Memory lane.

Listening to Radio 2 earlier and they were talking about it being the 20th anniversary of Coldplay. That means you're talking about 2000, give or take a year.

But I recall being in a car with QC2, talking about the band and our preference of songs. She preferred "Yellow" whereas I liked "Shiver" better.

But that can't be right. We stopped being co-workers in '97 and while we continued to see each other socially afterwards, I'm struggling to remember why we would have been in a car together, on a Sunday afternoon (if my memory servers me correctly).

I can even think of the road we were on as we had that specific conversation, but literally nothing else of that day. Bearing in mind I had a massive crush on QC2 for a long time, the lack of additional memory surrounding that incident is strange.

Oh dear.

Taking a lunchtime browse through tinder and who pops up? Nope, not any of the usual suspects like my sis's foxy uni friend or CB... It's actually S's girlfriend. Or is it ex-girlfriend now? He's notoriously secretive about this stuff. I've sent out a message to The Crowd to see if it provokes him into saying something.

Just stuff about "Just, y'know, stuff".

I should clarify that last night's somewhat melancholy post was not a re-surfacing of the non-platonic feelings regarding KfW2... it was a more general kind of loneliness that I was feeling.

Little touches like her bringing cake (and this morning apologising for not calling round last week per her original timetable) are things that remind me that I want to meet someone who will treat me like that. Who I can treat like that in return without raising eyebrows. Not even FA2, who was my longest relationship, was as thoughtful as KfW2 is.

A year or so ago, I bought KfW2 a little gift of a photo frame with a photo of her and her kids. She wasn't in a great place and had shared with me previously that she was always taking pics and had few of her and her kids. It wasn't expensive - the whole package, including the large photograph, was about a tenner.

And I fretted about that for ages. Was I over-stepping a line? How would that be seen by someone who didn't know us?

Ultimately, I put that aside and gave it to her and she seemed to love it, but it did bother me for longer than it should have.

Just, y'know, stuff.

KfW2 showed up tonight. It was meant to be Sunday, but there were complications. Complications that I meant to ask her about this evening, but with her manic kids in tow, we never got around to having a proper, adult conversation. She was an hour late, however, she brought cake, so all was forgiven.

I did get a hug though, and I'm going to admit, it was difficult to let go. I've admitted in previous posts that I am extremely touch starved and the pandemic/lockdown has only reinforced the loneliness. Sometimes I think that because I am single and live alone that people think I am equipped to deal with this.

And they might be right to an extent. But it doesn't mean that it eventually gets to me too, even with KfW2 visiting.

Ultimately, under the circumstances, it all comes down to being single and lonely again. The pandemic is a reminder that while I do have some good friends, I have no-one of my own to be there, someone to spend evenings with instead of sitting at a PC for 18 hours a day. Someone I can hug for as long as I want without it being weird.

Just some stuff

Surprisingly, the guys never turned up. in fact, they still haven't. My brother-in-law has made all arrangements, but we're still none the wiser about when they're going to show up.

In other news, KfW2 phoned last night. She'll come and visit me over the weekend, she said. At least I think that's what she said... the line was terrible. A thought popped into my head that she'd come alone, but I've no idea why I jumped to that conclusion. Hope, maybe? Regardless of whether the kids are with her or not, it'd still be great to see her.

That's life...

I have the rest of the week off work and I'm going to get a lie in tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, my sleep has been awful recently, even after the six mile walk from Monday night.

So, yeah, a lie-in. What are the odds that the guys who are meant to be working in my back garden pick tomorrow to show up at 8 AM with a digger? Pretty good, I'd say.

Walk on.

With the good weather threatening to break at any point, Nerdy Girl and I arranged to meet. It's slightly unbalanced... her choice of meeting place is a few hundred metres from her house... but two miles from mine. I toyed with getting the bus or cycling over, but decided against it. I regretted that decision later.

We walked for about 90 minutes and had a pleasant conversation about, well, rubbish really. It really was all small talk. We parted ways back where we met and I started to walk home, except I could feel a blister forming on my foot.

As luck would have it, there was a bus coming up the road, so I jumped on it. Doubly lucky, it actually got to within a quarter of a mile of my house. Result!

