Godzilla service pack

I've got several blog posts sitting in the Drafts folder, started, then abandoned, like a too-big sandwich that you thought you could manage, but it turned out you couldn't.

There are several reasons for this, including the old favourites "utter laziness", "lack of enthusiasm for the subject matter that is my life" and of course "distracted by watching a film on TV and forgetting all about the blog."

Additional reasons which are slightly less dull and objectionable include:

Christmas.  I know it happens at the same time every year, but even so.  Things were busy, what with going out a fair bit, and enjoying spending time at home with Mr WithaY and various friends who have been calling in to visit.  A couple of Mr WithaY's former colleagues called in the week before Christmas for tea and mince pies, and it was very nice to hear about how shite things are in the office.  Mr WithaY was able to enjoy the gossip and then sigh happily to think that he is well out of all that madness now.

We had a party.  It was successful, in that all the food was eaten (and I think enjoyed), nobody left in a high dudgeon (as far as I know) and nothing got smashed.  Well, only a few of the guests.  In fact, that felt like the start of Christmas, and things have been mostly very nice ever since.

However.

The night of our party, ten minutes before the guests started to arrive, we had a phone call from a very dear friend.  His wife, another very dear friend, had been gravely ill following a heart attack.  Horrible.  We'd been informed of this by her brother a few days earlier, so were already anxious.  Anyway, her husband rang us to let us know that there had been more tests run, including an MRI scan, and that the results were devastatingly bad. In fact, he all but said that they were now just waiting for the end.  Well, fuck.  We (me, Mr WithaY and our recently-married mate who was staying with us for the party) had a stiff drink, I had a bit of a cry, and then we had to put on our best smiley faces and greet our guests.

All things considered, it was a very good party, but it was a bit weird.  At one point I went and sat outside on the bench in the front garden and looked at the stars, and had a surreptitious little weep (I had been drinking a fair bit, if that's any mitigation) but other than that, it all went well.

Recent news of our friend's progress  is fractionally encouraging, but not much.  We're waiting to see what happens.

The traditional Christmas Cold has made its annual appearance too.  Mr WithaY succumbed to it on Boxing Day, and since then has spent his time wrapped in many, many layers of fleece and wool, taking Beechams and accruing a huge mound of balsam tissues on the floor beside him, which then get ritualistically thrown on the fire, in a sort of Viking burial for germs.  I thought I'd got away with it until today.

I have not got away with it, however, and today I am developing my very own germ Valhalla mound.

Also, I got my car back this week.  It had a broken turbo, it turned out, and as a result I had to spend £1500 to get it fixed.  Fucking Toyota parts.

For that kind of money, I want my new turbo personally delivered by Godzilla.  On a bed of carefully-sliced fugu fish.  With a band of high-ranking Samurai warriors as escort.

They should do that.  Call it the "Godzilla Service Pack."  I'd buy it.

Anyhoo, the car is running well again, and if I felt less shite I dare say I'd go out in it.

So, Happy New Year to you all.  Thank you for taking the time to read and sometimes comment on my blog, I appreciate it very much.

I'd still write it, but it's more fun knowing there's an audience out there.