braindump

...you see part of the problem with this blogging business is that I forget to do it for a while and then I have too much to say all at once, which is daunting so I don't do it and it becomes a vicious cycle.

So this won't be a comprehensive update but I figured I should outline the shape of things just now, and then maybe I'll keep ontop of the blog a bit better.

The House: Well so far it's getting a fair amount of interest, no official 'note of interest' yet of course but several groups of people have been out and looked at it, some seemed very taken and (considering how far out of the way it is, and that I'm only taking viewings by appointment.) I'm taking the fact there's been a good number of viewings to be a Good Thing™. On Friday I agreed with the Solicitors to have a second "For Sale" board put up near the junction with the A70, which I think (together with everything else) will have the place as comprehensively advertised as is possible. So now it's just waiting... and a plea: everyone's being very sweet and interested and asking in an optimistic tone every time I speak to them "so, any news with the house?" which is lovely... except that having to say "no, nothing yet" about 15 times a day is in danger of making me a bit panicky. I have to keep telling myself that it's early days yet just to keep my cool about the whole thing. So, can I ask everyone reading this not to ask me about the house sale for a while? When there's news, rest assured I'll be passing it on pretty quickly. In the meantime unless I say otherwise, just assume there's still no formal interest, but that things are progressing steadily. Thanks.

The Job: I think I'm making progress here, nothing concrete to report just yet but over the past few days the (usually soul destroying) business of applying for jobs and dealing with recruitment agencies has been... well rather less soul destroying than usual, I keep hearing good things back about my suitability for posts, I've been interviewed twice (both times for posts I didn't eventually want, but hey.) and have a number of 'live' applications on the go as I type that I'm optimistic about. Meanwhile after a week without my 'puter (see below) I'm getting back on with odd bits of freelance design work to stop my brain from siezeing up.

The Friends: Life is as busy as ever on this front, and it's one of the things I've been conscious of dropping the ball with on the blog: I didn't blog about seeing Big Hand with Liz, Justin and Malc the other week, nor did I blog about Beltane (although some of the others did). Worse, I didn't blog about Hamish's book launch (here's the Press release but you've all missed the party now I'm afraid) And in amongst that lot I've been busy doing little things like hanging out with the Friday gang on Fridays and enjoying my parents' company this weekend, going for walks in the intermittent Scottish summer, and even meeting the odd new person...

The Rest: I spent most of last week restricted to my backup computer when a routine diagnostic I ran on Flash revealed he'd blown one of his RAM slots. Apple whisked him away (by way of a hot UPS man who arrived while I was embarrasingly still in my dressing gown) on Tuesday and brought him back (by way of a not-at-all-hot DHL man for whom I was thankfully fully dressed) on Friday. Frank (the car) is still running smoothly apart from his occasional reluctance to go backwards when asked. Living alone is proving to suit me really rather well, and after six weeks of it I haven't yet gone mad, so I think I will look for a solo residence in the city when the time comes. I've also been oiling the cogs of my writing brain a little (they're still pretty much siezed from disuse, but I might yet get them moving again...) so there's been plenty I could have written about on here. I'll aim to do a better job of actually getting my thoughts on screen.

The Plan: So with all that going on, what's my direction? It's all dreadfully vague for now, partly because a lot of the detail is contingent on the house and job stuff coming into focus but the vague outline I'm working toward is that I'll be staying based in the central belt of Scotland for the next few months, (the shape of that depends on work and the house) then sometime in the autumn if things pan out the way I hope, I'll be embarking on an adventure of some sort (the shape of which also depends on house and job stuff, but it will probably involve a trip to Australia) before coming back and (probably) looking for a new permanent home in Edinburgh.

... then again life is, as they say, what happens to you while you're making other plans. Mine seems to be especially prone to that right now, and it's fun. I promise to do a better job of sharing it from now on.