Monday, August 18, 2003

Forsooth, the end is nigh

by Suw on August 18, 2003

I hadn’t realised it until today, but the end really is nigh. The end of my life in Reading, that is.

For the last three years I have whined about Reading – about how soulless it is, how spiritless. Commuterville and then some. But the truth is that although I know no one here, it is convenient. I live on the banks of the Kennet, 10 minutes’ walk from Tescos, 10 mins from the train station, 10 mins from the shops. When I move back to Dorset, I shan’t be able to walk anywhere useful at all. Ten minutes will see me either at the top of a hill, or in a wood.

Thing is, when I made the decision to move back to Dorset, the move was itself still at some comfortable time in the future. It wasn’t until my Mum said yesterday that it’s only two weeks away that I realised how fast time as passed, how close that future is to being the present. Getting off the train today I realised that that was the last time I’ll catch the train up from Bournemouth. Mum won’t be coming up here again with Melissa, my niece. Soon I won’t be looking out for Black Duck on the river as I walk into town.

In two weeks, everything I own will be back in my parents’ house. I will be living again in the arse end of nowhere. A very pretty arse end, but nevertheless, I shall be cut off from civilisation once more, totally dependant on my parents for transport and on the internet for my social life. OK, so that last point isn’t so far removed from how my life’s panned out over the last 18 months, but still. The thought doesn’t much fill me with enthusiasm.

Last time I was in Dorset I went for a few months and ended up stuck there for a year and a half. I swear, that will not happen this time. I will not allow myself to fall into that trap. I’m not quite sure what I will do, but I know it will involve trying very hard to get some sort of life back.

Meantime, I better shift my arse and start packing. I have two weeks to reduce a two bedroom maisonette into a pile of boxes. Eek.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Golwg interview and Blog-City

by Suw on August 18, 2003

I did an interview with Mai Williams of Golwg this afternoon. She emailed me Friday to ask if she could write a piece on Get Fluent and the troubles I’ve had with it. Of course I agreed, why wouldn’t I? But it felt odd. Like a book end. Golwg did a nice piece on me around this time last year, about Get Fluent starting, so it’s satisfyingly symmetrical that they should cover its demise also.

Mai asked me some intelligent, yet difficult, questions. Like why did I think that Get Fluent had problems, what am I going to do next, has the closure of Get Fluent hurt me personally. They were surprisingly hard to answer and not only because I didn’t want to sound too much like a negative whiny prick. I did find myself tearing up as I talked about how I feel about it all, despite trying to sound professional. I suppose the overwhelming emotion is still one of frustration and anger. A good idea gone to the wall because of a lack of support.

Talking about my future was very difficult, as I still don’t know what I’m going to do and that was hard to spin into any sort of positive light. Here I am, 32, and I have more in common with R, who’s 22, straight out of uni and undecided on what he’s going to do with the rest of his life, than I do with my friends who are my age. I’m not saying that everyone I know has their life sorted out, but most of them are in a better state than I am, that’s for sure.

We talked for half an hour, and I tried to find answers to questions that I don’t have any answers for, such as why am I so passionate about Welsh, and answers to questions that I didn’t really want to answer, such as why did it all go wrong. I was frank and honest in the interview, because I’m pathologically frank and honest, and I just hope that Mai will write something which doesn’t make me look like a total idiot. We shall see what we shall see.

Who knows. Maybe someone will read the interview, decide that Get Fluent and Clwb Malu Cachu are worth saving, and will step in with some dosh. Strangely, I find myself not holding my breath on that one.

By the way, if you’re having problems getting at the blog, then I think that’s because Blog-City appear to be trying to expand capacity and increase speed whilst not totally shagging up their service in the meantime. I really like what Blog-City are doing – their service has been so much better than my previous home at Blogger that I’m happy to hang on in there until they’re sorted. So please hang on in there with me.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }