WHY I'M NOT AT A FESTIVAL

It's quiet round here today. The reason? Everyone's gone to the annual Beer Festival.

"Are you coming, Matt?" asked Ant the other day.

"No," I said, "I didn't book the time off."

That is true in the same way that I didn't make it to work before sunrise because I was still asleep.

The Beer Festival is a bit like a religious event for some people. My estimable colleagues have all gone together to spend a whole day's annual leave... with each other. I'd believe it to be sweet if I had reason to think that they all genuinely liked each other. When asked why though, the answer is always the same: because... beer. Ho ho ho. All hail the beer, do not question the beer, but worship the beer, for never will beer leave you nor forsake you. In fact, yesterday, someone was wearing a t-shirt that actually said: Beer - not just a breakfast drink.

Except it will forsake you, won't it - tomorrow morning. It will leave you with a sore head and fuzzy memories of talking ever-less-cautiously about work (the only thing you have in common) for a day in the sunshine with people you can't entirely trust. And if you drink enough of it for long enough, that delicious amber liquid will steal your life away from you from under your nose.

It's not for me, the Beer Festival.

I should point out at this juncture, that this is my opinion, and I am a man who has chosen to work instead of enjoy a drink with friends on a sunny Spring day. It might well be that the festival is much more fun than I'm making out and that the general camaraderie of the thing is off-the-scale euphoric, as people tell me many festivals actually are.

If so, that's great! And if you genuinely do like tasting different beers, then knock yourself out! But hey, I saw pictures from last year and I'm telling you, it looked like my colleagues were being propositioned by hostile Morris Dancers round a trestle table.

I doubt a vat-load of beer could prepare me for that.

SLEEPERS

She was asleep, I thought. Her head had fallen against the train window and her eyes were shut. A perfect reflection fell against her from the darkness on the other side: the same blue and black beanie, the same brown hair, the same wonderful sleeping smile, just backwards and equally beautiful.

I couldn't sleep on the train. Everyone else seemed to be nodding off as it rattled through the French countryside. Andy had his head back against the antimacassar, assuming the snoring position. The others were slumped across their rucksacks or nuzzled into folded arms and snow-hoods.

Every second, with every rattle of the window and every bounce over the sleepers, that train was taking us closer to England, back home to Bath and to that station platform where it had all begun.

I sighed at my own reflection. Rob would be waiting for her there, just as he was when we'd left. And she, asleep against the window, was already dreaming of him.

Would it have been easier if he had come? Probably. The truth was though, that all along, I had been Rob's replacement. And the thing that had been planned for him and for her had happened anyway, regardless of Samoens 1600, regardless of the snow bank and regardless of me. If he had been there, the tenth person on the trip, then she would never have excitedly asked me that day, and I would never have excitedly gone.

I tried thinking about something else. There was a lot of life ahead of me. Maybe it would all work out someday.

The train rattled on. She stirred and opened her eyes.

"Hey Matt," she said, beaming, suddenly awake.

"Hey," I replied, softly. "Everyone else is asleep. Are you okay?"

"Yes, I think so. Where are we?"

"I think we're nearly there," I said. "At least, I mean to say, I hope we are."

And I did.

HELTER-SKELTER

Do they still have helter skelters at funfairs? I was thinking about this the other day, while driving round Sainsbury's car park.

I looked it up. For four hundred years, 'helter skelter' meant sort of confused and disoriented, dizzy, if you will; which I imagine is how you're supposed to feel at the end of the ride when you stagger off with your coconut mat, picking the splinters out of your red-raw fingers.

I guess I feel a bit helter-skelter at the moment. I moved desks this week and everything's different. Plus somehow I've managed to get out of sync with all my evenings, and everything is clustering together, preventing me from establishing a routine, or in fact, a night to disappear from public view and relax. As the days go by, so does the scenery, round and round, as I slip and slide down this rickety old track.

My oven is essentially a smoke-machine and using it would take more faith than Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego could muster, psyching themselves up for a another go at the fiery furnace.

Plus, I've run out of clean socks, which is always annoying - especially as I've had to revert to my pile of odds. There are few things more infuriating than trying to pull a trainer sock round one ankle (inside your shoe) while the sock on the other foot is so tight that it's cutting off the circulation in your lower leg.

Well. I could sort all of this out, couldn't I?

It's pretty difficult when the world is spinning round your head.

SMOKE ALARM

I opened the oven door and was immediately engulfed in a cloud of thick, black smoke. It billowed out from the sizzling cavern and puffed into the kitchen. I turned it off and hooked the pizza out with an oven glove. It was fine, but the oven was not. Soon the smoke started to sting my eyes and I could taste it as it choked me. I coughed and spluttered like an old man, holding a pizza.

Then, through the blue haze that was funnelling its way out into the hall, the smoke alarm went off. It's good to know that it works in a crisis. It wailed like a banshee. I sprang into action, grabbed a chair and leapt up to push the button that switches it off. Then I clambered down, coughed my way through the clouds of pungent smoke and opened every single window I could find.

That done, I shut the kitchen door and sat at the top of the stairs, regaining my breath and wiping my eyes. There is definitely something wrong with my oven. I think maybe it needs a proper clean out.

When I got back tonight, the whole place smelled of smoke. In fact, even my clothes smelled like I'd had an evening poking a bonfire. The stinging, sickly aroma had permeated everything. I hope it doesn't last. I also hope there isn't any residual carbon monoxide lingering either, otherwise... well, don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Anyway, I'm pretty sure carbon monoxide doesn't work like that. The window is open.

So, in other news, my friend Karen texted a quote (almost certainly not just to me) which was completely apposite for what I was thinking about yesterday. She said, 'Slowing down can speed up our recovery and creativity.'

How true is that! It's counterintuitive because we speed up to get things done, but actually, that pace of chilled-out inspiration is where things flow. That's my goal then, to slow down so much that I can't help creativity exploding throughout every aspect of my life. I can't be living off quick and easy pizzas, getting home and bunging them in, just in time to do everything before I rush off to the next thing with a mouthful.

After all, even my oven seems to be vehemently protesting.

INDIGESTION

My insides felt like they were made out of stiff cardboard. I found the only way I could get to going to sleep was to lie there like a starfish.

Having fallen asleep like that, I woke up this morning thinking about the date; I was in Canada a year ago. And I was a lot less stressed and a lot less indigested. There was something about Toronto that was so chilled and slowed-down that it almost seemed like another world. I remember time ticking by so slowly there.

