One Man and His Blog

Much as I’m enjoying 2007, I’m really really looking forward to 2008 a whole lot more.

Spotted yesterday written in the dirt on the back of a white van, prsumably by a supporter of one of the local rival teams:

‘WOLVES IS SH*T’

Much like your grammar, then.

Ever spend ages looking for a piece of equipment you need to do a task, only to find that when it eventually shows up you still can’t do what you needed to do with it?

My mobile is crap and needs replacing.

The above two points may be related…

Normally I seem to end up completely wasting bank holidays and any odd days off work when I’m not doing something or going somewhere specific. However, I’m aiming to do three Really Good Things by the end of today.

I did the first one (which has been on my to do list for about six weeks or so, but which wasn’t really feasible to do until now) a couple of hours ago.

I’m going to do the second one (which I have been putting off for over ten years now, but have been given a fantastic opportunity to do now) as soon as I’ve finished posting this.

And I’m aiming to do the third (which I’ve been meaning to do for about a year or thereabouts) in the next few hours.

And I will go to bed happy that I have made some progress at last, on all three fronts.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to go and do a happy dance…

Nasal hair:

Why?

My sister told me on the phone the other night that she’d been thinking of posting the title of this post somewhere on my blog, in the hope that it would lure me out of my apparent disappearance. As I reassured her, I was (and still am) alive and well, but my absence was down to my laptop dying on me not long after I last posted here. Well, as you’ve probably figured out by now, it’s all working again (not without much hassle, expense and running about all over the shop); I’m back. And this time, it’s personal.

So, how have I filled my time without t’internet for over a week? Well, last Friday night some friends and I decorated our back garden with all manner of fairy lights and tikki torches and tea lights and stuff, so that it would look beautiful for when Housemate Dude brought his girlfriend back from an evening out and proposed to her. The plan worked wonderfully, apart from the breeze blowing all the tea lights out as quickly as we could light them (assuming the match hadn’t gone out before getting to the tea light in the first place), and girlfriend was completely overawed and said yes and then we stayed hidden indoors while Housemate Dude and Future Mrs Dude took pictures of each other and then eventually they came in and we drank some champagne and went "ooooh" at the ring and then realised I’d accidentally cremated the garlic bread that was in the oven but that didn’t really matter and then they went back outside for a midnight picnic and we all lived happily ever after.

On Saturday a friend and his friend came round to mine to watch the FA Cup final, which turned out to be rubbish (as they often are), and we got rather annoyed at John Motson describing every event as "the first [whatever] at the NEW Wembley Stadium!" and wondered how long people would keep calling it "the new Wembley Stadium" before they just start calling it "Wembley" like they used to do with "the old Wembley Stadium".

On Tuesday a big gang of us went out for a friend’s birthday to a Lazer Quest type place (not actually Lazer Quest, one of its competitors) and shot at each other under ultraviolet lights and all that. Somehow I managed to not hit anybody at all in the first game – how is that actually possible?! I didn’t think I was a very good shot, but hitting nobody at all?!?! – but improved a lot when we did a team game afterwards and managed to end up on the winning team with a lot of good shots etc. Then we went for a drink and I caught up with one of my ex-housemates, which was really cool.

On Wednesday we said goodbye to our American friends; it was an emotional night, and very sad, but at the same time we have lots of happy memories and, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, will be able to keep in touch very easily.

And last night we had youth group, which was fun; we had a social/games night, which just got more and more out of hand and culminated in several people playing round-the-table table tennis using drums and cymbals instead of bats. Of course, as a sensible and mature youth leader, I was in no way involved in this ridiculous behaviour, and certainly didn’t encourage or participate in it…

Other than that, business as usual. W*rk’s been stupidly busy this week, but at least I don’t have to go back until Wednesday.

But enough about me. How are you?

…quite a lot of them, this week. Yes, it would appear British Summertime is finally here.

So, it’s been a few days, and to be honest, there hasn’t been much happening. Work is ridiculously busy at the minute, so when I’ve got home I’ve been wanting to do absolutely nothing. And that’s largely what I have done. And it’s been nice.

