Sweetheart this city has beautiful, beautiful snow

"Last day in December
and the world is a white line of unshovelled cars,
'cause you can walk to the bars.
In a town where the drinkers are ploughed like the roads,
in a heap round their breakfasts in yesterday's clothes.
Sweetheart, this city has beautiful, beautiful snow..."

An unspecified prize goes to anyone that can correctly identify the quote (and with it the entry title) without cheating. It's been snowing on and off here for a few days, it snowed first the morning of the 27th -- although I was in Portsmouth, on the coast, so we didn't see any until we got further inland towards London. By the time I got home the snow had been melted by the incessant rain and I headed straight back out to work.

It was hardly any time at all before Laura got in turns hyperactive and frustrated because it was snowing, and because she couldn't go out and play. I was more bemused at her moods, but the way the lights outside would light up the big flakes of snow did have a certain atmosphere. The pub was quiet -- in that sort of post-Christmas, before going back to work, on a cold wet night sort of way. The snow was intermittently heavy, and then light, and then heavy, and then stopping. Laura would keep me informed of its current status whenever she ran to the window to check. She wanted to make a snowman before the snow even covered the grass.

Like I say, this was Tuesday night. Since then the snow was steadily melting, until this morning, when there had been a heavy snowfall overnight. It frustrates me, snow and no winter sports. I'm scraping together my savings for a snowboard holiday this season -- comparing Utah with Eruopean destinations, wondering if I'll have to go alone, or worse yet not go at all.

I can't believe I'm writing a whole entry about snow.

I dreamed the other night I was joining the RAF. I've talked about it before, I've seriously considered it and had them send me information packs. But recently I shrugged and threw it out, and said it wasn't going to happen. And there I thought it ended. But in my dream I was in a recruitment office, and instead of wanting to be a photographer I was interested in being a gunner. Something I have taken one look at and thought "canon fodder" in the past. I don't think the dream last long before the scene turned into a gym and the recruiter chick was trying to kiss me or something. The dream was hardly worth mentioning if one of my colleagues today hadn't mentioned he applied to be a photographer, in the RAF. He said he wanted to be a physical training assistant or something, but didn't get the points. He didn't elaborate on why he didn't go through with it -- maybe like me they said there was a very long wait, and he said to forget it. But he also mentioned they told him there were vacancies to be a gunner, and he laughed at the suggestion.

It's funny sometimes the things you have in common with the people you least expect it.

It hits you so much harder than you thought

It's sort of difficult to know what to write in an update, so for the past 4 weeks I have been putting it off. It sounds stupid, I surely have no less to write about now than I did however many years ago when I first started an online diary.

So, what's new? I'm still unsure if my stupid job is going to lead me anywhere fast, and increasingly of the opinion that journalism was a massive waste of time. I make plans, like I get my head down on my training at work and then can get onto the management program and get out and up. Or I will decide I will pass my driving test -- on like my third attempt -- and go work for a better company. I have no idea if these are just things I tell myself so i can sleep at night, to excuse that I work for minimum wage, can't afford to leave home and have no prospects.

This is totally not what I wanted this update to be.

Jon failed his driving test the other day for something like the fourth time, and has had to admit to himself he has problems with anxiety. When you're up all night throwing up then it's a pretty good guess -- but like I say, he's just had to admit it. He says it's made him sit back and take stock of his life, and has decided however nice a guy he is, he's still a loser. Which more or less makes me a loser, too, since I've nothing more going for me.

On a random whim the other day I found Tai Chi classes vaguely nearby. I figure it combines several things I want -- like fitness, self defence, and a centring of the mind and spirit. Of course, I might think it's all a load of old bollocks when I actually start it. I also want to get into mountain boarding. I went surfing in Portugal, except all week there was no surf. Nothing. Hardly a ripple. So on like the last day, a bunch of us went mountain baording since there was a guy called Alex Deimos who sort of lived at the surf house.

Alex is fairly well known in certain boarding circles -- I have an all-terrain boarding magazine with him on the cover -- so Alex and this Australian guy called Nick had a bunch of these all terrain boards, and took us out. It was a lot like snowboarding, but on rock. I liked it a lot -- like snowboaring and surfing -- and although I scraped up an arm pretty good and twisted a foot quite badly and spent weeks thinking I had cracked a rib, I want to pursue it. So one night at the pub I was explaining to Deb how I managed to scrape my arm up, and how I wanted to carry on boarding, and she said she would go too -- since she used to be a skateboarder. I just haven't got around to finding a place to do it yet.

I want to be somewhere else. Jon mentioned the other day -- again -- of moving to Milton Keynes. I don't expect anything to come of it this time any more than it does any other time, and I don't know what we could do even if we did move there. I want to be somewhere else tho, like Norway. Or Mexico. Or maybe Canada. The trouble is, though, you can't run away from yourself.

07/07/05

07/07/2005

I woke this morning, a little after 9am. Confused and disorientated, I lay staring at the ceiling while I tried to work out what time it was, what day it was. Once I established it was my day off and I had another hour in bed before I had to get up, I tried to go back to sleep – almost on cue, San called me. We were meant to be meeting up today, and she wanted to check what time I would be coming to see if she had time to go to the gym. We discussed our arrangements, and again I tried to go back to sleep. I heard my phone vibrate with a text message shortly afterwards, but I ignored it – thinking it was probably San trying to wake me up again.

After about half an hour of non-sleep I got out of bed and checked my phone; the message was from my Mum saying to check the trains because there had been an explosion in London. I didn’t think much of it – assumed there had been some kind of isolated accident. I logged onto the internet and checked train times and everything seemed normal. Then my Dad called me into the living room where he had the TV on.

It was then that I saw that it wasn’t an isolated accident, but rather a series of coordinated terrorist attacks on the transport system in London. The reports were still a little vague – it seemed undeniable it was terrorism, and the similarities to the attacks in Madrid were obvious.

Although San lives in Kings Cross, where one of the attacks had been, I felt sure that she was safe – since I had spoken to her after the attacks, without either of us knowing it, and that she wouldn’t have so much as left her flat. Then like so many other people today, I started trying to contact friends who would be in the city. I couldn’t reach San, the mobile networks were jammed and nobody was answering at her flat – but as I say, I already spoken to her already and more wanted to make sure her family were okay, and let her know that – perhaps obviously – I wouldn’t be seeing her today.

I have friends among the many people in this town who commute into London every day – their trains arriving in Liverpool Street station, before they take the tube to their various workplaces in the city. I have no idea how many people I know -- more acquaintances than they are friends -- might be caught up in it all.

I have little else to say, I have no intention on getting into the politics of the day.