Hay dogs

It's hay making season and unfortunately I've managed to be in the countryside at the same time. Luckily it was only 190 hay bales that needed to be picked up from a field, loaded onto a trailer, taken off the trailer and place into a barn.

I hate hay baling. It's heavy manual labour, I've done it for years and yet I've never been paid. Oh the joys of growing up on a tiny farm. A tiny farm that still isn't mechanised really.

It's been restful, slightly more tense because my brother has his exams, I have to work on a re-write of the book and my mother is talking about breaking up with her live-in boyfriend.

I can manage but only with the help of gin.

Holibobs

I'm on holiday at the moment. I've returned to the ancestral hall which means I'm spending my days being glared at by geese and holding ducklings. I love how angry geese are. It's like they are made of rage. The five geese are currently engaged in a territorial battle with the drake. The outnumber the drake and are larger than him but he just won't give up. It's terribly impressive and the resulting battles have carpeted the gardens with a thick layer of feathers.

The weather here is amazing. Not roasting hot but sunny and warm. Ideal for walks and eating cucumber sandwiches. I've not done the latter yet but perhaps today is the day.

Mostly I've been running. I hate running. I really, really hate running but there is nothing like it for getting a chap into shape and I've been forcing my brother to do it too so it seemed only fair for me to stumble out into the fields with him and wheeze away. It's been a very healthy break so far and I'm feeling very relaxed.

I've made a point of not checking my work emails which is a first for me. Also having a smashed up phone means that work just can't get hold of me. That is very relaxing. It also means I have time to write, or at least that is the plan.

Instead I've been cleaning and fixing things. Not 'fixing' like the phone was 'fixed' although trying to sort that out is part of the mission.

I should be writing now but instead I'm messing around on the Interspaz. Some things never change.

Lost without Phone

Dear all. I am in London. I am sat in a warm office in Soho. I'm drinking Gin. In short I'm in my spiritual home. I'm only here for a weekend visit but it is lovely all the same. I'm sneaking down most weekends to see the girl (things still going well) and for various work reasons.

I'm dressed unusually. A work mate said I look like a 'Jewish Action Man, a gay one'. I think I can rock that look, but it is a sign I need a haircut, and possibly some new trousers.

London is melting slightly, which I rather like. It's terribly good to be back.

I also destroyed my iPhone today while trying to fix it. It had a cracked screen which I managed to fix but at the cost of breaking the special button and the sound. So it's not really a working phone anymore. This is quite exciting, it means you can't contact people while moving and you have to arrange to meet people at VERY SPECIFIC TIMES.

I'm sure it will annoy me in the end but for now it's an adventure.

London and motorbikes

Last weekend was eventful. I had a bike for the weekend so I went down to London to catch up with old friends.

I'm sure I've spouted on about it before but riding a bike in London is something that might make you believe in a higher power. Riding a car in London is stressful because it's too busy and everyone is so aggressive but a motorbike is entirely different.

Motorbikes are slim so you can squeeze through spaces that a car can only dream of fitting through. Filtering means you can overtake almost anywhere and motorbikes can accellerate really fast, you will always get away from the lights first.

London is especially good because it's not really planned so the streets are all wiggly and strange. It is great fun to ride. I can happily spend whole days whizzing from one side to the other.

I was riding to see a chum on Sunday when an old lady dropped her handbag when leaving church. She hadn't noticed, so I pulled over to let her know and then stopped the traffic so I could get it for her from the road. This got me a nod from a policeman and made me feel like Batman.

On the way back from visiting this chum I stopped to see another chum and parked the bike up in a street. Some kids were watching and seemed a bit interested in the bike so I got a bit paranoid. I was only at my chum's place for about 5 or ten minutes but I kept looking out of the window to check on the bike. This was the right thing to do as I saw someone fiddling with it. The little git was trying to steal it.

We shouted from the window and they ran off but they had cut some wires so I was stranded in London with a broken bike. I let work know but got stupidly stressed about it all the same - I've only just been allowed to ride bikes again and I really didn't want to get told I couldn't anymore.