Over here though, where I actually live, things are still racing away at a hundred miles an hour. I've got no reason to believe that this will ever change, unless I somehow find a way to put the brakes on. The visionaries around me have ideas and plans and ambitions and they have them all at once. Making them happen though, that's hard work, and there is always a triangular balance between scope, time and cost. Visionaries aren't very good at compromising either the scope or the cost, and I am often left with adjusting time to fit. Culture will not help me to change the speed setting on the treadmill.

This is one of the reasons why I end up with indigestion. Everything happens too quickly, even eating. I'm always gulping down meals that should be enjoyed, and then throwing on my coat while I've still got a mouthful.

These ought to be indications that something is not quite as it should be. Oh, and lying in bed like a starfish.

I'm working on it.

DISASTER MOVIE

I wrote a whole blog yesterday about earthquake predictors. There's some guy somewhere, I think his name is Franks Hoogerbeets, who has predicted a mega-quake in California either today or tomorrow, based on... (1) the alignment of the planets, and (2) the fact that it's a full moon. I know, I don't understand it either.

Hoogerbeets reminded me so much of Woody Harrelson's character in 2012, madly broadcasting from a trailer in a forest, that I couldn't help thinking about all the silly science and impossible coincidences in that movie. Then, I remembered that my friend Sarah really loves that film, and in fact, most disaster movies. I understand why, I think, but I couldn't bring myself to write about it.

So, instead I put it into to a short poem. I tried to imagine how these things get made. This is called 'Disaster Movie':


Disaster Movie

On planning the apocalypse
They gather round the room
The writers and directors who
Bring dollars out of doom
With cataclysmic formulas,
They drink each other's health,
To catastrophic scripting which
They know will write itself.

"Aliens or earthquakes?
Will the President decide
That the citizens of Earth
Will take it on, or simply hide?"

"Will the scientist who figured out
What no-one else could know
Be believed by sneering, suited men
Who tell him where to go?"

"Hurricanes, volcanoes, or
A meteor from space?"

"Will the comet shimmy
Past the Earth
Or smack it in the face?"

"Will the plucky writer prove himself
A father after all?
Will the whinging kids stop moaning
And escape the fireball?"

"Giant monster? Dinosaur?"
"A countdown on a screen!"
"A giant eye!"
"Some CGI!"
"Like nothing ever seen!"

"Evacuate the city, get those people outta here!"
"And will the monster crush that kid
Who's frozen out of fear?"

"Climate change, neutrinos, or
Tsunamis from the deep?
Will humanity survive the day
Or somehow get to keep
On making terrible decisions that
Return us to the night?"

Well one thing's certain anyway:
The dog will be alright.

THE LAST SECONDS OF THREE YEARS

I sat on my keyboard box and held my phone, watching it count down. I was misty-eyed again. The numbers swam through the seconds. A minute and a half to go. 90 seconds left, out of... three years.

It was the interval at choir and everyone else had gone through for tea and biscuits while I sat there, ticking away.

I hadn't thought about it until recently, well, not in any great depth anyway. I didn't even tell anyone at the time that it had happened; I just held it in my heart, watching and waiting, hoping and well, sort of failing.

I can't tell you what it was. I can only say that three years ago, at 8:35pm on the 21st of April, an international speaker told me he believed God would do something specific for me within three years.* It hasn't happened. At 8:34pm last night I was sitting on my keyboard case, watching a clock tick away to zero in a cold church hall.

I don't want to get into the theology of it, who was right, who was wrong. Some things really are 'too lofty for me to attain' and I am alright about that.

In fact, the only reason I'm mentioning it at all is because of what happened next. For something extraordinary took place, almost the very moment the last second ticked over from a one to a zero.

Nope, no last minute miracle. I didn't see an angel or hear a heavenly voice or anything. There was no sky-writing or deus ex machina whisper from above. The extraordinary thing that happened, took place in me, and it was this: I actually felt okay.

I sighed, slipped my phone into my pocket and made a decision. A curious relief swept over me, as though one difficult season had ended and a brand-new, uncharted one had begun.

I knew in an instant that I needed to be single-mindedly devoted to doing the thing I'm designed to do, and right then, in the empty hall at the interval of a normal choir practice, three whole years of distraction and disappointment evaporated from my mind completely. I mean it, completely. That particular feeling has popped out of existence. And it's awesome.

"Alright Matt?" asked Robert, poking his head round the door, "Ready for a cuppa?"

I smiled, stood up and headed for the door.

"Absolutely," I said, "Absolutely."



*You can probably work out what it is.

DISCONNECTING...

"Did you have a lunch break?" I asked Junko.

"Yep," she said. "You didn't?"

"No," I said, scratching my head, "I don't remember taking one."

This is a bad sign, isn't it? I actually can't remember whether or not I took a lunch break. The memory I had felt like yesterday, or maybe the day before, and there was no way to prove it.

How has this happened? Next, I'll be taking work home with me and chugging through emails on the sofa. I would literally do anything possible not to ever have to do that. When it comes to the boxes of my life overflowing, that is not a direction that I want the spill to take.

Sometimes I go home and I've completely forgotten what it is that I actually do. I rather like that simple act of compartmentalisation: work is for work; home is for home, cooking a chicken, sleeping with the lights on and getting your dad round to look at the electrics in your shed.

"It's a real mystery," he said last night, scratching his head. Basically, I have a socket that's not connected to anything. It must have been once though. Did somebody clever once connect the flat to the garden with an underground cable? I hope so.

I think I might go home early today to make up for my lack of a lunch break. I could simply disconnect myself from the stress of today and drift off into a world of thought.

I might even sit in the shed.

In the dark.

TITANIC AND FUTURE TECHNOLOY

In years to come, someone might just ask me, "Hey Matt, what were you up to on the night of the 20th April, 2016?" and I, being a truthful old soul, will be duty-bound to say:

"I was at home watching an animation of the Titanic sinking... in real-time."

I don't know why; I just started watching it and suddenly found it eerie, evocative, addictive and unstoppable. I couldn't put it down. To think that this really happened on that April night in 1912, that that grand old ship slowly cruised to a stop, before finally spluttering beneath the icy waters under the stars.

Now in fairness I was doing other stuff as well, configuring Wordpress and working out some music things, but nonetheless, the RMS Titanic was firing distress flares and listing to the starboard on my iPad while I worked away on my laptop.

Oh, I should say: my phone woke up in the end. I left it plugged in while I was at work and by the time I got home, it had fully recharged. It must have been so low in battery this morning, that it couldn't even display the no battery screen you normally get when it's run out.

One person with a smartphone on board the Titanic could have saved all those lives. Ever think of that? Well, provided there was signal, network, receiving masts and a switched-on coastguard somewhere. Oh and plus, there would have to be satellites otherwise GPS wouldn't work. Oh and if there had been GPS and radar and all the rest of it, they might have used it to pick up that there was a dirty great iceberg off the starboard bow and would have avoided it in the first place.

