Andy's Blog

Being follicly challenged, as I am, doesn’t preclude one from the necessity of visiting the sheep shearers every so often to trim the few strands of hair that still inhabit the top of my head.  The Terry Nutkin look doesn’t flatter.

The walk to the hairdressers shouldn’t have been this hard, but add a sprinkling of snow, a fair few nights in the negative celsius’s, a hill and one 6’1 lolloping idiot into the mixture and things take their usual course.

To be honest I didn’t think the path rose quite as much as it obviously does, but the one step forward and slide 3 feet back seemed to confirm the fact.  I also discovered the now hard learnt lesson that, no matter how cold it is, you shouldn’t keep your hands stuffed deep inside your coat pocket when tackling an icy slope.  Keeping one’s dignity when face planting the grassy border is difficult if not nigh-on-impossible.

Despite the slightly longer than anticipated journey my hair is now back to its usual short ‘n spikey self, I can also confirm that gravity still works and my trip DOWN the hill was considerably quicker and more painful than the trip in the opposite direction!

Arse!… literally.

You have to laugh at the screaming headlines in the majority of the ‘newspapers’ here in the UK, and the apparent closing down of anything transport related, once a few inches of snow wisps lightly down from the heavens. 

You’d think this country, which has been around for a millenia or more, would have figured out how to deal with frozen water droplets from the sky, especially when compared to the USofA, which in country terms is barely old enough to wipe its own bum.  We are shockingly senile and seem positively Alzheimer’ish in our attitude; “What the heck is THIS!?  How do we deal with it?  Heeeelp!”

However, I have my own definite plans for the stuff which includes me + the light of my loins + sled + big hill just outside the local country park.  Of course, ‘sled’ is very possibly a slight exaggeration; tray or cardboard box or bin liner may be better descriptions.  As the old saying goes “Aging is mandatory, maturity is optional”… this big kid is definitely leaving the maturity track and heading off down the hill  :)

That is if the white stuff actually settles…

Now, here’s a question;  When you blog are you supposed to put separate streams of thoughts into separately headed posts or just carry on ‘splurging’ random thoughts into a single post?  I am sat here with a few more things to unburden myself of but unsure as to whether this is best carried on in this post or filed under another post with appropriate title, tags, categorisation and humorous picture?

Such as;

• The tempering of flippancy dependant on the person we are talking to at the time.
• Moving forward, or backwards?
• The uncomfortable unsaid.

Maybe a seperate post when the head has managed to construct something sensible and coherent to say..

Edit:  Just been let out of work early cos of the snow.  I still think it’s somewhat daft for the actual amount of snow that we are experiencing… but hey, it’s approved time off work (and paid for) so who am I to refuse? 

Off to the gym for some swimmie-poo’s methinks

Tis the first full working week of 2009, and all is quiet when I finally step out into the new years morn’ at 6.30am and crunch into the first settled snow of the year!  It’s hard to dispel the childlike delight when you see the winter wonderland spread out in front of you.. or at least it is for me; I am still a kid at heart trapped in a big gangly body.

I even managed to chuck my first snowball of the year!  I don’t think my mate expected the snowball to come flying over the 6ft fence, let alone at that time of the morning, or even saw from whence it came.. but the cursed whimper as it went down the back of his neck was most satisfying

Resolution Watch:  The ‘Get Fit’ resolution is still on track, hence the being up and out at 6.30am this morning and have managed to get to the Gym on alternate days as planned, and swimming every lunchtime.  So far, so good!

The ‘Two Belts’ resolution doesn’t really kick off until Tuesday when the Senior Karate classes start back up, but I am already in line for a couple of beatings from fellow Sensei’s.. Not entirely sure that’s gonna help with the resolution.

Unfortunately the ‘Get Offline’ isn’t going too well, am still online far more than I should be and have also started twittering – so that’s not a good sign.  I am trying to stay off MSN a little more than usual and not post so many facebook updates, but it’s *soooo* hard!  A geek’s addiction is never appreciated.

I was thinking of adding another resolution to the already long list, that of ‘Stop being so damn shy!’.  Unfortunately this is one trait I have had for the longest time, and is one of my bigger burdens (amongst many other competing burdens).

The online ’me’ is a lot more confident than the physical ‘me’, which can sometimes make for fractured conversations and a lack of eye contact.  Unfortunately some people read that the wrong way and think me stand-off’ish.  I think the online ‘me’ is the more truthful version, I just need to work on bringing that out into the real world a lot more often!

Edit: For some reason I have the song “Reason’s to be cheerful, Part 3″ by Ian Drury and the Blockheads running around my head as I write the shyness section.. I think that’s a good sign :-/