Who's the slacker now, then?

OK, so I've been at best lax in my responsibilities as a blogger. Or maybe even worse than that, maybe I've been lackadaisical. I'm fairly certain I'll be forgiven for this, based on an explanation of what's been going on. In short: I've been working. Working on actual work-related things, that I get paid to do, and am expected to do on a regular basis. Shocking, I know, but somehow releiving to know that I can make it through days (alright, weeks) at a time without coming onto a blog site. Or rather without writing on a blog site. Because I have been checking them out. Other peoples. In my lunchbreak, of course. I'd never, ever be so irresponsible as to do it during work hours. Never.

Friends back home will tell of how I've been curtailing my emailing activities as well. I still haven't gotten around to sending the promised photos of snow in London from the freezing cold day last week when the white stuff stuck around long enough to coat everything in a beautiful white cloak, covering all the dirty smuttiness for which London is known in a veil that concealed all the harsh ugliness of even the nearby council flats. I have some pretty ones, and I will get around to it, I promise. Honest. Sometime soon. Really.

Mind you, there have been ventures internet-wards. There was the foray that netted me a trip to Dublin for St Patrick's Day in March. There was the research I've done to figure out if I can afford a trip on the Trans Siberia railway. There was submitting my invoice for my work each week. Then there were the emails with an immigration expert who told me that I don't qualify for the better visa that I wanted to get - just as well, because this way I feel much better about not even considering paying out the £1600 necessary for it, once I'd picked myself up off the floor, that is. Even better though was the email from another friend that informed me of other important information. Turns out the little restriction in my visa about only working for 12 months of the 2 years I'm allowed to be here actually means I have 365 working days at my disposal. Not 12 months. Not 52 weeks. 365 days of actual work. The world is my oyster with that kind of information! The things I could do with both the money earned and the time I'll be over here - the mind bogles in a most pleasing way at the thought of it. It's almost reached the point where I have so many options I don't even know which ones to daydream about anymore. When day to day routine saps my energy and gets me down, do I look at flights home via the Americas? Or do I see about a week in Scandinavia? And I have to wonder...

You see, routine is an isidious thing that can drain your energy and your will to fight. I know. My routine here has become so solid that I'm almost enjoying the daily round of work, losing hockey matches at weekends, and commiserating with the team in the pub afterwards, then recovering from the wake on Sunday. I see the same people every morning on my way to the Tube. There's the father and son who sing songs and play as they walk the other way. There's Zombie man, who both looks and moves like an undead creature from a horror movie, right down to the greying complxion and the stiff arms held at an unnatural angle as he walks. The girl who has the same coat as me, but never as many good hats. I see my money leak from my bank account each week with no idea of where the hole is so I can plug it and have some quality shopping time with the little bit that gets saved. And the upshot of this? I'm in London on a working holidy maker visa. I talk to my grandmother on the phone and get told to enjoy my holiday. But the way my life is going, as much as I'm not hating my existence at the moment...

I really need a holiday...