Arcoarena

Ok, so it’s been two months since I last wrote anything. Does that mean I’ve been busy? Probably not.

[thumb:42:l] I have got up to a few things. We went to Lille via Eurostar thanks to Andrea’s parents. The main image I have of Lille however is not quite typical as you can see. A little odd I think you’ll agree.[thumb:50:r] In fact going to Lille was further confused by turning up at the end of a Bollywood festival whilst all the Christmas fairs and big wheels etc. were still up and running. It’s a nice city though.

Most of my time has involved decorating the living room, very slowly. As you may know my living room has been painted a sickly blue colour. Not only is this not a very nice colour it doesn’t help reflect the light in what is a very dark room. This being the case I’ve vowed to not have the walls the same colour for the anniversary of us buying the house (I’ve got ’till May so I should make it ). Whist I’m at it we’ve had the ceiling re-skimmed (to get rid of the horrible artex pattern), got rid of the gas fire (we’ve bought a cast iron solid-fuel fire to install but I’ve got to read the building regs before I do that), and the borrowed light (a window between the kitchen and the lounge to let more light in) have been replaced with glass blocks. You may notice that despite my couple of weeks of effort only one of those is in the past tense. I got distracted having to make a stand for a mannequin for Andrea’s shop (but at least it was an excuse to buy a router).

I’ve also been doing more theatre stuff. I helped out with a production of ‘Bent‘ (although actually to be fair I was probably a little useless for that one. I’m going to watch HumDrum’s production of Habeas Corpus.

The reason I’m writing this random selection of snippets of the past few months is that I’m currently officially ’sick’ as I’ve just had all four wisdom teeth removed. Thankfully I was asleep for the whole thing and oddly it doesn’t hurt that much. When you mention it to anyone beforehand it generally involves a sharp intake of breath and the impression that you will be writhing round in agony with a face like the Elephant man for at least a week. The reality is some what less in my case. I even got a few things done that have been piling up for a while. And I’ve got all my food cooked for me (that would be a bonus if it didn’t hurt to eat)

So what am I doing in the near future? Well I’m off to Cornwall for a week at the end of March (thanks to Andrea’s parents - again). Things are looking to be quite busy at work and at some point I might finish the living room.

Well, myself and Andrea are now proud owners of a 2-bed terraced house in Southsea. It’s a little odd moving from a rented flat to a house with a mortgage (I logged on to my internet banking to see a new Mortgage section with a huge negative number by it).

Having exchanged contracts, completed and moved over the weekend all the worries about things going wrong or being delayed (and having to find somewhere to live as our tenancy on the flat runs out this week) disappear. In their place are a whole new set of worries like, ‘is that damp’ and how on earth to get the washing maching out of the front room and into its rightful place. Sunday morning was filled with removing doorhandles, doors, washing machines, and part of the kitchen cabinets in order to get the washing machine to the rear of the house where it can actually be used.

It’s nice to have a place where you can actually consider making changes, the downside of this was an expensive trip to B&Q and the promise of many more to come.

Anyhow, all that DIY will give me something to do in the evenings. The other surprising outcome of all this is the clock on the living room wall. I’ve owned that clock for almost a year and a half now and it’s been attached to the wall of both of the flats that we lived in since we moved down to Portsmouth. For the first time on Saturday I actually heard it ticking. Hurrah for lack of road noise.

Well, everything seems to be going quite quickly now. I’ve just transferred a horribly large amount of money to the solicitors. All the searches have come back with nothing scary to report.

We’ve agreed a date for completion in just two and a bit weeks time.
Better start packing.

Well my throw-away comment in my last post of ‘oh and I might buy a house’ appears to have come true. I’ve had an offer accepted for a 2-bed terraced house just round the corner. The mortgage is now sorted (a lot easier than one would expect) and the solicitors have been instructed (a lot slower than expected). So all that’s left is to read everything that gets sent to me, sign it and return it to the appropriate place.

The survey is happening tomorrow so barring any major issues the difficult bits should be over (I hope). I hope I’ve got past the awkard bit now, I really don’t like the fact that houses don’t have a fixed price and that the price indicated is generally higher than the final selling price. It’s also a bit rubbish that there’s a good 2 months worth of solicitors messing around with searches and god knows what else before the sale is even legally binding, let alone being able to move in.

I am looking forward to a few things that will hopefully make all this hassle worth it. I quite like the idea of having a second bedroom so that any visitors don’t have to sleep on the floor. Having central heating will be good too. Both our current flat and the previous one had electric heaters, they’re expensive and rubbish. I’m also looking forward to having a garden in which I can sit out in the cool summer evenings, drinking wine and listening to the radio. We also get a separate dining room rather than a lounge/diner and (as if that weren’t enough to make you explode with excitement) we get stairs, something I haven’t had in my living areas for a few years now.
There are some downsides though. This morning Andrea said “If we’ve moved in by mid-may we could use that holiday we’re taking to do some painting”, somewhere the idea of a week camping in France got squished by the ominous picture of endless trips to B&Q.

Well, I haven’t said much recently. Partly becuase I haven’t got much to say (though I’m not sure that’s stopped me before).

Work’s quite busy, though much regression testing means I’m doing the same bits of testing again and again. It’s a rubbish bit of the project. Nothing new is going to happen, the feature set is fixed. All that’s left is tidying up the mess made by feature creep and various compatability issues between code, hardware enclosures etc. Many bugs but very few challenges unfortunately. I don’t really feel I can talk much about work as it’s all commercial stuff and I don’t want to get fired or anything. Not that any insider knowledge helps predict what will happen to the share price.

As I was saying, not much has happened. I bought some new tyres for my bike (Continental Grand Prix 4000, no less) and I haven’t had a puncture yet. New brake blocks are next and they’re currently making a disturbing metal-on-metal sound and not doing a whole heap of slowing down.

Oh, and I’m thinking of buying a house/flat/cupboard depending upon what I can afford. I’m hoping to look round a few in Southsea this Saturday so we’ll have to see. I guess I’m lucky to be outside London.

Certain organisations appear to struggle with the difference between a block of flats (i.e. the building) and an individual flat within that building. I’m flat 5 of around 20 but the building number in 2. This causes no end of problems in the first place. Two cases in point.

Scottish Power (what the hell is it with me a incompetent electricity companies) was sending mail to “The Occupier, 2 Surrey Street” - yeah, which one of around 30 people could that be then. As it happens it wasn’t me but it took several phone calls to find that out and several more to start sorting out the “missing information” from my details that they didn’t feel like telling me about.

Secondly Royal Mail. Registered post. Unless you live in a house where nobody else has an address even remotely like yours don’t bother. They just delivered a parcel of Presents from Andrea’s parents and just handed it over the the person in Flat 8 - without even telling us! Andrea had to go round to the Post office, spend an hour for them to show her the signature (Their line was “but it’s been delivered, we’ve got a signature” - not either of ours though). Eventually she finds out it was flat 8 -they think. Flat 8 didn’t have it so she had to go round all the other flats trying to retrieve it. We’ve got it back but it was opened (as was one of the presents inside). Not what you’d call an effective service.

Sorry - I’m ranting again. And so close to Christmas. Have a good Christmas for everyone I haven’t said it to already.