I have Emma and Dave here at the moment, which is great. Yesterday we were sat on the beach in Penarth eating fairly traded chocolate and ring doughnuts and watching some crazy guy swim with his dog. The sun was hot and as we looked ahead we noticed that it was hard to tell where the sea ended and the sky began.

Over the weekend I tweaked my myspace a little. Take a look at it here. I hear it's all about self promotion, so this theme should fit in nicely.

Andreas called me on Tuesday afternoon to tell me that James is dead. I just can't believe it. I haven't know him very long, but it felt like we had grown close since I arrived in Malmö. Since I first met him he's been a great encouragement, always pointing out the positives that I was too close to see, or offering to help when there were communication issues, or just showing up when no one else was around. I spent most of a quiet Easter with James and it was such a blessing to be with someone with whom I could share the ups and downs of life and the hopes of the future.

And now he has gone. And I feel poor at the loss of such a dear friend. I feel helpless. I feel nauseated. But I trust that he is in the hands of one who loves him without condition.

Mini Tipping
I went to sleep pretty early on Saturday night but woke around midnight to the sound of my Mum calling "Jonathan, come and see the car." My first thought was that I was having a strange dream, but I got up and went outside.

I found most of my neighbours congregated around Dave's mini (which I'm 'looking after' for him while he's in Sweden), which was on its side. It turns out that, in the absence of sheep, the children of Llandaff North have taken to mini-tipping.

The police came and then the fire brigade (the fuel was leaking out), and the mini was returned to his usual orientation with barely a scratch to show for it...

Hello. How are you? (he says cunningly referring his last blog post...)

The cutest song of my week so far has to be The Sharing Song by Jack Johnson, from the Curious George soundtrack. As his albums go, it definately marks a move to more complex musical arrangement, but is no less chilled out. It's also fun hearing him do kids songs.

We found some more waterfalls in wonderful Brecon the other day. When we arrived at the information centre and I asked the lady about the 7 waterfall walk, she told us it would take 5 hours but refused to comment on the feasibility of this for people unaccustomed to long walks. We got our shoes on and then went back. This time Zoe spoke to her and she gave us the insider tips. We went for the two and a half hour walk, which turned to five and a half with lots of stops and getting lost. The best part was walking behind a waterfall and dipping my head in.

Netiquette
While blogging I often imagine a set of unspoken rules. One of these is the rule that if you don't blog for a fortnight, or even a month, it would be rude to start blogging again as though you never stopped. If I leave a long gap, I often feel obliged to explain myself, or at least to offer some kind of introduction, which as a daily blogger I would never feel necessary.

I think in some way this is a transplantation of the etiquette of real life onto the world wide web. For example you see someone you haven't caught up with for two weeks, or even a month, and the first thing you ask is "how are you?" If you raced into a "well I was at the supermarket the other day and..." kind of monologue you're somehow infringing on them. You're assuming familiarity where familiarity hasn't been earned, or at least where your familiarity 'credit' hasn't been 'topped up.'

Or perhaps it's just me...

I wish that the Internet Explorer Tab or even IE View Lite for Firefox worked on the Mac Operating System. It would make designing websites much easier.

Ouch (pt 2)
This morning I drove Zoe and my mum to the train station. They were on their way to Bath. I stopped at the traffic lights and there was one car in front of us. The lights were red. One moment later the lights were still red and the car began reversing towards us. She paused briefly and then continued reversing into our car. Calling it a 'car crash' would certainly be overstating it, but it wasn't fun.

Ouch
The switchbacks is one of my favourite trails, but this morning wasn't my morning. There's this section where you change directions by 180 degrees on a turning which is fairly steep, wide and full of loose, jagged rocks. As you fall you see everything in slow motion, first thought, "bummer, I messed it up," then, "this is going to hurt for the next two weeks."

Well it's the end of another week and a pretty ok one at that. I've seen friends, enjoyed designing and have just got back from a tax workshop that was for less painful than I imagined (partly due to it finishing after 2 hours instead of the 3 and a half that were billed). Why no blogging? Well right now things that I could blog about are either not blog material, or boring.

For example, who wants to know about my recent training regime, or what the weather is like? (It's nice by the way...) Anyways I'm sure there are some thoughts brewing...just give me time.

Sorry, no epiphanies.