(COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!).

Holidays excepted, the last 11 days have been pretty horrendous thanks to what started as a cold and turned into a horrible throat infection, leaving me with one of the worst, prolonged, forceful, painful coughs and sinus infections ever.  Every decongestant, pastille, lozenge and the always-reliable Olbas Oil (pictured above) was tried but only turned out to provide short-term relief.  Finally, I admit defeat.  I give up.  The doctor's appointment is made - bring on the antibiotics and whatever else they want to prescribe!

Hopefully whatever I'm prescribed tomorrow will help to salvage the last days of my fortnight off...

Yes? No? None of the above?

One year from now we will know whether or not Scotland has voted for independence from the UK.  The independence referendum takes place on 18th September 2014

The question, of course, is "Should Scotland be an independent country?".  Well yes of course in an ideal world it probably should be, but we are a country already.  We have our own flag, national education system, justice system, parliament, banknotes, national football team, etc etc. 

But it is not an ideal world. 

Scotland has not recovered from the destruction brought by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s as a brutal punishment from our traditionally left-wing country not voting for her party.  Unemployment, child poverty, declining living standards, lack of housing have all been major issues in this country, even in the 'boom years' before the banking crash hit in 2008.  There are particular cultural issues in this country which remain unresolved - sectarianism, anti-social behaviour, alcohol and drug use.  Would independence change any of these issues?  I very much doubt it.  Scotland needs fixed before it can even consider going down the independence route.  Slap bang in the middle of a worldwide economic recession is the worst possible time to even think about the financial costs of independence for example. 

The SNP's win at the last Scottish parliament elections gave them a mandate to run an independence referendum.  After all these years in power, I'm still not sure what the SNP stands for apart from independence, and the cult of personality around its leader Alex Salmond and sidekick Nicola Sturgeon.  I'll say one thing for them - their management of the media is fantastic.  Not a night goes by without them being on the Scottish news on TV.  Do they ever take a day off?  Probably not.  But they are also supposed to be running this country.  Yet they remain a one-issue party, only occasionally throwing out crumbs to all the disillusioned socialists, myself included, but always coming back to "....in an independent Scotland..." and so it goes on. 

Salmond has been very smart in his choice of 18th September 2014: coming off the back of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games which I guess he's hoping has the same national-pride effect as London 2012 had on the UK as a whole.

My disinterest in the independence cause could probably be traced back to my own non-Scottish ancestry which has always given me a more international outlook.  But regardless of our origins and ancestry, apathy is in our blood - just look at the turnout for local/European elections, for example, and most people you speak to are more concerned about trying to find enough money to feed themselves or to pay bills, and couldn't give a hoot about the whole boring political circus.  (Contrary to TV anchorman 'I'm John MacKay' on the STV News at Six who seems to think everything revolves around the tedious independence debate).

I'm no patriotic flag-waving Brit either though: the 'English-as-British' dominance of our media and day-to-day life can be a major pain, especially around the time of the football World Cup/European Championships/royal weddings/Queen's various jubilees etc.  Those times suddenly make you proud to be Scottish! There's a lot of things wrong with being ruled by a UK government - especially one with David Cameron in charge.  Where there is poverty, recession and hopelessness, may we bring more poverty, recession and hopelessness....every blow administered by Cameron is further fuel for the Yes camp to boost their campaign. 

It's a shame they didn't give us the option to vote on 'devo max' - a more appealing option which would allow Scotland to remain part of the UK whilst being given extra autonomy on issues like taxes, welfare benefits etc.  This option could also be offered to the other countries within the UK, thus keeping everyone happy.  That may be a simplistic view, but I'd have voted for it as I'm sure would many others - unlike the straightforward 'yes/no' option - the result of which, regardless of whatever it will be, will only bring an unsatisfactory conclusion.  Except, presumably for John MacKay, who will have more newsroom fodder to bang on about for a long time to come.  In the immortal words of Avicii: "wake me up when it's all over"!!

Dead Laptops Society (continued)

This is all a bit #firstworldproblems for which I can only apologise!

So anyway, self-determined digital detox is fine, but not when it's forced on you.  Especially the week before our holiday, when the control freak that I am goes into overdrive and needs to research every aspect of a trip.

In these days of smartphones and tablets, people may question the need to have a laptop at all.  But there's a lot of tasks which you need a laptop for, apart from the internet.  I do a lot of "word processing" as it was once quaintly known back in the day.  You can't print to your old-school wired printer, or scan to your old-school scanner, or access that digitised recipe archive.  You can't shop and print off that confirmation email.  You can't watch obscure telly clips with the hdmi wired up to the telly.  So there in so many words this is my digital life, my friends.  Which needs a laptop.

Anyway, it was out with the old ....

...the seemingly future-proof Acer Aspire.  I thought we would grow old together, being parted only for system upgrades as and when.  But that was not to happen, as it came to the end of its life just 3½ years after its arrival.  For this is 2013 and electrical equipment is not built to last - that's how the manufacturers make their money after all.  A computer is almost instantly obsolete the day after you buy it, depreciating in value to zilch with the arrival of faster processors, bigger memory, bigger drives. 

In with the new....

...just a few days before my holiday.  It's an HP Pavilion G6, and it's purple.  Which is a bonus as you know that's my favourite colour, but I bought it for the specifications which were pretty decent as at mid-September 2013.  The down side is that it's running Windows 8 which screams AVOID!AVOID!AVOID! as some bright spark seemed to think we wanted apps instead of the conventional start screen.  Well, that kind of thing's all very well for the smartphone and tablet brigade but is pretty useless with a conventional non-touchscreen laptop with a mouse pad.  But I'm not going to let it beat me and I'm determined to get to grips with it (and bought a book to help me).  Apart from that, we have bonded well and after the usual teething problems of reinstalling various programs and software, things are running smoothly so far.  I wonder how long this one will last?

Meanwhile, I've started up a savings fund and putting by a couple of quid per week to save up for the next one....! #ohyeoflittlefaith

Dead laptops society.

Just borrowed faithful travelling companion's laptop for a quick post... Last weekend, my trusty laptop which was once state of the art back in the day (2010), decided to conk out. Unfortunately, it can't be saved and is fit only for the bin. So that's the reason why I've been offline lately and am now on the search for a new laptop. Despite Friday the 13th living up to its reputation, I can't stop smiling because I'm now on holiday from work for two weeks! We're counting down the days to our holiday and all things being well, I'll be back in blogland towards the end of the month. New laptop and everything else permitting of course :) See you all later!

August.

So, how was August then?  Well, quite frankly, August was rubbish.

The unseasonably hot weather of July gave way to more traditional Scottish summer weather - i.e. lots of rain and four-seasons-in-one-day although it has to be said that the temperatures were still fairly agreeable and all in all, it has probably been one of the best summers in years, weather-wise.

However, this month the stress of the working week which has built up over the last few months crossed over into my personal life and I found myself unable to handle it all - anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia and a very noticeable personality change from a usually happy, cheerful person to a sour-faced miserable wreck.  Although when you reach that low point there is only one place to go, and that's up.  And there are always some sobering things in life which make you realise just how lucky you are.

So I am starting September with a new, blank page and ready to write a much happier story.  After all, September is always my main holiday month, with two weeks off work and a lovely city break to look forward to, and I am back blogging again which always makes me happy :)