Anal Control Freak

Idiots in parks...

2006-06-06T16:57:00.000+01:00

First of all... Take that Black Dog, I am back, fixed and better I hope!

Secondly, time for a rant about unsociable louts...

I was down the park the other day, and stepped on some glass (lukily for me, I had footwear on). Upon further investigation, it turned out that the glass was a whole bottle of Bud, that had been smashed and left for dead in the grass. I'm colour-blind and never had a chance of seeing brown glass on dark green grass, though had I been a child, I wouldn't have been looking where I was going anyway...

I picked up the glass and disposed of it, as I'd expect any reponsible adult would.

It occured to me, that some yob, had decided to spend time in a public space and have a drink. I hope one day that yob has kids (well actually I don't, but that's another matter), and recollects the day he/she/it dropped that smashed empty bottle of lager in the park, and regrets their yobbish behaviour, while considering the possible outcome of their actions for someone else's child.

No children were injured in the writing of this post.

--- Rant Ends ---

Public restrooms

2005-12-05T16:39:00.000Z

Note to the stupid:

If you are going to set the mixer taps in a public restroom to "scorching hot", have the bloody decency to set it to something milder for the next patron, so they don't scald their hands.

Basic common sense really.

P.S. Monthy updates, not quite daily yet, still working on it. :)

Sony UK Marketing can suck my cock.

2005-10-16T18:07:00.000+01:00

You probably won't have guessed from the above subject line, that I consider Sony equipment to be good stuff.

I have all sorts of Sony paraphernalia littered about my house:

2 x Sony Playstation 2
1 x Bigggg ass widescreen TV
1 x Video camera
1 x DVD player
1 x Mobile phone

And those are just the items that pop into my mind here and now. I have been a pretty brand loyal Sony customer over the years. I've owned several Walkmen, untold portable CD players, a portable DAT recorder, three MD players several HiFi separates, video recorders, video edit equipment, mobile phones etc etc blah blah blah this list is too long, but I'm sure you are getting the message...

Anyway you name it if Sony has ever made it, at some point I've probably bought at least one.

The kit itself speaks for itself, I only usually buy quality stuff, and I've never bought Sony because it was Sony, but because it was good gear, that stood out against the competitors in the same (highish) price range.

I have forgiven Sony for their misguided nonsense regarding the whole obsession with Memory Stick and its many inbred, cousin comprised, family members. *1

I have even let them off the hook over the shortsighted stupidity that caused
the Sony collective to stick its head in the sand over the MP3 issue that they refused to acknowledge. Eventually the market moved on, Sony ate a little humble pie and started knocking out MP3 players after Apple won the market with their little white and chrome boxes of MP3 goodness the iPod (and its many non-inbred well branded easily identifiable brethren).

Which makes it all more galling that Sony who occasionally make a crappy decision and seem corporately unwilling to soak up a fuckup, have chosen their current track...

That track being particularly shitty one: Pissing on their customers from a great height, in the name of headlines.

Here's my beef, several months ago, I decided I wanted to buy one of the new slimline PS2s for my bedroom, you know, play a little Tiger Woods before bed time, or watch a movie in bed before sleepy-byes. Could I find one the bloody things in the whole of London? Could I buggery. Why? Well it seemed the reason was that Sony had stopped supplying the retailers with the product, so that when Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas came out, the PS2 slimlines would be flying off the shelves at the same time as the GTA:SA boxes. When I finaly managed to get one, it was the day that GTA:SA came out, the manager at GAME told me he had been asking for skinny PS2s for weeks and he had got 160 that morning!

I'm no media/sales/marking guru, but it seems to me that the reason for this was to get the maximum headlines for the new PS2 with quotes of the "We couldn't keep them on the shelves" kind, all so that Sony could make some sales before the new Xbox 360 comes out*3. So what we are saying here, is that it is OK to piss of the customers if we get some headlines.

Armed with this foreknowledge, I decided not to buy a PSP when it came out, I was buggered if I was going to part with my heard earned to preorder months in advance, nor was I going to fuck about trying to find the one shop that had them in stock on the day. I decided to leave it a while and get one a little later, although I wanted the latest and greatest toy, I have other distractions to keep me going...

So yesterday while I was out, I decided to get DS & Nintendogs for the other half, and to get myself a PSP. Ha! Fat chance. Nintendogs & DS, no problem (and the missis is as happy as can be with the game too), but the PSP? No fucking way!

Some prick at Sony UK HQ decided what was needed was more fucking headlines ("We couldn't keep the PSPs on the shelf!", says Gary Grease-Spot store manager of GAME UK), so after trying about 5 or 6 shops it became clear that no one had any PSPs.

It turns out that the next Grand Theft Auto comes out in a couple of weeks, destined for the PSP. Big FUCKING surprise... So we lucky purchasers who want to buy the product, haven't a hope in hell, as Sony UK stockpiles their PSPs for the release of GTA97: Money for Old Rope, stupid fucks like me can waste their time walking from store to store in the vague hope that someone has them in.

On another note, only one store (HMV, Wood Green) actually had the decency to put up a notice saying they didn't have any in stock. Every other store, Had the big white display box with the screen at the top plyaing the "Buy me, buy me!" loop and the PSP in a perspex enclosure, above the stacks of empty white "PSP Value Pack" boxes. Not a fucking one had any in stock. The Dixons, HMV (Brent Cross), GAME (x2), Sony Centre (x2) and the three independents can all suck my cock too.

But I save my real retailer ire for Toys R Us, those fuckers had signs up at the edge of their carpark saying "Yes we have the PSP in stock!", they had signs on the doors saying "Yes we have the PSP in store right now", they had the big old display box surrounded by plenty of fucking empty PSP value pack boxes. Did they actually have a sodding PSP? Like fuck they did!

These bastards I wouldn't give the steam off my shit! Why fucking compound the problem by openly and aggressively advertising what you plain don't fucking have! Surely trading standards can do something about this... (Note to self.)

Oh and as for HMV Brent Cross thanks for making me wait on Saturday for the PSP reservation hadn't been paid for or collected, so that particular PSP would be available Sunday morning, then telling me it had been collected at 11AM Sunday morning when I went to buy it. I'm glad one of your staff got a discount to buy it, over a customer who had just pulled himself out of bed on a Sunday morning and driven 35 minutes to get there at opening time. Tough luck HMV you just lost a customer for life, I'm not buying from you again. You've just lost a shot at my £2,000/year media budget, no more DVDs, CDs or games from you any more. Welcome to a select list of retailers/manufacturers I never buy from after they have treated me like shit.

After fucking about on eBay for half an hour I managed to find a PSP for sale at a reasonable price, UK spec, with a "Buy It Now" option, I've ended up paying the same as I would anyway, I just have to wait a couple of days.

BTW, look out for jokers in eBay who are selling at vastly inflated prices (£280+) who mention in the small print that you are buying the PSP in advance for when their stock comes in in a week or two! Another shitty trick!

I've committed to buying the PSP now, but I'm going to have to seriously consider whether I'm going to buy any more Sony products after this. I don't like getting fucked about, so some wanker in marketing at Sony HQ can get his headlines in Edge et al, and get his big fat bonus to buy his fast car, big house, trophy wife, house in Essex, coke and whores.

Same goes for all the other companies that hype their product then deliberately limit availability to max out the velocity on their hype-wagon.

In conclusion, I offer that self same marketing wanker at Sony, the opportunity to come around here and suck my cock.

*1 What is the deal with Duo/Magic Gate/Mini/Maxi/Cheesey/Sleepy/Grumpy version of Memory Stick, I mean for Fuck's sake(*2) Sony, please for the love of things wholesome make your sodding solid state memory identifiable will you!

*2 No idea who "Fuck" is but I'll give him/her/it a possessive apostrophe just to be safe.

*3 Which I won't be buying BTW, as all but Halo and Halo 2 have sucked mightily on that platform*4, I bought 7 or 8 games for that platform, and I admit I was burned, Microsoft wouldn't know what gameplay was if it bit their collective arses. Don't get me started on Project Gotham. As a racing obsessive, I welcomed the option to play a game where you were penalised for hitting walls (not rewarded) Of course if there is fuck all street furniture to gauge against for accurate braking prior to corners it becomes somewhat sodding impossible. Bah.

*4 An they got a little tedious at times, yes the flood are boring, and attempts to kill the motherfucking librarian fail.

6 Month Hiatus is up....

2005-10-03T22:36:00.000+01:00

Shocking I know, but it seem like half a year since I last posted... Ah well that would be because it is six months and a day since I posted.

I'm pleased to report that my depression has now worn off, well when I say worn off, I mean I have the occasional bad day, not the occasional good day as per six months ago.

It is largely being maintained with large dosages of SSRIs (I'm at the max dose without specifically being referred to a psychiatrist).

Add to that, that once more I have changed jobs... Yes who would have believed it, me change job. Job tart that I am! This time I'm working for another investment bank (shock horror) only this one is not trying to suck the life out of me. The job is great, the colleagues are great, the project is great, the technology is great, I've managed to get a mate employed starting later this month (which is great). In fact all things considered this is a great job. (Did I mention this previously?)

The stress of buying a house has worn off, life has become normal again.

Oh and I have a girlfriend, and she is cracking, the absolute antithesis of all my exes.

On the whole things are looking good. I shall endevour to start posting once more, and fill you in on the events of the last six months.

Sorry

2005-04-01T10:35:00.000+01:00

Sorry, crushing depression lead to increased dosage of meds, increased dosage of meds seems to have made me apathetic to everything. It's taken a week to generate the effort to tell you this much.

I will be back, but who knows when? I certainly don't.

Sorry once more.

The Siren is mental, an example.

2005-03-07T12:32:00.000Z

Only four days until Intarwebnet service resumes at home and counting... Normal posting soon!

So, over the weekend I had Angel and Murray once more.

When I went to pick them up, Siren requested some money to fix a problem she has.

The problem is that she used to take my stuff (way back when we were living together) and put it in the loft of our home whenever she felt like it. If she couldn't see it, it couldn't offend her, and my stuff seemed generally offended her. The end result was that when we split up, an awful*1 lot of my stuff ended up being left in the loft.

Over the years, when I have dropped by to pick up the kids, she has mentioned that she will be "clearing out the loft", and I have told her that when she does, I'll happily come and collect my stuff. Obviously, this was wishful thinking on her part, as it never came to pass.

We now come to an interesting impasse. She has swapped residence with someone, and that someone wants the stuff taken out of the house. Not an unreasonable request. Siren wants me to foot half the bill for getting the stuff out . An unreasonable request.

The way I see it (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here), is that she put this stuff up there, so she can bloody well take it down. I have offered on several occasions to dispose of this miscellany, and I have not been taken up on the offer. And frankly, to be brutally honest, I've managed to live without this stuff for nearly three years now, so I can safely say that it is all stuff I can live without. I'm sure there are some gems in there, but the way she used to fling things in there would mean that it would actually dangerous to get the stuff out again.

Obviously Siren (unused to being told no by me), got pissed off and told the kids to get a move on and to step out quickly, as she wanted to lock the door behind me!

Fast forward 48 hours, and I drop the kids off, due to the presence of a visitor at the Siren's place, a thin veneer of conviviality covers the clear resentment of the 'no' delivered two days previously. In fact the Siren is so quick to close the door in my face, the Angel has to open the door once more to kiss me good bye.

