31 Dec 2008 (Wednesday) 

I've just invented a new film - a mathematician discovers an ancient curve which has emmense power over all theorems. "Raiders of the lost Arc".

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25 Dec 2008 (Thursday) 

We've had a really nice christmas day today. We got lots of present - thanks to Santa, and Pat and Steve, and Claire and Justin, and Simon, and Caroline and Jess, for all their presents! It's been a lovelly day.

My head's still killing me but my tablets have kept it to a bareable level throughout today. Hope your day has been as pleasant.

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24 Dec 2008 (Wednesday) 

I had a dream last night about a TV series called The Laugh Men. It's apparently not a real series, so... here's a quite synopsis of this budding series

Episode 1 - The Laugh Men X is a comedian, who's been out of the business for a few years, doing bit parts and voice overs for adverts. He wants to go home to where he was happy - his Grandad used to take him to a comedy club when he was little which was his inspiration. He finds that the old club is now in the middle of a derelict site and is being used by homeless squatters as a shelter. He goes to see the site to see if he can make it into the place he remembers. The homeless guys are rough and don't want their 'home' being changed when they see another suit walking around the place and taking it all in. They're huddled around a corner, rough sleeping bags and blankets around, and the small fire in the middle. A few chairs from the old club remain and they're used as seats, but mostly they're sitting around on the floor or large boxes. The old stage has seen a fire at some point, and the bar and mirrored window behind it are broken and smashed. X still loves it all. He can see how it was when his grandad took him there. He walks over to the guys and one gets up and tells him that this is their place and they don't want any suits around here. (X reminds me of Stephen Tomkinson) He talks to them and tells them he wants to make the place into a comedy club. They're incredulous and ask what he knows about comedy. He does a short routine, playing on what's around and the people, making up a life for them and telling them about how they made it here. He find him funny and ask him to sit with them. He chats for a while. It turns out that they're all here because they remember the club as well and would love to see it rebuilt. He agrees to give them jobs if they'll live on site and so the place begins. Episode 3 - Return A friend from X's comendy past catches up with him and wants to see the new club. As a joke he tells X that he's going to give him a surprise and blindfolds him and takes him to his own club. He takes off the blindfold and X can see the club - his friend says "Why didn't you tell me you were putting a club together, I'd have come like a shot!" and they laugh a little. Going in, a bouncer saw that X was blindfolded and calls to a second one - one of the homeless guys - "Oi Nutter, Nut him" and he does. The friend passes out and has to be taken in to the club - he wakes up to find the place only 1/2 full and still in need of some work. [ The Laugh Men; Justin's subconscious ]

We had a sleigh ride with Santa today which was great fun. And we've been moving presents around and furniture, too. Pat and Steve arrived this evening which has been lovely as well - it's nice to have them around .

I'm still full of Cold and Justin's got it, too - harder than me, which is a pity as he's been asleep all day. My tummy hurts and my head hurts and I've got a sore throat. I know it's not much but it's unfortunate.

Ian's left us a little puzzle to solve on the talker - I sussed the first part, but the second - "bu fd eu fh ed fa e` ec ed fa eu ea ff eu cg" - has left me without much of a clue.

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22 Dec 2008 (Monday) 

I've had a lovelly day today with Alex and Beth, and started out by shopping with Claire. However, the day has - for completely other reasons - gone down hill seriously.

And to top that off I've got a headache and a cold.

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20 Dec 2008 (Saturday) 

I'm at Claire and Justin's now - I got here on Friday. Had a very tiring day today. I was very tired and fell asleep in the afternoon. Had a lot of time to play with Bethany and Alex though. Wrapped some presents this evening with Claire and watched another episode of Coupling with them and then Wall-E with Claire. It's really fun!

Justin said to me tonight that when he met me I was up to all hours and now I'm not able to stay awake... Things have changed

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16 Dec 2008 (Tuesday) 

Busy day today. Migrating things at work as a guinea pig for IT, which was pretty productive, although it took a while. Hopefully that should make things easier for others. Chatted a little to Caroline for a bit. Got a lot of my own work done and saw in the diagnostics that it's actually doing what I want it to - which was really exciting. Had the office do - the management put on a spread of food and drink for everyone in the building and we have a raffle and stuff. It's quite fun as well. This evening I've been replying to a couple of lovelly emails from Christina and then sending little text messages to her, with only a slight possibility of misunderstandings

All in all, today's pretty busy.

