at all and just causes me stress and isn't necessary but more than that, I now see that some of this is from another hand another person as he isn't the sort to think or act like this of his own volition because it is a series of little traps and frankly, stuff that shouldn't even matter unless there was something else behind it.

So I am coming to the conclusion that there needs to be a new line drawn in this and it will be to turn this around and go into offence not defence from now on.  I need to go back to my Sun Tzu Art Of War thinking and act quite differently to the reactive way I have had to so far.  I need to start treating this on my terms not on his.  He has nothing to give so he'll need to try harder.

It's just so annoying that people act like this but I suppose he's got nothing else to think about and needs to go through these dying actions.  I think that the worst part, for him, is that he's lost some real friends and allies but has probably gained some Worm Tongue or Tongues who are making him do their bidding.  I cannot help him anymore, all he did was betray my trust and became disloyal, back stabbing and undervalued the work I had done on his behalf.  Now hiding, he snipes back as if he is in the higher moral position, in the right and on the moral high ground.

Dear reader, he 'should' know me well enough to realise that it's not going to be tolerated for much longer given the brutal attack originally instigated.  This second approach is disguised on a bit more conciliatory but hides its true intent between the lines.  It's an old trick - he forgets, despit me having told him many times in the past, that I used to this stuff for a living.

Yay, It's Another Circuit Around The Sun!

 Yes, It;s my birthday and having been quite depressed for a while, this morning I have cheered up a little bit.  

I have to say getting another solicitor's letter was just so annoying and distressing but of course, having read it, there's not a lot that I can do about it anyway - just "buyer's remorse" I put it down to.  Actions have consequences and so these are the consequences and they're not my actions despite them trying to project them on to me.  

I will spend the day just relaxing and hopefully be fully chilled out about it all later. Nineteen years though since the presentation of my Bladder Cancer.  A lot has happened and I'm glad that I am still here and able to live my life.  Many are not that fortunate unfortunately and some of the people I knew back then are no longer with us, I count myself lucky that I am not one of them.  

Here We Go Again

 Another Solicitor's letter FFS.  Not so bad this time but still a thundering nuisance nonetheless.  I could do without it but have to deal with it I suppose.  For someone who wants nothing to do  with me, it's almost the opposite.

Oh well, just another thing to deal with that I don't need at this time.  Amazon excelled themselves yesterday too.  I ordered something to expressly arrive today as I was out.  Apparently it was handed to the resident or in my case on the doorstep!  It was a high value item too but luckily it was there when we returned last night.  Talking of which two strange drivers - one who was overtaking everything on suburbans roads and the other displaying no lights and driving a little erratically - the sort you drop back from and they had been harassed by the car mentioned previously but there was something wrong with the way they were driving and as we went past some temporary traffic lights they managed to drive both nearside tyres at some speed over a raised curb island.  It did make a bang and as I suspected both tyres blew a few yards further down so they had to pull over.

It was late and twilight and they were over to the curve so I passed and drove on - "aren't you going to stop?"  And the answer was "No" - twenty or thirty years ago perhaps but you just don't know who is in the vehicle and they weren't driving it properly so could be drug or drunk I don't know but the last thing is to go and help out.  Hopefully they have breakdown insurance and I imagine they'd need new wheels too the impact was that heavy.  I'm not a young fit man anymore and you just never know who these people are.  

Nineteen Years

 Always, at this time of year I get a bit cranky.  It is 19 years today since I found blood in my urine and so that is one of those reasons. My father died on the 3rd July and it is my birthday on the 4th.  There are other things associated with these 3 or 4 days too so unsurprisingly I get a bit down.  

I feel particularly rubbish this morning as I stupidly had a few beers last night and that hasn't helped me one bit.  I must learn to just not go to the beers when I am feeling low!  It only makes matters worse.  I know this, I'm old enough to know better too! 

Nostalgia And All That Jazz

 Writing my biography is an interesting exercise but it is actually throwing up what I obliterated some years ago.  I was prone to reviewing and playing over in my head all the scenarios of things that had happened and was very bad at this constant analysis and reanalysis of situations that had happened because my mind does that, it's a whirr of computational what ifs and I always felt that was why I did what I did as a living.

I one day realised that all this stuff in my head whizzing around being worked on in multiple layers in a parallel type computational way was actually getting me nowhere, no where at all and that really was a problem and somewhere in the blog is the moment I lay down in bed and set fire to my memories and stopped dwelling and what-ifing.  My mind was then free of all that stuff.

Writing my biography has actually brought back some of that (not all I hasten to add) but some key moments in my life.  Well what I felt were key or pivotal.  Maybe not at the time.  These junctions in the road are interesting in an academic sort of way as you can do the "What If?" test on them but I found myself doing that this morning and I must stop it.  In my head are perhaps 8 to 10 moments in my life where I could have done something but didn't, I opted for what I knew, the place of safety and certainty and there's the regret.  I very rarely make a move or decision that I haven't thought through, I rarely do things on the spur of the moment and that is what I can feel being a regret.

Interestingly these are all relationship things.  I could have made a different decision and who knows what would have happened?  Your head and heart now say that something incredible would have happened, something with a romantic and rose tinted view of the world and yet if I really, really thought about it, I'd tend to doubt so.  With the romantic, idealised view there, of course things could have turned out differently and have been all Disney and perfect.  But you and I know that isn't true.  My analytical mind also realises this but that little ego voice likes to thinks that it would have worked out fine, Much better.  

I suppose it is alright to dream a little and in two cases I can conjure up a life that would be massively different from right now.  The fantasy plays out in my head and that's where it will stay but not for long.  Now's the time, after it is written down to get rid of it.  These are not in my biography but written down in another document that could be inserted into it.  I don't think that they should be in there.  I think some could be as it was part of my life and my journey.