Funny how technology works. Maybe there are things we can't really imagine now that are life-changing for people in the future. Perhaps they will look back at us battening down the hatches in hurricanes and running from earthquakes and they'll say, 'Aww, if only those people had had a widgery-confibulator!'

You mean a 'whizz-bang seismo-quantisation machine?' Yeah, something like that.

Or maybe, those future sympathisers will just want to know how I spent my evening on the 20th April, 2016? And I will just have to tell them how sad a thing it was to do for two hours and forty minutes on a Wednesday night.

NORTHERN SHORE

So my phone won't wake up. I set it off on a sleep cycle last night, trying to monitor my insomnia and it ran out of charge, despite being plugged in. Now it won't turn on. At all.

So, apologies if you're one of the dwindling minority of people who might have texted me.

Meanwhile, Emmie set a poetry challenge all the way from Canada, yesterday, based on a painting by Arthur Lismer. I was going to Whats-app it today, but that won't be possible.

So, here it is:


Northern Shore

One October afternoon
When all the world was still
The sunlight fell on blue lagoon
As Arthur climbed the hill

He scrambled over golden rocks
Through autumn's faintest breeze
His easel and his artist's box
Above the turning trees

Above the earth beneath the sky
The rolling clouds came scudding by
And summer waved its last goodbye
To all the world before
And Arthur dreamed and painted on
Beneath the fading summer sun
Where memory would linger on
Upon the Northern Shore

One October afternoon
When Arthur's eyes were old
He knew that winter very soon
Would take its bitter hold

But smiling there upon the wall
His painting long ago
Reminded him of autumn's fall
And all he used to know

For all the world was captured there
The lake in autumn hue
The beauty of the sun-kissed air
The sparkled water blue

Above the earth beneath the sky
The rolling clouds came scudding by
And summer waved its last goodbye
To all the world before
And Arthur dreamed and painted on
Beneath that fading summer sun
Where memory would linger on
Upon the Northern Shore

MIND LIKE A JUNGLE

I can't quite remember why I said that my mind was like a jungle. I did though, I said that tonight to Katie, without really thinking about it. It's because I have lots of thoughts all at once and they all intertwine, or swing from tree to tree, or scuttle away into the undergrowth.

Infuriatingly for others, sometimes this happens right in the middle of a conversation. I actually stop mid-sentence as something else occurs to me, and I'm drawn right away from the original thought and into a sort of paralysis. I don't like this diversion into the jungle. Most people get confused and frustrated that they haven't gone with me. While they're saying 'pardon?' or 'sorry?' or whatever, I look like I'm daydreaming. I will usually return though, and sometimes more quickly.

It happened to me on the way home from practice too. I was walking back through the allotments, wondering whether I could pick my way through the darkness without a torch, when I suddenly stopped and looked up at the Moon. It was nearly full, glowing bright and bold in the night sky, beaming from the corners of greenhouses and corrugated sheds.

I stood there for ages, thinking about how moonlight is just sunlight that's travelled a little further. I imagined myself, lit up by its beams as my cool shadow fell across somebody's vegetable patch. I'd have a silvery outline, I suppose, a kind of glistening figure standing like a scarecrow in the middle of the allotments. Then I felt moved to pray about something else, so I did, staring up at the Moon. I wasn't praying to the Moon, you understand, just using it as an anchor point to bounce my prayers back to the Creator. I chuckled to myself when I realised that that's a bit like moonlight in reverse.

Anyway, I digressed there. See? I had a thought in the middle of another thought and because it was connected, I explored it even though it was a bit of a tangent. I don't know if there's a word for that. I think I have a low concentration span, or I'm just interested by lots of things. One more example, then I'll bring it back to jungles and wrap this whole thing up.

I was talking to Tom in the kitchen. Tom is a colleague who is about to travel to Brazil to be there while his fiancée gives birth to their first child. I quizzed him (sensitively, don't worry) about all that and he explained how it happened. The situation I mean, not the pregnancy... Tom told me that he has to be careful in Sao Paolo because there's a high chance of being kidnapped and held to ransom. In fact, a friend of his had already had his car stolen at gunpoint while he was in it.

Anyway, for some reason, I then launched into the story of how I had had a gun pointed at me once, in a field in Gloucestershire. I explained how I was playing at a conference on a farm, got lost trying to drive back to the main road and a farmer thought I was a traveller on his land. For a moment or two, in the brilliant beam of a pair of Range Rover headlamps, there was a shotgun aimed at my head.

Half way through the story, I realised that this would not necessarily cheer Tom up, as the crime rate in Sao Paolo is almost certainly higher than it is in Gloucestershire. I had to finish it though. And all the time I was searching through the jungle for something I could say that that would make Tom feel a little happier at the end of it.

I think that if my mind is really like a jungle, I could do better at sticking to some more tried and tested paths, at least when I'm thinking out loud. Sometimes though, the trail is so unclear that the only thing I can do is stand in the clearing and wait until I can figure out which of the thousand interesting things around me is the best to talk about. Imagine that! Imagine having so many competing things going on in your head at the same time that they all get squished as they fight for space through the exit of the jungle-mind.

I thought about it between the allotments and home. Writing it all down, might be a start, I thought. So I did.

322 UPDATES

My computer is installing 322 updates. I can't do much until it has decided it's as up-to-date as is humanly possible, which is tricky for a machine. It is taking its own sweet time anyway.

Meanwhile, at lunch today, my Mum told me a story which made me laugh, and then made me realise that I haven't laughed in quite a while.

It seems a couple of American tourists were out hiking round the woods in Scotland, somewhere near Balmoral, when they bumped into a little old lady in a headscarf.

"Do you live round here?" they asked, in conversation.

"Yes I do," said she, with a smile.

"So, do you ever see the Queen?"

"Oh not really," said the lady, peering over her glasses, "But you should ask that chap over there," pointing to a burly security guard, "He sees her all the time."

322 is a lot of updates. It's now showing a failure message and is apparently 'reverting the changes'. So, a waste of time then, applying them in the first place.

I do wonder about the mysteries of these machines sometimes. There are so many complicated things that can go wrong, all at the same time with the same symptoms, it's a wonder anyone knows what to do to fix them. Or even use them, for that matter.

Someone ought to try writing that stuff down, I think, a kind of writer of technical information, or technical author, if you will.

Ask that chap over there. He does that kind of thing all the time.

INDIFFERENCE

"Yeah I have got a working shower at the moment, but it's all up in the air," said my colleague. 

I resisted the temptation. It was too easy a joke to make and anyway, it would probably have been met with indifference.

