Early Departure

Today I was headed into work, and after that as we were meeting up with friends in Woking for the evening, with today being New Year's Eve, I had carefully arranged to meet Chrissi in Woking and then proceed from there.

This dedicated research included planning routes on Google Maps, even using the Street View (which I am fast falling in love with) to check as to exactly what the exit sign says so I knew what exit I was coming off at. I would meet Chrissi at Woking Station at precisely 6ish, and then we would proceed from there. All well and good.

This plan immediately disintegrated around 1:55pm - just when I was thinking to myself "I've pretty much done everything I had planned for today, how am I going to fill another three and a bit hours", and the ops manager came round and said to everyone that we were closing the office at 2. So I happily left, drove home and sit here writing a blog in comfort, preparing to go out again later - this time no meeting or planning really necessary!

Backlog Clearing

The other thing to update from yesterday is that we caught up with the Molloys, who are down for Christmas - this had long been planned but only actually came to fruition on the Friday evening that we finalised plans. We'd planned to meet for 1pm and then head for lunch - by virtue of our speedy drive down south we had plenty of time to go home first, drop off all our bags (it's surprising how much you take with you when you have the space), and then head on out again.

I was doing the drive over to Woking as I knew the roads slightly better, which was in part the reason why we swapped drivers midway back. It was strange driving on roads that you know very well but haven't driven on for 9-10 years, if at all.

The main event was obviously seeing Mark and Sophie, which was very nice - we decided not to break with tradition or be adventurous, so ended up at the Bridge Barn (see 'Badger Rib' entries from many years ago) for a spot of lunch - which was pretty decent. We then returned to theirs - well, to Mark's parents, as it really is now - and played a couple of games before heading on as they were already booked up for the evening! We will be seeing them again tomorrow night for New Year's Eve, so will have a chance to see them again before they return back Northwards post-Christmas.

Homeward Bound

I tried to think of a band or song to equal the use of 'Journey' for the trip up to Chester, but failed. Although considering the multitude of bands that exist somewhere, to resort to cliche like I have means you're still fairly likely to stumble across one by accident.

Today's journey back was interesting to say the last. We left early, a little after 7am, to make the most of roads mostly free of traffic. It was raining as we left, but just as we started to get onto the motorways it was heaving down. Visibility was ridiculously low - you could barely see in front of you - and it was not very pleasant driving! Luckily everyone was being sensible about the driving and were all tucked in, leaving huge distance and not going more than about 50-60mph.

I had said to Chrissi that there were services in 5 miles, and if it continued like that I was going to pull over there and have a break - that weather couldn't last too long, and it'd be sensible to wait it out for 10-15 minutes as opposed to keep driving in that. As it was, within 5 miles it had cleared up and was only heavy rain (which now seemed laughably straightforward). I drove the M53-M56-M6-M42-M40 leg, and at the first services on the M40 we stopped for a stretch of the legs and breakfast.

From there, Chrissi drove the rest of the way back home (M40-M25-A3 leg) - including the M25 not being entirely ground to a halt, a near miraculous occurance. We made it home at a little before midday, which was a decent effort.

Return Leg

Tonight should be an early night, due to an early start in the morning - we're due to drive back home (and depending on traffic may well detour and head directly to Woking). We are scheduled to meet Mark and Sophie for lunch at 1pm, so if the journey is taking longer than expected we may abandon the plan to return home first and instead drive directly to Woking to meet up with them.

I'm still pencilled in for the drive back - considering the first paragraph of this blog was written before we ate and this paragraph was written having just come up to bed, the time should suggest that I failed miserably with the opening sentence! More on this tomorrow.

Working Remotely

Today I was working again - which wasn't particularly exciting, as you don't get the interesting work stories to fill the blog with when you're in a little office of your own a couple of hundred miles away. The day passed without incident and without significant achievement (some progress on documentation but nothing to write home about).

This evening Rachel joined us, having travelled up by train. Her journey provided a frustrating contrast with ours - while typically train is more straightforward and less time consuming (but more expensive) and car is slightly longer but less constrained and cheaper, particularly for two - Rachel's journey up did not demonstrate this. She took a little over six hours to make it having had a mess with her ticket printing, a signal failure, another delay and then failing to make a connection. All rather ridiculous, and throws the train vs car decision into sharper relief - at least you never have to worry about not having the right tickets for your car or not having printed them correctly!

Rained In

Today is December 26th, or Boxing Day as it is known here in the UK. For my non-UK readers, which make up at least 50% of my audience, perhaps more, this is a bank holiday and so the second of our days off (we don't have Christmas Eve off).

Today has been marked by ... so far very little. We had planned on going out for a walk - the idea being that some fresh air and a bit of exercise were probably overdue following our eating the previous day. However, the elements conspired against us as the rain fell continually - at some points it was perhaps bearable, but it never eased up long enough for it to become a serious prospect. [Considering the flooding taking place in some parts of the country, it seems a little churlish to complain about the rain affecting our potential exercise plan!]

We instead sat around, ate a little, played a game and as you can tell, then retired to our respective entertainments - I am currently writing my blog for the day, and wondering whether to cheat and put one in place for tomorrow already.

Tomorrow I'm not quite blessed with as much free time as I'm officially working again. Once more I'll be working remotely, and hoping to avoid the issues that affected me on Monday, which should be straightforward enough as long as I steer clear of the caps lock button! I have a few things to do for work tomorrow, but failing that it gives me the opportunity to start on many other things that I'd like to do but never find the time to do it in. A couple of days of isolation may be just what is required for this.

Christmas Blog

My dedication to a blog-a-day effort has extended as far as to be blogging even on Christmas Day. I thought this was the first time that I'd done so, but a quick check back through my archives revealed that I'd also spent a little of my Christmas in 2007 making a post.

Five years later, here I am again making the effort once more. Today has been a pleasant day - spent with family, relaxed and not too much really required. Some nice gifts were exchanged, but it was more about the enjoyable company than anything else particularly. We also had the rare achievement of balancing out a Christmas meal which was at a sensible size - I say we, as if Chrissi and I had some part in it, but the cooking this year was handled by Dad.

One thing we were remiss on - amongst all the relaxing and eating, that we didn't actually get to watch Doctor Who! As in Chrissi's mind this is one of the key events of Christmas Day - and in fact how she got hooked on it in the first place when she watched it here several years back on Christmas - this is quite surprising. We have enough time over the next few days to catch up with it though!

Working Remotely

So today I was working from home - or rather, working remotely, as instead of working from my own home I was working from Dad's home. This should have been straightforward but I did have a minor hiccup in the morning.

Having got up, got my laptop set up and connected to the WiFi, I had issues hooking up on the VPN into the work network. Of course, the problem of this is that all the FAQs, instructions and even the helpdesk number is all stored on the intranet. Which I couldn't get into, as I was unable to connect to anything - from either my laptop or from Dad's computer, which I appropriated to test this.

I had to call into work, to speak to someone and then get them to pass me the service desk number for me to call up. It turned out that my account had been locked at some point during my failed attempts (I'm suspecting due to a caps lock issue having entered the WiFi password in ALL CAPS) - and on none of the subsequent efforts to enter my password did it bother to inform me of this! Having got my account unlocked and got in, the work day proceeded without any significant incident!

Journey

It's tempting to start a new theme of post titles where I have a band as the title, but I'm not sure how long I'd be able to keep it up. Anyway, today's is an obvious reference because we took a trip up to Dad and Gill's for Christmas.

While we had the luxury of driving as opposed to relying on trains, we were also battling many other rival travellers on the road, spending a little over 90 minutes moving between different parking spaces on the M25. From there we progressed at a decent pace until we hit Birmingham, where it once more slowed down as we hit the M42 and then the M6. At this point we came off and stopped and a had a bit of a break, and a long discussion as to who would drive the rest of the way (neither of us really minded if the other did, so it ended up being Chrissi who finished the drive and I stayed as navigator).

The rest of the trip went mostly without incident until we came into Chester - and missed our turning which was never signposted. We had gone somewhat through Chester and were only signposted towards North Wales. It was only when I happened to recognise a shop that we realised where we'd ended up - and after hastily directing Chrissi to the opposite side of the roundabout she'd planned to head to, we were quickly on the right track. The route we took was actually easier than what we were directed through, as we came out to the same place without any actual directions that took us round several other roads!

It seems that I'm going to be handling the drive back at the end of the week, though, as Chrissi took the opening leg. For some reason while driving so far hasn't bothered me, I feel more pressurised knowing there's someone else in the car too!

Oh, And The Other Detail ...

The one thing I meant to add to yesterday's blog I remembered this morning - the most important decision of the new car, namely the first song and CD to play. Chrissi and I had in fact discussed this at some length on Monday, before arriving at different decisions - as a result of us both having our first drive independently.

I'm not sure what Chrissi eventually settled with - she had discussed some random song by the Beach Boys which I had never heard of, and we passed over the obvious (Cars by Gary Numan).

However, for my part I made the decision to go with Feeder's Buck Rogers as the debut song for our vehicle. A sound choice, I think.

Driving Introduction

As mentioned earlier in the week, we now own a car. As Chrissi is currently a lady of leisure - still to start her new job - I had the luxury of driving to work both yesterday and today. I wanted the chance to do a bit of driving on my own before the trip at the weekend, at the least - and also it'd be an easier trip to work, and make it easier for me to get to poker yesterday.

