Fear Itself

It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who coined that phrase:

During his inauguration on March 4, 1933, occurred in the middle of a bank panic, hence the backdrop for his famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

It is a most bizarre thing that we just beat ourselves up and invent the fear and live up to it.  Too many times I've been in that situation and my mind has got the better of me.  Sure, some of the things that have happened to me aren't nice and the weren't pleasant but fear made them worse.  Once I was "used to them" I could live with them and waiting and other indignities are now part of every visit but it doesn't bother me so much because that is the system.

I realise that my father's death did affect me in many subtle ways.  Strange things happen these days that really create a wobble in my day to day equilibrium.  

Fear is a massive factor in Cancer - I mean things like will it recur, will it be treatable, will you die and so on.  It IS frightening and it's only when people remember and tell you what I was like say 5 years ago that I realise how ill I actually was and how near I was to having a far worse time.

Setting out a vision for the future

It is always a good chat with my business partner.  Both of us had cancer at the same time and surgery overlapped by a day or two.  Mine wasn't radical surgery - his was and so we both began to spend time chatting comparing notes and it's been cathartic because we were both going through similar symptoms and reactions and so we've helped each other along the way.  He is about 6 or 7 years my junior and this is an interesting age gap - he hasn't hit 50 yet and so we have different outlooks on where to go from here.  I've said before that I really want to just take things easy, make a living but on my terms as I've had so much time for myself and my needs and wants to have that taken away is one of the areas that I can see would affect my decisions.

Currently I am waiting to hear back from one job.  It's a pretty interesting job but would mean me becoming an employee again and I just don't know that I really, deep down inside, want that.  However I need to be a realist and to set out something for sticking some money into the bank account and allowing us to eat and pay the bills.  I'm a bit of a closet artisan really - I'd love to make money by making things, pottery, paintings, photographs, crafts and so on.  Of course I very much doubt that you'd actually pay the bills doing this for a living and you'd need a series of small enterprises to keep you going.  A chap in the village paints and sells prints of the originals but he also does commissions and he runs the weekly Jazz club too.  I think he just about keeps body and soul together doing that, you see his paintings all around the local area in pubs and clubs and exhibitions.  I'd certainly like to do something like that but of course you need to find you niche and then go for it.  

I think that the genealogy business will have three peak times per year, Christmas, Father's and Mother's Day.  I can see some times when it will be quiet and then I'll need to substitute doing something else in its place and I could set up a couple of small businesses aimed at the clubs and social market.  It would be something along the line of targeted marketing and selling on personalised items that they can use for fund-raising etc.  I know there is a market or an appetite for these sorts of things as many people ask me whether I can source things like pens and personal pepper pots etc.  It might be another line to pursue especially as I have friends who are engravers and another who runs a personalisation business.

I will work on this from next week when I get back from Scotland.

Neck is a bit better

I've been using the heat bag (wheat bag) a couple of times and it seems to have worked and whilst I can still feel the strain it is a lot better.  My business partner came over today and I finally took him on the circular walk from my house.   It is slightly modified and I changed part of the route to go past the Firs and a Fallen Oak tree all whitened in the sun which I have a painting of in my front room.

It is about an hour long and we ended up at the local pub for a few beers and a sandwich - all very nice - it is what I like about living here.  I was particularly interested to listen to his experiences (similar to mine) about the current job market - it really isn't where we want to be - the Corporate jobs are just dire and in no way would use our skills and experience - perhaps we are looking in the wrong places.  The trouble is that to align with start ups is also a difficult task because of the circle of advisers that appear to mentor these people - more like the money people spreadsheet managing them.

I have made a decision that this weekend is my drop-dead date for the majority of outstanding jobs I've not heard from - if I haven't heard, then they don't exist.  I have one opportunity that I am waiting to hear from and it's only been a few days since I heard from them.  If that goes flat or cold then I think I need to spend a day or two with Mrs. F. and set out a vision of the future and see where we get to with that.  

What on Earth have I done to my neck

I woke about 5 am and felt my neck cricked and cold :-(  It's been sore all day long - what a nightmare.  Had heat pack treatment and walking around the house in a scarf to keep it warm!

Have done almost all my shopping for Christmas on-line this afternoon - a few more things to get for Mrs. F. but maybe I can have a look at the Airport as I'll have a bit of time to kill whilst I am there as my flight has been rescheduled to be an hour and a half later.

I need to get packed and sorted out for this week - I have things to do on every day and the challenge is to make sure I have got everything sorted as I have three meetings one after the other so no time to get that wrong. 

That was good

A nice meeting and very pleasant afternoon.  I must try and get my breathing right again in these small Lodge rooms - I tend to get quite panicky right at the start in these small rooms and I was "trapped" in a corner which really didn't help much but then I realised that the fans were turning, there was a breeze and I had plenty of room to move around.  It may seem strange to you that I get like this but it is very frightening and I nearly walked out before we started but did some rationalising and also I knew that the room was plenty big enough for us and that as long as there was air circulating I'd be OK.  Better than that, I'd been in here with far more people and survived.

I need to get a grip on this situation in the New Year as it is debilitating especially on trains and the like.  I have a feeling that it has got worse recently and I wonder whether I need to just get some correctional stuff done through my hypnotherapist.  It's in the mind of course and it relates back to childhood and also a number of times I've been on crowded trains and the like.  I'm OK in a plane as I have a seat, I have air blowing on me and the plane is only crowded when people get on or off of it.

This time next week we should be getting into the swing of it - some how gone midnight last time I was in Scotland and the snow started falling like mad - we got back to the Hotel and had a small white out - mind you it was 3 in the morning!

Pulling Through

I feel that I am pulling through this period of being really down in the dumps and I'm beginning to have more ups than downs although the downs are still there.  My dreams have been amazingly vivid in the past few months and some have been disturbing, others amusing and some downright weird.  

I woke this morning in a not terribly nice place, I once again thought of my dad and him being in that hospital but once I got up and moving then things changed a bit and I felt a lot better.  I need to get myself ready to go out and as I'll be doing the driving I will be on soft drinks for the day - not a problem as such as I imagine by this time next week (and I should be in the air by then) I will have had enough to drink for a month.  This week really kicks off and I think that I'll be so full on that I won't be thinking too much about anything other than getting packed and between destinations as needed.

The good thing is that I can see that I'm a little bit brighter than I have been for a while, I've worked through a number of issues and whilst there's plenty more to do, things look a little better than they have for a while.

Attitude Change

If you've read this blog for a while you are probably as aware as I am that my "mood" is a transient thing with a life of its own.  I surf the highs and lows of life sometimes many times a day and I can be up one day and down the next for no particular reason.

Today I caught myself, quite unexpectedly, thinking about my dad and I have great vision and I could see him in his bed and he got a twinge and it hurt and I remember asking him if he needed anything for it and he said it passed pretty quickly and I found myself quite upset by this.  I was upset because he was in pain and I recollect that it was his distress that hurt me more than anything.  I wonder if a lot of this up and down is to do with his death you know?  Apart from the day he died and comforting my mum a few times in the days afterwards I've not been too bad really.  I probably appreciate that we all die and all that stuff and for various reasons whilst these things are sad they are also part of the course of life (although that's a strange word to use I suppose).

