Jamie vanished early as he was going to some Sonic thing in London. So I was left with the dogs. Woke up and got breakfast. Cruised porn, okay cruised Ebay. Managed to get hold of the Tamron lens I was after. It was supposed to be a reward for staying off the booze for the month, but by the time it gets here it’ll be the month end anyway. Got it for a good price so quite happy.

Got up and shifted things about in the kitchen. Then painted all the skirting boards. Walked the dogs. Had boiled eggs. All ready now for next week to lay the flooring.

Spent the rest of the afternoon editing a new video. I’m not ranting or anything, it’s just helicopter footage I’m putting to music. I managed to get the iPad controller for FCPX for free, it was supposed to be £35, but when I checked on the site it was 99c, but when I purchased it it never charged me. It has quite a nice frame scrub wheel, so good for doing very fine edits. Got all the jump cuts in and done a basic colour balance, need to do all the effects next. Fixed a couple of model helicopters and flew them around the lounge.

Got a text from my sister, saying my mother is asking if I’m still alive as she hasn’t heard from me in a month. That’s an exaggeration to start off with, it’s been two weeks. And those two weeks have been great. I’ve not had any depression issues, black days or suicidal thoughts. I’m actually feeling really good at the moment, enjoying things and having a lot of fun. I’ve actually found enjoyment in creative activities and just playing about. I even found Jamie attractive the other night until I discovered it was the dog in his place. Just thinking about her made me uneasy and I could feel an anxiety attack coming on. I had a bath. I know what mother would say, ‘Oh it’s all in the mind’, well that’s kind of the point of mental illness. For the moment I’m very happy as I am, she’ll need to respect that unless she gets some joy from destroying my soul. She makes nice fruit cake, but then again, so do Tesco’s.

I’m never going to be truly free for the moment, but at least I’m allowed out on day release.

Woke up and provided breakfast for the troops. Felt very bloaty, to many carbs last night. Drank coffee, read the paper. Walked the dogs. Then it was time to go up to Staverton. Got there in good time. Quite a low cloud base and the wind had picked up to varying 13-22 knots. We took off straight into circuits, fighting the wind was actually quite a challenge. We spent the whole hour doing circuits, I gang the hang of it in the end. My landings were getting better and better. We also did a few engine off autorotation landings, which were a bit pant wetting. Doing a 360 degree lookout turn in 22 knots is bloody difficult. We kept to the hour, fun anyway.

Drove back and looked at the video footage, all pretty good. I have enough now I think to do a decent edited video.

Did the accounts, failed to win items on Ebay. Looking for a new sat-nav, failing. Ate some chicken in a Chinese sauce. Jamie is away tomorrow, I have a fun day painting skirting boards.

Again after a very late night I was up and about and started work early. Fed everyone and had breakfast. Work was fixing rumble on a controller and then writing a video player. We usually use a 3rd party one, but due to ever spiralling licensing costs I was asked to find an alternative. The console does have built in MP4 decoding, so I spent the afternoon writing all the support for that. It’s mostly done now, just needs hooking up and testing.

Went to the gym and did Pump, followed by a really good session with Laverne afterwards. She was really surprised that I could do the plank while suspended from TRX fully extended on a ball. I still feel rather wide.

Finished off work. Then hung the washing up. Sat down and watched a film, “Cars2”, which was recorded over Christmas, still trying to do four hours of telly a night, but it’s bloody hard going. Ate my chicken pasta dish. Feel quite full. So one more week to go, off the booze. I’ve kind of enjoyed it, it’s been easier than I expected. Plus I’m giving absolutely everything at the gym at the moment, and I think it’s actually paying off a bit.

Still scheduled for flying tomorrow.

Woke up this morning feeling wider. Not in a fat kind of way, but more in a bulky kind of way. I think my efforts in the gym are slowly paying off. I certainly haven’t lost any weight, but my chest feels firmer and looks more defined. I actually quite like it.

Working today on one bug, which took all day, hadn’t finished it by gym time. Went to spin and lost weight. Sat down this evening ate Ryvita’s and put it all back on again. Finally traced and fixed the bug.

We did a bit more holiday scheduling, managed to cut down on day to day mileage. It’s still a hell of a long drive though.

Managed to get hold of a North American map for a Garmin GPS. Now just need a Garmin GPS.

It’s now 3AM. I’m feeling great. One week to go.

Woke up at 6:15AM, so decided to get up there and then and take Sasha to daycare. Was back in bed by 7AM. Actually started work just after 10AM. The cleaners arrived shortly afterwards. Don’t think I’ve ever had the same ones twice.

