Careful folks, rant mode on. Okay, so I got up late and that was no ones fault but my own. I sterilised a load of wine bottles and transferred the new white to a clean barrel, I managed to kick up a bit of sediment so I’ll give it an extra day to settle. We were due to go to Jamie’s step dads for dinner, although it only seemed like last week we were there before, but apparently it was November, still, too soon. I took Sasha out for a long walk while the rain had stopped, I was seriously in no hurry to get there. Now. I have a major problem with Jamie’s dad’s. (I’m sure there is an apostrophe issue there). Let’s take a step back. Mother – in – laws. Now, here’s the odd thing. I have absolutely no issue with mine whatsoever. Why? Well, it’s a tad odd. But I think she’s one of the few people in the world who actually ‘Get’s me’. This is somewhat worrying, but also comforting in an odd way. How do I explain this? Well, she actually got me the perfect Christmas present, it was a picture of the ‘sands of time’. It’s in a frame on top the lizard tank, which may not exactly be the Louvre, but in this place it’s a pretty good location. What did I ask for Christmas? The one thing I could never buy….time. Now lets take it a step further. Jamie’s step dad, now we are never going to be on the same social circle, this is mainly because I have no one in my social circle, but we can always find something to talk and bitch about, and we can do this with total respect and without comparing penises at a urinal. Not once has he ever mentioned Jamie’s dad or ‘other family’, and I really respect that, he has lots of his own children and grand children and always seems very happy. He does have Sky TV and F1 coverage though, so my feelings may change. Anyway, back to today. We turned up late. This is mainly because I don’t like turning up early. Why? Well. You end up standing in the kitchen trying to have ‘small talk’ with Jamie’s dad. This to be honest this is fucking awkward. He asks about work, I always say, a) I’m always busy, b) I can’t discuss what I’m working on as it’s all covered under very heavy NDA’s & c) I don’t have a clue what I’m doing half the time anyway. I don’t know, we just don’t seem to have any connection whatsoever. I think it stems back to when we were having the civil partnership and he asked ‘Who is wearing the dress?’. I have no problem with his step mum, she’s actually really nice, and I often feel she’s put into a somewhat difficult ‘in-the-middle’ refereeing position. Then we have granddad. He is eighty plus, from a completely different era. And I sometimes feel, a completely different planet. It’s odd, it’s the one person who I expected to be completely homophobic, but he isn’t, not in the slightest. But as soon as you mention ‘marriage’, then he’s totally against it (oddly, so am I, but that’s a conversation for another day, and it isn’t for the reason you think either). So we have dinner after hearing the same anecdotes we heard back in November (reminds me of my mother). It then descends to how it always does. Step dad falls asleep, kids (my husband and his sister) try and hide inside their chairs, step mum plays referee and I have to sit there being in the middle age group having to listen to granddad banging on about failed relationships. And to be honest it’s really fucking awkward. I can’t turn round to an eighty year old and say ‘shut the fuck up’. All I can do is drink coffee quickly and say we have to make a move. Every time it descends to this. As far as I know these people haven’t actually met since our civil partnership, and even further back, I’m not sure they’ve actually met since we’ve been together, so that’s over eleven years. I don’t know, they say you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family, I just try and avoid them as much as possible. I’d rather be stuck in a lift with the mother-in-law, at least we could discuss how we’d decorate it.

Wasn’t feeling 100% I must confess so woke up this morning and had a couple of cups of coffee and felt somewhat better. Had sex, wasn’t bad. Walked Sasha in the only fifteen minute gap in the rain we had today. We then went to Cribs and Toy’s R’Us. Picked up a miniature burger thing and a pottery wheel. We then spent the best part of the next six hours making two videos, the burger one is fun, but the pottery one is just hilarious. We will spend the whole of tomorrow ignoring each other and editing videos. Haven’t done one in almost a year, it’ll be fun.

Had a fairly normal nights sleep last night, very odd. Felt knackered and didn’t start work until too late though. Another reasonable day, a bit chilly, Sasha got a nice walk. Walked to the gym, did Pump, but had a hell of a headache which is still persisting plus Laverne sounded like she was more closer to death than usual, so didn’t bother doing a session. Did a bit more work. Head is really banging now. Think I’ll have my pizza and head off to bed. I’m somewhat intrigued by this years CBB, mainly due to the lack of C.

So once again had a fairly appalling nights sleep, but no screaming in the middle of the night. Started work late as I was knackered. Run-time shader work, not the most exciting thing in the world. Quite a nice day though, Sasha once gain got a nice walk. Worked until after 8PM and then went for a run. Went passed the old house, I already knew the Leylandii had been chopped down last week, but it was quite sad to see the cherry tree had now been chopped down as well. That was probably close to a twenty year old mature tree now. All it really needed was a good trim. That corner looks rather boring now. Still, time moves on, it’s not mine anymore. That whole road looks like a complete dump to be honest, it was a lovely place when I first moved in there. Looking forward to tonights screaming attack.

