The Importance of Being Idle

2010: The Year We Make Contact

Here I am again, with another in my very occasional series of blog entries.
Since last I wrote I have done almost nothing but work, my usual long weeks of long days, leaving me very little time or energy for anything beyond that. Just recently however, work has been going pretty well and whilst I am still out of the house for ridiculous fourteen plus hour days I do have pretty decent breaks in the middle of the day and I am finally starting to catch up on my reading. Reading is something I have enjoyed almost my entire life but in the past eighteen months or so I've just not been able to find the time or energy to do it, and starting to read again, even if it is essentially pulp nonsense (I am reading quite a lot of Warhammer related Black Library stuff, which varies from barely competent to actually pretty damn good, and is of course nerdy as all hell), is a nice and curiously fulfilling feeling. On top of that I've actually been inspired to find the time, or I suppose more accurately make the time, to actually pick up a paint brush and start to paint again, even if only a little. One thing that's surprised me about that is how much my painting style has changed since I last held a brush; I am much less anal. Before I would paint pretty much everything with a fine detail brush, and would really fuss over the perfection (or, if we're honest, otherwise) of the paint job, whereas just recently I seem to feel much happier using other brushes and achieving paint effects with much more relaxed and casual brush strokes. I've even started painting the Forge World Eldar Avatar I was given for my birthday a couple of years ago, and although I've had a pretty strong and clear idea of what I wanted to do I've not had the confidence to put paint on this very expensive model for fear of ruining it!
As part of our post Christmas (Christmas was excellent btw) we discussed moving house in the course of the year because frankly where we live now is over priced, under maintained and for Becky at least, massively inconvenient. So we had a look at what was available, found a place we liked the look of, had a viewing, and before you know it we've applied for the tenancy and could be moving in the next couple of weeks (or at least starting to move!) The property we're looking at saves a pretty substantial amount of money per month in rent, has double glazing throughout (something that we could really have used in the past month, with our crazy winter) and a garden that should prove significantly more manageable (for us, we're terrible gardeners). On top of that it has a couple of things which to me make it seem like an incredibly grown up house; the kitchen room has room for a dining table, and there is a hallway with stairs in, rather than them just going off the living room as they do here! I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to the process of moving, cos I'm really not, but I am very excited about living in a (to us) new place! I worry about the animals though. I think Rocket will be fine, he took the move here with great aplomb and carried on like this was all perfectly normal, but the kittens, well they're both daft as brushes and Panda particularly is a little scaredy cat. I expect once the initial trauma is over they'll settle down though, and have fun exploring a new place. Also Panda isn't little, we gave them one of their periodic weighings this morning and whilst Boo is still pretty petite at seven pounds, Panda now weighs a rather epic eleven pounds! He's not a fat cat either, just a big strong boy! Who is scared of pretty much everything, including from time to time, us. Silly big Panda! I expect there will be more on kittens in a future blog, assuming I manage to keep this up!
Lots of other things have been going on, I had a birthday and got old, there was Christmas as previously alluded to, and weight loss has continued apace to the point where I have now lost a pretty massive six stone! Crazy to think that this time last year I was too heavy to be weighed on most household scales, topping out at over tweny one and a half stone! Now I am can pretty much pass for normal! And James Cameron's Avatar came out and... I can't be bothered to go and see it. I don't understand that reaction at all. Well, I understand a part of it; I am worried about how the 3D will affect my dizzy, but other than that I haven't got a clue. Hopefully I'll get round to it while it's still at the cinema and I can experience it in 3D as was originally intended.
Right, I think that's quite enough for one day, time to stop.

posted by BadMonkey @ 4:16 PM