Sleep interupted

I'm a fairly light sleeper normally, such that I rarely sleep the entire night without waking up a couple of times. More often than not its because certain felines have [re]appeared on the bed. I don't mind this, though it has caused me to be able to identify which cat it is without putting the light on.

Scully always jumps on at the top of the bed nearest the door, then walks or leaps over me so that she is on my right as I lie. She then curls up on the pillow next to me and goes to sleep. Which is very scary if she has managed to get all the way on there without me noticing as I discovered on sunday morning when I opened my eyes to discover her peering intensely into my eyes from about three inches. I woke up fairly rapidly thereafter as you might imagine.

Valen on the other hand is a bit more timid. He always jumps onto the bed down near my feet and walks around me to get to where he wants to get. He always sleeps by my feet, or on the odd instance between my feet if I happen to have moved such that my legs are apart. This does mean that he is sometimes accidentally kicked into the night when I roll over.

I can also tell who is who by touch, Scully has slightly wirey fur, whereas Valen is much softer. It is also possible to tell who is who when they lick my fingers, as Valen's tongue is raspy like sandpaper whereas Scully's is softer some how.

Another bar joke

just read this one somewhere

f(x)=3X+6 goes into a bar and asks for a sandwich. Sorry replies the landlord, we don't cater for functions...

This blogger has the flu

I don't know whether it is a combination of the late nights and alcohol or sleeping in the coldest bunk room, but I have gone down with the flu. This is only the fourth time I've been out of bed since monday, and I'm not sure if its a good idea yet. Oh well.

Had a great time at Dalesbridge with all the other ops people last weekend. It was really good to catch up with every one and share experiences of the festival again. It seems like ages since we were all there but its only been a couple of months really. Still its reassuring to learn that many of my friends were experiencing the same kinds of emotions and concerns, and finding new ways to expand and learn from those shared thoughts. Some of the best bits were watching everybody play with the stress carrot whislt sharing.

Oh and we won the quiz too. So it just goes to show that all those evenings in watching Big Brother were worth it afterall Liz

Now I am just left with the sadness of it being another five months until we all get the chance to meet up again in another part of the country.

Home is where there is nothing to do

Its official, I live in the least uk's least cultured town or borough.

I have to agree with the surveys view as well, we have the lowest culture density in the UK. No theatre (not that I would go to a theatre if there was one mind), no cinema (which I would use), only one museem (about Silk of all things).

On the bright side, we do have lots of trees, open spaces, proper countryside right outside the window, as much fresh air as we want all the time, no parking nightmares, or bad traffic jams, so its not so bad really.

Subliminal music. and cats

Having just discovered the frustration of having typed a half page of blog only for the sever to swallow it and throw out some truely pointless error message, this is going to be shorter than it was originally.
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Music plays a large part in my life. Its the first thing I hear in the morning when I wake up,
not withstanding the cats meowing which could mean any combination of the following: "feed me","give me some water", "let me out", "let me in", "give me some attention", "hello", "its dark out still", "sorry, did I wake you up?", "you are asleep on my bed, get off", "thats mine too!", "I've got something sticky on my fur, please let me rub myself against you to wipe it off", "are you pleased to see me?", "look, its a dead [insert appropriate rodent/bird/frog/worm/insect] that I've just caught for you", "its raining outside", "I'm wet, so you need to be wet too", "coming through", "play with me", and probably "feed me some more".
Music is also the last thing I hear before drifiting off to sleep at night and given that I sleep with the radio on, I'm sure it is secretly brainwashing me to buy all of these cds [/me gestures towards shelf unit over there, sagging under weight of hundreds of cds]

It does however keep me company and make the house seem more lived-in than it would otherwise. The problem with sleeping with the radio on is that the music enters your mind directly without your knowledge, and you find that the next day you are humming a song that you can't remember hearing before.

A couple of songs that have joined me recently in this manner are
Little Yellow Spider by Devendra Banhart

and Everything I've got in my pocket by Minnie Driver

Both albums are quite different, but each in their own way are fantastic. Devendra has a strange story-telling way of singing, painting with music I guess. Whereas Minnie has a very clean singing tone, that is strangely hypnotic.
This got me thinking about how my musical tastes have changed and evolved over the years, from its early heavy metal/thrash/grindcore/speed metal origins to the mellow nature of the music I now prefer. Even so I don't think there is a single album on those shelves that I couldn't slide into the cd player and lose myself in completely for a while. There are many that I wish I could disappear into completely.........