Ah indifference. All my life it's been an enemy. It stalks the shadows, unclear and unseen. Sometimes I've imagined it and it hasn't been there; sometimes I've ignored it and it has. That can be painful.

Sometimes, when I've told silly jokes, it's actually made me laugh from the inside out, due to my peculiar sense of humour (weirdly, one of the funniest things is no-one laughing at something that wasn't funny). 

I wasn't risking it today though. It's Monday morning. Things are skewy on Monday mornings.

The traffic queue at the bottom of Sulham Hill was enormous. Brake lights trailed round the bend and I slowed to a halt by the field. There were horses grazing. A tiny rabbit darted out of a hole and was lit by the sunshine for a while before diving away again. It was a beautiful moment that I would have missed, had I whizzed by, listening to Radio 4. 

I suppose people aren't deliberately indifferent. I know I try not to be. Time is limited and we care about the things we care about, each of us prioritising the things around us slightly differently. Our reactions reveal those priorities, collapsing (and yes we're back here again) the perception-reality gap.

The rabbit was alright. He just had a moment in the sunshine next to a busy road, where strange commuters shuffled along listening to the radio.

NOT ON STANDBY

Well, the old insomnia's back. I'm supposed to be going out for breakfast later.

I spoke to Rob about my life today, and he clocked the fact that I need a break. It must be obvious to people then, that I'm exhausted. He thinks June is too far away. I told him I'd like to go tomorrow, so long as I could sleep on the way. I can't go tomorrow of course, and he's right, I will have collapsed by June. I tried to explain that it feels like much more than tiredness, but my lack of eloquence just proved the opposite. I'm wondering whether I can go on holiday in May without letting everybody down.

I wish I could unplug my brain, stop it from thinking and put myself on standby for a while. No input, no output, no expectation, no worry. I would need a friend though, to turn me back on, and that's where the plan gets awkward. Perhaps if the switch were on a timer, I could set it for eight hours, maybe a day, a week, several months. People would ask whether I'm free and all they'd get is the sound of snoring.

Ah snoring. To sleep then, or at least, to attempt it, perchance to dream. I could do with a dream.

IN WHICH I GO ON ABOUT A SPHERICAL UNIVERSE

My old colleague Steve once said that if the Universe is truly infinite, it means that by definition, reality is repeated an infinite number of times, along with minor variations of reality, which are also repeated everywhere.

I told him that that meant the Universe had no centre, and in the absence of any better options, it might as well be my desk. 

Steve retorted that it actually meant we could hire a spaceship and travel in a straight line until we found the next version of us, having the same conversation in an identical office in a distant galaxy. The Other Me, would be equally as confident that his desk was the centre of the Universe.

I'll be honest, the Other Me can have it. Besides, the Other Steve would have persuaded him to fly back this way and there'd be nobody there anyway. 

I've been thinking about that conversation, looking out through the rain today. The sky is a dreary grey and the concrete is dark with the sploshing drops of cold, white rainwater.

I'm not sure I can believe there's another me out there, looking back through a wet afternoon in a distant solar system. I can't believe the Universe works like that.

But if that means that the Universe is not infinite, if I'm the only one of me, then the whole thing has an edge, a boundary beyond which physics, time and thermodynamics might not work anymore. I'm not sure which of the two possibilities is harder to imagine. Logic tells me that one of them must be the truth. The Universe has a surface, a border, an edge which is theoretically possible to reach, or it doesn't. There's not really an inbetween. 

Then (still staring at the rain) it occurred to me that it might be like imagining the difference between a flat Earth and a round one. Imagine if, hundreds of years ago, you set off on a journey to the edge of the world, believing wholeheartedly that you were travelling in a straight line away from where you started. It would be strange to see the Moon rising on its side and all the constellations tipped up, but not half as strange as eventually arriving exactly where you left! Maybe the Universe is like that, sort of multidimensionally spherical - if you go far enough away, you end up where you began.

I chuckled to myself as I realised that I would never have known the difference between discovering the empty desks that our doppelgangers had left behind, and actually arriving at the same place we'd left in the first place! It is after all, exactly the same thing.

I pulled up my chair and switched my laptop back on. I probably ought to get on with some work.

REFERENDUM

My head says in but

My heart says out

And the land between

Is a world of doubt

For my feet say yes

And my hands say no

While my tears say come

And my pride says go

My fear says stop

And my love says start

But my head's at war

With my aching heart

For the papers shout

With a borrowed voice

As a thousand men

Give us half a choice

My head says win and

My heart won't lose

And the tension tells

What my pen must choose

Though the TV blares

Where the pompous dwell

My hope will say

I voted well

THE MALDIVES

I had a day full of meetings today. Lots of talk about things we're doing when we're not in meetings.

It was so full in fact, that my brain hurts from thinking and overthinking.

I've had to make my way to Starbucks to escape from people for an hour. I don't want to answer any more questions today unless they start with 'would you like...' and end with either 'tea', 'a bacon sandwich,' or 'a holiday in the Maldives'.

Oh imagine! The white sand and turquoise ocean! The bright blue of the sky, smudged with tiny white clouds which hang happily over the soft waving palms. I close my eyes and hear the waves lapping in the bay, the creaking of wooden boards and the delicate twinkle of a distant cataract. I feel the hot sun on my toes and the warm breeze on my shaded face and I unclasp my fingers and I reach out for the cool cocktail that's been chilling next to me.

"Any room for milk?" says a gruff voice from far away. The reality of a noisy Starbucks comes swimming back into focus.

"What kind of tea is it?" I say, wearily. He looks taken aback. I don't quite know why I've asked; it's unlikely to be Darjeeling. It does give me time to get back from the Maldives though. He tells me (inevitably) that it's English Breakfast.

It suddenly occurs to me that that's a really weird name for a tea, but I suppose it will suffice today. Hey it's tea after all. Plus I've got bacon at home. 

I guess two out of three will have to do.

SHANKS'S PONY

The first message I got this morning was a thing about making the most of the day because it might well be my last.

"Brilliant," I yawned as the sun streamed in through the windows. I didn't intend to shuffle off this mortal coil today, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to take my weekly walk in to work. At the very least I could feel healthy while I munched a satsuma and listened to the birds.

I like walking. It gives you such an opportunity to slow down the pace of the day, to spot things you miss when you whizz past them and to breathe in the fresh air of an early morning.

It also gives you an opportunity to get lost in the allotments, kick your way through dewy grass and arrive at work with wet socks and sopping trainers.

I've had this before. I walked 40 miles in the Lake District once, and by the end of it I must have looked like I'd walked through the Lakes instead of around them.

Anyway, this morning was great. The sun was warm and the air sweet with promise. It felt necessary for me.

