I'll get replying to your comments tomorrow, chaps, once I've had some much needed sleep. <3

I'm only just back in the house, having seen Jason off for the weekend. The initial plan was for me to go to his (or, to be more precise, Lee's – where he and his Mum are still staying) on Wednesday, then for him to sleep at mine Thursday, Friday and go home early Saturday, but since he's now only working two days a week he was done for the week on Wednesday and so there was a last minute change of plans.

That, and I think Lee has started to go out of his mind with the number of people always knocking at his door. The two main offenders are Gary, Tom's uncle who is staying with him just around the corner – you'll remember Tom as the aggressive yet pathetic marijuana and alcohol addicted stepfather – and Damien, the cousin who's done time, continues to do drugs, yadda yadda.

Anyway, these fellows, until being told recently by both Lee and Maria to kindly stop, had a habit of knocking on three or four times a day. I wish with all my heart that I was exaggerating and the situation wasn't that bad, but unfortunately I'm not, and it is. They really do pester the household that much. Then, of course, Glen's vast circle of friends are always round asking after him.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was maybe once or twice a week. But all the time? People need their privacy. Sometimes we just want a quiet night in front of the telly without the whole town bearing down upon our house. I've tried time and time again to suss out what exactly is the fascination with Lee's house, but to no avail. Maybe it's a site where ley lines converge, or there's something in the air. Maybe Lee and Maria are just too hospitable for their own good, and they happen to know people who would take advantage of it.

I've told Jason to ask Lee on Monday if I'm okay to come round. Last week I was already in town and on the way there when he got a text from Lee saying he wanted nobody back, he was just going to tell people he wasn't feeling well – so I felt horrible turning up on his doorstep when he probably wanted a day of no visitors. It's bad for Maria, too; it's bad enough not having your own place, without the place you're staying at being the homely equivalent to the London Underground during rush hour.

The past few days have been pretty good! On Tuesday night, Sian was having a particularly horrible time of things so we went out for a long walk about the town so we could chat and she could vent about her troubles. I decided that it might be a good idea for her to get into her singing again, to keep herself occupied in a productive and expressive way – then I mentioned I needed a reason to take up guitar again and we've agreed to spend one day a week jamming; even though I'm horrible at guitar, I can always improve. Now I have a reason!

On Wednesday, Jason came over like I said. We spent the night watching films on my laptop – first 'The Room', written by, produced by, directed by and starring Tommy Wiseau. It was, without a doubt, the worst film ever to cross my vision. We're talking so bad it was actually awesome. I swear it was his thinly veiled excuse to make soft porn; there's such an emphasis on the sex scenes and such a flimsy plot that I think the Nostalgia Critic was right – someone found Tommy Wiseau's sex tape and, when confronted on said sordid home movie, he replied 'Oh – er – is independent movie I'm making, huuuhhh?'

'The Room' was, in fact, so terrible that I needed to follow it up with something good. Thankfully, 'Pulp Fiction' helped me to recover. I will watch 'The Room' again, because I didn't quite believe the horror of what I was watching, plus it was too damn funny.

On Thursday, we had to wait in for Dad. He was expecting the delivery of a new 3D monitor he'd ordered for his computer, but he was also heading out to Sheffield that day because he's gone and bought a car, and that's where the owner lived. It's another Ford Escort, but I think it's a Mk.6 instead of a 5b, which is what The Toreador is. It's got nifty alloys, black metallic paint with sparkly flakes, and apparently it drives like a dream. As for the Toreador? He'll be scrapping it as soon as he's salvaged the parts that he wants.

It's actually quite sad. After watching it transform from an ordinary red Escort into 'The Red Bull Car', known across the town, and after being driven around in it for several years without even a speck of shame regarding its unusual paint job, I'll be sad to see it go. Jeez, I know it's only a car but I have tears in my eyes writing this. If you have a car for a few years, and it's a weird, temperamental piece of junk like ours was, you do get attached. I remember the white Escort we had (yes, we've had a lot of Ford Escorts) – it was falling apart and Dad sold it to some apprentice mechanics who wanted it for a project at college. I cried when they were driving it off. That was the car we'd moved to England in, and that we'd been all over the place in. This is the same sort of thing.

