Nice to see you... (Part 2)

One thing that I meant to add, that was brought up in conversation last night, was FC sharing his view that he had the same first impression of KfW2 that GM had. Namely, they both thought she was an extremely attractive woman, but were surprised at how grounded she was. I know that GM has mentioned this to me numerous times. It's clearly something he feels strongly about.

And they're not wrong. I always got the impression that KfW2 wasn't aware of how attractive she was.

Nice to see you...

It required more work than I would have liked, but I did get to meet with FC and Mrs FC for a few drinks. We started the night in their local before moving on to CB Pub.

S was out and about with his mates, but promised to pop in. However, that plan changed when one of his mates got uncontrollably drunk.

GM, despite reading all the messages in the group chat, never said a word, nor did he show up. That's really disappointing.

So, it was a fun night. Nothing newsworthy happened, but it was nice to finally catch up with the two of them. Bar a quick 5-minute conversation a few weeks back, that was the first I'd seen them in person in over a year. The Chloe night for FC and much longer for Mrs FC.

Hello?

Unsurprisingly, KfW2 messaged earlier to say she couldn't make it this afternoon. It wasn't unexpected. Firstly, the weather is appalling, so getting out to do stuff with her and her kids would have been a wet, cold and muddy affair. Secondly, she's taking her family on holiday tomorrow for a week, so the last thing she needs is her kids generating more washing.

And, let's remember, it's KfW2. So I wonder if she's actually packed and she probably has a lot of washing to do anyway.

So that means that tonight's potential meeting with The Crowd is my last chance saloon for doing any socialising this year. FC promised he'd be in touch when he gets back home (he's been with his parents this week). I've still heard nothing from S or GM in the same chat. I am being slightly pessimistic and predicting that, because of the weather, he'll stay another day and won't be back in town for socialising tonight.

While the weather is awful and it wouldn't be bad just hunkering down for the day, I would like to see people. Ideally, that would have been KfW2, but anyone at this stage would do.

y a w n

For the third time in a week, I've had a sleepless night. I went to bed around 11 PM, woke around 130 AM and that was me til this morning.

If I hadn't had to take a trip into town to pick up KfW2's brolly from lost and found, I'd have stayed in bed for a bit. I've got a headache, my eyes hurt and I am so, so tired.

While I can't say that the recent family stuff is at the forefront of my mind during these periods of insomnia, they have to be the main factor. I hope this sorts itself out soon. The New Year is going to be busy.

Cheers!

The thing with my group WhatsApp chat with The Crowd is that they seem very reluctant to reply to a message even if it's a direct question or a suggestion around meeting. It's hugely frustrating. So, I was glad when FC replied earlier, to the suggestion I made yesterday about drinks on Saturday night. It looks as if he, and Mrs FC, are almost definitely coming out.

Nothing from S or GM though... yet.

I don't think S will be out. He'll be saving himself for NYE and his "proper" friends. God knows what's going through GM's mind these days. I think he's dating someone new, so that might come into play, but he's seemingly been active enough socially over the holidays if facebook is to be believed.

Nice to see you...

Breakfast with Nerdy Girl was fun this morning, and coffee-fuelled, which was much needed after another poor night's sleep. I think it's the changeable weather (it was warm here, now it's cold and windy) with a touch of the family stuff that's going on. it was great catching up with her as it's been a few months since we last met.

We parted, but I suggested that I'd give her a call in a few days to maybe get a walk next week.

When I got home, I remembered that I needed to go into town to get the umbrella that I left behind in the taxi when I was out with KfW2. Oops. Looks like that's a tomorrow-morning job.

The End...

And it's finally complete. I've replaced the images that were lost a few weeks ago in all of the blog posts. Some posts have the same pictures, some have completely different images. For the older posts, I've tried to get images from around that same timeframe, just for consistency.

I've also deleted numerous posts, from various years, most from this current year where I posted a selection of attractive celebs just for the sake of it because I was bored, funking or plain horny.