I was listening to a podcast. The presenter was talking all about turning your devotion into motion - actually doing stuff instead of just talking about it, or complaining about it, or even simply believing it.

I reckon that life is best lived in the doing. I don't want to get to the end of mine without people who were thankful I was part of theirs. I want to feel like I've made a difference... instead of a point.

Thankfully, today has turned out (so far) not to be my last and there will be no shuffling or bucket-kicking from me. But when there is, I hope I can say I did something that was more than just for me - that I changed the world in a small way, and left it better than I found it.

I also hope I remember to bring in spare socks next time, too.

A SUNSET WALK IN THE PARK

I submitted a talk for a conference recently. I thought maybe agile documentation would be a thrilling session for a software jolly, but it turns out there were more 'relevant' ideas out there. Plus, I made a joke about time travel in my biography (I honestly thought it was funny) and only realised afterwards that my sense of humour is probably not tailored for the kind of people who organise software developer conferences.

Meanwhile, the whole agile documentation thing is going really well. For the first time in a long time I feel like I've had an idea that's actually worked, and not just my idea, but a sort of organically growing one that Louise and Junko took on and developed and now is being tweaked across the whole department. These are the best ideas of all - ones that you can let go of so that they grow without you; what we've come up with is way better than anything I could have invented on my own.

In any case, who wants to invent things on their own? That seems rather a dull and old-fashioned way of doing things to me.

It turns out that a small window (no, not a porridge window) of opportunity has opened up for me to take a break, hopefully in June. The dates work out; all I need is a secret destination and the courage to get there. To be honest, with the quality of my sleep languishing around the sixty percent mark, and me moping around like Eeyore all the time, it'll be a wonder if I make it through the next six weeks.

I went for a sunset walk in the park tonight. The sky was layered in strips of sinking cloud and there was woodsmoke in the valley. Lights twinkled in the dusk. High above the bare arms of the trees, the crescent moon was beaming through the pale blue twilight. It was really beautiful, and for that one moment in time, I had the park to myself. I smiled as I realised that the solitude and silence of it was actually cheering me up a bit. It was a classic INFP moment, absorbing the peace and refuelling myself with the isolation. I scrunched across the grass and thought a whole load of things through.

That feels like what I do at the moment. I think a whole load of things through. I'm not much company and my quiet introversion drives me into terrible guilt about being antisocial and pathetic, but at the end of all that, I come out of the shell and emerge from the park with some deep deep thoughts. Then, I go crazy talking about them to people who will listen.

Not at software conferences though. At least, not yet.

THE PORRIDGE WINDOW

There is definitely a porridge window. Somewhere between stodgy, gloopy wallpaper paste, and insipid milky liquid, there's a happy medium of perfect porridge viscosity.

I have yet to find it. Last week I made porridge and it came out of the microwave looking like a swimming pool for oats. I put it back in, gave it another minute and managed to coat the inside of the microwave in sticky porridge. It was as though a tiny bomb had gone off at the Quakers factory.

This week, I've created a substance with the texture of Plasticine and the flavour of cavity wall insulation. It's the only breakfast I have today though, so I have to swallow it.

There must be a perfect ratio of milk to oats! Someone must know what it is!

I'm feeling a little bit brighter today by the way. I'm certainly more determined to win over my silent assailant. I read through another chapter of Proverbs this morning and turned everything I read into a prayer and a decision.

In fact, I think there are a few life-changes I need to make, decisions which will help me train for the battle I have against the shadows.

Meanwhile, I'm crunching through my porridge. Ah well, there's always next time.

LOW MOOD

You might have noticed that the natural cycle of things has taken me back into a low mood. That's the best way I can describe it, a 'low mood' as though the lights have been dimmed and everything is faded into a dusky sort of obscurity.

I am sorry about that. I know I should be all humour and poems and upbeat positivity, but for reasons I can't explain, I'm just not that guy at the moment. My self-confidence is seeping away and I'm more of a shadow, really.

It won't last though. I know that much. But just as you can't hide a volcano, it's tough to hide away your own miserable face from the world too, until the sun comes out again.

So, what is this? Can I do what all those practical people suggest and 'pull myself together'? Or is this deeper, more fundamental: some dodgy wiring or a short circuit in my chemicals somewhere? I don't know.

I think I need to go away for a week, take in some air and pray and fast. I just can't do that with my diary though, not at the moment. Plus I don't really know where to go. It feels like all my energy is given to wrestling the invisible stalker who pins me down every now and again. He pounces on the low mood and growls untruths into my ear.

Anyway, you don't want to hear all that. You want to hear the story my sister told me about a dentist who went bonkers, or how I accidentally inhaled paraffin and felt a bit light-headed. Perhaps you want to hear about my woeful attempts to recruit a Japanese translator or how I failed to diffuse a heated debate about the European Union at tonight's choir team meeting.

I think I just want to go to sleep and magically wake up happy.

That'd be alright.

VOLCANO PREVENTION

I had an opportunity last night to get really mad. I was frustrated by something, so I wandered around from room to room, stewing it over like a steadily boiling kettle.

I desperately want to be more chilled out. I want to be like Jack Johnson or one of those laid-back dudes who just know how to sink their toes into the sand and listen to the waves.

Why won't life let me do that? Instead, I seem to be surrounded by a world that's out to hurt my feelings at every possible opportunity and an emotional skin so thin that I might as well be see-through.

This is another example of the perception-reality gap. I think I make assumptions that everyone else either does, or ought to, care about ALL of the things I care about. I get bewildered by the fact that they don't.

But thinking about it now, that is completely silly. Yet it seems to be my default perception. So, when someone moves a meeting, or cancels a catchup in favour of something else, or decides something without asking, the gap comes caving in and suddenly I realise that the reality for them, was very different after all.

I was furious. I wrote and deleted an email, then rewrote it again, trying to be nice. Then I deleted it again, realising that there was no way to conceal my volcanic outburst. I also knew that had I said everything I wanted to say, I would have clicked 'Send' and within a matter of minutes I would be inconsolable with guilt, checking my inbox every two minutes, just to make sure I hadn't offended anybody. If anything, that feeling is actually worse than dealing with the irascible frustration that preceded it.

If in doubt, leave it out, says a quiet, rational part of my brain at times like this. I think I inherited it from my Dad.

So I ran a hot bath and listened to some more Proverbs. I do hate it when my heart beats faster and I'm fuming about something I already know isn't all that important.

I had a friend once who taught me that we're measured by our reactions to things - not by the things themselves. In other words, bad news is always a matter of perspective.

Today then, I'm quite glad I didn't send that email. It honestly would not have been worth it. I would have felt better for around twenty five seconds, and then I would have felt much much worse.

