Aargh.. I admit it I have a problem

Okay, for those of you just reading this for the first time in 3 days, there are much more interesting posts with pretty pictures below.

But anyway.. M'colleague got me a fantastic book for crimble "Too Much Coffee Man's Guide for the Perplexed". This is the adventures of a not very super hero called Too Much Coffee Man, who gets his amazing powers from caffeine and Nicotine abuse. Firstly I dont actually smoke.. used to but gave up because all my clothes were starting to smell. However my caffeine adiction is considerable!
Page one.. illustration showing Too Much Coffee Man - reading a book about Neitszche. For those of you who know me well, you'll know this guy is my personal hero, and I had to check several times that m'colleague hadn't written it onto the illustration himself. However it appears to be authentic. This guy in the books has paranoid fits (like I do), talks constant b*llocks for ages after having too much coffee, and has moments of clarity that are utter utter nonsense to everyone else.

Oh dear.

It's me.

I'm now going to be monitoring my habits compared to caffeine abuse and see how f*cked up I really am. I'm not cutting back by the way.. I might even end up increasing amounts consumed to see what impact it has. Oh I also realised that including caffetiere's (french press), and stove top espresso machines I own no less than 8 coffee making machines.

2 x Filter coffee percolators
3 x French Press
2 x Stove Top Espresso maker
1 x Senseo device

I have a problem

Home (proper)

As it was all sparkly and snowy today I decided to pop back and see my dad, he still lives in the same quiet sleepy little village I called "home" for many many years. Went to school there, got dragged to church there.. fell out of a tree and bust my collar bone there trying to get a good chestnut for conkers! You know how it is!

Anyway, I dont think I can leave England anymore. I whinged and whined for such a long time, and everytime I'm in Seattle I always dream about living there, but a few things have happened over the last couple of days. Firstly, I watched a program called "The Natural History of Britain", presented by one of our mad gardening experts Alan Titchmarsh (yes, real name). It showed everything from the creation of the British Isles to some of the really stunning things here. I said once in Washington that I was amazed that you could go from Alpine mountains to desert in a few hours drive (and I still am).. Britain seems to have the same. In winter the snow capped Scottish highlands, with vast lochs and lakes amidst them, straight down to the Scilly Isles off the coast of Cornwall, with their white sand beaches, green blue carribean style oceans, and warm breezes. I learned we have 8000 year old drowned forests from when there was land there instead of the English Channel, that we have more varieties of rock than any other country in Europe, that we're home to a whole heap of animals and birds I never knew about. I also learned that even though the country is only 700 miles from top to bottom, we have 11,000 miles of coast line. 50% of the worlds Grey Seal population is here, along with 50% of all the worlds Bluebells are growing in English woodland. Oh and over 6,000 islands make up the British Isles! The fact we had an empire was down to the vast coal reserves here, unusually high for a country this small, and all because 15 million years ago, Britain was under a rain forest! Basically by the end of the program I was dripping with national pride, almost a tear in one eye and a bizarre feeling I should have been singing 'Rule Britannia' quite loudly for no reason!

Second thing that happened is that, like I said at the beginning of the post, I went home. It's funny being away from a place and looking back with fresh eyes. My god that village is beautiful, and I really miss it now.. all covered in a sprinkling of snow.. the village green all white, the churchyard blanketed and undisturbed, snow and ice hanging from the thatch on the houses.. I love home, I love England and I dont think I can bring myself to leave anymore...

Being home reminded me how beautiful, and old the place I grew up in is, and why now I really want to move back. One day I'll bring up my own terrible family in a place like this. At least I hope so. "Middle England", the concept of english countryside with cricket on the green, and the village pub, it's not dead, it's not dying, we just dont look for it anymore. We move to cities to be practical... the villages are still there, and the people are still hanging around in the pub and playing cricket in summer - we just stopped taking part. Anyway, im done with the romance see the pictures of the village for yourself.. oh and yes, thats the tree up there, the one I fell out of.