Even saying that, it looks like this year will be a bumper year with the highest post count. And it could have been much higher had I posted half the stuff that crossed my mind when FP was ill or the family stuff that's been ongoing since the end of November. Like, there are easily another dozen or so posts that could have been that would have taken me over the 300 milestone.

Hello again

I've reached out to everyone who would be social now that Christmas is done and dusted for another year: KfW2, The Crowd and Nerdy Girl.

Nerdy Girl has already replied. She couldn't meet this morning (my original suggestion), but we're meeting tomorrow for coffee or breakfast.

I sent a message to KfW2 and she replied almost immediately, suggesting I head to hers this evening. But it wouldn't be just me, her parents are heading down. There are three things in play here. 

Firstly, I had planned to get some house stuff done today - small tasks that have been building up over the past few months, plus some cleaning. I was in the headspace for it and everything, so KfW2's suggestion that I go to her place would have meant that a lot of the tasks wouldn't have been done. Related to this, is my introversion. I need time to get myself into a state of mind where I am open to socialising, and KfW2 simply wasn't giving me that time. However, we have tentatively arranged to meet on Saturday afternoon.

Secondly, it's her parents being there. That's a family thing. I know I'm close with KfW2. I know her parents like me. But it's a family thing, and I'd not feel comfortable, even though I know no one else would have an issue.

And thirdly, getting home might be a struggle. Ordinarily, that's not a problem, but I've already got plans with Nerdy Girl tomorrow (and I had those in place prior to KfW2 getting in touch), and I couldn't guarantee that I'd get home tonight. If that were the case, I'd probably not be back at mine tomorrow until lunchtime.

So, yeah. Let's hope that Saturday works out. If not, it's KfW2's birthday soon, and I'll try and see her then.

Finally, I sent a message to The Crowd's group chat suggesting drinks on Saturday evening. No one's said anything so far, but the suggestion is out there.

And I'm looking forward to seeing everyone if these plans actually come to fruition.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone. I hope that you are having, or have had, an excellent Christmas.

Sadly, Santa never delivered Jessica Alba, so have a picture of Sabrina Lynn instead.

Phew

I think that's me done with Christmas prep for this year. Pressies are bought, though if I am being honest, I copped out with my brother-in-law's present with just vouchers. But all cards have been bought, vouchers are printed, and cash is in envelopes for nieces and nephews. All I need to do is chill out, and I do feel better for it.

While I got some sleep last night, I wouldn't say it was great quality and I am still knackered today after Thursday night's sleepless night.

But, there's footy on the TV later, which I'll enjoy with a few beers and maybe even Die Hard this evening, seeing as it's Christmas.

Woohoo!

The effort in trying to replace the missing images continues. I'm now into 2023 and have about 40 posts left to fix. That should take me about an hour, which I might even get around to later today or tomorrow.

*yawn*

I had another one of my insomnia nights last night. I can't remember if I've posted about them before. I would usually have a few per year, but this is my third this month. While I don't have any demons buzzing around my head, I think it's safe to say that it's all related to the real-life stuff that's going on and is mostly subconscious. I can barely keep my eyes open and have a splitting headache already.

It's never really a good time to have this stuff happen (apologies for being vague, but I'm not ready to post about it as yet), but this time of year feels worse for several reasons, but primarily, it's difficult to make a routine around it.

I won't be able to do that until the New Year, and while I can distract myself until then (potentially meeting KfW2, Nerdy Girl and The Crowd amongst others), the start of 2024 is going to be tough.

Picture perfect.

I told you that I was very drunk on Sunday, didn't I? Well, I'd completely forgotten that someone took pictures of us. KfW2 sent them over on Monday while we were chatting and semi-arranging something after Xmas.

But she never posted them on Facebook. There's nothing bad about them. It's not like we were kissing or I was manhandling her or whatever. I know CH has actually deleted photos from her phone for similar reasons. And there's certainly been photos where we look a lot more intimate/close.

