As promised, here’s the continuation of the previous post. As 2008 draws to a close, I wipe a small tear from my eye. mainly because while I’m typing this blog with one hand, I’m chopping onions with the other.

Sooo, where was I… Ah yes, I think we were up to June. And if we weren’t, then we bloody well are now.

JUNE

This was another month which featured some of my famously long walks around the local area. It was also the month where I last received a nettle sting. I hate those little bastards. Itch, itch, itch. Aaaargh. On the plus side, I did watch the sun come up whilst sat on a bale of hay. Which was nice.

My record collecting continued, and Steetley Chimney, once again, had smoke billowing from the top of it. Firefox 3 got released, and I had a plate of chips made from homegrown potatoes.

I’m actually struggling to think of things majorly exciting for June.

JULY

Well, July was, as you can probably predict, the month where I left the country for 1 whole week. Remember that nettle I mentioned earlier? well, that was nothing compared to the sunburn I suffered at the hands of the Parisienne sun. Doesn’t look bad in the pic, but the back of my neck and the top of my head were like glowing, peeling beacons, which could only be extinguished with the help of a hotel room shower.

Of course, going to Paris wasn’t the only thing I did in July. The week following it, I blogged about it in every spare moment of my time. Oh, I did also catch a bird whilst on a nightshift at Employment Palace.

AUGUST

The hard drive issues which had plagued by system for a good couple of months once again raised their ugly head. And, not only that, I couldn’t even do anything else to take my mind off it, because the weather, for the whole summer was beyond atrocious

Thankfully, it held out long enough for Andrew D to show me his new camera, and for me to have a play with it.

I also attended Eddie’s leaving do at some point, which also got rained on, but thankfully not rained off, even though the disco never actually materialised…

SEPTEMBER

It wasn’t long after seeing Andrew’s camera that I acquired my own, of the very same model. Only difference is that mine had a later firmware revision. This meant that the majority of the month was spent taking crap photos, and standing in the freezing cold, at 2AM in the morning, taking long exposures.

My first real trip out with the camera involved a walk around the Marina witha group of people I met on Flickr. I must admit the weather was shocking on the day, therefore the photos didn’t turn out quite as I’d hoped. I was planning to use them as a set of photos I could practise my fine tuning on, but I never got round to it. Therefore, they shall remain on flickr’s servers for eternity looking grainy and washed out.

The summer had one last trick up its sleeve, however, and on Saturday 27th September, I went to York with Coatesy on what must have been one of the hottest days of the year. Some of the photos were nothing short of spectacular

OCTOBER

It’s hard to find words to describe October. “Slipped under the radar” is one phrase that springs to mind straight away. It’s as if nothing happened. I have a feeling this was because most of the time I was trying to ignore the (really quite nasty) infection in my finger. Turns out, however, I could “stands it no more”, and after trying to drain the infection with a drawing pin, followed by being almost in tears because of the pain, I took only my 2nd trip to the doctors. Annoyingly, I got fleeced out of money via the prescription charge, and I spent a pre-booked week off work completely sober. Sassen, fassen, and indeed, rassen.

A trip to Redcar to pick up some records went entirely well, meaning I came back with considerably more than what I went for. Including the little pot dog which I have since lost. Oh well.

NOVEMBER

The beginning of november saw me recovering from the afore-mentioned finger infection (and a hangover which I will never speak of again), but that was the last thing on my mind, as I headed off down to London to spend a couple of hours in the company of Clarkson, May and Hammond. I won’t link to any of the photos, as I will be the first to admit my photography on that day was complete and utter anus.

Again, this was another month that went entirely un-noticed until later on in the month, when on a journey down the shops, I got handed a piece of paper telling me that the streetlights were going to be replaced. Golly! I reported it in the only way I know how… take a photo.

To top it all off, we had a brief flurry of snow towards the end of the month, making everything look nice for just a few hours. And if there’s anything better than snow for cleaning dog shite off your shoe, I’ve yet to see it…

The month was concluded with an indian with 11 people from work in order to celebrate my 29th birthday a few days later.

DECEMBER

What a month. I barely had time to sit still. I had another week off work to start off with, as it coincided with my birthday. It also coincided with “something else” work related, which shall not be mentioned.

Many functions took place in December, including things I really should have blogged about. I had a great night at Sunderland dogs a few weeks ago, which didn’t even get a mention on here. In fact the only mention I gave it on here or flickr was a photo of a rebooting gambley…

That was just one of the many nights out I attended, and never blogged about, including a Saturday night “discussing” politics with a former schoolteacher of mine. I even missed a few other nights out, thanks to a shitty little cold I caught a few weeks ago, and still haven’t been able to fully shake off. Grrrrrrr.

So, that, in a rather large 1000+ word essay, wraps the whole of last year up. It is gone. Confined to history. The only sign of its very existence appears in the form of a calendar I received from a chinese takeaway. Oh, and my bletherings in here, I suppose.

If I were to sum up 2008 in one word, the answer to that is quite simply “wet”. I’ll be hard pressed to beat taking as many photos this year as I did last, but I’ll no doubt give it a go.

2009 is sure to bring more photos. Whether these are good or bad, I’ll find out in the remaining 363 days.

Starfish crackers!

So, 2008 draws to a close, with more than a whimper than a bang. It’s been a year where I’ve got new stuff, broken old stuff, took hundreds of photos, and procrastinated more than ever. So, let’s look at the highlights of said year…

JANUARY

January started with a bit of a worrisome note. I thought I’d lost touch with Coatesy, after I sent him a Happy New Year text which never got delivered. I spent the new few weeks wondering what had happened to him. Turns out I’d sent the text to his old number, and on 25th January, I went round to his flat, and beat him at Track and Field

The 1st day of the year also saw the first photos uploaded to Andrew Dorrian’s Photo Gallery.