I was probably more upset than anything about the helplessness of it all in the end.  The last few months were a slow and inevitable slipping away but not without the problems associated with him being bedridden and plenty of other stuff that goes along with that.  I probably saw that and remembered that my Granddad was in hospital for a very long time too and I really don't fancy that much.  I suppose if you have enough drugs and stuff that it may not matter to you the individual.  It plays heavily on your family though.  So this vision arrived and I felt very sad for him, as I feel for anyone in distressed circumstances and that was the trigger.  It wasn't that he died, it was that he may have been in pain or suffered.  

Talking to her doctor my mum had a chat about things and it appears that dad was extremely lucky that he had only minor pain and of course they do treat that seriously and effectively.

I imagine that Christmas won't be great for my mum and she is going to my brothers for Christmas this year - she will come to Christmas with me in 2013 and so that's good.  I wanted her to come this year to us to be away from the house but there you go.  I can imagine that it wont be a great time as dad liked Christmas and had lots of lights and decorations around the house.  It wont be the same and I don't suppose my mums and my birthdays will ever be the same as he died the day before my birthday and two days after my mums.  Bless him, I don't think he knew what the days or dates were as it would have distressed him to know it was mums birthday.

Surprisingly given this today has been a lot better.  I got my morning suit trousers I've been waiting for but they weren't exactly the ones I expected and Mrs. F. has done a brilliant job shortening the legs as they arrived not completed.  I didn't order them like that but hey ho - they fit a treat now and they need braces which also turned up today which is great as I need to wear them tomorrow.  I discovered that there had been some sort of leak (probably the torrential rain we had a few months ago) that had caused my wardrobe to get slightly damp which has ruined a couple of garments and consigned one of my suits to the cleaners to see if it can be saved as it has light mould on it.  What a nuisance it also got onto both of my guitar cases which are stored there but luckily not on to the guitars themselves.

Tomorrow I am picking up my friend early and we are heading off to a Lodge meeting.  He will be driving me next weekend and so I'm happy to do this.  It also means that I won't be drinking so that is also a good thing as they drink a lot at their meetings and often that means a thick head the next morning.  Not tomorrow though!

I'm in a good mood all around even though I got the wobble about my dad midday.  Other than that all is well - but give me time - that can and does quickly change!

So when you least expect it

Well - it took about 4 weeks to ask me a simple question and now we are off and running.   Apparently a series of Tests for Verbal reasoning and numeracy.  I wondered where HR added value to the employment process :-)  I mean how crazy is this - I've run multi million pound programmes for most of my life and they want to know if I can do basic English and Maths...

Oh well, let's see what these things are. The salary is what they really wanted to discuss with me and that appears to be fine as does all the package too.   So let's now see what the process is and how long it might take.

If nothing else it will give me the opportunity to check my interview skills.

Problem:  I sounded a little laissez faire this morning and that's not good.  Note to self, don't be too cocky - only I know that I can do this - they don't :-)  

London Buses

It;s been a strange day - I was late up last night and this morning as a consequence.  Friend G rang and had a job but typical I have a horrible diary for the rest of this year.  He had seen me bleating about a company not getting back to me.  Well they are one of the largest companies in the world and so that's fair enough I know how long these things can sometimes take.  However, I'd heard nothing from them and I was reckoning on doing my own thing.

Mrs. F. suggested we go and see the James Bond movie Skyfall which I've just come back from and very good it was too - most enjoyable.  It looks as if we might have found something that we both might do now (watch movies not become spies).  When I come out, I've got a phone call message to say that the said (extremely large global corporation) have rung and can I return the call.

That's the way of it isn't it, suddenly a number of things turn up when you least expect them!  The saying goes that you wait ages for a bus and then three turn up together - I just wonder whether I'll get the other two calls today or tomorrow :-)

Things start to get busy from tomorrow onwards I've loads of things that need to be done and little time to do them, I've got a number of visits to try and squeeze in and not a weekend free now until January.  

Pie in the Sky

I've been playing around with some models that would allow me to do some work in one area and supplement it in another way and generally "duck and dive" in the future.  This would allow me to keep options open and to do many things and to have avenues of "opportunity" and to allow some level of flexibility too.

The plan involves weaving 4 or 5 different things and building on each as and when appropriate.  For example, I imagine that there are certain times of year where Genealogy becomes of interest to people.  About this time of year as a gift of a researched family tree or perhaps a nice hand crafted family tree with neat calligraphy and gold leaf etc.  As a trained draughtsman that shouldn't be a problem to me.  The main thing is to be able to respond to waves of work and to also, more importantly, generate work throughout the year if possible.  

I've other side lines that I might pursue with other people I know and each isn't a full time thing more a burst of work every now and then and so I think I could weave a number of these together.  I'm now thinking closely about whether that would be successful or not.  It strikes me it could leave me jack of all trades and master of none.  So I am thinking seriously because I know what I am like and how I pick up on things and then drop them at the moment (I've not always been like that - but I have been in the past 4 or 5 years).

The issue is that you can put all your effort into one thing and I believe that one would need a lot to capture the available market - which isn't huge but it is significant.  The work would be akin to full time to build and maintain - however - if it does go wrong then there's nothing to fall back on.

Mrs. F. is off tomorrow and who knows we might do something together, perhaps go to see Skyfall?  Hopefully I will get sufficient time to discuss some of these things with her.  One of the schemes requires a little investment - which isn't a problem but given the investment in the past 2 almost 3 years, it may be stretching things a bit far if I don't get agreement.

Not much Bladder Cancer in the blog

The title and the blog are diverging and it there's isn't much in here other than the wreckage that the cancer left in its wake :-)  By that I mean the changes physically and more importantly mentally.  Dealing with the ongoing head issues is proving the biggest deal now where physically coping with the treatment and recovery were the pressing worries earlier on.

I've been considering the practicalities of turning a hobby into a job and by that I mean my genealogy stuff.  I've been doing that for 35 or more years and have written articles about that and undertaken a lot of in depth research.  If it were possible to monetise that in some way then that would be nice.  I've pulled together quite a bit of data on that and then I considered that there are other areas that might also contribute and so I'm thinking through the possibility of combining a number of these together - do many things so that I'm not reliant on the outcome of one and have other things to do during lean times.  It is a way forward and gets over some of the indecision I've been having about committing to one thing.  The idea being that I could build a series of businesses and as long as I'm disciplined enough to work on one when the other is quiet and so on, it could be a potential way out.  Additionally there is a voluntary position going in the local Museum which may help promote my work and I can also get some casual paid work locally although I've not gone into that in any great depth at the moment as I now need to go and work on these ideas and see if they really hold water and make sense.

I can't tell at this moment, the ideas are arriving far too quickly.

I'm wondering whether this blog may soon have run its course in the interim as there are just 2 times a year when something actually happens to me at the moment and they are my check ups?

