Recursive Words

The blog to end all blogs I stood up about six months ago, before quietly shuttering it in a fit of “why am I doing ANY of this?” has been resurrected, and has essentially become the “source of all things”.

At some point yesterday – nearly five days later than planned – and now with most of the holiday gone when I might have stage managed the migration smoothly and expertly – “The” blog has appeared at the place it should have appeared several days ago.

I’m using a capitalised “The” in the same way those with religious faith do – to establish some sort of invented importance in something that doesn’t actually exist. Yes – you’re reading these words on the internet, but what are they really? The words are nothing more than a series of microscopic magnetic deviations inside a piece of electrically powered hardware deep within an internet connected storage facility somewhere aboard the ball of mud we hurtle through space on.

“The” blog should have arrived smoothly, and with little fuss – with a nice notice going out across the social networks, and a calm transition plan ticking through like clockwork. Instead it stumbled, cut both its knees, cried for quite some time, then realised nobody was taking any notice of it, so quietly got up in search of anybody else that might hear it’s sob story (you’re reading it right now).

If you made it this far through this epic mis-direction of a blog post, well done indeed.

The TLDR version – Ghost has joined the party at last.

The blog to end all blogs I stood up about six months ago, before quietly shuttering it in a fit of “why am I doing ANY of this?” has been resurrected, and has essentially become the “source of all things” (except it’s not, because I have at least two or three backups elsewhere of all of my blog posts). The source of all things you can find, perhaps.

Anyway.

You can now read my idiotic words at any of the following locations:

• Ghost ~ https://recursivewords.com

• WordPress ~ https://recursivewords.blog

• Tumblr ~ https://recursive-words.tumblr.com

• Substack ~ https://recursivewords.substack.com

They all harbour the same stuff, so it doesn’t really matter where you subscribe, add, friend, follow, or whatever it is you do at each place. Pick your favourite. I’ve taken the liberty of transferring the email subscriptions from Substack over to Ghost for now, because that stops the other platforms claiming you as their own and spamming you to death with offers of a better life in return for joining their Soylent Green sausage machines.

I think I’ve covered this quite enough now. I was going to make the common analogy about the flogging of a certain equine species, but that will probably cause PETA to come after me these days.

Back in the real world, I’m staring down the barrel of the last day of my staycation (if you don’t count the weekend). For the last two days I’ve been fighting a running battle with the weather – I suspect somebody, somewhere is watching me hang washing out, poised with their fingers on the rain switch. Every time I put anything on the line, the sky clouds-up like an alien invasion is happening. Or at least a Steven Spielberg alien invasion. Have you ever noticed how that always happens in his movies? The cloud thing?

While on the subject, it turns out Spielberg is working on a follow-up of sorts to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Its working title (which has changed several times) is “Disclosure”. The conspiracy theory nutcases are already claiming that the movie might feature a real UFO. Where do they even dream this stuff up from? Of course this is where I eat humble pie in 18 months time, when they let on that the little green guy with almond shaped eyes in “Paul” was real.

I loved the movie “Paul” (if you’ve not seen it, you’ve missed out – go see it!). I’ve never known a movie so lovingly and gently mock so many beliefs, faiths, conspiracy theories, history books, and movies in the space of an hour and a half.

The Agent Zoil joke still makes me eye-roll now.

Oh – before I forget – we watched “Margin Call” last night – a thriller loosely based on the sub-prime banking disaster of the late 2000s. I had not heard of it before it started turning up in various internet feeds in recent days. It stars Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, and more. It was like watching a car-crash unfolding in slow motion, with the best character actors imaginable.

(several minutes pass while a succession of phone calls happen)

I had been planning to get take-away for everybody, but half the household have organised pizza for themselves from the supermarket already. Their loss, I suppose.

Tomorrow morning I’m setting off bright and early into the city to meet a friend that’s visiting from America for a few days. It’s going to be fun. I imagine jet lag will have hit them like a truck by tomorrow. I won’t laugh, honest.

