I haven't been hiding

I realise I haven't posted here for a while now but I've just been busy rather than hiding or trying to be mysterious or whatever.

The last time I posted was just after my Nan died. Lou and I went to the funeral - the first time either of us have been to such an occasion - and it was an extremely moving occasion. I cried a little and I really do miss her. It feels strange knowing that she isn't around any more, and that we'll never see her again. From time to time I hear her voice, as though she's answering the telephone to a call I make, or the way she sounds when we walked into her flat or a family gathering at Christmas and she said hello. I know this is just a part of the grieving process, but it still isn't easy. After the funeral about twenty of us went to a local hotel where we had a small get-together and it was nice to see some of the family again, even though the occasion was a sad one.

Lou's dad's operation went well by the way. He was discharged a day later and is now on the mend.

The last time I posted here I had recently fallen down the stairs. It hurt like hell for about a fortnight and has only just got back to normal. A couple of days after the accident I had an enormous bruise on my left hip, and every time I took a breath or lay on my back or left side my ribs were incredibly painful, so I assumed that I must have cracked a rib. For a few days I couldn't sleep as I was unable to find a comfortable position to lie in, so I was constantly tired and a little bit grumpy too. Better now though.

Work has been extremely busy of late. I'm in the process of adding about another four courses to my line and am also prepping for an exam and also looking into the possibility of picking another two products up. I seldom have my head out of a manual these days. In terms of delivery I ran a "dreaded" 2780 (maintaining a SQL Server 2005 database) course this week and had a fantastic time thanks to the lovely group of people I was training. Next week brings more SQL, then some CRM the week after - a product which is suddenly going nuts as after a long time pretty much out of my schedule with only the occasional course, I'm now running one ever other week or so. Which is good, of course.

I'm still working on the website redesign at the moment, trying to get my head around such things as layers, library items, cascading style sheets and more. In addition I'm working on a strange little writing project too, a kind of memoir, and I'm planning on putting a few bits of it in here. We shall see what happens.

Saw a couple of concerts recently. A few weeks ago we saw Nine Inch Nails at the Manchester Apollo. I've been a fan of theirs for a long time but have never been to see them in concert, but was a bit scared of being deafened, so we both wore earplugs! As it turned out we needed them as it was deafening. They were very good and played some of my favourite songs, but the show was spoiled by the presentation: they filled the entire venue with dry ice and had about a dozen strobe lights on the stage, flashing away merrily to themselves most of the time, so as a result it seemed that we were in a room with a very noisy flashing white cloud, which didn't exactly make it a visual feast. Oh well. Anyway, a week later we saw Arcade Fire at the same venue. One word: STUNNING. I was a huge fan of their first album, "Funeral", and their second - "Neon Bible" - was released a few days before the show. I bought "Neon Bible" on the release date and listened to it that night with my jaw on the floor as it was even better than "Funeral" in my opinion. For the next few days I listened to "Neon Bible" about twice per night and by the Friday I was almost giddy with excitement about the concert. Thankfully they didn't disappoint. The show was superb, they were fantastic musicians, and I grinned from start to finish. I really wish I could see them again, but the entire tour sold out in about five minutes, so there is no chance. Maybe next time.

Think that's all for now. Off to mess with Dreamweaver for a bit to see if I can learn anything more.