Now that’s over for another year, perhaps I can cheer up.

U2 on Wednesday at the Millennium Stadium. Even that’s been a headache, but looks like we are going to make it. Hope it’s worth the £125. Hang on, that’s the same as a ticket for last weekend. I know where I’d rather have been, despite the rain, mud and Docherty!

There is a certain amount of honesty in writing. Not in all writing, that I understand, but in the writing I have done, there has always been some honesty. Feelings, sensations, reflections, anticipation, whatever the source, there has always been a little bit of me in whatever I’ve written. Whether it was for one of the websites I used to write for, or the magazine pieces I did, without a certain level of honesty, they never seemed to ring true. I suppose that is why I will never become a great writer and certainly why I find it more and more difficult to write these days.

It is often said that with age comes wisdom. With wisdom the ability to see and speak the truth. As people gain wisdom - whether book-learned or through life’s journey - surely it is only right that they become comfortable within their own skin. They release the crutches of old lies and exaggerations and depend instead on what they have learned and their own ability to find happiness in maturity. They put aside the joys they thought they had found by adopting new pleasures within a different sphere.

If, therefore, it is not just difficult, but impossible to do this, if indeed with age one finds oneself more wrapped in lies, more uncomfortable within ones own skin - harbouring a hatred not only for the physical but also the emotional self one has become - is this a sense of immaturity? Could it be that, in time, there will be a resolution? Is it just a matter of waiting for the day when the gauze descends and you are finally able to see things clearly?

Or, could it simply be that this is it?

Could it be that no real wisdom will ever come? Is it possible to be destined never to truly find self-knowledge and contentment within ones own sphere? Will there always be a “something” just out of reach. A “something” you missed out on years ago, which you may have tasted but never truly consumed. A “something” which you feel could have offered more - if only you’d had the will, the bravery to fully realise it. A “something” which is now beyond your reach. A “something” which will, forever, be for the pleasure of others..

There are moments in the day when happiness is close but never all consuming. There are times when there is a level of acceptance that equates to getting through. There are times when the missing of “something” becomes a game which you are dragged back into. There are times when the longing for the “something” is so painful that the old scars become red and pronounced and need once again to be opened - to vent the pain, the fury of the loss.

There are times when, looking into the eyes of that which you have is enough. However, there are times when it is not.

I’m actually quite pissed off at the moment. I had a couple of days off work and was sick for them (this nagging cold/sinus infection/congestion/whatever is never, ever going away - and I’m not going to be able to pick up the phone again without someone asking “Oh, have you got a cold?”), which stopped us doing the things we’d planned.

And it’s the way of life at the moment. Everything I plan seems to turn to cack. Work is still undecided. U2 is still up in the air. Even a plan to go to the pub is harder to achieve than consensus on the European Constitution. And life used to be easy - pah!

Am feeling incredibly sorry for myself - just ignore me.

.. came home from hospital a year ago today. Where does time go?

via Evolt Spool, a site where you can find out how many seconds you’ve been alive for.

Priceless!

..would happen. Completely addicted to Big Blogger. Much better than the real thing.

For those locals who’d rather share a car and save the environment, South East Wales car-share now has a website.

Might be a way of curbing car-expenses and feeling like you’re doing your bit.

Seriously, £715 a year on toys? The world has truly gone mad.

Driving the the child-minders this morning - before embarking on my commute to work - the radio DJ was jabbering inanely in the background. I was sort of half listening. Then he said words to the effect “and now for a classic. Turn your radio’s up loud..”. It was “Parklife” by Blur.

I forgot William was in the car and turned the volume up to 28. That, by the way, is quite loud (or, as my father would have said, “turn that bloody racket down” loud).

We got to the child-minders just as the track ended. I looked around to a very startled looking William and said “And that’s what real music used to sound like.”

Over the next couple of weeks (until Glastonbury at least), I will be mostly hooked on Big Blogger 2005 internet-wise and listening to 6 Music.

In real-life, busy, busy! Spending almost as much time up inthe Smoke as in the Gene Puddle (slight exaggeration), feeling overwhelmed by the planning process required to get through a work-day and remember to pick William up at the end of it, eating anything not nailed to the table (and some stuff that is), plans for drunken watching of U2 at the end of this month dashed by mother’s broken knee-cap and visit from member of our Scottish outpost the following day, two-days off planned and already filled with countless “little things”. So much for relaxing and having some fun then!

Blogging to resume when I have time, spirit and energy. Reservation made in 2010.