I don't know whether I did stop a volcano with a hot bath, or whether I just bottled it up, but I'm glad I chose that option.

DREAMS KEEP US ALIVE

So the 'Express Wash' took 52 minutes. I timed it, never once thinking how dull a thing that was to do. There it was though: 52 minutes and 10 seconds, which is a little bit better than two and a half hours.

My phone buzzed as I was draping socks over the drying rack. It was Paul.

"Hi Matt. Fancy a tea break? If u want to pop over we are in."

I hadn't been to see them for ages, particularly since Heather has been unwell. There are lots of reasons: one is that Heather can't risk catching an infection, another is that I've been away a few weekends, and another is that I sometimes feel a bit awkward about sickness, particularly about what the right thing to say might be. However, love for people always wins over awkwardness in the end.

"We think it's our dreams that have kept us alive, really," said Heather, smiling gently, as they talked about the future. There was excitement in her eyes. And in mine. It suddenly occurred to me how important it is to keep dreaming, especially in the face of difficulty.

I can't think of a better story that illustrates this than Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. The musical is from an original story in the Bible about a young man who had dreams about his future and held on to them through the worst kind of difficulty. Through no fault of his own, he was thrown into jail, wrongly accused and left to die, yet his ability to dream and interpret dreams transformed his situation. His dreams kept him alive, they shaped his destiny.

It's pretty easy though, to stop dreaming when you're languishing in a darkened prison cell. When only a miracle will do, it's much easier to forget about your dreams than it is to hold on to the miracle. I think that's because, by definition, a miracle happens when the conditions for it are not possible. And when the conditions make it not possible, it's also the hardest to see it happening.

Heather and Paul were sparkling. It made me wonder about the dreams that I had forgotten, myself. So many things I wanted to do, wanted to see, to sing, to say, to write. Maybe those dreams are what I need to hold on to to stay alive in a world that's constantly trying to shut me down.

I sipped my tea and smiled at my friends. I am so proud that difficulty is not enough to stop them holding on to the dreams given to them.

So, what are you dreaming about? Keep those things alive. One day they might keep you alive too.

PUSH THE EXPRESS WASH BUTTON

"Two and a half hours?" asked Rebecca. I nodded, silently. I was going on about my washing machine, at our group meeting. It made a change from me talking about lying on my sofa-bed eating chocolate, which was last week's monologue. Anyway,

"Are you sure there isn't a quick wash cycle?"

"Forty five minutes, ours takes," piped in Rob, further down the table.

"See, that would be more like it!" I said, clicking my fingers. "Well," I went on, answering Rebecca's initial question, "There is an Express Wash button..."

"...And?"

"I haven't tried it yet."

Everybody groaned. See, that's the problem when people join conversations half way through. It made it look like I was complaining about something I could have done something about.

Although, actually, the more I think about it, that was pretty much what was happening anyway. I'd started the conversation by saying, out loud, "Can you believe my washing machine takes two and a half hours to complete a cycle?"

I've only got myself to blame really.

Then, today I found this quote on Twitter by someone called Steve Keating. I've no idea who Steve Keating is but he said this (apparently):

"I've never seen a problem that was solved by only complaining about it."

You're quite right, Steve. I'm off home to push the Express Wash button.

ECLECTIC PLAYLIST #10 FRANKLIN'S TOWER

Tim phoned me up about this one (and to ask me why I thought what I thought about Hendrix).

He said, "Listen to this Matt: it's two and a half chords for seven minutes, but the arrangement is really sophisticated."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP7dDCeR3rQ&feature=youtu.be

He's played me stuff by the Grateful Dead before - it is very much his kind of thing: eclectic, quirky, interesting, fun, and a skillful mix of guitar playing. Plus, this jazzy, hippyish, free-flowing sunshine-rock is exactly from Tim's generation, without being too specific about how old he is.

How can you make two and a half chords interesting for seven minutes? I wondered. Well, if you're thinking the same thing, I'd suggest listening because somehow The Grateful Dead have pulled it off. In the 70s.

I say 'somehow', but what they've really done is exactly what Tim had told me they'd done. They've made the arrangement of the song varied and interesting and yes, sophisticated. Listen to the way the guitar solos are structured, what happens where, the vocal sections, the rhythm of the thing and the dynamics. It's great.

Plus, this has a real shuffle about it that made me smile and got my shoulders moving. It made me feel really good.

I did a bit of research and it turns out that Franklin's Tower is from a story about Benjamin Franklin casting great bells. Apparently his technique was to steam the bells to cool them and then 'roll away' the dew droplets that had formed, with cotton sheets. When no-one understood why this should make the bells sound better, Franklin just said:

"If you get confused, listen to the music play."

And that, in the midst of excellent arranging, brilliantly simple structure and some proper feel-good music, is really great advice.

THE CAMERA NEVER TELLS THE WHOLE TRUTH EITHER

I sometimes feel like I live in a world where the reality of it is a long way from my perception of it. There is a massive gap, which, for most of the time, doesn't matter at all.

Then, all of a sudden, the gap makes itself known, and it looks for a while like it does matter, after all.

I saw a photograph of myself the other day, surrounded by some giants. There they were, beaming, with their chunky arms folded, filling up the frame with their bright smiles and handsome faces. I was there, and unlike my over-sized companions, above my grinning head was empty space - more than half the length of the photograph - blank wall.

Now, at the time, I didn't feel like I was surrounded by gargantuan men. I felt equal to them in every way. I felt as though when we had conversations, all of the talk had happened at eye-level. I never once felt like a dwarf who had wandered into a grove of silver birches, busy chatting between their canopies.

That's what I mean when I say my perception is far away from my reality. From down here, at 5 feet and 6 inches, everybody seems 5 feet and 6 inches and everybody is the same as me - hey, maybe even I'm 6 feet tall in my head. But of course, the camera proves excellent at closing that reality-perception gap.

Then, I got to wondering, is it fair to assume that everyone else is the same as you, anyway? It's not just about height, after all. What if the same thing applies to intellect, to artistic ability, to wit or to sporting prowess? Sooner or later, the gaps between us will become apparent, even if we spend most of our time forgetting that they're there at all.

That thought reassured me for a while. Does it actually matter that I'm short? Not really, not any more than it matters how well we all play the piano or how fast we can run a hundred metres or cook scrambled eggs.

You see, the truth is that the gap itself is a matter of perspective, even when it makes itself known. There are more important factors going on in that photograph - things that everyone else can see all the time, that I can't see at all, or have a particular propensity to forget. These are things like kindness, humour, wit and gentleness, which the camera can do little more than hint at.

So while the camera might never lie, I have a sneaking suspicion that it simply doesn't tell the whole truth either.