And I dunno what to make of it. She's been on a Christmas season posting frenzy this month, so her not posting about this feels off. But it could just be me being paranoid or overly worried about nothing due to pretty much running on empty, from a mental health perspective. Or it could be that she's still conscious of us being close friends though she's married and I'm single.

I wish it didn't bother me.

DIY SOS

CC called in last night while viewing a house in the area. She's trying out house development as a backup career. Once again, she told me (not advising or suggesting) to do the things I needed to get done to my house. As I think I've blogged about before, it's not that I don't want to get these things done, and I can afford to, it's that I can't get people to give me quotes. I get disheartened, give up for a bit, try again and the cycle repeats.

At this stage, I give up. I value opinions and suggestions. I do not do well with being told, and CC has a form for it. And then, the tone changed. It did become softer, with more suggestions than telling. And the final piece of the puzzle... she'd help me.

I'm all for help. I have ideas about what I want to be done both in terms of functionality, but in terms of aesthetics too. She was impressed with my ideas around decorating, and we parted with the idea that we might meet again in the New Year and see what we could do.

I could get on board with this idea that she would effectively project manage it. She would get experience in project managing work, I'd be paying the money and they would be my ideas. I'd pay her in tea, biccies and dinners. I think this could actually work, though it would be expensive.

Humbug? Bah!

I guess it's about time I posted about how much I dislike Christmas. I've always disliked it, bar a few short years with my sister's kids getting all excited but they're beyond the Santa years now.

I've always felt lonely at Christmas. Bar my relationship with FA2 that covered a few Christmases (even though she was away for them for family) and my brief physical thing with FBS, I've never been with anyone at this time of year.

Within the past few years, though, I've started getting anxious about it as well on top of the loneliness. Anxious about getting the right present and making sure I've got everything bought on time.

Recent events have sucked out my remaining energy for this year. The couple of social events that I've done have given me a distraction, which has helped and seeing KfW2 and sharing this part of my life have been a huge help.

And yet, you still can't tell people that you don't like Christmas. I recently shared with some co-workers that I didn't like Christmas and was met with the usual accusations of being a Grinch. I stopped short of going off on a rant, but I think that I managed to explain to them how making those comments to anyone was not helpful.

Woohoo!

Off the back of my last post, things are already looking promising. I've heard back from Nerdy Girl and KfW2, both of whom seem very keen to meet and do something, even if something is yet to be decided.

I've tentatively suggested coffee to Nerdy Girl and a date but suggested that we nail down the finer details closer to the time. I'll give KfW2 a shout on Boxing Day to see when she's free and we can decide then what we want to do.

Out and about

Off the back of my last post, I've reached out to KfW2 to see what her availability is like over Christmas, intending to see her again before the year ends. It might be an adult thing, but pubs or dinner. It might be a daytime thing with her kids. I don't really mind at this stage.

There's also an outside chance of seeing The Crowd. I saw FC and Mrs FC on Sunday, for about 2 minutes. I had invited them out for a drink with KfW2, but they were shopping and said they might pop in. Which they did... at closing time. So we made promises to maybe arrange something after Christmas. We'll see if that happens because they're not massively proactive in that kind of thing.

And it's been ages since I've seen Nerdy Girl, so I'll maybe drop her a line and see if she fancies meeting for coffee or something some morning.

Usually, somewhere in there, I'd be meeting with FP at least once. Perhaps Christmas Eve and then some evening after Christmas. That's going to be a big hole.

Urgh.

The thing about me on the day after drinking heavily is that I am horny as hell. It wasn't helped yesterday that my first waking thought was having sex with FBS in her shower. While that did actually happen back in the day, the thought may have come from a dream, though I can't say for sure.

So, not a great start to a day where I was always likely to be extremely frustrated. It was a very pleasant, though extremely frustrating, thought. And that frustration lasted all day.

Pleased to meet you

The night out with KfW2 was, as expected, a great success. It was later than expected. A 1 PM start was first mooted, but by the time we both arrived, it was nearly 4 PM.