Yes, it's true, the Siren is still pissed at being told no, but it doesn't end there, oh no, that would be too easy...

Not more that 15 minutes later I get a phone call from the Siren. It seems that Murray was uncomfortable sleeping in the fold-out guest bed, but rather than tell me directly, has told his mother and then claimed he had informed me of his discomfort... Not so.

A couple of minutes of conversation later, I have explained the situation, all the while being told to not be so aggressive, whilst my parenting skills are called into question, by possibly one of the worst parents on Earth.*2 And all the while the mentalist is telling me she doesn't get involved in my parenting of the kids... Do you see the contradiction? I do. Does the concept of 'in loco parentis' mean bugger all to the woman? I'm not Murray's parent, but in her absence I take on that mantle!

The real problem of course is that Murray didn't want to eat dinner with the rest of the family, he had been snacking (a thing he has been repeatedly told not to do) and so was not hungry when meal time arrived. However, my rule is law in our home, and he ate anyway with the rest of us. Meal times are social times in my home, and I won't have everyone raiding the fridge whenever they are hungry, we sit down to eat as a family, and we sit at the table to do it.

So what does Murray do? Does he complain to me about it? No, because he is in the wrong and he knows it. So, he complains to his mother about something else, knowing that she is pissed off at me already (he knew something was wrong after our quick eviction from the Siren's house Friday evening), and she gets on my case about something utterly unrelated, completely new to me, and of course indefensible because I'm being hijacked without warning, and of course because he knows his mother is a ranting loon once she gets going.

Is the story over? Hell no! Not by a long shot...

When Sandy and I get home a little later, Angel's hat and school book bag (containing her homework) are on prominent display, so I have to jump in the car and drop them off in time for school this morning.

So an hour after I have dropped the kids off, I am once more at the Siren's front door. Angel comes to the door to collect her stuff, and Murray makes an appearance saying that the Siren has commanded an audience. To which my reply is to tell her that I'm at the door. (I reason that an argument is most likely coming, and I want to be on as neutral a territory as possible, and be able to make a quick getaway.)

The Siren makes her entrance. The guest is no longer present, so now the veneer is gone, the gloves are off and she is ready to rumble!

Now I must do some scene setting, a little background for you all:

Angel is dangerously allergic to a number of things (her little mastocytes are ready to go at a moment's notice), she suffers with eczema and with asthma. Angel is not unusual, this is after all London, with its many crappy forms of pollution.

Over the years her skin condition and her breathing have deteriorated, and I am medicating the child four times a day and rehydrating her skin with aqueous cream two to three times a day. Even through all of this though, the child is still a gloriously happy bunny.

I am reasonably certain that this degradation in my child's health, is result of the Siren using too many cleaning products too efficiently, and as a result my daughter's immune system is systematically attacking her own body, for want of anything better to attack. When I was a kid, and I suppose this holds true for my whole generation, all these modern anti-bacterial cleaning products were not available, we used soap not anti-bacterial hand wash and our parents used bleach/washing up liquid to clean, not anti-bacterial washing up liquid, and ultrafuckoffbleach, etc., etc...

Siren is trying to clean away the problem, but she is making it worse. I firmly believe that Angel's immune system needs to be exposed to dirt with its many microbes, bacteria and virii. Only though this exposure will her immune system learn what to attack, other than its host body. I have tried to explain this to the Siren several times over the years, but horses and water and all that...

Before the Siren an I split up, tests were performed on Angel to determine what she was allergic to. Blood was taken and antigens were found which indicated what foods she was at risk of having a fatal reaction to. So both the Siren and I could safely make sure that she is not fed anything containing potentially dangerous foodstuffs. In Angel's case: fish, nuts or sesame.

Further, as a precaution, when Angel is with me, I carry her inhalers (for asthmatic episodes), Piriton (for minor allergic episodes), and a paediatric Epipen (a device for delivering adrenaline into the blood stream intramuscularly during a serious allergic reaction, thankfully not used to date).

Now that the background material is over with, I'll tell you that Siren decided to take Angel to see a Chinese Herbalist (yes the same sort of person that sells extract of pearl in order to balance your Chi!) and they sent some of Angel's hair away for analysis to see what she was 'intolerant'*3 to.

As you may have guessed, I'm more of a Western Medicine kind of guy. I don't see it as a panacea for all things. But peer review, blind testing, controlled studies, and the Hippocratic Oath, which underpin the science and practice of Western Medicine hold a lot more weight for me than paying for:

a shaman to cast some bones,
a voodoo priestess to invoke Papa Legba,
a wizened old Chinese guy and some dried herbs. (delete as appropriate)

chase away my demons,
curse my enemies or remove their curses,
balance my Chi. (delete as appropriate)

Anyhoo, it seems that Angel is 'intolerant' to all dairy products, wheat based products and bananas (as well as allergic to fish, nuts and sesame).

All this was passed onto me by Angel, not the Siren. As I'm sure you are guessing from my general tone, I took no notice. If the Siren wants to give her cash (possibly my cash in the form of the child support payments, who knows?) to a Chinese herbalist quack, and seriously expect a six-year-old to pass on the salient details to me, and for me to actuallylisten to this crap, take note, and change my daughter's diet to fucking filtered water and lettuce leaves (which is frankly about all the poor girl would have left to eat and drink (assuming the filtering process didn't leave zinc in the water I presume!)), then she is frankly quite mistaken.

Just for the record her eczema was particularly bad when Angel came to me, and I had to be particularly vigilant to stop her scratching (my sports socks on her hands and lower arms, in order to stop her scratching in her sleep) and I had to apply the aqueous cream to her skin practically every three hours or so to stop her skin drying up and cracking.

Oh yeah! The Siren's new treatment regimen is working an absolute treat!

As a result, Angel ate normally this weekend, without any of the actually life threateningly dangerous food stuffs anywhere near her meals, but the rest of this tortuous crap, ignored.

Not good enough for the Siren though, no! Remember she's pissed off at being told no, only 49 hours previously.

I have to stand on the doorstep and listen to the rabid woman repeat her point of view several times, each time not actually listening to my response*4. Then she goes off into a fugue state about me 'undermining' her with the children. (Note to the wise: if your wife*5 is as dumb as a box of rocks, do not let her anywhere near a child psychology course to pass her bored-housewife time, she won't understand it (in fact you'll end up knowing all about it, in order to help her with her fucking course work, go on ask me about first year first year degree-level Philosophy and Caribbean Studies too!), but she will sure as hell know how to drop in the occasional misplaced word into conversation, thinking that it makes her position unassailable.)

Again, not used to being told no by me, she was somewhat dumbstruck, when I just stopped her during mid-rant and told her that ranting at me with a raised voice, while not actually listening to what I was saying, in front of the kids was doing them no good, and as such I was leaving. I was angry, but there was no way I was having a screaming match at her in front of the children. Again, I think my credibility as a decent parent remains unscathed.

And all because a revisionist lunatic expects me to foot the bill for stuff she hid from me to be removed from a place she used to live in!

You have to laugh (well I do anyway). C'est la vie!

*1 Like a couple of thousand books for example, that fact that I was a voracious reader really offended for some reason. Go figure.
*2 Excluding addicts, paedophiles and all other 'bloody obvious' categories, this is a hyperbolic statement after all.
*3 Intolerant not allergic, so yet another bullshit 'take the money of the stupid middle class person who needs something other than religion to believe in, now that religion is so passé' concept.
*4 Give me a bit of letter headed paper, so that I can see the qualifications for myself, with the definitive list of dangerous foods on it. And if the qualification pans out, I'll exclude the foods from her diet. Not an outrageous position to take, I hope.
*5 She was my wife then, she's not now thank the baby Jesus!

Must try harder...

2005-03-04T10:39:00.000Z

I know I have been absent for a while, but I'll clue you in on a few things...

I have no Interwebnet connection at home yet. :( Only a week to go! :)
I'm pretty much renovating large parts of my new home. :(
I'm physically exhausted all the time.
I'm mentally exhausted all the time.
I'm emotionally exhausted all the time.
I'm having one of my work-related self destructive episodes. (again)
The end is in sight.

I'll come back when I can. Toodles!

An explanation for Sandy's freak out.

2005-02-20T22:37:00.000Z

Well more work has been done on the new home (see here), and everyone is working themselves into an exhaustion. I'm really looking forward to just a full day's work tomorrow.

Sandy and I have had our 'chat', and it turns out that her bad day was a complete and utter nightmare of a day. It seems that she and her ex have not quite parted ways completely, as she still has some of his stuff in her storage locker and he still has some of her stuff in his mother's place.

Since she hadn't talked to him for over a week, he threw his dummy out of the pram, and texted her to tell her to get her stuff out of his mother's house.

When Sandy turned up, he asked for a private word, then promptly gave her a valentines day card.

To whit her reply was, “Thanks, I'm flattered, but you know it's over right?”.

He then gave her a diamond ring, to whit the replay was, “WTF??!?!??!??!” (Or similar).

Then he announced that he had booked her an appointment at a fertility specialist for a check-up, reasoning that she should be in tip-top condition if they were going to have kids!

At this point Sandy was just a tad (OK, abso-fucking-lutely) freaked out by the whole thing, and asked him what on Earth he thought he was doing, going through her private papers, and making appointments with her doctor!

In a reversion to typical form... her ex then kicked off like a 3-year old being refused chocolate by his mother at the newsagents, threw her stuff out of the window at his mother's place and started shouting and screaming. (A point of high irony here: only moments before he had promised to keep his temper in check, and to stop acting like a 3-year old with ADHD!)

I understand why she was in a state, I'm not a woman, or even particualy good at empathy for a bloke, but even I can empathise with the sense of violation she must have felt being put in that spot by the idiot ex, especially reading through her private papers.

The final result is that Sandy has agreed to move in with me (as a friend, not as a partner, or at least as a partner on a trial basis or something, who knows...)

She has also promised not to dwell on things until they drive her mad in a corrosive downward spiral.

Sandy arrives & the Monday freak out explained.

2005-02-20T02:30:00.000Z

Finally spoke to Sandy today on the phone, seems she wasn't expecting me to say what I said in the email. More importantly, she said she is not good at phone calls in stressful situations, and to this end there were an awful lot of pregnant pauses in the conversation, this explained the evasion on the phone thing. In the end I convinced her to come on over and we would have a face to face chat when she got to the new house. There has been so much going on today with the whole decorating thing, it has been mad, read more here.

Sandy and I didn't have an 'important' conversation as such, but we did sort things out in a 'for now' kind of way, when we are not both totally exhausted (she chipped in with the whole decorating thing like a trooper), we'll have a proper conversation and sort out what ever worries she's having.

Jenny was glad that Sandy had turned up, as me stressing about Sandy was making her stressed out too. (It's not too good being told you are giving off such a stressed vibe, that you are making the people around you want to cry! Eeek!)

The Jenny has landed!

2005-02-19T02:17:00.000Z

Jenny arrived for a fun weekend of decorating debauchery this afternoon. We have had a whirlwind tour of all the home decoration/furnishing within range. Hence my update at this late hour! More can be read here.