I watched '50 First Dates' last night, in an attempt to get to sleep - that was really great and cute film. And it had both Drive, by The Cars and Somewhere Over The Rainbow, by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole which are both... so gorgeous. 'Drive' was a more Hawian version, and Isreal's 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' is already Hawian anyhow. But lovely! And I chatted a bit to Caroline on Skype as well before going to sleep.

I slept very little last night, waking up every hour and a half or so. It's beginning to get on my nerves a bit.

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14 Dec 2008 (Sunday) 

I've deleted a load of messages off my phone. They're nice to keep, but I only have one slot left to keep them in so it's probably worth clearing them out.

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12 Dec 2008 (Friday) 

gerph: I was trying to work out whether I might be younger if I measured my age in 1000s of days gerph: So I'd be 11. cmj: just use hex cmj: then you're 20 gerph: Yeah, I like being 20. Ian: Well done gerph Ian: You just managed to do the impossible Ian: Get Odder. [ Getting Odder; Ian, Justin and Chris ]

Life's a hard pill to swallow Filled with joy or filled with sorrow And I have never lost my faith in you [ Believe, from Portrait, by Celtus ]

It's 11:30 pm. Next door are hoovering. I need to be asleep about 3 hours ago, but I put off that because I was wrapping presents and writing cards.

Someone mailed me today, confusing my with Justin Fletcher the famous children's actor. I just have to direct them to the CBeebies email address.

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11 Dec 2008 (Thursday) 

Will you ever understand, What it is I do ? Is the music in your soul ? Or did it leave you long ago ? [ Dune, from Fallen Dreams And Angels, by Pendragon ]

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10 Dec 2008 (Wednesday) 

The power tripped last night for some reason and that woke me up - the alarm beeps to say that it's got low battery. Finally got that fixed and then I could hear something banging outside or downstairs regularly, which kept me up for an hour or so.

Otherwise... it was cold in the house - I needed to turn the heater on after I woke up. That's probably only just because I was woken up though - if I'd slept through it I'd probably have been fine.

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9 Dec 2008 (Tuesday) 

We've been moving the big things today - many cupboards, desks, shelves, beds and yet more boxes. There's a lot of stuff. Still not sure there's enough stuff to fill this place, but I guess that'll be more obvious once Mum and Dad have had more of a chance to unpack.

We saw Grandma and Greebo this evening; they're both well. Then we went shopping for things for Grandma - and Greebo . I bought a few sweeties for people, too.

Otherwise today seems to have been pretty crappy for me; I've not really felt all that good and really just wanted to get things over and done with. I guess that's normal for moving, but it's a different kind of feeling I think.

Anyhow, I've also found out that my server at home seems to have died, which is a little irritating. Dunno when it died, and Simon's obviously not been around or he'd have rebooted it or phoned me - and he wasn't at home when I called earlier.

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8 Dec 2008 (Monday) 

Today has been packing and unpacking at Mum and Dad's new house. We've moved a load of boxes today in two runs. Large furniture goes tomorrow. The new place is great. It's not quite as nice as the place I had in Stratford, but that's only because that was me living there. It's cool, and I can't help giggling when I go in there. Plus, it's pretty huge. Maybe it won't seem so huge with the furniture in, though.

This evening I'm feeling pretty crappy which I put down to a combination of things, including not having had my tablet one day last week. However, it's left me wondering what on earth I'm doing with myself in general. There's a whole world of ways that I could be better, but I can never seem to bring myself to do them.

Throw away my life in the fireplace, With the old love letters, and the nottingham laces. Trying to forget the warm embraces, Video suppers and the funny faces. [ Solomon, from Songs From The Lion's Cage, by Arena ]

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7 Dec 2008 (Sunday) 

Mum and Dad had a busy sunday at the café today; more people than last Sunday evening and a good afternoon too. The other places around here are quite quiet, which seems to be the general theme. Many places just close up for the winter, it seems. There's a public holiday on Monday and Tuesday this week which will make things interesting for moving – not sure how busy it might be whilst we're moving. The café is shut on those days - it probably wouldn't be worthwhile anyhow.

I watched Wall-E today. That was great fun. I think I giggled my way through most of it. Aside from the few humans, the dialogue was pretty sparse - which was really cool! Anyhow, I loved it!

My ankle's been sore for the past few weeks and it was really sore today whilst just moving some boxes of wine, so I've no idea how it's going to be when we're moving things proper.

