When I got up today I could tell winter was on its way – the morning air was crisp and cool, the fallen leaves sparkled with frost and my MP3 player’s shuffle seemed fixated on tracks from the “Winter Carols” album.
Along with winter, of course, comes the ancient tradition of the winter lurgies. As usual, they’re sparing no effort in spreading themselves to all and sundry, and I’m currently trying to dispatch one such ne’er-do-well with salvoes of vitamin C and Stepsils [1]. Still, I can’t really complain. Well, I can only complain over MSN, at least – it’s the sore throat, you see.
Speaking of tradition, I had a rare visit with a sizeable chunk of my family last Sunday. It was my fourth niece’s Christening and it was fab to see everyone together again. We were discussing how long it’s been since a lot of us saw each other – it really has been a shocking amount of time when I think about it. I guess it just goes to show how easily people can drift apart in life. I think my brother made a resolution to organise some sort of get-together next summer at Mum and Dad’s place, however. Let’s hope he definitely gets around to it! [2]
On a similar subject, I’m popping along to a gathering of my friends from university this coming weekend, to drown our collective (and, in some cases, prospective) sorrows at being old. Er. Older. Yes, that’s the one. Thinking about it, I also haven’t seen some of them in far too long…
I think I’m going to have to start some sort of “friend log”, where I store the last time I saw all my friends, which emails me every so often to say “Andy, you rubbish sod, go and email your friend, right now! No, don’t make a cup of tea first, come on, you know you’ll get distracted, just send the email! Come on, now! NOW!” [3]
Oh dear, that’s starting to sound quite horribly like something Facebook might do – I must now go and wash my hands.
| [1] | And a drop or two of whisky now and then – purely for medicinal purposes, of course. |
| [2] | Hopefully he’ll also get around to telling Mum and Dad about it at some point between now and then. |
| [3] | I’m not terribly good at being firm with myself, so I tend to write software to be firm with me instead. Of course, I still end up ignoring it most of the time, but at least I also then feel guilty about it. |