Work was fine, going trough a bug list and fixing most of it. A few more still to do. Picked the dog up. Went to Pump, gave it bloody everything. Came back, did more bugs and had my protein shake. Ate salad, continued in my quest to kill off four hours of TV a night. Managed three and a half. Only eight days to go now. Watching a few bits on E-bay. I think I’ll be hiring a GPS from here for the three weeks as it’s only twenty quid. Looking for a new wallet, can’t find one I like, it’s rather annoying. I want one like I have now, but less fucked.

Hopefully flying again Saturday, will try and take some more footage and put a decent video together.

Didn’t sleep well, but woke up feeling very refreshed. Cracked straight on with work. Got everything done that I wanted to get done.

Went to the gym, spent about forty-five minutes on a cross trainer. Then did a home check for a couple of cats.

Come to a bit of an odd decision earlier. Well you may think it’s odd, or cruel or even wrong. But at the end of the day I have to think about me and my well being. I’ve decided to disconnect from my mother for the foreseeable future. I’ve just had my fill of deceit, lies and manipulation. It’s just not doing me any good at all. Why is it I can do a very complex job, get disturbed by ten people and have a mountain of work to do and only get a bit stressed, but when I hear from her my stress levels go through the roof and I head into a massive depression. Really I guess I should have moved to Aus when I had the opportunity about twenty years ago, I think it would have done me good.

Since I’ve made this odd decision I feel like I’ve had a huge wait lifted from my shoulders (and dumped it heavily on my sister, sorry, but I just need to do this for a bit). Suddenly I feel a lot happier, less stressed, it’s kind of weird. I spent the evening just playing around with Final Cut and Traktor and had a great time, very creative. I attached new rotors to a model helicopter and flew it around. I sat down with the dogs and watched the telly. I even booked the hire car for the trip (well paid a deposit on it anyway).

Don’t forget to watch the video ‘QVC’s best customer’, then you can see why I’ve made this choice.

I hope it’s a beginning and not the end.

Had a fairly rough night again, which meant I was knackered again this morning. Cracked on with work, I spent all day looking at issues with grass. First there was stack corruption, then there were memory trashing issues, which turned out not to be memory trashing issues. It’s working better now but still has some issues with it, I have a feeling they are cross platform though, so will require a lot more digging.

Went to Combat. That was fun. Talked to my sister, she loved my video, so I’ve made it public, at least it will be some sort of talking point.

I was saying to Jamie that ‘Everything is awesome’ from the Lego movie sounded very similar to ‘5-6-7-8’ by ‘Steps’. So I downloaded a demo of Traktor, which is a program I played with years and years ago, it’s certainly advanced a long way. I got hold of the two tracks and banged them in. I then beat matched them and started banging around with the cross-fader. Sure enough they are very similar, you can replace the rap in one with the other and it all matches. However my DJ ability is rather limited, but it gave me an hour of unusual fun.

Rudely awaken this morning by the postman. Delivered my Rode videomic pro. Went back to bed. Rudely awaken by the postman. Delivered my ISAW action camera. Went back to bed. Made breakfast. Read the paper. Then had a little play with the camera. It seems very good and came with loads of accessory’s. I tried the head-strap out. You do look a bit of a twat but I think it will be great to give it a blast next time I’m in the helicopter.

Popped to Tesco’s. Picked up $3,000. That should be enough for everything. Came back and walked the dogs. Had lunch. Tried to do a home check for a couple of cats but they weren’t in (the people that is). So I decided to set the camera up with the new microphone and do a new video. Took about an hour of preparation going through old emails, looking for one’s from QVC. Then it took about an hour to film. Finally I retired to the office and started editing. Three hours later I popped over to my sisters to check on my nephew who was having the worlds most boring party. Came back, had a shower and then made food. We watched a bit of telly and both decided we had better things to get on with. So we went our separate ways and I continued editing. After I finished I sat down and did the accounts. Managed to wrack up a four grand credit card bill this month. Booked the car park. Video is still uploading.

Hopefully flying tomorrow. Plus painting skirting boards. Oh the joy.

So day 14. Didn’t get to bed until 4AM due to uploading milestone builds. Actually started earlier than I was planning due to testing said builds.

Worked all the way through until six. Afternoon was a bit wasted due to a bug I was trying to trace and didn’t realise until after I’d shut down that the bug was actually running out of stack space rather than the sort of corruption I was looking for. Still, an easy one to start Monday with.

Had a shower. Then drove into town with Jamie. He took me see the ‘Lego’ film. Yes, Jamie actually took me to see a film about bricks. It was funny in places, but I was already tired, that connected with a dark room and I was soon nodding off.

We then went and ate at Zizzi, which was actually very good. I had pizza, it was Friday. Now my no alcohol thing did get slightly broken as we had a glass of bubbly as part of the meal. I was good otherwise though and had a bottle of water with it.

Came back and went ‘woof’ a lot. Jamie moaned that I never get him anything personal for Valentine’s day, I offered to fist him, but he wasn’t interested.

The underlay arrived for the wood flooring.