I stopped recording as I got on the bus: 6.6 miles, 13,500 steps and 885 calories burned. Had I walked the rest of the way home, that would have been 8 miles.

I got a Chinese on the way home. I'm blaming Nerdy Girl for talking about it while we were walking... and because by the time I got back into the house at 8 PM, I was not starting to cook dinner from scratch.

Ah well... it was nice to get out of the house, to see someone "new" since the lockdown and general get some exercise. My feet are killing me though.

Status Update: Week 10

The magic number this week is 227.8 lbs

It's a little surprising because, if I am being honest, the whole weight loss thing was not really a consideration this week. Motivation (or lack thereof) was a factor, as was frustration.

This week could be a write off too as I have a couple of personal things to attend to that's probably going to result in beers and food.

Today's weather is decent, so I might try and get Nerdy Girl out for that promised meet up/walk that we've discussed. That's going to be at least a 4 mile walk (2 miles either way to our meeting point), then whatever we do in between.

Just chatting

I'm in a Whatsapp group with a load of people that I used to work with, including KfW2 and Stalky Guy. I would regard all of the people in the group to be friends, with the exception of Stalky Guy.

So when a guy sent a message out of the blue yesterday that said:

"I'm going sound like an idiot, but I miss you guys and gals. It's an insane amount of time to be away from people."

There were a few replies. One guy is loving it, the others seemed to be coping rather than thriving.

I posted my own message.

"I've loved the money and time I'm saving, but I miss seeing people in person and I do actually miss being in work. I work better with people around me, I think."

The thriving guy was quick to reply, and his message sounded like he was trying to make a competition of the circumstances.

"I'm more alone in the office than I am at home" (He has a wife, kids and dogs at home, in the office, he's a one-man team).

Was he trying to equate the fact that he doesn't speak to anyone in the office to me actually sitting on my own in my house? I've gone a week at a time during this lockdown without seeing another human being. When KfW2 gave me a hug last Monday after leaving my house, that was only the second piece of physical contact with another human being since the lockdown - nearly four months into it.

I think his message in both content and tone ended what might have been a frank conversation, and possibly one that everyone needed.

No more bedtime cheese.

Another dream. I'm remembering these dreams, I think, because they come in the final phase of sleep that I get, that's not really that deep. My sleeping patterns are weird - I fall to sleep quickly, but will wake somewhere between ninety minutes and two hours after dropping off. I'll fall asleep again and wake another two hours or so later, then turn over again and awake, finally, somewhere between 7 AM and 8 AM.

It's this last phase where I'm remembering my dreams.

This time, KfW2 was getting married, somewhere foreign. I was there, for the wedding and for some other, business-related, reason. USHW was also there, as a guest of KfW2. In the dream, literally minutes after touching down on foreign soil, KfW2 had somehow managed to find a new man, dump her fiance and insist on getting married to the new guy.

Obviously, everyone's appalled at this behaviour, but no-one can find KfW2 to try and make her see sense. My time is torn between trying to find KfW2 and whatever business thing I was also meant to do.

USHW keeps me up-to-date on the KfW2 progress via video calls. Eventually, she is found and the wedding goes ahead with the new man, though the atmosphere has obviously changed for the worse. I wake up in the middle of the wedding reception.

That's just weird. It was KfW2's actual wedding anniversary a few days ago. I suspect it was actually KfW2's anniversary of meeting her now hubby. Or re-meeting him. She's kinda sentimental that way, so doing it on the same date/day is very her. And I do know it was around this time of year that he showed up at her house, wine in hand and they've been inseparable ever since.

Boots ahoy!

I've started watching a programme called "Upload" on Amazon Prime. While I'm only three episodes in, I'm really enjoying it so far.

The synopsis from IMDB:
"A man is able to choose his own afterlife after his untimely death by having his consciousness uploaded into a virtual world. As he gets used to his new life and befriends his angel (real world handler) questions about his death arise."

And it's funny, and seems to be setting me up for a punch in the feels and thus is giving off a vibe like "Now and Again".

I'm also enjoying the deceased character's girlfriend's penchant for wearing short skirts and over the knee boots. I do love a skirt and boot combo on a woman. Shame I can't find any pictures.