[begin rant]
Thank you Patrick, for your email. I appreciate that you spent a lot of time writing it, and before you get the wrong impression, I am simply replying as a girl who receives a lot of letters like yours.
You see, it is very disheartening to be reading a letter via a dating website, from a man who clearly has not read my profile. Your letter reads as though it is one you have sent out to all the girls at [insert name of dating website] in the hope that someone might not be smart enough to realise you don’t actually know which one has replied.
Your letter has a lot going for it, you are clearly reasonably articulate and your spelling and grammar appears correct, which you may not know is an important thing if you are trying to attract a discerning girl. But you would be a lot better to use fewer words and be more genuine.
If you are writing to attract a girl at least refer to something in particular about her that you found interesting. Clearly you haven’t really read my profile, or you would have seen that I am attractive, and intelligent and also a fairly clever writer, surely that’s enough to get you writing to me rather than the fact I simply have a profile on a dating site a which must mean that I clearly must be desperate enough to respond to any one who writes.
[end]

The last week before I head away… I have shopped to within an inch of my life and happily have clothes suitable for a summer holiday!! All I need now is shoes… Miss Lisa… are you available to consult??? (Just don’t make me swing past Hammer Hardware on the way…)
I have a confession to make…
I haven’t really been blogging much…
What? You’d noticed? Awww that’s so sweet!!! Thanks!
Unfortunately I seem to have hit that zone that I promised I’d never get into… That place where, when there is a man on the scene, you disappear entirely into this frenzy of romantic interludes and secret trysts…
*grin* I haven’t had time to blog because I’ve been too busy writing long emails and chatting on messenger with Mr Africa. (Take that Red!… committment phobic my Hass…).
The dialogue is still sparkling, more so even than it was initially. The chemistry is hotting up, though I know full well that is capable of evaporating in real time and in the flesh (thinking back to YGM2) and the honesty quotient about our lives, where we are at, and where we want to be in the future is very high.
Truth is, I am loving it, and while I mock Red, she really was onto something and having confessed to being a commitment phobe, working through the associated issues in with someone who is at a reasonably safe distance is good…
… Really Good.

Can you believe it’s a year since the picture taking marathon at the college’s dance recitals?? I was at it again tonight… my annual dose of dance culture.

It would have been a lot greater if I was looking at it from an audience members view but as a photographer you really only see the parts not the sum so, while the content was really impressive, I didn’t get to enjoy the full effect. Hopefully there will be some nice images come out of it. I’ll get them developed tomorrow and show you!!
I did a silly thing at the end of the evening and fell over in the garden.

This is the kind of thing that happens occasionally – I’m not so graceful on my pins as the dancers I had been watching are!!! The funniest thing is that I landed on my face in the garden right in front of Not John… now that’s throwing yourself at someone!!!
I wish the ground had opened up… As it was I leapt up, gave him the thumbs up so he didn’t feel compelled to get back out of his car to offer assistance, shook myself off walked to my car with my head high…climbed in and shrank into my seat… There you have it folks … this chick ain’t so graceful.

Sigh..

Of course it would have been a little bit nice if he had leapt out if his car to see if I were bleeding or dying instead of waiting to see if I was in one piece… (There you have it guys… a little piece of free advice… offer assistance first… even if she might be embarrassed… it would be worth it for the massive leap in estimation she would have of you…). Further proof that I was right not to ask him on a 2nd date!!!

In other news Red is congratulating herself (as am I) for having stumbled across Mr Africa in an online news report… She sends me a casual email … asking, if the hitherto unknown correspondent of mine was in fact a news correspondent as well as an e-mail one??
It seems so…

So, do I tell him I know?

I should laugh more… it would ease the tension!!! Instead I put the little white earbuds attached to my Precious in my ears and keep my head down… Safer than getting my block knocked off. Oh yeah, and slip an extra post onto the blog by way of giving myself some head space…
Actually, I really don’t have a whole lot to say this afternoon. Mr Africa touched base of course on Saturday morning, that resulted in a flurry of typing – funny how that happens. It’s a very silly situation and while totally lovely to be the object of interest I am [reasonably] sane enough to know that it really doesn’t have a prayer of going anywhere… I mean, his politics are the extreme opposite of mine, and as if that weren’t enough his expression of faith is the other extreme as well.
…and, oh yeah, he lives on the other side of the planet (!)
So… keep telling me I’m daft if you see that twinkle in my eye, and remind me that it is all just very good fun and not serious in the least.
Honestly, I do feel as if I am very much in the way of having a very good friend over there. We certainly write on the same wavelength, have complimentary interests in other areas and if nothing else our correspondence would make for great publishing. (So if you are a publisher out there and are looking for well written story – one that doesn’t have an ending… slip me an email …)
He is out of town this week, a journalist on assignment elsewhere in Africa. A Very Good Thing so that I can concentrate on other aspects of work.
Like the fact I just landed another contract for a website facelift!!!
Oh Shit… Now I need to reevaluate how I am using my time… I think I need a couple of days off the normal job to get my head together!!!!
[GRIN..]
Not a bad set of problems to have is it??