I shared my news and she was both incredibly sympathetic and angry at the same time. Sympathetic due to the nature of the news but angry that I hadn't shared with her earlier. That goes back to earlier this year and the fact I only told her about FP's illness literally days before he passed away despite knowing for months. While this time it's different, the life stuff is still unfolding and I deliberately held off from sharing so that I could tell her in person, knowing we had our day out.

And I didn't want to say that I'd been trying to get a hold of her at the start of last week and got no reply.

But, I had a great time, as usual. KfW2 is great company, I value her opinions, advice and viewpoint, and I made sure to tell her that. Some day, I'll need to do it when we're not drinking, because I'm pretty sure she forgets when I tell her that, or that I love her. And I was incredibly drunk by the end of the evening. More drunk than I would have liked. However, that's the price I was willing to pay. I needed the distraction, and it was provided.

But that's only twice we've seen each other this year. I must do better. Maybe we can do something during the Christmas week. Something to ponder, I guess.

Update

So, the pub quiz was good fun. We had a few drinks and I was back home and tucked up in bed by about half past ten.

Chloe wasn't in the bar, which is not entirely unexpected and, sadly, neither was the attractive barmaid I mentioned in this post.

However, KfW2 was in touch to say she has been super busy but was still interested in meeting for drinks on Sunday, though we never nailed down any details. At this stage, I don't see us doing dinner as it's probably too late to think about booking a table somewhere, so it'll be grabbing something overpriced in the Christmas market between bars.

Daydreaming.

There's a somewhat impromptu work night out tonight. A pub quiz. I love pub quizzes. It's also in one of my favourite bars in town (I mention it in this post). Coincidentally, it's one year to the very day that I met Chloe.

I probably should have followed up with Chloe afterwards, though my stance that she was too young and had kids being deal-breakers for me still rings true. But she was fun, she was someone new and who knows?

I'm not gonna lie to you, dear reader, but I was daydreaming yesterday about bumping into her later this evening. What are the odds she's in the same pub on the same day, at the same time, exactly one year apart?

*wink*

Outside of being ill (infrequent) or not getting out of bed all day (not since FA2, I think), this is the earliest that I've changed into my night clothes in decades. Just thought I'd share that. Oh, and I'm on a call with work, half-naked. They don't know that. I'm only sharing with you, dear reader.

Logging blogging.

I've now completed up to the end of 2020 in re-adding images due to the great image purge of 2023 aka my stupidity. I've deleted some posts where they only existed for a specific picture that I couldn't find again. I've deleted some tags that show a post has an image because I can't find the image for it. The others might be tidied up in terms of fixing spelling mistakes, grammar etc.

I still have, essentially, three full years to fix. Wowzer.

Sigh.

Still waiting for something from KfW2. I'm tempted to try and call her one more time then leave it. If Sunday doesn't happen, I don't know what I will do. I'll be angry, frustrated and hugely disappointed. I need it due to the real-life stuff currently happening.

I need the distraction plus I just wanna see KfW2 and I want to share with her what's been going on. I don't like that we're drifting apart, especially with other things that have gone on this year.

Gone missing.

Supposedly, I'm meant to be meeting KfW2 this weekend. I've asked her for a day, and she's suggested Sunday. That totally works for me as I am on annual leave on Monday, so if it gets rowdy, I have a recovery day in place.

However, S is out this weekend. The Crowd were invited months ago, but nothing's been said since. His great unrequited love is over visiting (I can't remember if I've posted about that before), which is always a good night out.

And I do want to see The Crowd again, but if the choice is going out on Saturday or getting KfW2 out on Sunday, then Sunday wins every time, but more so this weekend with my Real Life stuff going on. Plus I want to let KfW2 know what's going on.

But the last answer I got from KfW2 was Thursday last week when she suggested Sunday. I've messaged and called with no reply. This is all reminiscent of what happened in August last year when she went quiet and then didn't like all the decisions that I'd made without her input.