It turned out okay at work, I mean I did stop a bike being stolen. That's the thing to focus on. Still I got stupidly stressed about it all and had a massive head-ache all afternoon, so much so that I went and got some painkillers.

I really need a new job.

Bodyweight Strength Training

I've been learning about Bodyweight Strength Training. Which is sort of like super manly yoga, in your pants.

I stumbled across it on Metafilter and now I'm going to try and do it. It's supposed to take months to build up your strength but I am very taken with the idea of being able to do single-hand handstands. That's a stupid goal to aim for, perfect.

I've also been applying for more jobs. No joy yet, but I think it's like dating website. You have to apply to lots before you find something really special.

Back in the saddle

Riding motorcycles is fucking scary. No seriously, they are weird and wrong.

I was all wobbly and inelegant, everyone was out to kill me and it all felt very unsafe.

I stopped for petrol and had a word with myself saying things like 'you love this' and 'this is the reason you got this job'.

After that things got a bit better, and over a long weekend of riding I got mostly back to where I was before. I say mostly because I can spot areas that I'm still not riding very well.

It was a nice return to riding, and it was also nice being able to ride down to London to see the girl. I handed the bike back after a weekend of riding. I'd covered about 550 miles which is pretty good going and it didn't have a scratch on it.

I think we will mark that one down as a win.

The joy of packing

I can't believe it but I really, really enjoy packing. Moving house is a nightmare but I love packing for adventures.

Today is a good example. I have to pack three seperate items.

1) Gym bag for three visits to the gym
2) Weekend bag, that will keep me presentable until Monday
3) Overnight bag for today, with a laptop and champagne

The gymbag will live at work so that is the easy one. Although I'm going to the gym today. So I need to put at least one days worth of sexy pants in that, for the date tonight.

The weekend bag is tricky. I've got a work event so I need to wear a range of styles of clothing and then I'll be in London so that's a different dress code. I need the absolute minimum because, as ever, space is limited. I'll be presenting awards, hanging around with the 'salt of the earth' and walking a beagle. So yes, quite a range.

It's like a complicated logic puzzle of clothes and I love it.

The spaz rides again.

Tomorrow will be a big day. Not because it means pay-day is less than a week away but because I will ride a motorbike for the first time since the crash about seven months ago.

I've had to get a new helmet since the last one is now being used as presentation aid of what happens when you crash. The company who made it are delighted that it worked so well. The new helmet is white (nice and visible), I used to only wear silver helmets but it's time for a change.

I'm excited to get back on a bike but also a bit nervous, my last ride was well eventful and it's taken about six months before I can kneel again. I doubt the circulation in my foot will ever fully recover. I'm not dead though, and I can walk and run nd things. let's focus on the important stuff.

I've only got the bike for a few days - I'm being loaned it to ride to a work thing, so this is a test really, and a blessing. A blessing because having suddenly increased mobility means I can whizz down to London to see the girl. The girl that things are going very well with.

So well that I'm going to see her on the weekend too. Blimey, that's like a few days in a row. What ever next?

In which Louche and his possy win an award.

I won, well my team and I won. So that's good. We deserved it.

The awards were fun, they looked and acted like the awards off the telly but with terrible presenters (The MD and some head of digital lady) and far more drunken tomfoolery.

For a while it looked like we weren't going to get any awards, we didn't even get nominated for some catagories. People started getting a bit fighty and then we won some stuff and it calmed down a bit.

I got drunk, made some good contacts in the London office and danced. Chuck came over and talked to me which was a bit awkward but I managed get involved in an arm-wresting contest with a co-worker and she went away. Phew.

We nearly got stranded in London - the coach back tried to leave without us. But the Hat had already said I could stay at her place if I wanted.

It was a terribly kind offer, which I wanted to take up but I thought I should really hang around with my award winning team. You know celebrate with the darling little nerds.

Which one is suitable?

I'm applying for more jobs now. I'm going to try and apply for at least one a day. The company awards are on Thursday, and I'm going to use them to chat to loads of London people and pimp myself out.

