hellison | Letter meme type thing

This is how it works:
Comment on this entry and I will give you a letter. Write ten words beginning with that letter in your journal, including an explanation what the word means to you and why, and then pass out letters to those who want to play along.

adelpha very kindly gave me D so here goes.

I did have these all worked out in my head on the long drive back from Dublin last Friday, but I may have forgotten a lot of it now. We shall see!

Dublin Easy start, since this is where I was when I got this assignment. I love Dublin - not to live in, but to visit. I have many many good friends there and have spent a lot of time there having a lot of fun. In fact I have very few bad memories, a host of good ones and a lot of very vague and hazy recollections, often involving the flat in Leeson St and the Chair O' Death. It's become a great place to run away to when I need a break or just a bit of time with good friends. I even have a god-daughter there now, so even more reason to go. I should go more often really ;)

Driving I love driving, I really do. I love the sense of freedom I have, being able to just jump in the car and go somewhere. Like taking the long way home from Wexford to Belfast – via Ennis – just to see some friends and hang out. Public transport is good too, I do like train journeys, but the car means I’m not tied to timetables or routes, I can go wherever, whenever. Also driving aimlessly about country roads, going nowhere in particular and taking random turns, is a great way to chill out and discover new places.

Dogs I don’t get the cat person/dog person divide thing. People assume because I have cats, I don’t really like dogs. But I love dogs. I wish I could have one, but the way things are at the moment it’s just not feasible – the garden isn’t secure and I’m out so much between work and the horse, it wouldn’t be fair on a dog. When I am Old(er) tho, I will have dogs. After all, as I’ve said before, one simply can’t rely on cats to eat you when you die, they just feck off next door for dinner. For that kind of loyalty, only a dog will do!

Dad Three and half years now and I still miss him. I even miss the lectures on Tax and Keep and Why Don’t You do X instead of gallivanting off round the countryside. Of course I don’t want there to ever be a time when I *don’t* miss him. He wasn’t perfect by any means, but he was still a great man and largely responsible for the person I am. Also still in some ways the yardstick for measuring other men by. Expect the Loud Drilling/Hammering Early Saturday Mornings. That part I can do without in a man.

Death Bit of a natural follow-on from the last one really. It’s a necessary thing, but not a pleasant one. Not for those left behind at any rate. However it is also a… catalyst? Certainly brings change (isn’t that one of the meanings of death in Tarot?). I have definitely changed/been changed since my father’s death, and not all in bad ways. It has made me more independent and more self-aware. Also, while for a long time it was one of my biggest fears, it happened and I survived. The world did fall apart for a while, but it came back together again slowly and there’s still plenty of Good Things about. So it’s not the end of world. Just of part of it.

Dancing to a lighter note! I love dancing. It’s great. Well. Dancing may not be quite the word. I don’t so much glide elegantly about the floor as flail about wildly while some music plays. It’s great fun tho, a great release and a very enjoyable thing to do, whether around the house by yourself, in and out of the water on a beach or up on a dancefloor with a crowd of similarly flailing loons.
Give me tequila of course and a whole new world of flailing happens (see icon ;p).

DRINK Often linked to dancing ;p Tho not always, I will quite happily prance like a loon while sober. Anyway Drink! I like to drink. I like to drink cider and I love to drink champagne. Many other things too. Mostly I have fun, occasionally I get attacks of ‘oh dear god what did I do’. Thankfully I very rarely get ‘oh dear god WHO did I do’ ;p Mostly these days I find myself leaning towards drinking at home with friends or in small groups – the big all-day mass piss-ups of the past don’t appeal so much anymore. Possibly because it takes much longer to recover now!

(how many is that? 7? Hmm.)

Digging Archaeology – a career in ruins! AHAHAHA. I don’t actually get to do the digging part anymore, but it can be great fun, especially if you find Stuff. But no, I have never found any gold.
Of course it can be bloody miserable, stuck in a soggy mucky field in November, breaking the ice on muddy puddles over skeletons before you even get started. Which is why I stick to the cushy office job these days :p

Draught as in Irish Draught Horse, which is what Ziggy is (oh come on, you KNEW I’d work horses in here somewhere!). A wonderful breed, big, solid, usually sensible and can do pretty much anything. They make excellent hunters mostly. D is of course also for Dapples, tho she’s losing those more and more as she gets older – after this summer she’ll probably be almost completely white alas. But still gorgeous ;)

Diary since this is kinda what this is. Tho a public diary. I do have a paper diary too that I don’t write regularly but often go to when I’m trying to work something out – writing down all the crap floating round my head can help make sense of things. Or at least give me something to laugh about when I go back to read it again sometime later ;p I have several old diaries from uni and so on that are great to look back on, despite often being an illegible drunken sprawl.
I kind of gave up tho after The Boyfriend at the time found one ‘accidentally’ and read it, didn’t like what he read and tried to create a huge row, not realising he had a. totally misread it and b. had NO moral high ground whatsoever after reading a private diary and deserved whatever he got.

Is that 10 now? Wow, that took longer than I thought ;p Well done if you made it to the end!

Anyone who wants to play, just comment and ask ;)