My god. I just read back through this head-emptying deluge. I’ve never seen so many changes of subject in a blog post. Maybe this is what I should have been doing all along – just spurting out random subjects like Trump does – changing direction mid-sentence. Maybe I should practice the accordion hand-movements too? It always amuses me – as soon as you see the hands start moving, you know the top-tier made-up stuff is coming.

Moment of the week – catching a clip of Jimmy Carr doing stand-up in front of a US audience, where somebody asked him which is more woke – the US or UK. He paused for a moment, and asked if they had seen the new show starring the guy that used to be on “The Apprentice”… it’s a pretty popular show – it’s called “The News”…

Escape has become a theme recently. Escape from obligation, escape from expectation… escape from lots of things. It’s a temporary escape, but sometimes needed.

This morning you find me holed up in a corner of Wetherspoons – escaping from the world for an hour. I’ve just made a “small American breakfast” disappear, and am about to re-fill the cappuccino next to my phone.

Escape has become a theme recently. Escape from obligation, escape from expectation… escape from lots of things. It’s a temporary escape, but sometimes needed.

I’m writing this on Thursday morning, and it feels like the first proper “day off” of the staycation so far. That said, I still managed to have a shower, shave, and put two loads of washing through the machine before leaving the house this morning.

I should perhaps volunteer that I did battle with an enormous spider that had taken up residence in the dirty washing overnight. I think it ran across the bed last night – much to my other half’s amusement. I thought I saw it from the corner of my eye, but couldn’t find it after sitting bolt upright in bed. By “did battle”, I of course mean that I tipped the washing out, and then pulled each piece of clothing away one at a time until the spider presented itself – underneath the final shirt. It made a run for a clothes hangar on the corner of the bed – it’s probably still there. I’ll drop it out of the window later today – it can go terrorise the garden.

Thinking about the “things we do” on a typical day, I wonder what constitutes the minimum, before doing as little as possible becomes socially unacceptable? If I don’t have a shave and shower on a morning, I don’t feel awake. I would probably smell pretty bad too.

After leaving here, I’ll drop into the supermarket and buy enough coffee to keep the entire town awake for a few months – or myself for a day or two.

I’m not very good at escaping. Even while escaping, I’m thinking of things to do not just when I return, but on my way back. There’s always something to get, something to fix, something to fetch, something to take, something to do.

I wonder if Tibetan monks have a small army of helpers that scurry around doing everything while they sit cross-legged pretending to contemplate the universe?

Maybe I’ll take a step sideways, sit down, and actually try to read some blogs tomorrow, rather than relentlessly charge towards the next thing, and the next thing, and the next. I need to SLOW THE HELL DOWN.

After a dinner-table conversation last weekend, somehow I agreed to escort my eldest daughter to a nearby town with a ginormous shopping centre. I didn’t actually need anything, but thought it might be a fun day out, and we’ve not done anything together for a while – so the “everything must be fair” part of my brain kicked in.

We left the house a little after 9:30 this morning – wrapped in jumpers and coats to defeat some really quite impressive driving rain. The train left at 10am – almost like clockwork – and delivered us to our destination somewhat successfully. I say somewhat, because I automatically made my way to the train platform for London-bound trains mid-route. Thankfully my daughter realised and laughed at me.

I’ll blame the cold. Or getting old. Or being a bit of an idiot sometimes.

The next several hours were spent wandering around a huge shopping centre called “The Oracle”. As far as I am aware, there is no “oracle” in “The Oracle” – it’s just a load of big department stores, flogging their wares at you from every angle.

While wandering along, I remarked how absolutely potty it must make people feel that work in that environment all day, every day. Imagine the canned music – the succession of customers – the inevitable layers of middle management – the jobsworth floor staff…

I somehow came home with nothing. It wasn’t for want of trying. I made it to the gigantic Apple Store in “The Oracle”, and discovered it was just as frustrating and annoying as every other Apple Store – with an army of blue shirted lunatics that you must have a conversation with about the thing you want, rather than just grabbing the thing you want, and paying for it.

