or at least i'm feeling a lot more upbeat than i have since Easter.

Firstly my personal curation, whilst not complete, is much further along! Hair recoloured to a nice red, bangs trimmed and nails painted, the most visual first contact stuff was done, I've reinstated some 'dormant' piercings too - i'm still debating whether to continue that exercise, maybe when the current batch have settled down again. If anyone tells you that they don't heal up, well IME they have to be pretty big not to at least close up some. I've added some temporary tats too to get the full alt/goth vibe going - i can neither afford nor have anything i want permanently etched into me, this way i get the look without the pain!

That was all done Wednesday/Thursday then on Thursday morning i got my PC back. Thanks hugely Sam and thanks also for the bike, as always i can't offer a lot in return except eternal gratitude. The rest of the day was mostly taken with getting the PC re set up in my 'office' and finally getting to answer emails etc that i've not had proper access to in a fortnight - yep, a lot of emails in the inbox!

Friday i took myself out for a short bimble on the bike before turning my attention to cleaning/servicing the donated bike which cleaned up almost like new. It took me a bit to work out all the ins and outs of the fold but its ready to rock now.

I briefly mentioned the small inheritance from my Father before, its not much but i've decided to treat myself to a short trip to the German Weihnachtsmarkt in early December. The budget is pretty tight but it's been six years at least since my last such trip and Dad used to enjoy the ambience and experience as well so i'm sure he'd approve. I'll be travelling by bus and train to my base in Dusseldorf from where i'll travel to markets all over the Rhine/Ruhr area, i haven't got any concrete plans for exactly where but i'm expecting to get around quite a few markets over my five days in Germany. For a bit of fun, here's a little contest for you, no actual prize, its just a bit of fun. So how many markets will i visit across the five days? The big cities often have more than one and i think my record on one of these trips was 21, as a tie breaker, how many gluhwein mugs will i return with? leave your answers in the format xx/yy in the comments below.

I seemed to fill Saturday with 'stuff', a bit of grocery shopping, making a tasty stew for tea and so on. Today has been a bit more interesting, we started with a trip to B&Q (think Home Depot) where Bev bought a new water butt and i bought a set of storage drawers to hopefully kickstart the tidying and sorting of, initially, bike stuff so i can go straight to relevant spares etc rather than hunt through all sorts of locations. Then we moved on to a garden centre to purchase a plum tree to go at the front of the house, something to decorate the bland paved area and provide some fruit.

Of course, i have posted the next Gaby chapter, Studded sees BlauHase and Team Apollinaris meet over the pasta table.

That's it for now, i'll be back on Wednesday so for now,
Tschussie,
Mads.

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