Committee Meeting

Don't you love it when someone arrives late and makes you go back over all the stuff you've been talking about for 45 minutes.  Anyway, the meeting is over and there's some progress so its not all bad.  My Nephew will join our Lodge next year, all being equal.  That will be nice and will follow "family tradition" kind of :-) as his Granddad, my Father in Law, and his my father in laws father in law was in the Lodge.  Let's hope he enjoys his time.

We are going through some growing pains as younger members have more demanding jobs these days and tend to drop by the wayside as they have families and through their work commitments.  Now I could bleat and say that I always managed it even through my hectic travelling and working away years.  However, I have to accept that these days things are different and no doubt our 290 + year organisation will adapt as required to meet these challenges.  We just needed to make certain that we don't take our own eye off the ball.  Lodges are living things and need new blood regularly and that's the problem where the younger guys peel off to do their own thing and it still leaves us old stalwarts to run the place.  What happens then is that people consider that we are hanging on in our jobs and not moving out of the way.  Oh well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.

I managed to make a bit more progress myself this afternoon with possible ways forward should nothing come of these ghost jobs I've heard nothing about so far.  I can see an interesting path forward which might just about do the business and keep me in beer and food. I need now to work on that as rather than relying on a single stream of income I am looking at perhaps doing a number of small jobs all on a flexible basis.  It may just work.

Gradual Improvement

Today feels a bit better but I have to be cautiously optimistic in these things.  I'm reasonably happy this morning but could do better :-)  Life doesn't seem quite so bad at the moment and so that's a good start and there aren't many things to gripe about other than something I ordered hasn't turned up - I've kicked off a progress email and so hopefully that will sort things out.  If I haven't heard by tomorrow then I'll just go into cancel mode and get it elsewhere.  It's a good thing that I ordered way in advance of requirement.

I continue to formulate and pull together ideas for my potential future venture.  If I hear nothing from things that are out there at the moment I may just burn my bridges and draw a line under my last 20 years in the IT industry (oh yes and the charity) and move on to something new.  Getting stuck into something will I am sure give me the focus I need to sort out some of the other things in my life.  I'm looking at a number of things I could do and how these could all fit around each other.  Not easy as I'd like all of them to be flexible and move around to suit.  Well, that's the plan anyway.

At least it is a better day than I have had for quite a while and for that I'm grateful.

A Better Day

All around it has been a much better day today although I'm still not buzzing and hyperactive.  That will take some time I feel, unless I win the lottery on Tuesday night of course!

I keep looking back to the bit of advice that states you can't make all the changes you want (or need) in one go, you have to work them as you can and gradually.  There is no big bang and everything realigns itself to the way you want it to be.

Out tonight so getting ready for that, computer and cash bag needed as Treasurer for the Lodge.  It is normally a poorly attended meeting as it the one after the main Lodge meeting on Saturday added to that we have our annual committee meeting tomorrow and it could be a very quiet evening indeed.

Monday starts OK

The vacuum cleaner engineer arrived and undertook some major work replacing the motor and then some other components.  I purchased a new filter and so the total came to less than £10 for what looks and works like a new machine.  Thanks goodness for its 5 year guarantee. 

A chat with my business partner today also cheered me up a bit but of course he and I both suffer from people not getting back to us.  I am due 3 phone calls and he is due 2 and we've heard absolutely nothing.  Typical and the issue is that these calls actually influence what actions you are going to take next.

I'm in a reasonable sense of humour today certainly not as bad as I have been for a while but then I've done a number of chores and the vacuum cleaner is fixed, the Christmas food is now ordered and confirmed so we will at least be able to eat Christmas Day :-)

I am beginning to bring together my plans for a business way forward but not personal moving on at the moment - it's too difficult to think about and perhaps another week or two will bring the thoughts together.

Bad night better day

Have to say that I was pretty low last night when I got home, I really hate the silent treatment, apparently it was late and I'd have got a taxi back as it is no big deal.  Oh well.  Today was a little bit better but still it wasn't the greatest of days as the vacuum cleaner decided it wasn't going to work, some stuff on the Internet that I needed to do wouldn't work either and so I need to stay in for the engineer tomorrow and retry the order tomorrow too.

I spent some time planning and decided that I ought to at least look over my old notes and start to review the possibilities of working from home on a number of small projects that I have been considering.  Nothing major but some ideas that would keep the wolf from the door perhaps.

First though I need to make certain that things get sorted tomorrow and then move a small step at a time forward.  The day got better which was great but I must avoid these triggers that drop me into being down and depressed.  The trouble is, it isn't anything major it can be something very trivial and that catches me off guard and suddenly I'm really down and of course I can equally be up in no time too.

Nice Day

Shame I had to come home really.  Sounds bad?  Well that's how I feel at the moment.  I enjoyed some really good company and a lot of people seem to enjoy my company which is great.  Shame it had to end and that I'm now home and suddenly it's like a crushing weight.

Perhaps I should have stayed out and got a taxi back.  I think that next time I will do this.

Lodge later today

I have something to focus on to this afternoon.  It was a pretty appalling evening and L went back to Uni and A was late back from London and I may as well have not been there.

Oh well a meeting later this afternoon will cheer me up and I've got all my preparation done for that.  As Treasurer I have to collect and disburse the money so it can be quite entertaining for a while hoping I get enough money in to be able to pay out later :-)

I managed to do the bulk of my Christmas shopping online yesterday and now I just need to keep an eye open for the impulse purchases I normally make leading up to the day.

What an awful night

I'm absolutely knackered - I've hardly slept at all and my mind hasn't particularly been working on too much or been overactive.  I suppose if anything may have caused it, it was the realisation that not a lot is going to happen on the job front so I need to now revert to plan B perhaps in a few weeks time when I get back from Scotland.  That's if I get there with the flight now having changed twice!  

I think that week will be a bit of an interesting one for me as I'll be centre of attention for some of it and that will be nice.  I'll have some time to unwind a bit too.  It will be near enough Christmas to allow me to set a series of targets leading up to that and then go for it in 2013.  Of course not everything may be sorted out by then so there is that to consider as well.

Anyway, I'm up and about this morning, sorting out the back ups and sorting out my head too :-)

Missed a Birthday

26th October 2006 - first entry in this blog. 

Happy sixth birthday!  A lot has happened in 6 years.... :-)

Once again yuk!

Yes once again I feel like cr@p again.  Almost tearful tonight but that was probably because I was just a little annoyed with things (software wanting to reboot my PC when it was backing up and just doing it).  I kind of knew it was going to be difficult again tonight as L was coming home, A was going to be late and Mrs. F. kept losing various things around the house, mobile phone, keys, pens, receipts and then proceeded to clatter around just as I was listening to about episode 6 of 8 where the plot line was being explained.  A bit of catch up TV will be needed so I can at least understand what went on at the end.

There's the realisation that none of the three job prospects have gotten back to me and in some ways I'm relieved and in others disappointed but that's where I am with it and so I need to push on past that now and decide what to do next.

