Hey ho, another long gap between entries. Looks like this will be the way of things for the time being. If nothing else, I am finally able to say I am busy enough at work to not have the time there to meander on anyway. Almost too busy in fact - to the point that when I got another two reports dumped on me to write on Tuesday I was in a fine state come the evening and ready to tell Sonic where to stick it. Of course yesterday morning we arrived in the car park at the same time and I had to walk in with him - and was only able to ascribe my being unhappy to pre-dental nerves. Because today has seen treatment the third to the lower right, which is throbbing gently as I sit and type this. I could really feel him digging around today and am not sure how he can see what he is doing, what with nurse Zoe waving two suction tubes in and around the area plus retractors holding the lips out of the way. Oh well, ¾ of the way done now although part 4 not now happening until the end of September (which does at least mean not having stitches out a couple of days before we go away).

So, what have I been up to then?

Basically, work and more work. Lots of thinking on targets with a few speculative letters sent and so forth plus designing stuff for Park & Ride and the usual dishing out of books. Last Thursday I did a run up to Lowestoft and then attempted to find new outlets on the way back south to Ipswich again. After getting stuck in traffic for the Lowestoft Air Show (how did I manage to end up there on that day?) and ending up at the wrong Post Office once (Oulton Broad rather than Oulton Village) I was a bit frazzled and frustrated by lunch time. Which only got worse as I drove back south through parish after parish with no suitable outlet to be found - by about 3.30 I was ready to call it a day and give up on any hope of meeting the target on outlets. But then things picked up, I had some good finds and all was well again. Fickle brain of mine going from lows to highs so quickly. I'm not sure how much more of the day out delivering I can sustain though - it is a majorly slow process even if it does seem to work. The being out of the office and feeling free to explore is wonderful, but it leaves me feeling I am doing too much on one target and not enough on the others. We shall just have to see how things develop.

Joan is doing much better now and will probably go back to work when this current certificate runs out. Although I hope she will hang on to the Monday rather than going on the Friday when she will be free to, as these mouth stitches are due to come out on the intervening Saturday and I would like to take her for a nice lunch on the way back from Colchester. Being able to relax in the sun has been a real blessing for her, and I have not felt as bad about having to leave her alone every day as I would if she was stuck in the house.

We have also watched a few more films that all turned out to be better than I was anticipating. Namely 102 Dalmations, America's Sweethearts and Muriel's Wedding. I think I must have go the last one there confused with something else as it wasn't at all what I was expecting, but it turned out fine!

Am still reading my way through Julian May having progressed from the Pliocene Companion through middle-ground Intervention and on the the Galactic Mileu books Jack The Bodiless and now am in to Diamond Mask. Everything up to an including Intervention I had read several times before, but for the Mileu trilogy I have not been back to them since I first got them. Which is serving to make them all the more enjoyable.

They are also books I can remember peripheral things about in the main. Like the Companion I recall buying in Oxford when staying with my old friend Stephen back in the mid-80s and intending to take it on holiday with us the week after I went home from there, but finishing it before we went away. Intervention reminds me very sharply of the wedding of my A-Level geography teacher Bob Barker, which means I must have first read it in November 1988. With Jack I have a very clear image of the book falling out of my backpack in the car park at Argos here in Felixstowe and being rescued by a delivery driver, and while Diamond Mask hasn't brought anything back like that I do remember buying the final book in the series (Magnificat) in Hardback in Ipswich with Joan for less than the price of the paper bound version. Strange thing memory like that.

So of course while I was lying there with what felt like a small military operation going on in my mouth this morning I was thinking about other books and what I associate them with - so here are some examples. I read Sun Tzu's The Art Of War on the train to an interview with Argos in Market Harborough and then on to College friends Carolyn & Keith's wedding in Stafford back in 1994 after reading about it in David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series. The Pern series from Anne MacCaffrey came in to my life from a secondary school suggested reading list which recommended book 3 in the series and thus lead me to track down books 1 and 2 first. Discworld book Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett was one I read on our honeymoon. I am sure there are others which will pop back in to my head when I next read them - so I will endeavour to remember to mention them.

And finally for today can anyone explain this dream? Having to choose between other college friends Cara and Deborah on the basis of how they would go about clearing up a pile of spilt chips in McDonalds. And no, I can't recall what I would have been choosing between them for. Bizarre!