Dad's not selling The Toreador because he said he'd rather have it scrapped than see another person driving about in it. I can understand why; it's truly our car – in a way, we own it more than the man down the road might own his silver Vauxhall Vectra, or how a boy racer might own his newly-bought hothatch, with the wide wheel arches and the ill-fitting spoiler. Time, money and a lot of love went into that car, and to see it being driven around – well, it would just be weird. Who else would look right in The Red Bull Car? Nobody but my Dad.

I was a bit disappointed when he said he wouldn't be doing much cosmetically to the new one, because it has the rather expensive sparkly metallic paint that costs a bucket to touch up, let alone do completely. But then Ashley used Google SketchUp to create a nifty design that marries the new Red Bull F1 livery with the sparkly paint that Dad wants to keep – might he be convinced? I asked him if he would actually apply Ashley's design to the new car and he said yeah, so maybe.

Dad's parcel arrived at noon on Thursday so Jason and I were able to nip to Earlestown to pick up a few things. It was such a gorgeous day; one of those days we hadn't seen since last Spring where it wasn't too hot, but it wasn't too cold, but you could feel that things were starting to come alive and flourish. I cherish these days every year. It was lovely.

It was so nice, in fact, that I was able to get out later that evening to get some photos of the sun going down. There's this little spot down the road, opposite The Swan, overlooking Grange Valley, where you can get a brilliant view of the sky uninterrupted by hills, trees, buildings, pylons... For a couple of weeks I've been making visits down there and getting between seventy and a hundred photos each time, some of which are pretty good. Here's a few from the first shoot on February 13th...

And the second shoot on February 14th...

And the third on March 1st...

Click to embiggen, if you want a closer look. So yes, as you can see, I've been making good use of the one bit of good sky we have close to us. Despite my initial concerns, my camera's produced some brilliant shots in lighting conditions (i.e. dusk or thereabouts) that some compact or bridge cameras would struggle with. Clearly I chose well when I bought it... the zoom lens is powerful and barely diminishes image quality, and the crisp auto focus makes it an excellent choice for beginners who might prefer the 'point and shoot' approach as a starting point. Now I just have to see how it photographs Liverpool, in the afternoon and early evening! I'd best stock up on alkaline batteries.

The great thing about doing multiple shoots of the sky is that the sky is ever changing. I mean, each day I got different results. The first shoot was a white sunset with a lot of clouds. The second was more orange, with a thick layer of clouds at moderate altitude meaning the sunset was like a band of bright copper. The third day, there was much less clouds, a lot of cirrus and cirrostratus that turned pink. Some days you don't get a sunset at all because of the cloud cover; just a gradual darkening of the sky. It's brilliant, and on the good days you can get some lovely photos.

If the above HTML cocks up, I swear I'll cry. After all the time it took uploading those photos, finding out what dimensions to make them, etc etc, I hope it works. it's very early tomorrow morning now and I don't fancy staying up much longer to tweak codes.

Today, Jason and I planned to go to St Helens because he was supposed to have an appointment with Suzanne, his case manager for the horticulture course he remains doing. She was meant to phone up and give him a time, but that never happened, so we just stayed in and took turns playing Skyrim, which arrived today. The game is awesome but it takes some getting your head around; there's just so much to learn! But its complexity is by no means a hindrance, and the vast map and freedom make it a brilliant game indeed. Plus the graphics are gorgeous. I adore RPGs.

You know that in just under a month and a half it'll be our first anniversary? Not just our first anniversary together, our first anniversary ever. I'm Jason's first girlfriend, and I've never been with anyone longer than six months before him. I love him now more than ever, and over the last two days I've realised again just how lucky I actually am. He is the light of my life, and my world, and even now, nearly a year on, I sometimes find it hard to believe that I managed to stumble upon such a wonderful person; someone who would become such an important part of my life; purely by accident. It's crazy.

And now to bed. Tomorrow I must get some serious work done on Holly's image requests for her short film, as well as a bit of practice on the song Sian wants me to learn. Plus a bit of Skyrim... but all after a nice lie-in! It won't be anywhere near as nice waking up next to Jason, but after the time I've taken composing this post, I believe I need some sleep.