For those of you worried, concerned and irritated by my absence, or none of those, fear not; I return with tales you wouldn’t believe and I am definitely NOT Shutting Down, there’s been an awful lot going on recently and I have flirted with pulling the plug on this once jolly folly.

But first let my pay tribute to my amazing friend, and I’ll call her S, to preserve her anonymity. The brighter of you may have realised that “she” refers to her being a Lady, so thats approximately 3 billion people I reckon, probably more I’m not making notes. Which is partially why this project is so shambolic and sporadic. It used to be a fun habit and now, or at least these past few months, has been a pain in the arse, but fulfilling when I itch that arse. My very good friend S called us all to a meeting at a pub, not local to her by over 100 miles more local to us; about 10 miles away. This was ominous, and we weren’t looking forward to this meeting.

To cut a tragic story short, it turns out she’s been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, the most evil of diseases, from my untrained eyes and lack of anything but anecdotal knowledge on the subject. I’ve avoided Google, i’ve spoken to doctors and people with experience in the condition over the last week or two, purely by virtue of where I have worked and who I’ve met recently, and which  ever way you look at it, its no jaunty skip through the Tulips in a flower zoo somewhere. I’ve know S for a long time, more than half my life and she is the most wonderful, gobby, bubbly friend; a friend who makes things happen instead of just talking about them, as I’ve got older I’ve been doing a lot of talking and not as much doing as I’d like; I’ve got complacent, lazy and a little fatter, but had we been following my weight loss journey over the last few years I’d say the gain is more than the loss. I’ve put on weight, deal with it. But S has been expanding her horizons continually as she grew and watched  her kids have grown up, not really slowing down, well maybe a bit here and there for a breather, but we all have to right? With hopefully many more years of adventure to come I raise my Cup to you and everyone else with this wretched affliction.

It’s really shit, and I think we should come up for a name for this monster stalking her, but that will have to wait until I see her next, maybe before Christmas, but more likely around New Year, theres other issues going on which are expending rather too much of my time sadly. More of that tomorrow. 

So if you’re reading this S, I’ll speak to you soon, got the day off on Wednesday so I’ll be balling socks,  putting t-shirts away and trying to find some jeans in my clothes Zoo which aren’t intent on tightening my bollocks and rendering me a eunuch, nothing against them, but I’m not prepared to self medicate via the method of shrinking jeans and expanding waistline.