Earlier in the day I got an email from Sandy congratulating me on the house purchase, and listing a whole heap of worries that she has. I tried to call her (a bazillion times, I've been fretting, and I lost my shit), and in the end realised that she just doesn't want to talk to me. So I sent her an email response, saying that I wanted to talk to her, but clearly she didn't want to talk to me, I also answered each of her points in her email. I also asked her to stop stressing about the future, one of the things I learnt from Veronica all that time back (I do wonder how she is doing some times), and told her that worrying about the future/possible future pain also stops you being happy in the now, and pretty much guarantees you can't be happy in the future.

Finally, I texted her to ask her to at least read the email.

I got an text this evening saying she was 'out and about', but that she would read the email when she was able to this evening.

Pub.

2005-02-18T00:34:00.000Z

I tried to speak to Sandy a few times today, but no joy was had. I'm pretty sure she is just not answering her phone to me. Now the paranoia is really getting going!

On a more positive note, I went to the pub with Dermot and Phil this evening an a had a great time trying to guilt trip them into coming to my new home this weekend and helping out at the painting party. Phil is out of town at a gig in Reading, so will be unable to attend, but did say he would be happy to help out in the evenings for the rest of the week. Dermot is however available, but made it quite clear he would rather die than turn up and paint my house for me! Obviously I laid it on thick for him, and we shall see this weekend if it did me any good.

Just in case I came across as a manipulative bastard, this is the nature of the relationship between Dermot and I, we both bitch and complain when asked to do anything, but we help each other out in the end, what else are mates for? :)

Anti-climactic...

2005-02-17T01:07:00.000Z

Read all about the first night shenanigans here!

I'm, still freaking about Sandy, I'm still being avoided, but I have to get on and cope with other stuff right now.

House!

2005-02-16T12:06:00.000Z

The house has landed! The house has finally arrived, it now belongs to me.

Worried.

2005-02-15T23:55:00.000Z

Today I have been worrying about Sandy, she's not answering the phone, and my natural paranoid state is asserting itself, I'm starting to think that the reason she was crying outside a doctor's surgery is because she is sick, or he had been beaten up, or, or ,or, etc...

In other news, I sent out an e-mail, requesting that just about everyone I have ever met, turn up this weekend and help out with the painting party. I will be supplying food and drink. And all comers will be removed from 'The List'. The list being my imaginary list of people to seek revenge of one day, one of my comedy basics is telling people they are on the list for any slight (and often imaginary) contravention. So this would be an ideal way of buying themselves an amnesty. :)

Sandy...

2005-02-14T23:02:00.000Z

Well Sandy didn't turn up. Things have been a tad hectic of recent and as a result I have been unable to update so often, and I haven't got time to read though my recent posts to find out what I have told you... So let me fill you in a on a little background. Sandy used to live with a bloke who was an astounding shit of a man. So big a shit in fact, that he just stopped paying their rent for several months (She paid the bills, he paid the rent was the arrangement), and she didn't know about the missed payments until the land lord came around after three months and asked for his cash!

Thus she was evicted, and her shit of an ex-partner pissed off to his mother's place and left Sandy in the shit, holding the can with his debt. Since then, she has been staying at friends' places or on her father's sofa. Being the principled type she is, she is paying back the money to the landlord for the missing rent before she tried to save up for a place of her own.

So why am I telling you this? I said to Sandy, that as a 'friend' she could move in with me, until she found herself in a more stable position. I explained that I was not asking her to 'move in' with me, we have after all, only been an item for a couple of months, so that would be pretty hyper-accelerated in terms of relationship movement. I also said that when she moved out, it would not be a step backwards in our relationship, but more a step backwards to something more in tune of where we should be.

End result: Sandy has been freaking out about this ever since, we have discussed it a few times, but it is all very complicated. Obviously! Isn't life complicated?

Anyway, earlier today. I spoke to sandy, she was clearly stressed, she said she was sat outside her doctor's office. Being me, I told her to head on over, and that I would look after her. At the end of the conversation she burst into tears, then said she was going to be OK, said goodbye and hung up.

Back to this evening, I had lots of running around to do this evening and was really disappointed when Sandy texted me to say she was not coming. She offered no explanation, other than to say she had had a bad day, needed to do some thinking, and not to worry.

Her Valentine's Day card and prezzie will wait.

Happy birthday to me!

2005-02-13T23:04:00.000Z

What a great day today has been.

I had a lay in (almost).

Sandy arrived, and I got to introduce her to the kids. I was a bit worried about this, but Murray thinks she is great because she can kick his ass at Tekken, and Angel thinks she is great because she is a girl like her, and she is daddy's girlfriend so she must be great. That was a relief!

I then I cooked up a huge lamb roast for us all. And I got to experiment with cooking marrow of all things. I used to love marrow as a kid, and I haven't had it in years. When I saw it in the supermarket, I thought it would be a wonderful little birthday treat for me.

While I was finishing up on the cooking and serving the food, the rest of the gang popped off to the supermarket (because we were out of Diet Coke, wink wink), and would you believe it, when the main course was finished, the kids and Sandy disappeared for a while, and came back with a big chocolate birthday cake. (I did a very good impression of a very surprised person!) Unfortunately, there was an accurate number of candles on the top of the cake, so the smoke alarm went off! :)

We then went for a walk in the park. Which was a very (very very) bad plan on my part, as it was already cold, but factoring in the wind chill, it turned out to be about -6 Degrees Kelvin!*

I also got my paintings back from the Siren. (Yay!)

After I dropped of the kids to their new home, I went back to Sandy, who was already waiting in bed to give me another birthday prezzie! :)

And I have just got back from the Waterloo, having dropped her off, since she has to babysit for her cousin this evening.

With any luck she will be back tomorrow, assuming nothing unexpected comes up.

All in all a good day, I'd say.

* Yes, I know this is technically impossible, it was a humourous aside.

A Change in the Fundamental Behaviour of the Universe

2005-02-13T10:28:00.000Z

Although today is my birthday, there has been a strange twisting in the space-time continuum.

I have looked long and hard at my instrument readings (which may have looked a lot like me surfing this Intar-web-net-thing), and the only noticeable difference (apart from six missing charmed quarks about half an astronomical unit or so from Alpha Centauri) is that I have miraculously become only 25 once again... Sweet!

Happy birthday to me.

Disney paint?

2005-02-12T22:42:00.000Z

Where will the marketing crossovers end?

Whilst in B&Q today looking for colour charts with which to choose the decoration for my new home, I was allowing Angel to choose the colour scheme for her new bedroom...

I was expecting some sort of Disneyesque pink and purple arrangement, what I got was an actual licensed Disney Pink and Purple arrangement! Where will it end?

I mean, licensed toys for McMeals... fair enough that's understandable, but using pester power to sell paint?

Something is wrong with the West, marketing has officially gone mad. We as a culture, have lost our way. This is societal apocalypse! I'm crying for our future.

White lies?

2005-02-11T22:46:00.000Z

I picked up the kids this evening, and lied to the Siren.

I let her know I would be moving house shortly. She asked if I had bought the house I'm moving in to. I told her that I was renting it.

It's none of her business, and the way I see it, is she doesn't think I'm spending cash (which in her head is rightly hers no doubt), then she can't get upset about my expenditure.

But the question remains.. am I going to go to Hell for this?

Death by Chocolate

2005-02-11T15:47:00.000Z

I bought a mountain of chocolate things from Markles & Sparkles to celebrate my birthday today. All intended for the office cow-orkers (obviously).

It seems that the rule in this office (and believe me it does vary widely from office to office, as you would know if you were a serial job tart like myself), is that you celebrate an event by buying something for the rest of the office. In this case we are celebrating my birthday arriving this weekend.

I then carefully and tastefully laid out the chocolate (and dried fruit for those on diets, let no one say I am not considerate) on the empty desk next to mine and lets the locusts descend.

I have lost all will power!

I was a locust.

I am still a locust.

I feel sick.

I can't stop.

God help me!

I have to leave early to go and collect the kids... Escape!

43 Things

2005-02-11T12:35:00.000Z

I do believe my life may have been made easier!

I'm sure I'm totally on the bandwagon on this one, I'm certainly not one of the early adopters, but this is great!

Another bullshit story

2005-02-09T21:54:00.000Z

A bullshit story form The Siren, this time.

So... I got a call last Sunday evening from The Siren (AKA the evil one(TM) or the ex-wife). Siren tells me she has tried, but is ultimately unable, to disassemble a table I bought and assembled a few years ago. She is moving house at the end of the week and it needs to be done as a mater of urgency.

I made the usual 'not interested' noises. After all, it's not like this is my home, my furniture, or my problem any more is it? I'm divorced from the woman now, and I moved out nearly three years ago!

So upon realising she is getting nowhere, she offers to return my paintings.

Background: When I moved out, I had nowhere to put my stuff (I moved back into my parents place for a couple of months), my paintings* got left behind. They were intended to be left behind only for a short while, then The Siren decided she liked them, and decided she wanted to keep them. Being Mr. Nice (but not this Mr. Nice) and for the sake of the kids, I decided not to press the issue and cause a big scene. Back then I was too emotionally raw to sustain a fight anyway, and the kids were far too close to a nasty (read violent, (and no I wasn't, she was)) separation to be coping with even more crap.

I wanted my paintings back, so I agree to turn up, but only as and when it suited me, at some point this week. After all I have Sandy staying with me at home, and I want to spend quality time with her, not doing grunt work for The Siren.

Today, Sandy headed off home until the weekend, so after work, I decided to head over The Siren's place and sort out the table.

Siren was in bed, having spent the whole day there with a sore throat, yes that's right, bed ridden with a fucking sore throat! Not only was she in bed, but it turns out that Angel and Murray had not been to school today either, as Murray had a sore throat (yes a fucking sore throat, stopped him attending school!). Angel on the other hand, was just peachy, not a cough, sneeze, drip, ache, or unusual temperature in sight. Yes that's right, she was perfectly fucking healthy, and had still not gone to school...

Just for the record, Angel has two new cousins through The Siren's new marriage, that live no more than 5 minutes walk away. Both of these kids attend the same school as Angel, and they are both taken there by one of their parents. All The Siren had to do was pick up the sodding phone!

In the end, it took me all of five minutes to take the table to bits. I took the glass top off (held with five plastic/rubber suckers from underneath), removed the two screws from each draw keeping the draw attached to the rails each side, and finally loosened the four restraining bolts and took the plastic inserts from behind them to dismantle the frame.

(In a fit of anal retention, I even bagged up the four screws and four plastic inserts and taped the bag to the frame, and wrote on the masking tape that I used, that a large Phillips screwdriver and a 5mm Allen key were required to reassemble.)

Now I shall await the promised delivery of my paintings.

I speak to Angel and Murray every other day when that are not with me, and part of our conversation typically revolves around their day at school on school evenings. Far too often, I hear that one or other, or even both of them have not attended school as a result of some minor sniffle or stomach upset. I am worried about the kids' attendance at school, so I am going to contact Angel's school and find out how many times she has 'sick days', I don't want my kid getting a patchy education because her mother can't walk with a sore throat or pick up a phone to a relative for help! Dependent upon the outcome, I may press the issue with Murray too, although in this case I am unsure of where I stand legally, as he is not even my step-son anymore, since the Siren remarried.