'tis the season to be trollied... fa la la la

Well that's Christmas over and done with at least. God help us all, im banning next year. Hasn't anybody noticed that "Santa" is only one letter out of place from "Satan", and he wears red a lot. Plus how do we know "ho ho ho" is actually jolly, he could be randomly insulting passers by, by calling them ladies of negotiable affection!

Anyway, So it's all over now, just new year to deal with, but thats fine, just an excuse for a good p*ss up! Christmas Eve did the catching up with people thing, Christmas Day I was initially dreading because myself and my dad were invited over to my friends place, this was a guy I'd been best mates with since I was about 11, but things went cold and steely over a girl (as they do) and it all kind of fell to bits. Was actually a really good laugh catching up with him, no awkwardness at all I think. Extended the olive branch by saying keep in touch, so we'll see what happens.

We've had a good dump of snow as well, though no signs of any more sadly and I only managed a few shots with my camera from the office yesterday. It all looks soooo pretty. I'm actually working the three days between christmas and new year (thats right folks, Tuesday was a national holiday in the UK in lieu of us losing Christmas Day!), but yesterday the heating was broken and there was hardly anyone in, so I left at lunch. Working from home today because the house is warm, and just as quiet as work (only me here!).

I'll transfer pics and post them later, but.. eerggh.. I guess I have to say it...

ss... seeee..... sssseee..... seeeassons... seasons ... gggrr... grreee... greeatttings... greetings..

Seasons Greetings
(god I need a lie down now)

Rome > Luton Flight

Here's the pics of the flight.. really nice. The med looked lovely, all sparkly and shiny in the morning sun, and then we had the alps, looking like massive islands jutting out from the clouds.

Luton for once looked pretty, mainly because it was hidden under a thin veil of fog which the sun bounced off really well!

Ciao!! (moped noises)

Two days in Rome for work! Can't be bad.. Well, apart from the daft-o-clock flight, landing late, sitting through a days worth of workshops and then flying back with "ChavAir" otherwise known as Ryan Air. They really should switch from blue and yellow to a big adidas logo and a burberry tail fin! Awful flight.

Anyway, Rome was lovely, first time I've been there and actually got to see some of the city. After finishing up for the day I was determined that I wasnt leaving without at least seeing the colloseum, so m'colleague and I braved freezing cold winds and got a taxi down there.

All I could manage was vowel sounds. It's so much bigger than I expected. It's massive!! Unbelievably old as well, shame it was night time as I'd have loved to have gone inside for a wander about.. Did a couple of laps of it round the outside taking pictures and then went to a tiny bar next to it. Tried sitting outside at first under a patio heater but it was too cold. Nice glass of peroni and a glass of what they claimed was cognac but each sip induced gut wrenching reactions so that I had to fight it down. M'colleague drank his and then made me under threat of regarding me as a big girl for not drinking it. So I did, and felt dreadful.
Still... colleague pointed out occaisionally looking like a hitman, which works for me because that's my ideal profession if only I could find somebody who's willing to help me get started. I keep offering to remove people from "being" for friends but nobody either trusts me or wants me to! Bah! Photos looked good though!

Flight home was nice as well, lovely views over the alps!

Lazy B*stard film directors, and bloody cold weather.

Wow what a weekend. Busy busy busy. Friday night went to see King Kong with Nita. Took ages to get parked at the city centre, think I'll be doing the taxi thing a fair amount I think! Then we couldnt find anywhere to eat and ended up eating a tiny tiny pizza in part of Oceana, a really huge club.

Film was alright.. very average, raised an eyebrow through most of it. It's another one of my "is it me or is everything new sh*t?" things. Peter Jackson has to be *the* laziest film director. A man who can create films through sheer power of laziness. Lets briefly wander into the brain of Peter Jackson.

09:00 Get up
10:00 Rape classic film/book by tarting it up with special effects. Avoid press backlash and fan hatred by turning into to a love story, or a story of extreme suffering, also dont deviate from original whatsoever.
11:00 Gloat at ability to get artistic aclaim from "copying stuff down".

