So I find myself at the end of a week that has been both surprising and unsurprising in equal measure.

Surprising because sometimes life takes us to unexpected places, and where we begin may be very far from where we end up. Some of the things we tell ourselves we'll never do are the very things that ultimately make us happiest. So preconceptions exist to be discarded, and prejudgements, particularly of our own inclinations, are there so that we may challenge them.

And unsurprising too, because this week has had an element of the utterly normal about it. Along with the exhilaration of new beginnings is a sense that this is really where I have been all along, I just had yet to realise it.

A new pair of arms may create the feeling of long forgotten security and comfort one had many years before, before life intervenes and makes us cynical and cold and less open to comfort.

A strange bed may sometimes feel like coming home.

I'm happy. That's all I'm saying.

Quietly happy. With a smile. And my fingers crossed.

(Will that do Puplet?)

The Tedious and the Terrific

My life is an even split these days between the mind-numbingly boring and the delightfully exciting.

Boring: Transcribing endless interviews. Sitting with headphones on for hours on end, typing.

Exciting: Getting paid for said typing. That's pretty good.

Boring: Reading reams of dull sociology texts

Exciting: Finding that one nugget of information that makes all the tedium worthwhile. And contemplating my dissertation. And going to lectures. And meeting new people. It's just all good.

Boring: Not having enough time to spend with my friends.

Exciting: Spending time with my friends. That's what it's all about at the end of the day.

Two nights ago, on the front of the local paper, was the face of a man I once knew.

A man I knew when he was a boy and I was a girl, twenty years ago when we used to play in one anothers' gardens, making potions out of mud and catching ghosts.

A man who, just about 18 months ago, was shot dead by police at the side of the road 15 miles from where we both grew up.

The police shot this man because he was behaving in a 'threatening manner' with a weapon (a sword). Everyone who knew him was entirely disbelieving that this could have happened. He had no pre-existing mental health problem, and the post mortem confirmed that no drugs or alcohol were in his body at the time. He was a kind, sweet, gentle child who became a kind, sweet, gentle man. It is believed that he may have been suffering from a virally-induced psychosis brought on as a result of an illness he picked up whilst travelling.

Now he's dead.

My mother said at the time: "You hear of these things happening, and although you are shocked by them, you don't really feel it. Then it happens to someone you know, the child of someone you know, and you realise, if it can happen to them, it can happen to any one of us. It was their child, but it could have been mine."

So, the Piglet got in a petulant funk last night and complained to her friends that she was fed up with this blogging lark and noone ever reads it anyway and stuck her bottom lip out and behaved like a small child with toothache.

And this morning the lovely altitude zero has proven to be a reader of this blog.

I'm not sure positive reinforcement of my temper tantrums is a good thing, but it has reminded me to be thankful for my friends. And they're jolly nice friends indeed.

Also I have no tolerance for alcohol.

I have work to get on with right now, but I will be back within the next fews days to write a proper update. No more sulking. Promise.