2004- Newcastle

December: I make another return to Newcastle... mum's is ill with anxiety and my Dad's mental condition continues to deteriorate.

My work situation is shit but my family need the money I'm injecting... meanwhile Jo is getting restless with the Happy Flat and wants to start looking for a house.

2004 - Bristol - Oj, Djr

December: Clifton Camera Obscura. You can see the Camera Obscura across the whole of Bristol from the window of the Happy Flat - Jo and I finally got ourselves there one crisp sunny winter morning. Amazing how the Camera Obscura works - you're up in this small circular room in total darkness with natural light shinning down onto a white painted surface and it's like watching a colour video input of everything that's happening outside - in 360 degree vision.

It's around now that I met up with a guy called Hågen, in Starfucks on Bristol Bridge, after responding to a request for new roleplayers.

2004 - Bristol - Oj

December: Clifton Suspension Bridge

2004 - Newcastle - Dad, Squirt

December: I went back to Newcastle. Dad had been in a care-home for 6 months now. He'd lost loads of weight.

2004 - Newcastle - Djr

December: Dad wasn't the only one who had lost weight. The stress caused by the Agency shafting my job, and the intensity of my writing Iron Man Project meant I was living on more coffee and adrenaline for the weeks following October.

2004 - Newcastle - Floyd

December: Floyd's been living/working in New York for a while now - into viral marketing and shock tactics for advertising. We had a random encounter in Kitsch'n cafe - drank coffee - talked story plots then went for a brilliant and memorable long walk into the Dene where he showed me a whole section I'd never explored before (the real Devil's Quarry).

I experienced a strange disorientation having my childhood stomping ground remapped in my head - the memory's of the Dene now strapped into a new context of space and location. Floyd called it "Dimensional Jetlag", the concept of fatigue when a part of your life that didn't used to exist gets bolted on to become part of your greater consciousness.

2004 - Newcastle - Grassy

December: Grassy and I often find ourselves back in our home territory around the same time - we did our usual hook up and dinner at Francescas - back to mine for drinks and late night catch up.

2004 - Newcastle - Yazz

What can you say - Yazz is mad.

2004 - Newcastle - Dad

December: Finally, the building work reaches a stage where Dad is able to visit the house for a day, and great timing because it was on Christmas Day, his first time home in 6 months! Wonderful day, made even more special by next door inviting us to join them for Christmas dinner - a bedlam of families and fun, lovely.

Dad kind of came-back-to-life whilst he was in the house; he loved the extension.

2004 - Newcastle - Mum, Djr

December: If it's been tough on Dad not being able to come home for 6 months, it's been hell on mum having to live in a building site; but now, as the house has come back together and looks so fantastic, she's seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

2004 - Newcastle - Nk, Mum, Akr

December: we all went out for a post-Christmas meal at Francescas one night.

2004 - Bristol / Pyne Manor - Charlotte

New Years Eve celebration - in typical tradition the Old Gang all got together in some remote (fairly) location. This is Charlotte - adorable and I'm not so proud to say had her first fear/crying fit thanks to me (2 yrs ago) when I pretended to be a dog and growled at her.

2005 - Valondre - Tineke & Heath

January: Probably my final snowboarding trip (wrecked my angle and have probably done some serious damage to my right knee) - I went with an associate I'd met through work and his gang of 20 or so people. Top class chalet - and these two - our Chalet reps made sure we were happy with food and comfort for the whole week. A lovely couple - Kiwis' - they'll form characters in my next novel Edge - as will a number of the group I was with.

2005 - Valondre - Quanik Chalet

January: I had a couple of bad falls that really dented my confidence, which was already pretty fragile after the whole debacle with the Agency and my job, and stressing about Dad, and about mum and the house.

Also, the huge group of people were nothing like Andy C and his crowd.

2005- Newcastle

March: Apart from interior cosmetics, the extension on the house is completed in 9 months.

2005 - Newcastle- Dad & Mum

March: At last the day has arrived - Dad is back home for good, able to enjoy the new space built for him; he now has freedom to move around the house and go outside in the fresh air rather than be a prisoner in an armchair stuck in front of the TV.

2005 - Tynemouth - Oj

March: Long walk along the beach with my best-friend, my lover and spa.

2005 - Tynemouth - Oj, Djr

March

2005- Newcastle

March: tree-surgeons had left an enormous mound of sliced up logs; they needed shifting to the opposite side of the garden. There was also the wind-battered remains of the partition fence from the storms of 1988. Ciaran came round, and in the pouring rain, helped me shift the logs, and helped me destroy the fence with a fire-axe and sledge hammer. Great fun.

Afterwards, exhausted, soaked but happy, I threw on some old clothes and headed out with Ciaran to fetch a curry.

2005- Jesmond Dene/ Newcastle

March: the next day, after the heavy rains, I took a walk down into the Dene. The air was laced with the heady scent of the forest... the river was swollen, and as anticipated, I found the normally solitary waterfall had turned into a three-channel torrent.

2005- Jesmond Dene/ Newcastle

March: I took a stroll into the parts of the Dene I had only recently discovered through Floyd. Into the Devil's Quarry... where I saw this tree...looking like some kind of alien spider or weird torso and limbs.

2005- Newcastle - Oj

March: Kitsch'n cafe does these delicious Breakfast baps, stuffed with bacon, sausage and eggs. Jo discovered quite a taste for them.

2005- Newcastle - Dad

March: you could tell Dad was so happy to be back, and be back for good. He'd had to endure 9 months sitting in care-homes going quietly mad, but that was all behind him now.

2005 - London - Djr

April: This was the weekend that Ramona and her god-daugher Jessica came over from the states.

Jo and I checked into my favourite hotel in London - City Inn Westminster (great access to tube, fab rooms, nice vibe) for a couple nights. I'd not been there since September '04, when I'd still been managing a successful virtual communications service...

I'd spent a few weeks writing up a revamped version of Masks of Nyarlathotep for the guys to play, kind of a nostalgic return to the roleplaying glory days of 1995 / 1996. It was around now that Hågen, the new player I'd met back in December, came in for his first session. Hågen broke Game. Which probably wasn't hard to do... the rules had been growing organically since 1996, and to be honest, they were pretty shit. So Hågen came in and wrecked everything... or at least that's how I viewed it for a few months. I can smile about it now, but on top of everything else that was turning to crap in my world... I was really gutted. However, within a few weeks, Hågen breaking Game became the catalyst for me to come up with a whole new concept: Yellow Dawn was born.

2005 - London - Jessica, Ramona, Oj

April: This was also the weekend that Zed returned from a long stint in Australia having stayed on after touring with [T], sadly she managed to forget what day it was and missed the flight that would have got her back to London in time to see us before we left London for Egypt.

2005 - Bristol - Oj

April: It was our 3rd anniversary. We went out for a meal and had quite a lot to drink. Walking back, I gave Jo a playful nudge... she stumbled and went flying into a building site fence, which then collapsed and took her tumbling with it.

2005 - Bristol / The Big House - Simon P

May: 1st weekend in his new house.

2005 - Bristol

2005 - Bristol

2005 - Bristol

2005 - Bristol - Oj

2005 - Bristol - Zed

2005 - Castle of Tranquility - Zed

Just back from Oz - full of dreams for the man she left behind.

2005 - Arctic (photo from)

My cousin Ogre, sent me this image of his balcony back home where he normally sits supping a fresh brewed coffee in the morning. No chance of this today.