Oh Benneth, Where Art Thou?

So this is new. I'm on a train back to Swindon, blogging on my Android phone. Having a full QWERTY keyboard on a mobile phone really is quite awesome. I've had this little beggar about a year and it's still a thing of beauty despite it's short battery life.

I'm heading back to the town of my birth as part of the King's Census... No wait, that's a past life. Ho hum. I'm heading back to give my Dad his advent calendar and try to sort out the problems from Monday.

I've been really low recently. This year and all the ups and downs have caught up with me. I feel like life is just entropy and loss. Mum's death weighs heavy on me. My personal life is a mess.

I was at my worst in a long time on Monday. Dad rang in the middle of this and got it both barrels. I just don't know the man. With Mum gone I have lost my main confidant and now I'm totally lost. Everything I know about Dad came from Mum explaining things to me. He has never opened up to me. My main male role model has always been distant and awkward. I'm almost 30, I can't hide behind that anymore but there is no denying the mark it has left on my life. I'm nervous, under confident and unhappy.

Being self employed maybe a mistake. I have very little company and my brain struggles with the highs and lows of my emotional state being so keenly tied to the shop's figures. Still this week was a good week, maybe Christmas has begun. I have bought a few new albums including the Chase & Status CD. Roll on next summer.

I hope tonight is OK. I'm dreading it frankly. I wish Mum was still here.

Explaining or justifying?

Here it is, my own North Channel Swim Challenge record card. I've decided to dub this week as a rest week. But is that explaining why I haven't been swimming this week or justifying my laziness? Ugh.

Here's some excerpts from an interesting article on swimming the North Channel (taken from active.com):

American team conquers the UK's North Channel

There was a time when Steve Frantz used to have to cling to the side of the pool and catch a breath after a short swim. Now, the 58-year-old attorney has the English, Catalina and North Channel crossings listed on his swimming resume.

Frantz, who makes his home in the Southern California beach community of Cardiff, recently swam the North Channel between Scotland and Ireland with a relay team.

Frantz and his five teammates braved the chilly waters, strong currents and winds in August to become the first American team to swim from Port Patrick, Scotland, to Bangor, Ireland a distance of about 25 miles. They completed the trek in 13 hours, 11 minutes.

According to Frantz, the North Channel is a notch above the English Channel in difficulty in every category. The water temperature ranges from 52 to 56 degrees as opposed to 60 to 64 degrees in the English. The currents and the winds are stronger as well, and then there's the jellyfish.

The plan is to start Monday morning. We'll see how it goes.

A restless night's sleep

Well my sleep has been plagued this week. Some late nights (including ruining a good friend's normal routine) and fitful sleep when I do finally get into bed.

But last night took the prize. I got into bed at a reasonable hour, but then had an incredibly vivid dream.

I won't go into it all, but I had been sectioned in a mental hospital. It was incredibly traumatic. Only one friend came to visit me and frankly after the events of last week I was stunned. Dream logic is odd, there was no explanation as to why I'd been sectioned, but it seemed almost reasonable as I'd had a shit year. The events of recent week were all relevant too.

The one friend who came to visit me is not the person I would have expected either (IE - not the friend whose routine I ruined earlier this week). We got chance to talk about what had happened last week and things took an interesting turn.

Then my Mum arrived which kinda ruined the mood of fledgling romance that had crept into the dream.

Anyway, an odd one. Have fun analysing that one people.

Something shiny!

This post is really to test that a Facebook app is pulling my new blog posts through correctly. But I also wanted to show off this amazing gift I received recently.

Oh and I've discovered backdating blog entries works, so I will pull all the relevant entries off my LiveBlog on Facebook over the next few days. Shiny.

That is all.

New goals

OK, some new goals. Things have sucked recently and I need to keep my head up.


#1 THE NORTH CHANNEL SWIM CHALLENGE
So having finished the Aspire Swim Challenge two weeks early I have become worried that I will become lazy and lose my motivation to go. So I'm setting my own challenge to myself.

I intend to swim the equivalent length of the North Channel between now and Saturday 20th March. The North Channel, (Irish Channel) between the North of Ireland and the Mull of Galloway is 18.6 miles (35 km.).

That's 1051 lengths in my local pool - 13 less than the Aspire Swim Challenge. That's 17 weeks so longer than for the Swim Challenge, but it does allow me to have a break over Christmas as the pool will undoubtedly open at odd times or indeed shut.

I'll keep updating with my progress.


#2 DRIVING THEORY TEST

I've had my provisional license for a while. Still unsure as to whether I can even really afford to learn drive, but I feel it is a skill I should keep working towards. So the goal is to have completed my theory test before my birthday next year. (I'll be 30 - aaargh!)


#3 FINISH MY CURRENT STORY

Whether it turns into a novel or a novella, I intend to stick at it and finish the story. Then we'll see how much work it needs to kick it into shape.


So that's a few to be going on with. Need to have more fun and worry less.

Easier said than done.