My brother's ordeal, and one eternity to go

Today I sold Julie's Nissan Micra that she bought new in early 2009. It's a classic grannymobile. I don't know what colour you'd call it. Peach? Shocking pink? I felt ever so slightly silly as I drove it to the car yard. At first they would only offer $6000 - it needs some work on two panels and the colour could be a turn-off - but when they came up a thousand Julie eventually accepted on the phone. It'll be interesting to see what price they put on it at the yard. I wouldn't be surprised if it's ten or eleven grand. Julie's just found out that she might be moving from her Newtown rest home to a retirement village up in Napier next weekend. She doesn't think she can drive anymore, with her arthritis and neuropathy, so she was desperate to offload the car. This whole Napier thing has come out of the blue after a conversation Julie had with her niece. If it does happen, I won't be too disappointed that she's moved away, but I probably will go and see her. Any excuse to get in the car and well away from here.

I phoned my parents last night. They'd just got back from three days in London. They saw two shows and visited the Maritime Museum (which has changed a lot since I went there when I was 16) and a lot else besides. Today they depart from Newcastle on a two-week Nordic cruise. Where all this appetite for cruising has come from I have no idea. Maybe appetite is the word: you can stuff yourself silly if you want to.

This weekend my brother - a reservist in the British army - is embarking on a two-week SAS selection exercise in the Brecon Beacons. I have a hard time even thinking about what he'll be going through in the coming fortnight. Three people died from dehydration in last year's exercise - it was all over the news in the UK. With just a map and compass, you really are on your own there. I guess that's the whole point. But some of the soldiers involved, like my brother, have survived combat in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. That they should put their lives at serious jeopardy in a training exercise just seems so wrong. I'll be keeping a close eye on the weather forecast.

Kevin knows the date I want him out by (well actually he doesn't, because that date has long gone). But he knows the date I told him, and assuming he's gone by then, I'm now half-way to having this place to myself again. It already feels like an eternity, so I've just got one eternity to go. At work yesterday I was doing a fairly menial task, but it was strangely therapeutic too, and the last thing I wanted was to come home to 24/7 Kevin and nonstop TV.

On FiveThirtyEight they were trying to get a measure of the off-the-mapness of Germany's 7-1 win over Brazil, largely by comparing it with famous blowouts in American football. But they missed one crucial fact: gridiron isn't on the global sporting map to begin with. No result in that sport, however shocking, can reasonably compare. You can say the same about rugby, although the All Blacks are a global icon, and if they were beaten 70-10 by Australia in a World Cup semi-final (heaven forbid), that would send out some pretty big shock waves. Only two sporting events in my memory come anywhere near Germany–Brazil. The first was Michael Johnson's 19.32 in Atlanta, when he obliterated his own world record and the rest of the field. That second 100 metres was stupidly fast. The other one that sticks out is Isner–Mahut. Not the same sort of achievement of course, but tennis is a global sport, and that match even overshadowed the last football World Cup, as well as the Queen's visit to Wimbledon, while it was happening.

Had Holland won that shoot-out against Argentina, their passage to the final would have been unsatisfactory (a dodgy late penalty to beat Mexico, followed by two consecutive wins on penalties). With Argentina getting through, I know the result I want on Monday morning: a convincing win for Germany, or failing that, any win for Germany. Before the final we've got the third-place game, which has a bit more meaning (and intrigue) this time than it normally does.

My boss, and some World Cup crackers

It was good to go on a training course last Monday and Tuesday, because it meant I was busy. The main thing I learnt was how much there is to learn. The program we use has capabilities that seem almost endless.
My boss is one of those people who sends emails at 2:46 am, complains (boasts?) that he didn't get to bed till four, chain-drinks coffee all day, and always has several dozen urgent unread emails on his phone. I'm not impressed, nor am I particularly sympathetic. There are other people in the office, including me, who are willing to help him, but other people are all muppets. He's a smart guy, but he's deluded about his own importance and that of his work. (As I wrote last year, perhaps a certain level of delusion is healthy.)

Yesterday I took Julie to have a look at some apartments. She needs to get out of that rest home in Newtown that she's in now. It's a pretty awful place and it has a rather creepy black Siamese cat called Speep, which isn't a very nice name. After looking at the apartments, which I don't think Julie was interested in, we had a coffee. Two songs from my favourite album came on in quick succession, one on my car radio and one in the café, but Julie talked all the time, dammit, about this or that person who said this or that. I told Julie that rehashing all of that isn't helping anyone.

The World Cup kicked off on Friday amid plenty of negativity and cynicism. Brazil won the opening game, but were given a helping hand by the man in the middle, succinctly dubbed Referinho after the game. It wasn't a good look. I saw the FIFA "fair play" flag and thought, yeah right. But since then we've been treated to some remarkably open and exciting football, with goals coming at the breathless rate of 3½ a game. Half the teams have now played their first match, and all but two of them (Cameroon and Greece) have scored. Unusually every game has had a winner, and even more unusually, half those eight winners came back from a goal down. I've watched three games so far. Holland's 5-1 win over defending champions Spain was a joy to watch, not that I've got anything against the Spanish. Towards the end I was willing Robben, who seemed to be everywhere on the pitch, to add even more goals. Costa Rica sprung a surprise with their well-deserved 3-1 win over Uruguay this morning. Then, in the same group, England lost 2-1 to Italy despite (I thought) playing pretty well in an excellent game. The Costa Rica result doesn't help England's task in getting out of their group; they may well have to win their next two games. Kevin watched part of the England–Italy game; he regaled me with tales of his exploits on the football pitch - this surprised me because I find it hard to imagine him doing anything remotely sporty. I must say I really like the "vanishing spray" the referee uses for free kicks. It keeps the defensive wall the required ten yards from the ball, and stops the attacking side from stealing ground. A very simple and effective innovation.

It'll be interesting to see the teams from the bottom half of the draw over the next three days. Bosnia anyone? How about Iran (who, I seem to remember, beat the USA one time)? In fact I just saw this on Wikipedia about that match in 1998:

They crushed the united states in a stunning second goal, ending the tyrant rain with 2-1 loss. The Iran vs US game was predicted by Max Lowsen II (First King of Camelot) as being the "Da Best Goal". Er, what?

Last night I spoke to my parents. It was Mum's 65th birthday. They seem to be enjoying themselves; they're going to France on Tuesday.

The simple things...