What I hate even more about Peter Jackson is that his films are still enjoyable. I want to really despise him, and hate everything he comes up with because lets face it, the guy doesnt actually have ideas - he just visualises other peoples. I suppose that could be his talent, and he is a director, not a writer but still. Other directors like Spielberg, Capra, Kubrick have to take scripts and whole new ideas and get them out onto screen as something special and moving.

I challenge anybody with half a brain to see King Kong, then Crash, and tell me which film didnt have a more profound effect on them.

So about the film, Jackson followed the formula of the original film to the tee, throwing in a few extra bits now special effects are here (lazy git). But, it's still entertaining. It's just one where I wish I could just wait for DVD, but big effects flicks need to be seen on big screen (well bigger screen, my 42" plasma now looks massive in new lounge!) to be enjoyed. It's a looong way off War of the Worlds and Batman Begins as the years big films. And neither of those come close to either Sin City or Crash.

Sunday did a bit of shopping then headed up to Dunstable Downs because the weather was perfect menthol day.. minty fresh! Plus the light was just right and the sun was just dropping.

Got there just at 5pm when the sun had gone down but the sky was going through massive colour changes, oranges and ochre shades looked stunning against blue twilight skies and the little twinkling lights as villages popped into being. It's like watching the landscape giving birth to little patches of life!

Final revelations of a tortured mind...

Right. Common sense slap this morning.
Life's too short.

I've re-read some of my blog entries from the last couple of weeks and im developing a victim complex. I'm reading lots of psychology at the moment because I want to figure myself out somehow and I dont believe in the "going and finding yourself" nonsense. I just want to know how, and why my personality reacts to things in certain ways and how some of that can be changed to avoid future, shall we say, lapses in quality lifestyle.

So here's my findings so far.. I have a burgeoning victim complex with no real sense of blame allocated to anything which is leaving me with too many loose ends to deal with. My Neitszche complex is perfectly healthy and I have no intention of changing it - besides it gives me at least 1 personality trait other than caffeine addiction! Hating all of mankind gives plenty of scope to complain about things anyway, without justifying it. Plus I can be a big stinking great hypocrite whenever I like! :)

Following on from the findings, here's what's going to happen. Life may have been a mild disaster so far, well last month or so anyway, but these things happen. There's always the temptation to point the finger of blame and find excuses. But im not saying anymore on the relationship subject. What's done is done.

So, with that now sorted, I have a home now in gorgeous Stony Stratford, circle of friends is rebuilding rather rapidly. I have hobbies and interests to fill my spare time with. I'm resurecting my fencing abilities (and I dont mean sticking up wooden panels, I mean jabbing people with pointy bits of metal), I'm starting golf properly as soon as Kaaaaaaaaaal sorts dates out.
My study of oriental bladed weapons is getting a bit detailed and im learning a huge amount..

Tonight I'm off to see King Kong with a friend, and grab some food.. and make a feeble attempt at crimbo shopping again.

I really really do hate Xmas. It's a religious celebration? Why cant that take the form of me nailing people I dont like to crosses in my back garden? Or wiping out large groups of people in proper wrath of god fire and brimstone style?

I think I'll actually just have to do what I do every year.. pushing toddlers over in shopping centres.

100th Post - Reflections on various.. erm.. things

So this is it.. bit of a milestone. The 100th post on my blog. When blogging first caught on I used to sneer at people who maintained them thinking "you sad paftick winker, get a life". Now I've realised I'm actually one of those people that dont actually have a life, and therefore feel the need to bore the rest of the world with the outpourings from my tormented mind, and a running commentary of the dreadful desolate wasteland that is the wreckage of my life! (Cheerful eh?!).

When I frst started this off, it was to keep in touch with colleagues and loved ones whilst executing a project 4700 miles away in the USA's magnificent pacific northwest. Amidst the mountains and the forests we crafted a superb IT solution for gigantic companies, under the careful eye of genius talent of Microsoft, and the slave driving whip of oppression of our own masters back in Europe. Of course at this point life was pretty polar - one being the monastic lifestyle of keeping the project ticking over, working 15 hour days and my poor colleague putting up with my dreadful mood swings between despair and total despair. The other reminding ourselves that we have homes to go back to, loving girlfriends (because that one worked out didnt it?!?! Sorry, enough of the sarcasm).