Mixed results, but here are some of the highlights:

Directions: On five trips up and down the A3, I've left at the right exit three times. Of those, I made a wrong turn not long after - meaning I took a scenic route to work yesterday, and in the evening I took a loop around Raynes Park to get back to nearly where I started. Only one missed turning yesterday, however, which is an improvement - and that was as it suddenly became obvious as I was going past it and didn't feel quite like making a sharp turn.

Lighting: I may have forgotten to turn my lights on at the beginning of my journey back yesterday. This did not happen today.

Rain: First trip yesterday morning was in heavy rain. While this may have meant flooding and problems elsewhere, it did mean that I had to play about with lights and wipers and other such details which I had been hoping to avoid on the first day. But glad to get it under my belt too!

Most embarrassingly: For this I blame the automatic which meant I had less to think about when pulling away, but I managed to forget to take the handbrake off. Not only this, but I blamed the automatic, thinking it was a bit jerky and harder to control than using the clutch of the manual. I managed to do a three point turn, get to the end of the road and pull onto the next road before I realised the revs were too high and I simply wasn't going up the gears, and suddenly became aware of what had happened - strangely enough, that made it easier to control. Haven't done that again since ...

Poker Final

Tonight was the poker final. For the final, your starting chips are composed based on your performances over the year, so a better performance results in a higher starting chip count. I'd finished the regular season in a narrow second place, so started with an above average chip count but a little behind chip leader.

There were only seven of us, not the expected eight (one couldn't make it), and the dynamic is much more interesting with (a) different starting chip counts, meaning people are playing in different ways and (b) the notion that you have to try and win. You can't go out in second place and improve your overall standings, as you may try and just hold on in a regular monthly game to finish one or two places higher and outlast other players.

This was the reason why I ended up going out fairly early - or first, as it's otherwise known. I was chip leader and lost a good chunk on a cracking hand (pocket 10s and flopping a 10 first up, which lost to pocket Js and a J on the turn). My downfall was on an AQ hand with a decent pre-flop raise. The flop of 10 A 8 set me nicely but I didn't do anything on it - an A on the turn really commited me, and a couple of raises back and forth (three As with Q kicker? Going for that!) had me nearly all in and the only bit I was holding back was because my opponent was all in! Ended up losing to a full house, and went out after an all-in on the next hand - to three aces again!

It was still the right decision to push on that hand - I wanted to win, and taking out another player and to grab a huge lead early on would have been really valuable. So I don't regret the decision, but I'm not best pleased about the result!

Paradoxical Lateness

This morning I arose with mild alarm to discover that I had massively outslept my alarm (it was 7:23 - I should be at least awake and about to get up at 6:30, and leaving the house by 7:15). This left me with an odd conundrum - I could drive and be on time - or close to - or take the train and be guaranteed to be late.

Considering I thought it was wiser to not drive as I was still mostly asleep, I ended up taking the train and being a fraction late - not that this mattered hugely. This proved a good decision on the way home as I fell asleep on the train - this is better than when you do so behind the wheel, I hear.

Tomorrow I'll try again with an earlier start, but as parking is in short supply in Godalming I'm a little afraid of spending hours driving around in search of somewhere to park! Which could be not particularly fun.

Titbits from Today

Several random points to pick up so to address in no particular order.

Train Farce: This evening was another joyous journey home - resulting in me getting in the door a little after 9pm, around 90 minutes after I should have returned. The cause was a fatality at Earlsfield, but after having multiple trains come into Woking (where I change trains), stop, mis-announce where they were stopping, let you board, force you to return to the platform it became clear that noone had any semblence of a clue as to what was actually going on. To add a final mockery to the journey, as a train finally arrived that was headed to Surbiton, which I boarded - a second train pulled up on the neighbouring platform, announced it was going to Surbiton also, closed its doors and left before my train did.

Car Update: So we're the proud owner(s) of a car now. Chrissi went about the purchasing of said vehicle today, went to do a shop with it and then returned home later on to park it. I will likely try and drive to work tomorrow morning - which makes me a little nervous, although not the thought of driving itself - mainly that it's an automatic. While that should make it easier, having not driven one I'm not entirely sure what to expect, bizarrely!

Christmas Preparedness: It's now a week until Christmas and I have little done or organised that I should have done. Fortunately with Chrissi having finished work, I can helpfully let her take care of much of our joint gifts to other family members.

Something Random You Don't Know About Me IV

So today was one of those rare days when I did something I'd never had to do before in my life. In theory this should be exciting or at least momentous - in reality it was merely comical.

While I shouldn't have to clarify my non-hirsuit nature to any of my readers, this was demonstrated today when I had to purchase shaving gel. In my 27 years I have never had to do this before - one container was purchased for me while I was still living at home, attending sixth form college. Over ten years later, I've finally finished it and needed another. That shaving gel lasted longer than my current relationship has so far.

I'll see if I replenish this one before 2022. I may do - we'll see!

American Idiot

This afternoon Chrissi and I headed into London to catch the American Idiot musical, based on the music (and aforementioned album) of Green Day. As one of my favourite bands I was intrigued as to how their songs would be translated into a musical - while there is now an increasing number of rock-musicals (Rock of Ages and We Will Rock You to name but two), it's still not the most natural translation into a musical.

American Idiot was particularly difficult because the album it's based on was very much a concept album, at least two-thirds of the way to being a rock opera in itself. Some of its inspirations were from musicals - so to take that back and forth in formats struggles in the translation.

For the first part of the show, as they went through the album songs in sequence - with a little fleshing out of characters but not hugely - it felt almost like a concert with added choreography. There wasn't a musical in the form of songs interspersed with plot - and as the songs were already in this structure and there was less work to 'fit' a discography into a musical format around a story, the majority of the plot was told through songs, more of a rock-opera.

It did develop well and it was entertaining - but I'm still not quite sure that it works. The paradox is, as I pointed out to Chrissi, that their best tracks are from their earlier albums, while the most suitable songs for the musical were from their latest albums (3-4 songs from 21st Century Breakdown were added to the American Idiot tracks). This was clearly proved with the strength of the closing, post-finale song, the supreme Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) which was the by far outstanding effort.

It was a good afternoon's entertainment all being said, however - I'd recommend you to have a look for yourself, but as this was the last day it was playing in London you might struggle to do so!

Theme Ended

So I've been playing about with titling themes over the past fortnight, and decided that it's distinctly too limiting to try and summarise each blog in a single word, starting with a pre-set letter. Considering I've been only doing this for 14 entries based on two common letters, it makes you wonder how authors stayed sane while trying similar linguistic tricks - the famous lipographic effort of the novel Gadsby which contains 50,000 words none of which holding a letter 'e' being the most notorious example of this.

Today Chrissi and I were looking at cars - with more purpose than the last time we were browsing. We test drove two vehicles - I say we, but Chrissi was the one behind the wheel - and I got to impersonate someone who knew about cars by walking around it, looking at it and testing various things to make sure they were in good working order. The impression looked convincing enough to Chrissi!

After having the hard sell from one dealer who was desparate for us to walk out of there with the vehicle then and there, and a softer sell from a second dealer - it was admittedly quite pleasureable trying to negotiate down their prices or to force them to increase what they were including - we didn't end up buying anything on the day. We wanted a little time to look over the options again having had a bit of reflection and the make the decision later without the pressure of someone sitting beside us as we discussed it!

We have likely picked out the one we want, however - and as Chrissi is off this coming week she will be able to go and handle the purchase, collection and delivery!

Self-Reflection

This evening was the work Christmas party, but it was odd for me because I left somewhat early - a little before 11 - so as to get home. I ended up having drastically overestimated my time to journey to the station, ending up there about 12 minutes before my train departed (meaning that I could have at least stayed for another few minutes).

The twelve minute wait for my train left me with a fair amount of time for thinking (I didn't particularly feel like digging into my pockets and trying to sort out hooking up my earphones to my phone in the cold to listen to some music). Oddly despite the fact I'd enjoyed myself at the party, I was feeling oddly self-reflective and poignant. Not sure why, either. Perhaps it was because I'd ended up leaving relatively early, or had had to rush off to make my train (or hadn't had to rush off, as hindsight proved) and had not had the chance to say goodbye to many people as a result.

I'm still in a reflective mood even now. I think it may be simply because I just don't go out as much now as I used to. The last year I've just not gone out after work for drinks as I commonly did a couple of times a week before, in a large part due to the different culture and groups of people at my new work. I don't spend much time catching up with people, despite knowing I should and often trying on occasions. Perhaps it's something I can work on better over the next few weeks when people will be around more, and in the new year going forward too.

Or maybe it was just me over-thinking things in a cold evening while boredly waiting for a train!

Success

So today was my third driving test, and the first one I've taken for a little over nine years - when I failed for the second time a couple of weeks before I started university. It seems a long time ago now considering everything that's changed in my life since then!

Overall, learning how to drive (or perhaps refreshing myself with how to drive is more accurate) was much less arduous this time around. In part it's due to having been on the road that much more, as a passenger and pedestrian, and being that much more familiar and aware. In another part it's not having everything that surrounds learning to drive as a teenager and the freedom / responsibility / independence that it represents.

It was probably this as much as anything else that led to me being not at all nervous for my test this time. It was comfortable, relaxing and I never had any real problems - it all went very smoothly, was over quickly and was in hindsight rather straightforward. I even had time for an impromptu emergency stop (well, they should all be impromptu!) when a schoolgirl walked out without bothering to look in front of me at a crossing that was red for her and green for me.