May - the Month of the Persimmon - is over, which means it's four months since Kevin arrived. I've eaten more of the sweet orange fruit in the last month than ever before. In fact I'd never had one before I moved to NZ. I cut them into four and usually (but not always) scoop them out with a spoon. Before coming to NZ I'd imagined "persimmon" was pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, but here they put the accent on the first.

Yesterday was the first day of winter, but you wouldn't have known it. What an absolutely stunning day it was. I didn't need anybody else to be able to appreciate it. This is what the beach at Seatoun looked like:

When I was in a café at Seatoun I saw an article in the paper about the popularity of retro technology with young people. Cassettes, typewriters, Polaroid cameras... fair enough, they've all been replaced by something (I guess) better. You can get digital Polaroids now. But wristwatches? Seriously? The clock on your mobile phone isn't an adequate replacement in my view.

For some reason that article made me think of teletext. It's well and truly been supplanted by the internet, but it was cutting-edge in its day and very convenient. There was none of the double screening that people resort to now. The BBC's version of teletext was called Ceefax and started way back in the mid-seventies, though its heyday was the eighties and nineties. I still remember some of the page numbers now - football was 302 and it was update minute-by-minute during games; the exchange rates were on 241, Mum's favourite page. The 400s were the weather pages, famous for the pixellated Lego-like maps. There were even games you could play, one of which was called Bamboozle. Sometimes a "page" was in fact many pages, and I'd have a knack for getting page 17 out of 21, when I really needed page 16, which meant I'd have to wait maybe ten minutes for it roll all the way back round. But back then I usually had a spare ten minutes. My grandma got a teletext-enabled TV long before we did (we were always a long way behind with technology) and for my eighth birthday she arranged a "happy birthday" message to be displayed for me on Oracle, ITV's teletext service. I miss teletext - there was something comforting about it (there was a real person on the other end), and it's a reminder of a simpler time. It went for good in late 2012, at the final switchover to digital TV.

As I said, yesterday was such a nice day that I didn't want it spoiled by any people, but as promised I saw Julie at her rest home. She did her best to spoil the day and make sure I absolutely never ever see her again, but I said I'd try and find some serviced apartments for her to move to, and that improved matters. She needs to get out of that place fast.

With it being a holiday, the autism group didn't run today. Instead they ran a games afternoon. We played Upwords and Bananagrams and other similar games - more up my street than some of the stuff I've been playing lately.

Learning curve

The new job isn't bad. The possibility that I might achieve something there, at some point, does exist. On Wednesday (day two) I attended a project management meeting that I didn't understand at all, then went on a manhole tour in the afternoon. I'll be entering all sorts of manhole and pipe data into the various systems, and I'll need to know how the symbols on the screen relate to the real world, so the excursion was pretty useful. I'm also becoming acquainted with GIS (that's geographic information systems) which I last dealt with in 2003. Two months ago I never would have imagined I'd be dealing with Wellington's drainage networks, but here I am. It'll be a steep learning curve for me, and the biggest challenge (as always) will be fitting in. My boss, who's an Aussie with an American-sounding name, seems a bit full of himself.

I got a surprise call from Julie on my birthday. She was very civil. I popped over to see her yesterday at her rest home in Newtown and we went out for a coffee. Mentally she's in better shape than a few months ago when things got out of hand and I sent that letter. She plans to move into her own place, for fear of being institutionalised as much as anything. I'll try and keep in touch but will have to tread carefully.

I saw Mr Peabody & Sherman on Friday (pre-2007, when I last had flatmates, I'd see movies by myself all the time). I only found out about the film by accident after using the internet Wayback Machine. It's well worth watching, even for adults, as long as you can handle the (deliberately) terrible puns. For kids it would be very educational. In the evening I met up with the anxiety group for the first time since January for a Mexican meal.

Last Monday the autism group didn't run because of Easter, so one of the facilitators (a swimming teacher) arranged a session at the pool in Tawa. I enjoyed it although she could have cut out some of the silly games - you know, we're not kids. Gah. I realised I'm not nearly as good a swimmer as I should be. She said she'd be happy to give me a lesson some time. There used to be a pool on my street. My cousin's two eldest boys learnt to swim there. But they knocked it down in 2008 to build a supermarket that still hasn't been built. As if we needed more supermarkets.

Squashed

Yesterday morning, out of the blue, I got a call from Julie. "I've finally found the strength to call you after you sent that awful letter." She called me selfish and cowardly, then said she never expected me to be so defensive when I tried to, um, defend myself against those accusations. There was nothing cowardly about the letter I sent - it was simply the only way I could get my message across without running into a wall of words. We weren't getting anywhere (it's hard to get anywhere with someone who's always right no matter what) and she hung up on me. I'll send her a Christmas card but that'll be about it. My lack of contact with Julie since I sent her that awful letter in early August hasn't done me any harm, and I doubt it's done her any harm either.

On Wednesday Martin texted me - it was "highly likely" he'd move into my flat. But when he came over yesterday he was less sure. C'mon man, make up your mind! I put up an ad at Pak 'n' Save last night and will put another on TradeMe. Yesterday we got chatting about board games. He wanted to play Scrabble which he'd (somehow) never played before. He tried to play a word diagonally, then backwards, then forwards but also making AV. You can't AV that! He settled on TEA. I put a T on the end of TEA, forming another word in the process, then he accused me of making TEAT up. Unlike the people I played at the library, who weren't that good at the game but still knew plenty of words, Martin didn't look like he'd read a lot of books in his time. I'm not making that judgement based on the words he put down (which were mostly short, but heck, he could have had really crappy letters for all I knew) but rather the fairly common words I put down that he doubted were real. Next time we might play chess, a game he's far more experienced in than me, and I expect I'll be the one making illegal diagonal moves.

I didn't go to the football (damn good game that it was) on Wednesday; instead I babysat for my cousin's two youngest boys. I felt bad when the football-goers got back at half-nine and I'd let the boys stay up and watch Back to the Future on DVD and play some computer game (Minecraft?). "You're still up?! Off to bed!" For some reason, sending them to bed never occurred to me. I also went over to my cousin's place last night. My aunt and uncle were there. It's always interesting talking to my uncle. He loves talking about money, to a level I find bordering on offensive. He's very proud of his kids (four daughters and one son) who have all done well for themselves, and why shouldn't he be? But all the specific figures, that he invited me to add and multiply, were a bit unnecessary. His son, who has a senior position in a successful business in Perth, got most of the attention last night. I got the latest update on the price of the shares he'd purchased at half a cent (they've now reached five cents) and was informed of all the money he'd made by part-owning and betting on horses. Nice if you can do it I guess.

