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.
Well I had a good Christmas. I spent Christmas Day and Boxing Day in Portsmouth with Andrea, then drove up to Preston to visit my Grandmother. I then continued up to Cumbria to with my parents and sister. I also managed to get out for a drink with Andrea’s sister. The drive home was quite good too – six hours isn’t bad for Cumbria (over a ice fell) to Portsmouth; the roads were practically empty.
Anyhow the highlights of my Christmas were:
I’m currently enjoying a quiet evening on the sofa (internet access thanks to the wireless router I’ve got) watching a Bond file (Die Another Day; the one with Hale Berry and the Ice Palace)
Hope everyone else’s Christmas and New Year was as good as mine and that the return to work isn’t too painful
Well everyone’s noticed the recent cold spell of weather. I’ve been fortunate to aquire a thicker cycling top from one of the guys I work with as my current long sleeved cycling jersey isn’t quite man enough for these temperatures. Another key factor in cycling comfort is a decent pair of gloves, which I have. I’m on the verge of wearing two pairs of socks in the morning as my toes take quite a while to warm up once I get to work.
All this preparation (the lights, the warmer clothes etc.) never quite prepares you for some things. Once in a while you ride along, looking at the traffic thinking …..
‘you lucky, lucky people, sat there in your cars with the breakfast show on the radio and your heaters on full power’
This thought did occur to me tonight, as cycling home I was engulfed in a hail storm. My old list of most hated weather for cycling went 1-Head-Winds, 2-Rain, 3-Cold. I can safely say that hail has now taken the top spot. My only consolation for this was the fact that (as ever when it rains) the traffic on the M27 was going very, very slowly. This added to the fact that on the way in this morning I passed a car that then didn’t re-pass me until 3 miles later. I’m guessing I got home quicker than I would have done by car.
Well it looks like it’s going to be a long week. Having worked an 11 hour day yesterday due to a conference call to the states extending my day in work you can imagine how happy I was with the head wind on the way back, especially after returning to my bike to find a flat front tyre.
I’ve just replaced the rear tyre after finding the bit of glass embedded in my wheel that caused the recent spate of punctures. I think this one is a dodgy valve though. I bought a foot pump recently (as opposed to the mini-pump I carry with me in case of disasters) so I’m getting used to fully inflated (100psi) tyres, one of the bad things about a road bike is small bumps on properly inflated tyres hurt so imagine what kerbs are like.
I’m sat at work at the moment relishing the thought of another ride home with a 30mph head wind for 5 of the 7 miles. Yay. But to be fair I am still enjoying cycling in. I’m getting quicker too…….I think as I have yet to get a cycle computer and I can never remember the exact time when I set off. I have bought a nice big bike light though – complete with lead acid battery (I decided I’d rather pay, unlike some people)
I bought a car, a peugueot 106. Recently doesn’t appear to be a good time to own a car. Fuel prices rocketed by about 5p/ltr in less than a week. On a related topic I heard the organiser of the ‘go slow’ protests today on the radio. He said “I think most people are behind us”, that’ll be the big queue of cars he’s talking about or the population at large.
I was listening to the radio as I was on my way to pick up a new breadmaker from the DHL depot. The previous one broke so I phoned Morphey Richards to try to get it fixed but the sent me a new one and I don’t even have to send the old (broken) one back.
I had all this free time as I’m about to finish my 2nd week of holiday. Back to work soon, Sniff
I now own a car. Sort of. I haven’t paid for it or collected it yet but I’ve won the ebay auction so I only need to sort out insurance and money.
It’s a 2001 X-Reg Peugeot 106 1.1. Not the most desirable car in the world but good enough. I can cancel the hire-car I booked and use this one to go on holiday to Cornwall now.
Well, rain has certainly been a major feature of a few events recently.
I went to Silverstone on Saturday to see the Le Mans Endurance Series under the hospitality of a company called AD Holdings. It was really good fun, just like all those hospitality tents at F1 races, it was really good to get to wander round the paddock. The noise the cars make is amazing too. We did get a little wet though, so we trotted off back to the hospitality tent to have a few nice hot cups of coffee. I also took some pictures
Rain once again looks like it’s going to have an impact on my day today. Cycling in was a bit damp; I got half way across a flooded road and the water had reached my shoes – oops. I got in to work to discover the lab has flooded and there’s half an inch of water in some places. Today could be a good day to catch up on documentation.
A few things may be due to change as I’m getting fed up of them. Dial-up is one of these, I admit it’s not a big thing but it won’t be much more expensive to get an ADSL connection and it would be much better. Hopefully I’ll get round to getting a new TV at some point because the current one does actually need replacing, that can wait though.
I have, as many will know because I’ve moaned at them about it, got fed up with not having a car. Getting in to work, doing shopping and all the everyday stuff is fine; I’ve got a bike, no problems. Doing stuff like getting to Budleigh Salterton to go on tour (4 hours on the train and I still needed a lift in a car to get there within 5 hours), or going on company jollies (having to cadge lifts to get there at all) is starting to irritate me. Hiring a car wouldn’t be cheaper. The only option other than owning a car is to continue scrounging lifts.
Here in lies the problem. I could manage without a car, and certainly when you consider how much it would cost per day it got used everything starts to get silly. But at the same time it would drastically increase the number of things I could easily do (I cite washing machines as an example of this, a desperate measure I’m sure you’ll agree).
Apologies for the moany post. More soon very possibly.
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