It was however one of the most enjoyable summers I've had.. the weather in Seattle was absolutely gorgeous, and whilst some form of mad torture much of the time because we could only glare from our tiny flat out into the bright sunny world wishing nobody would care if we bunked off a bit, we did actually get out a few times. Thanks to those few times I've seen some of the most amazing landscape in the world up close and personal. From the terrifying Mount Rainier completely messing up my sense of scale, to the thundering waterfalls at snoqualmie, to the dry and uncomfortable heat in the scrublands of Wanapum and Eastern Washington. Not to mention the place which emotionally moved me more than anywhere else - rialto beach!

I've also had a bloody good laugh.. I've tried to run old people over, I've watched zombies being shot (americans dancing in a jazz club), I've made Martini's to perfection many times over with m'colleague to console our bad days, and he's introduced me to margarrita's that made me pull bobby de niro faces. There were some hilarious - but unfortunate moments. Wanging my head on a kitchen cabinet after being startled by a toaster, m'colleague almost getting done for speeding.. my dreadful october beginning of being trapped in commercial airline hell trying to get to and from Barcelona.

We've met some jolly nice people along the way as well. First and foremost I have to put a mention in on Todd & Kristie. Todd actually works for the same company I do, and is a generally bloody nice bloke (good taste in cars), a gorgeous house on a gorgeous island, with a lovely little community. His charming wife Kristie is a superb hostess, wonderful company and terribly terribly nice... She's taught me how to make Smores properly, and explained some of the basic rules of american football. Oh and kept me company as a drinking buddy when doing decadent cheesecake and cocktails for lunch, or getting utterly slaughtered at the haloween party gathering thingy when all others seem to be reserved. I vaguely recollect pulling down half a tree as a good branch to make yet more smores on!?

Then there's the wider circle of friends I'd begun gathering before I left Seattle. All the Kirkland brigade - to all the girls i just have to say one thing... "daaaaaaahling" ;) And to the guys, terribly sorry about the drunken arm wrestling thing - frightfully un-english of me, and promise it wont happen again! :)

Typical that all kicks off *just* when I'm leaving! But I'm sure I'll be back soon - it's a pitty they keep making me leave! tsk!

But then I did have to come home... and sadly when I did get home, Vicky left me and my life turned into rather a mess. It's only just starting to pick itself back up.. and I hate to go very sombre for a moment but the last few days have been the hardest I've had to experience. Vicky very kindly packed my stuff up for me to limit time spent in the house that used to be 'home'. The problem is that it all needed to be unpacked again.. which meant i had to open things up, and look at them to figure out where their homes were going to be. So I've been forced to relive all the memories of almost 3 years again, and i have to confess that I've finally bawled my eyes out over the whole thing and turned into a bit of a wreck. It wasnt just over Vicky either. There's a lot of stuff there - very personal things that I forgot were stored up. Scrooge at xmas was forced to witness his past, present and future life through a bunch of ghosts. I've been forced to look deep into the past at the total carnage of 8 years of relationships that have collapsed, derailled and ultimately gone wrong. They're not wasted, because hidden amongst those has been genuine true love. In a way it's harder looking back over many relationships than just 1. 8 years with one person and you could say "oh dear, got that person wrong" and move on. But over 8 years, with a number of them.. and you start to wonder "what the hell is wrong with me?". It's a good question.. I know I whinge about everything on here but I'm more upbeat in person, and generally snipe as a source of my sense of humour rather than being genuinely vitriolic the whole time. So makes me wonder anyway.. what did I do wrong? what do I keep repeating that makes them ultimately give up on me after a couple of years? Oh well.. back on topic.. oh yes reflective 100th post!

