I just rang Keili, and he was sitting on a plane at Heathrow, about to take off ..... off to hotter climates ...

To add to all the chaos of the last few weeks, I had some post go astray. Wayne Boulton (click on his name to go to his good-looking Star Wars collectors' website) contacted me, and sent some Star Wars stuff to sign. It didn't arrive, so I emailed him and asked around the house. For a while it seemed as though other post might have gone astray. As we've got the builders in, it was all too possible, with the street door open a lot. Now we seem to have accounted for everything except Wayne's package, so I can only assume it disappeared somewhere in between. I used to love snail mail as a kid - and I never had losses or late deliveries - I thought it was brilliant.

Now I am not so sure. Someone wonderful sent me a £50 note on my 50th birthday (knowing I was down on my luck) and it never arrived. I have heard other stories of cash going astray - I have no idea how, unless someone has a detector which picks up the metal strip. It's possible my pressie was sealed like a birthday thing, and looked potentially valuable, but it is sad to think that that reliable way of getting things around has gone. Old man stuff, I guess - "It's not like it was in my days...."

Phew, slightly happier. Is this news?

It's still a rough ride at the moment, but I guess I have to report both the ups and downs.

Keili was rather ill yesterday (infection of the inner ear) and we ended up running around to an out of hours doctor. Then miscommunicating a bit with Julie about a lift, and finding ourselves wandering about in a taxi trying to cash a prescription. Finally reached a 24-hour superstore with a pharmacy. Keili ran inside while I waited with the cab, chatting. I saw a mate called Dave climb into the car in front...and just as I was thinking 'small world' I saw Julie cruise by - she had not got my cancellation message and had gone to the surgery who told her where we were going. I didn't manage to flag her down, and by the time I got to a public phone to ring her mobile she was on the way home. Doh!

A lot of us went to The Oak for an end of the day drink, as they are changing management after many years.

I then had a very bad night and a very good night and it's none of your business.

There was a party last night at Ali's, for the lad. A nice smaller gathering.

I have a new computer game. I play one of my music tracks, and at the same time go off to the Web to try to find the lyrics so I can sing along with it. I've never shown any real talent for singing (I certainly don't karaoke), but I like the sensation in my chest, so I carry on doing it, but it is just for my own amusement really. And now I have found and marked a few key lyric sources, the hunt is not so difficult every time. It's one of the reasons that I have not got into 'computer games', as there are so many ways to play with a PC anyway - and if I want puzzles and cryptics to crack, I just have to work on the mysteries of Microsoft...fixing or changing my system and settings. Tougher than killing the villains and grabbing the gold (or whatever they do...)

It was Keili's birthday yesterday, and we managed to find some time for each other. Spoke to Kim on the phone. Had an email from Mali. Family all over the world.

As of yesterday, the UPS in the room I work in has been beeping its alarm (to be fixed Monday!) so I am finding it hard to think, and am finding all sorts of excuses to wander around the building and do work elsewhere. Classic jokes from the cosmos. Stuff comes in clusters. At home the builders are drilling at 7:45 a.m. even on my day off. They are not working today, of course - Saturday - and the house is quiet, so I have to come into the beeping office. Classic.

I had a nice email from Richard, who has a Star Wars page.. When I am a little less jangled by life events I will try to carry on with our chat, but things are both hectic and weird at the moment.

And here's a phrase I heard somewhere recently, I can't pin it down. The rythm of it caught me:

"If I'd known I was doing it for the very last time, I'd have paid more attention"

Is that those iambics again....?

Pete sent me a couple of tough crossword challenges. I found the first quite quickly, but I was stumped by the last. However, while researching I came across John Gay's self-penned epitaph:

Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once, but now I know it.

I like that.

PS: he's most famous for writing The Beggar's Opera

Well, this is why I am getting fed up with 'long-term' illness. I was exhausted over the weekend, (two days off) and just curled up under a duvet with a book. It meant I missed Ali's 40th birthday, which was a real pain (these things only come once). People were up all night laughing I hear, but I was curled up miserable.

Them's the breaks.

I am back at work today, because if I start going off sick with this I will never go back. It's more or less the same every day, so I'll just struggle on, but it's making me feel pretty over the hill - and no-one knows how to fix it. Grind the teeth and carry on......

It was nice to talk to Michael Nielsen again last night. We should be meeting up at Jedicon.

I believe that John Coppinger will be turning up, too. Mike Quinn is flying in from the States. I think Dave Barclay will already be back in the States before the convention, and rumour has it that Mike Edmonds is working in Edinburgh (?) so this probably won't be the great Jabba get-together, but it might still happen one day, now we are all in touch. You never know (my motto).

I just finished a four day First Aid course - imagining all the horrible things that can happen to people. And then imagining that I am the person who is expected to deal with it..... I didn't sleep well, this week. But I passed, and am qualified again.

Keili is still here, helping me with my artwork. I am still enjoying the novelty of bonding with such a great person, and then realising that we really are related...closely. It's a flash. And stories about my own dad sound different when I tell them to him.

Very glum, hibernating weather now, in Cardiff. Cold, wet and windy.

I think I am due for a bit of a holiday soon - having not had a break since I got back from Hawaii in March. Phew! I am pretty tired.

And that's it for trivia thinking again.

¡Hasta la Mañana!

Apologies if my lack of communication continues. I've been a bit ill, and am feeling all of my 56 years, and when I am not working I have been curled up. Some of it is the usual hibernation tendency, some is the chronic pain (two and a half years and running) sliding up to the worse end of the scale, and some plain old misery.

Really, this stuff should be going into my private blog - it isn't important to people who don't have to put up with me each day - but at the same time I am no longer in show business, and all that brave 'Show Must Go On' cheerfulness just isn't needed (or even wanted).
Where I work, if you came in whistling from the rain, people would make sarcastic remarks. Far better to be glum - and that's really easy for me at the moment.

Having a bit of a bad week - if anyone was trying to get through to me. I don't know if it's just anniversary phenomena, for this time of year, or the clocks going back, or Halloween, or whatever. Just the old S.A.D. kicking in.

No doubt I'll pull myself together, meanwhile, please don't take it personally if I am a bit uncommunicative.

More news, when the news gets better. (Who needs bad news?)