The horrendously written blog returns.

After, coming up to four months of 'nothing but coming home from work and sitting at the dining room table and completing my coursework' I'm pleased to say I've done it.
In all it's taken me just over two years to achieve the qualification and this summer I'll register as a Pharmacy Technician. With this will hopefully come a new job and a pay rise. It's been a struggle but by Jove I hope it pays off!

I'd like to convince myself and you, fine folk that whilst I've been completing my studies I've been wholly focused on my work and haven't ventured out at all for fear of spoiling any study time with a hangover or tiredness or that unmistakable lack of concentration you get after meeting someone hot in a bar and all you can do is think of them etc etc... well, point is, I did go out.

Quite a bit to be honest.

My social life didn't *really* suffer...

Foodie stuff-wise there was the AWESOME G'Vines Gin Connoisseur Programme where the creme de la creme of Manchester's bartenders created and served some outstanding cocktails in a bid to become the worlds best gin bartender, much to my appreciation; Liquor and Burn set afloat their breakfast menu and we can now all breathe a huge sigh of relief that our morning burrito-needs are well an truly met; much excitement and food and bowling with my chums at the Black Dog Bowl launch; Geurilla Eats happened again and I helped out (I had a great time and was able to match faces to Twitter names FINALLY) and I had a luscious evening with my homegal Lauren learning about the origin of Kahlua and drinking copious White Russians - what a nightmare *sideways glance*, along with those handsome fellas The Liquorists at The Market restaurant. All of that interspersed with some great dinners with my nearest and dearests, winter birthday BBQ's, the most gorgeous weekend away in idyllic Anglesey with the most gorgeous girl I know (Anna, FYI), oh, of course another beltin' weekend away with the other three most gorgeous girls I know (B, A and Esme) in the Motherland.

I kept up my whinging and whining throughout the last three months about 'HOW MUCH WORK I've got to do' of course. I just couldn't possibly find the time to write about it too because as soon as I looked at my laptop I felt immediately wracked with guilt if I wasn't writing about fucking medicine or interactions or contr-indications or what I deemed to be an 'appropriate' way to handle nuisance patients (smack them round the face and tell them to GTFO). So I went to a few things, just to get away from anything work related really.

I like waffling on here but do occasionally question the true purpose of a blog. Is it for freebies? Is it because you enjoy writing? Are you a show off? Is it because you don't have anyone else to talk to and it's the only way you can let off some steam?
I just wanted to know if I was capable of stringing a sentence together without any swear words - writing it down is a great audit trail.
Turns out I'm shit at it.

Anyway, je suis back in the building.

The ice is thawing.

I've missed you x

I just want you all to know I'm not being a lazy fucker, I'm taking a little hiatus from any dedicated writing stuff because I have a catastrophic amount of work to do.

Also, in cold weather, my fingers don't work properly and typing is a bit of a clumsy challenge.

pfft.

Love + merriment x

I'm certain I was cut out for a life of greedy eating and long lazy days in the sun. This whole getting up and going to work lark sure does make socialising a little trickier.

Another late night poem. 

Read it and weep. 

I do.


By Rabindranath Tagore 


In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age-old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same 
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours – 
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

When first we faced...

I adore Philip Larkin. It's like he speaks and feels and writes just for me sometimes. 

When first we faced, and touching showed

How well we knew the early moves,
Behind the moonlight and the frost,
The excitement and the gratitude,
There stood how much our meeting owed
To other meetings, other loves.

The decades of a different life
That opened past your inch-close eyes
Belonged to others, lavished, lost;
Nor could I hold you hard enough
To call my years of hunger-strife
Back for your mouth to colonise.

Admitted: and the pain is real.
But when did love not try to change
The world back to itself--no cost,
No past, no people else at all--
Only what meeting made us feel,
So new, and gentle-sharp, and strange?

Notification alert.

There comes a time in everyone's life when you have to sit up and smell the coffee / roses / epoisse. Whether that relates to your work or home life, it happens. The realisation that you cannot continue to behave in a certain way, or that you have to knuckle down, pull your socks up and essentially start behaving like a responsible adult.

I believe some people are blessed with this skill from an early age. I have friends that I've known for years that have always been 'level headed' or been certain in their ability and goals. They've worked really hard and achieved.
For others that turning point may come a little later. Maybe after college or university, in their first job or relationship. I've seen it happen. They're essentially noticing that they've hit an age, gained a few extra responsibilities - maybe a car or an apartment or a 'proper' job, and they have made noticeable changes to accommodate the maturity.
This is a natural process for many, most even.

Then there are some others, late comers to the club. Those that have ridden the wave of immaturity since their teens and refused to get out of the sea of denial (NOT De Nile). Even though their shitty surfboard from 1994 is all broken and splintered and their mothers and fathers are calling from the shoreline. Waving a desperate flag of hope in their reckless child's direction, hoping they notice.



I am of the latter category.

I shan't go on too much about it but it has happened.

I feel largely positive about this.

I hope I don't lose momentum too quickly.