Second Phase
9 July

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OK, I'm now into my second month of a new job and living back in the North West. So, I guess I'm entering the second phase of being here. I'm established. It's time to start making things work my way.

Little things like I've amended my route into work to avoid a horrendous junction where two steady streams of traffic have to cross over each other.

I've also come to the knowledge that the same road is not the same journey no matter how often it is travelled. At various points, a roundabout here, a pedestrian crossing there, one day may be busy and the next clear as a bell. One day I may be early and it is a quick journey whilst, leaving at the same time the following day, the journey will take ten minutes longer. Other times I leave late and arrive earlier that I have on previous occasions. Some days one set of traffic lights favours me; the next it is another. The particular day of the week may have an effect; weather may also. Some times, the road is full of maniacs; other times, fools abound; and yet others, the milk of human kindness and civility prevails. It is difficult not to make a parable out of it all.

At work, I've been underlining my credentials as a trainer by talking about learning styles and the need to cover our bases by using a variety of training techniques. As a result, though I know about motivation theories such as Herzberg's and team building stuff like the Belbin profile, I did some research into the Myers Briggs test.

It turns out that I am an Intuitive Feeling person or an Idealist. Now that comes as a shock to you all, doesn't it? Within that grouping I am an iNFj personality or Mentor/Counsellor though I have leanings towards being an eNFp or Advocate/Champion. Ross is also an Idealist but he is more of an iNFp or Advocate/Healer.

To help with the travelling I've re-programmed the channels on the car radio so that it is easier to move between the stations of my choice without having to re-adjust from a London setting. I've also bought headphones so that I can listed to music at work and bought extension leads so that I can listen to music whilst working at my computer here.

At the moment, I'm listening to a recording of Puccini's La rondine which I hope to see in the autumn when Opera North bring it to the Lowry at Salford Keys. They'll also be bringing Schumann's Genoveva so I'm not going to be short of interesting operas to hear and watch. Colin and I have already got ourselves booked in for Schubert's Fierrabras at the Buxton Festival - quite a little German romantic opera fest really. Thank goodness the Liverpool Phil's concert season looks quite drab because I don't think I could otherwise afford it all.

I'm already going through my shirts for the second time and I've now used and washed all the bed linen through once. It's like I am completing a process of washing the South East out of my system.

I've now decided that newspapers really are a waste of time - they're out of date and poorly written. Really, unless you want something to be irritated by (and they seem to serve this function for Colin), they are a complete waste of time. I'm also convinced that I don't need cable. Colin seems to spend an inordinate amount of time flicking through 60 cable TV channels. Mostly, if we're in together, we watch a video of Miss Marple or Mapp and Lucia.

Living in someone else's house, I obviously don't have the same control over my viewing habits as I might otherwise have. For example, I have completely missed out on Wimbledon this year. So much so that it took Chris to alert me to the presence of

Jan-Michael Gambill

Anyhow, what of this weekend? I picked Ross up from Wigan North Western on Thursday and he's just departed now on Sunday afternoon. He'd had a good conference and a good session with his doctors and was, to all purposes, a happy bunny. He's been asked to keep an activity diary. It now says "had sex with David" several times.

We went house hunting in Crosby on Saturday. Roland showed us around and we saw a couple of nice places. I shall make plans for us to visit when Ross is up later in the month. Colin was quite taken with the house we liked best as it is in a road which a friend of his lived in (he grew up in the environs - this makes him postally Liverpudlian but administratively Lancastrian as I remind him when he tries to come the Liverpudlian).

Ross was knackered in the evening so we stopped in and did not make it to Phil's 30th birthday party. I tried to phone but the line was constantly engaged either by being off the hook or a stream of people cancelling.

The only other news to relate, apart from the fact that there's another stand off at Drumcree this year, is that Harry Potter IV is out.