Thursday

It's raining, a lot - like it's never rained before. I'm trapped in the house.

Yesterday was interesting. I had to make my way to Brighton for an afternoon meeting. It was pretty cold and windy at the station. Now that the train fare has gone up to £13.30 - it's over the threshold for using my Network Card, I was given a discount of exactly £0.30p. The bloke at the counter was genuinely surprised that I wanted my discount. 30p... is 30p.

On the journey there a group of 6 very young girls who were probably about 15 or 16 and I think Japanese, They were talking in a loud, animated way - which didn't really bother me - but they had one of those extending 'selfie' sticks for their iphone, which they used constantly - and because of how we were all say, the phone part on the end of the stick was constantly being waved right in front of my face. They didn't seem to be bothered. Opposite me was a young man aged about 22, I assumed he was a student - he had obviously made an effort with his appearance but on closer scrutiny his clothes were very 'tired' and thread bare, the surface vinyl on his bag had started to flake and wear away and his gloves were covered in pulls and bobbles. However - he was also probably the single most handsome man I have ever seen in my life - and if he has half a brain, his life will be just fine.

Brighton was very cold, dark and uncharacteristically empty. I bumped into someone I know who is a journalist and had a catch up - one of the few people on the streets was a man aged about 65-70, tall, thin, with long hair and a dyed pink beard grown down to his waist, skin tight black vinyl trousers, a jacket made from a print of splattered paint, like a Jackson Pollock - and wearing platform boots that had soles of at least 6 inches. He could hardly move, a combination of his trousers, shoes and advanced age and withered frame.

As I'm typing, the power just went off again at home. I could hear a scream of frustration from next door. Fortunately - this laptop has plenty of battery power left.


My meeting went well, but was fairly heavy going. I was exhausted after 4 hours of churning out ideas and references - this is one of those meetings I'm not actually getting paid for, but it was useful. I have a large and quite complex project to pull together on spec that 'should' bring in more work for myself and my clients and raise our profile a bit.

At about 6.30pm I caught the train home - there was a young man at the station being told he couldn't take his bike on the train - same thing has happened to me more than once, it was getting a bit nasty. Journey home was OK, as I managed to finish 'Under The Skin' which I really enjoyed - and the train wasn't too packed. Stopped off at the office to drop off my bag and walk down to my next meeting - had arranged to spend some time talking through a project with someone who understands funding - so I dropped by their house (which was lovely - very me, much nicer than anything I've ever lived in or am likely ever to) and then spent a couple of hours trying to make myself understood. By the time I'd finished the weather had turned really nasty and I had to get a taxi up the hill - it cost me £8.00 for about 3 mins. The taxi driver was about 25, very over enthusiastic about his Rottweiler and very talkative. I felt like I should have been charging him.

The power is back on now.

The rain may be easing a bit - I really need to go into work - I think I'm working inhouse on Monday so I must finish that under funded 1- day project tomorrow. There isn't much food in the house either so I need to stock up.