Sunday

Substantially colder today, the early morning dog walk, in the semi darkness at 7am, wasn't a very nice affair.

I'm working in the office today, just getting my head straight and drinking extra coffee before I leave. A client is coming to collect some work around lunch time and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Watched the film party Monster last night - saw it when it was released, really liked it. Have a couple of things lined up for later - I also revisited the Sandford documentry about life in the '70s and it suddenly started to look more familiar and contemporary.

Had quite a difficult week, very busy with work and dealing with office politics - getting knocked off my bike was a bit of a wake up call too, I'm really sick of working really hard for very little return - spent part of yesterday trying to motivate myself to be more ambitious - had a look at property prices, I can afford a single garage in Hove (£42k) or a small X council house in a very bad area that is classed as not fit for human habitation, the pictures are pretty shocking - the kitchen appears to be a charnel house - (offers starting at £200,000). I did find a couple of quite nice houses in Eastbourne and there were a couple of fairly quirky little cottages in Brighton at about the £200k mark, approx 80k more than I can find down the back of the sofa. There has been a staggering amount of movement in the property around here - at least 20 houses within a 5 min walk of my house sold in the last week and a lot of building work - in a year when they have built the new Tesco and Aldi, I'll hopefully have stopped flirting with the fringes of negative equity and be a bit more mobile - I'm really getting sick of cycling up this hill and I do feel quite isolated here sometimes, as much as I like Hastings - there is never anything on at the cinema excerpt 'family' stuff - the theatre will never be a threat to the West End, and there are too many hills. Just moving down towards the seafront will make a huge difference n my quality of life.

I'm turning into a middle aged property bore - probably why I don't get invited to dinner parties.

On the radio yesterday, there was a strange interview with Jane Horrocks - and then she sang her version of Transmission, by Joy Division, it wasn't a joke - but it should have been. She said that she had considered doing it 'as' Marylin Monroe, she thought it might 'fit'... I don't think it would, somehow.

I moved the kitchen round last night to a more 'traditional' layout - some small plumbing needed but quite successful - my next project will be to re-wire and replace all the internal walls and put down a new floor - at the very least provide a sheen of respectability - will have to wait until I get some more cash in. Have made very little progress in my 'tax' fund - it's not been a very good month again.