Still didn’t get to sleep early last night, but at least I didn’t wake up screaming, so I’ll count that as a plus. Spent the bulk of the day testing shaders for compatibility. Then I had an email from a first party regarding something I had to add in a hurry, an hour after the build had been sent off. How not to be popular. Another vaguely nice day, so Sasha got a nice walk again. Walked to the gym, did Pump. Got glared at by a guy. He had eight fucking risers on his step, everyone else was down to four, and the cupboard was empty. I just took his step off and helped myself to four. He kind of gave me that look of ‘what the fuck are you doing?’. I gave him the look of ‘I don’t really give a fuck about my life so don’t think for a second I care much about yours.’ He declined to say anything and just put his mat back on the step. I really wasn’t in the mood. Walked home and sorted out this additional first party shit. Did another Sudoku puzzle, got it right this time. I’m thinking of not flying for a while, for the simple reason I want to save up some money for when the weather is good I can do a load of flights and take some people out. At the moment my currency is all over the place and I have to do a check flight every time it doesn’t rain, which at the moment isn’t very often.

And just to prove my mind is a little bit screwed, what popped into it earlier? ‘Glug-a-glug-tug’, it was a little boat with yellow floats that you could fill with water and it would go along in the bath. I’m sure my mother got rid of it, probably decided I was too old for it at twenty-six.

So went to bed at a sensible time after a Camomile tea and some fruit cake. Watched an episode of ‘Air crash Investigation’ and felt extremely tired. So I didn’t take any pills or any alcohol. Didn’t go anywhere for about three hours. Imagine if you are extremely tired and yet your brain is still running at a million miles an hour, processing work, life, everything as if you were on speed. But your body isn’t able to support it. I eventually dropped off. I had the weirdest nightmare. I was in a house with strange people being hunted down. I woke up at about five AM screaming, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ about half a dozen times apparently. I then spent the next hour talking to the ceiling, apparently it didn’t answer back. Still started work vaguely on time. Working on the run-time side of my shader compiler, all mostly going to plan. Took Sasha out for a long walk. Went for a run in the light drizzle. Now watching CBB, can’t really decide if I’m going to watch it or not. So looking forward to sleep tonight, I’m going to get an answer out of that ceiling if it kills me, it actually stands a fairly good chance.

So work was kinda normal Monday type thing. I really couldn’t get into it first thing. Managed to catch the weather just right though and took Sasha out for a long walk. The afternoon was more productive. Then I was going to walk to the gym but the heavens opened again so drove instead. Came back and did almost three hours of productive work. Ate salad and then did something I haven’t done in a long time, a Sudoku puzzle. Was good fun, but not as hard as the ones I’ve done before, still it was only the first one in the book. Going to try and sleep pill free and then get an early start tomorrow.

I’ve removed the login on the comments section, so hopefully won’t get spammed again.

Thanks for all your responses.

Okay, so I didn’t rocket out of bed. Breakfast was served past midday and the paper was read until gone 1PM. I then sat down and edited a helicopter video. Took Sasha out for a nice walk and then went for a run before the heavens opened yet again. We put all the Christmas decorations away, always a little sad when you throw all the crimbo cards on the recycling pile. Still, only another fifty one odd weeks to go. Had a nice bath and relaxed a bit. I can truthfully say that I’m looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. I know what I need to do and I’m looking forward to doing it. I’m going to try and change a few things this year, nothing major, but I think a change is in order. Had a nice bath, now I’m going to eat and descend in to television with the remains of a bottle of wine.

P.S. Just had a friend request from someone who I last talked to about twenty years ago, this could be amusing. At least he wasn’t a pedophile, oh, now that’s a video I’m looking forward to making on my fiftieth, I hope mother is dead by then as by god that is going to uproot the earth in a major way. Blah, six years to go…..

Started quite early considering it was a Saturday. Picked up the dogs, they were gone for two nights, but were still very happy to see me. Came back and edited the NYE party video. (The video is uploaded but only available to the attendees). Then went to Tesco and bought food for the week, reminded me bout why I have it delivered now. Went into town and bought nothing except sand and crickets for the lizards. Jamie is still sorting the holiday out. So now we have a new hotel booked for Miami, we are ditching the car there as it costs a bloody fortune to park. Booked the internal flight. Now I’m debating about weather to vlog it again (make a video per day) like we did for the ‘Great USA road trip’ or just to do written blogs, the videos were great fun. Thinking of just doing them on the GoPro with quick jump cuts per day, opinions? Lots of work to do between now and then though. Did the washing. Slowly returning to the normal humdrum of reality. It’s very dull and somewhat depressing, the weather certainly doesn’t help.

So much joy was had by all last night, even if we didn’t end up that many people. We had quite a bit of food left over and seemed to gain more booze than we started with. It was all dancing and inappropriate fondling up until midnight and then after the London fireworks at midnight it was karaoke time. That finished with guests at just gone 2AM and we carried on singing until gone 4AM in the end.

Didn’t exactly get up with a shot, more of getup midday. No hangover for me, don’t do that kind of thing, plus apart from a couple of shots I stuck to larger all night. So this afternoon mainly was a clean and tidy up operation, which was all complete with everything packed away by 4PM. I then sat down and did the end of year accounts, all the filing and finally submitted my tax return. I logged into the HRMC site and it said ‘last time you logged in was 2nd January’, I’m glad we have these annual meetings. So that’s all done now. New wall planner is up, ‘Dan & Phil’ calendar is up. Just waiting for a bit of accounts paperwork so I can finalises a savings transfer, oh the joys. Pizza ordered. We still can’t work out what hotel to stay in in Miami.