Heat

I hate hot weather, I viscerally loathe it. What with all the cancelling and pushing and pulling of plans that's gone on in the last few hours and the sweltering temperature, this tiny blog post is about all I have in me.

That being said, I did finish Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton and it was a great romp that felt like it needed a few extra layers of polish, but then it was taken from his laptop unfinished after he'd died, so I guess that'd be why.

Here's hoping for cold.

Tough One

A few things to talk about in this one. I am all up to date with my swimming and reading and writing (although the writing was a bit touch and go last week). I'm onto Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton, which is turning out to be great, very movie-material. However, in regards to doing one chapter a day, most of these chapters are only a few pages long, so I upped it to three a day. I'm sure that you're offended.

I'm also facing a quandary with a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless for the moment, but if you know me then you probably know her too). She's started drinking again. She shouldn't be drinking, it almost killed her in the past. In the early hours of Saturday morning me and my flatmate had a bit of an intervention for her. She admitted everything, wasn't angry at us and said that she was already seeking treatment.

Now, I don't know if that last part is actually true, but on talking more with her, it seems like the drinking is really the least of her problems. She's got a lot of money issues including some very nasty people who aren't good with debts. In typical 'Her' fashion, however, she almost categorically refuses any help offered with these issues. I will do my best to help her, including offering her a place to stay if she gets kicked out of her flat... but it's up to her to take the helping hand.

She's also trying to buy out the business that she works at and I happen to know that the owner of that business is a slippery wanker who has dangled the keys in front of many an employee only to have them burn out to his benefit. She's onto a loser by continuing to throw everything she has at that hope.


So yeah... it's been a tough week, all things considered. I really need to find one of those jobs to take my mind off things. But I may need to devote time to this recovery/life rescue... if she'll accept my help, that is.

Checking out for now, Al.

My back... It pains me

So the other day I bent down to pick up some books and decided that no, no this was not for me. I spent the next three days laying around and feeling sorry for myself. I did manage to go swimming enough times this week, even though it looked for a minute like I wasn't going to make it. This Wednesday gone I was about to go but I'd mostly overslept and felt rubbish. I figured that I'd go on the next day.

Next day comes around and then I hurt my back. I decided again not to go, which meant that I was putting it off until Friday. Now that means that my normal Monday-Wednesday-Friday was going to turn into Monday-Friday-Sunday. I did manage on Friday, since the swimming itself didn't make my back any worse, in fact it seemed to help. It was just the getting there and tying my shoelaces that sucked. Very much sucked.

Of course that means that me going swimming on Sunday was a bit of a knife-edge. Would I make it? Would I struggle out of bed and go down and do it?

Yes, turns out. I did indeed manage to fulfil my swimming quota for the week, just not on the intended days. So this week my swims are Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. Back to normal next week. Not that this routine is particularly normal yet, I've only been at it for just over two weeks now, as with all the financial, reading and writing stuff. That's also going okay. First week I overspend by £11, the second week I underspent by £37.50.

So that works.

I also finished reading Azincourt by Bernard Cornwall yesterday, which is a stonkingly good book. Excellently realised characters that I genuinely wish I could have met. The description of the battles is both horrific and exulting, the way that Cornwall does. He's a master at this sort of thing and to have one of our most famous victories celebrated in such a fashion was brilliant. I highly recommend it.

Not sure what I'm reading next, I'll let you know. Both my writing projects are doing well, even considering that one is out of my normal comfort zone.

Right...

See you next week.

I Did A Whole Week

Well, so far I've managed to stick to everything that I set out to do last week. That's by no means an indication that I'm in it for the long haul, but baby steps. I've done a week. Been swimming four times, only overspent by £11 (I'll try to be better on that front), read my book, wrote my stuff and have made an increasing number of marks in my notebook to indicate how many gallons of Pepsi Max Cherry I have consumed.

It's quite a few.

The last thing on my list was of course to post on my blog on certain days and this is one of them so... here we are. I'm pretty sure that absolutely nobody reads this thing, but that's not really the point, it's more about charting how well I'm doing as a human. I suppose I'll have to find some chart to indicate what that actually means at some point, but in the meantime I've got things under control. I hope.

So, just a short one there but I'm hoping that the more I remember to this then the more I'm willing to do as time goes by. We shall see, won't we.

Am still reading Azincourt

by Bernard Cornwall. Is good.

The Last Five Months

So there are five months left in the great year 2017 (it's not been that great) and I figured that I'd try... once again... to force myself to having more structure to my life. This is especially important now that I'm unemployed again, as it means that I'm at a loose end most of the time and should try to fill that time productively. I set myself a number of goals to try to stick too for the foreseeable. These are:

- Blog more, specifically on the 1st, the 8th, the 15th, the 22nd and 29th of every month (so that they're basically one week apart). I have tried this in the past but never really stuck to it, so let's try again.

- Swimming. Three times a week. Start with 30 lengths in August and then move up by six for each month afterwards. As time goes on move some of those from Breast Stroke to Front Crawl as it is more exercise-efficient.

- Read more. There's a story I tell my friends about how, when I studied Screenwriting, I got used to all stories being two hours long and that's it, so I found returning to books hard. I shall endeavour to read a chapter a day in order to be literate again, as I miss books.

- Return to writing. When I stopped having a laptop those eight months ago, I stopped writing regularly. This happens from time to time, but it's always a mistake. I need to write to stay sane. So I'm taking on two projects and seeing how I do with them. One is Networlds, the other... I'll talk about some more some other time. We'll see.

- New Financial Spreadsheet. What with having a job and my own flat I let it slide how much I was spending from week to week over the last two years. Now that I'm unemployed again my funds need to last until the end of the year (if not longer), so I'm rationing myself to £61 a week until I know that I'm secure in income again. If I'm secure in income again.

- Tackle my Coke addiction. I gave up Coca-Cola and all fizzy related drinks for the month of July, but now I am back on them (since I'm trying to do a lot to alter my life, I figure I might need the crutch). I will, however, record everything that I drink in August and we'll see how much it is, so that I can start paring it down in subsequent months.

Yeah... So...

I'm not sure how well I'll do at all this. This certainly isn't the first time that I've tried to do something like this, it's not the last time I'll try either. I know more than I did before, I know that there is support if I need it, which I probably will. I'll check in next week, see how I'm going.

Oh, and the first book I'm going

for is Azincourt by Bernard Cornwall.

Al.