Bonjour!

Hello everyone! I'm back! Thanks to those who sent emails and comments. My pre-midlife crisis is over for now! (The emphasis on PRE).


I know loads of people who are having minor melt-downs. One fellow threw in a top executive position, and its eye-wateringly good salary, to be a motorbike courier in Napier. Another threw in a top executive position, and its eye-wateringly good salary to tend his olive groves somewhere near Coromandel. Ms R is redecorating. Again. I'm not one much for motorbikes, olive groves, or redecorating, so I went on holiday instead.

I went away, but unfortunately, wherever you go, you take yourself with you, which is a shame, as I find myself quite annoying. However, the last night away, I was lying on a sun-lounger, drinking a glass of wine, and looking at the night-sky. The pure swathe of the Milky Way was above. One never sees the Milky Way in Auckland, the glory of the universe just can't compete with the orange blast of the street-lights, and we get a watery, dilute version of the real thing.

But this – this was beautiful. Something about it was just so... well, beautiful, everything else fell into perspective. Our smashingly-pretty galaxy is so very big, we are so very small, and on the scale of it all, who really cares a jot about all the inconsequential annoyances of daily life.

Anyway. I have decided on a course of self-improvement. I am trying my hand at painting (pictures, not houses. I'm not very good), and writing (started my novel again). I also bought a Rosetta Stone language course, to improve my v v rusty French, which is quite fun, except I am not sure how useful the phrase "The ball is on the boy" will prove to be. The phrase "The man is under the table," might though. Oh la la!