I need to think carefully about what to wear. I have my trusty pinstripe suit. It's brilliantly cut, has served me well and gets compliments.

Or I could dig out the lilac suit, it's a bit mad so people won't forget me, but well it's quite loud. I suppose I shouldn't buy loud suits if I'm not going to wear them. It's a tricky one.

The Lilac suit will cause a scene (if I still fit into it) but will it make people think 'gosh I need to give that chap a job'?

Also I'm not sure how I'm going to get home from the awards either. There is a coach back to work, but then I'll have to get back to the Wilderness.

If I'm going to be stuck in the middle of no-where I think I'd prefer to be in a faintly normal suit, although in hindsight stumbling around the countryside at 3am dressed as a dandy makes a better story.

Job Fail

I didn't get the job, I didn't even get an interview for the job. Bah humbug.

Can't give up though. I must be resolute, I must get a job in London and that's just that. No turning back. V. annoying though. This job would have been terribly convenient, and probably good fun. Bah again.

Right, back to the hunt.

Waiting and running

Tomorrow is the closing date for applications for the job. I'm rather excited, even though I know it's decidedly dangerous to get too excited about these sort of things.

I can't help but day dream about life in London again, a life where I bump into chums in the street and people call up and say 'I've got a spare ticket to X, fancy coming along tonight?'

I miss meeting friends for lunch but most of all I miss the seasons of London. Not just the different times of year, but the different times of day.

The white heat of post-work Soho, to the eery silence of early morning Knightsbridge. Lazy lunch times in Hampstead and even the frantic bustle of Picadilly.

These used to be part of my day, I could go and see facinating art, or stare at dinosaurs for free, and walk there and back. Many bizarre adventures to strange parts of London were undertaken with the warming comfort that if it all went wrong I could just walk home.

I once got lost in the city after drinking with a strange mixture of people and had to use the river to navigate. I found it, got on the North side and then bimbled my way home.

To some people that would sound like a nightmare, but to me it's now a fond memory.

I really home I get this job.

The joy of drains (no really)

I just spent three hours unblocking the drains. They aren't perfect but they work now. I know absolutely nothing about drains so the first hour was spent timidly poking things with a stick.

Then I started taking the drain covers off, each progressively more disgusting than the last. By the time I got to the third cover, at the end of the garden I was feeling rather lost. The poking wasn't working and I was thinking about calling for someone who actually knew what they were doing.

Then the miracle happened, the drains sort of went 'bloop' and they started, well, draining and this caused a chain reaction. It was excellent. All sorts of vaguely disgusting things started moving around and disappearing.

I like it when you try and do something you don't know how to do and then after a good amount of challenge you beat it.

I think I'll check in on the drains again tomorrow, and hopefully if I have another shower I'll stop smelling quite so bad - which would be nice because I feel well macho and I am tempted to go out boozing to impress girls with my rudimentary maintenance skills.

Yikes

A great job has just appeared. A job that would be almost perfect for me. Well perfect actually but you know what I mean, it's in LONDON and everything.

So now I must frantically work my C.V. and update all those dull statements. Also I need to write a covering letter to make someone laugh. Argh, etc.

I should probably work on that then, instead of messing around on here. But you know how it is, you have something important and hard to do and so you spend ages moving chairs around and writing on blogs.

Recipe: Louche Potatoes

A snack for people who are too busy to sit down for a proper meal, or the Earl of Sandwich types who want a sandwich style snack without using bread.

Step 1: Take a reasonably large potato. Microwave it until it is cooked.

Step 2: Cut a slit in the top and push some nice cheese inside, as much cheese as you like. Add some Worcestershire sauce if you like. More than one slit can be cut and cheesed but try not to make the potato fall to pieces.

Step 3: Leave for a moment so the cheese melts and the potato calls enough for you to hold with your fingers.

Step 4: Eat.

House spaz

I need a housemate. I am shocked by how expensive living on your own is. The rent on the cottage is very reasonable, a steal by London standards, but it's all the extra stuff that is crippling. My council tax is vast and relentless add to this water (also huge) and I'm basically spent. It's a godsend that my energy usage is minimal.

