By pot pourri I mean that today has comprised a wide variety of ingredients and that, in some respects, it has stunk... and in other respects, it has improved the atmosphere surrounding my life.

A quick run down of the major components of this bizarrely described day would be.

Late Wake Up
Unable to get to sleep until late last night, I was, unsurprisingly, unable to wake up early enough this morning, which, coupled with traffic, got me into work later than I consider acceptable (certainly later than the officially posted arrival time). Annoying. I hit the ground running, but I still hit the ground!

The Beavering
The morning flew by with work, which is always a good thing. I got this and that done. I can't remember what those things are, but they sure seemed useful at the time, and we're in the interesting stage of a project where everything feels new. It is new. It's also small and compact, so adding something doesn't require a great deal of searching for where to add it. Things are also fresh and quite close to an ideal design. This makes the tasks all seem easier and, since even the smallest of additions represents a tangible percentage of what's complete so far, you feel like you're really contributing.

Pursuing The Costs
Yesterday I had a good read of the damp and timber report that was carried out on the house I intend to buy. I have costs for that work. Today I rang up and looked for information on additional costings to bring the house into both a reasonable state of repair, and the state it needs to be in in order to make the most of the opportunity to buy it. The mortgage offer is contingent on some of the work being done, and there's no point in buying a 100 year old house with period floorboards and replacing them with chipboard.

So, I found the grand total for the exterior/major works.

Other Financial Shit
Despite trying to sort out some old savings plan a couple of months back, I was in a position where it didn't seem to have been sorted, so I chased it up today. Within a couple of days I should be able to stop paying into that plan and, thus, add its contents to the pot of cash I will probably need to spend on this house, which now seems to be the principal strut of my current wealthiness scheme.

Making The Offer
With a resolve to get the house purchase moving, provided the price is right, I spoke to the Estate Agent. There's no point in blithely accepting that the house SHOULD be in the poor state of repair that it definitely is in. I have a lot of work to do on it and the cash will burn very quickly. If I can take some of the cost out of the initial purchase, then at least I'm compensating for that... a bit. To be honest, I'll have to throw much more cash into this than I originally planned to and, when it's complete, I'm going to be in a bit of a spot as far as finding somewhere to live is concerned. However, "a bit of a spot" is not too bad when traded off against having something to look forward to in the mid-to-long-term.

More Beavering
After telling the estate agent what I thought (and getting the sense that I was doing things by the book, rather than having a go), I got on with an afternoon's work. In actual fact, I needed more of an afternoon's help, but it was the sort of help where I get to contribute and learn what the hell I'm doing as I go along, so I'm happy.

The time has, indeed, flown by today.

Exhausted and Ill
But I don't feel so good. My chest and throat have a tightness to them - I don't quite feel ill, but I feel like I'm about to be. With a busy weekend ahead and a gig tomorrow night, this is not the best of situations to be in. Still, I'll soldier on, there's nothing like a bit of adversity to keep you on your toes.

Long-term Plan
I'm in need of one. I feel like there are too many variable possibilities stretching ahead. I could do so many things at the moment and I'm doing none of them. If the house deal gets back on track, then it also becomes a long term plan. If it falls through - wasting me a great deal of time and money (more the latter than the former) then I'll be seriously in need of a long sit-down with myself.

Gigging
I successfully managed to piss off a promoter... actually, I don't think she was angry so much as gracious, and simultaneously disappointed in me. Whinging about my comedic failures doesn't go unnoticed. Hello noticing type people. Tomorrow night I'm travelling to Manchester to perform for free. There's another musical act on the bill and I'm increasingly uncomfortable about what I think of musical acts. On the one hand I like a good musical act - Bill Bailey, Tim Minchin etc etc. On the other, I think that I'm increasingly worried about the view of musical acts that is evident when I see a poor musical comedian; it feels like someone is holding up a hall-of-mirrors-mirror to me. In fact, I fear that, when I look down on the lack of inspiration and content evident in a poor musical comedian, that I might actually be looking at something which other people judge to be exactly equivalent to what I do. In other words, I may be hating myself by proxy. I don't know the act that's on the bill tomorrow night. He may be great. I hope he's not - it will make me look shit. On the other hand, he may be terrible, which could make me look good, or put the audience off that sort of thing altogether. There's a possibility that he'll be mediocre, which I think I'd prefer, though I think I'd prefer to be funnier and just talk.

I'm a raft of insecurities at the moment, and I think I'm sinking.

Still, on the up side, I'm still full of ideas and my standards have risen. What I consider now to be a terrible performance and reception would once have been considered my best ever gig. So, it's not all bad.