And the bullshit story: That The Siren had even attempted to take the table to bits, a bloody four-year-old kid with the right tools could have done the job (OK, maybe with a little adult help to remove the heavy toughened glass top). And no doubt she intends to tell Angel's school some bullshit story to explain away yet another of Angel's absences.

* Painted by a friend, whom I commissioned the work from, in order to get him out of a financial bind, and to get him off his arse and painting again. And who now knows moderate success as an artist. So now you know why I am attached to them.

Apologies

2005-02-09T16:29:00.000Z

Sorry, for the distinct lack of posting, my life is a high stress shambles at the moment.

My love life is good, my family are well, things are positive.

Normal service will resume some time in the next week or two.

What happened to the last week?

2005-01-31T13:54:00.000Z

First of all I'd like to say just how much I hate the corporate proxy here (the poxy proxy), the fucking thing insists on dropping connections, usually when I am posting to Blogger! Bastard thing. Of course when you hit back on the browser, you lose the post too... Now I'll reconstruct that last post from memory...

What happened to last week? Er, I may have been abducted by aliens... Oh no, now I remember I was very (very very) busy, As can be confirmed by posts in the buying a home blog!

There has been lots and lots (and lots and lots) of stuff happening in that part of my life.

But dear reader, I wouldn't want to deprive you of your need to read about the more mundane day to day existence I have endured, so here is a quick rundown of the last week, well the bits that come even slightly close to worthy of being mentioned...

Tuesday 25th: Finally got an authorised timesheet to get paid with, unfortunately I had missed the courier so I had to jump trough hoops and hand deliver stuff in order to get paid. I also was correct in my assumption about putting on weight, I had put on 7lb! Shit fuck wank etc..

Wednesday 26th: Lots of stuff happened with the house, but not much else worthy of note.

Thursday 27th: Went to the pub with the chaps as usual, talked nonsense and consumed far too much food for the day.

Friday 28th: Had a chat to Sandy, it seems she will still be living with her ex in her new home, he will be paying the bills until she can get housing benefit sorted out. He is doing this under the impression they can work it out and be happy together. She is doing it in order to get some of the cash she lent him back, as she assumes he will never pay her back willingly. I'm OK with this, the old, more paranoid, version of me would have been quite pissed off. But I trust Sandy for now, I told her I was not too happy about it, but understood her reasons. And as long as they are not sharing a bed (separate bedrooms apparently) and not intimate, I can be cool about it. Obviously if she does start sleeping with him again, it's over. No surprises there! Sandy said she would come over for a few days from Sunday evening.
In other news Left work early and collected the kids, and my parents arrived late in the evening.

Saturday 29th: The whole clan went to Borough Market and then onto the London Aquarium (I had mentioned seeing "Nemo" to Angel, so she had to go). I was a great day out which the whole family enjoyed. So I can recommend the London Aquarium for both kids and adults equally.

I cooked a roast for the whole family in the evening, I'm really getting into cooking roasts for some reason. I even did extra veggie bits for the parents, and it went down great. It was so good, that my dad and I ended up coming back from the pub in the evening much earlier than planned, as my dad just didn't have the space for any beer after eating seconds of the roast. A resounding endorsement of my cooking, even of I do say so myself!

Sunday 30th: The clan headed off to the café in the morning (luckily the waitress who is sweet was on me was not there, Sandy indicated that scratching the poor thing's eyes out might have been in order if she had been! I hope that was a joke... :) ). Then we all saw the parents off back to Yorkshire from whence they came.

The rest of the day was spent with the kids, alternating between the two of them, with one I was painting/making pictures from glued down coloured straws and with the other playing Halo 2. Then both kids were dropped of at Siren's place. Sandy didn't come over she realised she had an early morning appointment this morning, so she will be dropping over this evening instead.

Other than that I estimate I consumed 7,000 - 8,000 Calories for the day (at least five times what I needed for the day), not sure what is causing this self destruct at the moment. I was OK with the clan decamping and heading off, I was OK with Sandy canceling at the last minute, the medication seems to be working. A little more introspection is required I think...

Today so far: Nothing to report so far, I have managed to get a signed timesheet, all is well with the cash, life is a joy, and I'm looking forward to spending this evening with Sandy. No I won't be reporting on this activity, if you want that kind of detail, so see Steve.

Self destruct...

2005-01-25T21:44:00.000Z

I'm not quite sure what the hell is going on, but I have been quite self destructive today. Freelance dawdling and the like, not good for a new job...

I have a deadline for the end of the month to deliver my work. Best get my head down tomorrow and get more effort in I think.

In other news, I really (really really) need to get paid, in order to buy my new home, and my boss has been sat on the timesheet all day. I need her to sign it, so that I can get it to the agency tomorrow and they can pay me by Friday.

Other than that, I have to weigh myself tomorrow, I have been very (very very) naughty on the feeding front this week, I have eaten out too much, and I have eaten too much while eating out. I can feel it in my water that I have put on weight. The only real question is, "how much?".

Woah!

2005-01-25T08:51:00.000Z

Gained 7lb!

Time to go hardcore on the feeding cutback. (Although as Sandy said, the stress of moving house will make me a skinny in no time! :))

The London Aquarium

2005-01-23T23:05:00.000Z

Once Jenny and Sandy were formally introduced. (Jenny having arrived just as I was having my two 'Ming the Merciless' eyebrow hairs removed by Sandy with a pair of tweezers. Oh I'm so Metrosexual!)

We all headed off to the Sunshine Café for breakfast.

On previous occasions, I had been for breakfast with both Jenny and with Sandy individually. One of the waitresses has quite a frown each Sunday morning when I turn up with a woman in tow, and yet seems to be all smiles and happiness when I am there alone. I had pointed out to both Sandy and Jenny that the waitresses must think I'm some sort of womaniser. When I mentioned it while they were together, they both giggled like schoolgirls, and pointed out that obviously the waitress has a bit of a thing for me, it wasn't the womanising she was frowning at, it was the women! And here's me so pure and angelic, I never cottoned on!

After they had both stopped laughing at my 'Chick throwing herself at me' blindness (their name, not mine), we went to the London Aquarium... there were lots of fish there, and also plenty of Sharks. I had fun, the gals had fun, you will have fun too (unless you are claustrophobic and dislike dimmed corridors). Go there, it's good.

Jenny headed off home, and Sandy and I headed back to my place to watch "The Day After Tomorrow", average, I wasn't too impressed. In fact so bored, paused the movie half way thought and had some quality canoodling time with Sandy for a while.

I then took Sandy back to Waterloo to get her train home, and now I sit here dear reader, typing my account of the day, before I put together a big horrid list of things to do over the next week, in order to complete the purchase my new home

Oh, what a stressful week is coming! :(

Significant honesty

2005-01-23T02:57:00.000Z

Just been informed that Sandy actively dumped her ex for me.

I had made it clear, that I didn't want that to happen, I wanted things to run their course naturally (although, that's semantics I guess, since 'naturally' would include what she feels the need to do surely).

I wasn't expecting this news. Nor the fact that she is a little worried she is falling for me already. I'm not used to be people loving me (well except Angel and my parents obviously, so lets redefine that as women loving me).

Anyway we have been together for a couple of weeks or so now, I'm pretty sure she is just getting a little paranoid at the speed of things, as they occur. We joke about being bunny boilers, but I think we may be skirting a little close to the bone, with that joke for both of us. :)

Surprise surprise...

2005-01-22T22:21:00.000Z

With it being Saturday morning, I headed down to Borough Market, this was planned on Thursday night as usual with Phil at the pub.

A little digression first...

When waking up and going to see if a female friend (when you are male) is awake. When you get there, and find she is watching a DVD in bed, do not, I REPEAT DO NOT, lie on the bed in a half asleep state to see what is on the TV (in fairness it does face the bed) and fall half asleep, scaring the poor woman half to death. In my defense, after a couple of minutes, I headed off to do my usual morning bathroom routine, and at the point where I woke up half way through my shower, I had the sudden realisation of what I had just done. So an apology was delivered as soon as I stepped out of the bathroom (fully robed, before you ask).

Back to the main narrative...

This morning I got up late, as did Jenny, but as luck would have it, so did Phil too, so Jenny and I headed down there and off we went to buy some stuff from the market a couple of hours later than usual.

I'm none too keen in the market after 10:30AM, as it tends to get very busy. We arrived at 11:00! We did what we could as fast as we were able and were out of there by 11:45ish. BTW, I have no idea who invented Bacon (yes, BACON!!!1!one!) and Onion bread, but that person is a GENIUS!

Being the people we are, we immediately started planning for lunch. Having had no breakfast something had to be done quickly... And what with Jenny is living somewhere in the sticks (the wrong side of the Styx? :)) she was very keen on Sushi, as she has been unable to get Japanese cuisine for ages.

Lunch was good, this was the first time I have been able to eat Sushi and not feel sick to the bottom of my stomach (at the thought of the food, not the food).

Next we headed off to the Imperial War Museum. I was expecting lots of things dating back to the development of warfare, but the vast majority of the stuff on display was modern, certainly WW1 and later. Most of out time was spent working our way though the Holocaust Exhibition. This really wore away at my soul, it extremely very hard work. I don't have much in the way of faith in my fellow man, and seeing the systematic industrial scale mechanism for murder that was employed by the Nazis, ate a little more of that faith away.

Jenny and I retired to my place, and then headed out for a Thai meal from a place up the road. I have only been there once (many years ago), and I don't remember being too impressed with the place, but curiously I don't remember being utterly disgusted either, so 'nondescript' I think would suffice as my memory of the place. Since the place has managed to last a number of years, I guessed I must have visited on a bad day, or it must have pulled it metaphoric socks up since my last visit. The meal turned out to be better than good, so this another cheap, but great local eatery added to the list.

We got back to my place a short while ago and Jenny has gone to bed. I have called Sandy and I managed to convince her she wouldn't be intruding and that she should to come over. So while Jenny sleeps, I shall cross town to Waterloo station and pick up Sandy then escort her back to my pad.

Jenny

2005-01-21T23:54:00.000Z

Jenny (an ex crush of mine, who as it happened turned out to be gay, so is now one of my bestest friends), arrived this evening for a weekend in my company.

Jenny has returned to university to do a degree, and like most mature students, she is busy killing herself with stress in order to get firsts for all courses. Obviously all the younger students are trying to kill themselves with alcohol, tobacco and soft drugs instead. Yay a fun melting pot of self destruction, I think I remember why I quit university now!

Occasionally I demand that Jenny comes to visit, for the sake of her continued mental good health. This weekend is planned to be one of those visits.

This evening we did Jerry Springer the Opera. We both enjoyed the show, and both agreed that the first half was far funnier than the second half. We then popped of to an Indian restaurant and got back a little while ago.

A great evening all in all.

I have invited Sandy to come over too, since her ex-bloke has refused to leave her place until he is good and ready. So far she has not acquiesced to my request, I'm hoping she will come at some point over the weekend. Jenny certainly wants to meet Sandy (as bestest female friend, Jenny believes she has some God given right to meet my significant others (and probably vet them too)), but at the moment Sandy does not want to intrude on the weekend Jenny and I have planned. I have told Sandy that this is tittle-tattle-and-pish, she is invited, hopefully she will get the message and drop by.

Now, I'm off to bed to do some reading.

Comedy paranoia moments of the recovering psyche

2005-01-20T23:54:00.000Z

There was a time (when I lived with the Siren), where any attempt to change a plan (even if it was a good change) was met with derision, petulance, and quite often a tantrum.