It makes one wonder what the point of working is? When the bar to supporting yourself is so high. I suppose it's taught me that living on your own is far more expensive then you think and you should really do some sums before considering it.

Instead I had a sort of knee-jerk reaction to a relationship falling to pieces that I thought I could repair with a cottage. It didn't work and now this admittedly very pleasant house is a huge weight around my neck.

What a spaz I am

Becoming Zoolander

My jeans are now so loose that I can slip them off without undoing them. I've only just noticed this. I'm hoping this will perhaps save my life if my trousers catch on fire while I'm wearing mittens.

Mostly it just makes it looks like I've just inherited my big brother's trousers and I'm hoping to grow in to them.

I should point out that I'm not wasting away or anything like that. Quite the opposite. One thing I have become is more complicated to draw. What was a slightly doughy shape now has definition and lines to it. It's very compelling to slowly turn into an anatomical diagram of muscle groups.

I'm looking forward to showing my 'project' to the girl I'm sort of seeing. I say sort of there have been dates, with more on the cards. Not quite 'dating' but potentially the beginning of something. I'd be seeing her far more often but being in different counties rather makes things more complicated, not to mention expensive.

to try and resolve the situation I spoke to an editor in London about jobs but sadly there was nothing suitable, this will be the first of many enquiries. I've decided every day I have to do something job related, as in find another job in London.

I am done with the wilderness and it is time to return to my beloved city.

Tough Tuesday

That's what yesterday will be known as from now on. In one day I was denied a raise, not give a motorbike (when everyone else in the office got one) and found out I wasn't getting a travel assignment I'd previously been told I was getting.

So yes, I understand all of these things are perks and one should be glad of what you have but still, it stings.

I knew I wasn't going to be getting a bike, due to the work ban so that's the least surprising one. Think of it as a little angsty cherry on top of the cake of woe.

The raise is annoying. I did ask my direct boss, how my job could have gone any better? I've massively exceeded every possible target and even though it's not a part of my job, I'm bringing in extra cash to the company, quite a considerable amount. These are all the reasons why I'm being put forward for an award. Gah.

The travel trip would have been lovely and the person charge of it had previously emailed me to say I was 'top of the queue' for the trip.

All in one day! Gah! It's as if you devised the perfect storm to make me update my C.V. then this was it.

I suppose today can't be any worse, that's a plus right?

Moob pride

I've got norks. Get in.

Yup I've grown man-breasts. I can't wait to tart them about. I'm totally going to let some girl feel them up behind the bike sheds if she buys me a can of cider or some penny chews and tells me I have nice eyes.

I was going to try and just hit at my new norks with perhaps some low-cut t-shirts but that's too classy for me. I'm a man nork slut.

I could justify wearing a bra now, probably. Well, I could justify wearing a bra if they made man bras for pecks. I bet they do on the interspaz but for now I think I'll stay natural and stuff. Operation Hollywood Tits is a success.

Operation six pack is going okay too. In the right light I have one but I need more work before I can become a stand-in for JLS.

I also need to eat less chocolate but I'm addicted to the stuff. Why is that? < SEXIST JOKE > Is that because of the norks? < / SEXIST JOKE>. Either way I just have to have some of the stuff at least once a day.

I would totally flash my man-melons for chocolate.

Norks!

Bleh

I have been ill. Nothing fatal, just man flu. It saps the soul a bit though and is boring. So very boring. Also when you ill alone it just means your house gets messy.

Sadly the NHS doesn't extend to having someone deliver chicken soup to your house. It really should though. That would have definitely helped.

Aside from being ill there isn't mcuh to report really, oh I finished the third draft of the book and sent it off to my agent so that's something I suppose. I'll hear in a bit if it made the grade or not. The nice thing about having it with him is that for the first time in ages I don't have a feeling that I should be doing homework. That's nice.

It's only a few weeks till the company awards now. I've been put up for one - I'm not sure if I'm a finalist yet or anything but I'm going to hang around till that is over. I am looking at other jobs but I won't make any moves until I find out if I get the award. It would look good on the C.V.