As the above paragraph and title may have implied, I passed comfortably with only two minor faults in the test. Now I need to start considering getting a vehicle of my own and driving to work instead of relying on the trains!

Septuple

In landmarks I never expected to reach, this blog marks my septuple century, as I have now written 700 posts - a not insubstantial achievement.

To add to the numerical neatness, this seven hundredth blog is posted just seven days shy of seven years since my very first. It's not even as if I had to work for those numbers to line up - pretty impressive, if I don't say so myself.

As this means I'm averaging a fraction over 100 posts per year, it means I should hit my thousandth blog in the buildup to Christmas 2015. We'll see!

Sorcery

I'm trying not to add too many spoilers because I know Merlin doesn't show on BBC America, and as a result Carisa won't be able to watch the current (and final!) series until the new year. However, I was going to write about this at the weekend and then got delayed, so didn't.

So with ten episodes gone, we now have only three left - as the final two should be a two-part finale, as they typically are and have been, this means that next week's episode should be the setup. This week's episode should be building up to it. Except that at the moment it seems to be wandering still.

We don't have a proper antagonist in this series. Morgana is sulking about in the background, walking moodily from place to place wearing a black cape and with only her raven for company - it's horribly cliched. Mordred is earnestly proving how loyal and reliable he is, which should leave the suspicion gnawing away at you as to his true motives, but instead is just rather boring.

Merlin himself is not exactly helping things on - his fixating on what might be happening is now taking at least half of the episode, as he sullenly wonders whether Mordred fated to kill Arthur is fated irrelevant of his moping around thinking about it and if anything he can do to stop it or only make it come to pass. It drags. In an amusing juxtaposition of plots, Morgana is having a similar sulk-fest in the opposite corner, as she harangues everyone and anyone for a clue as to who Emrys is. Considering that he's fated to be her doom and destruction, she seems pretty keen on meeting him.

Hopefully it'll pick up next week, and leave us with a good couple of episodes over Christmas to finish on a high. It'll be interesting to see how they resolve it, but it seems that all the story writing resources have been absorbed into the grand finale and the journey along the way has become a bit lacklustre.

Storytime

One thing that I meant to note on Friday that escaped my memory at the time was that I spent a large amount of time on Friday writing stories. Sadly this isn't as exciting or as much a literary achievement as it would appear from the title. This was work, and as of such it wasn't particularly exciting - or at least no more so than usual.

The 'stories' are pieces that we are putting together for a development team elsewhere, which uses a slightly different documentation approach to us. To help them get to grips with the content, we're writing functionality as simple narratives of user journeys - what people want to do, what they do and what they see given certain conditions.

It's actually quite annoying to write - perhaps because I'm not as familiar with the format as I am with my standard documentation - but as you have to be particularly succinct and to the point, you end up spending a lot of time cutting down your writing as opposed to building it up.

So yes, I was writing stories at work. Another line I never expected to write on here.

Sleeptime

I've admittedly cheated again this weekend, and had to reissue blogs that had never been written on time. This is mostly due to my new sleeping pattern - I would usually blog towards the end of the day (giving me more time to actually find something to write about), and when I'm tired and fall asleep unexpectedly this tends to mean I miss out.

I'm trying to avoid repeating the same pattern now - it's a little before 9:30pm but I can feel myself flagging. I want to stay up for another couple of hours, or at least until between 10 and 11, to avoid waking too early. Today, bizarrely for a Sunday, I was awake from around 6am and eventually got up at 8. As per yesterday's blog, the main achievement of this early rise was that my morning was filled with daily quests.

Chrissi and I did also do a lot of research into potential cars that we would be due to purchase - she will need one to get to her work, and it makes sense to start hunting as it will be easier to have it in place before the Christmas period so we can make trips and visits with greater ease.

Scheduled

My weekly schedule has become somewhat relaxed, surprisingly so - I've gotten myself into a pattern where I'm up early, and as a result I'm tired earlier in the day. I go to bed earlier as a result and so - surprise - am awake early the next morning, and so the pattern continues.

Following the early night last night, I was awake around 6am on the couch, still sleeping there from the previous night. I'd planned to get an early night and be up early, as I had a driving lesson scheduled for 8am - but I hadn't quite planned on such an early night and on such an early start.

Admittedly, while this did leave me with an entire day to do as I wished with, I took no advantage of this whatsoever and mainly spent time catching up on WoW instead. New pets for 5.1 patch can be collected from old raid bosses, thus neatly combining in one my preferences for revisiting old content, collecting pets and collecting achievements - all good fun. Three pets out of a possible nine dropped, and I won one of these.

Rip-roaring

This evening featured another high point of my week's sleep schedule as I came home and fell asleep on the couch at around 9:30pm. Chrissi and I had been watching the Adventures of Tintin film, which wasn't all bad - I was impressed with the effort they went to in portraying so many of the characters as well as they had been in the books. There were nice shots in the background too, particularly the caricaturist at the beginning when illustrations from the books were used.

Today is December 7th, which gave me the opportunity to inflict my fascinating fact for this date on new people. As all will know, December 7 1941 marked the attack on Pearl Harbor - a lesser known fact is that December 8, 1941 marked the beginning of the Japanese invasion of then-British-controlled Burma. However, as a result of the involvement of both timezones and the international date line, the invasion of Burma - nominally a day later on dates alone - actually took place two hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I warned you it was fascinating. You were unprepared, admit it.

Retention

One thing that I've managed to hold onto this week, much to my lasting surprise, is my feeble attempt at a moustache. For some reason I've grown attached to this, in more than just the literal sense, and am reluctant to let it go. Particularly as it came in better than last year, there's almost something to consider keeping.

This was kept in the first place beyond the end of November to confirm to people at work that I had continued the effort to the end of the month - and with this week being mainly filled with sleeping and not much else, I've not got around to getting rid of it and Chrissi seems not to have noticed.

Of course, if I leave it too long there arises the prospect that I actually have to work out how on earth to maintain it at some point, as it will grow beyond a point where just leaving it sorts it out fine.

Ridiculous

This morning there was a smattering of snow - as I left the house with Chrissi, we were delighted and amused by this. Enough to cause things to look pretty, not sufficient to cause problems.

Or so I thought.

My journey was problem-free until I reached Woking. As the train approached, it stopped just outside, as it always does to allow the previous train to leave the platform. Then it stayed stopped. For an hour. There had been breakdowns at Woking on both the fast and slow lines downstream, so no trains could move anywhere. We had little choice but to wait for them to clear one of the trains away and move us into the station.

At this point it wasn't a matter of simply resuming my journey - there was too much of a backlog. So another 40 minutes of waiting until the train I needed to catch arrived. The net result was that I was at work at a little after 10 instead of around a quarter to nine as usual.

Irritatingly, this was not the end of my travel hassle. On the return journey my train was delayed by 20 minutes, meaning that it didn't catch any of the connections; to add further irritation the next set of trains were also delayed, meaning that I waited at Woking for 40 minutes for the second time that day for a new train to arrive (at least this time I was able to wait in the warmer waiting room as opposed to on the cold platform). I eventually made it back into Surbiton at 7:35, nearly an hour after my normal time.

To say the least, I wasn't best pleased. It wasn't the best use of my time, and as I'd annoyingly forgotten my phone charger I used up most of the battery in the morning and didn't have enough phone battery left to entertain myself on my return journey. I resorted to staring moodily out of the window, which helped to pass the time but could have been better!

Reversion

As I'd mentioned, I fully expected that I was back into the routine and that there was little in the way of continual problems for my sleeping pattern. Of course, it wouldn't be that simple.

Last night I slept for only about three hours. I'm not sure why - I just wasn't tired, despite feeling fully tired, and so simply didn't sleep - despite, as far as I was concerned, wanting to quite badly! This had a knock-on effect where I was tired and struggling at work - not noticeably but I could feel that it was more of an effort than it should have been to stay awake and focused.

Hopefully this is something that gets sorted out promptly and doesn't drag on all week! Early nights to ensure nice sleep are in order, I think!

Routine

So today was the first day back at work, and it was surprisingly easy to get back into the routine. What surprised me most was my (wait for it) conquest of jetlag - watch as I look back on this at the end of the week and complain at my false bravado.

As our flight was relatively early (scheduled to depart at 4pm PST, or midnight GMT) I was pretty awake when it left - particularly as I'd only arisen from bed at about 10:30, so not particularly early, and had a decent night's sleep behind me. Predictably I slept not a wink on the plane, staying awake through the entire journey until we landed (around 10:30am GMT).

After we arrived home, I had fun with unexpected tidying (see yesterday's entry), did a token bit of unpacking and took a shower - then lay back on the couch with Chrissi and caught up with the three Merlin episodes we'd missed, nodding off and on through the last of these. Realising that sleep was winning but having fought hard to stay awake up to this point I felt I could finally concede defeat, and went up to bed for about 8pm.

The result was that I fell straight to sleep and woke up the proverbially bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 5:10am, fully refreshed and back on schedule. I was able to idle on my phone for an hour, get up and still leave early - a very pleasant turn of events. I was fully awake throughout the day and starting to feel tired again now - so maybe I'm back into the correct routine already. It'd be surprising, but possible.

Watch as tomorrow I complain about a night wide awake staring at the ceiling!

Return

So we landed around 10:30 this morning, made our way back through the airport - collecting luggage along the way - and via bus back home, returning at about 1:30 eventually.

