Bah.

S never got back to me. I'm disappointed, not in the lack of pub time but the fact he's said nothing at all. That's what stings.

Tick, tock.

I've yet to hear back from S, and the longer it goes on without a reply, the less likely I am to pivot to the mindset of leaving the house. I'm disappointed, but at the same time, I've got a couple of bottles of nice beer in the fridge that should be ice cold by now, so if he's not in contact, I can still enjoy a few beers in the garden.

I could chase him up, but I'm feeling quite low energy at the moment.

Let's go?

Sitting outside CB Pub last night, in the sunshine, chatting with Nerdy Girl and getting an eyeful of cute women also sitting outside the bar has put me right in the mood for sitting outside a bar, having a drink and getting an eyeful of cute women.

So I've messaged S to see if he's busy on Friday.

Not so bright.

I didn't suggest the coastal route to Nerdy Girl. While it was bright and sunny, it wasn't actually that warm, so going to the coast would have been even cooler. We did our usual short lap (still 3 miles though), ending up at CB Pub and we had a few drinks while chatting.

She's taking her girlfriend to New York for her birthday in the summer, so I shared some places that I thought were interesting and had found during my own New York research.

The convo didn't flow as well as it does normally. I think we were both low energy, but wanted to get out of the house. So mission accomplished for that.

Anniversaries

Do you know what completely passed me by? The 20th anniversary of this blog. It was at the start of last month: April 7th. At the time, I genuinely didn't think it would last the year. I really didn't have the attention span for it, nor did I think I would get any value out of it. I'd tried keeping a diary before with no success.

But I did. It enabled me to order my thoughts, it was my own sounding board the very act of typing something out helped figure out what I needed to do, and as a side benefit, it allowed USHW to keep abreast of what I was thinking or feeling without actively engaging her in a conversation about it.

I have been fairly open on the blog, but there have been some things that I've just not mentioned, or have been touched upon but never in details: some family stuff that's ongoing, some work stuff from about four years ago and some other personal stuff. But in general, I think I've been somewhat of an open book compared to me IRL.

And a lot of times, something that was posted on the blog did end up being covered in a lot more detail with USHW in a separate email conversation which often helped. Unless we were talking about Sports Girl or CH, because we could never figure out what they were thinking.

But 3825 posts later, here we are. It'll likely be 4000 posts by the end if the year if I keep up this posting rate, not that the numbers mean anything.

What does the future hold?

Pondering out loud.

Actually... it's bright but cool here. Maybe we could do the coastal route for our walk tomorrow? If the weather stays like this, I think I'll suggest that to her. Otherwise, we'll probably do a lap and end up having a drink at CB pub.

Maybe not.

Yeah, fuck it. I'm going to take Friday off instead. I'm also meeting Nerdy Girl tomorrow for a walk. Might even consider trying our long route too seeing as my foot is slowly, but definitely surely, getting better.

May the fourth etc.

And I've just realised that it's Star Wars Day. If you're an American, that is. I think the rest of the world uses a proper date format.

But who am I to argue, and it gives me the excuse to post some pictures. 

Every day is SUN day.

I'm contemplating taking tomorrow off work. The great weather's meant to continue throughout the week. Plus it's a Bank Holiday here in the UK. My work doesn't give me it off as standard, but they're pretty good at letting people take last-minute time off if there are no urgent deadlines.

But then, I might wait until Friday. Friday would be better, wouldn't it?

The list (cont'd)

Actually, having done a little bit more research into the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve as mentioned in my last post, I've realised that I've actually been there before. It was part of a road trip that E and I had done when I went out to visit her. I got some really nice photos from it, too. But we passed through during the middle of the day, so I didn't see the night sky.

The list.

Years ago, USHW and I talked about our bucket lists. A lot of mine were travel related. And I guess I've added a few things to that list in the interim. I've spoken about New York, for example. And another that I've just added to my list is the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, in New Zealand.

I've been to New Zealand before and I love it there, and I'd go back in a heartbeat if I could cobble together the time and money. Plus, E lives there.

But the reason for the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve being added to the list?

Who wouldn't want to see something like this with their own eyes?