Finding my 'voice' again

The hardest thing about picking up blogging again is finding the right 'voice' . It's been the best part of two years, and that little internal chatterstream that sounds just right as your fingers fly over the keyboards sending mental conversation from brain to page has been formalized and structured into succint concise business speak. It's shaking loose again slowly but I still find myself revisiting sentences & word choices. Deciding whether to blog in the 'I' or in the 'we' is a continual challenge as I have wonderful people around me who do so much to make these activities happen together with me, but at the same time - do they really want to be referenced online?

Gosh, I wonder if I sound in a blog as antiquated as I sometimes think my colleagues think I sound in real life?

Insomnia strikes

After another night of insomnia, and trying very hard to count sheep ( did you know they come in multicolor versions?) I ended up retreating to reading until the early hours...

I've been reading a lot of works in the 'urban fantasy' genre recently , and I've kinda worked my way through the majority of the well known authors - as far as I know. But I really had the hunger for a bit more bad-tempered witchcraft vs various other supernatural beings. I managed to find one author I havent read so far : Kevin Hearne. I've made my way through the first book, am two thirds through the second, and I can forsee an Amazon-expensive future...

Worth a gander?

Fitness tip

The one exercise Alan forgot to mention in his pre holiday gymn planning, was the mad dash scramble from drivers seat to passenger seat to deal with toll gates and barriers....all of which must be completed in the same time it takes a person in a left hand drive car to fish out their wallet, if you want to avert a cacophony of hooting!!!!

Discourse on Mosquitos

Mosquitos appear to come in different guises : sneaky sly ones that bite the underside of your thigh through the webbing of your dinner chair, brazen elephants that land on and dwarf your arm in broad daylight, little nippy ones that sneak through the netting at night and brave the fan-driven turbulent air to have a quick snack on an exposed cheek. They all have one thing in common : they itch like hell. The most utilised component of my first aid kit is the hydrocortisone cream......

Liquidity

Intake : 8 litres Output : 0 litres It's gloriously, beautifully hot!!

Taking the plunge & random musings on driving in Spain

I decided that having come this far, to chicken out by heading back north before I even reached Andalucia would be just too much of a cop out. So south I go.

 A few disjointed van related learnings :

•  The van doesn't like hills. She specially doesn't like the highest mountain ranges in Spain in 42 degrees. Nursing your engine takes on a whole new meaning, when you are permanently running one or two notches hotter than normal, and a 5mph difference on a long hill climb can mean the difference between flashing warning signs on the dash, and a bad tempered but resigned humph from the engine as she drags up the hill 
• Cloth covered seats, and a lack of airconditioning is a *really* bad mix. I've invested in a cheap and cheerful fan for evenings, but it doesn't run whilst on the move, so sitting on towels becomes order of the day. Its a desperate attempt to not repeat one evening's experience, after a long 4 hour run and having got out to check in at the campsite, getting back into the drivers seat to find it wetter than the North Sea! 
• Investing in the sports drink bottles with the drop in ice wedge is a fantastic idea, and makes drinking so much more pleasant and refreshing than tepid to lukewarm sludge in a bottle.  And you will be drinking like crazy.
• Combining your satnav with your phone has some unexpected drawbacks :
• The GPS component of the satnav is the most incredibly battery hungry piece of technology I've ever seen, so the phone has to be permanently charging off the car battery whilst it's running
• Charging the phone generates heat
• Running the Satnav software generates huge amounts of heat
• Fried phone and shutdown, usually just before I reach a set of complex and unknown junctions.
• If I don't answer your call and I'm parked up, it's probably because the phone is in the fridge, recuperating.......
• Spanish traffic police don't feel too worried about stopping distance, driver behaviour and other traffic on the road when nabbing speeding cars - still it gave me my thrill for the day :) and I could feel virtuous as I ambled on at a steady 60mph....