Where's the Year Gone?

It's October tenth. 10/10. One of those rare days when people from the US and Us won't get confused over the date. I'll never understand why the US insists on putting the month before the day. To me, it makes no sense. It's like putting the minutes before the hours. But it is odd that some dates will forever be American. For example, if someone from across the pond talked to me about 7/4, I might think they meant 7th of April, not, as they would mean, Independence day. And yet, on-one in this country will ever get 9/11 confused for 9th of November.

But anyway. My point is, where's the year gone? I've just completed the firm's half year accounts report to the directors, and it only seems like five seconds ago I was completing the last set of Year End reports. Is time going quicker because of my age? It's my birthday in a couple of weeks. I'll be 34. Again, it doesn't seem that long ago that I was all scared of turning 30. Next year I'll be thirty-five and my dream of playing premiership football and scoring the winning goal for England in the World Cup final will be well and truly over. Guess I'll have to aspire to manage instead. I'm quite good on Football Manager 2005, so I should qualify for the England job when the Italian bloke gets the sack.

Still, at least I got to thirty without being unmarried. Admittedly, it was only by a couple of months, but I didn't want to hit thirty a bachelor, and I didn't. Perhaps Bachelor isn't the right word - after all, we'd been living together for close on five years when we tired the knot.

I'm getting away from myself again. It's October. That means I'll soon be driving home in the dark and worrying about the fireworks going off and waking my little boy. Then I'll be pretending not to be in while all the little kids beg for sweets and the big kids demand cash just for dressing up in uninspiring costumes. (For some reason, British kids don't quite embrace the dress-up element of Trick or Treat like the Americans. It tends to be a plastic mask and threat to smash your car windows instead.)

And after that - Christmas and the nightmare of shopping for presents. Am I sounding like a miserable old git? I feel like one. I think I must had S.A.D. Or maybe I'm just being grumpy. Either way, I could do with a pint. Roll on home-time so I can stop off at the pub.