Today I organised a squash meet-up at my apartment block. This was stressful for me - I have a hard time organising anything. The two women, who came together, got lost and were 45 minutes late. They're both really nice people, easy to get on with. As for the two blokes, I'd never met either of them before. One of them lived nearby and seemed nice enough, but I thought the other guy was really obnoxious - I felt very uncomfortable just being around him. So there were five of us, and the plan I had was that we all warm up briefly and then play each other in a series of short games, ending in a final between the two best players. Pretty simple I thought. But I quickly abandoned that idea as people didn't want the hassle of scoring points, then they got tired and bored and hot (it was pretty stuffy in there). All understandable, but I couldn't help thinking that if someone else was organising it, they would have gone along with the plan. I think I would have made the final under my planned system, only to get tonked 15-1 or something by that horrible bloke, who was rather good at squash. He had bulging muscles and played explosively, and could anticipate anything I threw at him in our mini-session. Being an arsehole and being good at sport so often go hand-in-hand. Even in those tennis tournaments I played when I was eleven, the nice kids were the ones I could beat.

On Friday a woman who works part-time in my team was told she wouldn't be required after Christmas. She went straight home in tears. Then our boss and a word with me and two others in my team, to say that we wouldn't be next.

Crashing the system

Julie rang me at work yesterday. I soon wished I hadn't picked up the phone. I sent her a letter last night, saying that I've had enough of all this depressing talk, going round and round in a cycle of negativity, and that it doesn't help either of us. I drove over to her place and put it in her letter box. There was no point talking on the phone, or in person, because she would just take over.

I attended a meeting yesterday on the 25th floor - some of my old colleagues from my previous role were there. I really really didn't want to know. At times I stared out the window - I could see the Basin, my flat, the old Hannah's shoe factory, and in the foreground a huge billboard ad for a bank - something about revolutions and leaders. Is there no escape from this bollocks? I did pick up a couple of things from the meeting. One, they might at some point be changing their crazy zigzag premium rates on some types of insurance. Two, it would be easy for any of us to completely crash the main system. It wouldn't be much more complicated than asking your calculator to compute a number that's too big to fit in the display. Only instead of just producing an error message, the whole system would die. The worry in the meeting was that the proposed changes could kill off the system without any direct human input at all.

There were some other things in that meeting, directly related to my role, that I didn't quite take in. I was at the meeting because they want me to take on new tasks, become more involved. Grow. Develop. I don't want any of those things. It's hard enough to keep track of the tasks I'm doing now. My head is all over the place as I have to shift my attention from task A to task B, then back to A again. Then to C, and so on, all in quick succession, and in a matter of minutes I've done a whole Genesis album. Put D and E in the mix and I won't be able to cope. And of course the last thing I want is any sort of career progression in the environment I work in. My old boss, who I still think of as my boss, is going for interviews at the moment. I can hardly bear the thought of those.

I think a lot of (most?) people at work don't really want to know any more than I do, but their aspirations motivate them to want to know. Some of the sales people, for instance, are really competitive, and that competitiveness (which goes beyond just wanting to make more money) drives them to increase sales. Being a salesman, especially when it comes to selling someone else's overpriced products/services/stuff, isn't something I've ever aspired to. Seeing who can sell the most stuff is, to me, like seeing who can fart the loudest. Both are talents, and both can be improved with practice, but I don't have any wish to excel at either of them.

I'm still enjoying Truth in Advertising. A lot of it rings true to me. He said he was quite happy renting, he liked the impermanence of it, but he bought a property anyway because that's what he was "supposed" to do. I've certainly been conditioned to buy rather than rent. "Whatever happens, the value of property never goes down," Dad told me several times. That wasn't far off the truth for most of the 20th century and the very early 21st, but with leaky homes and earthquake strengthening, getting involved in property now seems like a minefield.

To prove my point about car registrations in the UK, when I asked my brother how old his Audi is, he told me it was a P. No date, just a letter, which happens to mean 1996-97. It's a bit like rocks that you say are from the Cretaceous period instead of being however many millions of years old. That makes a lot of sense because millions of years are hard to fathom. By the way, it can be good to think of things like geological time when you're feeling depressed, because it makes other things (like whether you fit in with your work colleagues) seem insignificant.

My counsellor supports me in my plan to gradually reduce my dose of Efexor to zero.

Sudoku - a cure for chronic depression?

Last night I saw Julie at her flat. She was in her dressing gown. She talked and talked, replaying conversations she'd had with this or that person, expressing anger at things people had or hadn't said. As usual, she lost me in a sea of he-saids and she-saids. I'd interject occasionally with "mmm, that's right" or "that must be hard". Sometimes she said she was at rock bottom with nothing left to lose. A friend of hers in Raumati suggested she move into a nearby flat. Julie said that would only make things worse. I then told her she'd contradicted herself because she'd said things couldn't get any worse.

Julie is in a lot of mental and physical pain, but I'm sure things would be much better if she had a family. She's got an extended family of course, and a handful of friends, but none of that comes close to having your own children. (I'm guessing here because I haven't got kids, but I have got a mum, and I've got a bond with her that I don't think you can have with anyone else.) I think of my maternal grandmother who had seven children; she was always having family popping in and was always on the end of the phone.

Last night I noticed Julie had a Sudoku book on her shelf. I picked it up - there were no marks in it. I thought it might be a good way to stimulate her, but she was too busy replaying conversations to be interested. She asked me what she should do and say the next time a particular person came over. "What would you do?" I couldn't give her a satisfactory answer. Eventually, with the Sudoku book open at page one, I said, "what I'd do is put a one in this corner." She laughed, I explained the rules, and we finished one of the easier puzzles. She was in so much pain though (her medication was overdue) that I felt under a lot of pressure to finish it as quickly as possible. And what if it went wrong? I've never done such a stressful Sudoku in my life. In fact I hardly ever do Sudoku these days (I've never been that big a fan anyway) but last night's puzzle served quite a useful purpose I think.

I spent longer at Julie's than I'd planned and ended up getting a takeaway from Golden Sun. Three doors down from the takeaway is Evil Genius (have a look at their website), a shop selling vinyl, coffee and other stuff and I'm unsure of. It was still open, and according to their site it's open till four in the morning (ish), even on weekdays. How does that work? I mean, Berhampore isn't somewhere people "hang out". Where does the money come from to allow you to stay open 20½ hours a day? I'm glad it does work, or seems to. I had a good look in the window but I didn't dare go in: I felt too old, uncool and musically clueless.
Edit: it actually closes (normally) at 4pm, not the 4am I assumed. There happened to be a special event going on when I walked by.

