32 days into 2015 and I’m going to try something slightly different. A couple of changes here.
Firstly, I’ve changed the domain for the blog. What was previously running under stevehanlon.co.uk is now running under stevehanlon.co.uk. I couldn’t get “whereiam.com” or anything similar, so I opted for my favourite artificial-yet-natural language, Esperanto, and chose Kie Mi Estas. Back when I was doing my postgrad work, I did some exercises with an artificial language – I think that it was called Neo. However, the interesting thing about the language was that it had a very restricted grammatical structure, hence making it easy to apply contextual information to the recognised patterns. In theory it was ideal, but in practice nobody uses the language and the context problem became a lot more complicated when the “rules” of English grammar were applied. Consequently, I have a bit of a soft spot for languages like Esperanto, and hence the new domain.
What else? Well, it’s the first of February and I’m still writing. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep this up, but I’ll give it a go. The desire to click the big tick button in Lift/Coach is compelling enough to keep me at it.
Quick update on the day. It was very late when we got back from the gig last night. The concert itself had been excellent. A balanced set with no radical re-workings of old songs, and no other surprises. Happily, the after-show party was excellent as well. Last year it hadn’t looked that good and we left early. This year, however, there was a covers band (Wilbur Milton) playing for a while and then a DJ set. The covers band had everyone dancing, which is amazing, considering that they were essentially playing in a cold bright corridor. The DJ set seemed well chosen too – so a fun time was had by all.
After breakfast today we drove to Chester, where we took our walk. Thirty minutes of wandering around the riverside, not really knowing where we were heading. It was a post-late-night, ever-so-slightly-hungover potter rather than the usual route march. We found a music shop where we resisted spending thousands on lovely equipment and then, as tradition dictates, visited Duttons for a bite of lunch before heading our separate ways home.
It’s been an excellent weekend and I’m looking forward to returning to Llandudno in March for another gigging weekend.
Back home and things have quickly settled back to some sort of normality. Jude was preparing dinner when I got back and the children were doing homework. Lily looks like she’s developing a cold, which might be a bit of a problem tomorrow, but other than that, things will hopefully be back to normal tomorrow morning.
Day 32: 3km walk around Chester in 33 minutes.