And that brings us up to now really... just moved into a proper home in a nice part of Milton Keynes, market town called Stony Stratford. It's all familiar as well because this is where I grew up. So catching up with old friends and looking forward to resurrecting something of a life from all this carnage. New house is really nice.. massive, plenty of room. I'm sharing with another guy from work who's not moved in yet owing to some tenancy issues with the place he's moving out of. Im mostly unpacked now.. and I've used up three days of holiday to do that.

Tomorrow im back in the office again, facing a brave new world and hopefully a new "me" for 2006. Maybe somebody will like the new me? Or at least become overwhelmed by sympathy and take pitty on me! Neither of these seem likely.

But if there are any deaf, dumb, blind and insensible to both smell and touch, and also a penchant for masochism and have terribly low self esteem... I might just be your man!

On the subject of moving, endings to Vagrancy, and memory torture.

Well, it's been a truly tiring few days. Over the weekend I finally got keys to new house. Moved some stuff over from my dads Ice Palace of eternal winter to here (new home).
Sunday night had a pizza and a cup of tea with my ex, strange experience but has to be done. Otherwise it all goes weird and we wont end up talking.

Monday was dreadful, hired a van from good ole enterprise, and my friend James gave me a hand shifting the goods. Vicky had already packed up most of my stuff which saved hours.. was still a long and difficult emotional experience.

3 years of calling somewhere home and walking in to find the cats arent sure who you are anymore, and all traces of you have been rellocated to boxes or erased.

Actually I've found the most difficult part of it all unpacking. Because I didnt put everything in the boxes in the first place I have to unpack everything to see where things have to live - where new homes for things are going to be. That means finding old memories, ticket stubs, notes, receipts, photographs.. have no idea how gut wrenchingly painful that entire process is :(

Anyway... most things are unpacked now, with the exception of PC and bits to go with PC because I dont have a desk for them to go on yet - my employer has to deliver me stuff to work from home at.

At least the vagrant period has ended!

"Hello, we'd like to talk to you about Aslan"

Last night tottered allllll the way back up to Star city in Birmingham (the finest cinema in the UK thanks to gold class), to catch the opening of "The Chronicles Of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".

Firstly, why Gold class is good : Huge big black leather reclining seats, only a handful of people per screen, and so expensive the peasants cant get in. On and they serve alcohol at the bar. I say serve, it's more standing and hoping one of the immigrants looking confused at the bottles can at least make out the shape of the words "johnny walker" and doesnt try and give me cocaine with it rather than coke.

Other entertainment in the bar was provided by an absolutely stunning brunette spilling her popcorn everywhere, and looking terribly embarrased and laughing her head off. Turns out it was her first date with this particularly chiselled looking chap. With her looks I doubt he would have minded!

So anyway, the film... terribly religious. I know C. S. Lewis didnt mean it to be about christ but it bloody well is, and it's impossible to ignore. So.. I did sit through plenty of it going "oh no..." each time they did something a bit biblical. Didnt help that I couldnt remember the book that well - long time since I read it. Religious undertones aside (or overtones with how blindingly obvious they are... yayy look at me.. I'm Aslan.. I'm not Christ... honest guv!), it's actually a pretty good film. The story is good, children in it are good actors though Peter's terribly terribly soft posh English accent (Finchley my arse!) gets annoying after a while.

Creature effects and animation is fantastic.. and have to say.. White Witch.. phwwoaar! Well.. at times anyway.. big scary black eyes, real sense of style!

Anyway.. nice family film, bit religious but cant be much harm in that seeing as it's not necessarily a "go on worship me

aaaaaargggh.... a buzzard on my office window sill pecking at the window!!!!!!!!!!!! eeeeeeeeeeek!!

right where was I? Ah yes.. it's not a "go on worship me" story more a case of "start being nice to each other you miserable peasants!". I'm sure family film wise more stuff like that cant be a bad thing. Still, plenty of disfunctional families across the world will park their kids in front of Terminator 3 or something equally explosion ridden and dreadful over the christmas period.











Uncanny isnt it?

