Hi

I'm back.

Not that I've actually been anywhere - still sat here, working: worrying, talking on the phone, emailing, drawing, colouring, graphicking, referencing, researching. Listening to the radio. And, uh, surfing the interweb. And playing a bit of poker*. And downloading MP3s.

Work has been a bit thin, to be honest. Not what you want to see when you're a self-employed person. I've spent too much on advertising in the wrong places, which I'm really cross about. Stupid of me. I'm sorting this out - I'm seeing someone tomorrow about advertising in the right places. I'm also swapping some of my design work for some website enhancement work from a client, I hope. That should help.

Everyone else seems to have buggered off as well. Is there some unwritten blog rule that I don't know about that says you can go away during the last week of March? Half my links sidebar aren't there. New York, Dubrovnik, somewhere else unspecified. Or moving house.

I'd like to move house. No, actually, I'd like to build a house and then move to it. (When I say 'build' I obviously mean 'have built by someone else while I stand around with my hands in my pockets wearing a clean hi-viz jacket and a shiny hard hat, and make the decisions. About what doorknobs to have. And stuff like that.').

Unfortunately the village is an absolute no-you-can't-build-a-house, green belt, conservation area, protected, forget it, no chance mate sort of area. Unless you happen to be our neighbours two doors down who have realised their garden is just wide enough to squeeze another house into the row, cos the road turns a little corner. This is 'infill' apparently, and is allowed. Jammy gits. And we really do want to stay in the village.

So, I'll ring Flyhalf Phil (qv) again and see if he's got any wrecks to renovate come in this week. I may even drive about a bit in the up-and-coming areas of the local towns, and see if I can spot anything. Frustrating thing is, a biggish house on the edge of the village came up last year. Needed a lot of work. It went to auction, and went way way waaaaay over my budget - not that I had a budget sorted out at that point. Some people who work in TV bought it. They've obviously got money because they aren't even living in it while they're doing it up.

There's another one at the bottom of the road coming up soon - absolute wreck, same old bloke had been living there for donkey's years. He died recently, bless him. The LOML and Child One managed to scab a quick look round cos she knows the family and they were clearing it out. He hadn't been upstairs in ten years, just lived in the one room downstairs. Beaten earth floor, rotting stairs, a lean-to with an old clotheswashing copper boiler thing. No kitchen, no nothing really. Full of ragged 1950's clothes and mould and damp. It will make an excellent, exciting project.

For someone else. Because it's a black and white beamed cottage with original features, it'll definitely go to auction. And sell for way over my league. Apart from anything else, it's too much work for me to take on - it'll need almost completely taking down and starting again. Bollocks. It's only 200 yards away. How irritating.

Patience, man. Something will come up. Plenty of time. At least I'm safe for the foreseeable future from the worst of all nightmares.

Having to go and get a job.


*I found $3-62 sitting in my account on a site I haven't played at for a long time; I've no idea why. I thought I'd see how far I can get with it. "The $3-62 Experiment", I thought I'd call it. Original. Anyhoo, current balance is $78-75. More than 20 times my start. Good, eh? I rock at poker, me.