This is going to be a long blog entry, so I hope that you read it all and are sitting comfortably when you do.

So, here I am back home from Greenbelt and rested (at least a bit), now looking forward to a visit from an American friend of Niki’s who’s coming to stay for the weekend with her husband as part of their tour of Europe (but more of that later maybe).

Greenbelt was great!! I suppose I should add a little more detail to that really.

Alright let me start off with the bad points about the whole Greenbelt weekend / experience. The journey down there was a bit of a nightmare (uncomfortable and I was stressed out as I always am whenever I go out anywhere these days); the weather was awful (it rained for most of the weekend, although it was too sunny and hot on the Friday and I managed to get a sun burnt head); camping was uncomfortable (I am just not built for camping any more, don’t know if I ever really was); the porta-loos were dirty and the ground in front of them like a lake (although Niki was quite amused by the fact they were called AndyLoos); I felt very out of place for the first 2 days (part of this was due to my normal paranoia / stress and partly due to my own inability to separate people from stereotypical group identities); our tent was a long way from the main festival (village) site (although having said that there were tents much further away from it than ours); there was so much going on in so many different places that it was sometimes hard to be were you wanted to be on time (it was also a bit difficult to find some of the entrances to some of the places); and lastly, the merchandising for the event (t-shirts) only went up to an XL and I (and I saw quite a few others of whom this is also true) need a slightly larger size than that (I know some will say that this is a problem of my own causing and I agree but it is still a problem).

Alright, now let’s have a look at the good points about Greenbelt. The people are fantastic (everyone was getting on with everyone and chatting and having a good time, and accepting of everyone); I met one of Niki's friends called Julia who was very nice; there were some excellent bands on (although there were a few bands that I wasn’t into, some of the smaller bands on the 2nd stage were brilliant); there were tons of interesting and informative and thought provoking talks, seminars and events going on (and nobody was excluded from any of them, so long as there was space to get in); a lot of the things going on were indoor (this meant not having to worry about the weather); there were proper indoor toilets in the main festival site (village) and all of the toilets (porta-loos as well) were cleaned and re-stocked with paper every day (such luxury I have never known at a festival); there was very little alcohol on sale so this kept related problems to the barest minimum (no drunkenness, well maybe a little towards the end of the weekend, and no where near as much mess in the toilets and porta-loos); people actually cleaned up after themselves and put their rubbish in the bins (although sometimes this wasn’t true last thing at night when empty drinks and food containers would be left on the tables outside some of the food places, but other than that it meant there was hardly any rubbish anywhere on the floor); there was a huge variety of food and drink places and none of them were ridiculously expensive (a great mixture of food from Afro-Caribbean through Thai and Mexican to bacon rolls and fish and chips); there was a 24 hour café (this meant that when you couldn’t sleep due to the tent being uncomfortable you could walk up to the main festival village and have a coffee and a muffin at some ridiculous hour of the morning); I felt so much like I fitted in and was accepted without any kind of judgment for the last half of the weekend (once I got over my stressed out, stereotyping, paranoia and actually relaxed and got to know some of the people and understand more about the festival itself it was great).

So there you go, some bad points (many of them more to do with me than anything else) but many more good points.

So now I’m going to go into a bit more detail about what I actually did and didn’t do. I didn’t get to see Maria McKee (although I wanted to) but did hear her and she sounded good; I didn’t get to see Courtney Pine; I didn’t get to see Candy Staton (sorry Jake) but again heard her and she sounded good too; I did see Daniel Bedingfield and although he's not exactly my thing he was good and puts on a good show; I did get to see a really good band called Hey Gravity who reminded me of a cross between Garbage and any one of a dozen or so British punk bands; I saw a band called The Cedars who, although a bit too preachy for my liking lyrically, were a good band with a good sound; I went to a talk by a Sci-Fi author about writing and had a chat to him afterwards which was interesting; I saw a man called John Bell give a talk and was blown away by how charismatic but also ordinary he was; I bought a few things from some of the stalls around; and I watched lots of buskers (they set up busking points around the site for people who had brought instruments along to play at, although not for money), drummers, jugglers, and generally people having a good time. Although I didn't actually see them I got CD's by two bands that I heard and thought sounded good, one was called Crave and the other was called Electralyte. I also met some incredibly nice people who made me realize something that I had always thought I already knew, not everyone in a group is the same. I know that might sound a bit cheesy but I can’t think of any other way of saying it.