The world's oldest man died yesterday at the age of 116, which (as I found out this week) is the height of my work building in metres. It's also nine-eleven upside down. Talking of numbers, I found this interesting post and video on Language Log (a language-related blog) about the extensive use of numbers in Chinese puns. Because there are so many homophones and near-homophones in Chinese languages, the word for five (say) sounds similar to a bunch of other words. In my time in France I remember seeing 109 (cent neuf) standing for the identically-pronounced sang neuf, meaning "new blood". You'd also see K7 standing for "cassette" (they're pronounced the same in French). And of course in English people use 2 and 4 all the time in their texts. But it seems the Chinese do this kind of thing on a different scale entirely.

I know I need to meet new people but doing so causes me a lot of stress. It's a real catch-22 for me.

Fog lifting?

I felt stressed for most of the weekend. It seemed impossible to switch off from everything going on in my head, which meant that everything I did, or tried to do, was shrouded in dense fog. I was busy all weekend - at least it felt that way - but I never felt like I did anything of significance. I went for a longish walk, went to the market, did my chores around the house, played around with a few phone apps (which I need to do as part of my "other job") and spent a fair while on the phone, but didn't talk face-to-face with anyone unless the market stallholders count. That's not an unusual weekend for me; when I return to work on a Monday and someone asks me what I did at the weekend I often end up saying "nothing special" or words to that effect.

At lunchtime today I saw my support worker (have I mentioned her?). Her main job is to help people look for and keep jobs, but when I see her I often drift into territory that lies outside work. Today it felt we were getting somewhere, and I think my fog cleared a little as a result.

I had to phone a few customers at work today. Considering how hard I find certain people-related situations it's funny how I don't mind calling customers, and sometimes even like it, except when they ask me something I don't know the answer to and I feel silly. Today I found myself in an interesting situation when a name I knew flashed up on my screen. I checked his notes and one of my colleagues had written "I spoke to him, he said he's autistic...". Yep, definitely the guy from the group. He'd applied for an automatic acceptance policy (no underwriting) and it's easy to see why: he's very overweight and with his past history of addictions he'd struggle to get cover otherwise. He'd be about five foot five in every direction and his trademark braces make him a very recognisable figure. Some of his comments on Monday nights make me wince ("when I feel down I fire up YouTube and listen to one of Hitler's speeches"). Eww. His view of the world lacks any shades of grey, and he can get worked up over issues to the point of being scary, but he's also highly intelligent and can be very friendly too. Anyway I was really supposed to ring him but I just couldn't. How could I pretend I didn't know him? What if someone listens to my call (which is recorded)? I saw his birthday was imminent so I sent him a text wishing him a happy birthday and, er, by the way, if you provide your payment details I'll put your policy in place. I found it interesting that he told my colleague he was autistic - he seems to identify strongly with the "brand".

Julie sounds like she's in a pretty bad way and I don't think I can do much to help. Our 45-minute phone conversation on Saturday (which was really her conversation) could have been summed up in seconds: "I'm in a lot of pain, I feel hopeless, and I don't want to live any more."

So Nadal did make it eight French Open titles and twelve grand slams in total. Quite remarkable really. Some of the results in the latter stages of the tournament (Tsonga beat Federer 3-0; Ferrer beat Tsonga 3-0; Nadal beat Ferrer 3-0) show the importance of match-ups in tennis.

Needed a break

I took a sick day today, my first in eight months. I'm not that sick, but for the last three days I've had a sore tummy with regular gas emissions from both ends. I've also been feeling stressed and have been struggling a bit with work, so with plenty of sick days up my sleeve I didn't feel too bad about taking the day off.

I managed to upset Julie in a fairly big way at the weekend. I was worried I might have cut all lines of communication with her but I invited myself to her flat this morning, and after phoning her from her doorstep, she let me in, still in her dressing gown. She did a lot of talking as always. As soon as I left she got another visitor.

Last Thursday night I played badminton with the anxiety group. It was the first time I'd played that since probably '96 or '97. It was good fun. We played games which were unnecessary really; most of us would have been happy just whacking the ball, or whatever you say in badminton. My backhand wasn't up to much, I sometimes missed the feathery object altogether (surely people don't call it a cock), but I did develop a good smash. I hope we do it again.

I met up with Phil twice over the weekend. He was down from Auckland to visit some relatives. We had some interesting discussion. He noted that the latest cost estimate of the Christchurch earthquakes - $40 billion - amounted to over $100,000 for every man, woman and child in the city. A staggering amount.

The tornado that ripped through Oklahoma with such destructive force has taken at least ninety lives, probably more. Sadly many of those in the path of the tornado were schoolchildren.

Feel-good factor

It's been a funny sort of weekend. My mood has run pretty much the whole gamut, which is unusual for me - I don't normally have much of a gamut. In my last year of university I'd sometimes wake up and feel I'd beat Agassi if we were to play in the final of Wimbledon. I don't mean thrash him - I'd have expected to go at least four sets - but I'd have still felt pretty good about the situation. That was a long time ago now, and I haven't felt like that since (nor did I ever feel like that in my earlier years at university).

I haven't been off the phone long. I talked to Julie for over an hour, or rather she talked to me. If you need your feel-good factor boosted, Julie isn't the best person for the job.

This morning I had walked to the top of Mt Victoria, down to Hataitai and back home through the tunnel. It was a fantastic day, and it's a great view from the summit of Mount Vic, seeing planes take off and land and boats out on the water. Being such a nice day there were heaps of other people wanting to do the same thing. I must make sure I go for a decent walk every weekend, pretty much rain or shine (the trips I go on with the tramping club don't happen all that often).

On Friday night I hardly slept so I didn't get up till ten yesterday. Ugh. I went to the market in the pouring rain, worked on my puzzles (that made me feel much better) and attended a meet-up group at the Ballroom (a pool hall on Courtenay Place). About a dozen showed up; we were quite a motley bunch. Also present, at the opposite end of the scale from our anxiety group, were a mob of rowdy beer-swilling 100-kilo-plus blokes, getting tanked up before watching the Warriors league game. After the pool, when I really felt like going home, we ate at a Mexican place on Cuba Street. I had a beef quesadilla. We sat at a table covered with marker-penned Spanish swearwords; I was surprised how many of them I recognised. After that we had a coffee at Espressoholic - that was probably my favourite part of the evening. I had an interesting chat with a woman who had emigrated from China two years ago.