I swear – if Google or Amazon ever launch self-service brick-and-mortar stores, they will decimate Apple. Most people buying tech stuff know damn well what they want, and just want to get it – not talk about it, be up-sold on it, or anything else.

Deep breaths. Again.

My younger charge bought an eyebrow pencil (I’ve probably called it the wrong thing), some bath bombs, some socks, and a few other bits and pieces. I treated us to sushi at lunchtime.

While eating and chatting about this and that, I asked my daughter if she had seen the movie “Wicked Little Letters” yet – she had not. I started giggling to myself – recalling lines from the movie – and she asked what was so funny. I looked around, and thinking there was nobody nearby, recounted one of the most horrific sweary lines from the movie. Moments later we got up, and I discovered there had been a girl sitting DIRECTLY behind me as I quoted the horrific line. I thought I might die. Oh how I wished the world could have opened up and swallowed my whole.

While leaving, I glanced over, and realised the girl was wearing headphones. She hadn’t heard a thing.

You have never seen a middle-aged-man look so relieved in your entire life.

Before coming home we re-visited the shopping mall, and I wandered into a huge record store. I ALMOST bought several vinyl records for the record player. I’m not sure why I didn’t in the end. I guess part of it is down to our house being so chaotic at the moment. There’s typically seven of us around of an evening – which makes finding any quiet corner pretty much impossible – let alone getting the lounge to yourself to listen to some music.

In consolation, I bought a huge bag of peanut M&Ms on the way home, and followed the labelling on the bag – to share them. I ended up giving the second half of the bag to my daughter, then wondered where on earth she had put them all when she handed me the wrapper a few minutes later.

Anyway.

Somehow five of my nine days off work have already gone. How has that even happened? I’m going to slow things down tomorrow – on purpose. Probably go out for breakfast, get some chores done, and try to tidy the house up a bit. I also need to figure out what I’m going to do with the blog. Alongside the whole cross-posting escapade (which will continue), I’ve been tinkering with Ghost (an alternative to WordPress, Tumblr, and Substack) – spectacularly unsuccessfully so far. Their own techs have singularly failed to setup a domain name – for reasons unknown at this point. I’m not sure I even care any more.

Maybe I’ll take a step sideways, sit down, and actually try to read some blogs tomorrow, rather than relentlessly charge towards the next thing, and the next thing, and the next. I need to SLOW THE HELL DOWN.

And so here we are. We survived a day in the city together. London is always exciting to arrive in – as is any big city, I imagine – but it’s also nice to leave it behind too.

After escaping the house a little after 9am this morning, we made our way to the local railway station, collected tickets, and jumped on the first post rush-hour train towards London. By “we”, I mean myself, my better half, and our middle daughter – who had been longing to visit the city for some time – to visit the huge LEGO store in Leicester Square.

The journey towards Paddington was remarkably quiet – I can’t remember the last time I travelled into the city when not commuting, or fighting the weekend crowds.

From Paddington we descended beneath the city, and hurtled via the Elizabeth line towards the centre – avoiding the rest of the network which had been brought to its knees by yet another strike.

We emerged near Hamleys – the famous toy-shop. I had no idea we were going there before turning the corner towards it, so followed everybody else and tried to look enthusiastic – challenging with a cough, and horrific cold.

I half watched the demonstrations of toys on the various floors – given by a small army of manic teenagers that left me feeling slightly uneasy. Surely normal people aren’t that perpetually happy? Do they have a “Barbie from Toy Story” moment when the public leave – dropping their face, and cursing streams of naughty words to let off steam?

After Hamleys, we set off towards Leicester Square and some lunch. After rounding the statue of William Shakespeare, we found a pub of the same chain my daughter works for tucked away in a corner, and made good use of her discount.

On the way I passed a fifty-something American female tourist audibly criticising everybody passing her in the street. Given that I already felt a bit rubbish, and therefore had a pretty short bullshit fuse, I seriously considered stopping and challenging her her – wondering if she actually realised that other people could hear her toxic commentary?

I’m not sure what I might have said. It wouldn’t have been kind, so it’s perhaps best that I kept my mouth shut.

