Matt Charlton

Since the dawn of time (see what I did there?) man has used the sun to indicate to them whether it was time to go hunt or time to go to bed and sleep.

I’m using this example to explain a little of what happened overnight in the holiday cottage.

It’s an old converted barn and the windows have shutters that you close on a night in order to keep the heat in and the light out – not that there is any light of course, we’re in the middle of nowhere and the only light you get is that from the sun.  Obviously as we race towards the Winter months, we’re seeing less sunlight that we have done over Summer.

When the bedtime reading lamps have been switched off and you’re ready to sleep, it’s pitch black – absolute darkness.  No amount of time passing will allow your eyes to adjust to see anything – you can have your hand in front of your eyes and you can’t see it – it looks the same with your eyes open or closed.  It’s bizarre – especially when you live on a busy main road and there are streetlights outside your bedroom window for the rest of the year.

It should be peaceful and relaxing – truth is, its really, really disorientating.  Your mind plays tricks on you – the passing of time seems to fall away into some strange dimension where a minute can seem like an hour.  Sue woke in the middle of the night to go to the loo and switched the light on – I checked my phone as I thought it must be around 6/7am – it was 2:30am.  I felt like I’d had a full nights sleep.  It’s just weird.  I ended up going to the loo and then listening to music on my iPhone for half an hour or so to try and get myself back to sleep.

I remember last time we were here, we bought a night light for the bedroom, just one of the ones you plug into the wall socket and it shines a tiny amount of light out – not because we were scared of the dark, its just it was so disorientating that it was uncomfortable.  We left said night light at home somewhere – todays task is to find another one.

I woke up a bunch of times through the night, with no light to indicate whether or not it was getting towards morning or not – I couldn’t remember just how much of the light came through the shutters in the morning so when I awoke and saw a thin sliver of daylight coming through the underside of the shutter I thought it must have been getting on for 9am.  Wrong, it was 7am.

So there you go – light affects you in funny ways.  When there isn’t any of it, your body does wierd things to your head.

In other news, the cottage is lovely as always, we had fish and chips at Mr Chips in Whitby last night (it’s becoming something of a tradition – we’re three for three on that one) and then came back here and collapsed in front of the TV to watch X-Factor.  WHY ARE THE TWINS STILL IN? THEY SUCK BALLS!

Looking forward to enjoying the rest of our holiday, spending today with Paul and Margaret who are driving down from South Shields.  They should be here about 10am.  Which means I need to go get dressed.  Then I shall be beating Paul at Guitar Hero in Whitby \m/

I’ve managed to pair up a week off work with a week that Sue has managed to book off in October.

Currently looking at the possibility of going back towards Whitby way. It’d be nice to stay at Glaisdale again but now I’ve got a definate week booked off, I might look at other places too. Maybe somewhere with a pool. Pools are fun. Well, only when they’re heated correctly. Cold swimming when it’s cold outside is bad.

Might spend some time looking at the English country cottages website tonight

Tuesday 28th October signalled that it had been exactly three months since I started at Frog.  Basically this means that my probation period is over and I’m now a permanent employee.  Fantastic  

I’m still really enjoying the work and I’m learning so much it just feels so invigorating and refreshing. 

We completed another office move this week, the desks have been moved around to try to make the layout a little more fluid and sit departments who need to talk to each other closer together.  I’ve ended up with a window seat which is great for my SAD.  combined with getting out at lunchtime in the daylight means that the last few weeks have been much better than the last month or so.  The main reason for me ending up with the window this time round is because we’ve flipped sides, so we’re now facing towards the front of the office, I need to talk to Al a fair bit and he would have been on my left – absolutely useless for me with me being deaf on my left side. 

I’ve got two days off to use up before the end of the year.  I’m planning on taking Sue away again for the weekend, either sometime in November or December depending on prices and various other factors.

First choice would have been Disneyland Paris, it was generally this sort of time of year when we’ve gone.  Checked Jet2 for prices and it was £19.99 each, each way.  Great – Around £80 for the trip, similar to what I paid last time.  Click Next…… £280.  What…the….fuck?

Taxes, fuel surcharges, baggage fees.  Sod that for a lark. 

Checked Eurotunnel prices, not much different, its too far to drive and it’d be a pain in the arse on a coach. 

Plus just to make sure, I checked the prices for Disney on a three night basis – cheapest I could do it for was £488.  You’re looking at just short of £800 for a weekend away.  Jesus Christ. 

I bet for not a lot more you could do a week in Florida on a no frills. 

So we’re looking at somewhere in this Country again.  Blackpool is going to be mostly closed or filled with stags and hens which I just can’t be arsed with at the moment, Whitby would be really nice but we’d need to stay somewhere close to the town centre, Red House Farm was lovely but when you’re there for a weekend and you don’t have cooking facilities we found it to be a little limiting, especially when Whitby itself was a good 8 mile drive away. 

Theres always Scarborough, its just a case of finding a nice, quiet, central hotel with access to decent, free parking.  Itching to get out with the camera again and since the weekends are my only real oppertunity to do so I want to make the most of it. 

I also fancy just spending an entire day shoving  2p pieces into pacman ball / coin dropper machines.  Its fun.  Some would even go so far as calling it thereapeutic. 

Trying to organise a curry with the people from work next week.  So far its looking good with at least 10 of us going.  Mmmmmm curry.