Post-Pub Analysis

I've posted before that there are many advantages to not drinking and still going to the pub - for example, I don't have to worry about hangovers, hastily regretted kebabs, making a drunken fool of myself, unexpected nausea and a whole collection of other mishaps.

However, there are also some downsides. I've blogged before about the perils of the diet coke evening which leaves me at home, late at night having consumed far too much caffeine, wide awake for hours.

The other annoyance is how things stick in your mind. Comments made by people quite late in the evening, when they are sufficiently inebriated to make random comments, and you're never quite sure how much notice to take of them. Without the benefit of an alcoholic haze to lose them in, they end up bouncing round your head for a good while after they've been said, and you spend far too much time wondering about the consequences and other things.

Suffice to say, while I had a very enjoyable evening I've had a very contemplative journey home, and am still mulling things over which will no doubt last a couple of hours more too.

Out of the Habit

So after a mere couple of days where I managed to blog successfully, my pattern has been broken. I could blame my illness, but that's a little lame - instead I'll put the blame squarely back with laziness.

However, having dallied on writing this I have little to add now that I am writing it. This weekend I was going to have achieved things, which then never got achieved - not exciting, I know. I was planning to go back to what I am now getting used to thinking of as Dad's house and tidy up some of my leftovers. The reason for this being that Dad has bought a new place in Chester and so the items of mine still at his abode will need to find a place in my home, or a place in the bin.

The other main feature of this week is that for some reason I have the song Mountains by Biffy Clyro stuck in my head. Vexing, as all songs are having been stuck there for more than a few minutes. But it could've been worse.

Slacking

So I've not posted for a couple of days - I blame this on being ill and being lazy. I was off work on Wednesday due to coming down with an annoying sore throat. Laziness was provided due to coming home late from poker last night, and not particularly wanting to blog.

Persistence

So despite feeling tired and not really wanting to spend time writing something, I'm going to do so anyway - out of sheer bloody-mindedness and my inate stubbornness if nothing else.

Today I was in Birmingham for work - it seemed like a long way to go for not a really useful day. Due to late trains I didn't get there until around 11am, and I left at 4:45pm to get back towards civilisation again. In fairness it was some useful feedback from several people, not to mention the fact that being out of the office means I'm actually able to work on things.

However, would still have preferred to be working in the usual office today and home two hours earlier!

Pause

After a sudden run last week - three blogs in a matter of days! - my progress was interrupted by a mere weekend.

This weekend, however, I have an excuse (as far as I am concerned at least!). Chrissi and I hosted our UK wedding 'reception' - why I am posting this I am unsure, as of the four-five confirmed readers I have, three-four were in attendance and one knows all about it anyway.

But I'll recite nevertheless that it was an enjoyable time, that it was great for us to see so many friends and for us to know that so many friends made the effort to come see us. It was a really fun evening and that was what it was meant to be - so a resounding success all round!

Intergalactic Planetary

I've not done a 'my phone' rant for a while, but over the past couple of weeks my phone has been exceptionally annoying - the screen seems to have gone so it appears with lots of faded images and nothing actually loads. It requires a lot of playing around with locking & unlocking to get a screen actually loaded.

Such is the hassle with smartphones, I suppose - you wouldn't get this sort of problem on a good old Nokia uglyphone.

This evening, after much frustration (5 minutes trying to get to read a text message) I finally got around to ordering a new handset - and having logged into my phone account, an upgrade has actually been sitting around waiting for me for the past 8 months.

I went with a Samsung Galaxy S II - a nice little phone, and free (as opposed to the iPhone which I would never get as much out of it as I should to justify the price). This will arrive at some point next week most likely, so I can just swap straight over with a minimum of fuss. I hope.

Late Finish

So I mentioned that yesterday both Chrissi and I were hard at work finishing up details for our reception this weekend - and it wasn't until 2am that we were both finished.

For my part, the board looked most excellent and I'm sure that everyone will be amazed as to how well they can find out where they are due to be sitting. For Chrissi's part, the fudge is almost certainly delicious but as I have been practising rock-solid self control I have not had any myself.

The temptation has also been removed until Saturday as tonight we took them to the hotel ready for them to set up in advance - so no risk of me sneaking the odd piece of fudge and leaving us with nothing to show on the day!

Evening Activity

This evening promises to be one of frantic activity, as Chrissi and I continue to prepare for the weekend events. As well as preparing for the reception - tonight features fudge making - we're also having friends stay with us on the Sunday night, so need to make the place somewhat presentable.

That's the main focus of tonight, so my part is going to be doing my remaining ironing to get that out of the way and the ironing board put away, as well as assisting where I can with the fudge. I also need to do my main task, which is preparing the table plans and appending this to the board purchased for just such a task.

Record Low

This year it seems I'm due to hit a record low for posts, as I'm three quarters of the way through and have yet to even record a half-century.

Leaving that to one side - as all the recent posts seem to have been about how infrequently I blog - Chrissi and I are looking forward with some excitement and a fair amount of required preparation to our pseudo-reception this weekend. I call it a pseudo-reception because it's not really a reception - the best description I've come up with it so far is a wedding themed party.

It should be good, as we have lots of friends coming, many of which I haven't seen for a while. Most amusingly, while the majority of the guests are mine and only a handful are Chrissi's, there are actually more people coming that I have not met than those that Chrissi has not met. This sounds illogical, but makes sense when you consider Chrissi has met all my friends over the years, or nearly all, whereas I've yet to meet the people who work with her and a couple of other friends.

Three days to prepare a few minor things (table plans, a couple of decorations, assorted other small details) and we're ready.