The February Report for RichardJ

February was cold, man, my god. We've had blizzards and sleet and, gah. The chill settled on my little heart and froze me more than once, especially since the play ended (in the first week of the month, though it seems like forever). Lucy's battling through her course and I'm not sure which course I'm meant to be on.

1. Trusting my instincts clashed directly with New-Year's-directive no.3 this month when I decided not to go to Oxford to see a man about a dog. My instincts say staying in Bristol is the key desire, so anything that takes me away will have to be very special indeed. In fact, the very special thing in my life deserves not to be dragged away from her home city.

Elsewhere, it's been surprisingly easy to trust to the murky grey matter at the back of the cranium. Every major obstacle or petty decision I need to make is easily resolved with a 'what-would-Jesus-do' style question: more 'what-would-Richard-do' in a bizarre third-person red-neck kind of way. But it works. No serious deviations have cropped up yet, so all is going well.

2. I've been tapping away at the keyboard, but to be honest, not as often or as committedly as I could. I wanted to get a story finished for my mate Rob's birthday at the end of last month and instead succumbed to general apathy and his horde. It's coming though Rob, it's getting there. Lots of ideas are being squirreled away in the little black book, so perhaps I'm just waiting for Spring sunshine to thaw my creativity.

3. As I said, Directive 1 overrode this one in February. I've also had one or two people telling me to stay away from their particular dogs, so not utterly positive. There are still some cages in the kennels that I've not fully looked in yet, so I'm not overly dismayed, just a little jaded.

Still contemplating a major shift: to cat ownership, to follow the analogy. Or llamas maybe. Have to give this the proper concentration it deserves; an animal is not just for Spring.

4. My osteopath was deliriously hapy with the progress on my back the other day. I'm returning to Mr Bendy status. Which is great. Get on that bike and down that pool...

5. Managed to avoid ready meals entirely so far this year (touching wood ... ooer). Running low on inspiration in the kitchen though. Any suggestions? It's pasta'n'sauce a lot of the time, but at least it's home cooking.

So there you go. Happy Birthdays to Rob, Phil and my Dad. And congrats to Phil on the new job. Santa Barbara's going to be the surfing idyll you've always secretly hankered for, I'm sure. Congrats also, again, to Sarah and Andy, can't wait for the big day.

Richard.