Finally – after eating ourselves to a standstill in a quite wonderful little pub (must remember it next time!), we set off to the entire point of the day (or the entire point of the day for our middle daughter) – the LEGO store.

Visiting the LEGO store was SUCH a different experience during the week, on a school week. I didn’t buy anything, but I wandered around and reminisced about my own childhood. I kind of wish they would release the early 1980s “Space LEGO” kits that I grew up with. I could re-live my youth.

My middle daughter bought a frightening amount of LEGO kits. She’s working now, and earning almost entirely expendable income. She used it, and then some. She bought so much, they pulled in managers to give her extra freebies at the checkout – among them a signed poster of the biggest kit she bought – signed by the designers of the kit in Denmark. I felt so happy for her – the people in the store all stopped for a moment to “Ooooh” as the scene unfolded.

I’ve known Apple stores enact the “be awesome” clause from time to time, but never the LEGO store. It made me smile.

Talking of Apple, after leaving the LEGO store we set off for Covent Garden. My other half wanted to take a look at the Moomin store – that she didn’t get to visit last Christmas because of the crowds. While she wandered around the Covent Garden market stalls, I sloped off to the Apple Store.

I’ve not been in an Apple Store for years. I was quite shocked. I imagine most people that set foot in Apple Stores know exactly what they’re going in there for – so WHY do you have to have a conversation with one of the blue shirted lunatics about it? I would have bought a folding keyboard for my iPad – if I could have picked one up and taken it to the checkout. But no. That’s not how it works. You have to talk to some idiot about it, then they go and get one for you, and then they process the payment with you in the middle of the store. I get it. It’s probably to stop stuff getting stolen – but it’s one step away from grocery stores 100 years ago. I thought the world had moved on.

Also – something else that makes no sense – Apple only make about twenty things – so then WHY have twenty of each thing on display? What is the point of letting people play with an array of devices that only really show any benefit once you’re logged into them, with your own information, accounts, and applications installed? It’s plain stupid.

Sorry. I’ve descended into foaming invective, haven’t I.

After finding my other half at the Moomin store, we wandered back towards a station – and stopped at a nice looking outdoor cafe in the sunshine. While waiting for the glacial table service to take and deliver our order, I found myself people-watching London happening around us.

I wondered if a pretty, anxious lady with dark hair standing outside The Ivy had been stood up by a date – before the best smile spread across her face, and she waved to a similar aged woman walking towards her through the crowds. Their embrace and toothy grins made the world suddenly a little less awful.

A group of women a couple of tables away from us made me smile for entirely different reasons. When I worked in London years ago, I would often go for a walk at lunchtime, and would sometimes stray towards “The City” – the financial district. It was pretty obvious that sexist hiring ruled back then – with cover-model girls walking into and out of the big banks and insurance companies. The group of girls sitting across from us were straight out of that mould – plaid skirts, perfect makeup, and perfect hair.

We finally left the cafe, and set off towards home – cramming ourselves onto another Elizabeth Line train. I stood for perhaps the first half hour, then as people departed the train along the way, we all found seats. While standing, I found myself exchanging glances with a young woman a little further along the train – who similarly found herself hanging from the roof railings. We both seemingly fell victim to not being rude, pushy, or thoughtless – traits which seem to afflict an awful lot of people in the city. I lost count during the day of the times I found myself separated from my family after being pushed out of the way while walking along busy footpaths, or through busy stores.

While walking towards our house from the railway station I felt sorry for my daughter – struggling with the LEGO she had bought – and didn’t even ask before taking the bags from her hands. She might play rugby, and go to the gym, and a hundred other things, but sometimes the superhuman strength of a Dad is needed. I didn’t let on how much the bags hurt my hands while walking the rest of the way home.

And so here we are. We survived a day in the city together. London is always exciting to arrive in – as is any big city, I imagine – but it’s also nice to leave it behind too.

After watching the inexorable march of Substack towards the same commercially driven hellscape as countless platforms before it, I’ve been scouting around for alternatives.

