Monday, January 08, 2007

Small Steps

Last night I applied my brain and came up with my nominations for the Bloggies. There are only a couple of days left of the nomination stage if you have a burning desire to do the same. I suspect that, apart from categories where they are not eligible, US blogs will come out top, but I have done my bit to fly the flag for the Brits (and a few others as well). There were some categories that I didn’t nominate anyone, I can’t say that I have a particular interest in craft blogs for instance, but I nominated some blogs in various categories.

Doing that reminded me that over the next few months I will probably get round to expanding my blogroll, as I have been meaning to do that for a while. I will also finally go across to blogger beta at some point, but I’m sticking with the original for the moment. Blogger will force me to change at some point anyway.

I am beginning to make a few efforts to get myself back on my feet again friendship-wise. I had a brief chat with my old housemate yesterday morning (as in who I lived with until November 2005) and am going over to her house next week for dinner. She told me that that the place that we used to live is being sold for over £200,000. I can’t believe it is actually worth that much, it hasn’t got parking, but it is really near the tube - in fact my room was overlooked by the train line, which was always a good incentive not to wander around naked.

Yesterday I also briefly showed a German girl I know who moved to the area recently where some local places are and she is coming over for lunch next Sunday and I’ll show her about a bit more to help get her orientated. Then last night I phoned a friend who I hadn’t spoken to for a bit for a catch up. She teaches at a school very near where I live and so is going to come and stay over a couple of evenings when she has parents’ evenings etc. I am also going out for dinner tonight. The person who invited me must be getting on for 70, but she invited me and a few other people over for dinner. I have no idea who the other people will be but it will be good to have a pleasant evening out and a bit of a chat with people.

That all probably sounds like rather more of a turn around than it actually is. I am still feeling wary about things, and for me it’s also not really about quantity and rather more about quality, but it’s certainly heading in the right direction.

4 comments:

Red said...

It's absurdly hard to keep friendships going in London, isn't it? And strangely, since we've moved out of the Big Smoke, it's become hard to both make new friends and maintain the few London friends we had. The distance, the fact that several of them have decided to have children and insist on taking their coughing and snotty infants everywhere... these factors all hinder relations. Thank goodness for blogs, eh? ;-D

Random Reflections said...

Red - Indeed, to all that you said. I am a Londoner born and bred and if it weren't for friends who I have known since back in the mists of time I sometimes wonder if I would have any particularly strong friendships at all any more.

A lot of my friends don't have children so I can mix in the ones that do with the ones that might bring disease-ridden children with them!

Anonymous said...

hmpf, i posted on here yesterday to no avail...

Was saying that having recently lost 2 very good friends (to each other - pah, long story) I have realised that it's very difficult to make new friends at my age (28) so yes, rekindling friendships with people you've drifted from is often easier...

anyway, love your site...

Random Reflections said...

How odd that your post didn't work. Sorry about that.

Doesn't sound great to have lost a couple of friends, particularly to each other. If you lose someone you might at least hope that they were miserable...

I think the whole friendship thing seems to get more difficult as you get older but maybe makes you appreciate the friends that you have had for a long time.