Frequently, when taking place by mobile phone, a tantrum took the form of the call being hung up, and after that, the phone was usually switched off or routed to voicemail whenever I tried to call.

Today, I was arranging to meet Sandy for lunch before she headed off to her place. We had originally arranged to meet at Liverpool Street station, but then it occurred to me that it would make her journey much easier if she were to travel to Moorgate, and I could met her there just as easily from my workplace.

Half way though the call, she was starting to sound a little stressed as she realised that the ticket she had already bought, was not a valid travel card and would only get her from my place directly home, not allowing a stop-off in central London. As I was discussing this with her, the call was cut off.

Initially I thought it was a fault with the mobile connection, so I rang the phone... Straight to voicemail. Then again every couple of minutes or so over the next few minutes. When I continued to get to voicemail, I assumed that she had been talking to me as she went into the Underground station. So I left it a little while, assuming that she would reach the surface soon enough and call me.

And waited.

And waited.

And eventually I went and bought lunch (at the point I was shaking with hypoglycemia I might add). Ever the gentleman, I left it until the last moment.

Still no answer, so I left a message on the voicemail. Then I sent a text, just in case. (Belt and braces, that's me!)

No answer, so I sent another text. At this point the paranoia express was pretty much full steam ahead. Even though Sandy has shown no bizarro behavioural traits similar to the Siren, I'm freaking out big style. I'm thinking that phone has been switched off, to get back at me for fucking her about. I'm thinking typical Siren behaviour at this point.

Then after a few hours of self induced high drama, I take a step back, chill out, finish the working day, (which on a house level has turned to shit BTW), and head off home.

At home I get a message from Sandy, it seems her mobile was snatched by two blokes running past her at the station, and because she didn't have my number anywhere but on her phone, she had no way of arranging to meet me, so she headed home (to find her ex still hadn't moved out of the house!), then bought a new phone and sent me the text, after she had retrieved my number from her address book at home.

I really do need to treat people as if they are not the people they succeed in my life. I know Sandy is not Siren, but she still is a woman. I can tell this is going to be hard work, but if I don't start trusting women, I'm going to become entrenched in my ways and never recover from the ex-bitch in my old life.

In other news, I had sweet and sour chicken balls with egg fried rice for my evening meal, and the batter on the chicken balls was so fat soaked/oily I couldn't eat the meal and had to give up less than a third of the way in. I think my tolerance for fat in meals has dropped. I think this is a good thing. Either that or I have some hideous disease no doubt! :)

Another short night's sleep, followed by an alarming day...

2005-01-19T07:45:00.000Z

'Holy Crap, Batman', feels like a line that is highly enough charged to start this entry with!

Today at 1:30PMish I got a call from a friend of my ex-wife (Siren/The Evil One(TM)) saying that she had been taken to hospital with a suspected stroke. Pins and needles down one side, paralysis of certain parts of her body and so on. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel a bloody thing for this woman (that's a lie, I actively dislike her), but the implications of this call were enormous.

My initial reaction was to check on the kids, Angel was being picked up by the friend's partner (as they had two kids at the same school), and I made arrangements to pick up Murray from his school.

Then once the immediate panic was over the enormity of what was happening began to settle on me...

First of all, if Sire had had a stroke and was unable to look after the kids permanently, well shit, what I have wanted all along (custody of the kids) would be happening from the moment I went to pick them up!

Second of all, I thanked my lucky stars that I had not cancelled the life insurance I had on Siren's life, I was advised to keep it running, as her death or injury would still directly affect me when I became primary carer for both Angel and Murray.

Third was the notion that I'm gong to lose this job, here I am dashing off for the second Tuesday in a row, last week it was because of a migrane, now it was parental duty. If I have to leave next Tuesday, they are going to assume I'm up to something! And of course that was not the bigger picture, if I did have to become primary carer for the kids, I would have no one to look after them for me. So I'd have to put my job on hold (if they would let me) until I could sort out some kind of cover. There is no way having been with Sandy for only two days that I'm going to ask her to move in and start looking after my kids, that is sooooo not taking things slow! :)

Anyway, I went and picked up Murray from the school, explained to him what was going on, and the first thing he asked was what was happening to Angel (bless him!), once he was reassured that she was OK, we headed off home, all the while I tried to allay his fears for his mum.

We headed back to my place and he and Sandy started kicking the crap out of each other on Tekken.

I made a call to let iren's friend know that I had collected Murray, and to make arrangements for collecting Angel from her. At this point I was told that Siren had not had a stroke, but had in fact torn some muscles/tendons/ligaments/whatever in her neck, which had seized up, swollen and applied pressure to her nerves, causing the symptoms. Siren was awaiting her prescription (heavy tranquilisers!) and would be able to take receipt of Murray later in the afternoon.

This doesn't surprise me, Siren used to do the most stupidly dangerous things when we were together, rather than ask for help. On a number of occasions rather than ask me for help she ended up doing herself serious damage. At the moment she is moving house, so God alone knows what kind of crap she is 'heavy lifting' at the moment, no doubt she is using the extra special 'fuck yourself up for life' posture (knees straight, back bent, not vice versa) while lifting too!

Once Murray had been returned to his mum, and I had said a brief hello to Angel, I headed back home to spend the rest of the night with Sandy...

We had a lovely evening. We popped out to the supermarket, bought all the required items to make a lovely Chinese meal, then headed home to cook it up and have a lovely dinner together.

Later Sandy noticed that I looked a little tense and asked me if there was something wrong, god this girl is observant, she'd seen me stiffening up a couple of times during the evening. As it happened, I was still thinking about the earlier events with the kids and also having difficulty switching off from work, something big came up yesterday that I was still trying to get my head around.

So about an age later (may have been 1-2 millennia) when the back, neck and shoulder massage finished, I was kinda relaxed again (read as: practically comatose). I'm feeling relaxed now, just typing this up. :)

Again tried to get an early night, but no joy, we ended up laying in bed chatting till the early hours again. I must make an effort to get a good night's sleep tonight, otherwise we will run out of things to talk about sooner rather than later! :)

Sharing your life is kinda cool

2005-01-18T08:16:00.000Z

Yesterday evening was strange.

I got home from work, and Sandy had been at work around the house, poor thing had nothing to do all day while she stayed at home, so she filled her time with house work and chores that I had let pile up. I came home to find that the remainder of my ironing had been done, the living room had been tidied, and that dinner had been cooked, amongst other things.

It was quite an eye-opener, a bit like married bliss from my previous life (which lasted about 3 weeks I can assure you). I said to Sandy that I didn't expect this from her, that there wasn't a charge for staying at my place that involved sex and housework. :)

I was quite hard to adjust too, I'm used to not living with someone around all the time, with stuff being moved and the housework pixies visiting again. I'd forgotten about all to compromises that come with someone in your life all the time. I'll get some space and readjustment time on Thursday or Friday when she heads off to her place to see what damage her ex has done. In the meantime I'm just having a good time, enjoying being close and intimate with someone for the first time in a long time.

We tried to get an early night, but ended up chatting until 3:30AM.

It is nice to be appreciated. I do hope this carries on, I like it.

Yay I is both thinner and lighter!

2005-01-18T07:03:00.000Z

Another 2 lb (~1 Kg) lost over the last week, I'm back in the the high 15st range once more. Only another stone to get to my all time personal best in the high 14st range. :)

Happy happy joy joy!

Movement on the 'seeing someone' front...

2005-01-17T11:03:00.000Z

Well Saturday's semi-update is a tad irrelevant right now... (Bet you're intrigued...)

Yesterday the kids and I had a lot of fun, we went to the park and had a lovely Sunday lunch (I'm soooo getting into cooking up roasts, and I'm improving too! Went for a lamb and rosemary roast this time).

During the trip to the park, Sandy texted me and asked me if my offer to come and stay for a few days while she separated from her bloke was still open. And of course it was, I'd never turn away a damsel in distress. :)

So I dropped the kids off at six as usual at their mother's place (who somewhat amusingly had to run downstairs half-naked to answer the door, I wouldn't like to comment on whether she was in flagranté or just having an afternoon nap).

Then I headed down to the train station and picked up Sandy. It turns out she had had the final row with her ex-chap, and as she left had told him she was going away for a few days, and to have his stuff out of her place by the time she got back.

So we had a long conversation (face to face and everything!) where I made it quite clear I wanted to give her space to do her rebounding, no pressure, etc. I also said that I understood that she would be a little emotional for a while, having just finished a long term relationship... And so on, you know the type of thing, the typical new-man caring stuff. If I'm not a new man, I don't know what is. (Well apart from 'Dave Day' when I may have been a 'New Lad'.)

She said that she was just relieved that it was over, and now we could move on.

So we ended up in bed. (See, told you yesterday's update was irrelevant!)

So it would appear after more than two years in self imposed exile, I am now officially seeing someone.

So much, for taking it slow! But I am trying, I don't think I'll ask her to marry me within five days (like I did with the Evil One(TM)), nor ask her to move in with me within the month (like I did with the Evil One(TM)).

In essence everything is cool, I'm not dumb enough to convince myself I'm in love just yet, I'm very much at the like stage, which is slow for me. :)

Bunny boilers...

2005-01-16T02:32:00.000Z

Had a big heart to heart with Sandy via IM this evening, I think we are both borderline bunny boilers, we both think this is a good thing, we both want it to start, but she has big things to sort out.

In other news, the day went well, no mopey kids, we went to a jungle jim (gym? sp) and they are both exhausted.

I also bumped into someone there who wants to put a little freelance work my way! Yay!

Too shattered to update properly now, maybe tomorrow evening I shall give the full update...

If you are lucky. :D

Night night dear reader.

Strange dreams...

2005-01-14T23:11:00.000Z

As I suspected would be the case I made do with very little sleep last night.

I was caffeinated upto the eyeballs after all the Diet Coke last night, and this made for some (not to be repeated) side effects. First of all there were a number of anxiety dreams:

Running to catch someone, but the harder I ran, the slower I went, like running though treacle.
Trying to explain things to people, and them just not being able to understand me, no matter how hard I tried.
Water leaks all over the house.

The usual guff, I'm sure you are all familiar with the same things. Interspersed with these dreams were a number of other ones, of a more graphically sexual nature. In one I found myself fighting off my ex-wife who was not taking no for an answer. And in the other that I remember, I was with Sandy, and things were getting a little fruity. What is my mind trying to tell me? (If anything... Personally I am firmly of the belief that dreaming is the creative parts of the brain let free without the other part of conscious thought that keeps things in check and stops us all going wacko.)

Work was a bit comedy today, I was taken to a Thai restaurant by the employment agent that placed me at my current client, that took up three hours of lunch, and was followed by me being at work for another hour and half before I had to leave early to get the kids from their mother's place. I'll be charging for four days this week, after taking Tuesday afternoon off with the migrane, and most of Friday afternoon off too, I'd be taking the piss if I didn't.

I have just put the kids to bed, we have watched Ice Age on the DVD, and while Angel was in the bath I had my planned chat with Murray about his prodigal return.

I explained to him that this is the last time I would allow him to change his mind about visiting, that his sister needs consistency at her age, so changing his plans about was not an option. I also said we would call it a day if he insisted on turning up for whole weekends to mope about and be generally miserable too. He did do this quite often before. This all seemed to go down quite well, so I'm very happy about the end result.