At the back end of last week I struggled to concentrate at work. I also felt stupid because of the "mistakes" I made when entering data into what I think is an appallingly designed and totally counter-intuitive system. The best way I could describe the system would be to compare it to an online flight booking. Imagine you book a flight, you pay, you get one of those six-letter codes telling you that it's gone through fine, then you arrive at the airport and they won't let you on the plane because you entered your credit card expiry date with a dash instead of a slash. What really gets me is how some people find the system perfectly intuitive when I don't know if I'm Arthur or Martha. It's a recurring theme for me: ever since day one of my first job working for a large company, I've been trying to make sense of the nonsensical, and failing miserably.

I've signed up for another meet-up; on Thursday I'll be trying my hand at badminton. I don't think I've played since I was sixteen. I wasn't much good then (at least when they stopped me from serving overarm) and I don't expect to be any better this time, but it doesn't do you much harm to try these things.

Iron lady (and some others)

Margaret Thatcher has died. She was Prime Minister for all my early childhood. I was too young to have any real opinion of her; she was just someone I saw on the telly a lot. She certainly polarised people: some (like my grandmother) thought she was Britain's saviour; others demonised her. If I'd been old enough to know and care what she was doing, I don't think I'd have been a fan. Yes she did make Britain a better place for some. Our family were perhaps some of the lucky ones. In the mid-to-late eighties Dad's paintings were practically flying out the door.

One thing's for sure: the Iron Lady was clever. For the big announcement that the Channel Tunnel project would be going ahead, she was called upon to deliver a speech in French. The snag: she couldn't speak a word of the language. No problem, someone gave her a quick crash course at Downing Street just before she hopped across the Channel. When she came to make the speech, she still didn't know what she was saying (she was just making noises according to some pronunciation guide) but those noises somehow combined to produce passable French.

Last night we had a special "games night" at the autism group. Tracy brought along a selection of games; the one we played was a collaborative game (a good idea, and something I'd never tried before) in which the object was to rescue people from a burning house. It featured an octahedral dice - I'd always wanted to play a game involving dice with more (or fewer) than six sides. We "won" the game by the skin of our teeth. The "house" was single-storey; when we finished I said it was crying out for another floor or two. Tracy said you can purchase an extension that provides just that. I was really pleased with the way Danielle seemed to come into her own as we played - she got to grips with the rules faster than I did. That's what's so great about a board game - everyone gets to participate more or less equally. That's far from what happens when people just talk.

I saw Julie tonight as I usually do on a Tuesday. I haven't seen her express this level of complete and utter hopelessness before. The only potential bright spot is that she should be moving out of the rest home soon.

Bouncing back (I hope)

This week I've been feeling stressed, anxious, depressed, the lot. I can't quite put my finger on why. There might be several whys. Sometimes there doesn't have to be a why at all. It hasn't been much fun feeling hopelessly inadequate, not sleeping well (that's a problem I haven't had in ages), and being even more obsessive about the passing of time than I normally am. There's been a lot of news - the plane crash that killed the 2 Degrees boss and his wife; Jesse Ryder; North Korea; Nelson Mandela; the new Chinese leader; and the George Taiaroa murder (that was absolutely terrible), but I've been too introspective to pay much attention to it and I feel bad because of that.

My uncle - Mum's third brother who's 69 - has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He smoked up until a few years ago. He's lived in South Canterbury all his life and knows people from childhood. I've seen him on a fairly regular basis, most times I've gone down south, but I've never got to know him that well. I've never felt we've got much in common. He's quite a complex character I think. He's been married three times and has seemed quite bitter ever since his second wife pretty much took him to the cleaners. I guess we're all terminal, but this has happened so suddenly (the news I mean, not the cancer which has probably been around for some time) that it's a real shock to Mum's family. My uncle is a very private person and although I haven't named him and hardly anyone reads this blog anyway, he'd probably shoot me if he knew I'd written this paragraph.

On Tuesday I saw Julie at the rest home. The place is run by the Catholic church (she isn't a Catholic herself but most of the inmates are) and you get the impression they're nearly all waiting for God. I think you can become institutionalised, and subservient, very quickly in a place like that. Julie plans to move out of the home later this month, into a flat that someone has hooked up for her. I've lost track of the number of times she's moved. She had some extremely dark thoughts when I saw her. I don't expect her next move to lighten her mood but I'd like to be proven wrong.

I was on edge for the rest of the week. By Friday the constant foot traffic behind my desk (to access the nearby loos and canteen) was starting to get to me. That lunchtime I got my hair cut at the cheapest place I know of in town, a barber's with old furniture, run by an old man. I think he recognised me from my previous visits. He asked me what I wanted and I made a bad job of pretending to have some clue. Inevitably when I returned to work, some of my colleagues noticed my chop and wanted to know where I'd got it done. Oh god. Our local CEO has now moved on to bigger and better things within the company, and on Friday afternoon she had her send-off. Lots of anecdotes, lots of jokes, lots of supposedly funny pictures on Powerpoint slides, and lots of wanting to get the hell out of there.

Straight after work on Friday I went round to my cousin's place for an Indian takeaway and a couple of glasses of wine. I don't drink a lot and when I do it's nearly always either with my cousin (her husband doesn't drink) or by myself. My cousin's husband showed me their Kindle. It can store up to 3000 books, and in some ways is better than a book. For instance you can't increase or decrease the font size in a physical book. Don't know what "repudiate" means? Just click on it and it brings up a dictionary entry. It felt like science fiction somehow. (Mum has an e-reader too but I don't think it's as sophisticated. It does however come with a lot of classics already loaded.)

I've so far resisted the temptation to buy a smart phone. Actually that isn't quite true; I haven't needed or wanted one so I haven't bought one. But this puzzle stuff will soon make one a necessity. So what do I get? I know, I'll ask Tom from the autism group. He emailed me screeds of information about phones, and went into all kinds of technical detail that I didn't even try to understand. Apparently it's all about what version of Android you have (Tom says I shouldn't go down the iPhone route) and whether it has a single or dual core. You can even get quadruple cores. I wonder, can you also get Apples with multiple cores? That brings to mind this sketch from the one remaining Ronnie.