In Early January, the Shakespeare Pub, formerly the Catcote, was demolished to make way for a parade of shops, which are nearing completion.

Overall, I uploaded ony 16 photos to flickr, making it a very dull month photo-wise.

FEBRUARY

In contrast to the dullness of January, this month seemed to have everything, and that includes taking over 900 photos. For most of the month, however, I was the most depressed I’ve ever been over a stupid row about a packet of crumpets, and my even stupider anger. I’m quite sure the person involved will never truly forgive or forget it… I’m damn sure I’ll never forgive myself, or forget it.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and after being unable to sleep because of this incident, I got up before the cold winter sunrise, and walked to the headland to take some photos. Can you tell that I was crying when I took this picture? No? Good.

That was the incident which summed up the month for me. It wasn’t good, and it was all because of me.

Gary Smith left Employment Palace for pastures new.

It was certainly the month for unbelievable sunsets.

The streetlights on Easington Road FINALLY got replaced, after approximately a year of the new posts standing idle.

A little later on in the month, I went to Newcastle with Chris. Many photos were taken, including an almost exact copy of a image I’d seen on flickr many times…

Unfortunately, the longest Febrary for four years didn’t end with such an inspiring image. I had planned to take a catalogue of pictures, as it’s only something that happens every 4 years. Clearly this photo shoot never happened.

And I didn’t blog much. I did, however, blog about the earthquake which happened on February 27th. That was a very odd night.

MARCH

March’s blogs appear oddly to explain things that happened in February. Thanks to the afore mentioned crumpet incident. This included the trip to Newcastle in two mega blog posts, and also further detail about the earthquake.

A big brown envelope plopped on my doormat at some point in this month, I’d been summonsed for jury dury the following month. Balls. I took a bus ride to Middlesbrough to see how long it would take. Some shite photos were taken.

I also did a mega-tidy, which means that my carpet was seen for the first time in several years. It soon disappeared again. 317 photos were uploaded, none of them look particularly fascinating.

I also bought my first 500Gb hard drive.

APRIL

Early highlights of the month include the purchase of a 250Gb external hard drive, and my winning of several pounds on the Grand National.

The first major incident to occur was the major fire at the Bonne Bouche factory. Those were my photos, but you can never have enough photos of a major fire, so here is some that Andrew D took. He was lucky enough to have some of these printed in the paper.

Very little else happened which didn’t involve jury duty, hence very little blogging or photographs. However, during the weekend between my two weeks, I went to Durham with Chris. More photos were taken.

It was at this point (or around this point) that I started the record database, something whcih I’ve been building ever since.

Of course, there was the bus crash which demolished the brick bus shelter on Easington Road. Turns out April was quite a month for local stuff I could photograph. Humphrey Lyttleton also died, which was something I was truly gutted about.

MAY

This appears to be a month completely written off. Nothing happened apparently. I was sick of work as usual, and made my feelings felt in the only way I know how – blog about it. It was also the month of my mamoth walk around the town. I got plenty of photos, including some of my favourites of the year. Remember the new 500Gb HDD I’d purchased? Well, it began to die. Ironically, I mentioned that the power supply might have been at fault. I didn’t have that thought for another 5 months….

This is part 1… Part 2 to follow, hopefully this year.

Yes! This is the best time of the year. The morning of 26th December. This is the longest possible time before we have to put up with anything to do with the “festive season”.

(EDIT: Let me just point out that the thing on the back of the sofa is a dog chew, not some type of weird sex toy)

This time, a year ago, I’d have been in a car on my way down to Stevenage, but there shall be none of those shenannigans this year.

Sooo, back to this Xmas then. Well, it was garbage, not that I expected it to be any different, therefore I wasn’t disappointed.

The day started with one of Daddykins’ friends dressed up in a Santa costume bearing gifts.

It was then a case of seeing which TV channel didn’t make me want to throw something at the TV. Turns out that they were showing Wallace and Gromit on UK Gold. Good stuff.

So, they were watched for the umpteenth thime, and Daddykins went out for his Xmas lunch. I thought it was about time that I cooked my own Xmas dinner…

Mmmm, is there anything more festive than a Morrisons boil-in-the-bag Chicken Madras for one, cooked in such a way that the rice was still partially frozen, and has to get zapped in the microwave for longer than what the box suggested?

Oh, OK. I shall await the comments regarding my curry consumption. There’s no point cooking a Xmas dinner just for myself.

Another reason why I strayed from the traditional festive grub (for the 29th year in a row) is that I’ve already had my fair share of Xmas dinners this year, the highlight being a visit to the Hillcarter a week or two ago. Mmmm. I’m making myself hungry just thinking about it.

But there’s one thing about hosted Xmas dinners which I think it complete and utter shit, namely Christmas Bloody Crackers, and their contents. Fine, the party hat is OK, and the jokes are predictably terrible, but what about the little prize toy thing? Why are they always completely shit? Take the afore mentioned dinner at the Hillcarter for example.

Why would ANYONE want a fake green fingernail? And why did I keep hold of it in the first place?

So this is Christmas, and what have you done? I’ll tell you exactly what I’ve done. I’ve copied and pasted an introduction to a post I first used back in 2003.

I’d just like to wish all of my readers a very merry Christmas, and I hope Santy Claws brings you something nice.