Part of me is being negative and thinking she's double-booked herself or something and doesn't want to say though part of me knows she's busy at this time of year as her husband works in retail and works long days, so she's incredibly busy. Plus she does that bloody Elf on a Shelf that must eat up hours of time.

How low will you go?

A question was posed on a forum I frequent that asked the question about the shortest person we've dated. I can think of three women offhand (if we're taking "dating" in a very loose interpretation): QC1, K and Recruitment Bird.

QC1 was 4'11"

I think K was the same height. 

I don't know exactly how tall RB was, but I remember her being very short. Sub five foot? I dunno, but it was close.

And that provoked some nice, some frustrating memories.

Memory Lane (cont'd)

It hasn't taken that long and I am already up to the middle of 2017 in my "replace the missing photos" project on the blog. As mentioned in my last post, the reminiscing has been nice and even though the new photos might not be identical to the ones that perhaps prompted the posts in the first place, they're reasonably relevant. And any comments on specific photos that I can't find have been updated accordingly.

While 2017 feels quite recent (that's two-thirds of the way through the blog in terms of years, not posts), I don't think I'm two-thirds of the way through fixing the broken posts as I think I really ramped up on the "post some attractive women to cheer myself up" behaviour more recently.

Memory Lane.

Against my better judgement (I need a distraction), I've started trying to replace the images that are missing on the blog. It's going to be a long process, and looking at pictures of attractive, sexy women is not doing me any favours given my last post, but it's also been strangely enjoyable and reading back on some of the older posts on the blog has been a trip down memory lane.

Sigh.

Facebook reminds me that it's the anniversary of the night CH got quite drunk and, I think, wanted to push boundaries. It's unlikely that I would have done anything, though the lust when CH was around was very real.

But it's a timely memory when I'm feeling quite lonely (and this time of year isn't great for me anyway without the real-life stuff that's going on. I might blog about it at a later date, but that's a decision for later. But it also reminds me of a conversation I had with USHW many years ago. I admitted that I had needs and getting myself off just wasn't cutting it. I can't remember if I added that I was lonely and that this was a huge factor in how I was feeling, though I'm pretty sure she knew anyway. If it wasn't part of that specific conversation, it had been mentioned.

And that's kinda how I feel at the moment. I need to blow off some steam, if you catch my drift. I'm feeling very touch starved at the moment and, well, the thought of getting physical with someone I'm comfortable with, who I trust, is extremely appealing right about now. It's not just a hookup or ONS I'm after. It's something more.

Let's go again

OK, so I'm trying something new with photo storage. So here are some pictures of blog favourites Jessica Alba, Emma Willis, Alison Brie, Lucy Verasamy and, I think, Daniela Melchior.

I still don't know what I'm gonna do with the missing images in dozens of historical posts, some of which will be extremely difficult to find again.

Totally random.

Years ago, when The Crowd socialised more frequently, one of my favourite bars was one of the places we'd go to. It's a cracking boozer I first visited while working with FBS, D etc. back in the day. Actually, it's the same bar that I met Chloe in, pretty much exactly 51 weeks ago.

Two barmaids looked similar and we thought they were sisters, though we never got a definitive answer on that. And it was rumoured that they were the owner's daughters. We did a lot of flirting, even though there was never any chance of anything coming of it. And there was the fact that the younger (though cuter) of the two sisters was far too young for me. 

Guess who popped up today as a Facebook friend of Sports Girl's daughter?

Ah FFS.

I think my Imgur album being deleted is my fault. It looks like I violated their TOS by using it to host images for display on this blog, which I don't recall ever reading.

Sigh.

I may go back and try and recreate/re-source the images, but I don't know if I can be bothered. Though it is an excuse to hunt out images of attractive celebrities.

FFS.

For some reason, the album I have on Imgur that was used for all my blog posts has been deleted. All the images on this blog have gone. And I'm struggling to find contact details for Imgur to query this. FFS.