To to everyone who came out for my leaving do last night. Thanks for all your well wishes for the move. Those of you who sent your regards to Rach, I passed on your messages to a very sleepy Good Lady of Smethurst this morning. Ultimate thanks to deputy_dug for putting up my brother George at short notice.

Now packing panic is in full flow, so I must return to boxing up the last of the kitchen.

Oh Great Goddess of Doing Well at Interviews, please look over my friend Mavis.

Make sure he does not blunder, stammer, or blurk his way through this important 45mins-1hr of his life.

Please ensure that he makes appropriate eye contact and smiles so that he comes across as warm and not psychopathic to the lovely ladies and gentlemen of the interview board.

Protect him from unasked for and inappropriate excessive body odours.

Deliver unto him a good response to the immortal question;

“Now what would you like to ask us?”

I’m actually excited now. In fact bloody excited, like a small child on XMAS eve. Hence I didn’t sleep well last night. In fact the only person more excited about the move is my mother who rang up and demanded to know my new address last night.

Working from home today tieing up lose ends so I can forget it next week. Then tidying and some package. Then beer.

Things are getting a tad intense here.

Rach is on nights again. I’ve packed all I can, so I’m patiently waiting for M-Day to spring into action putting the remainder of our stuff into boxes.

Yesterday was a day of anger that would have dreadtemujin proud, and today while more controlled I feel like my head’s about to explode.

Fortunately there’s an inner voice which is guiding me through it all, holding my hand and helping me get around safety, gagging the anger and making sure that I don’t say anything inappropriate.

The worst thing about feeling this way is that I know how goddamn lucky I am. Apart from the occasional bout of deep depression I’ve never had it tough. What really hammered it home was the train journey yesterday. I’ve generally been noticing the influx of young east Europeans in the Beeston area. Well there was this trolley guy on the train home, who served me while I was in my self-justified black mood after a day at work. He was a fresh faced twenty something, tall with long hair tied back. The sort of chap who would have been a good acquaintance at university,who would have had the girls at rock sock swooning. Except here he is working on the trains at a minimum wage job. The final hammerfall was when he took my money and I noticed that his hands were like those of a middle aged man. Suddenly I felt like a spoilt brat which chocolate smeared all over my face screaming my head off because the adults weren’t bending to my will.

Another thing that brings determination to get out of this negative aggressive slump is the fact I’ve just been talking via Trillan to my mate tzunder, who took the time to listen to me whine and generally be sympathatic to my pathetic angry self, despite currently having to deal with a personal situation that far outstrips my in terms of reality and severity.

So I’m chillin’ and getting my head sorted out, since the world is hurt enough without me charging round like a bull in a china shop.

This Friday…me getting pissed at Portland 8:00 onwards….you friend of Newt…you invited.

In pictures for you that can not read.

Realising that I do most of communication with my mates online now I’ve taken a step futher and installed a couple of Instant messangers.

So I’m now on ICQ number 2418877565 and Yahoo ID:Newtiswrong (for which I use the rather splendid Trillian basic client)

And SKYPE , name:newtus.

So if you ever want to contact me or even just chat give me a buzz.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1329362959167995041

This week has been a week of final things.

After 6 years I’ve finally tidied up the attic, which was the Lair of Newt until last summer.

Our foster cat Tabitha went to her new home, and settled in straight away having a quick nose around the her new house like she owned the place before curling up under a radiator.

We had our final recycle bin collection last week, and we missed it.

I had my final bottles of real ale from the shop round the corner.

I got up bright and sparky this morning, and am now in the process of packing up the kitchen. Then its on to misclanous debris around the house, before packing the essentials (clothes, food and cats) next weekend.

Talking of which this time next week I’ll be recovering from a healthy hangover, and doing the last of the packing in a nice calm and relaxed manner. NOT

Instead I’ll be sick to the point of voming, running around like a headless chicken squeezing the last of the packing into overburdened cardboard boxes. What jolly good fun.

Taking a quiet moment to myself.

Things are begining to get busy on the move front as we pack up the rest of our belongings. Rach has looked into hiring a Pickfords van, since we’ve sold the Leeds house we are going to have to move everything in one go. The cats are still bonkers. BBC is clingy and keeps on attacking the many cardboard boxes that are accumilating in the front room. We reckon this is because BBCs previous owners left him when they moved house. I keep on cuddling him and reassuring him that we are not going to leave him, but alas at the end of the day he is not a small person in a furry coat and can not understand my words. This leaves us with a rather oddly behaving cat, who is spending most of his time charging around the house.

I’ve been kinda demotivated at work after putting the online results live. Catching up with more mundane work, uploading of documents, at the moment, before finishing off another website. I’ve realised however that my job is always going to be filled with projects of various sizes and that I can’t afford to ‘deflate’ energywise after finshing one. Onwards and upwards!

Off to see Clutch/Corrosion of Conformity in Manchester this Saturday with Nice Andy (Andy Martyn). In the strange posistion of going from Leeds and returning here afterwards. If we had moved house it would make more sense to return to Oldham, but because I’m not 100% sure of how to get to the new house it has been struck off as a bad idea. Especially with a drunk Mr Newt stubbling around in the dark.

Talking of upcoming gigs quite fancying going and seeing American Headcharge at Bradford Rios on Sat 28th. Also there’s Coheed & Cambria, nice anthemic melodic heavy metal with a bonkers prog-rock sci-fi story line going through their songs rapidly becoming a firm favourite despite being almost grrrless, playing Thursday 2nd Feb in Manchester. Will have to pull my finger out and book one or both very soon.