The Little Things

In which small things help me to stay upbeat.

Hello there. I seem to be suffering from a case of the January Blues right now. The future is looking rather bleak and I’ve generally been a bit down. The fact that I’ve not really been to anywhere more exciting than a supermarket in days hasn’t helped and neither is the prospect of returning to uni at the end of the week. It’s not that I really hate it but I’m reasonably happy at home and last semester was pretty awful and I’ve already seen signs that suggest this one won’t be much better. Still, I have to remain as optimistic as possible and it’s the little things that have been keeping my spirits up.

Sunday night was mine and Chris’ farewell drinks before we head off to our respective universities for the next semester. Chris is really not enjoying his uni experience so we were both a bit down about our empty and fairly rubbish lives. Still, alcohol helped and we did managed to get a little tipsy before closing time. We went for a walk around the local lake, along a path which is really muddy in full darkness with only our phones to light the way. By some miracle I seemed not to be too muddy when I made it home though.

Part of the reason I’ve been pretty much housebound over the last few days is the various visitors to the house. I was my Dad’s “technical support” when a man from BT came to install the new internet hub. We now have “BT Infinity” internet which is good news as it just means it’s super-fast. I tested it yesterday and it is literally as fast as you get which is pretty awesome. Oh and because of this and the slightly drunken conversation we had, an intimate part of Chris’ body is now called “Infinity”…

I also had to be around today because my Dad was busy working somewhere and a tree surgeon was coming round. The title “tree surgeon” is inappropriate really as this implies no more than amputation but Mr. Tree Surgeon and Mr. Tree Surgeon’s younger brother had the task of taking down the long dead tree from our garden. Miraculously they managed not to let it fall on the conservatory. It’s weird not having that tree, it’s been there all twelve years I’ve lived at this house. Now the garden suddenly feels bigger though it’s covered in dead leaves and sawdust so I would hardly go as far as to say it looks good.

Perhaps the highlight of my dad was receiving a long voicemail from my Dad. He had tried to phone me and had missed me but somehow failed to press the “end call” button on his phone because it’s quite new and he can’t work it yet. I then had five minutes of noises coming from my Dad’s car as he drove home which included music, The Calling’s Wherever You Will Go, passing traffic, my Dad whistling and the phone sliding around wherever it was put. This was quite amusing to begin with but then it dawned on me that the only way I could delete the message was to listen to it all the way through. Five minutes of what I mentioned is pretty boring. I was still listening to it on speakerphone when my Dad arrived home so at least I could tease him about it.

Another little thing which I found fascinating is a huge flock of birds which gather in a tree outside a supermarket in the town centre every evening, from around half past four. They have any tree in the area, heck the New Forest is only a few miles away, yet they decide to sit in this tree. It reminds me a little of this sort of scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds”:

Having said that, the birds above are crows which are fairly sizeable and menacing but we have Pied Wagtails which are tiny and look like this:

Hardly scary at all, in fact they’re rather cute. Hundreds and hundreds of the little birds gather in this one tree and it’s a cacophony of sound as the little flit between branches in the twilight. It’s quite a mesmerising experience really.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time promoting this blog over the last few days as well and it seems to be paying off. I have a few quite exciting things to share with you though. First is the fact that I’ve put together an e-book featuring some of the best bits of my blog. And the good news? It’s completely free. Just click here and press download and it’s all yours. Secondly I have completely re-written the About this Blog page so you might one to go and check that out. Best of all though I can announce the Into Geek Blog Carnival! The premise is simple. I post a topic, which will be really rather broad and then bloggers write a post on that topic. All the bloggers give me the link to the post and  if all goes to plan they'll be nice long list of blog posts here and on the main page of my blog. It will happen on the 29th February, a little way away yet, but perhaps you might like to make a mental note to take part. I’m also looking for sponsors to donate prizes be they physical, a service or a voucher so please contact me if you’d like to do that. It should be awesome and you can find out more about it on this page.

That’s about it for today but tomorrow I will launch a new feature! It’s in the line of my factual posts but rest assured it’ll be interesting and humorous at the same time. Don’t miss it!