Road to Nowhere

I keep being gone too long, I know I do. And I sometimes miss having the time to come here as often as I used to. Lots of you with site meters will find that I still come to see you, even if I don't always have time to leave a comment, and I do still love hearing about what you're all up to. But these days, I just seem so busy, and there's always somewhere else I need to be.

Like Thursday evening for instance. Some work do, where one of our clients took quite a lot of us out for a meal and a drink. They've been doing this for about 5 years now, and always just after Christmas, so we were a bit later this year. These events are now the stuff of office legend. One year someone got so drunk that they fell asleep in their own garden on their way home, and lost one of their contact lenses. (Not me, don't wear lenses). One year we went to a club, and someone threw up, incredibly violently, in the toilets. (Not me, I rarely throw up now from drink). One year, someone drank 5 sambuccas straight down, after lighting them, and then thought they'd gone blind. (OK, that one was me). If you have the stamina for them, they regularly go on until about 5 the next morning.

I do not have the stamina for that.

This year, we left at about half 12 (just 1 sambucca, but quite a lot of vodka & a little bit of wine), and as we sat in the taxi I thought a little bit about the fact that it would be the last one that I went to, because of my new job. Lots of things will come to an end now. And as Manic Mother was astute enough to point out, the new job means that I won't be working with him any more. Are we still doing what we're doing out of habit, because we're there? Is it just because we see each other nearly every day? Will this just become a Christmas and birthday card sort of friendship?

No one knows, not even me, although I don't think it will.

When we got to his house, he gave me my birthday present, which had been ordered and had taken a long while to get here. It was this.

I love this painting. I know there is much snobbery in the art world about Jack Vettriano, but I simply do not care. Is it wrong to like a painting because you can see what it is? Is it wrong to like something traditional, because it is not made out of earwax and toenail clippings?

It's called 'Road to Nowhere'. He chose it because he loved the painting, the fact that the couple looked so damn cool, and that even if it's a road to nowhere, you kind of want to go where they're going.

He also chose it because it's the title of one of his favourite songs (by Talking Heads, if you're not sure).

The lyrics make me smile.

'Well we know where we're goin'

But we don't know where we've been

And we know what we're knowin'

But we can't say what we've seen

And we're not little children

And we know what we want

And the future is certain

Give us time to work it out

We're on a road to nowhere

Come on inside

Takin' that ride to nowhere

We'll take that ride

I'm feelin' okay this mornin'

And you know,

We're on the road to paradise

Here we go, here we go.'

I like the idea of being on that road, even if it is going nowhere.