In any case, who's to say that the camera isn't simply painting a different view of the same reality, and doing a completely two-dimensional job in a multi-dimensional universe?

And I don't mean to be unscientific about it, but honestly, I think I prefer the version that's in my head - because I believe it's closer to the real me.

ECLECTIC PLAYLIST #9 BJORK AND TAVENER

I think I'm going to stop doing these pretty soon. I'm boring myself a bit. The whole point was to discover something interesting and fun, and I actually think me ripping pieces apart like this is counterproductive to that.

Tim has sent me Prayer of the Heart by John Tavener in collaboration with the Icelandic singer, Bjork.

It's fifteen minutes long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY0X2ov0tzc&feature=youtu.be

Here's what Tavener said about it:

‘I’d heard her voice…it was quite a raw, primordial sound, and I was very attracted to this sound. I thought of the ejaculatory prayer called the “Jesus Prayer” – “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me” – and I set it in three languages: in Coptic, in English, and in Greek. I thought the way she sang it was quite wonderful, and it couldn’t possibly be sung by anybody else but her, or someone with a voice very, very similar to hers. It had nothing of a western-trained voice about it. In fact, it wasn’t trained at all, and this is why I liked it so much, because… it had a savage quality, an untamed quality.  These are qualities that I like…I liked the simplicity of her, I liked the spontaneity of her, and I liked the result that came forth in Prayer of the Heart.’

I should confess: I'm a little bit in-love with Bjork. I think she's incredible. Listen to the way she sings - it is so unique and powerful and different. Who would have thought about combining that energy with the soft ethereal strings of Tavener's arrangements? Well, Tavener did, I suppose.

And the result is an extremely slow-paced piece that packs power and passion as it stretches its momentum out over a quarter of an hour.

This combination (Bjork and Tavener) provides the same kind of tension between heaven and earth that the prayer itself does. It's all about Adam crying to God in repentance, following the Fall and there's supposed to be a great chasm between the raw earth and the unreachable skies. You can hear the raw earth in Bjork's incomparable vocal line (particularly when she gets to English), and the unreachable skies surround her in the warmth and majesty of the strings.

It's worth sticking with it until the end. It's bizarre, melancholy, evocative and quite stunning.

BOOT CAMP

Honestly, out comes the sun and everyone goes fitness crazy.

Louise and Junko are trying to get me to join in with Boot Camp, Debbie came round asking if anyone wanted to train for a boxing match and the Cyclovelopers are busy recruiting for a summer of gruelling bicycle rides.

I was going to walk to work today, but I decided against it when I woke up feeling weepy. The morning rain made the decision a lot easier.

Oh and plus! According to my sleep cycle calculator, the quality of my sleep is hovering at around 54% at the moment. I don't feel like I've got the energy to type most days, let alone kill myself at Boot Camp.

Boot Camp. Didn't that start out as a military thing for new recruits? Nowadays it's used for X-Factor wannabes and office workers who are trying to get beach-body-ready for the summer. There are no boots involved - just an exhausting race around the lake with your colleagues, followed by embarrassing push ups on the grass.

Hmm. The thing is though, I'm the first to admit that I need to get moving - not because I care about looking good on a beach, but because I do care about lasting for as long as I can. I can't blame my sleep cycle or the rain forever. Neither can I point to the hypocrisy of the boot campers who work out on a Monday and bring doughnuts in on a Tuesday. I think I've got to sort this out myself and get back to doing some exercise.

I'll walk in tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow will be the day.

Hope the sun is shining.

WISDOM FROM THE CAPTAIN'S LOG

Want to know how I burnt a hole in the side of the bath with a satsuma?

You'll have to wait. First a bit of ancient wisdom.

I've taken to listening to Proverbs on my audio Bible. It's strange - today I couldn't get out of Chapter 25, and it was almost as though every single thought was dropping out of heaven like it had suddenly started raining diamonds. If you've never read it, you should give it a go.

The guy who reads it on the audio-version sounds like Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise. I keep expecting him to recount how Solomon defeated the Borg with his great wisdom... and a phaser set to alternating frequencies.

Anyway, there was a lot to think about this morning, thanks to the Captain's log and Proverbs 25.

However, I would like a long pause between each sentence. Just as you're thinking about why a wise judgment is like apples of gold in settings of silver, Picard is telling you that it's better to sit on the roof than it is to have a nagging wife, and that good news from afar is like a snow-cooled drink at harvest time.

I was just thinking about the fact that I'd like to go much deeper into these things before hurrying on to the next one, when the Captain rattled on toward the end of the chapter, and in his best Shakespearean voice read out,

"It is not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honourable to search out matters that are too deep."

I chuckled to myself. That certainly is wisdom. And I do need more of that.

For example, the other day I ate a satsuma in the bath and wondered what would happen if I put a tiny piece of the peel in a tea-light. Yes, I bathe by candlelight with satsumas and a smooth classics playlist. No, I don't care what anyone thinks about that.

As I tried to relax in the flickering of the candles and the gentle rise of Vaughn Williams' Lark Ascending, I suddenly noticed that the orange peel was producing a four-inch flame and that the bathroom was starting to smell like caramelised Cointreau.

So I sat up, picked up the tea-light, immediately burnt my fingers, and dropped it into the water where it fizzed into darkness and steam, leaving behind a red-hot ring in the side of the bathtub.

See, wisdom required. More Proverbs tomorrow thank you, Captain.

ECLECTIC PLAYLIST #8 HENDRIX

I knew it would happen eventually. I knew that Tim would send me some Hendrix to listen to.

Jimi Hendrix (in case you somehow missed him) was born in 1942 and spent the last four years of the 1960s being the world's most influential guitarist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLV4_xaYynY

He used overdrive, feedback, high gain and phasing to create a sound out of everything else that every other guitarist had previously tried to eliminate. The result is the distinctive distortion and wailing electric guitar sound that rails against the Vietnam war and reminds a certain generation of amphetamines.

Now, there is no doubt that Hendrix revolutionised the electric guitar and swerved the course of popular music. In that respect, he is probably the greatest guitarist that has ever lived, and it almost seems sacrilegious to suggest anything else.

However, I'm not afraid of that, so I asked around. I asked some people I know whether they thought Hendrix was 'overrated'. I got some interesting replies, all the way from furious outrage (those people might never speak to me again) to mild muted agreement.

For me, Jimi Hendrix was technically a revolution all by himself. But just like other revolutions, this left-handed genius belongs to a unique time and a unique place, where everything was changing with breathtaking speed and freedom.

Hendrix captured the sound of something in the air and turned it into a phenomenon - and nobody that I can think of has come anywhere near doing that since.