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6 Dec 2008 (Saturday) 

I'm in spain right now, over to help mum and dad move. Nothing special happening just yet; there's stil quite a bit left to pack but we'll get it all done on Monday I expect. Greebo's been a little bit confused and liked to cuddle up to me yesterday and this morning. He didn't want to sleep on the bed with me this morning though.

I seem to have missed a tablet some time in the last week, which is confusing me because I am sure I remember taking them every day. Oh well.

I seem to have missed a tablet some time in the last week, which is confusing me because I am sure I remember taking them every day. Oh well.

It's about 18 degrees out here during the day; at night it's quite a bit colder though. I'm missing being in touch with friends - I only get to use the computer when I'm at the cafe and not for long then - hence this shortish entry. The keyboard is a bit weird - it's a Spanish layout which I'm not at all used to and I keep trying to use the keys like I would on a UK layout which isn't at all useful. Not useful since I seem to be typing without looking at the keyboard.

I seem to have had Left Outside Alone, by Anastacia going around my head the last couple of days - it´s a little better than having Deacon Blue which has been there for a week or so.

The machines here don't have working ctrl-keys. Which makes it difficult to save diary entries in pico. So, instead I'm going to enter things into Open Office and update when I get home. It's all a bit frustrating. Oh well. Not a big deal anyhow.

In the evening it's easier to think. Or harder. It depends. Sometimes it's easier because you can't remember the things that make that things you're thinking of difficult. Sometimes it's easier because you can't work out why the things that you're thinking aren't so practical. Sometimes it's harder because you can't understand things because you can't work out the context. Sometimes it's harder 'cos you go around in circles.

I guess it's not so much 'the evening' as the 'being tired'. But those burning nighttime fiery beliefs (to paraphrase Douglas Adams) often do vanish in the cold light of morning. I'd like to be more able to keep those things to the morning, though. Usually I can't even reason them out by the morning, let alone remember them.

I had a dream about Caroline last night. There was stuff in it, all related to... stuff... but the bit that sticks out in my mind is that she cut the tip of her thumb and lost a bit of her nail, and other than telling me, there was nothing I could do.

I'd always said "I've never been drunk", but it turns out I'm wrong. I found a little diary of the things I did when I was little, which Mum and Dad wrote. Apparently I was drunk on my first birthday. They tried to blame me and said I got myself drunk, but I'm pretty sure there's only limited responsibility that I can take for my actions at 1 year old.

There's also a load of little things about how I imitated Claire, which was really sweet.

Greebo went out tonight and wouldn't come in when I called him. He's going to Grandma's on Monday, so I won't get to see him after that. I'm pretty sure he doesn't understand that, but he might at least know what's going on.

It's very late tonight and I'm in one of those moods where I really don't want to try to sleep because my mind's just going to get me worked up.

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4 Dec 2008 (Thursday) 

I made a card for Shakeaway last night. It was really fun to cut out the bits of the card and make a little milkshake cup for them. I took the card in today and gave it to Becky - she thought it was quite cool anyhow, although she was a little unimpressed that I didn't cut out the letters myself .

Anyhow, that was quite fun!

I'm away from tomorrow for a little bit, helping mum and dad move. That'll be a lot of fun, but it does mean I get to play with Greebo some more!

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2 Dec 2008 (Tuesday) 

Feeling pretty bad today. More reminders of crappy stuff. Also, I had fun yesterday; I went to take some headache tablets in the kitchen, and after I'd done so, threw the left over water in the sink and the cup in the bin. Or meant to - I actually got them back to front and threw the water in the bin and the cup in the sink. Today I tried putting the milk away and ended up throwing the entire carton in the bin before I realised what I was doing.

I need to get away. I'm driving myself crazy.

It's late and I can't sleep.

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1 Dec 2008 (Monday) 

Today I woke up about 6:30 and couldn't be bothered to get up all that much. It was about 9:50 before I decided to get out of bed. So, feeling pretty rotten I went in to work - knowing that all the decorations would be there and people might have smiles on their faces because of it. And then I got trapped in the lift with the security guard bringing mail upstairs. For 25 minutes.

I think I laughed for most of that time. It was quite funny really. Fortunately the fire brigade got us out. Marianne and Karina were both there waiting for us, too.

That's about the most exciting thing that happened today - I've never been rescued by a firemen, so at least that's a first. Plus the office does look quite pretty, I think. Thanks to Simon for helping me decorate .

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