A blogging challenge . . .

It's decided. Unless I'm away, I'm going to blog every day for the rest of the summer. Why? Because I'm terrible at keeping a diary, and it would be nice to remember what I actually got up to over the summer break. And I like blogging, I just always forget to do it. So here goes . . .

This summer so far has been fun. Actually, the fun part is pretty much over . . . I went to Skye for a week with the family, which was great. I was then home or a day before getting a train down to Brighton (a very long trip, I read almost all of David Mitchell's 'Black Swan Green', which is an incredible, imaginative, moving book. It was the second time I'd read it and, like all Mitchell's books, I'd totally forgotten how good it was) for a church conference. That was good, plus there was the beach and plenty of graffiti photography opportunities which always make me happy. On the way back I stopped off in the Lake Districy for a long weekend with some friends from the sixth-form days, which was fantastic. It's weird how those two years of 'transition' at college, which most people overlook and leave behind pretty quickly, got me the only bunch of friends that I've really kept in contact with. It's insane that it was ive years ago when we first started Ridge. Madness. It really doesn't feel like that long ago at all. Despite me being he only one who took a gap year several of the rest are on four year/ foundation/ graduate courses, so hopefully we won't have too many people disappearing on us yet.

So now I'm back, and writing obituaries (my summer job. Unusual I know. But it's really interesting, if a little sad), and thinking about my dissertation . . . . I should hopefully get back to Manchester for a couple of weekends at some point, and one or two people are planning on visiting me up here in Glasgow, so fingers crossed the next couple of months shouldn't be toooo boring. Plus I came up with a list of '100 things to do this summer' (but could only think of 90). So far I've completed:

1. Write cards for old friends (postcards ftw!)
3. Start a creative writing journal (an actual notebook, not online as most other things in my life. Though I might start an online one too eventually)
25. Buy replacement flower-power bracelets (me and the sisters had matching flower bracelets, but they all broke this year. So we've got new new beaded ones instead).
47. Sign up for the organ donor register (after all those years of saying I would it took approx. 3 minutes)
58. Get back into a retro computer game (Tony Hawks 3 on the Playstation, oh yes :D)
59. Play a retro board game (The Game of Life. Twice.)

And so far that's it. Quite a few to go then. Some of them I'm looking at and already thinking that they're not going to work out. The heat-wave was very short-lived, so majorly out-doorsy plans may have to be scrapped . . . but it's waving off the boredom anyway.

In other news . . whilst I was away Dan (my youngest brother) did something to my laptop that made it go back to factory settings . . . or maybe he didn't and it just happened like he said. It's not the greatest of computers so it could probably have happened to anyone. But as it is, it happened whilst I was away, and a combination of guilt, a recent inheritance and my approaching disseration means the parents have very kindly ordered a new one. It has about six times the memory of this one, it's purple, and it has a built-in camera. Oh yes. Which means after all those years of saying I wanted to vlog I might actually do so . . . be afraid.