The main event of today has so far been the cleaning of the fridge. I had gone to the freezer to take out the milk, to place in the fridge to thaw ready for breakfast tomorrow morning. I was greeted by an unpleasant smell, and it looked like there had been an outbreak of mould throughout, not to mention some of the milk seemed to have spilled across the tiny freezer.

I set about cleaning this up - wiping down all the surfaces, taking out and washing the shelves and door sections, all of which considerably easier as the fridge was mostly empty. When I got to the freezer itself, I discovered that the base was not covered with frozen spilled milk, as I had thought, but instead a pool of water. It was clear that it had not been on the entire trip away - which might explain the mould and the smell, now revealed to be two-week old milk.

A brief investigation revealed that the fridge was not faulty, at least. Instead on a tidying spree just before leaving I had accidentally caught the socket and switched it off at the plug. That might have been the cause!

So the unexpected story of today was a sudden cleaning spree, but it kept me busy and awake so I can't compain a huge amount!

Replaning

For today's title I decided to mock the word 'deplaning' (which annoys me - what's wrong with the good ol' disembarking?) as we are waiting to board our flight back to the UK - hence we are 'replaning', as I have now coined it.

It's already off to a good start, as while we should be boarding at 3:15 we received an announcement that we're delayed by about half an hour - no major issue though. We also had the surprise and minor nervousness caused by our names being called for the gate - it turned out that we were just having our seats swapped around to the other side of the aisle, which was no great concern.

It's been a good couple of weeks, mostly relaxing without me having to do too much. I even found myself getting bored at points and seeking something to do, which is rare enough for me. I did a good chunk of reading and a decent amount of writing, by my standards at least. Overall it was a pleasant trip, and I will miss the weather when we land, I'm sure!

Multiple Milestones

Several minor points to tick off in this blog, so:

Century Up: Hundredth blog of the year - not a bad effort considering that I hadn't even started up until mid-August.

Blog-a-Day II: Second consecutive month that I've blogged every single day, albeit with some cheating thrown in there to fill in gaps (particularly timezone-caused lapses over the last week).

Besides that, Chrissi and I are currently starting to get ready to head back to England. My thoughts are starting to turn towards what I need to do when I get back, what I need to get ready - and more immediately, just how we're going to manage the packing challenge to fit everything we brought and everything we bought back into our two suitcases.

Last night we went with Chrissi's aunts Mel & Tori to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra play about an hour's drive from here. It was the only show they were doing in Southern California this season, so we were lucky to be able to make it at the right time with our holiday dates! I'm sure I've blogged about them in a previous year, and they were again excellent - always good entertainment, and it was a new show this time round, which was very good and very enjoyable. It was a good time had by all, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

Inadvertent Celebrity

As alluded to in yesterday's entry, we were due to meet a former colleague of Chrissi's, Andre, for lunch. We've met up several times on previous visits (others may also recall him as the photographer at our wedding), and is always good to catch up.

Following a pleasant lunch (in part in recognition of his birthday) we then headed back with him to the office for Chrissi to make a few waves at people that she knew and used to work with. This quickly became her being surrounded by several people asking questions about her life in England, how her work was, and many other things. I even had to act as the overflow, fielding questions from some who couldn't get close to her enough to ask.

The most amusing part, however, was on leaning over people's cubicles who weren't quite expecting - doing a 'yes' in half-acknowledgement then suddenly being surprised by who it actually is and doing a double-take. I was almost following in the train of a minor celebrity for the small time we spent there, as people crowded around, asked questions and looked surprised to see her. It was amusing and entertaining.

Current Day (In Theory)

Yesterday was again spent in part entertaining Chase - that's two consecutive days we've been awoken by him jumping onto the bed with us and demanding we pay attention to him. As I don't think I've explained properly, Chase is the two-and-three-quarter year old child of Chrissi's neighbour (and long-standing childhood friend). He is babysat by Chrissi's mother and so we see him a fair amount.

Yesterday he was particularly sulky about sharing Chrissi, insisting she was his Chrissi and throwing a fit if I went near her. He is very insistent about putting people where he thinks they should be, so instructions typically focus around 'you sit there'.

As well as Chase-sitting, we also caught up with some of Chrissi's school-friends in the evening from her masters programme in Counselling. I know the majority of them reasonably well also by this point, and it was good to see them as well - an enjoyable evening with good food, good company and good conversation.

Catching up to today, I'm currently writing this in late morning before Chrissi and I are due to go out and meet another friend of hers/ours, who she used to work with, for a lunchtime date. This should be good fun, I'm looking forward to it - although I think my waistline is starting to protest at the number of mealtime meetups we are scheduling for this visit.

This evening Chrissi and her mother are due to see the final film in the Twilight abomination series. I didn't even have to opt out of participating as it was quite clear to all that I had no interest in going, which neatly gives them an opportunity to spend time together and for both of them to see the film as well, while I don't have to explain why it's pitiful. This gives me an opportunity to do some writing as well while they're out, so in the theme of yesterday's blog we'll see if I make any progress.

Retrospective Updates

I seem to have gotten into the habit of posting all events a day behind, meaning I always have ample material to write with and saving me the bother of having to fit in a day's events before the day is finished here.

So logically, this means that today I will talk about yesterday. The chief event of which was Chrissi and I meeting up with Carisa; talking about this on here is obviously of minimal relevance considering that everyone featured on that day reads this, so they don't really need a recap of the day's events that they were already there for.

We went for a walk around downtown Disney, a stop by Chrissi's home where we played with Chase for a while, and then out to dinner in the evening. Following this we returned home where we then entertained ourselves by playing Mario Kart on the Wii before promptly falling asleep watching a TV show via Netflix, an episode of the reboot of Sherlock Holmes (which Chrissi and I had started to watch before we came out here).

As always there was large amounts of entertaining conversation on a wide variety of topics - I learnt that I can only hint at Merlin updates in my blogs, as it is not available in the US until the New Year and so I'm providing large numbers of spoilers without realising. We also talked a fair bit about writing, which might give me a bit more of a kick to continue with my scribbling on a quasi-regular basis. We'll see on that however ...

Bookworm

Today was an efficient day from a reading perspective as after a while of not picking up a new book I started to read the Hunger Games series. Chrissi got this for Christmas last year, and brought it out for her mother to read when we were here in July. I had planned on reading these then but never got around to it.

The series comprises three books, of which the first roughly corresponds to the film that was out last year. Films are due to be made of the other two books as well. I started the first book at around 8am when I got up, and had finished it a little after midday. As I was making good progress I then decided to move straight onto the second book, which I had finished by around 7pm (including pauses to eat, shower and go out).

This left me with time to move onto the third book, which I started around 8pm (well, I read a little while watching two Big Bang Theory episodes between 7 & 8) and kept reading until I was done - finishing a little after midnight. The end result of the day was that I'd finished the entire series in a little over twelve hours reading.

Overall it was a good series with a decent pace to it - as you might have suspected by the speed I went through the trilogy. There were enough surprising twists in the latter two books as well (I knew the plot of the first one as the film followed the book fairly closely). The third book was a little more disappointing however - it didn't seem to resolve satisfactorily, although up to that point there was a lot of tension.

An enjoyable day's reading, all in all.

Friday Shop

One event I hadn't commented on in the aftermath of Thanksgiving was this year's Black Friday. For readers who are unaware, this is the day after Thanksgiving when there are typically huge discounts available on a wide number of items. Typically as we've been out in Arizona I haven't done a huge amount of this - there are fewer shops to go to, less deals and I've not actually been hunting for anything.

This year as we were still at Chrissi's parents, there are a lot more places to go in the area - and I had things I needed to get this year (namely a replacement jacket, as a large hole had developed in my old one - considering how many things are discounted and by so much in the sales, it was worth holding out for).

There were some events starting on the Thanksgiving evening itself - which we didn't partake in - but we did go down to Kohls for the Friday morning, as there were large discounts running until 1pm. We picked up a few items - a couple of jackets for myself, both heavily discounted, a few jeans and sweaters for Chrissi - and joined the queue at about 12. This was then our activity for the next hour - it wound most of the way around the store and we were waiting for about an hour before we finally got to the checkouts.

End result was a successful trip, but the hour waiting while we slowly walked around the store was mind-numbingly tedious.

Correct Date & Time

Today is the first blog for a few days where I haven't needed to correct the date and time to fit into the correct day for the UK timezone - as I start writing this it's only a little after midday, so I still have over three hours left to post this before the clocks hit midnight back home.

The more observant among you will notice that I've abandoned my recent titling run - having done this before twice in 2010, I was again taking inspiration from a single band's discography. In this case it was The Ataris - no particular reason other than their song Takeoffs and Landings came to me when I was casting around for a blog title on Saturday, and then the theme followed from there for the rest of the week.

One thing that I've discovered on re-reading old blogs (I was hunting for when I had used the themes previously) is that I badly need to proof-read before I actually publish. There are errors scattered throughout and I feel the need as I read through to make minor corrections to posts that are years old and are likely never to be read again! Oh, the curse of perfectionism!

All You Can Ever Learn Is What You Already Know

One of the most (unintended) funny things about yesterday was the puzzlement and questioning of some of Chrissi's cousins about how things work in England, or seemingly basic questions. At first I was trying to be genuine in explaining the answers to the random questions proposed, but after a while the sheer silliness of these questions meant that the answers became increasingly sarcastic.