One thing I have done this week, however, is to go to see one of my many former housemates. We lived together for the first year I was in Birmingham, before he moved in with his girlfriend; however, they split at the start of this year, and he’s now living in a quite plush and swanky flat about five minutes up the road from me. It was really good to catch up with him, as we haven’t seen that much of each other in the last year or two. What’s less good, however, is that he’s still struggling with M.E.

He came down with it while we were living together, and things haven’t been the same since (I know that’s a cliche and, taken literally, a pathetically obvious statement, but I don’t know how else to put it). His work were initially very understanding, and let him return on reduced hours when he felt ready, but eventually they let him go. I haven’t wanted to pry and ask lots of questions, but from what he’s told me, the illness put a huge strain on his relationship with his girlfriend, and in the end her patience was stretched to the limit. His health seems a bit better now, and in the last few weeks he’s started trying to remove his post-work early evening nap from his schedule. This is all good and positive stuff.

And yet, he still has M.E., and it’s still controlling his life.

This weekend he’s off to London for some treatment at a clinic; I’m not sure exactly what. I know he’s been to see a spiritualist healer type of person a few months ago, but I think this time it’s a trip to a "regular" doctor. All the same, I want to see him healed; but more than that, I want to see Jesus heal him, and for him to know and recognise that. I don’t know if it will happen, but I’m going to ask.

If you’re a praying type of person, please pray for him. And pray for me, as I try to find the words to share God’s love with him. Thanks.

A conversation I regularly have with one of my colleagues on Friday afternoons:

Colleague: "Have you got anything planned for this weekend, Ste?"
Me: "Not really, I think it’s just going to be a quiet one."
Colleague: "Well, you say that, but you always seem to end up getting an invitation from one of your friends and doing something interesting, don’t you?"

She’s absolutely right. For all the weekends where I have nothing much planned, something big comes up in about three quarters of them. Take tonight for instance. I was expecting to spend my evening witnessing the undoubted horror of Eurovision. But around 6.00, my plans changed…

My extremely musically talented housemate has been part of the band playing in the local uni’s production of ‘A Chorus Line’ all week, and owing to several nights out this week I didn’t expect I would make it to see the production. But then I found out he was getting tickets for some friends, and the invitation was extended to me to join them for that and then go for a curry afterwards. Bang goes another quiet Saturday night in then…

Not really knowing anything about ‘A Chorus Line’ except that it was a musical and probably involved a chorus line of some sort, I really enjoyed watching the action unfold with no idea of what was going to happen. For those who are similarly unfamiliar with it, it’s about dancers auditioning for a Broadway show; at the request of the show’s director, each one relates their life story and tells of how they got into dancing and what they expect will happen to them after their careers finish. The cast were fantastic, and really kept your attention (no mean feat in a show which largely takes place on a bare set without costume changes etc), and the band were pretty good too.

Then we headed to what I consider to be the best curry house around here, although I don’t tend to go there that often as there’s a perfectly decent one just round the corner from my house. Anyway, as they weren’t too busy the staff took a lot of time chatting to us and kindly gave us some free onion bhajis, causing them to go up even further in my estimation. We had a great time talking together and laughing rather a lot, and I realised how much I’m going to miss these guys – they’ve been studying in the UK since the autumn, and are going back to the US in a little over a week. They’re amazing and lovely people, and it seems like I’ve always known them; I just wish I’d spent as much time hanging out with them as my housemate has.

So, I have another interesting tale of unexpected adventures to tell my colleague on Monday morning. And I’m sure she won’t be in the least bit surprised. After all, this kind of thing always happens when I’m having a quiet one…

Tonight I’ve been ten-pin bowling with some friends from my cell group. As tends to happen when I go bowling, I had one really good game and one really bad game; tonight it was the bad game first, lulling everyone into a false sense of security before I cleaned up on the second.

Incidentally, the bowling alley is called the Superbowl, and has its name written in big illuminated 3D letters on the wall outside. However, a while back we spotted that the letters seem to be illuminated in blocks of three, and with one of the blocks not lit up, it appeared to just be called Superb. So now, we just refer to it as the Superb Owl. Although you then have to be careful with the pronunciation, otherwise it can sound a bit too much like "super bowel".

On which pleasant note, I’m going to bed.

Have just flicked channels to Film4, which was advertising that it’s showing The Day After Tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Wonder whether there was a different trailer for it yesterday…? :p