He is at a preteen stage in his life, and he is about to become a teenager, so I know that things are going to get harder rather than easier, hopefully this little bump is all we will have to deal with. Time will tell I suppose.

In other news obviously there has been a lot of texting between Sandy and I, things seem to be getting a little heated. I'm trying to keep my paranoia in check, the last time things went this well was the time I got married! But there is no use in me judging all women by the last one as a standard. I'm also trying to keep some focus here too, we are not even dating, much less in a romantic relationship, its just that things seem to be going really well, so I shall enjoy what I can, and ignore the inner doubt voice where I can.

Right after bugger all sleep all week long, I'm going to fruitlessly attempt to hit the hay now! :)

More texts, pub, it must be Thursday!

2005-01-13T23:51:00.000Z

Well yet more texting with Sandy today, this is becoming a rather heated text based relationship! :)

(Be advised I am using the word relationship in terms of linkage or association, rather than romance here, just in case you were thinking I was falling in love with a text girlfriend service.)

Work was most productive, I really feel like I am on my game. I am in the zone, and really hitting my stride here, I'm getting shit done, which has not been happening for about a year and half. It's nice. I feel really good.

So on the whole, on a personal level I am being appreciated by someone, I hope to get to know better in the short to medium term future. And on a professional level, I'm being appreciated, for getting stuff done, and being ultra efficient.

Of course I also went to the doctor and upped my dosage, hopefully things will improve, I'm having a 2:5 bad to good day ratio at the moment, with any luck an extra 10mg of the usual will drop this to a more manageable 1:6 or 0:7 ratio. I can hope.

This evening I have been down the pub with Dermot and Phil, all good fun. Dermot let me know that escorting his estranged wife home didn't count as date number one, on the four dates and a shag scale, nach!

I was quite proud of myself, I didn't drink a drop all night long, and I saved up my food units for the day and had a Shish Kebab on the way home, yum. (I could have been worse I could have had a Doner Kebab!) I asked for extra onions and wouldn't you know it, the onions were so hot I thought they were biting back. I should have been drunk, now I know why I don't eat them sober! Heh! And here was me thinking that the chili sauce was the hot component.

Right then after all those Diet Cokes, I suspect I may be wired for along time this evening. So I'm off to lie awake in my bed! :)

More texts...

2005-01-12T22:04:00.000Z

There have been more texts today from Sandy, and of course I have returned more in kind. Their level seems to be escalating, I am attempting to avoid the paranoid self-introspection that arrives when something is too good to be true...

Other than that , went to work, worked, came home, nothing to report.

Although I did forget to mention yesterday that the diet is paying dividends, as I lost 9lb last week. I aim for 2lb a week, but I suspect I was hyper-hydrated at last week's weigh-in, so I'm cool with that much lost weight, as long as it does not become a trend. Before anyone gets any ideas I am not anorexic or bulimic.

Sweet relief, the pain has gone! :)

2005-01-11T23:05:00.000Z

At long last the pounding pain of an astounding headache from hell, known as a migrane has gone, the white out of my vision has passed and I have stopped vomiting, time for another blog update...

What I didn't mention in the Dave post, that as the evening went on, a great deal of text messaging went on between myself and Sandy, it came to light that she actually quite fancied me, was comfortable in my company with in a few minutes and thought I was a gentleman too. (weird huh! :))

I guess the thinks I'm a gentleman because I didn't try and jump her, nor turn up in the middle of the night in her room trying it on. It is true, she is on the money, I am fiercely moral, and always do the right thing, even thinking the wrong thing tends to upset me.

As I'm quite sure you have guessed I think she's great, but I didn't tell Sandy that I quite fancied her on Saturday for a few of reasons:

The first is that I happen to know she is living with someone at the moment, and even though she says that the relationship is dead, I've known more than my fair share of women who say similar things and then stick around in a terminal relationship for years anyway. So if she was just getting her stress off her chest (think Venusians for those that have read the book) and wanted me to sympathise, but she had no intention of leaving him, then I would have turned a potential friendship into an uncomfortable situation. And what I was looking for was a friend not a partner. I did contact Sandy on FP after all, knowing that she had herself listed as "In a Relationship" on her stats, so I really wasn't expecting more.

The second was that I just didn't want to get involved with someone who is living with someone else. I set my self the limit that I was going to be divorced from my ex, before I got involved with anyone else, and I stuck to that. I'm more than prepared to wait a few weeks while Sandy sorts her shit out with her ex, I'm in no hurry, and wouldn't want to put her under pressure, nor catch her on the rebound.

The third was that we were getting on a storm. I thought it possible that Sandy might not have gone home, but have stayed at my place since she has a long journey home. Which as it happens was right on the money. How uncomfortable would you be sleeping at someone's house knowing that you didn't fancy them, but they did you, and you had to sleep at their home the first time you met. I know if the position was reversed I would have been very uncomfortable!

The final (and quite minor really) reason was, that Veronica the last woman I told I fancied her, went quite strange on me, which tends to make a guy think twice. Even though Veronica said, this was her problem not mine, it still puts shit in your head for next time.

So anyway when she had let that cat out of the bag, I told her I would have a chat to her this evening. Which I duly did a short while ago. After mucho chatto (she was quite impressed I managed to show nothing, and that I have a moral backbone!) she has confirmed that he will be leaving him soon (she has to do it right, as apparently he is quite prone to tantrums and is liable to trash her flat and car, eek) and I have confirmed that I am in no mad rush and that I'll be around when she is done. In the meantime we will be seeing each other as friends. I've made it quite clear nothing further will happen until they have gone their separate ways.

Sometimes I think I am too moral... :)

Piquing your interest...

2005-01-11T16:15:00.000Z

And there has been news on the girlie front.

Right, going cross-eyed, must lie down before I go blind (for all the wrong reasons I assure you).

Dave

2005-01-11T16:08:00.000Z

One of the things I have noticed about life, is that everyone has a mate called Dave.

I have a mate called Dave, my Dave is great, you don't see him for one to five years because he is in a relationship, and all his mates have dropped off the face of the Earth as far as he is concerned. But then once the relationship is over, Dave returns with a vengeance, he has one to five years of "good man containing the bad man" syndrome to purge, and things always get out of hand.

You are now up to date on my mate Dave.

Dave called m up yesterday afternoon, while I was at work. He was in the area, having just finished an interview with one of the companies in the City, wondering if I wanted a drink.

Now you should note at this point, I knew what I was getting into, I also knew it was Monday night, night of the alcoholic lone drinker, not the night of good wholesome fun... Yeah, I went.

We drank too much, and we ate at the first pub.

Then we went to the Griffin, a strip club in Holborn, where much alcohol was quaffed, and a lot of money was spent on strippers, and even more on private dances.

After that we headed over to Tower 42, which Dave claimed was a cocktail bar at the top of what used to be known as the Natwest Tower. No lights were on, so I suspect that Dave was just making stuff up to make the night go on longer by this point. So we headed to another bar, played computer golf against each other (I won 36 over par o his 32, not a good score I know!).

And then we had a moment of unbridled inspiration... the bar was closing and we were but moments from the Savoy Hotel and its booze!

We reasoned that we were dressed in suits, so we could probably pass for guests, and as you well know reader, guests can drink till any hour under the licensing laws of England and Wales.

So in we wandered, made ourselves at home, and ordered some dry white, talked some crap for a while, and then I ordered some more. At this point I think we were rumbled, we were told by the manager (very nicely) that he would no longer serve us as we had had too much (in my opinion before we even got there, but who was I to argue!), and it was time for us to retire for the evening.

So off we toddled, I got in a cab home, tuned on the oven and went to sleep without ever managing to put any food in it! (Luckily.)

This morning I got up and went to work feeling awful.

And just to add insult to injury, as I was just about recovered, and industrial strength migrane arrived and I had to go home at the start of the afternoon. Bummer!

So here I am sweet reader, relaying the last 48 hours to you, and now, I go to my pit to lie in the dark, and await the blindness and vomiting which will come in the next hour. Ah migranes, what fun! I guess I am paying back the kharma for yesterdays events. :)

A busy day once more

2005-01-10T23:35:00.000Z

Well as far as relaxing weekends go, this one has sucked. But I'm not complaining this weekend has been a beauty, and lets face it there is always tomorrow to get a good night's sleep...

Sandy and I got up this morning around 9:30ish, had a couple of cups of tea and some good conversation, then we headed off to my favourite café, the Sunshine is the best greasy spoon in all Christendom if not the whole world, but I digress... back to the plot.

She even chose set breakfast number two! The best meal in the house, what a girl! :)

Though she did leave the bubble and squeak, so she is a flawed beauty! :D

After that we wandered down to Finsbury Park to take in some fresh air and walk off the excesses of breakfast, again great conversation, I can't even begin to tell you what we talked about, there was so much that we covered. I think to be honest we were just enjoying each other's company freely and with no hangups.

I joined her on the tube home, and we parted company discussing how she plans to extricate herself from her ex, who she can't get to move out of the house.

I had a couple of errands to run in the West End, and once they were done I dropped by Dermot's place (he lives in a tiny tiny flat right round the corner from Leicester Square). When I got here Dermot's estranged (they are not quite divorced yet) wife Carol was there too, and rater than dropping by to pick up a few things and then heading home, I ended up spending the whole evening with them.

The evening was great fun, I was introduced to the height of Aussie humour (they have people funnier than Paul Hogan!) and I introduced them to the whole Internet dating scene and the wonders of SnogLondon and FaceParty.

I also learnt from Carol, that women think that sex on the fourth date is acceptable, before that they are tarts and after that they are being cautious about their potential date (or cock-teases). I shall remember that, I had kind of assumed that at our age it had progressed to first date as sex was just not that important any more, how wrong I was!

At the end of the evening I escorted Carol home as far as our journeys remained convergent. Did that count as a first date? :)

And here I am shattered looking forward to tomorrow, when I can get a full nights worth of sleep.

Back to the job tomorrow, in at the deep end, no backup for the way ahead... Fun!

A very busy, but very enjoyable day.

2005-01-09T01:13:00.000Z

The plan for today was quite cool, maybe a little tight at point on the time line, but doable...

Well up until the point when the very first bit went tits up, causing a cascade effect for the rest of the morning! Best laid plans eh!

I had to get up and pick up a parcel from the post office, then head down to Borough Market and get some essentials (Black Pepper, I cannot live without pepper!), then drop the groceries off at home, and finally get ready to meet Sandy at Waterloo station at some point in the early afternoon.

So what went wrong... I decided to just brush my teeth and leave the shower/primping and tarting up until I headed off to meet Sandy. I jumped in the car, and found that it was only firing on three cylinders, so I then had to take the car to my mate Johan's place and get the thing fixed. That took a couple of hours (who says that managed engines can't coke up their spark plugs?), mainly because I had a chat with Johan.

Then I headed of to Borough Market, and just as I arrived, got a text from Sandy at 10:50ish saying she was on the train and would be at Waterloo in about an hour! I wasn't expecting her until at the earliest 1PM, that's what early afternoon means to me. Assumption, the mother of all fu.... You get the message.

