Back again

I've had a long, difficult and not very cheerful week - mostly working very hard, and made the mistake of getting drunk on Thursday - at my age - it takes 2 days to recover. I found myself in a nightclub, my friends - all men of roughly my age, were dancing drunkenly to house music - and the club was filling up with students ( £1 entry on a thursday, £1 all drinks) - I left sharpish when I realised that they appeared to be little more than children. Working on Friday was very difficult.

During the drunken revelry ( it was a work thing ) I had a conversation with someone I know well and like very much, he was very chipper, quite pissed and very hot - he also had the sour, metallic smell of someone on very heavy doses of antidepressants.

I managed to get told off today. I bumped into someone I have not seen in nearly a year, she is a lovely person, but very unhappy, very trapped and heavily in debt - she is also morbidly obese. At least she was, she now looks remarkable - probably down to a 10, everything about her was different. The way she moved, the way she stood, she was happy, confident and serious - as opposed to always being in a forced 'happy' self mocking 'I know I'm fat but at least I'm funny' mood. I told her she looked really well, and that was that. Later on I saw someone else we both knew and mentioned that I'd bumped into X and that she had lost a lot of weigh in the last year - got a bollocking for being obsessed with her looks and told it shouldn't matter what she looks like - as long as she was happy. The thing is, she wasn't happy, I don't know if her weight made her unhappy, or being unhappy caused her to put on weight - or both - but she certainly isn't the same person she used to be.

I had a difficult start to the day - involving a huge row with the company who supply my electricity. When I bought this house - I had all the gas appliances removed ( they were condemned ) and asked for the gas meter to be removed, the company ( nPower - since you ask) also supply my electricity and insisted that it wasn't neccessary - I would be obliged to have my meter read at least once a year but the bill would be £0, which it always has been. At the start of the year I had a letter to say that they were having problems with their computers and would not be able to bill be for that quarter, but would bill me 'in time' and I would have 14 days to pay. They actually billed my 9 months later, it was such a big bill I had trouble paying it - and it then rolled over onto ANOTHER quarter - leaving me with a bill for £520. I was about to pay this earlier today ( and yes, it hurt ) when, after looking carefully at the bill - I noticed I was being charged 50p EVERY DAY for a gas standing charge. After half the morning on the phone and some heated words with a number of people in complaints - I have had part of it refunded and am making a formal complaint to Ofgem, fuckers - that's basically theft. I have managed to get them to come to my house in October to remove the gas meter - but pointed out that I would be losing a days pay - and have every intention of invoicing them.

I've worked really hard this week, and as a result - I'm very tired. Supposed to be going to a big open air event tonight - in two minds, thick fog forecast. The dogs have suddenly started being absolute bastards again, small dog - after months of being dry, has started pissing in the house 3 or 4 times a day, and one - or both of them, managed to steal a bag of dog food and eat the whole lot.

Busy week due - and on Friday I am spending the day in London with a potential client. A very well know London based fashion label have asked me to spend 6 months re-branding them - working up there perhaps 3 days per week. I'm in two minds - the numbers don't add up and the stress will be phenomenal - I'll probably lose other clients and the cost of travel, dog kennels and staying over will be prohibitive. Will decide next week - I'm not 'obliged' to do it - whatever happens - I'm bound to make the wrong decision.

I bought some Camembert earlier - the girl at the till visibly gagged when she handled it... it was remarkably pungent. I also bought a Pringle sweater from the hospice shop in the most vivid, startling shade of Hunting Pink imaginable - for those of you not in 'the know', hunting pink is the red you get on fox hunters and guardsmen - it's practically off the spectrum scale. I love it. I imagine it was once an XXXL - and has been washed too hot, in it's current form it has that lovely felted quality, and as it's now strangely misshapen, fits my odd body shape perfectly. it was only a few quid. I'm elightd with it. It's the kind of colour that will 'have someone's eye out'. The woman on the till said 'they'll see you coming in the dark' - and not in a nice way.

This is a really interesting read. A few years ago, there was a chap in Liverpool, a bit younger than me, who would visit all the pub in Liverpool in the evening and offer to write a poem for a donation on any subject you wanted - he was a very nervy bloke, possibly autistic and almost certainly with some form of addiction issues - buy very personable, popular, and a stunningly creative and gifted poet. He would ask for a subject and sit for a moment in thought, then write a poem on the back of a postcard for you - most people gave him a fiver. I have a friend in New York who sees this chap on the High Line. The article is illuminating, I've also seen the mocking edited photo that he refers to.