Category: Journal

Fliss and I are currently away in Malta for a winter break. I would have said “Winter–Sun Break” but then I’d be lying. So far, after five days, we’ve had about half a day where it was actually sunny. The rest of the time it’s been wet, windy, and only slightly warmer than being back home.

That’s during the day time – at night time the rooms are bloody freezing, and we had to ask for extra blankets after the first night.

Still, it’s been cheap so far, as Fliss‘ dad paid for the room and we only had to splash on the flights. With hindsight, though, I’d much rather have spent another £500 and gone somewhere that was really warm and sunny, rather than this place which is neither.

In a way it’s quite forewarning, actually. The hotel is full of elderly folk, some of whom are single and spend a lot of the time sitting by themselves. The first couple of days we kept wondering why they would come here just to sit there, seemingly waiting to die. But I’m beginning to realise that they’re here for the company, whether they actively join in with the others or not, it must be nice for these lonely pensioners to see other faces and feel less isolated for a few weeks of a long winter.

As much as we’ve sworn we’ll never end up doing the same thing, it’s quite worrying to think that it’ll turn out like that anyway. After all, if you’re stuck in britain of a winter and you’re hardly flush with cash, a cheap holiday somewhere only slightly warmer than home must seem much more tempting than soldiering through the cold part of the year by yourself.

There’s not a lot to do here for us, to be honest. We’ve already made our minds up that when we’re pushing 70 we’re not going to settle for fucking dominoes or singing the hokey–cokey. So we’ve taken refuge in the only other option – Scrabble.

Kieran loaned me the box set of the first series of 24 last week, and I’ve been going through episodes like Jack Bauer goes through cellphones and cars. I’d been wanting to watch this show for ages, and Kieran had been meaning to lend me his copy for so long that I avoided watching any of the following series.

After putting in Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I think I’m up to 18:00 now, so a couple more sessions viewing will have me through it in the space of a week – quite good going considering I’m more of a games player of an evening than a tv watcher.

I cant help but think the series would probably have been better if it had just been called 12… or maybe 13, instead. The first six hours were gripping, and led to quite an exciting conclusion to that half of the day. But since that point the amount of ass pulls has served only to detract from the quality of the first twelve hours for me.

That and Jack’s wife and daughter being two of the most fucking annoying characters ever to grace a tv series. I cant believe Kim actually made it to puberty – she has the decision making ability of a lemming with chronic depression and a personality so vacuous that I’d probably shoot her even if I was a good guy. Yeah, I’ll admit that the mens mags have a point – she has vertigo inducing cleavage and, you know, who wouldn’t? His wife, on the other hand, has none of these annoyance offsetting traits! If Jack had any sense he’d have stayed seperated from that flakey bitch when he had the chance!

It also gives the impression that FBI agents are so poorly trained that scores of them can be rubbed out by just a couple of determined bad guys. It seems bizarre that Jack ends up under internal investigation for breaking protocol when every other agent seems intent in stumbling to their death without first calling for back-up or securing the area. What makes Jack such a loose cannon? Is it because he keeps getting away with it?! Surely he should be training the other guys in how to approach the enemy without getting killed techniques, rather than him getting fucked over for single-handedly neutralising a terrorist cell and rescuing his flakey wife and tart of a daughter at the same time.

Since I’ve been back I’ve been working away both at home and in the office, so this is the reason we’re at mid January and I’m only just getting round to an update. Xmas holiday 2004 turned out to be a pleasant vacation, if just as rushed as any other trip back to Scotland. I don’t think I’ve managed to successfully cover so much in the space of a week before, though, so to do the amount of things we did, and have a good time was tops. Since Fliss has a detailed account on her site, I’ll just list my highlights here to save covering the same ground.

Xmas day was great – it snowed, and to come down from the loft in the morning to a white xmas, the last I’ll have in that house, was really cool. Top marks to meteorology for that one. Fliss got me two excellent presents in the form of a giant jar of chilli peppers and a pair of monster slippers. Her microwaveable teddy bear was well received, too, so it turns out we can do xmas presents on a budget! Most of the day was then spent playing TimeSplitters 2 on the PlayStation with Andrew, before having a tasty mum made dinner in the evening. The picture on the right shows us sitting down at the table for dinner (clockwise: Steven, Ann, Andrew, Iain, me, Fliss), and this too-cool-to-smile picture of Iain and I shows us relaxing afterwards – check out my kewl monster slippers!

On the Monday, Auntie Mary’s Murder Mystery evening was pretty good fun, with Crazy Uncle John going the whole hog in his role as the pantomime dame. I had been appointed as the director by Auntie Mary, so I didn’t get to dress up, but it was a good laugh all the same.