Keeping a diary whilst keeping a life.

So, New Years day.

Scotch eggs, quiche, bread, sausage rolls, all to on our day off!!

First attempt I had at a diary I can remember was 1978, a time of concerts, punk rock and buying my first car, a Triumph Herald convertable, still referred to as Hark the Herald.   Remember doing tons of stuff, but the diary records nothing other than the few days that winter when we were snowed in and couldn't get out to the concerts, guitar shops, Leeds City Center, Elland Road, or Annabella's and Bali Hai Discos in Harrogate.

What I learned then and carry with me still, is that my life has always been so interesting, varied and "on the move".  Not in a Michael Palin travelogue way, but a series of very mundane jobs, strung together to keep enough money coming in to move on to the next place in search of more friends in different lands.  Never, had the time to sit and write anything down.....  Will this be any different?  will my finding the time to blog leave me no time to do anything interesting?..... probably.

My best recent attempt at a diary was in 2002.  Inspired by, and egged on by my mate Joe, I carefully recorded what few events happened to me during early spring of that year.  A time I was living in Villeneuve-Loubet (anybody living there remember exactly where it is?) the South of France and working in Nice as a White Van Man.

I explained to Joe that I was only keeping the diary as I had the time to do it only because I had little else better to do.  We were living in an out of season Gite that had seen better days even before the last war.  This was born out by the final diary entry, which read "Cote D'az and Italian Team broken down at Nice, put diesel in petrol mini bus.  Season is underway".

With that, life became the usual round of drunken meet and greets, Holiday Rep initiation ceremonies and site opening parties across Italy, Switzerland and France.  Followed 10 weeks later with the whole thing in reverse.... site closing parties, Rep farewell parties and Demontage (much more on this later).  Not  a single word was written from that day to this.

They say the French have a word for it everything.  Demontage is the French word for destroying your internal organs, falling over things, fighting, crashing vans, burning tents and mobile homes under the influence of alcohol at a range of exotic locations. (closed camp sites on the Med.... Oh and Venice)  But the most important part of  Demontage was making lifelong friends.  Now, with facebook, I talk almost daily with many of the great mates I made and hope to be going to 2 weddings this year.  Manchester perhaps?

Anyway, upon the return of my mates from England, life got interesting again.  Fun, parties and travel travel travel.  So, the diary died and nothing much of note is in it.  Me beating El Keenio at table tennis is not going to worry the current rights holders of Pepys' diarys, nor will it have Mike Leigh beating a path to my door.

Much more interesting is an old notebook I carried with me for 4 years used mostly to record work detail from my varied jobs in France, travels in Asia and work as a Divemaster.  It was just mainly lists of customer collections, rep visits and airport drops in Europe.  Really got to know the Cote D'Azur in that time by the look of it.  Be back there some day, one last season if anybody can put up with me.