Tuesday 25 August 2009

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

The casual reader of this blog, noting the two comments inspired by the last entry, would hardly believe me if I said that I had been inundated with pleas to keep the thing going. But, in fact, two posted comments is a pretty good result by my standards. Apart from once (up to now) upsetting someone whose opinion I cared about a great deal (and no, it wasn’t Mrs H, though I do care about her opinion a great deal, which is why she usually gets to vet these pages before they are published: just imagine how dim she might appear to be if she didn’t) the amount of feedback I have received since I became Bloke in the North has been absolutely minimal.

Perhaps the most disheartening thing has been comparing and contrasting this apparent indifference with the dozens and occasionally hundreds of comments inspired by my role model Wife in the North on the increasingly rare occasions when she feels moved to post an entry (bad case of RSI, apparently – ouch). Most of which take the trouble to tell her what a marvellously beautiful, insightful writer she is. I may not be totally insecure, but I am pretty bloody insecure, to be honest, and I could do with the odd bit of encouragement like that.

So it has taken an announcement that I am packing it in to inspire a couple of posted comments and many more spoken words and e-mails of encouragement to carry on, most admittedly from friends and colleagues but some from total strangers. One such lady sent me a positive paean, explaining how much she looked forward to reading each new entry, and all I could think to say in reply was “Why haven’t you mentioned this before?”

Anyway, there have been some interesting developments since my last entry. Mrs H finally got her new car from the bastards at Audi, and almost immediately discovered that it possessed a special self-crashing facility that could be activated if you got out to open a gate without bothering to put it into “Park”. My, how I laughed.

She has also kept me entertained with a stream of amusing pronouncements, such as the one she made when I noted that she had not been to see her waxing specialist for a while. “No, I’m too scared,” she said. “Though I don’t suppose it can be more painful than childbirth.”

We have all moved into a hideously ugly but exceptionally comfortable new house in Cheshire, with fine rural views but only half a mile’s walk from a village containing a doctor’s surgery and several good shops.

The Baby has kept growing (11lb 15oz at the last count) which is much better than the only alternative.

I have started doing a sort of job, though no-one (including me) has any idea what I am supposed to be doing, thereby massively reducing the risk that I will screw it up.

I have agreed to sell my beloved house in Northumberland, because I concluded that it was Meant To Be when the nice bloke who had made me an offer (typically, immediately after I had signed the lease on the above-mentioned rented house in Cheshire, with a view to retaining the one in Northumberland as a holiday home) turned out to be the best friend of a good friend of mine. But you can read all about that at http://www.keithhann-whyohwhy.com/2009/08/lazy-and-coincidental-way-to-sell.html if you are interested, so there is no point repeating it all here.

Yes, I can see that there might be things yet to write about that would bring me pleasure, and now that I know that they might bring pleasure to others, too, I shall certainly keep mulling over the possibility of some sort of comeback. No promises, but I should have remembered that it is never a good idea to say “never”. Except, presumably, in the context of the last sentence.

Oh, and it was 14st 12lb this morning and 5.0 units yesterday, by the way. As if you care.

Tuesday 11 August 2009

No nay never

If you have looked up this page in the hope of reading the latest instalment of my blog, it seems only fair to tell you right away that this isn't it. In fact, I am posting this to let you know I don't think you are likely to be reading any more instalments, ever.

Last week I felt obliged to delete an entry from this blog, for the first time ever, after receiving an extremely abusive complaint. Both Mrs H and I had read the entry concerned before I posted it, and we re-read it again when the complaint arrived, and could not see anything particularly objectionable about it. Clearly we both have profoundly defective judgement, but then you could probably have deduced that from the fact that we ended up married to each other.

The net result has been to convince me that writing the thing is more trouble than it is worth. I have only kept it up for as long as I have done because it did so much to convince my wife to meet me in the first place, and because she continued to enjoy it. Now we will share our inappropriate sense of humour somewhere a little more private.

I have toyed with the idea of deleting the whole blog, but have decided to leave it in place for now. Mainly in the sure and certain knowledge that it will long remain a lasting source of disappointment to the many people who have arrived on its pages by Googling information about Northumberland dogging sites.

Thank you and goodbye.