where in the world is rusty?

I’m feeling a bit homesick, I admit it.

The odd thing is that I’m not really sure why I’m feeling homesick.  There’s not really a lot going on in the wee town where I grew up. The area where I lived is, to be honest, a bit of a dive and given the rainy conditions at this time of year, extremely grey looking.

But regardless, I have really fond memories of the area from when I was a child.  To me, the grey bleakness of the place just made me take more notice of any splashes of colour, like the leaves turning golden yellow and then brown.  It may have been wet, windy and arse numbingly cold outside  but inside it was dry, warm and afternoon cartoons gave a cheery contrast to the rather dour conditions.

I used to curse the shorter evenings as the Autumn wore on, as it meant that I had less time to stay up in bed to read or draw when I couldn’t sleep.  But then again, I liked the dark.  The wind and rain against my window where my lullabies as a child and the darkness of my room felt like a soothing blanket around me.

I miss the biting win, chilling rain hitting my face.  I miss looking outside at the grey skies.

The sudden break in the weather has gotten me thinking that Summer is now on the way out.  We’ll probably get a few days of nice weather, but nothing like the recent heat wave that’s often left me feeling like a Blacksmith has been pounding at me on his anvil.

The cooler weather has caused me to think about what it was like at this time of year as a kid.  It’s the last three weeks of the Summer holidays at my old primary school, and with a pang of yearning for simpler days, I find myself smiling at the memories of  the “Back To School” weeks before school started again for the year.

It was always sort of nice and at the same time depressing, being taken to pick out your new school bag, pencil case and assorted bits and bobs.  Choosing school clothes was less fun though, esepcially given the fact that I had to wear a school uniform.  It wasn’t so bad, but the worst part was choosing trainers for gym class. 

I wouldn’t have minded my cheap Panam’s or Hi-Tech’s. But the kids (almost all of them) with expensive Nike or Addidas trainers always made life a living hell for those who didn’t have parents who were “well off” or willing to pay four times their value over 12 monthly payments from Great Universal.

I still have fond memories of a particular pair of Panam’s that lasted me the whole school year until the end of Summer.  I was rather sad when they had gotten severely worn out before I had managed to out-grow them.

Even as you ignored the cooler weather and the slightly longer evenings, it was the last weeks when the “Back To School” posters appeared in the windows of Woolworths and Menzies that drove the truth home.  The holidays would be over sooner than you think, and it would be an end to seemingly endless days playing by the river and in the woods, and staying up late all week.

Oh well…Autumn was always my favorite time of the year anyhow.  I always loved dark and stormy evenings, and add to that the mid-term break at the beginning of October, my birthday on the 28th closely followed by Hallow’een and Guy Fawkes Day/Bonfire Night there was always a lot going on.  Then the build up to Christmas came along, and before you knew it…the year was over. 

It was over too quick by half, and summer seemed as if it was a century away.

The old blog posts have been deleted as, to be honest, they were full of crap.

So what’s been going on of late?  SinceI last wrote anything here and in fact paid any sort of attention to this bloody thing, quite a lot as it happens.  The job at Nintendo has been all sorted, and so far, I’m really enjoying working here.  It’s very different to what I’m used to.  There’s not the constant pressure that you have working in games development, and I do much more than just sitting at my desk coding or working on technical problems.

The move here was pretty hectic.  It’s taken us almost two months since I arrived to get our flat sorted, the biggest delay being the installation of the kitchen as well as getting phone & internet.  We have some bits and bobs still to arrive like a kichen table, and furniture for the baby’s room but that should arrive pretty soon.

We’re all setteled though, and Flora seems to like being closer to at least one set of grandparents. 

All we have to do now, is to prepare for the arrival of Flora’s little brother which should be some time in September.  I’m not sure how we’re going to deal with our little girl AND a new born baby at the same time, but it will certainly be interesting.