Having just read though what I’ve already written I realize that some people may not be aware of exactly what Greenbelt is, so for those people I will explain and to do so I will start by saying what it isn’t. It isn’t a music festival like Reading (although there is a lot of music there); it isn’t a festival for only young people (although there are a lot of young people there). It is a Christian arts festival. Now I know that the word Christian may well put a lot of people off reading anymore, and I can assure all of those that know me that I am no more a believer in Christ as the son of God now than I was before I went. It’s an arts festival with a Christian message for Christians, and anyone else that wants to go no matter what faith or lack of faith you subscribe to (although I do think that Satanists probably wouldn’t be welcome)

I know that some people have a very definite view of Christians and what they are (just like I did) but let me pass on to you a few things about the Christians at Greenbelt that some of you may not be aware of and I learned by observing them.
1. They come in all shapes, sizes, colours, from all classes, from lots of different places and in both sexes.
2. Some of them like music and even rock music (and not just Christian rock music), some of the band and music related t-shirts I saw people wearing over the weekend included:- The Foo Fighters, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Bullet For My Valentine, My Chemical Romance, Coheed And Cambria, Blink 182, Green Day, Thin Lizzy, Sepultura, D12, and also t-shirts from the Ministry Of Sound and Cream.
3. Some of them skate – in fact there was a skate park set up there for the people that wanted to use it (and many did).
4. They are basically just like ordinary people, except that they believe in God and Christ and all that goes with that.

Having said that I don’t believe any more now than I did, I would say that the weekend has changed me to some extent, it made me think more about a lot of things (both in my own life and in the world in general). It made me think a lot about music and just how dismissive people are of bands that wear their beliefs on their sleeves but are perfectly alright with other bands singing about God and Jesus. It also made me think about my place within the world and what I want that to be (I’m still not sure about that but am working on it slowly).

I know that a weekend at this kind of festival won’t be everyone’s thing (and in some ways I’m glad about that), all I would say is that I enjoyed being in the company of people who cared about the people around them and weren’t afraid to show it. I know that back here in the real world not all Christians are non-judgmental and forward thinking, as the ones at Greenbelt are, but I now know that there are many more that are than I ever thought there were and that can only be a good thing.

So, we’re sorting out the flat ready for Niki’s American friend and her husband who are arriving a day earlier than we were expecting, and hoping everything goes well for their visit. I’ll probably post another entry at some point over the weekend, until then, see y’all!

Well here I am back from Greenbelt. Had a great time and I will post a full entry all about it sometime over the next day or two. For now I need to catch up on stuff around the house and my sleep.

See y'all

Looks like I was wrong yesterday, the session with the counsellor wasn't as ok as I'd thought, of course I didn't realise this fact until later in the day when I managed to download something and screw my computer up by infecting it with malware. I got so frustrated because I couldn't focus on the logical things to do to get rid of it and just got caught up in the ball of loose emotions that the morning session had left laying around in my head. Needless to say this sent me into a rapid downward spin, luckily Niki came home from shopping a little later and managed to pull me up out of it with a massive session of ego stroking (I wonder if I could be in breach of my tenancy for having a pet, my ego is worse than any lap dog).

Anyway, feeling much better now but just needed to share my mistake to get it out of my head.

Hopefully this weekend will help me by getting me away from immediate problems for a few days, I can but dream.

See y'all.

So, here I am looking forward to going away for the weekend with Niki. We’re going to Greenbelt, an arts festival in Cheltenham. There’s music and art and drama and all kinds of stuff going on there. It looks like it’ll be fun, I just hope the bad weather holds off. I’m going to try to do another blog entry before we leave early on Friday morning. If you want to know more about the festival you can check it out at this link:- GREENBELT

Because I won’t be here on Friday morning I was given an earlier appointment with my counsellor, so I saw her this morning. The session was alright and gave me a lot to think about, but I found it very emotionally draining and so am feeling tired right now.