Some examples of random questions included:

• Do you have Independence Day? Do you have different holidays to us?
• What age can you drive / get a tattoo / drink / smoke?
• Do you have balls in England? (This one I have no idea about. I'm thinking we're talking about ballroom-style balls. I'm hoping we're talking about ballroom-style balls!)
• Do you have cities in England?
• Do you have movie theatres in England?
• So does it sound to you like we have accents? Does our accent sound strange?
• Does England have states?

Most of these were met with explanations or the statement of the obvious - although after a while, the answers became sarcastic, so 'do you have cities?' was greeted with the response 'no, we live in mud huts and light fires for warmth'. A similar answer was given as to whether we had movie theatres, with a sheet being suggested as the sole source for us seeing films.

I'm not quite sure what was expected or why it was so bizarre - or why any of this was expected as different. I can understand the curiousity about the different ages for doing things, but why a 14 year old would ask whether we live in cities in England or whether we have movie theatres shows a disturbing lack of awareness about ... well, anything!

Looking Back on Today

So today was / is Thanksgiving (due to the time difference my blogs have to be written earlier in the day so I potentially have more details to add in later). This is the second consecutive year that I have been out here for Thanksgiving, and the fourth time in total. This year is the first time that we've had the day itself at Chrissi's - although to be more strictly accurate I should label it as Chrissi's parents as Chrissi no longer lives here.

This year not only was I allowed in the kitchen but I was also able to assist with some of the cooking - I was responsible for peeling the potatoes and generally moving things around in the kitchen when required. Besides this the majority of work was involved around the handling of the children, which principally meant keeping them out of the kitchen!

In This Diary

Something we were idly watching on TV today - an old film that mentioned a diary - made me think about this. While this is in practice a blog, and people occasionally read it and make their comments, I'll typically post it more as a note to myself. If I were to do this properly I should really do it somewhere that noone reads - although that would be a loss in that my witticisms wouldn't be more widely shared - although I'd still enjoy using this as somewhere I can simply write what's been happening.

In case you can't tell, today hasn't been a day where much has happened or where much has been accomplished. As far as I'm concerned this is how a holiday should work - this for me is about relaxing and not much more!

As a result I managed to spend some time yesterday making some progress with my writing (see my blog on this subject from late October). This resulted in me adding another 1500 words to what I already had - which as I had about 6000 words added in over two and a half years isn't a bad effort for a single day. We'll see if I make any further progress over the next week and a half!

Bite My Tongue

So far since we've been in the States the main activity for me and Chrissi has been spending time with family. As I alluded to in the second part of my 2011 Thanksgiving flashback blog, one of Chrissi's aunts has been ill with cancer and while still hanging on in there, is honestly at this point on her last legs. She's been living with (and looked after by) Chrissi's parents for the last year, so this has been the main focus of our stay so far.

The title of this blog is a reference to the number of family members who seem to be oblivious to what is actually happening - as well as what is inevitably going to happen. People have been here both Sunday and Monday, and this will likely continue for the rest of the week - and the amount of attention paid where it should have been has been staggeringly negligent.

I have been quite reticent in my comments - unusually, you may note - simply because I'm the least involved here and am aware of that, even if I have a better grasp of what's been happening the last year. It's going to be a good trick to keep that up for an entire fortnight, however, particularly if this theme continues.

As We Speak

One of the bizarre things about travelling in this direction is that the big changes in timezone confuse you as to exactly what day you are in and what is going on. I have this nagging suspicion that I've missed a day somewhere in the count of things - that while it is only Monday we should already be up to Tuesday.

This was most neatly proved by my monitoring of the test cricket over the weekend. As England are touring in India, the games are starting in what is the early hours in the UK. I had been following the third day's play from when I got up to when I left for the airport, catching up on the first session and a half and then keeping up from there.

However, by the time I got across to California after the eleven hour flight, making it back to the house from the airport, I was able to check my phone and on the same day, then start to follow the fourth day's play. This was very confusing to both start and finish the same day reading live updates from different day's cricket play in the same match.

Confused? Imagine how I felt considering I was jetlagged and tired at the same time!

Are We There Yet?

One thing I didn't pay tribute to in yesterday's blog about the trip was the flight itself. Our carrier this time is Air New Zealand (or Air Middle Earth as it also humourously brands itself). The safety demonstration video took this tongue-in-cheek effort further, featuring orcs, dwarves, hobbits and wizards giving the by now standard instructions. This was rounded off by a captain dressed in hat, cloak and beard dramatically uttering 'fly, you fools' as his sign-off line.

The entertainment system was an improvement over many I've seen before - definitely appreciated when you have an eleven hour flight to kill time on. The screen on the seat in front was closer to 4.5" than the standard 3" mini-screen, and meant you had a much superior view. There was a decent choice of films and TV shows, as well as the obligatory moving map for you to see exactly how far the plane has travelled and how far you still have to go.

However, for me the stand-out feature was that instead of walking up and down the aisles every couple of hours offering drinks and the odd snack, you could instead order your own drink from the comfort of your seat via your video screen. Chrissi and I didn't realise this until well into the flight, but still took the opportunity to order a couple of drinks each using this feature - I'm sure we'll get more use out of it on the return leg now that we're aware of it!

Takeoffs and Landings

Nothing is ever quite as simple as it should be when you travel by plane. There's no such thing as a straightforward journey through an airport, a seamless sashay through security or a hassle-free hurry to your gate.

Today's journey was equally amusing - while we were ready comfortably in time to leave this morning, which boded well, when we got on the bus from Kingston to Heathrow instead of this taking us into the Central Bus Station, we were left abandoned at Hatton Cross. No explanation was given for this. We then had to catch a second bus from here into the middle of the airport so we were actually within reach of our terminal.

Fortunately this was the only irritating moment of the flight experience - it was a smooth flight, passing through the airport on the way out was straightforward and the immigration queues were blissfully short when we landed at LAX. I almost thought for a moment that I was going to get out ahead of Chrissi, but by mere seconds she beat me through.

I've not mentioned the disappointing fact though that when we landed it was raining. This definitely wasn't advertised. Being California it only lasted a few minutes, and it cleared fairly quickly - but definitely not the promised weather, particularly in light of the mocking comments i had made to colleagues when pointing out that they would continue to experience the fog and gloom that was besieging the office on Friday, while I would be enjoying the Californian sunshine. Rain was not in the script.

To Pack Or Not To Pack

I'm always notoriously late with packing - I never have too much consideration around what I throw in to the bag as I rarely take a holiday where it actually matters. Usually I'm visiting family or friends, and as a result there's not the same level of urgency to ensure you have everything. Chrissi doesn't organise me in a cliched wifely fashion either - which is not something I'm ungrateful about.

However, I have been rather hindered this time by the lack of clothes which are clean - having planned to do a rotating wash and iron production line all evening (to get something clean and tidied up to throw in the suitcase and get creased up), I'm sitting here at a little after 2am with the washing machine still going. I'm waiting on this to disgorge its load for me to hang up, then I can go to bed.

Fortunately a later flight than usual means that I can actually pack in the morning - as we have the luxury of not leaving until around 11:30. Tomorrow is due to be a fun-filled morning of packing and ironing then, it would appear!

Fog & Farce

Today was another day where I was working from home for a few hours, then attending a meeting for the rest of the day. Like September, today this involved a visit to Gaydon to visit Jaguar Land Rover. The trip out was uneventful - although as I did fall asleep on the train coming out of London and wake up to find myself surrounded by fog-clad countryside, I did wonder just where I was and how long I'd been asleep.

The meeting went without incident, but the return journey was farcical - I missed a train by one minute, and the train fifteen minutes later was delayed by nearly three times that amount - meaning that I was waiting at the station for about an hour. Excuses for the delays were cable theft and signalling problems, which made for a nice mess. I got home later than planned, worked later than planned and this made for an all round annoyance.

However, penultimate Hunted recap! This was the first time we watched it at the scheduled time, and we gained absolutely nothing by doing so. The main star the hat returned this week, covering Sam's head as she made a secret raid on top-secret Hourglass firm. Having snuck carefully around the building, retrieved a file, killed a henchman and got away, she then stared gormlessly at a surveillance camera. I would have thought this came under the headings of 'things not to do' in spy school.

Also in competent spy actions, Natalie who is the MI6 section deputy who was sleeping with and blackmailing Aidan the Mole who is not in fact called Aidan (no, I'm not keeping track either). She also revealed her spycraft by going straight to the person she suspected and talking loudly about how something had happened to leak these files - look, these ones here. If this is how good the opponents are no wonder the Hourglass plot is successful.

We even got a hint of Hourglass plot as well - in classic evil firm ends-justify-the-means style in foreign climes, a Pakistani village had been conveniently gassed to make way for the much-trumpeted dam, and for the record we still don't know why Jack Turner is trying to buy the bloody thing. He is blackmailing Hourglass firm to try and get the contract, making for a bizarre web of relations here.

Speaking of webbed relations, Stephen Turner once more demonstrated his utter uselessness. Last week's dossier on Sam was a couple of fingerprints which she brushed off with some unbelieveable excuse and then convinced him to leave his father. He later had the complete opposite conversation with his father - confronting him and then believing him utterly when he was told how Sam was a spy and his father was the only one he could trust. This man allegedly went to Oxford, clearly taking a degree in agreeing with the last thing someone said to him.