I'm having great difficulty expressing exactly what is wrong and what I need to happen and like many of these decisions I feel that I don't want to make them or say anything that would lead to a major falling out or lead to something worse and yet somehow I fear that is what might happen.  

Tomorrow I will see what I can do to move myself on a bit because now I can set a date in the calendar that will mean I have to make a decision and I will have to move things on as I cannot continue to procrastinate for much longer.

My backup system is in and despite other conflicting software trying to sabotage my initial back ups it appears to work just fine.  The only problem I foresee is that it is a little bit noisy sat as it is on top of my sub woofer by the TV and so I may have to work out someway of damping the sound of the fan.  Other than that it does seem to do the job very nicely indeed.   

Backup System Installed

Despite the doom and gloom mongers in the internet reviewing world, my Drobo-FS arrived this morning and within 5 minutes it was up and running.  Even a dolt like me can make it work and so I guess these reviewers must of had bad luck, were working for the opposition or were really thick. Mind you mine must have been delivered by an ex-SAS man as I didn't hear the doorbell and there was a card stuck through the door - I hate those but luckily it was left with my next door neighbour...

So now I have all the PCs backing up to the new RAID system and I am moving all my other date there too so that I will now have 3 or 4 instances of all data and some key files are double backed into the cloud too so that I can access those anywhere. With 2 x 3TB drives in play to start with I hope that I will have solved the loss of data issues at last.

I had a good afternoon and evening yesterday and it was great to see one of my friends who became the Master of his London Livery Company.  My goodness he has the most packed schedule this coming year.  It is the Lord Mayor's Show on Saturday and he will be there and has already had a series of functions to attend to.  What a wonderful thing that must be.  It is fascinating seeing the Livery Companies and their role in London (City) life.

The meeting was tinged with a little sadness too as we said goodbye to a very popular member who died in September.  I bumped into his son a few weeks ago and passed the time remembering the dads.  I like that my school friends and I who meet every month have a little toast to the dads when we meet, all 4 of us no longer have our dads with us.

I'm calling my mum everyday still but perhaps I will slowly get that to 2 or 3 times a week.  She is getting out and about a fair bit now and has applied for her bus pass which will be great as it will give her some mobility and freedom to go into town.

This morning has been a bit of a mixed bag.  Once the kit arrived I was happy enough but before that I was a bit flat again.  I'd had another series of quite vivid dreams and strangely enough the ones I remembered were exhausting mentally with so much going on and with surprisingly complex plots and sub plots.  I wish I could record them, some would make excellent books :-)  This one made some sense and then lost itself in some amazingly complex relationships.  I felt quite worn out when I finally snapped out of the dream.  

I have to say though I was quite bad for a short while and very depressed and then quite quickly I was past all of that and back on with the day.  Strange stuff indeed.  

I'm getting used to this bumping along the bottom and to the strange thoughts that pervade my waking day sometimes.  The dream had once more involved cancer and death and today I was drawn back into thinking that my demeanour might be something more.  That's how strange things are, I recollect my dad saying he hadn't been right for some time but couldn't put his finger on it and in a way that's how I am at the moment.  I haven't been right for some time but I'm pretty certain that it is all "in your head" not in my body.  At least I'm not getting any worse and I'm not in the really dark places when I do get depressed.  It's manageable shall we say.  

No news is good news

I guess that is the case especially when I had my scans etc.  Of course when you want to hear something or get a phone call (a watched phone never rings) nothing seems to happen.  So it's been weeks now since the opportunity at Wimbledon and absolutely nothing has happened.  Then there's the big job up in London and yes, you've guessed it, not a squeak either.  I think there was one other but I'm quite good at just dropping stuff out of my head if I think it doesn't have legs.

This does nothing to add to my current low feelings (shall we call them).  It isn't a surprise in reality that you don't get responses these days, there are too many applicants for the posts available and people no longer follow the social norms or writing to you etc.  I've had people ask me for a job and I've always had the decency to get back to them as normally I can't employ anyone due to the nature of my business but at least I have read their CV and can make suggestions on where they can look or what they might want to do to their CV to improve it etc.  It is after all common courtesy and decency to do so, I treat people how I would like to be treated generally although as you probably know if you are about to try and sell me something I don't want, have phoned me and are wasting my time or are some other waste of Oxygen, you will be told in a more colourful way what I think of you :-)

So back to not hearing anything.  It will be what it will be, I know that.  I find it somewhat amusing that like many of these things I still, after all these years, get excited by the prospect of possibly getting a gig and then finding out that there isn't even a follow up at all :-)  It shouldn't affect me anymore, I've been there, got the Tee Shirt, the DVD, Blue Ray, book and everything!  However it has to affect you because it re enforces the conclusions I've already arrived at and that is that I probably would only be doing those jobs for the wrong reasons.  The money mainly followed by the status of the jobs too (they build you up as you call the shots and run the projects etc).  Yet as I saw last week, I hate the commute now and whilst I find people fascinating, I certainly found the commute to be stressful and full of unhealthy and unfriendly people.  There's nothing remotely civilised about being transported to and from work in cattle trucks and perhaps I just need now to nail that into my decision making process.  I do sometimes look at the salaries and the conditions and expect one to offset the other but I am erring more towards living than having all the trappings.

The more I don't hear back, the more I'm leaning towards doing my own thing.  The trouble with that is that it is a home based business and I think that has some dangers considering I've been working at home for a number of years now.

Nice Walk

I'm lucky as I live very close to the countryside and the sun was shining nicely and we, Mrs. F., A and I went for a long walk through the woods checking for damage to the Ash trees from this new horrible disease that may wipe them out.  We certainly had a nice walk and then came through the football field through the oldest part of the village and to the local pub where we had a drink and some food.  So that was nice.

I was OK with that and enjoyed the walk and the fresh air but you know what?  I still have no idea on what I want to do.  I couldn't tell you other than the extremes of my thinking.  The extremes are indeed extreme, this involves me taking off and leaving everything behind and just going somewhere and living a simple existence, reading, writing and perhaps doing some sort of research work, painting and sketching, being some sort of artisan, sculpture or something constructive.  Don't ask me why that would be, I have no idea but that's what is screaming out from me at the moment.  I want to live in a small cottage and be involved in a local community and make a small difference but more than anything else I want to be away from this life I live now. 

So that's the extreme of my thinking but it is strangely a place in my dreams and my imagination that I'm comfortable with.  I fancy this being in the countryside or by the sea and I envisage that I would have some sort of comfy room surrounded by my books and there would be a desk and roaring fire.  Happy enough with my own company most of the time, there would be a local country pub and happy locals to spend the odd social evening with.

It appears to me that this is some sort of message and reaction to current situation, perhaps fight or flee reaction.  I note that there is no room for anyone else in these visions and plans at all.  It is all about me running away and rebuilding some sort of idyllic life for myself and just spend the time really enjoying what I like.  I find myself trying to work during the day at the moment and maybe I should be spending some more time out and about, perhaps reading or learning to play the piano better than I can now and all the other things I ought to be doing.

