Swimming at a lifeguard-less beach on a hot and sunny day was just what I needed yesterday. The sea was warm and the sand clean. The place was Rhossili, which is apparently too far out for most peoples' Saturday afternoon recreation.

On Monday we took Oscar to the Vet because he had been coughing badly and we thought he may have kennel cough. The Vet examined him and found a large growth in his abdomen. The next day he had an x-ray to discover if it had spread to his chest. It hadn't, so they did a biopsy to find out if the mass could be removed. It can't, and the vet has given him just a few months to live.

On the same note, in his book 31 Songs, Nick Hornby argues that the songs that are truly the greatest of your life do not bring back one particular memory. Because if a song has really become part of you then you have listened to it so often that it is not tied to one specific event.

This seems to make sense, but then the very first song from Recovering the Satellites that I heard was Angels of the Silences, and I remember, when it began playing, a 14 year old Chris and a 14 year old Helen jumping around the bedroom of her house in Penarth.

There are some albums that just grab you and won't let go. I'm talking the albums that you can listen to over and over without getting bored, the ones that you know every lyric, intro, instrumental break and guitar solo. No matter how many other cds you own you will never treasure them as much as these.

It's one of these that I'm listening to as I write. There are few cds that resonate with me in the way Recovering the Satellites by Counting Crows does. It somehow captures everything I could possibly want to say while remaining wholly "other." At the same time I both fully relate to the lyrics and yet completely fail to grasp them.

I was reflecting earlier on the number of people that have passed through my life since I first heard this CD. At the time I didn't quite appreciate that I'd be sat listening to this when they were long gone. Music is funny like that, a great song can somehow say exactly what you want to say better than you could ever say it. A great song, or in this case a great collection of songs (in my opinion so great that they belong side-by-side), can be a great comrade in the midst of lifes ups and downs, tos and fros.

Goodnight Elisabeth, whoever you may be...

Chris at Roskilde
I knew Chris was going to Roskilde, but I didn't expect that he'd make it into Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter (Daily News). Apparently his fish-catching antics caught the attention of a passing journalist! If you speak Swedish, find it here. (click on image to enlarge) Also click here for a slideshow - the voice saying "no more falafel for me" is Chris.

When, as a child, you are asked, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" You pick an occupation out of the air and tell the person who asks with little or no hesitation. Your assumption is that you can be anything you want to be. At the age of say 4 or 5 knowing this is nothing but fun, "I can and will be anything I want to be."

It's not until you get a little older that this is becomes pretty scary. If you once knew yourself and what you were made for, you have certainly lost that knowledge in the midst of the storms of life. You condescend to your old self, "I was naive, I didn't take into account the full picture of what being _______ would actually involve, I didn't really know myself..." You realise that perhaps you can do anything, but you no longer have that all encompassing parental provider to assert confidence upon you. You've discovered their fallibility, their finiteness, and you can no longer look to them as the source of all confidence.

While anything is possible, we only have a limited time. We are not blessed with the infinities of time to discover ourselves in a myriad of situations. It is into this poverty that the young and idealistic often lose the energy that propels them into an existence that affects those around them. They plug in to the system, at first to 'make-ends-meet,' but before long they are trapped by the fears of being uncomfortable, of not having 'enough.' That which once helped them live has become their only definition of life.

I don't believe for a minute that we have to settle into this slump, find our lives defined by our 'favourite programs,' or what phone we have, but I am now far closer to seeing how this happens.

Engagement
Congratulations to Ian and Viv, who have apparently got themselves engaged while holidaying in Mull.

I had the radio on while I was making some food earlier and one verse stood out in amongst the songs that were being played:

When our time is up,
When our lives are done,
When we say we've had our fun,
Will we make our mark this time?
Will we always say we tried?

(Rooftops by Lost Prophets)

It's nice to be in the middle of a heatwave, but a shame I'm inside catching up on work. I might have to venture out into my outdoor office later (with a sun umbrella and brightness on full I can manage to work from the garden).

We visited a friend's church this morning and there was a presentation about a pregnancy crisis centre. I was horrified to learn that in the UK it is legal to terminate the life of a severely handicapped baby up until full term (that is any time in the 9 months of pregnancy). "Severely handicapped" is apparently determined by the doctor, but some babies have been aborted because they had cleft palettes.

(It is usually only legal to abort a foetus within the first 24 weeks, although there is talk of shortening this).

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.