I've no idea how Chrissi and I are going to see the last episode, but it's been chaotically farcical fun so I for one would love to see how they're going to try and draw this towards a conclusion - particularly as we're not scheduled for a series 2.

No Ironing Progress

Of course, I said on yesterday's blog that today I was going to continue with my ironing crusade. I may have been a little optimistic on that front - I had somehow overlooked the fact that Rachel was coming over for dinner and so I wouldn't have as much time in the evening as I had anticipated.

As it's her birthday in middle-to-late November, and as Chrissi and I consistently go away for Thanksgiving so are never actually in the country, we thought it'd be nice to catch up before we left and have a nice meal. This was duly had and done together - a present was given and all such efforts were made.

Two more days left in the week now - I'm counting down a little as with a lot on at work I'm quite grateful for the opportunity to escape for a fortnight, even if it will by no means disappear in my absence!

Catching Up

Tonight was quite an effort on the blogging front as I managed to write four blogs - which is somewhat cheating as I'm backfilling from my days off. I had blogs planned, but never got around to actually writing them! I knew if I didn't sit down and actually put metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper then I would never actually write them and I would slip slowly into blogging inactivity.

However, the slip has been averted. Yesterday I was working from home so that I could take my driving lesson in the evening straight after work hours had finished - the first time I had driven in the dark, which was interesting. I should also make the point - although it's slightly counter-productive to do so - that I was actually on time for work yesterday by virtue of getting up at least fifteen minutes before I had to start. I also got so into my work and focused on finishing things before moving on that I didn't actually remember to have my lunch until 3pm.

Tonight has been a tidying evening of activity - preparations for going away are in full flow, which for my part means tidying up large piles of washing so that I have enough clean clothes to wear, and ironing the clean clothes so that the airer can be cleared for the next laundry load! This was attacked tonight with moderate success, and we'll see if we can repeat the trick tomorrow.

Overdue Visit

This weekend just gone I went up to Chester to visit Dad and Gill, as the keen-eyed among you would have spotted from the notes to this extent in my posts at the tail end of last week. I'd long planned on going up before Chrissi and I went away for Thanksgiving, but at the same time was trying to balance this with driving lessons which I can only really do at the weekend.

By good fortune my driving instructor was unable to do a lesson this weekend (instead I booked one in for this evening) - so I booked tickets to head up instead. I surprisingly managed to get away for an early train (10:10 from Euston) which landed me in Chester a little after midday.

It was a pleasant couple of days - both relaxing and pleasant. We went out for a walk around Chester on the Saturday, and headed slightly further afield on the Sunday to West Kirby where we initially walked around the sailing club lake, and then along the coast for a few miles - stopping at a visitor centre at the furthest point of our walk, where there was a small coffee shop doing a roaring trade in superb coffee and excellent cake.

It was a very enjoyable couple of days - I headed back south on the Sunday evening, getting home at a little before 10pm (which wasn't too bad as I'd headed off from theirs at around 6:15).

Flashback: Thanksgiving 2011, Part Two

I posted about the majority of our trip in yesterday's blog, but there's more to the story than that. One of the sadder events was that one of Chrissi's aunts was diagnosed as being terminally ill with cancer, and we spent a couple of days as a result visiting her in hospital. Chrissi was naturally quite worried that it would be the last time she'd see her as she was going away (happily she was still going in July when we were out there, and is hanging on in there even now).

This partially contributed, but by no means was the only factor, in Chrissi being rather upset when leaving. As it was her first trip back, it was always going to be the hardest, and leaving again was very difficult for her - and for me to see her so affected by it.

This naturally didn't stop when we got home, and she was down for the first couple of weeks back in the UK. I suspect the weather didn't help too much either - it's a lot easier to be depressed and miserable when the weather matches it! It was a struggle for both of us, and it was difficult for me to be supportive when I couldn't fully understand what was happening - particularly as I had hoped that having gone through this once in March, that it wouldn't be quite so difficult.

Of course, this happens to everyone, and it's perfectly normal - as many of her friends at work told her. I knew this full well, even if I didn't want it to be happening and hoped that it would be easier! The work routine almost certainly helped a lot, forcing her back into just normal day-to-day life, but it was hard in the evenings. It was difficult but it worked out in time as normal day-to-day living just took over and became normal once more.

The other reassuring thing for us is that we knew this time was always going to be the hardest - the first time back, the first time seeing everyone again, feeling that it was still her home. It was always going to be the most difficult, so to get past that is a significant achievement. I'm comfortable about it this year both knowing what to expect, and knowing that it will be easier for both of us knowing what happened last year and with the knowledge that it won't be that bad this time.

Flashback: Thanksgiving 2011, Part One

As we are fast approaching the end of November this year, it's probably overdue to continue my flashback sequence by discussing last year's holiday at the same time.

Chrissi and I headed out last November to her parents', first stopping in Canada to see my aunt and uncle. We had two-three days there and had a very enjoyable time. It was Chrissi's first visit out to that part of Canada - we had a couple of days where we spent time in Halifax, and also went further afield too - down to Peggy's Cove, which is a lovely place to visit. It was quite breezy when we were there, not surprisingly for November, and I got a few good pictures of Chrissi with her hair wildly flowing in the wind and sheltering behind the lighthouse.

The next leg of our journey took us on to California (our flights taking us via Toronto). Nothing to report on our journey in, all very straightforward - but it is worth reminding people at this point in my tale that it was Chrissi's first trip back since she had moved out to England. It was nice for her to see everyone again, particularly her family and friends.

The whole week passed in mostly a blur - we were visiting people non-stop and catching up with different groups of family and friends at lunch and in the evening. Unlike in England, it's hard to meet just for a drink at the pub, so with two meals a day Chrissi and I were soon sharing our portions as it was otherwise just too much to cope with!

We went out to Arizona for Thanksgiving itself to visit Chrissi's grandparents. It was a nice trip out there, and it is always really nice out there weatherwise. There's something to be said for sitting outside in shorts in late November just relaxing and enjoying the sun. This year I even participated in some of the Black Friday shopping - although there wasn't any particular early rising event to note, but I did pick up a few books!

Contrasting Evening

After yesterday's blog, heralding my evening accomplishments, tonight was a complete contrast. I pottered idly online for a couple of hours, Chrissi and I watched last night's episode of Hunted (more later) and then promptly fell asleep for 4 hours as Chrissi went upstairs to redecorate her nails or something equally exciting. On reawakening on the sofa at 2:50, I quickly did the washing up and then came on here to blog, because even if I haven't managed to prepare ones for the weekend I can at least write tonight's now!

So, Hunted update. The body count continues to rack up and Sam has lost her hat collection - having barely spent a moment without one on in the first half she's now not worn one in the last two episodes. I realise I've now no idea what her mission was - it was originally 'spy on Turner and find out his bid for the dam', but as that was sorted out in the third episode it's now gradually morphed into 'stay in the house, wander around and read any interesting faxes left lying about'. At the same time she seeks information on shady timing device Hourglass - between spying for her company in night, for herself in the day and pretending to be a nanny when she has a spare moment, I don't know when she sleeps and fail to understand how she looks so chipper. Perhaps this explains the recent absence of hats.

This week she found out more on this ultra-secretive company by virtue of the top spy investigative technique on looking on the bedside table of Stephen Turner (son of professional menacer Jack) - who she slept with to distract from an awkward question he asked about where she'd been. Stephen's main job in the household is to walk around the house wringing his hands at not being included in conversations - why he needed to hire a nanny to look after his kid when he has ample spare time is beyond me. This week he slowly connected the dots that the mysterious explosion that coincidentally gave them the exact money they needed just when they needed it didn't happen by accident. At the end of the episode we saw him receiving a dossier on Sam, which will presumably be the topic of his hand-wringing next week.

The main focus this week was the arrival of a Pakistani politician opposed to the dam sale (we still have no idea why Turner wants to buy the bloody thing in the first place). While having no influence and not being able to stop it, she was targetted for assassination because you don't leave these things to chance, in a plot that involved a man dressed in a rabbit suit. After the Byzantium team confronted her by taking out her bodyguards to warn her she was in danger (a phone call might have been more subtle and less ironic), she narrowly avoided being shot while meeting with a whistleblower. True to form of the program so far, said whistleblower managed to give us only a tease of plot exposition before being killed. We're either being drip fed additional information with torturous slowness to keep us intrigued, or they're making up a bit of plot each week to cover for the fact they don't actually know where this is going.

So far, my money's on the latter - we've a lot to resolve in two episodes and I suspect it's going to be the equivalent conclusion for a thriller that a sci-fi program would slot the word 'quantum' in a lot and hope it covers for a lack of explanation. It'll be fun, join us for my commentary on those.

Productive Evening

Tonight was poker, so I was home later and therefore missed Hunted - will have to catch up with that tomorrow and share my thoughts on that. This weekend I'm headed up to Chester to see Dad, so I'll have to prepare a blog for Saturday and Sunday in advance - because otherwise I'm going to leave this empty. I leave early on Saturday morning and arrive late back on Sunday.

My observation from last night, where I had a sudden surge of activity (tidying, cleaning, washing and ironing) was that it's much lazier on the ironing when I'm working from home, or going to meetings. For the latter I can call on my reserve of smart shirts, and don't have to pull from my regular pile. For the former, I can laze about all day and work in my pyjamas and dressing gown perfectly efficiently. However, going to work at least requires me to flatten out a t-shirt.

