Close Friends

One Street: Market Square, Shipley #89

I hesitate to describe another awful day but it's important for me right now to be true to the journal. I hope to be able to look back on this particular juncture in time as the low point from which things got better. Every little job I undertook today (and they really were little jobs which should have been easy) turned into a major undertaking. It was a case of bitter frustration at bugs in various bits of third-party software (all from Microsoft of course) winding me up and leading to impatience and silly mistakes and hours and hours of wasted time. The nadir was when it took me two hours to copy a simple file between two computers because Windows decided it needed a rest. Most of that time was spent in the reboot of the machine. It's hard not to believe that they've programmed obsolescence into Windows so that the longer you use a machine the longer it takes to turn it off and start it up again, the processor idling in loops for tens of minutes, pretending to be doing something clever when it's actually doing nothing except driving you towards a totally unnecessary upgrade. I completely lost it this afternoon.

I was obviously giving the wrong kind of energy out on my brisk walk around Market Square. It's actually rare for me to get a refusal when I ask someone if I can take their portrait but I got quite a few today. I thought I was going to draw my first blank in over six months when I did finally meet a lovely guy called John. He was such a friendly fellow that he turned the day around for me. It certainly lifted my black mood.

These two ladies were also very friendly although they weren't so keen on having a portrait taken. Indeed, they wouldn't even tell me their names. I was very drawn to their obvious affection for each other. They were talking in a very animated fashion, waiting for buses which were going to take them in opposite directions.

Under different circumstances I might have been enjoying a social evening tonight in a special place called Cloughjordan. TJ is visiting Lulubelle at this award-winning eco-village, as pictured here on her 500th blip (finally). It's a fascinating project. The links are highly recommended.

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by this week to lend support and lovely comments. I'm sorry I've not had a chance to thank you. Hopefully I can find a bit of time this weekend to catch up with some of you.