Chronicles of Leeland : The Iron, the b*tch and the cardrobe

Tuesday has passed into Wednesday. Cant remember what Wednesdays child was, but if I'm anything to go by today, wednesdays child is frustrated, annoyed and fed up. Normal state for me then!

This morning I was up on time due to conference call with our bods in Singapore. Following that I began an epic struggle with a new shirt, an iron, an ironing board and general getting ready exercise. Firstly there began with the opening of the shirt. Brand new shirt purchased at the weekend from Debenhams made by "Osbourne". Gorgeous material, in a nice shade of pink with a very very tiny white check pattern to it. Complimented very nicely today with a black tie.

Osbourne, whilst being fine shirt makers using excellent materials, appear to use mad blind "stuffers" for their packing. Upon removing the shirt from its package, only the front and part of back was relatively crease free. The arms, sides and the rest of the shirt closely resembled a map of tributaries and rivers of the Amazon jungle. So, had to resort to ironing.

I'd like to complain about the design of ironing boards. Firstly, why are they never quiet when released? Secondly why, when released do they always hit or catch something, no matter how careful you are? So after a fierce epic battle (complete with star trek fight music, picture some guy fighting an ironing board in the middle of a small stone circle!) I finally managed to assemble said ironing board.

Now we move onto the iron itself. Never, have I encountered an iron that actually works. I've used many irons over the years, some of which I purchased at both great, and not so great expense. There have been feeble travel irons in hotels, massively expensive complicated ones which allegedly are able to iron things just by showing it to the clothes, and average irons in other peoples homes. All irons in the world do one or several of the following:

1. Leak water the whole time like an incontinent pensioner
2. Switch themselves off half way through attacking a violent crease
3. Somehow create new creases in the wake of old ones
4. Fail to remove any creases but make the item of clothing extremely hot
5. Drop bits of limescale all over the clothes and then sear them into the fabric creating unpleasant stains
6. Not actually get rid of any creases whatsoever, or generate enough steam to do anything with the clothing.
7. Gets so hot it removes the creases on one side of the clothing, only to iron in brand new ones on the other side (particularly when dealing with shirt sleeves!).

Nemesis!

Somebody design an iron that works please.. im developing a terrible nervous tick over them from seeing new creases appear in something which had already taken an age to iron.

So, after about 20 minutes of ironing the same shirt I finally get ready, only to discover I cant find my wallet, or my swipe card for the offices, or my overcoat. Rumage around everywhere and then realise I've left it in the car. Opening the car I find a jumper I've been looking for, a pair of jeans, and some socks. I really need to get moved soon.. life in bags has turned to life in bags, in a car.

My drive into work was okay. I pulled over briefly and took some pretty photos of the landscape near the village..

The b*tch in the title refers to the fact that im fast losing my temper with a number of people here who are making my life a misery by not doing their jobs properly. This one person in particular has failled to manage a project properly, and due to increasing problems im losing a lot of vital resources I needed to meet deadlines to some f*ck up. not a happy bunny.

Tuesday

and with full force today...

This morning I was so late getting up I decided to work from home - it appears the charger for my useless mobile phone gave up the ghost at some stage during the night, leaving phone with flat battery and thus unable to wake me with alarms this morning.

So, I woke up at 9:30, and considering how long it takes me to go from trogolodite to presentable captain of industry there wasnt much chance of me making it into the office. So decided to "work from bed".

Reached over, grabbed laptop, fired it up only to have its battery go from full to nothing in 20 minutes flat. Arse.

So had to get up and bumble around for a bit, made myself half decent, staggered out to the car, drove to work. On the roundabout outside the offices I got carved up by some stupid old woman in a Seat Ibiza, which caused me to veer right quite fiercely. Unfortunately fiercely enough to clip the edge of the roundabout. Luckily all I can see is a tiny scratch on the alloy which should buff out with Autoglym wheel restorer... I'll probably have discarded a weight in the process..