Tom came over yesterday. He brought half a roast chicken and helped me with some tech issues, but oh boy. I was feeling anxious anyway and he didn't help. He's got an inquiring mind, which is generally a good thing, but it means he asks lots of questions. Yesterday I could almost physically feel the impact of each one. I had to explain why I wanted to go to America, which was hard because I didn't really know why. At one point he wanted to know if I'd done any home improvements lately. Well not really. I mentioned the chairs that I did with Mum last weekend. I said the stair rail needed painting. He said, yes, it looks really grotty. Thanks. "I can tell you're not interested in doing renovation." Thanks. While I was sorting out lunch he looked at those chairs and picked them up and turned them over. "Why aren't the screws in fully?" They don't go in all the way. Look, you try. They did go in all the way, but there was some good reason why we hadn't fully tightened them which I could no longer remember. Out came his Swiss Army knife and he started tightening the screws. "This one is missing a screw." Yes I know, they came in packs of fifteen, I'll get another one.
I'd had more than enough of Tom by this stage. I asked him how he planned to spend the rest of the day. He got the hint.

As I was walking through Te Aro yesterday, post-Tom, I saw this game of bike polo going on. I'd heard of it, and even Segway polo, but never expected I'd see it in action.

Today I went tramping at Cannon Point. I'd done that trip before, six months ago. Only four of us went today - some people (including Danielle) were put off by the dodgy weather. It did rain a bit, but nowhere near enough to outweigh the benefits of getting out and about when you've been feeling like crap. Even driving there and back seemed to be of benefit, and I now feel like I'm bouncing back from my latest bout of depression. It wasn't a very long walk; it took in the reservoir lake which must have provided most of the Hutt's water supply in the past. On the walk somebody mentioned smart phones and I said I was looking to get one; it was suggested I get the Galaxy Rav 4 or something. Whatever, it was clearly expensive. When I said I didn't want to spend more than $300 I got comments like "but a smart phone is such a useful tool; unless you get a good one you won't appreciate how powerful it is." That's OK if you've got the money.

I heard Hello Old Friend by Eric Clapton on the radio on Friday night. It's just a lovely song, simple as that, and I've been playing it a lot this weekend. For some reason it reminds me of Richard (as it happens he was born the same year that the song came out). I miss Richard. So much is made of where we live, but if you've got friends nearby that hardly matters.

Side(burn) bets

After missing the session a fortnight ago I decided to attend tonight's autism group. I'm glad I did because we had some interesting discussion. I got lucky with the subgroup I ended up in.

On Saturday I went tramping. We ascended Mount Climie, which was a bit of a climbie, to an altitude of 840 metres. The autism group is starting to take over the tramping club: of the seven who did the walk, three of us attend the group (Danielle, Tom who has been to my flat a couple of times, and myself). We were blessed with good weather.

I saw Julie at her rest home on Saturday evening. It was the first time I'd seen her after her shoulder operation. She was in a lot of pain - more than before - and didn't think it would improve. It was sad to see her life reduced to an eight-foot-square "cell", especially as she's still got all her mental faculties. She talked about ending her life; it's hard to know how to respond to that. She was struggling to sleep so I gave her seven sleeping pills (they were prescribed to me years ago but I never took them). She's since taken them all - presumably one at a time - but it probably wasn't a clever idea for me to supply them to her.

This third test between NZ and England has been a great battle which the Kiwis have dominated. They ran the English bowlers ragged earlier today and then held two stunning catches just before stumps. NZ now need "just" six wickets in the final six hours of play tomorrow to secure a shock series win. I hope they do it (I suppose I should have mixed feelings about that, but I don't, probably because NZ were huge underdogs before the series started).
Update: What a match, and what an absorbing last three days. Forget the "tee twenty" crap, this was proper cricket. It was a shame the Kiwis couldn't quite finish England off but both sides performed admirably today. Just when the game appeared to be fizzling out into a slightly tame draw, Kane Williamson popped up with two quick wickets to create a grandstand finish. The NZ team go to England fairly soon - it's a shame they'll only play two tests over there. To me a proper test series needs to be three matches at a minimum. And they're playing the shorter formats after the tests - what's all that about?

Yesterday I saw my cousin and her husband (I attended their wedding three years ago) with their two daughters, the eldest two-and-a-bit, the youngest just six weeks old. They now live in Auckland having returned from an extended OE in London. The puzzle stuff has given me a chink of light on the horizon; that's probably why all that family stuff yesterday was just about bearable for me.

Mum is coming up here on Thursday. My sideburns have got even bushier since she last saw them. If I were a betting man (!) I'd put up odds of 3/1 that she mentions my sideburns within the first five minutes. I'm probably being generous with those odds. I'd give at least 8/1 that she doesn't mention them at all in the time she's here. I'm looking forward to seeing her though.

I spoke to my brother tonight. He's staying with Mum and Dad, just for one night, and will be off in the morning. Until last Christmas I'd never known him to have a sustained period of unhappiness. It's upsetting to see it now. He plans to fly back to the UK, permanently, at his earliest opportunity.

My first test

I've just spent a very pleasant day watching cricket at the Basin. I can see the attraction of live test cricket and I'm lucky to have it so close at hand. Let's face it, most of the time not much happens - today I saw just two wickets fall, five hours apart. On a day like today you can just sit (or lie) out in the sun and maybe read a book during the breaks in play. Or have a beer. Or six. Even though not a lot happens, you still have to be a little careful, because when something does happen it sort of matters (it's the opposite of Twenty20 where a lot can happen in a short space of time but none of it really matters). I'll put up some pictures hopefully in my next post.

New Zealand won the toss and put England into bat only to see the Poms reach 267 for two at stumps. Most of the time it didn't even look like a wicket was going to fall. The English batsmen - two of whom scored centuries - went about their business and didn't look under pressure. It'll be interesting to see how the match unfolds - my guess is that NZ will need the rain forecast on day four to save their bacon.

I had an early start as I had to pick Julie up at 6:30 to take her to her operation. My plane leaves at 8:30 tonight, and I doubt I'll get to my hotel much before eleven, so it'll be quite a long day for me. I plan to see Bazza in Papakura tomorrow - I phoned him last night.

In other news, Mum texted me to say we've got a new Pope. A 75-year-old from South America with only one lung.

My short work week was an alarmingly slow one - all this automation has seen our steady flow of tasks diminish to a trickle. I'm slightly worried. They've got a function tonight. It's for St Patrick's Day I think. I was lucky to have a legitimate excuse not to go.