Once I started looking, I quickly discovered a quiet exodus of similarly minded writers going on right under my nose. A small army of similarly fed up writers in search of somewhere less obviously commercial to land their words and stories.

The consensus seemed to centre around a collection of known quantities – WordPress, Tumblr, and Ghost – so I started tinkering to see how difficult it might be to join the exodus.

Don’t get me wrong – Substack is very good at what it does – offering an easy means to sending out an email newsletter, and a straightforward way to monetise it – which is wonderful if you have a newsletter filled with marketable content.

A personal blog – a diary, or journal – isn’t really marketable – no matter how you spin it. Sure, during the height of the blogging boom in the late 2000s we saw the likes of Belle de Jour, Dooce, and Petite Anglaise get book and TV deals – but they didn’t sell their original blogs. The wonderful thing about blogs was always their accessibility and availability.

On a side-note, I was stunned to read recently that Belle de Jour (the basis for the TV show starring Billie Piper) may not have actually happened. I’m guessing in the excitement of discovering years ago that a research scientist was operating as a sex worker on the side and writing a tell-all blog about her adventures, nobody bothered to find out if her journaled adventures were actually true – there was probably too much money to be made furthering the story and reporting it. Eyeballs. Clicks. Traffic.

So.

For the moment, I am cross-posting to Substack, WordPress, and Tumblr. Ghost will happen soon enough too – giving those that want to read a selection of places they might find my words. It’s then up to each reader to choose the place that best fits their preferences in terms of subscribing, following, or whatever it is you might do at each place.

Here’s where the words will live:

• Substack – https://recursivewords.substack.com

• WordPress – https://recursivewords.blog

• Tumblr – https://recursive-words.tumblr.com

• Ghost – watch this space

Once Ghost is up and running – a properly independent blog, not running on somebody else’s platform – I’ll migrate the existing email subscriptions over – until them, feel free to go explore. I’m not going all-in with WordPress, because I suspect Automattic’s court fight with WP Engine could end up destroying them. We’ll see.

In a few months time I’ll share the experience of each space. It will be interesting to find out how readers at the different platforms interact – how discovery happens – how connections happen.

In the meantime, I’ll just try to keep writing. Keep sharing.

I’ve also been experimenting recently with a wonderful app called “Day One” – that has encouraged me to write more often, even if I don’t share everything I record within it. I’m using it right now – writing this. It’s been a good experience so far – encouraging me to empty my head – to unburden myself of at least a little of the crazy load.

If you’ve not heard of it, perhaps go take a look.

What the hell happened to being genuine, thoughtful, honest, or empathetic?

In the midst of feeling pretty depleted last night, a wonderful friend reminded me that I have nine days to make my own stretched out in front of me. Nine days to recharge.

Except of course the nine days are already being taken from me. “Can you just”…

Deep breaths.

I’m sitting in Spoons while writing this. It’s remarkably dead this morning. The clock is ticking towards 10am, and the floor is a sea of empty tables. I half hoped my eldest daughter might join me, but there’s no sign of her yet.

A grown man just walked past in full “toddler” apparel. This fashion trend hadn’t occurred to me until Jimmy Carr called it out during a stand-up routine. Seriously… short trousers, an enormous hoodie, and a beanie hat.

Change of subject.

Something has been picking away at me for a while – probably a subject for an entire blog post at some point. Why is it that young American men have to try and be the wise-guy all the time? Any time they post anything online they have to try and be funny – any time they comment they have to try to be snarky. Why? What the hell happened to being genuine, thoughtful, honest, or empathetic?

I don’t get it. I really don’t. It’s right up there with mansplaining. Why do so many people feel the need to explain to others what they are seeing, reading, or hearing? By definition, if I’m seeing your comment, I saw, read, or listened to the same thing you did… How myopic can you be?

Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy comes to mind – I’m guessing a huge swathe of the world’s population have no idea he was aimed directly at them. “That’s funny because…”, “The thing they did there was…”, “They totally just…” … we know. We watched it, read it, or listened to it. We know.