So I jumped in the car, managed to make it home from the city in 25 minutes (God was on my side to some extent this particular day!) and texted Sandy to let her know the car had given me some gyp and I may be a little later than planned. She was OK with that, so it was all good.

Dashed home, one shower/shave/dental hygiene session, some smell-nice and a clean set of clothes later I jumped on the tube and was at Waterloo for 12:10. (God was going with a benevolent travel theme for the day obviously.)

I met up with Sandy and all was good. She seemed as cool and talkative as she did on line. Yay. The nutter magnet was finally switched off. Or was it? (More later!)

We grabbed a coffee, after the morning's shenanigans, I was still in mucho need of caffeination! And then we set off for a walk down the South Bank, it was windy but not rainy and a little cold but not too bad at all. Bracing you might call it if you were thinking straight as you started that last sentence, instead of typing on auto-pilot like a fool. (Ooops, the internal monologue is externalising, YOU back in the box!)

I did suggest we went on the London Eye, but it seems that Sandy is afraid of heights, so we nixed that idea.

We stopped at the gourmet pizza place and had some great food. All the time the conversation was good, never a pause, lots of laughs, even a couple of belly laughs from me, something I have not done in too long!

Then we headed on the tube up to Camden, we had a great look round the market (I may have bought a few CDs of thumping trance) I didn't realise that there is a whole section of Camden devoted to furniture tucked around the back, that was a cool find, and I have my eye on a couple of additions to the new house (should it ever get bought!)

After that, I had a little thirst, so I suggested we head to the pub, we had a few drinks and I realised that my nutter magnet is very definitely switched on still (or may be function intermittently, I can't be sure...). While Sandy and I were chatting, a drunk Italian chap wandered up to me and the following conversation ensued:

"How to get North of here?"
Being the helpful chap that I am, I asked him, "Where in the North?"
"North, just North, how do I get North from here?"
You're probably thinking what I'm thinking here... "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhkay..."
So I gave the most comprehensive answer I could, I pointed him in the direction of Camden Tube station (over the road from the pub) and told him to head North on the Northern Line for North in London, head South on the Northern Line to Kings Cross Station and get a train for North of London, and head south the Kings Cross and change to the Piccadilly Line for Heathrow for North of the country.
At this point, I realise he's taking the piss, but I'm having fun!

He starts talking very slowly to me like I'm a fool (understandable), and eventually he manages to convey to me that he wants to know where the cardinal compass point North is. At long last we have resolution, I point in the direction of North, and then he corrects me!

We have been wittering away for the last 10 minutes by now, and I'm not prepared to take a correction from a foreigner on compass points in the city I live in, without offering some challenge back in exchange. I decide to question his facilities for navigation in his own country of origin.
"What direction of the compass is Santa Margherita Ligure from Milano?"
"Santa Margherita, is a person, Saint Margaret, not a place!"
"No, its a town I have been there, its named after her, but it is a place I'm sure, in fact there are so many towns called Santa Margherita, that they have to suffix the name with the region so the post gets to the right town, that's why it has a 'Ligure'!"
"No, its a person, a saint"
I give up! I declare myself the winner, we shake hands, and Sandy and I make good our escape.

We headed back to my place, I had planned to cook the steak I had bought in the morning, but we ended having so much to drink, that I ended up ordering Chinese food then going to collect it.
We chatted for the rest of the evening (once I had kicked her ass at Teken Tag (totally, and she was soooo convinced she would destroy me)), then we realised she had missed her last train.

So now she is sleeping in the spare bedroom, and I, my lovely reader, I am going to my pit too.

I'm drunk and tired, so goodnight.

Thank God for that...

2005-01-07T22:03:00.000Z

I have a recovery plan for this weekend. The week is at last finally over, and I am shattered.

I'm very definitely suffering from information overload, I'm going to take some notes after I have written this blog entry, detailing what I have been up to today as it progressed, otherwise all the stuff I have learned today will have faded into the background ether by the time Monday morning comes.

The plan for tomorrow is going to be one of those make or break days, tomorrow I get to meet Sandy, so far she has been witty, clever, charming and well spoken, tomorrow we get to find out if that is still true in the real world... Fingers crossed, I think I may have found the switch to the nutter magnet I usually have switched on, but you never know! :)

I shall take my leave now, exhaustion approaches, and work still needs to be done.

Good night dear reader.

I may be a little squiffy

2005-01-06T23:53:00.000Z

Well another hard day at work, the end is in sight though, only one more day to do the handover of all that is pertinent from my predecessor. I think the brain is at a 50/50 grey matter to marshmallow now. With any luck I'll still have some brain tissue left for the weekend. :)

I went to my predecessor's leaving do this evening, and had a couple of pints of lager, he's flying out of Heathrow on Saturday morning, so no leaving do on the last day as would be usual. Was a good evening, had a chat with a few of the guys and gals I'm working with on a more social, had a few good laughs with the boss. Feels like I'm going to fit in just fine here.

After that I was back into my usual Thursday night routine, down the pub in Islington with Dermot and Phil. Shit was spoken and fun was had.

I saved up my food units today, and purchased a shish kebab on the way home, yum!

Day two...

2005-01-05T23:38:00.000Z

Hmmm, went to bed fucked last night, then lay there awake for several hours...

Felt sooooooo good today as I pulled my second day at the new job. I'm replacing a guy who leaves at the end of this week, so I have to learn as much as I can from him, we have been going at a hella-pace for the last two days, and we have another two to go.

My brain is either overheating and being cooked from the inside, or it is turning to marshmallow.

I am soooo going to try an get some kip tonight, must reset the internal clock!

First day...

2005-01-04T23:56:00.000Z

Some friendly advice...

Get some sleep the night before you start a really hard day at work in a new job, where you have to hit the ground running. Especially if you have sat on your arse for most of the last three months, and are totally out of the habit with work.

On the upside I totally stuck to my diet today. :)

Although in the downside, I have put on 14 pounds in the last two weeks. :(

Starting tomorrow....

2005-01-03T23:21:00.000Z

Look, I'm back to work tomorrow right. I totally promise, the regime starts then.

(Didn't help that mumsy sent me packing for home with the biggest plate of food you ever did see!)
Dependent upon my new colleagues, I shell be having a Tomodachi lunch tomorrow!

Right early night for me...

More of the same...

2005-01-02T23:59:00.000Z

A happy family day, nothing inspiring other than I took the time to enjoy it properly.

Oh, and we went to the park, I am now an official "Demon on the Swings". :)

Qualification...

2005-01-01T23:29:00.000Z

But not starting till Monday, we understand each other right?

I will start Monday honest.

No honest I will.

You'll see.

New Year's Resolutions

2005-01-01T23:27:00.000Z

OK, I've given it some hard thought, and here's what I have come up with:

Back on "The Diet". I have been shit at eating of recent, and I have put on some weight, I need to get back to the "one true path" once more.
I need to get back on "The Exercise Regime", to whit I shall be back in the treadmill at least three times per week every week.
I am going to go on a date at least one-two times per fortnight as spare time dictates.
I am going to stop being such a stupidly shy fuck. Thus I shall talk to more chicks, and I shall get more telephone numbers, and I shall get laid more often. Two and a half years is too long a drought. Although I did plan this, its time has ended now.
I am going to be more selfish. I spend too much time being nice to other people, caring about their wellbeing, while they in turn suck me dry (and no we are not talking sex here.) There are however levels to which I will not stoop.
I am going to show a little more commitment to my work life. Time to stop blowing things off, fucking about until I am sacked and all the usual shit.
I am going to read Getting Things Done, and I am going to make an effort to stop being such a hopelessly disorganised half-whit in my personal life. In a fine example of irony, I have had this book in my collection for six months, I have yet to get further than a couple of pages into the preface! :)
I'm going to try cycling to work if they have a shower at the new place and somewhere safe to park. (This will get me off the hook with the treadmill, if it comes off.)
I will start to cook for myself, and stop with the tinned/packeted shit.
Less alcohol, its been getting out of hand of recent. Back to 14 units a week, not 21 a night!

Meh crap weather!

2005-01-01T19:08:00.000Z

We decided to head down to the "Big Park" so that Angel could have some fun on the playground furniture. (And of course, so that I could secretly practice my swinging for my upcoming swinging duel!)

We got there, the weather turned to crap, just as Angel got as high as she was able to swing. Bloody typical!

So we got into the car and had a drive around the local countryside. We first went to Pately Bridge and then carried on the journey to Stump Cross Caverns (bear in mind we had no idea where we were going, we were just out for a drive here). At the caverns we stopped at the tea rooms, had a nice cuppa (and obviously I didn't break the "1992 Tea and Confectionery Act", and I had a Vanilla Slice too).

When we got home, I started some serious thought about my new year's resolutions... more to come later today I think...

Happy New Year!

2005-01-01T00:03:00.000Z

[This space left intentionally blank.]

The plan...

2004-12-31T22:32:00.000Z

Is to stay in for the night, watch telly and spend the time into the new year with my family.

A good plan if I do say so myself.

I hope you are all having fun in your own special way.

Out to the cinema

2004-12-31T02:39:00.000Z

My mum was working last night (she is a night nurse), and my dad was working today, so in an effort to leave the house and let mumsy get some much deserved sleep, I got up nice and early and took Angel out with me to see a film at the cinema.

We went to see Lemony Snicket's: A Series of Unfortunate Events, well worth going to see. After that we went to Pizza Hut and had a nice meal, and finally we ran off a few of those calories down at the park back in town. (I may or may not have taken the opportunity to practice my swinging for the upcoming duel!) Finally, we headed home, and waited for grandma to get up. (Which took all of about 30 seconds, I suspect she was dozing in bed awaiting our return.)

Later on, I went to see a couple of friends and we chatted about house buying, speed dating and stuff in general, it was a good evening, I ended up walking home very drunk.

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy day

2004-12-29T23:15:00.000Z

I have done nothing but eat, sleep, read, walk to the park, and converse on IM with my new cyber-lady-friend today.

I didn't get out of bed until the afternoon.

Going to the park was fun, my mum and Angel were on one side of a see-saw and I was on the other, I don't think I have been on a see-saw since I was a kid of about 7-8 years old!

I also went on the swings and had a really cool time, racing Angel while she perfected her swinging technique.

Going top the park was cool, I can't wait to go again. :)

Then later this evening I went online to chat to Sandy my new Internet lady. She has challenged me to a duel on the swings in the park when we meet up.

I am the laziest person on Earth, hear me roar... (when I can be arsed to get round to it!)

100%

2004-12-29T01:48:00.000Z

I have been conversing with someone via email and text for a couple of weeks, we met via Face Party a few weeks ago. (Regular readers will know FP is my own little disaster area of personal experience.) This evening was the first time I have chatted to her via IM, and it was a blast.

The humorous bit was at the end, when I was too tired to go on, and she said, "I'm sorry to have kept you up all night", and I responded with, "It's no problem, it's not like I have work in the morning". She came right back at me and told me I had scored 100% for our first conversation and then explained it to me.

This was news to me, I didn't realise I was being graded! But aceing a test is aceing a test right? :)

The explanation is that she had met so many nutters on FP that she has taken to keeping a few things in mind when meeting anyone new. When you chat to someone via email or via text, you have the time to think and consider your responses, but with IM, you can't dwell for an hour and come back with something witty. You have to be genuinely witty, or it just doesn't work on IM. Also in much the same way, it is hard to cover your tacks, and act in a way other than your natural one in "real time", unless you are an extremely accomplished liar.