Centenarian

Dave came down with a bout of flu so the Orongorongo tramp was unfortunately called off. I had a longish walk yesterday morning - 12 or 13 km around the waterfront to Hataitai and back - to make up for that. If I'm trying to do two jobs, it's vital that I maintain a decent level of physical fitness. I don't know if or when the tramp will happen now, which is a shame.

I saw Julie last night at the rest home in Berhampore. She's not happy there. It's a long time since she's been happy anywhere, but how could you be happy in a place like that? All the screaming and shouting and incontinence and staff who are paid next to nothing and are too busy to help you. Julie introduced me to a 102-year-old man and we shook hands. I'd never (knowingly) met anyone much over 90 before; seeing someone - especially a bloke - living and breathing in his second century blew me away. Remarkably he lived at home until a year ago. I struggled to make myself heard with the TV going in the background but he was still in possession of his marbles as far as I could tell.

The guy from the autism group came round again today. After a while I was wishing he would leave. I hope I didn't make that too obvious. His IT knowledge makes him a handy man to have around though. He looked at my setup, clearly thought I was living in the dark ages, and had a lot of fun installing or uninstalling this or that.

Back to work tomorrow. My desk is close to the toilets and canteen so I get a lot of foot traffic. This didn't bother me until the end of last week when for some reason it started to do my head in.

Putting it out there

We had another big turnout at tonight's autism meeting. Seventeen showed up including a stand-in facilitator from South Africa who did a good job I thought. We were split into two groups - the loud group and the one I was in. Being in the quiet group gave me the opportunity to talk more than usual; I talked frankly about my inability to form relationships and my desire to work for myself some day. I took the email address of a timid guy who's had as much success in relationships as me (albeit in less time); I'm hoping we can share some ideas. Tracy was there - she really hasn't been well lately. Her number one goal was to start a family. Another woman had a goal (or rather an un-goal) never to have kids. The South African woman said to me, "you seem to lead a pretty normal life" when I told her about my job and my flat. But that's exactly it. It might look normal but it sure as hell ain't.

I've been feeling a bit low the last couple of days. Yesterday was another beautiful day. I went to the waterfront market, bought lunch (a butter chicken wrap) and enough fruit to feed a small army (the stonefruit has been great this summer), then took a walk along Oriental Parade. They were taking the Hobbit frontage down from the Embassy with a giant crane. There were a lot of teenagers milling about by the waterfront, doing all the things I never did at that age, and that's often a trigger for a downswing in my mood. Bizarrely I'll sometimes feel better in bad weather because I won't see so many people out enjoying themselves to compare myself against. I slipped and slapped yesterday but neglected to slop - as a consequence my knees and ankles turned bright red.

I've just finished another book. This one was a true story about a group of MIT students who lived the high life for a couple of years by beating blackjack for millions of dollars. Word of their exploits gradually got around, they had to take more desperate measures (like wearing disguises) to keep their operation going, and eventually they packed it in. Fascinating stuff, and I was firmly on the side of the students while reading the story because card counting (in my book) isn't cheating at all. I had no idea quite how sophisticated the big casinos' camera networks were (and that book was written ten years ago).

Julie, who turned 67 last week, goes into a rest home on Wednesday. I hope it's just a temporary measure. It's so sad to see someone in that much pain, with no friends or family for support. I'll still pop in to see her every Tuesday.

The Solomon Islands were hit by a massive earthquake last week. The quake caused a tsunami and for a short while New Zealand was on a kind of yellow alert. Nothing came of it and we could all just carry on with our lives. In the Solomons, where they keep getting strong aftershocks, the situation is rather different.

Sugar Man - must see!

On Sunday night I saw Searching for Sugar Man at the Paramount on Courtenay Place. It's the best film I've seen in years, no exaggeration. What an incredible story. You couldn't make it up. I picked a good time to see such an uplifting movie (boy did I need a lift). Rodriguez's songs were amazing too, so soulful, so genuine. It's not hard to see how his records sold so well in such an oppressive regime as South Africa in the seventies. I'd still like to know what the hell happened to the proceeds of those sales, but that wasn't really an appropriate question for the film to answer.

I saw Julie again last night. It can be hard work sometimes. She rambles, you get all the he-saids and she-saids, and if you're really lucky she might eventually get to the point. She showed me a psychiatrist's report which used the extremely poncy (but accurate) word "circumloquacious" to describe her way of talking. At times I can hardly blame her for wanting to dodge the issue, which is often distinctly dodgeworthy. It's all very sad and I feel powerless to help. She'll need to go into a rest home and is (understandably) having difficulty in coming to terms with that. Sometimes I manage to steer the conversation (if you can call it that) into more positive territory, and on occasions we'll talk about my "issues". Last night she warned me about getting into relationships with people on the autistic spectrum (she was in a 30-year-plus relationship with an autistic man).

On that note I'll be catching up with Tracy tomorrow for lunch. It's funny, a few times I've been about to tune out of her station when I pick up a faint signal. I'm hoping I might eventually hear her loud and clear. The two guys who normally disrupt the autism group were absent for Monday's meeting. This made for a more pleasant experience for everyone. Danielle didn't have an easy Christmas - her father didn't treat her well - and she was almost in tears as she talked about it. I met her tonight at the tramping group. I'd signed up for a trip this weekend but they've postponed it till 2nd February.

On Monday we got our performance grades at work. There had been plenty of talk about them, to the point where even I started to care about what grade I might get. Sort of. They only had three grades which were shared out 20:60:20 or thereabouts. I was happy to get the middle grade; to my surprise it seemed I didn't just scrape it.

They're into round two at the Australian Open. I'm not following it as closely as I used to, but one result stood out a mile from yesterday's first-round matches: 42-year-old Kimiko Date's 6-2 6-0 win over 12th-seeded (and 30-year-old) Nadia Petrova. Date reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon in 1996 after a remarkable run of comeback three-set wins. In her semi she blitzed Steffi Graf in the second set to level the match and another comeback looked likely, but play was suspended for bad light, her momentum was lost, and so was the match the next day.

Killer joules

I’m not really part of society. Everything I do is meaningless. Those two facts (I think they’re facts) are reflected in my current mood. Neither of today’s phone calls helped.


This morning I called Julie to ask if she wanted to see a film with me. She wasn’t in a good way at all. In the last year or two she’s alienated a lot of people (admittedly some of those people did her more harm than good); today she made a good fist of alienating me too. Then Dad called me. I couldn’t hide my low mood. When the future of their other son is giving them sleepless nights the last thing they need is to worry about me.