I have Lodge meetings later (today now) and that will take away some time for thinking and considering what to do for today.  From next week onwards, crazy November takes over as I have meetings almost one after the other for 2 weeks.  I just hope I can keep track of it all.

Mid Way

And now I'm midway between a high and a low and it is one of those things I guess.  The Sun is out and so that cheers the mood.  A chat with Flocky Bicep and spoke about what we need to be doing in the next few weeks has given me some things to look at too.

I can't say that I'm particularly in a happy place because I'm not.  I am trying to be very careful that my moods do not affect any judgement calls I make.  By that I'm overly concerned that I'll do something silly or impulsive which I am prone to do when I'm out of my normal happy INTJ area of comfort which just happens to be now :-)

INTJ types aren't great at situations with people and because often these don't make sense they often don't understand what is going on - well that's me exactly.  Past experience tends to make decisions even narrower and fall short so that I don't go over the line (wherever that may be).  So I'm very cautious in this area - perhaps too cautious.  I don't read the signs at all well.  The other downside is that I can go off the rails and overdo things but this mainly tends to be drinking too much.  However the upside is that I just go to bed and sleep it off and realise why I stayed for "just one more".  I then tend not to do that again for quite a while :-)  Gone are the days of drinking and smoking all night although I occasionally will do a late night I certainly don't drink right through.

So having said all of that I'm not quite in that level nor do I intend to get there either.  I am overly cautious though as I dislike upsetting people - and I've done that whether I knew it or not over the past 7 years.  What it feels like is that everything I've built will come crashing down around me if I really say what I think but I just don't know - perhaps I'm overreacting or not reading things right (likely) and that's the problem.  

I suppose, to try and get this into some sense for anyone who isn't me, I could try and sum it up like this.  I consider the thrust of my problems to be 60% of my own making and 40% of my current home life.  Only I probably know that breakdown.  Of the 60% some of that is known and understood and it has taken me 6 years to try and get some level of understanding around that.  the 40% is hinted at but I fear that bringing that up will leave me without anything.  I mean no home, no marriage and so on.  I fear that because I don't know how broaching the subject other than being hurtfully honest (brutally honest) is possible I can think of no subtle way of saying that I no longer enjoy living here and that some of my problems can only be down to that.  I could lose everything and burn my bridges and yet is that really my problem?  

I'm not saying it very well here but I find part of the problem is to do with the changed me and that because of that I will affect those nearest to me even more than I affected them in the past 7 years.  I now see that I wasn't great to live with before Cancer - maybe for some years leading up to being ill.  I don't suppose that matters to them - it matters to me.  I sometimes feel a bit like a ghost here anyway as rightly or wrongly they just all get on and do stuff around me and don't involve me.  Then again, I'm not the sort to want to join in and go shopping and that sort of thing either.  I don't fit here anymore and that's a survivor problem.  In some ways I'm here because I didn't die. 

Life's a bit of a tangle at the moment.  I've made myself go and do things later this month (and earlier this year) to force me to start living again.  Making myself go out and interact, meet people and so on.  It's a big move for me to start to get doing things again to start to get out of the house.  I suppose seeing my dad's predicament also spurred me on too.  However, I want to do a lot more and I feel my current environment isn't set up to do that. 

Oh well it is difficult to set it down on paper / blog and that sort of shows how complicated it is.  It isn't a single thing, it isn't something that can be resolved easily either.  We are looking at the mind of a cancer survivor who has a wish to use the remaining time to do something (sorry that's about the best I can come up with) and finds that in his household only he thinks like that and whilst everyone is being very accommodating about it they are drifting away from him at the same time.  No one has any of the same interests anymore, we all do different things now and the unit where we all did things together shattered sometime ago and more so when I got Cancer (I really wasn't up to going out and doing stuff they wanted at that time).  Habit and circumstance means that we have very few common interests left.

Anyway - enough written as it is going around in circles.

Helter Skelter

You may recollect the Beatles Lyrics:

"When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide

Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride

Till I get to the bottom and I see you again.

Do, don't you want me to love you

I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you

Tell me, tell me, tell me, come on tell me the answer

You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.

Helter skelter, helter skelter

Helter skelter."

Life is definitely back at the bottom today and yet it was all quite good last night and then morning came and the same old same old as I woke quite alone on a Sunday, very late (and I've been sleeping late - another sign of good old Mr. D. returning for me).  What I hate about this is that it's like that most days, I get up on my own, cook for myself (which I do most of the time), and then I appear to exist in another dimension whilst things happen around the house around me without appearing to coincide with where I am and without us crossing tracks at all sometimes.

The thing about my depressions is that they aren't long lived but they are a little too frequent for my liking and they are without real rhyme or reason and they can go in an instant, so good am I at acting my way out of them and being cheerful and with it.  Yet even now I realise that I must be difficult to live with as I'm in my quiet reflective mood - I'm not moochy or nasty, angry or disagreeable, I'm just awful quiet and withdrawn and deep in thought most of the time.  

Mrs. F. suggested we do something on Tuesday when she is off work but I have no idea what that might be.  I also have no idea if on Tuesday that I will enjoy doing whatever it is we may want to do anyway, my mood will determine that I suppose.

For weeks now I have been having the most vivid dreams and episodes that circulate around relationships and places of work and that sort of thing.  I've heard very little back from anything and whilst I realise that is the way things often happen, it adds to the tension but also, strangely enough it adds to the paradox.  The paradox being that I'd probably like the job but hate the travelling and yet the job would provide position, money and power and that would overshadow the travel yet as I found last week I hate travelling on the crowded train services.  

I prolong my own deliberations because whilst these jobs would be amazing and give me many things they wouldn't ultimately answer the questions or solve the problems that I have.  This is the bottom line of it.  It doesn't actually matter what the job is because it is nothing to do with that - other than anything I do must support my ultimate objectives to live the remainder of my life doing what I want to do (I know I don't know that either).  The fact is that none of the jobs would improve things as they stand, they might accelerate the change or make it possible for me to change, they might even put off the process of change as well and just let the problem fester?  

I don't foresee an easy way out on all of this because it is so complicated and yet one of the dreams made it all so easy.  There was I away from here, no real complications in life, a small cottage, a local pub, fabulous walking countryside and someone to share it with who just enjoyed doing the same things and the late summer sun played across the garden and glasses of wine sparkled on the patio table whilst insects and birds darted through the shafts of light caused by the branches of the trees.  That's the dream of course and it doesn't always come true.

The difficulty must be that anyone who knows me must think I've got it all made here.  Two kids who are normal, well educated, one earning, a nice house in the village, a steady life and a nice area to live in etc.  Perhaps it is me and my dark reflections that is the only one who doesn't like it.  Oh well, bed time now and I'll see how I feel in the morning.

You'll Be Surprised Just What You Can Do

Chatting to someone who wanted to know a bit more about my Bladder Cancer and I walked through some of the things I'd had done to me.  At this time, especially if you are male, you start to squirm when the operations and the treatment regime are described.  "You were brave" he said.  "Not at all" I replied.  You see you just need to make a decision about whether you want to live and then you have to trust your team and all the pioneers who have gone before, your fellow sufferers who have also done this - it isn't as if it is new science albeit that things have moved on even in the last 7 years.

