Catch up entries 2

Second entry written about the 29/10/08

At the start of the year, actually at New Year's, I looked at what I wanted to do this year and of the four main ones (bike, drive, run and fun) I've amazed myself by completing one. Still got the first three left – to whit, get my bike licence, pass my advanced driving test and get fit enough to easily pass the Cranwell fitness requirements. The last, fun, partly covers not being single but is mainly about getting out a bit more and doing some stuff I wouldn't have thought of; not siting at home on my own every night. On both of these definitions I have succeeded. It's a bit odd that loosing three months down south has actually helped with parts of my aims. Not as much as I'd have hoped for fitness (my fault) but more than I'd have thought with the others. The bike test has been helped by the fact that the government have pushed back the implementation of the new test regime until early next year, so I've got a bit more time than I thought. For the AD side of things I'm going to have a serious look at the Kinloss group back up north, although I'm also going to get a different car as soon as possible. Not another new one, but something a bit bigger and with a bit more capability. After driving all the 4x4s down south I've realised that the bit more ability would have been great for the hills. It's not that my little Charade can't handle most conditions but I'm constantly driving it to almost the limit of it's range, and it does feel chuffing ridiculous when there's a whole row of big four wheel drives parked in the snow on Cairngorm and I'm struggling to get my snowboard into the city car that's hidden by the Landies either side. The fact I have to drop the passenger seat to fit it in is bad enough, although it was funny when I was happily driving out of the snow and the numpty in a big ol' Jeep was getting stuck. He just couldn't drive in snow, was revving the arse off the engine and getting absolutely no purchase. Don't get me wrong, I'm certain the car was able to handle the conditions but the driver definitely could not.
Anyway, I’m now on the way back from London and it’s been absolutely brilliant to see Tris again. I’d like to be able to see D’Abs and it'd be great to catch up with Rich, also getting across to the US to see Kev (actually I’d LOVE to be able to that one!) but time and money prevent those. Apart from that I’d have to say that once I’ve got to Andi and Sarah’s and stopped off with Tash and Chris, I’ll have seen pretty much all of my really close friends within two weeks.
I don’t know if I mentioned it in my recent posts (off line on the train so I can’t check) but a couple of days after I got back from the Falklands I hit a low point. I’ve hit these before, it’s a kind of after travel thing where you realise that the next day you’ll wake up and see the same thing you saw the day before. It’s not a new place and it’s not home. It’s something in between that isn’t so good as either and not as interesting as you’d like. At that point I was ready to call up my boss and ask for the 3 year tour of Gibraltar or a long tour down in the Falklands (preferable as Kate is down there!). Like I said, I’ve felt this way before but this was something different. I really just didn’t want to be in the UK at that point and while I think I know why it’s not something I can put into words. One of the reasons I didn’t was that I knew there was a good chance of seeing friends soon and so I held off. My family’s great but I know they’ll always be there for me, e-mail, phones and blueys aside, contact is easy with mum and dad and I think Matt understands.
As I said before, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to see anyone, let alone almost everyone, but I’m so glad I was able to. What I’d hoped for actually happened, I’ve found an anchor to these green Isles (as an aside, if you don’t believe the “green and pleasant land” description, travel to somewhere with a much lower rainfall total then look at the grass and the trees here when you get back. This country is SO beautiful I was almost struck dumb when I got back. The sheer intensity of the colours and the vibrancy of the life was breathtaking!). This anchor is my friends. If the guys weren’t back here, and as much as I love my family, I’d have to say that I don’t know if I’d stay here. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE this country. From the mountains of home to the rolling hills down south, from the vast emptiness of the Highlands to the crowded, noisy, smelly but ALIVE streets of London and Birmingham, from the snow covered north to the palm trees in the south, I love Great Britain. The thing is that I’ve seen a bit more of the world and I know that there are amazing things everywhere. The politics and the social situation in this country aren’t to my taste but I’d rather stay and try to help solve that rather than run away to New Zealand and with my friends here there’s no risk of me leaving any time soon.
So there we have it from the train back from London. I’ll write a bit more of this after Halloween and probably post it in a one shot deal.
By the way, I’m writing this on some of the new software I picked up in London. Still trying to source Leopard for the Mac but I’m working on the new version of Word for Mac and it’s rather sweet. Bit different to the NT version we use at work and pretty similar to the 03/04 Office suite. Might have another look once my pay comes in. I like open source software, and in the case of Office, NeoOffice (OpenOffice.Org for the Mac) is very compatible but I can’t deny that Microsoft (turn and spit) do make some decent software and with work going XP/2003 having a fully compatible system is likely to make things easier. Thing that’s been getting to me a bit recently are the adverts for Microsoft where people say “I’m a PC” where what they actually mean is “I run Microsoft, rather than Mac or Linux.” PC just means personal computer, so I’m working on a PC now, it’s just a Mac, rather than a Windows box.