I don’t normally buy takeaway pizzas (as much as I like them) but on Friday I ordered a “meat lovers” from Domino’s. The energy content of each pizza was displayed on a board. My meat lovers had 7000 kilojoules. That’s seven million joules isn’t it? All I remembered about joules from my physics lessons was our teacher’s bad puns about jewels, duels, Jules and maybe even Jools. But although I wouldn’t have known a joule if it punched me on the nose, I didn’t like the sound of seven million of the little buggers crawling in my pizza. How many joules were in a calorie was anyone’s guess (do they even convert?) but a quick Google before tucking into my pizza told me it contained two-thirds of my recommended daily energy intake. Feeling guilty I ate five slices and saved the remaining three for yesterday’s lunch. Last night I had had trout which my cousin’s boys had caught at Taupo. It was tasty and far more wholesome than the pizza. Talking of fishing, tonight’s news featured this bloke who stole a 13 lb bass from a Guernsey aquarium to win $800 in a fishing competition. What on earth was he thinking? He stole the fish on 9th July last year. Someone commented that he should have waited five days – for Bass Steal Day.

Cold and gold

On Wednesday I went to the (now fortnightly) depression meet-up on Cuba Street. After an hour or so I'd had enough (Giuseppe's incessant talking, which he says relaxes him, didn't help). I felt and looked quite agitated. A shame, because I'd been feeling reasonably good over the previous week or so.

My car is now driveable again so I was able to see Julie on Thursday. She'd spent ten days in a rest home on respite care and was on a mini-high from meeting all those (sometimes odd) people there.

Martin, the tall long-haired bloke from the depression group, emailed me asking if he could come over to my place and either play squash or heads-up poker. I said I'd probably want some time to myself at the weekend (I'd seen a lot of people by my standards) but he was welcome to come round for a couple of hours. So yesterday he came over at four and we hit the squash court. He had an interesting playing style, regularly using the ceiling as a fifth wall, and inevitably he got the ball lodged in one of the light fittings. He then threw a basketball up there and we ended up with three balls, none of which was the one we started with. After the squash we got some curries from A Taste of India and washed them down with beers - Martin seemed quite unused to spicy food. The couple of hours well and truly over, I washed up, hoping that might give Martin a cue to leave. But his couple was obviously different to mine; he stayed until well after ten as we saw Lisa Carrington win gold in her kayak.

The London Olympics are almost at an end. They've been a huge success. I've been reminiscing a little over previous Olympics; from Atlanta in '96 two things stick out for me. First, a volleyball match involving America. I don't even remember who they were playing, but it was a thrilling match that went right down to the wire. The Americans lost on a tie-break in the final set (or whatever they call it in volleyball) and the crowd reaction to the final point was one of stunned silence. No matter that you've just witnessed one of the greatest volleyball matches ever, your team didn't win so you're not happy. That summed up the American attitude to sport. My other memory was Michael Johnson's time of 19.32 seconds to win the 200 metres. It was a Bob Beamon-like obliteration of his own previous world record. Surely no-one would get close for two decades at least. Then some freak called Usain Bolt came along and broke Johnson's record. Last week Bolt ran a 19.32 to win gold, just like Johnson did, but he eased up at the end as if he couldn't be bothered any more. I found that slightly obscene. I have warmed to Usain Bolt a bit since my last blog post.

London has put on a wonderful show. The Brits have fully embraced the games in a way some thought they wouldn't. Their team of competitors has also been hugely successful. But I can't help feeling, given the state of the economy over there, that the golden glow will wear off quickly. Thirty-odd golds won't get your job back.

On Wednesday morning there was a slightly eggy odour in my flat. I couldn't figure out where it came from until I got to work and people starting talking. It was the sulphur from the Tongariro eruption.

My six-month cold is in full flight once more. The crusty snot is back.

Engagement

My brother has got engaged. I saw it coming but didn't expect it quite this soon. He and his fiancée will be coming to live in NZ (in Christchurch I think) in late September; they're bringing their cat with them. My future sister-in-law's line of work involves providing equipment to hospitals (I don't know the ins and outs of that, so to speak); she's got herself a similar job over here. So I'll soon be seeing my brother rather more than twice every nine years.

On a loosely related note, there was a new face - a 23-year-old woman - at Wednesday night's depression group. Every time someone new turns up I hear the same thing. They talk about their anxiety, depression and difficulty in dealing with social situations. Then in the next sentence they mention their wife/husband/fiancé(e)/girlfriend/boyfriend/partner. If meeting people is so damn hard, how come they're all in relationships? I've got three theories:
1. For some (most?) people, they need sex almost as much as they need food. No matter how severe the barriers are to finding a sexual partner, they'll overcome them somehow.
2. The mental health of the people who attend the meet-up groups isn't that bad, otherwise they wouldn't go.
3. Compared to how they were one or two or five years ago when they were the life and soul of the party, they've seen a marked increase in their social anxiety. They've noticed a decline relative to their reference point, but they're still not all that bad.

Last weekend was very much an indoor one. I went round to my cousin's place on Saturday (I did invite them to come to my flat but they declined). They've now got Sky (in time for the Olympics) and we ended up watching the Crusaders play the Force. I couldn't have cared less about the outcome (which, after a couple of dodgy video referee decisions, was never in doubt).
I should mention Andy Murray's defeat in the final of Wimbledon. He gets very emotional after a big match, win or lose. Unfortunately, in his four grand slam finals to date, it's only been lose. I've heard plenty of people say he'll never win one. I think he's more than capable of winning a couple. I'd put him in a different league to Tim Henman (Britain's last big hope); he's just that much more versatile. Henman used to need five sets in the first round, then four sets, then five again. By the second Monday, Britain was a nation of fingernail-free tennis fans. That he so often survived to make the later stages says a lot for Henman's resolve, but Murray in contrast gets through the early rounds with ease.

My car failed last week's warrant in style. Supposedly both front shock absorbers need replacing as does the driver's seat belt; also a patch of rust on the roof needs looking at. I was handed a four-figure quote - I certainly won't be paying that. I'll try taking it in somewhere else (VTNZ?) next week but until then (and quite possibly after then) I'm sans wheels. Bugger.

So I won't be popping over to see Julie tomorrow - I normally see her every Tuesday. A lot (but my no means all) of her conversation is pretty negative; sometimes she talks about doing herself in. I try to cling onto the positives but I'm no counsellor so I feel hopeless at times.

I'm flying to Auckland on Friday night. I must say I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm flying to Auckland on Friday night.