Looking back I surprised myself quite what I was able to achieve and what I went through and I should take some comfort that I stood up and did these things (well stood up may be an oxymoron) but nevertheless I faced my demons, I had these things done to me, even recently, and I am here.  

I wonder then why I'm not standing up to my personal demons now and why I'm not being proactive and determined as I was then?  Well I suppose I had no choice in terms of treatment, it was a life or death decision (cue trainspotting narrative) and of course this personal turmoil actually has choices, choices of outcomes, compromises, emotional pain, sadness, joy and all sorts all mixed up together it is far less black and white (am I allowed to say that in the EU?).  It is a route with variable courses of action open to me and that's the thing.  If you choose one way will you also regret it or find it some sort of half hearted compromise?  I don't actually know (of course) who would?

There are no parallels here, if I make a decision I can change it, I can modify it, I can do many things even back track but when it came to Bladder Cancer there was only a binary decision at the beginning, I think it was live or die.  There were only a couple of possible  ways it could progress and there were other outcomes - keep or lose you bladder (my friend just lost his).   There were other minor course changes and choices that may have been there but they weren't my call, the were my Consultant who, whilst discussing these with me, I felt had the ultimate say, I just had to big up and have them done.

So I look back and suggest that you will be surprised what you can do when presented with a life changing problem.  In some ways, some of the decision making is taken away from you but you can do things to help yourself and life style and diet are part of that.

Where you don't have that guidance and the stakes aren't quite as high then you may have problems.  Me, I'd like to pack up and run away right now, go somewhere in the country, near the sea and scrape a living just so I could enjoy the area, walking and so on.  I really don't like being where I am right now.  Nothing against the people as such apart from they've not had these experiences and they don't look at things the way I do.  My mind was re-wired by cancer and my sights set elsewhere.  My value system is completely different as is my moral and spiritual conscience.  

I hate people trying to change me or trying to sell me something I don't want and I don't want to sell my ideas like that onto others - I don't think it is fair on them and certainly looks like being an extremely selfish act on my own part.  This sounds a bit rambling but what I mean is that out of the household I'm the only one who is not the same person I was 7 years ago.  I no longer recognise the me of 8 or 9 years ago at all.  I find myself to be diametrically different and there is the problem.   I'm no longer at ease with what I have, where I live, who I live with, the things I/We do etc.  My friends are still my friends but dynamics have changed there too, Only I see my friends these days regularly.  We don't do much together anymore and that allows me to go and do my things (Monza, Scotland later this month etc) and once that starts to happen more regularly then the cracks will open further.

Trying to tackle this is difficult and very slow and steady.  No idea whether it will succeed though.  But unlike when I was ill and I could face these things head on, this needs kid gloves and psychology and political management - it's like treading on egg shells all the time.  Progress is slow - perhaps too slow but lets' see where we go from here.

Enjoyable Day

I took myself off to the local Masonic Centre and went to see a lecture and also I went to buy a copy (well 4) of the lecturer's book, Sacred Secrets.  Unfortunately getting it from the author meant I paid face value but I did get each one dedicated to the recipient and signed.  I have brought them home, handed one to Mrs. F. and asked her to wrap it up and give it to me for Christmas.  At least I will have one present that I actually want :-)

It was so nice just to turn up, do nothing and listen to a really interesting talk that had been well researched and that was entertaining and educational.  It really is a fascinating subject.

I appear to have a bit of a cough and a slight sore throat again - I hope it isn't from the journey on Thursday but it could well be as it was like travelling through the Plague or Black Death on the trains.  How on earth I did that sort of journey every day for all those years I have no idea.  A chat today with my business partner looks to be interesting as he has a potential project on the go but we have poked holes through it already and so we may decline before we get to price it. I'm thinking that I'll give the present set of opportunities a further 2 or 3 weeks and then if they don't come up with the goods I will go back to working on my own business opportunity.  I've partly stopped that although I'm still noting down things as I go.

All in all I am feeling a lot better at the end of the week than I did at the beginning so that's a good thing.

London - A good day out

However I did find the journey in and back a strain and one of the pubs made me feel quite ill as it was just so crowded and airless - I had to go stand outside!  That said it was a good day and nice to get out and about again.  

I'm off to a meeting this afternoon in a short while to meet a chap who is delivering a lecture and has written a book.  I'm getting the book for some people for Christmas and getting myself one that I can give to Mrs. F. to wrap up for me too! :-)  

A strange afternoon just had a storm come over, hail, double rainbow lots of rain following, had to put the lights on it was so dark and now we have blue sky and sunshine!  

I wonder if I'll ever get used to commuting again?  Have to say I wasn't best pleased with the people on the train yesterday, all the windows closed, like a sauna, coughing and spluttering.   It was so bad I half expected Florence Nightingale to walk through the carriage administering aid to the sickly bunch.  I just hope I haven't caught anything from them.

Not a lot more to report today, I'm in a good mood this afternoon and will enjoy this meeting but not be dining so will have a beer afterwards and then head on home.

Good grief my desk IS made of wood

There you go a little discipline and I can make a start on clearing things up and organising my desk which appears to be wooden :-)  It didn't take too long, I just needed to ask myself did I actually need the bits of paper - if so they were filed - if not they were shredded or thrown out as required.  At least it gives me a little free space to work with now.  

I'm checking with Mrs. F. to make sure we can pay for the backup solution I'm favouring at the moment for the home computers.  I priced up off site (cloud) storage and was horrified at the cost.  We have a lot of photos (with A being a photographer) and I have a fair amount of scans and photos that need to be protected.  I've made sure all my most precious stuff is backed and indeed synchronised but I've not backed up my music or many other files - well I had but to a drive that went AWOL even though it was repaired I'm still now very nervous about it.  My solution will be a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device which will allow both the Windows and MAC machines to back up to it.  The difference being that this beast is RAID enabled and will have a backup of the backup type arrangement.  I'm going to populate it with a pair of 3TB drives to start with and I might add the 1TB drive I already have.  I can add more drives when required which is great.  It will allow me to set up the family's PCs and MACs to be routinely backed up and to place their files there independently too.  It's a bit on the expensive side but when I think of the time I've put into getting my music stored electronically and perhaps I'll put films there too in future and all my family history stuff - it will pay for itself pretty quickly.

So a little organising should pay dividends in case of future failure of drives.

I'm going to be out and about tomorrow - catching an early train and meeting a friend who will be getting a new Masonic rank at Great Queen Street in London.  To celebrate we are going to Simpsons in the Strand for breakfast (nice) here is the menu and we are dining afterwards at the Grand Connaught Rooms.  This is guaranteed to blow the diet out of the water but it is only one day :-)

I should have been at my Lunchtimers event so I will have to go afterwards and see if there are any stragglers and have a beer with them.  I'm looking forward to an interesting day out.