It’s all so exhausting.

Anyway.

The morning is disappearing in front of me. I promised my other half some nice croissants from the store. Wish me luck in finding them.

While brushing my teeth a few days ago, it occurred to me that I haven’t been sick for quite some time. Months. Not since this time last year, when I ended up at the doctors for perhaps the third time in twenty five years, and ended up being prescribed alarming quantities of steroids.

Somebody, somewhere was obviously listening to my thoughts, and began grinning – because within twenty four hours by body had started to go down-hill. By yesterday evening I could feel the fog, the aches, and the detachment sweeping through me.

Deciding that I was having none of it, I found a bottle of “First Defence” in the kitchen cupboard – a nasal spray that was probably distilled from Smaug’s tears in the depths of Mount Doom. I sprayed far more than I probably should have into the depths of my head, and wretched as it found every dark, snotty corner possible to terrorise.

Shortly afterwards I reverted from a somewhat healthy diet, to the “give my body as much energy as possible” alternative – strawberry jam on toast, and hot chocolate.

By this morning my body appeared to have done all the burning up it was going to do, and left all manner of aches and pains for me to put up with. Feeling suitably like a car crash survivor as I stepped from the shower, I considered not shaving, but then the weight of expectation and obligation swept over me. If I was going to have to sit through meetings for work, I would at least look somewhat presentable.

After squirting more of Smaug’s toxic spit up my nose, wretching some more, and taking some flu tablets, I started the day as per normal.

The tablets actually worked. Or rather, the tablets succeeded in dulling enough of my senses that I didn’t think there was much wrong with me for a few hours. Granted, they also made me deaf as a post, but I wasn’t going to start complaining.

I dread the thought of looking back at the code I wrote while doped up to my eyeballs.

Half-way through the day I escaped to the corner shop to acquire sport drinks and chocolate biscuits. Fighting the virus with colossal quantities of sugar seems to be working so far – giving my body sufficient fuel to either win, or become diabetic. I’m hoping the former.

We’ll see how I’m doing when I wake up tomorrow morning. There’s only so much rubbish you can eat before your skin breaks out like a teenager, or your ass grows to the size of Jupiter.

While taking a break from work this morning, I wandered into the kitchen and decided that the clothes rack had been standing in everybody’s way for quite long enough. While folding the clothes from the rack onto the dining room table, and putting various other things away (my daughters are experts at getting things out), I also started making myself a cup of coffee.

I put the coffee pod in the machine, filled the water reservoir, and pressed the start button. It takes a little while before it starts making coffee, so I carried on folding clothes.

A few moments my youngest daughter – who was busy making breakfast, and getting things out to not put away – asked why there was coffee everywhere.

I had forgotten to put a cup under the spout of the coffee machine. It had poured a lovely cup of perfectly brewed coffee all over the work-top – filling it’s own drip tray, and then inventing a coffee shaped puddle strangely reminiscent of the African continent on the work-top.

I started swearing. Quite a lot.

A minute, and half a roll of kitchen paper later, the coffee was cleaned up, and the machine was tasked with making another cup – with a cup for it to land in this time.

I’m SUCH an idiot sometimes.

The rest of the day has been mercifully less accident prone – progressing some programming for work, and now taking a lunch break. I usually listen to BBC Radio 2, but can’t stand their current affairs programmes – they should all be re-titled “The programme where we invite bigots to call in and complain about anything and everything”. I really don’t like negativity. I have to deal with it enough in real life, without the radio throwing it at me too. I’ve switched to Magic Radio for a bit – they play a mix of 80s and 90s music throughout the day.

Ronan Keating is singing “When You Say Nothing At All”. I think he hosts a show on Magic Radio – he used to be on the breakfast show. Whenever I think of Ronan, I think about his duet with Kate Rusby – “All Over Again” – you can find it on Youtube if you dig deep enough. Whenever I hear it, I think about an old friend. It’s funny how music ties us to memories, people, and places, isn’t it.

Anyway.

