I took some time off from this bloggy world a few weeks ago and when I eventually settled myself into the ‘getting back on the bike’ groove, it struck me that these pages had started to become a little bit me-centric: that there is a limit to what anyone wants to know about someone they have never met and, more importantly, are probably unlikely to ever meet.  You would still recognise me from my WordPress avatar.  The beard ebbs and flows, but I remain five feet seven tall and red haired.  Everyone (ok, if I’m honest, mostly very elderly women) tells me that I look young for my age.  I have skin like limpid lard and bright, blue eyes, occluded only by the very earliest onset of cataract, crowned by eyelids that look as though they have been through fifteen rounds with Tyson Fury; rimmed with the kind of skin that screams of insufficient sleep and a vitamin intake that stops at A.  You’d spot me at the airport – you wouldn’t need to know what I was thinking about or why.  (Clue: it is generally chocolate, whisky or Sandra Bullock – the order is unimportant.)

So I decided that I should perhaps ring the changes a little bit – leave me out of it now and then –  although not, I have to say, altogether: I’m much too fascinated by me to let me go completely.  In truth I learn more about me by writing about me than I ever would by growing a goatee beard, sitting cross-legged on a black leather swivel chair, clutching a clipboard and asking myself about my relationship with my mother (not, you understand, that I would possibly be able to afford me.)  This is my real-time Adrian Mole moment.  I write about the inconsequentialities of my life in the hope that you might find something profound to think about them although I assure you, there was absolutely nothing profound about them when they left my head.  Colin McQueen – specialist subject, ‘Missing the Point.’ 

I will continue to search for something new to tell you about me: whenever I manage to do something (or more likely – truth be told – think about doing something) that I have never done before: refuse a family-sized bar of Galaxy chocolate, pass up on the opportunity to be centre of attention, or go on a run just for the fun of it, you will probably be told.  At length.  But I won’t bore you with things that I am merely thinking of doing because a) the percentage of those that make the transition from brain to reality is miniscule and b) they just might be illegal, immoral or impossible to perform without a neck brace and the promise of a new hip. 

I decided to let my brain off the leash a little more, and what you seem to be getting from ‘new me’ as a consequence is a lot like old me, only shorter.  Like the earliest posts of this almost five years-old blog, the new ones feature snapshots from my mind, but with far fewer ‘selfies’ than you might have grown used to.  I’ve, perhaps realised that I don’t need to explain, nor explore everything.  If there is one thing I have learned about me, it is that there is so little to learn.  It is pointless for me to try and debate the whys and wherefores: all I know is that when I write whatever-it-is that I write, it amuses me and when I post it, I hope it might amuse you too.  Mutual disappointment, that is the glue that holds this whole thing together. 

How things might go in the future, I have no idea.  I am the world’s worst chess player.  I seem only to be able to plan behind.  I cannot plan ahead.  Yesterday is gone, tomorrow hasn’t happened and today I have to try and shake off the image of a chocolate-coated Ms. Bullock from my mind.

I’ll let you know how that goes…