I hate Halloween

It's a pagan festival that we appear to have inherited from our cousins across the pond and this trick or treat nonsense - or as I like to call it begging just appears to have taken over from the penny for the Guy (Guy Fawkes) which is of course the 5th November.  I don't see much fun in the event at all especially the idiots who just go and a use the cover of dark to wreak mischief everywhere.  I don't find eggs thrown at the house particularly amusing.  

Maybe I'm just a bit crotchety when it comes to this stuff but I don't like the idea of people almost being driven from their homes as they feel obliged to join in.  If you want to join in, stick a lantern in your window - great.  However, I don't particularly like the idea of people turning up on my doorstep demanding treats or they'll do something if you don't.  Isn't that called blackmail?  Or worse extortion and racketeering? 

So having now got that off my chest, let's get on to more important things of the day.  Tidying my desk might be the first :-) 

The Rut You're In

Is the deepest one to get out of supposedly.  I kind of agree with this and I've had one hell of a 6 year ride so far and it's still not all coming together and it still doesn't mean anything to me.  

I wonder if in fact it ever will resolve itself and I will become content with my lot?  I think that is it in some way.  I'm not entirely comfortable with who I am now, what survival means, what life now looks like and what the future holds.  It all sounds "mid life crisis" and I'd suggest that there is some of that there too.  

I have so much less in common nowadays than I used to and many of the things that interest me just don't cut it with Mrs. F. at all.  I can understand that entirely.  My interests haven't actually changed that much if at all (I don't think) but the situation we are in now is different.  Going out, getting a house, building that one up, repairing, second hand stuff, living off the garden produce, struggling to make ends meet and all that was great stuff, common interest and as you get older, make more money and move things change.  Then there were children and 22 years almost 23 now of that was also about doing you best for them all the time.

In reality things weren't great 7 years ago but I was pretty much bringing home the bacon (as they say) but I was ill, no doubt about that using good old hindsight.  But I was working away from home if I could and spent a lot of time working and that meant long hours and whilst that was OK at that time it isn't going to work now.  Not that I mind working long hours and being out and about but actually it isn't answering the question and is just prolonging the problem.

So what's the answer?  I'm buggered if I know even after all this time.  I'm just wondering still what to do about it and what strategies I can employ to resolve it.  In other news I've not heard back from 3 opportunities now and of course that is annoying but not unexpected.  I am planning to set myself a deadline.  If I don't hear back in a week or so (time to be set) I will invoke plan B.  Plan B being to then have a serious discussion about what I can do on my own and I'm holding off on my original plans only because of these potentials that have come about. It is just one of those things I suppose.

Stress maybe?

Do you think that we are all victims of convention?  I mean do we pressurise and stress ourselves out because we should be performing to majority held belief systems about work, life and everything?  You should have a job, you should provide for the house, you should do this or that in one way or another and all the stereotypical stuff.  

I wonder if there is some pressure from this status quo view of life.  I am know this territory of looking for jobs, people not phoning you back, jobs that don't exist and so on and it is making the roller coaster run all day long.  I was flat this morning and then went for a short walk in the sun and I was up again, had my haircut and felt fine and then this afternoon the trap door opened and I'm just back to being flat and disillusioned.  Whatever this week brings it will I think allow me to draw some sort of line under proceedings.  Another potential opportunity has arisen which I should know about later in the week.  Of course that too could be like the others and cul de sac too.

November is a crazy month for me and I'm out a lot.  I've forced myself to go to these things to get out of the house - I need to do that as I can quickly become a recluse.  These won't do much for my job prospects (albeit I'll meet a lot of influential people).  But I just need to tune my head to a spot of delayed enjoyment and get my head in the right place.

If you find yourself struggling with loneliness, you're not alone. And yet you are alone. So very alone

This comes from a fun site Despair Inc. There are some funny one liners and quotes on there.

I often use humour to defuse my slips back into depression and this and a number of other sites have some great quotes on them :-)

Things often seem bad and yet they aren't of course.  Poking some fun at myself seems to help me to break out of the cycle so that's useful to know.  I'm very self effacing and so it doesn't hurt me to take the mickey out of myself and try to snap myself around.

Having said that - I'm beginning to look forward to going to Scotland later this month.  We (my friend C and I) did a comedy sketch last time I was there and they want us to reprise the role.  So to add more impact I've bought some props to liven the thing up.  Hopefully they will enjoy our impressions and comedy sketch.  As it was about Nelson being alive today a variety of props including an inflatable Parrot have been purchased - I know it's pirate stuff but hell anything will do to liven the act up.  I've also got a new act to add to it so hopefully we can do our new act and do Nelson as an encore.

I'm going to be really busy in the next month and that's encouraging although I will be flat out in terms of travelling and visiting Scotland will be after 2 days of other visits so I will absolutely wiped out by the time I get home.

Sun shining

Well it is Monday and the sun is shining and I'm slightly lifted this morning and feel a little better. I suppose if you are reading this and don't have, let's call it depressions shall we, the highs and lows of the condition.  I have no doubt that my dad dying has something to do with this as does post cancer issues and also this phase of losing the children, they are grown up and do their own things leaving Mrs. F. and I to try and rebuild 22 years of missing time.

Add to that, I don't quite know what I want to do next in terms of making a buck and you have a pot full of uncertainty that occasionally gets stirred with a blender or just a wooden spoon.  Everything is mixed up and depending on how you view all the facts, facets and data can influence the way you think about them  They are all interdependent but if you consider one as more important than another your solution is skewed.  That's why it isn't like business.  There you'd be dealing in logical 1s and 0s and uncertainty isn't a big element because there is usually some driving force not several.

Looking for a holistic answer is of course the ideal, something that satisfies every eventuality and even Einstein wouldn't be able to craft an equation for this as there remains uncertainties like emotional responses and the history of the relationship and many other things like that.  Dealing with uncertainty is one thing and in business it is pretty much accepted and people like me come in and sort that out for companies :-)  Of course the thing here is that having to deal with it in terms of your personal life is a lot different to a multi million $/£ corporation.  There's stuff in the mix here that is difficult to analyse or apportion the correct weighting to to make some objective decisions and what it may come down to is "how you feel".  That for me is the danger as if I'm not thinking straight (which I'm not I think) then how can you make decisions on gut feel when that may be telling you all the wrong things?   Over analysing this maybe but if I'm to make a big decision, do I let serendipity take over or do I base it on some solid foundations?  

Knowing what is going on is important but of course tackling it is difficult.  I can't even begin to tell you how low I get when I'm low and what I feel like and how completely lethargic and tired I am when I'm down.  Last night I was pretty flat.  Today I'm not bad middle of the range I'd guess.  This isn't the Dark Dog of 5 years ago which was more about death and mortality and the terrible stuff that was done to make me well.  That again sounds strange but what I meant by that is that you are diagnosed and the shock of that is massive, then very quickly operated on and the impact is major (on me) and I wasn't allowed to drive for a month and just had to sit still. Not long afterwards I had another operation of equal magnitude and then had treatment with BCG which was, shall we say, not for sissies, it was heavy and in all that time I was holding down a job or trying to.  Black Dog was a mocking, nightmare inducing thing and what I have now is nowhere near that sort of thing - thank goodness.

