Saturday, and today really is the 13th. I await with trepidation all the little practical jokes the day has in store; expect many, prepared for but a few!

What to tell? Friday continued in much the same vain as it started, poking fun at me and sticking its leg out to trip me up whenever my attention was diverted elsewhere. Little bugger. Network intermittent until David came home with new gizmo, unplugged, plugged, configured, wiggled, pinged, fiddled, swore, coaxed, threatened and generally waved a multitude of magic wands. Thus we now have guaranteed 100% reliable home network and internet access that will never ever fail, astonishing upload and download speeds, file transfer rates that actually exceed the laws of physics and probably a mini-hadron collider poised on the brink of discovering the Higgs Boson particle. (Why did my spell-checker want to change that from hadron to hard on? Such smut!) We’re but a step away from sending out an inverse tachyon pulse through the main deflector array into the quantum singularity causing a cascade of chronotron particles and possibly destroying all life as we know it in this sector of the galaxy! Someone beam me up! Please!

Good day for blog hits yesterday – thanks to everyone who stopped by – it was the busiest day yet. Or was it just that it was Friday and you were all bored? I don’t care; I’m turning into a blog-hits whore, happy to prostitute myself on the back of imagined popularity. Oh, I’m SO cheap! I hope I gave a few laughs at least, if not with me then at me. Feel free to add comments – I can take it! (I only seem to be in a fragile mental state, bordering on a complete meltdown. Honest. The voices keep telling me I’m ok!)

Letter from United Utilities offering to insure my external pluming. I say it’s not the external stuff that needs attention! It’s what is happening inside that is the current cause for scientific speculation, but maybe when they send down a camera we’ll find out if I need extra lagging, or perhaps there’s some sediment that’s settled when my back was turned, maybe a burst valve? Anyway, I’ve been round the U-bend for years. I’ve had a camera go up before, so only seems right I should go for the matching pair and have one go down. God, I hope they use different cameras...

Today I have a real itch to go out and do something fun tonight. I get quite isolated in the house all week, and most weekends our only trips out are to do shopping – hardly fun times. So this urge comes over me from time to time – want to go do something ‘gay’. I don’t mean standing on a bar in the Village dancing to YMCA with the drag queens, I mean just being around other gay people. It can still be quite an isolating world – even with current improvements to legislation, David and I still can’t walk round M&S holding hands. So it is important for us to sometimes get to places where we can do that. Hence the desire for a good night out, but that’s never a good feeling as it usually leads to frustration and dashed hopes. Manchester has really taken a nose-dive in recent months – well the last year or two really. So few places we want to go, no clubs other than our own that we’d like to attend, and if we do make an effort and drag ourselves out (not drag up, drag out!) then the place tends to be practically deserted. Bad show Manchester. Get it sorted. Two gay guys here want a good night out that doesn’t involve ‘camp bingo’, bucket-loads of sequins, floppy hair and straight women on hen nights, “Cos we feel safe here, innit like.” That said, I guess I’m as much an obstacle – can’t really go dancing with a gammy foot that permits about 10 minutes of standing per hour before throbbing to buggery and causing general misery. Gets you down being constantly aware of pain, although some days it is much more manageable than others. Now, as I’m typing this, it is not much more than a tingle, but sometimes you’d think I was having needles stuck in the balls of my foot! Still, shouldn’t complain. It IS getting better, albeit slowly. Not used a wheelchair for three months now, and at least I’m mobile about the house and enough to potter round shops, so that’s a blessing. Long way off disco dancing though, so I guess Essential, the gay(ish) night club tonight is out of the question! Besides, I don’t have anything in gold spandex to wear!