We had a valuer come round today to check the flat out for the landlord so he can put it on the market, goody!

All in all not an excellent day so far, but not one of the worst I’ve ever had, so I suppose it’s alright-ish.

I found a couple of interesting web sites that I thought I’d share with everyone. The first is a sight with CD’s of different types of music recorded as lullabys for babies, it’s worth a laugh if nothing else. You can link to it here:- PUNK ROCK BABY
The second is a site where you can get a board game all about zombies. You can link to it here:- ZOMBIES

Anyway, I’m going off to chill out and relax for a while (and probably end up falling asleep) so see y’all.

For some reason that I cannot remember at all I didn't post an entry after going to the counsellors on Friday or even yesterday, as I said I would, but here it is now (hence the title of this post).

The session went well, I suppose, she asked me a few of the usual questions about my state of mind over the last year and my life up to that point and then we started doing the well worn "Imagine that you went to sleep and while you were asleep a miracle happened and everything you really wanted to happen in your life to make it better actually happened, but of course you didn't know because you were asleep, how would you be able to tell the changes had happened when you woke up in the morning" scenario. This went pretty well, except for the fact that she wanted to do the whole day in the hour session we had and we only actually covered the morning. It was a bit odd talking to a woman about some of the things we discussed, but I think I managed to be honest and open with her. It was an advantage to me that, although she is not a bad looking woman and I would say about the same age as me, she isn't the type of woman I fancy so there was no trying to flirt or embarressment because she was attractive to me on my part (I can't speak for her obviously ).

Anyway, I must say that I do feel a little lighter of mood than I have done recently. This weekend is a bit odd, with Niki being away with at Silkwood in Sutton the bunnies and Scott being here (along with multiple visits from Big chris), it just seems strange somehow. It's funny but even though Niki and I have been together for only six months it feels like something is missing from me when she's not around.

I've been thinking about this whole moving house thing, and part of me would like to take it as an opportunity to move away from this area and start again somewhere new. By that I don't mean run away from my past and my responsibilities, but just go somewhere without all the memories and reminders of my past. The problem is that I don't want to be too far from Scott, Becca, Lauren and Jay, and my friends. The main consideration for me at the moment is that Scott is heading into his final year at secondary school and I want to be there for him if he needs help and support during that time, I then start thinking about the fact that I see him and Becca (and of course Lauren and Jay) a lot less now than I used to and if I moved too far away i would probably see them even less, the same is true of my friends. So, basically, it looks like I'll be staying around the Barking / Dagenham area for the foreseeable future.

Well, not much more I can think of to say right now so I'll see y'all later.

Yes, as per usual when ever I have to get up early I set the alarm and then get up about an hour before it goes off. So now here I sit, having partaken of the early morning quietness for the last hour and now other people around the area are also waking up and shattering that quietness, trying not to get too stressed about the counselling. One thing I did notice on the letter I got yesterday confirming todays session, was that they want me to be available for six consecutive weeks but next week Niki and I are going away to a music festival thingy and so I won't be here, I hope that doesn't mean that my counselling will be cancalled or put off for months. The problem I have at the moment is that I'm on my own right now, Niki has gone to Sutton to look after the rabbits and cats and Scott won't be coming round for the weekend until this evening, so I've had yesterday afternoon and this morning to get myself well and truely stressed out, and I think that I've done a reasonable job so far.

Anyway, I'm going to go and have a wash and shave so that I at least look presentable for the counsellor, instead of the mess I look at the moment, I will post something either later today or tomorrow to let everyone know how it went.

Until then, see y'all

It's quite amazing just how quickly the universe conspires to make things go wrong for me when they're going right. Yes I know that sounds like paranoia, and that's because I'm paranoid, but in this case I'm not so sure that's what it is.

So just a day after being told that my counselling is going to start and thinking "Well, hey, maybe things are starting to work out", I get a phone call from the letting agents that I rent the flat off saying that my landlord wants to sell the flat and so will not be renewing my tenancy in November and I have a couple of months to find somewhere else to live. I wouldn't mind so much but after two years of living here this place has finally started to feel like home and now I've got to leave. To say that it made me feel a bit down would be an understatement, but this time I'm kind of angry/confused down rather than just straight forward fed up.