So whilst the sun is shining and things are relatively OK I'm still nowhere nearer sorting this out. My heart is telling me things to do and yet I'm not absolutely convinced that they are right although my "spider sense" and "gut feelings" do normally prove to be correct I just don't trust myself fully to make the right decision, for the right reason.  

The Ups and Downs of Life

Did I say that my neighbour had died?  Her husband died as I was diagnosed with Bladder Cancer and we didn't really say much to her about my recent diagnosis, she found out later on.  We've known her all the time we have lived here and it was actually quite sudden although she was getting a little worse and had visits by the local nurse.  It must have been a few weeks back when the emergency vehicles were outside.  She was a lovely lady and had a wonderful garden.  I was talking to her son-in-law only a few weeks back and whilst we were keeping our eyes open for her, there wasn't any talk of major illness.  Such a shame, a lovely lady.

Her funeral is this Thursday and I can't go I am in London.

Today was a bit flat, I suppose yesterday was a bit of a high but even so I felt quite bad and what with the clocks going back and the dark evenings it really does add to my oscillating in and out of good humour.

It's particularly bad at the moment though and I think it is because I still don't explain fully what is going on.  Sure Mrs. F. is sympathetic but actually there isn't a great deal she can do about it.  I'm just working on what I want to do still.  I met someone on Saturday who may also have a lead for me, working in deepest darkest Kent but that's OK it is better than plodding in to London day to day.

I just hope that I can snap myself out of this pretty soon as I want to move on and I know I'm not doing so. 

Mmm Friday and Saturday

Friday was interesting I ended up bumping into an old friend and was horrified at how quickly he had slid into what I'd guess is early onset of dementia.  His memory is really bad mainly names of places and what he had done in hospital and all sorts of things like that.  It really is sad and I just hope that his daughters are doing something about it because it was quite worrying. He went off home and I was talking to some locals who were telling me all about it - I contacted my friend in the Lodge but there isn't much we can actually do to help really, it's just such a shame.

I ended up having a few drinks with the locals and my next door neighbour which meant I was completely tuckered out and so sleepy that I couldn't go out to the tribute evening that night that I'd invited people to go to!!!! Doh

Saturday went well and it was my first full meeting as Master of the Lodge, had many big wigs there too and it was just a great day out.  Very enjoyable.

Blat out for the count

Gosh, twice today (and yesterday) I've just fallen asleep at the drop of a hat and dozed away at my desk and in my chair.  It's been most strange and a sling back to the old days.  I think it has to be the medication and trying to get rid of this cold.

I could do without it as tomorrow I'm expecting a call and I'm out at a meeting and really don't want to sound like I've gargled with sand paper or be coughing but I certainly don't want to sound a bit sleepy and dopey either.  Mind you it is now gone 1 in the morning and I'm wide awake!  Doh.

I've had a better day today as I think that the possibility of working again - or perhaps the fact that I've got to open a dialogue with a potential employer - is just lifting my spirits as is getting over this cold.  

I should be at a big meeting in London tomorrow but that isn't going to happen unfortunately.  That's a shame but I want to be here for this local meet and to take this call.

I've done some digging around on building a back up system and that should come to fruition pretty soon, it is expensive but I think it will be a useful addition to the house so that none of us lose our data.  Of course I can't mitigate for flood or fire but there you go.  It is a quarter of the cost of going into the cloud (over a 5 year period) and so it makes economic sense to me.  The solution is also expensive because it is future proof and will allow me to expand as and when necessary.

Nearly there

This cold is almost gone but the headache and sore throat remain.  Had a long chat with my colleague about backing up my data at home and it looks as if my Network Storage might be the way to go, it isn't bullet proof but it will allow us to back up all the computers here.  It isn't going to be like a data centre reliability model but there's only so much one can do.  Saving to the cloud is actually ridiculously pricey - not sure why as storage is a cheap as chips.  Anyhow it worked out that it is cheaper for me to build my own than store offsite like that.

Am awaiting a call from HR department of a large corporate to see if they want to interview me. Will be interesting to see if they agree with the £s I've asked for in terms of salary.  If they are then it will be worth going for.  I still have my reservations but in a way I've set down the level at which I'm prepared to be bought.  I know that sounds mercenary but it is meant to.  I don't enjoy the lifestyle particularly but with the level of money I could bear it for enough time to increase my pension pot and put some of the money back into the household spent during my recent couple of years sojourn.

Making Some Sense of it All

That's next on my list of things to do.  Some time ago I wondered why I'd been spared and what I ought to do with this "borrowed" time and in some ways I've done something about it and made some changes and whilst I'm prone to over analysing everything I can tell you that there's something definitely wrong.  Now I'm not sure that it's like the something that was wrong before I went down with Bladder Cancer although at times it does feel like it.  I was prone to lethargy and just never felt like doing anything but forced myself to and actually got things to improve a bit up to the point of being diagnosed.  It was 8 years ago yesterday that I was with my parents and got the call that my mum's brother had died and that wasn't a great day having to break the news to my mum that her younger brother had died.  It was, though, about that time that I really started to notice that I wasn't up to my usual standard of mental and physical capacity but not enough to warrant going to the doctor etc.

It's similar to how I feel now but I don't feel quite the same and I'm sure it isn't ailing for something as I feel (despite my cold) very well indeed.  I am though bogged down with something and it's deep and it's important and just needs to be sorted out one way or the other.

The crazy thing is that if I knew exactly what it was I could do something about it :-)  I felt like writing a blog titled "The Meaning of Life" but that's not exactly it either.  It's more about the ending of my previous age and the commencement of another.  The changes that have to come about to enter this new age of late adulthood or early old age or something like that.  I have no clear vision of what I want to do, what matters (if anything actually does anymore) and how to go about it.  There's a definite want/need to draw a line under the past and to fix eyes on the horizon to go forward.  

Cold - Worst Over?

It certainly seems so and I've had two impromptu naps today which seem to have helped but have left me full of energy at midnight.  My sore throat is subsiding and sneezing and coughing no longer hurt that much so perhaps I will be OK for Saturday when I need to be on good form.

I've been working on how to achieve decent backups for my data this afternoon and started counting the cost of cloud storage and it's a bit more than I was expecting, so much so that it would be easier for me to build myself a RAID system here than to let it out to the cloud.  Of course there is the problem if there was a fire I suppose but let's hope that cloud costs come down sufficiently in the future to compete.  I can build a decent 6TB system which is plenty for the household and allow backups for all the computers and iPads and stuff that are here.  Of course, the main things are photos and music files which need backing up.

Hurrah!

Great news - my back up drive had only fried it's electronics and not the hard disk and so I have a new box with the drive in it and thank goodness - it is looking fine for the moment.  I need to now get some backup stuff in place and I'm pricing cloud versus having a NAS RAID array at home.  That may be expensive now but will prove to be less over the long run I believe.

At least my music is back and I can listen to it - I missed that.