A few months ago, I felt as if my life was going backwards. The transitions I wanted to make were becoming more undone and less and less likely. The strange thing, though, was that people started to compliment me on how healthy and happy I was looking all of a sudden. People I've known for years started telling me that I've never looked better, never looked more confident. It made me start to think whether the decisions I've made and aims I've had over the past few years have been the right ones after all.

The reason that makes writing this site difficult is this: I'm not really Caitlin any more.

I'm not sure yet who I am or who I'm going to be. Hopefully I'm still looking for the perfect settled-down relationship and the perfect settled-down life. At the moment, everything is nebulous. I could be anybody.

If you've liked this blog and want to read another, I recommend Symbolic Forest. I don't want you to have any preconceptions about its author, though. I don't want you to think of them as me.*

Hopefully - Brian permitting, of course - this site will stay online for a while even if it isn't being updated. And comments will still be read and answered.

* this does not necessarily apply to real-life friends

Given that the New Design has now been abandoned, I thought it would be a small shame if his lovely design was never seen. Here, then, is the header he drew for me:

It's really rather good.

Dem: thanks for offering to do more graphics. I still feel slightly guilty that, as I've never uploaded the New Design for this site, I've never posted the lovely graphics you did for it. Must make sure I do that some time. Well done on being mentioned in the Guardian, incidentally.

When you wear something forever and always, you forget that it's there. You stop registering it in your head. It's when it goes missing that you notice it; when something should be there but has disappeared.

Well, I've been getting that feeling a lot for the past couple of months, but the strange thing is that it feels as if something I've never even worn has disappeared. Specifically, I keep getting the definite feeling that there should be a ring on my left ring finger, but it's gone missing. Now, I did at one time always wear a ring on my middle finger, but I've never had one on either ring finger at all. For some reason, though, my brain has become convinced that one is supposed to go there.

Because of that, I'm asking anyone who's still reading to vote:

1) Should I restart?
2) If I do, should I start up a new, completely unrelated site with no links to this one at all?
3) If I do that, should I:
a) start it completely from scratch
b) repost the more interesting and/or popular entries from this blog on the new one
c) keep everything apart from personal stuff?

If I do this, it will take a while anyway, to arrange it all and come up with a decent design. So don't expect this place to vanish. But I'd be interested in what you think.

When I used to update this blog a bit more regularly, I'd write post series on your typical subjects such as What I Did On My Holidays. For example, there was a long, extended series in September and October 2002, about my friend Catherine's wedding. Before I went to Catherine's Paris wedding, I visited London; and I wrote about it briefly here and here.

On that trip, I stayed with a great person called Liz Daplyn. I knew her through Sinister, and we'd emailed each other, but had only met briefly in person. Despite that she was happy for me to stay with her for a couple of nights, and was a warm and welcoming host. She was also: intelligent, witty, charming, friendly, with nobody ever having a bad word to say about her.

Over the next few years, because of stupid things I said and did, I generally fell out with or lost touch with the people I knew from Sinister. However, many of us still posted messages to the same internet places,* and so although I wasn't privately in touch with Liz any longer, I was still in contact with her in a looser sense. I don't know what she thought of me, but it was clear that she was deeply loved and respected by everybody she touched.

On July 7th, Liz was travelling to work as normal, by Underground, when she was killed in a terrorist bomb attack. Her body was formally identified today.

* such as ILX.

Was supposed to be going to London on Sunday, and spending most of next week there. At the moment, I am constantly refreshing whatever online news sources I can find.

"What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defence. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect."

It's worth still mentioning it, though, because it isn't a quote about the past five years, or the past fifteen. It's not about the Russian Revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution or the Glorious Revolution. In one sense it's unimportant when it was written, because it proves that some things never change when leaders get the scent of blood in their nostrils. It was actually written about a war much longer than any in living memory,* in around 400BC, between the Athenian and Spartan power-blocs** of ancient Greece, by the army officer and historian Thucydides.

* in two thousand years, if there are still historians around, they may well see our little four or five-year skirmishes as hot phases in long fights: the Franco-German Wars of 1871-1945, or the Russian Wars of 1945-2017. In which case, my statement there will be entirely wrong.

** The Athenian side was formally called the Delian League, but that essential meant the same as "the Allies" in the recent war: one dominant state, and some smaller ones it could push around.

Yes, in case you hadn't guessed from the last post title, I was in Wales. I was tempted to write this post in Welsh, before remembering that the only words of Welsh I picked up whilst I was there are the phrases written on road signs.

I was staying in a tiny rural village which isn't famous for anything. It once appeared for two seconds in a pop video by Swedish band Ace Of Base, but I doubt that anyone apart from me has ever noticed that. It was near somewhere else, presumably fairly important, called Llwybr Cyhoeddus. I didn't actually find that town, but there seemed to be a lot of signs towards it.* The sun was hot, the sea cold, the sheep loud, and it was probably very healthy to get away from the office for a while.

* Note for Welsh speakers: that was a joke for you, before you jump in to correct me.

• Day 1. Set off, complete with tent, long list of equipment, lots and lots of food, and several weeks' supply of books. Find campsite and settle in.
• Day 2. Go out in search of shops, to buy all the important things I forgot to bring.
• Day 3. Finish reading several weeks' supply of books. Rapidly get bored.
• Day 4. Go out in seach of book shop. Spend lots of money buying more reading material.
• Day 5. Realise that there is no food left, all my cash has been spent on books, and I left my bank card at home. Work out how to survive for a week and a half on two packets of crisps and half a bag of peanuts.
• Day 6. Rain. Spend most of the day wringing out damp clothes, blankets, sleeping bag, peanuts, etc.
• Day 7. Getting a bit hungry. Give up and go home. Whilst packing, find another £50 underneath a blanket. Drive home, stopping at every fast food outlet on the way.

With a plan like that, there's no way the holiday can fail.

* I will try to make sure I get the written-but-unposted London entries online before I go, though.

My only excuse is that I didn't sleep very well in London, and I'm still trying to catch up on everything. Work, news, email, blogs, everything. I'm still being deluged with mail from Michael Howard, which doesn't help, and there's a busy sideline in wrecking my social life. But I'm going to put a bit more effort in in future. I promise.

• learning unexciting stuff
• riding round on the underground
• lurking in the British Museum, the Science Museum, et al
• drinking coffee to stay awake

I did manage to scribble draft blog updates in my notepad every day, so at least I've got plenty to write about here for the next week or so. Holiday posts, here I come.

The rest of the month, though, is probably going to be even quieter. This time, though, I have a good excuse. I'm going down to London for a week, and I have no idea if I'll have any internet access. In the meantime, I'll take a notepad and pen, in the hope that I'll have something to put on the site when I return. See you in April.

Yes, but he did sounds quite good on Top Of The Pops. And at least he sings on his own records now.

But, but, it's still Moby. It'll be played to death on every TV advert for the next year! Even if there's one OK single, the rest will still be bland MOR-dance aural wallpaper.

You won't know unless you try. And besides, why be embarrassed about buying a record? There's nothing wrong with liking something that's popular.

There is something wrong with liking crap, though.

In the end, I had to compromise. I *did* buy the Moby record - but, to balance everything out and maintain cosmic harmony, I made sure to buy an Anti-Moby record too. So, I also got the new Momus record to go with it. And, do you know what? Momus is much better.*

* apart from the long, long track about the Morecambe Bay Chinese immigrant drownings, which sounded like a bad plot-exposition song from a bad musical.