A SHORTCUT THROUGH THE ALLOTMENTS

Back home then. I didn't have any milk so I had to walk up to the shop.

Just to be different, I decided I'd try cutting through the allotments. My aunty's neighbour told me that she'd been going that way for twenty five years and nobody had complained despite the big 'No Right of Way' signs bolted to the gate. I squealed it open.

It's a wonderland. Vegetables poke their leafy heads from finely tilled soil, hoops and canes bend over patches where beans seem to be climbing out of the ground, and tall spindly trees rattle happily in the breeze. There were sheds, ramshackle greenhouses, boxes and crates and corrugated shelters, rotavators and beehives, all ordered neatly between a grid of grassy paths and walkways.

I found myself picking my way through the plots. There wasn't anyone in sight but I wanted to make sure I didn't fall into a row of turnips or a column of cabbages or anything. Rucksack bouncing on my back, boots squelching on the damp grass, it didn't take me long before I was quite lost.

The wind blew tiny drops of rain at me and the clouds looked grim. Tarpaulins flapped and a squeaky windmill creaked.

I think I'd like an allotment one day. I do have a fascination about how things grow, how you know when it's time, and how you work out how to prepare the ground until the harvest. Also, I'll bet there's quite a community of gardeners up there, tending the earth and chatting over hot flasks and packets of biscuits. I reckon I could learn a lot about people.

It's a bit like church too, I guess. A place where people grow, brilliantly different and unique, springing out of the earth and changing the world when the time is right. Growing things must teach you patience and discipline, a sort of natural understanding that you can't apply your own timescale to creation - it sets the rhythm, not you. I could learn a lot from an allotment.

I pulled my hood up and tried navigating my way towards the potholed path that leads to the village. The rain was falling steadily now and I could hear it on my raincoat. It felt like it matched my mood after Cornwall. All my flip-flopping between introversion and extroversion had confused me and left me sad and tired. I still wish I wasn't alone, but I have yet to understand why it is like this. Still, in the middle of an allotment there isn't really a why, there's just things growing and maturing and following the rhythm of the seasons.

And today there was a (relatively) young man with a rucksack and walking boots, trying to do exactly the same.

WEDDINGS BY THE SEA

I stood out on the balcony, overlooking the sea. White waves rolled under a grey sky and there were specks of rain in the air. I thought I'd stay out there just a little bit longer, suited and strange, tight-necked and thoughtful in the chilly air.

I'm not all that used to wearing a suit. When I look back at photographs it looks smart and comfortable enough, but the photo never shows the bulbous feeling of the tie curving over the stomach, the unusual thinness of the trousers or the clunkiness of the shoes. For most of yesterday I felt like I was wearing shiny clogs.

Anyway, what I was wearing yesterday wasn't really the important bit. It's fair to say that the really important stuff went quite smoothly: the bride was stunning, the groom was funny, the church was beautiful, the speeches were short, the relatives were proud and teary, and the party was fun. Well, at least it seemed so from where I was hiding: my introversion once again had led to me stand out on the balcony watching the sea.

I think I know what it is. We dress up for formal occasions, and often formal occasions carry a little bit of anxiety with them. Interviews, funerals, presentations, speeches, weddings, court appearances - generally they're nervous affairs. Weddings shouldn't be, especially if, like this one, my bit was already over. They are though. And even though my bit was done, I had still chosen to hide away for a quiet moment, overlooking St Ives with my social anxiety.

There had been other moments like this, at weddings by the sea. Ten years ago, I was Best Man at Paul and Heather's wedding. Their reception was in a beachside café, not too far from here. Somehow or other I had pulled off the speech and I was feeling quite good about the day by the time I drove the happy couple to their secret location. I was looking forward to going back to the cafe for a well-deserved drink and a final catchup with people.

As I pulled the car into the car park, I saw the bar staff upturning the chairs and sweeping the floor. The tide was rolling in, thick and black against the sand. Everybody had gone - including the people who had the key and the directions to where I was staying. My heart sank.

Then there was Winners and Teebs's wedding in Suffolk. That was by the sea too. At the end, as the sun set and the sky was laced with purple and gold, all my friends and I went to the beach, kicked off our shoes and ran through the sand dunes as the night fell. It remains one of the best things I've ever done at a wedding - and I've been to a lot of weddings.

The rain got a little heavier and the grey sea rolled beyond St Ives harbour. A question was forming, one that I don't think I understand fully. Why was I distancing myself from people, when being around them was the exact thing that I loved, valued and needed? How have I ended up as an introverted, lonely old soul who stands out in the rain on a balcony, at a wedding, longing for people to be with, when there's a whole room of them having a party inside? And what must they think of me?

I straightened my uncomfortable jacket, thrust my hands into my thin-lined pockets and clacked my shiny shoes across the wooden decking, back inside to where it would be warm. Or at least I hoped so.  

INTROVERT MODE

"Matt, how have you ended up watching 27 Dresses on your own?" asked Luke.

"I have no idea," I said, suddenly realising that everyone else had gone to bed, one-by-one. I still maintain that if going to sleep is preferable to watching a film, it's harder to admit that the film is any good.

I have tried today to flip out of introvert mode and into extrovert again. I at least tried. It is so difficult. I keep hearing my Dad thinking up things to say inside my head and I can't bring myself to speak them out. I feel a bit trapped-in. The result is silence or a slow-witted response.

Still, the wedding happens tomorrow. That's the reason we're all here, after all. It will be grand, I'm sure. Plus this time, there's a relatively low chance of anyone asking me when it'll be my turn. They're all gradually cottoning on to the probability that the game has gone on without me.

I caught a glimpse of myself as I washed up the cups tonight. A greying head of hair shimmered back in the kitchen-window reflection. I'm not that old on the inside, you know.

I'm really not.

EXTROVERT MODE

I flipped into extrovert mode last night. It was weird; I've been trying to figure out why, but so far all I've got is that I triggered it off by accidentally making someone laugh.

Why in the world can't I switch it on when I most need it? I mean there are times when it would be really useful - meeting new people, or even, hanging out with people I know reasonably well but from whom I feel a bit disjointed. More about that in a moment.

In any case, why do I even have an extrovert mode? I'm supposed to be an INFP, like the softest, most hermitiest personality type in all the Myers-Briggs pantheon. Here I am with the occasional burst of excitable ENFP or ENFJ or whatever it is - and so infrequent that it must look strange to people who see me on consecutive days of the I/E flip-flop.

I'm in Cornwall for a wedding, hanging out with people I know reasonably well. I think they're okay with me being silent and I hope that it's not showing up as antisocial - I literally can't help it. I would much rather be in extrovert mode but for some infuriating it's just not happening.

I can't even make myself laugh today.