Well, as mentioned in an earlier posting, I’ve managed to get that Dag Kolsrud record converted to MP3. Took me about a week, but I’ve finally done it. It wasn’t easy, thanks to the fact my laptop wanted to play around with its sound devices, meaning that it didn’t recognise the signal format given from my record deck. A minor annoyance, and one I never experienced with XP in any way, shape or form.

Anyway, onto the record itself. If “synthtastic” isn’t a word, it really should be. The backing track really could have been taken from an unreleased “One 2 Many” track, with the same synthy drums, bass and “trumpets”. The version I have is mostly instrumental, with different sections of xmas songs thrown in for good measure. Well, I say good measure, it all seems a little haphazard, not quite sure whether it wants to be a generic “pop” song, or an even more generic “xmas” number.

It’s not bad, but I doubt whether I’d give it a second glance, or second play, if it wasn’t One 2 Many related.

In other news, I did continue to trawl fkickr to see if I could find any more pictures of myself.

If you thought the sunburn was bad on the last one, take a look at this…

Well, I’ve not updated for a week. The last couple of postings didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I’ll start off by getting the whinging out of the way and stating that I am again, full of cold. Now, to be perfectly honest, this was to be expected. Since my previous one around December time, it felt like it never cleared up properly. I always had a bit of a chest thing going on. Over the last 5 years or so, I’ve tended to get colds in pairs, just like this one. And, hopefully, after this one disappears, I’ll be back to normal.

I blame the seasons, seeing as my intake of my “five-a-day” recently has been greater than it’s been in recent times.

Oh, and if you’ve been checking my facebook recently, you will know that I’ve lost my mobile. I have no idea where it is. Last night, I was in Horden with a few people from work, including Eddie, who left in August and I haven’t seen since. Anyway, after a bloody good night, I returned home, pretty drunk. The beer was “cheap”, and I was in the mood for a drink, seeing as I had the beginning of this cold coming on.

I awoke in the morning, looking for my phone, with it nowhere in sight. I looked everywhere.

This is where I began to panic. What happened to it? I tried to ring it, with no joy, as it had been “switched off”. This was either due to it being physically switched off, or the battery running low.

It was at that time I began to retrace my steps. Thanks to the webcam, I know that I returned home at 11:48… 14 minutes later, I’d updated my twitter via text, saying “White rabbit“. And that’s where the trace goes cold. Therefore, the mobile is more than likely in the front room somewhere, but can I hell find it. I’ve checked every conceivable place, and it’s simply not there.

Therefore, until further notice, my mobile’s out of action. This has been a service announcement on behalf of a drunk.

Right. Let’s try to move on to something more savoury. Spring is definitely on the way. It’s normally this time of year where I appreciate the fragrance of lilac trees (I await another Chad “sniffing something” comment) and the beauty of daffodils, but all of the lilac trees that were around here have been cut down, and there’s only one daffocil sprang into life in the front garden this year.

OK, I’m a little bit cheaty there, that was a photo I took last year. Hopefully, in the next few days, I’ll have better photos of the newly formed daffydil. Christ, I’m posting photos from last year, things must be desparate.

I must admit I’ve been a bit slack when it comes to doing my regular walks. I think it’s my first one for several months. Still this one was needed. And needless to say, I took my camera. If that makes sense.

On Tuesday night, after another night at the club, and before knocking back a chinese takeaway from… er, that place in Church Street I can’t remember the name of, I commented to Daddykins that I may be going out early to take photos.

A quick look at my flickr profile shows that I’m a fan of taking sunrise pictures, and as there’s been a few mighty sunrises recently, I thought I’d go out and take one.

Now I’d woken up at exactly my planned time, 7AM. This gave me enough time to get my stuff together, and head out of the door for 7:20. The sky was just turning blue. There was a wisp of cloud in the sky, and the moon was still shining bright through the clouds. The sky had been clear, therefore the temperatures had plummeted through the night. There was a good covering of frost on the ground, and any small puddle which had formed, had now turned into solid ice.

Although I’d planned to walk somewhere, I actually had no idea where I wanted to go. I had no idea how long it would take for the sun to be in the sky fully. I guess it was a race against time to get somewhere high up. And, because Hartlepool slopes down towards the sea, the highest point is on the Hart Road, leading to Hart Village. I began to walk up the incline leading towards Hart Village.

A small horse seemed to take interest in what I was doing…

Part of the route to Hart Village leads along a section of old road. At some point, several years ago, a bypass was built, meaning that this old road had became unused. Because of this, the hedgerows either side of this road have became overgrown, and at that time on a morning, it’s a particularly creepy place.

That wasn’t the least of my worries, the black ice was. Imagine my horror, as I touched a portion of frozen water, and before I know it, I was on my back, looking up at the stars. I’d went down like a bag of spanners. It certainly wasn’t graceful. In fact, what made it even less graceful would have been the sight of me (successfully) trying to keep my camera off the ground. It does mean that my left side of my body managed to take the full force of it. My left hand is (slightly) grazed, and my left shoulder feels like it’s fallen off. In fact, typing this is difficult, but hell, I’ll fight through it for both of my readers.

So, anyway, after the slip, I continued the walk. In fact, the ice only affected me one more time as I crossed the road, known on Google Maps as “The Fens”. It is also the road where I have yet to see one car travel down.

It’s so quiet, it’s one of the few places in Hartlepool you can get a shot like this…

As can be seen by that photo, it was starting to get pretty light by this point. The redness in the trees suggested to me that the sunrise wasn’t far away, however, I still wasn’t in the ideal spot. Would I make it in time to the prime location to see the sun rise? Well, er… yes and no.

The prime location for me, is halfway along the Hart road. There’s an entrance to a field, giving great views over Hartlepool and Teesside. I was hoping to recreate this shot, but this was the best I could do.

Obviously, the sunrise wasn’t quite as explosive as I’d hoped. Still, it got me out of the house, and it (partially) burned off the chinese from the night before. And my shoulder injury will give me something to whinge at for a couple of days.

Ironically, I left the house at 7:20… no less than 10 minutes later, Chad had left a comment on my site, asking, as he usually does, if I was “getting out more”. What are the chances of this happening?

In other, totally uneventful news, I cancelled my Lovefilm account. I decided that £12.99 per month for DVDs I wasn’t really watching, wasn’t worth it, and so I cancelled. For those of you who have a lovefilm account, you can’t cancel them through the website, you have to phone them. This was more than annoying, seeing as one of the disks I’d sent them hadn’t been cleared off the system, despite the fact I’d sent two back in the same envelope. I’m the worst person on the telephone, which is a little bit disconcerting considering the job I do.

Two (count ‘em!) phone calls later, and my account was cleared without a problem. I would like to think I’ll miss using them. I probably won’t, but that’s nothing against the company. I have less interest in films and stuff than I did when I first joined them. Plus, the money is probably more important to me at this point.

Oh, and you know I lost my bank card a few months ago? I’ve just put my hand on the floor down the side of my chair, and there it was. Grrrr.