Next weekend we head off to the States for two weeks on holiday - so I need to spend some of the time inbetween getting prepared for that. One of the tasks that raises its ugly head is ironing - just so I have enough clothes presentable enough both for holiday, and importantly for when I come back too!

This evening's blog, I also note, is the 666th in its history. An unusual landmark, if not one that the traditional significance attached to actually represents.

Overnight Coverage

I didn't stay up and watch the US election results come in, although I was tempted for a little while. As most of the key states weren't going to declare until well into the night (at least 3-4am in the UK) it would have been a rather pointless exercise. I did watch a bit of the early coverage, which was entertaining.

The main reason it was entertaining was because it was so bad. The networks in the UK started early, just before midnight, and went through the night - but wouldn't have anything to discuss for a good while after they started. They had nothing to talk about, no news to discuss, and were simply bouncing talking points randomly around the room and never actually dwelling on the subject long enough to actually investigate it.

My particular favourite was when BBC, as they like to do, put up lots of random graphics showing different things - the stand-out being a graph comparing presidential reelection success against unemployment. The message was that high unemployment meant no reelection - apart from Reagan, which wasn't the point they were making so they ignored it, but they did use this as the logic for Ford not being reelected. Personally I'd suspect that everything around Watergate and the Nixon pardon had a bit to do with it, but apparantly it was unemployment that was the kicker.

There was much else uninformed opinion, but I went to bed too early to see anything happen. Good news on the result though, and apparantly Karl Rove kicked off about FOX calling Ohio for Obama too early, which sounds like it was worth seeing.

There was also a beautiful comic on XKCD today which neatly lampooned all the nonsensical talking heads, which is worth a look.

Scant Tales

Having worked at home the past two days, I've little in the way of information and stories to share - mostly this happens when I go outside. Today I was working from home in the most part because I wanted to isolate myself from annoying distractions while working on a document that had long needed finishing - and also because I was absolutely shattered this morning and didn't feel like getting out of bed. With my laptop already at home after working from home yesterday around my meeting, it was too tempting.

Despite the lack of interesting tales to relay, I find myself surprisingly more productive at home. I don't constantly stop for coffee or water or toilet breaks (the latter brought on by the first two). I obviously am not chatting with others at any point, and will typically start earlier and finish later without realising just because I'm not thinking about the train I need to get.

Today I managed to take this to a new height by using my lunch break to do the washing up and tidy the kitchen. Most unusual! But I'm back into work tomorrow so I'm sure I'll see something to inspire me to post about then.

Public Transport Break

It's not uncommon to bemoan smokers who you work with - and particularly their breaks to feed their addiction. It is unfair, the nicotine-free cry, that because of this filthy habit they have the luxury of taking a 5 minute break every hour or two.

Leaving to one side how this is often utterly irrelevant, that smokers will often make up that time and that non-smokers will dawdle just as much over making a cup of coffee on an hourly basis - but I noted to Chrissi this evening that public transport users have a similar effect without anyone noticing.

Today I was at a meeting, and as I am still in the process of learning to drive I was attending by public transport. This meant a bus to a train to a bus, leaving my home at 10:55 to get to my destination for a 12:00 meeting. The return journey meant I left my meeting at 13:30 and arrived home at 14:45 - which is not too shabby for public transport involving multiple connections. However, I was close enough that had I been able to drive, it would have taken me a mere 25 minutes each way - and if we allow that I would not have cut it so fine and would have allowed myself an additional 15 minutes on the way there, we still notice that my 2 hours and 20 minutes of public transport greatly exceeds the 1 hour and 5 minutes that the trip would have taken by car.

Now, as this meeting was at such an annoying time I effectively missed my lunch break, grabbing a sandwich at my laptop when I returned home - but the point is still valid that it was still a huge additional use of time. So I won't be picking on any smoking breaks for a while.

Sunday Politics: US Election

While to some of my readers this won't be relevant, I think the majority (by a small margin) are either US citizens or live in America, or obviously are both. Even to those who don't live in the USA or have any involvement with people who do, the impact and reach of the presidential elections (and those in House and Senate races) will still be keenly felt by us.

I noted in a previous blog in mid-September that I felt uninspired by the politics of the moment, and in particular by those of the presidential election. As with two any races that eventually come down to picking between two, you always feel that you are compromising - vote for the candidate with the least faults, despite their merits, and feeling that by making it into a simple tally that you are in turn compromising on their own faults.

The media and the parties don't help this trend, of course - casting a vote for either candidate is deemed a ringing endorsement of everything they stand for, when none is ever cast in such a manner. Nuanced critique is hard to come by in such an environment, and a criticism of the candidate you support is painted instead as a betrayal rather than a perspective - as if there are only two viewpoints and all others are sidelined.

With all that in mind, however, voting is still important - because it's the only hold that the public has over their politicians. What perhaps best applies here is the salient quotation attributed to Edmund Burke, 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." While only the most dramatic commentator (although there are plenty of those around of all colours) will cast this election in that light, the point is still that a failure to vote and have your imprint allows others to have their say at your expense.

I'm going to veer off this line for a moment to instead review some perspectives - points that won't have been raised in this election, but are relevant. In relation to other countries, education attainment is average, healthcare availability and healthcare for cost is poor, incarceration rates are absurdly high and - what should be most concerning in light of the 'American Dream' ethos - inequality is the greatest in the world while social mobility is amongst the lowest.

For a country that considers itself the foremost nation on earth, these should be shaming and their underlying problems challenged and debated. Little of that will occur - and while I don't think in this election either presidential candidate is going to work tirelessly to address these issues, there is still a distinction - that Obama will at the very least preserve the status quo, while the path put forward by Romney will exacerbate all of these issues. For that reason alone, I would only consider voting for Obama's reelection.

My reader(s) may disagree, of course - and while I wouldn't cast my vote as they would, I would remind them as above that it's still important for them to do so if they want to have their say.

Week in Shorts

Several assorted notes to clean up from last week - rather than drip-feeding them I'm going to do it in one go to skip over the old news.

Bond & Burgers: Thursday I was due to meet with Chrissi's work for Bond & burgers - as I was on a pseudo-health motivation and had eaten Chinese at lunch, I skipped the former but did join to watch Skyfall. It was rather good - a more brutal, simplistic film than many of the Bond ones are (and better for it - motivations like greed and revenge are far easier to believe than the films based around far-fetched world domination schemes). Judi Dench played a superb major role in this, which was excellently done - although the star for me was the rediscovery of the beautiful DB5 from Goldfinger. I've never seen an audience actually ooh and half-clap in appreciation before like that.

Hunted Update: Saturday saw Chrissi and I catching up with professional hat-wearer Sam Hunter in the fifth of the eight episodes. We should be halfway towards working out what's going on, but are possibly more confused than ever. Hourglass is, it transpires, a shady multi-hyper-national set of corporations trying to control the world and obtain all its riches, which proves that you can set a story entirely on the basis of left-wing conspiracy theories and add nothing else. Having expedited the plot a little by informing us of the above, MI6 section head George Ballard was then promptly murdered - as were several other people, meaning progressively fewer loose ends to tie up by the final episode.

Sam let us down by not wearing any hats this week (disappointing) - but did manage to catch up with one of her non-stop flashbacks. Blank Face Man didn't kill her last week, but instead used a sedative to get her to a hospital so that he could tell her that people were trying to kill her, a fact she was already beginning to suspect. It's still nonsense that makes very little sense, but good fun entertainment all the same.

Merlin: Chrissi and I watch this regularly as well, and it's been a long-standing favourite of ours. Originally I mocked it for its silliness, before realising it was a little more tongue in cheek than I had first noticed. While it is still enjoyable, I am getting increasingly irritated by the fact that the training of Camelot's finest knights seems to be around parrying their opponent's sword thrust so they can kick them. As befits a children's drama, noone actually gets hit with a sword and they're mostly carried for the look of the thing. It gets a little wearing - anyway, this week's episode mostly concerned Merlin moping as to whether or not he should save Mordred and whether or not his actions were fated and whether or not all his moping was in fact fated as well - and which trumps which, Mordred being fated to kill Arthur or Arthur's destiny. Merlin's Mordred-obsessed moping is getting a little wearing, in case you hadn't noticed.

Movember Admin: I mentioned on Thursday I was participating in Movember this year - I've gotten my act together and reinstated my page from last year. Please give generously, either in support of myself or in support of Chrissi in coping with my new upper lip pet.

Jolted Reminders

November 2nd is always a date that will forever stick with me, being the date of my mother's death now eleven years past. In previous years the main word I've used in my blog has been poignant - which is true, that it is a day when I am more tended to be reflective and thoughtful.

However, this year was notable as it was something that was sudden and a jolted reminder more than a planned one. While I had known all week long what the date was, being adept at understanding the calendar, at the same time it hadn't really occurred to me either as to the significance for me. It was only when I had wandered onto Facebook at a little after midnight in what was then early this morning that I noted a friend's birthday - which I have naturally as a result associated with the date, and that more than anything else was my prompt and reminder.

I'm not sure if this lack of clear thought in advance is significant - I don't think it is particularly - but I do know that over the last year I've chatted about this a lot more openly, with all of Chrissi, Rachel and my Dad. All of which means it's something I'm a lot more comfortable with than I have been in previous years, and better able to deal with.

Movember: The Return

As today marks November 1st, it seems an appropriate time to point out that for the second consecutive year I am participating in Movember. For those of you who are not aware, this is the growing of a moustache for charity - and to raise awareness of prostate cancer.

