"Did you miss me (yeah) ? While I was away"

Listening to: Jarvis Cocker 'Further Complications'


Dialect Word of the Day: Boak (to heave or vomit)



Hello there me chums in interweb world. I have been frightfully neglectful of my blogging duties, so apologies. Alas life or more accurately work has got in the way. This whole two jobs lark is really beginning to take its' toll, somehow I managed to get my contract working with the bad-ass street punks extended by another four months. It would seem that my sojourn in Edinburgh has transformed me from a work-shy wastrel into a model of dour Presbyterian industry.

I did manage to make my first visit back to England since I moved up here. Very lovely to see all the folks in West Yorkshire and all, many old tales were told, much booze was drunk and I was reminded of a very happy period of my life. Armley seems to have lost none of it's slightly shabby charm. It has two architectural masterpieces; St Bart's church with its' magnificent organ (oe'r missus) and the Armley Goal a wonderfully foreboding mid 19th century construction. It has numerous wonderful examples of neo-Gothic architecture sadly most of it going to wrack and ruin, either abandoned or hideously ill used (Mike's Carpets warehouse) the credit crunch appears to have put a halt to the gentrification that was cautiously starting when I lived there. Although both the pole dancing club and the local knocking shop are victims of the credit crunch, (forgive me the crudity but describing it as brothel or bordello which would be misleading, I'd imagine there isn't much velvet and Rocco decor or 18th century Fanny Hill- esque lovelies.) Armley's house of ill repute was located above a discount frozen foods outlet and crucially next to the chip shop. It always used to amuse me watching shifty looking middle aged men visit the chip shop before heading upstairs haddock and chips in hand. I can only presume it was to keep their strength up.

Jess has seem fit to high tail it off to Australia for three weeks and leave me in the flat on my own, in order to attend a family wedding.

The fact that she has gone on her own has attracted considerable comment, usually along the lines of "ooh I bet you wish you out there too." To which I patiently explain that firstly, Australia is not somewhere I have any great yearning to visit and secondly I find the whole process of going on holiday a deeply over-rated and it wouldn't concern me if i never went on holiday again. The consternation this causes , is a source of bafflement to me, I also dislike eggs, the smell of petrol, golf, Jim Davidson and Coldplay, none of which excites much agitation in others, it's accepted as a matter of personal taste but mention you don't like going on holidays and for some reason you're viewed as a joyless skinflint worthy of pity. I dislike holidays for the same reason I dislike Christmas, it smacks of rationing enjoyment and channeling it into a specific place or time. I've always feel holidays act as an escape valve for pent up feelings of frustration, holding at bay the need to make meaningful changes.

In fact my lack of desire to 'get away from it all' is probably a sign of relative contentment with my lot in life. In fact I quite like 'It all'. I'll spend my fortnight's leave exploring Edinburgh, watching it reveal itself to me slowly, finding small nooks and crannies I've overlooked and reminding myself how lucky I am to live here.

I shall draw this to a close, before it gets a bit smug and self satisfied!!