Imogen sent me this to read yesterday.

It made me smile.

Ian has a Blogspot too.

Go see it here

This week I’ve found a couple of friends I seemed to have lost somewhere along the way. The first person is my friend Lionel. Strangely enough, even though Lionel and I have never actually met in the flesh, he seems to know my mind better than most people.

Lionel and I worked for different branches of the same organisation back in Australia. He in Adelaide and I in Melbourne. It was around that time I got my hands on email for the first time and the novelty of it was dangerous. Even though we spoke on the phone a few times a week it was over email that we grew to know and respect each other. Somewhere in my scattered belongings is a rather large exchange of emails between us.

::mental note to self – find them::

In time Lionel took the road most Aussies take and headed north to Europe. However Lionel did as Lionel does and travelled overland. I still have some of his letters and one rather vivid description of his experience on the Trans Siberian comes to mind. His train made an unscheduled stop in the middle of nowhere for nineteen hours. No reason given. No ETD advised. Just an unscheduled stop for an interminably long time for no apparent reason. Personally, I’d have gone insane. Lionel just wrote me a letter.

He ended up in London a year before I did and we actually managed to arrange a time and place to meet. Six pm at Charing Cross station on Wednesday October 11, 2000. I remember the day because I had spent the previous weekend in Manchester with Ian and on the Sunday night I started to feel ill. I remained in Manchester for the whole week and completely forgot to call Lionel. Something I still feel terrible about even though he has absolved me many times over. The reason I remember the date in particular was because it was the day after Ian proposed. Some things are just like that huh?

Well, Lionel forgave me and moved to Boston with his soul mate a year or so ago and we never did manage to meet. On Monday I received an email from him to say he and his love were heading home to Australia at the end of September due to circumstances beyond his control. I was thrilled to have heard from him again [some five and a half years since we first ‘met’] and to learn that I still make him smile. Life is good sometimes.

I’ll tell you about my long lost [misplaced?] friend Caroline tomorrow.

It has been far too long this time. Far too long. ::shakes head in dismay:: I suppose my problem is I don’t know who this is ultimately for. What am I writing? Who is reading? Why do I do it? I initially started it to keep myself sane and to unload the pish that clatters around my head but I’m so bloody lazy I just don’t make the time to do it.

* sigh *

To be honest I’m a bit dismayed. I have just looked at the list of runners up in the Guardian’s Blog competition and they are all brilliant. Not just the design and layout – the writing. Again, in the face of brilliance I buckle, convinced I will never be any good at anything.

* big sigh *

Listening to: Soundtrack to the Lonely Planet
Reading: Can’t decide on any one book so I’m currently wresting between ‘Manchester, England’, Dave Haslaam & ‘Cider with Rosie’, Laurie Lee