Last year, by the end of the month, I had almost managed to persuade something visible to cling to my upper lip. This year I will see if the feat can be repeated. More news from this and complaining on this from my wife to follow over the next 30 days.

Thirty One out of Thirty One

Today's blog marks the fact that for the first time ever - ever, I say - I have managed to blog on every single day of the month. My previous best efforts were in 2010, when in both September and March I managed to blog 28 times in the month (September being more impressive as there is one fewer day to blog in).

I've mentioned a few times recently how I'm surprised that I'm actually getting into the blogging habit - but I do like writing some thoughts down at the end of the day, or when they occur to me - and I will often get on a spurt and prepare blogs for future days as well, which both keeps me enjoying writing and blogging frequently, all of which is a good thing.

Let's see how I do in November!

Just Like Red Buses

I set this one up on Friday, without fully knowing the outcome yet - but after Chrissi heard back successfully from her one interview for a fixed term contract, she heard back this afternoon from an interview a week later - this time for a full time position - and was also successful with that!

So yes, this does mean that after approximately eighteen months of hunting for a job in counselling (without success) that Chrissi has managed to acquire two within a week of each other. Such is the way of things. I don't have much to add to Friday's comments of congratulations - today is more of an amused observation of the nature of these things. At least she has a choice!

Working Against Businesses In Your Local Community!

So across the main road we have a new Tesco Express opened. In case you can't tell by the title, I'm not particularly impressed by this (the headline is a sarcastic slant on their positive-message boards that were up prior to opening 'working with your local community').

There was no need to open this there. There were two small shops opposite, and a newsagent just down the road, all of which provided the basics. There was a Londis just across the road which more than filled any need for a small supermarket, and if none of these were open the garage was open late and had a smattering of food and drink if you needed to pick something up.

Tesco is of course known for this - they will find several thriving shops, move in next to them and put them out of business. It works for a business model for them of course, and while it is horribly predatory on small businesses - open from 7am to 11pm, so no room for anyone to even compete outside the core hours - it is also depressingly predictable.

There's a good economic reason as well for opposing these intrusions. While the profit from your money spent in your local Tesco Express (and the same goes for your Sainsburys Local and all other parasitical 'local' chain shops) will eventually go towards a central corporation, that spent in local businesses is typically spent around the community. The owners of those businesses live locally, they will spend their money locally and the area actually gets cyclical investment across the board. That, needless to say, doesn't happen when your money disappears into Tesco's accounts.

The only way that these rapacious intrusions will ever be repelled is if people simply don't shop there and don't buy their products. Sadly the times I've glanced past, there have been a fair few people inside. I'm determined that I won't add to their number, however, and plan to keep using the same shops that more than sufficed before it's arrival. One customer less doesn't matter hugely - but if I'm not alone, then that will start to have an impact, and that's all I can hope that others will act the same in time.

Hour Bonus

Daylight Saving Time kicked in last night for us here in the UK - meaning an extra hour of sleep (or not, depending on whether you're awake at the time or not). The best thing about Daylight Savings Time is not that extra hour, but how some clocks will now automatically update while others will not.

This means that while I got up at a relatively lazy midday-ish, got downstairs, did several menial tasks - putting in a load of washing, doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen - I glanced at the clock on the oven to discover it was a little after two. Not too bad - I congratulated myself on a decent effort and came to the computer. When the computer - with DST already taking effect - booted up, I was pleased to discover it was not even 1:15, meaning that I'd taken a good deal less of the day up than I thought with such mundanities and that I had another hour to spend.

The discovery of a bonus hour is definitely a nice feeling. I won't do anything with that extra hour, mind, but it's nice to have it!

The Hunter Becomes ... Oh, I See What You Did There

In addition to the Chinese takeaway mentioned yesterday, Chrissi and I also sat down for a marathon TV watching session - catching up with the current BBC TV series Hunted. I'd kept meaning to watch it, but hadn't gotten around to it yet, which meant that there was four episodes on iPlayer to catch up with by the time we started.

Overall the show was entertaining enough and fun to watch, if taking increasing leaps of reality with each episode. Featuring operative Sam Hunter who works for shady private-spy business Byzantium, she has various unconvincing tasks to carry out on her mission while carrying out various unconvincing accents - all the while being stalked and hunted by enigmatic we-don't-quite-know-what-it-is-yet Hourglass (Is it a person? An organisation? A giant eggtimer?). Yes, they really did set up the character's name as Hunter and get her to be hunted.

Sam's task is seemingly to go through every grey hat in the BBC costume department, while sneaking about the house under the pretence of being the nanny to a child - offered this position because she saved his life (in an engineered setup by the rest of her Byzantium team) and saved kid said her name once. Between switching hats she heads to her flat and sneaks into her hidden room (only visible to every passenger on the train that passes by) to think deeply about who set her up and tried to have her killed a year before.

The rest of the team sit holed up in a building watching cameras of her operation, apart from when they take it in turns to wander off privately to shag various hangers-on. Occasionally they confront each other in a passive-aggressive manner, asking the other dramatically if they heard there was a mole in the team while studying them keenly for clues in their reaction. One manages to ingratiate himself with the gangster's friend merely by rolling a cigarette for him.

An illustration of the silliness so far is Sam's cross-London chase when her apparantly turbo-powered bicycle kept pace with (and occasionally has to wait for) gangster Jack Turner's Range Rover over a distance of several miles. After four episodes of seeing her casually kill people without much thought, she is then haplessly ambushed and collapses in a heap to an assault by Blank Face Man (his actual credited role) who may or may not work for or be or be in cahoots with the enigmatic Hourglass. We are left with the cliffhanger as to whether he was or was not successful with his kill attempt via his preferred method of inserting a syringe of poison through their eyeball.

So in the cold light of day it's remarkably silly, but I'll definitely be tuning in on Thursday for the next episode to see what happens next.

Overdue Job News

Today's blog is going to simply be a congratulations to Chrissi on finally getting the job she wants in counselling. She attended an interview last week for this position, and heard back today that she had been offered the position.

It is on a contract basis, but with potential for many other opportunities to move to internally as they are expanding and recruiting - in fact, Chrissi attended an interview this week with the same company for a different position (which she is still yet to heard back from and is hopeful for). If we're lucky they come along like the proverbial red buses and after waiting, struggling and striving for eighteen months, two come along at once! The job itself would involve working at a prison counselling the inmates - I don't know much more about it than that as it's not really my area of expertise.

Overall, I think it's only appropriate reward for all the effort that Chrissi's put into this over the past year and a half - it would have been easy to settle down and think that she wasn't going to get the job she wanted and stick with what she had (and I wouldn't be surprised if it hadn't crossed her mind a few times too). But she kept persevering, kept applying, and eventually that reaped its thoroughly justified reward.

A hearty well done from myself - if only because it means we had celebratory Chinese takeaway tonight!

Budgetary Contradictions

Today's news that the economy had relatively soared back to growth the past quarter with a 1% increase to GDP was greeted with unsurprising jubilation by the government, relieved for an overdue exit from the double-dip recession. George Osborne in particular was unsurprisingly keen to crow that this was proof of the government's plan working. This was inevitable, but surprises me politically for three tactical reasons.

1. One summer doesn't a swallow make
The growth figures are good, but there are many anomalies that make attaching too large a rider to this growth risky. Coming off downturn in Q2 - in part 'attributed' to the additional bank holiday - analysts were predicting an upturn in any case by basis of comparison. There was also the one-off of all Olympics ticket sales over the last eighteen months, not to mention any additional trade gained from the Olympics over the summer. It wasn't normal, consistent growth and could easily become an outlier over a longer period - not what you want to be championing as your legacy.

2. It's now his problem
From the beginning of this government, Osborne has insisted that the problem was one he has inherited; he was setting in place strategies to deal with it. He has now claimed that the growth in the last quarter was due to his strategies - which, he would argue, are now clearly taking effect, as proved by this growth. This also couples him solidly to any future downturn or negative news, and makes it far harder to play the inherited problems card. The unusual nature of the Q3 growth and the underlying economic uncertainty also raise the horrifying spectre of a triple dip recession rising up under his watch.

3. It's growth, but from the wrong causes
However, if we ignore the comparison with the weak Q2 and set that to one side, the majority of the impact is from the Olympics; and here develops the greatest capacity for salutation of his growth to undermine his own arguments. Months of austerity have produced downturn and recession - whether directly or not, it's hard to ignore the correlation. Yet the sole major public funds investment in the government's lifetime - the Olympic games - results in economic growth across sectors. Far from validating the government's economic plan, these growth figures paradoxically contradict it - brought on by the very strategy which was castigated as indebting the country, while the economy has dipped and struggled alongside austerity politics. If the economy dips again from this high point, not unlikely, then suddenly the sole result of public spending corresponds with the sole economic growth point - which the government have now wedded themselves to in what will be a horribly fractious relationship.

If anything this underlines how weak and sensitive the government is placed on the economic front - to jump so eagerly at this good news that could so easily unravel at a later point. Only a perfect slope from here to the 2015 election could really guarantee that this over-enthusiastically embrace won't come back to haunt them, or at the very least cause discomfort. I don't think anyone can see that far ahead, but it's not unreasonable to be sceptical about the likelihood.

I know, I said I'd keep political blogs to Sundays only, but this was more relevant today. I may relax Sunday's theme instead this week as a compromise.