Still, Niki says that we'll find a way to work it out and I know that we'll have to. Stay tuned for more information.

See y'all

I thought that I should post an entry on my blog, partly to let everyone know I’m alright, and partly because I’ve actually got something to write about

Let’s start with the weekend. Scott was staying at the weekend and I got four tickets to go to the recording of a new sit-com for BBC3 on Saturday (it’s going out in October or November as part of a new series of one off comedies called ‘Behind Closed Doors’ or something like that) it was called ‘Lab Rats’ and stars a guy called Chris Addison (who played the young assistant in the comedy series ‘The Thick Of It’ and has had a lot of success on radio). Niki couldn’t go because she was working so Scott came up with the idea of asking my nephew Craig and his girlfriend Hazel as they don’t live that far from us, so they came along as well. It was pretty good, although the warm up man, Martin, and a few bits of stand up stuff that Chris Addison did between scenes were actually funnier than a lot of the sit-com, but we had a good time and it was good to see Craig and Hazel.

On Sunday both Niki and I were invited to my mother-in-law’s birthday party (more kind of afternoon tea than a knees-up), I know that may seem strange to some people but I have stayed good friends with my ex’s family and they are all very nice people. So we went, with more than a few feelings of uncertainty, but it actually wasn’t too bad, although there were a couple of moments where it all seemed just a bit too weird especially as my ex’s boyfriend (I’m not sure if that’s exactly the right word to use but the reasons for that are far too complicated and involved to go into here) was there as well. Anyway we all survived the day and, I think it went pretty well. Becca had a small accident in her car last week, no one was injured and the car was hardly marked, but by Sunday she was saying that her back and neck were really painful, so I told Jay he has to look after her and told her to get to the doctors, hopefully she’ll be alright.

Old Niq came round to see me at the end of last week, it was really nice to see him and to mess around a bit with the echo unit he brought round for me to borrow, he’s off on holiday tomorrow I believe, hope everything goes alright for him at the airport.

I got a phone call today to arrange my first session with the counselors that are going to help me deal with my day to day problems and help me to find a way to motivate myself more, it’s on Friday morning and I’ve got an initial allowance of six session, it’s kind of weird but for the first time I’m going to have a female counselor and I feel a bit nervous about it, but as I have found that most of the counselors I’ve seen in the past weren’t that helpful maybe a change like that will be good and may work better, I don’t know but I’m trying to get rid of the nerves and be positive about it.

Can’t think of a lot more to say right now but will try to post some more at the weekend, when Scott will be here again and Niki will be at Silkwood.

See y’all.

As some may have noticed I have been absent from my blog for a little while, there have been a few different reasons for this, mainly the fact that I've really had no idea what the hell to write (and not much to write about anyway), also we have now got the new computer completely up and running (although as per ususal with me and computers it's still got some problems) and once again my depression has reared it's unwelcome head and nutted be squarely between the eyes.

I am suposed to be getting help with my depression. One group of counsellors will be writing to me to arrange an interview to set up sessions to help with my deep rooted long term problems (namely my self loathing) sometime within the next month or so, and another group will be contacting me by phone within the next couple of weeks to set up sessions to deal with my inability to motivate my self on a daily basis. The guy who I talked to at the central counselling place seemed not to understand what I was talking about when I said that the problem I see in that arrangement is that they are both linked, but I'm sure (or rather I'm not totally convinced) that he knows what he's talking about. But I am determined not to get too bogged down in any kind of negativity about this, Niki keeps telling me that at least I'm getting some help and doing something about the problem so I should be more positive about ti and I know she's right but I think that I've spent far too long expecting nothing to go right for me to change so quickly.

Anyway, in other things, bugger all has happened really. That's probably not true but my negative mind set has a habit of blanking anything posative from my memory.

That's all for now, just wanted to post some kind of entry just to let everyone (and maybe myself) know that I'm still around.

See y'all