I better get on. Two and a half days left until a week off. I fear it’s going to rain cats and dogs next week. Never mind. I’m sure it will be warm and dry at Wetherspoons…

A few days ago while walking home from town the cogs at the back of my brain started turning. I’m not entirely sure why they started turning, but they did, and I wrote down what was turning over and over, which was lucky really, because moments later the universe landed a size twenty eight foot on me.

As I finished writing the thought down – while approaching a narrow footpath that leads towards home from the town centre – a teenager on an electric scooter (which are illegal here), shot out from the footpath doing perhaps 25 miles per hour. His shoulder missed mine by inches. In the moments that followed, I wondered what would have happened if he had hit me. Given that I was perhaps twice as heavy as him, and I had a moment to react, I can only imagine the tangled mess he would have ended up in as he catapulted away from me.

Upon arriving home, after an hour eating breakfast on my own, my entire weekend got tipped upside down and shaken vigorously. In order for my youngest daughter to eject furniture from her room (a long story for another day), and in order to avoid throwing said furniture away, I re-arranged the junk room – the room I spend most days working from. While it sounds simple, it was anything but – because it involved moving floor to ceiling book-cases – which had to be emptied and re-filled in turn. By Sunday afternoon, and after several trips to the rubbish dump, the main part of the job was complete.

We then went out yesterday evening with friends – a trip out to the pub together for a meal. As the night wore on the usual affirmations were made about “doing this more often”. I smiled and said nothing, having cancelled my day off plans twice in three days for others. How anybody thinks anybody else can plan anything at all is beyond me. Or maybe it’s just me that gets thrown under every bus at every opportunity?

Anyway.

I remembered today that I had written something down to write a blog post about – and tried to remember why it had seemed like such a big thing at the time. Alas, much of that has gone, but it’s still a good subject, so I’m going to throw it out there anyway.

If you have children, at what age did they stop holding your hand? My daughters all went through a phase of me apparently ruining their street cred pretty horribly – for several years (and let’s face it, they’re not wrong) – before slowly returning. While walking through London a little while ago, in a busy crowd, my eldest daughter – 25 this year – reached out and grabbed my hand for the first time in ages.

That thought percolated – as thoughts tend to – and turned into a second thought. At what age do children figure out that their parents are not all-seeing, all-knowing super-beings? At what age do they figure out that everybody’s making it up as they go along?

Sure, some of us are better at making it up than others, but we’re all faking it really, aren’t we?

I discovered this morning that I can’t listen to a podcast and write at the same time – I end gazing into space and listening rather than writing anything. My multi-tasking abilities are that bad.

It’s been a week. A relentless week. A relentless few weeks. Months actually. I can’t really share any of the reasons why either – I try to keep a line between “me the professional software developer”, and “me the blogger, husband, YouTuber, writers, runner, tidy-upper, washer-upper, and general solver of whatever needs solving next”.

Escaping for an hour on a Saturday morning to the big Wetherspoons in town has become an unexpected ritual. I didn’t get here early enough this morning to bag a booth, so I’m perched on a small table near the coffee machines – close enough that I can grab a coffee without somebody stealing everything I own.

I cleared the time off with work yesterday to visit my parents next month. I’ll jump on the train – it’s a long journey – and am crossing my fingers that travelling on week-days in term time (I’ve booked a Friday and Monday off) means the train will be quiet.

I have the week after next booked off work. A staycation of sorts. There are tentative plans to visit London – the LEGO store in Leicester Square with my other half and middle daughter.

Changing subject entirely, I had the strangest dream last night – about a couple I know that live in the US now – but used to live over here. We met through blogging, and went out for days out several times before they moved away. In the dream a movie had been made of their life – she was being played by Scarlett Johansson. None of it made any sense, but I clearly remember a conversation with her – about how Scarlett had captured her so well.

Weird.

Right. The pub is getting busier by the minute. A table full of men of a certain age – probably owners of companies, given their demeanour – that obviously meet up for breakfast together each week just descended on the table opposite me. I need to get out of dodge.

I’ll try and write more later.