So off to a great start. I'm starting to feel increasingly like my bosses "assistant", rather than the company's new Global Solutions Manager which is my official role... all I get is hand down stuff to do, and then when I use some initiative and start pursuing what I've decided is the right thing to do.. all I get is "mate.. you need to learn company culture" and I get this big conversation about being a wet behind the ears happy go lucky scamp.

TV Show Idea #2

Number 1 was "eggs factor" by the way..

What about a proper British version of "Crime Scene Investigation : Las Vegas"? Something which epitomises the British people and the scale of crime on our fair isle? "Library Fraud Investigation : Droitwich". A thrilling edge of the seat drama in which Detective Inspector Ronald McMadeupname (John Nettles, Bergerac) works with his crack team of book stampers (comprising Charles Kennedy, leader of the Lib-Dems, Abi Titmus and Hamburglar) to identify the causes of missing and unreturned library books. Lots of those zoomy moody music scenes where people investigate things, only whereas in CSI they operate complicated graphical displays on computers, perform interesting chemical experiments and autopsies, in LFI they just go through ledgers, operate ancient green screen displays, and make cups of tea?

Library Fraud Investigation : Droitwich "will they solve the late books pile in time...." gripping drama!

Sure fire hit.. and if it wasnt going anywhere or getting boring you just get Abi Titmus to laugh and show off her cleavage, stick her in Burberry and you've instantly got 50% of the UK's population ages 13-19. Could also lead to our unemployed chav's going and hanging around in libraries and (godforbid) learning something and getting jobs... instead of having poor working gits like me funding their dreadful collections of designer clothing with their f*cking unemployment benefits.. sorry.. bit of a nerve there.

Must go have a bit of rest. Calm thoughts... calm thoughts...

The Weeeeeeeeekend

At last I am no longer a vagrant... well at least 4 days of vagrancy to continue, but as of Friday/Saturday I have a home!

So I'm moving to a very nice part of the world called Stony Stratford, to a big house which a friend at work is letting from another friend at work who is moving to Boston with her hubby. Things will need to be moved about etc. The process of collecting stuff and moving about is heartbreaking though, revisits to what has been "home" for years and now it all feels kind of alien.. and my existence in the house is dissapearing slowly. Even the cats have forgotten me! :(

No arguments are being had about posessions though which I'm thankful for, but I think we know between us what's what etc. So it should be a painless process from that point of view. It's still tough moving it all though. I'll miss our little home up t'north.

I've occupied my time pretty well for the weekend though, I have to keep msyelf busy to stop from thinking about things and getting depressed. Yesterday tried to do some xmas shopping, but failled miserably and only managed to get one thing for me, and one thing for somebody else. I bumped into a work colleague at work though and had a coffee with her in Ottakars, that was after having had a coffee in there by myself earlier in the day - so had far too much coffee yesterday. Watched Madagascar last night, if you've not seen it, it's actually hilarious.. if not just for King Julian and the Penguins..

Today I've been up t'north to collect bits from house, including the hard top for my car. Winter is setting in and that plastic rear screen and the cold weather is beginning to get annoying. M'colleague joined me for moral support and lifting power for getting the roof on. Both were much appreciated!

Rest of the evening will be spent watching telly I imagine... oh the mad rollercoaster which is my life!

Pointless!!

Today I had to drive down to Feltham (basically Heathrow airport) for a meeting at Cisco's UK headquarters.

Wandering out of the house bleary eyed and cold, grumpy as well for seemingly no reason (especially no reason because yesterday turned into a pretty good day, negating "residual grump"). The skies over the village were shockingly apocalyptic which didnt bode well.. and the drive down there was suitable filled with doom as well.

The meeting I was there for was absolutely pointless. I answered one question, updated a powerpoint presentation, and then drove back to Milton Keynes again. Only problem being the drive back to an age due to Friday afternoon traffic on London's orbital road-to-hell the M25.

I'm hoping my weekend goes somewhat better but I have absolutely no plans for tonight... at all. Oh the excitement!

The Apocalypse looms over the village

More looming of "end of the world" skies over Luton

40 Minutes to get from here...

... to here