It seems that since I didn't drop into sexual innuendo, act like an insensitive cock and I managed to be a funny chap, that I managed to score 100%. The icing in the cake being my answer to the statement posed to me above. I suspect (and so did my conversational partner) that "Sorry to have kept you up all night", would garner some response implying the sleepless night was sexually related, perhaps, "Oooooh darling, you can keep me up all night any time wink wink ;)" etc. But since I'm the perfect gentleman, that thought never entered my head!

Yay, someone thinks I'm great!

Take that evil carpet!

2004-12-28T19:00:00.000Z

I'm absolutely shattered, at short notice I went with my parents and Angel to their new place on the coast. The builders will be arriving a week early, so the place needed the old carpets taking up and the wallpaper stripping.

It takes a couple of hours to get there by car and once we had got there, I got changed into some crappy clothes and got to work straight away. The carpet has been there for ever!

There were bits of the carpet that had been covered since installation and the colour was so vibrant compared to what was removed, this carpet had been there so long that it had rings sewn into the bottom and each of the rings was looped over a nail in the floor, all the edges were folded back and stitched in place and the underlay didn't quite reach the edges to account for that extra thickness. I've never seen anything like it, so I'm guessing that this is how carpets were laid properly (before carpet rails were invented). Underneath the underlay, we found an old newspaper spread out, it was dated 10th May 1963, so the carpet had been laid originally some 10 years before I was even born! Now that is a hardwearing carpet!

Are you bored with the carpet anecdote yet? :)

I'll shut up now. :)

Never again...

2004-12-27T22:15:00.000Z

Well today my brother and his g/f headed home, back to their place back down South.

Yesterday was the last day that my whole family would be in the house me and my brother were brought up in.

I will visit before my parents move, and possibly my brother will, but the likelihood of us both being here at the same time is negligible, and so an era has passed, my family at the family home is no more.

Onward and upward to better things.

Christmas on a child's face

2004-12-27T03:20:00.000Z

I got up nice and early this morning, and went to pick Angel up. Then we drove all the way back to Yorkshire. The journey was reasonably rapid, there was a little turgid traffic flow at points, not enough to complain about though.

We got here for a little before 1PM, and almost immediately sat down to lunch, a big lamb roast, see yesterday's list of roast contents, substitute lamb for turkey and you have the definitive list once more.

Then we opened the presents that were left over from yesterday for Angel, and she had arrived with with a few presents bought by my ex (?!) ostensibly as presents from Angel to the rest of the family.

Later in the day, Angel watched a DVD (she got a Disney Princess TV and DVD player), my brother and g/f went to see a friend, I played at master bridge builder, dad had an afternoon nap, and mumsy read her book/watched stuff she had recorded off the TV.

A big cold selection was delivered for dinner, then the rest of the evening was spent lazing.

I was the last to go to bed, having been up until 3AM beating just one last bridge problem. (Ah, the cruelty of a limited budget and a massive span!) :)

No I don't want sympathy in the morning. :)

Merry Chrimble...

2004-12-25T23:53:00.000Z

Woo, well the day started with snow in Yorkshire! My brother even went out and scraped the ground enough to make a tiny snow ball, just so he could say the played in the snow on Christmas day. Tragic I know. :)

Well what did I get? I got lots of books from Father Christmas, and lots of promises regarding house warming presents for the new house (assuming the sale goes through).

I was also introduced to the genre of bridge building computer games by my brother.

We had a lovely time opening presents, my mum loved her smoothie maker, my dad loved his books, my brother was a little confused by the printout I gave him showing the balance transfer into his saving account (He thought my balance was what was in his account, I moved £50 not several thousand :), and finally T (brother's g/f) was super happy with her ikkle bottle of Chanel No 5 pure perfume.

We all sat down for a couple of meals together as part of the Christmas day experience.

Lunch was massive! Turkey, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, sage and onion stuffing, carrots, roast parsnips, cauliflower, broccoli, sprouts, green beans, and gravy. I did really well, I managed to:

Walk away from the table, and
Reign in the will to eat so much I couldn't breathe properly! :D

This is the last time I will get to spend Christmas here, now that my parents have bought a place on the coast to retire to, next Christmas will have to be spent elsewhere, more than likely my new place (assuming that all goes well etc...). The end of an era, I thought it would mean something to me, and it does at a low level (I have after all spent most Christmases here since I was 12), but it doesn't seem to feel as important as I thought it was. I guess I walked and talked as a child then, but now I am an adult, and these things are lower on my "importance of things scale-o-meter".

After we had had the huge-o-lunch, we all went for an afternoon constitutional in the park. Hmmm walking thought the mud and ice! Yay. Then I got to drive back down to Londinium, joy!
The drive down was excellent though, there was nerrey another car upon the road, so I managed to make a 220 mile journey in about four hours with a 20 minute break in the middle for an espresso and a latte.

When I got home I dropped a few things off, and then made my way to D's house, he also had his estranged wife a-visitn' too, so we all ate too much and chatted about silly things (and serious ones too, I guess), until I headed home for a kip, so that I could type this up, get some kip then pick Angel up tomorrow for the drive back to Yorkshire.

Hope you enjoyed your day too.

I got it!

2004-12-24T15:08:00.000Z

I've got the investment banking job, now I just have to tell the other lot that I can't work for them any more, unfortunately that agency is closed for the hols, but its not like they can do anything anyway.

I've just had a great day helping my mum with the Christmas shopping, we await my brother and his g/f arriving this evening, and all is well.

If I don't get back to you for a while, have a very merry Christmas!

I love you all! (In a special, grown up kind of way.)

Change of plan

2004-12-23T23:21:00.000Z

I woke up this morning feeling much better (not like totally well or anything, just a lot better). I think I may be being allergic to the job or at least the office... :)

The plan was to let my friend J finish doing some stuff to my car, and then for me to pack everything into the car and head North to Yorkshire at about 11AMish. It hasn't quite worked out that way though.

As I was walking up the road for a bracing breakfast at the café, I got a call from the agency, it seemed that the bank wanted to do a second interview. Yay! Today. Boo! This afternoon. Double Boo!

So I had to rearrange things, I went to the interview and it was a cracker! The woman who interviewed me, was cool, she had been out of the country when I did the first interview (which she told me I aced BTW) and she wanted to check I was not some abrasive primadonna who was going to wind up her team terribly.

I felt it went really well, and although I'm probably counting my chickens before they have hatched, I'm not-so-quietly confident about this one.

I then packed all the prezzies and my clothes into the car, and drove 200 miles North with watering eyes and a streaming nose, oh how I love this cold!

And here I sit with my father's notebook on my lap, typing to you dear reader.

Righty-ho I'm shattered, sleep well, night!

Mostly unwell...

2004-12-22T17:52:00.000Z

Today I have been feeling mostly unwell...

Managed to get to work for 9AM (was aiming for 8:30AM), that's it, no journey has taken less than 2 hours each way, I'm not doing it any more, even if the other job never happens, I can't do this any more, 4 hours travel on top of a 7.5 hour day is just too much!

At lunch time, I had been getting steadily worse as the say wore on, and I finally gave in and got the train home. Yay, 3 hours work and 4 hours travel, another winning day! Not.

Spent the rest of the day curled up in bed, I'm having another early night and I really (really really) hope I feel much better for the drive up to Yorkshire tomorrow.

Right I'm of to lie down.

Normal less whingy service will resume once I am better, honest.

Interview and day two...

2004-12-21T20:40:00.000Z

Well I went for an interview with an investment bank this morning, it went really well, and I can do with a job closer to home and better paid than the one I started yesterday. Hopefully I get to find out if I got the job tomorrow or the day after, then I can quit this job, and reduce my commute times to something less ridiculous.

Obviously I told the guys I'm currently working for, that I had a checkup with the doctor. Don't want to burn that bridge till I have to...

Got to work for middayish, still fuck all to do, busied myself with more reading and installing the tools required for the job on my PC.

The sly buggers at South West Trains run two trains an hour at the same time past the hour all day long, except I learned by chance, for just two in the late evening, which run 5 minutes earlier. Luckily, even though I was unaware, I arrived 6 minutes early, so I got the train. :)

I've been feeling pretty shitty since mid afternoon, hopefully I'm not coming down with a cold or flu. Spoke to J this evening, she's been laid up in bed for the last 3 days, hope I didn't pick up her lurgy when she stayed over last Thursday.

Right I'm going for an early night tonight, hopefully my nose, throat, and sinuses are less raw tomorrow... Yeah right.

New job, blurg. :(

2004-12-20T22:29:00.000Z

What a shit day!

Got up early, after bugger all sleep. Made my way to the tube, got sold the wrong ticket and had to explain at every ticket barrier. :(

Got to Clapham Junction (the busiest train station in Europe no less) , where the computes running the timetable system were down. Asked the nice lady at the office on platform 11 which train to take at 8:21, she said to take the 8:26 and then rushed off to wave the 8:21 off, so I bought a cup of coffee and got on that train, where I was fined for having the wrong ticket.

Then realised that the silly moo had sent me on the wrong bloody train, so I ended up at Chessington World of fucking Adventure.

Got the train back to the stop before the line branches in the wrong direction, and then finally got to work at the new job only an hour late.

Then I found out that they expected me to have a couple of grands worth of notebook PC with me!

Oh and the boss was on holiday.

Oh and there was fuck all to do but read pointless documents until the new year...

Went home (all the while explaining at the same fucking ticket barriers).

Ate and here I am.

Shit, I need my bed. Hopefully I'll be a bit more fun tomorrow.

Night.

Lazy day once more...

2004-12-19T23:02:00.000Z

I spent the day doing the quality parenting time with my daughter today.

We played Mousetrap, watched films, painted, and generally cheesed about. I got to cook a lovely Sunday roast, pork bellies and lots and lots of veggies with scrummy gravy, yum!

And now I sit here all alone thinking that it has been one of the best days of my life. And it has.

Right I'm off to bed nice and early now, I have a job to go to in the morning! :D

Crazy Lady is no more....

2004-12-18T21:54:00.000Z

Today Crazy Lady came online and thanked me for her flowers, indicated that she had started seeing someone and then listed all the stuff she had bought people for Christmas.

When she had finished listing it all (the list was extensive) I said, "Are you bankrupt yet?".

Unfortunately my humorous aside, was responded to in the following fashion:

everytime you open your mouth it's always to say some crap it's really annoying
you are really a negative person to be around
kind annoying C
very possessive and tireding
go C stay where you are. find some else to take your chite

This was followed a few minutes later by an email, I'd post the content of it, but it is too long, rambling, poorly worded/spelt, and incoherent to be of use to you dear reader. In summary she thinks: I am possessive, I should have paid for everything, I should have loved to hear her bitch about her previous bloke, and she doesn't like me so can I please fuck off.

What I will say about the e-mail though, is that it was either the work of a deluded genius believing her own lies, or someone who thought I was so thick that I'd believe it and come begging for more.

Either way she is as mad as a lorry, or so thoroughly wrong about me that she thinks I have cottage cheese instead of brains, which ever it is, I think we can safely say I am better off without her in my life.

This is pretty tragic really, I have now met two people (face to face) from Face Party, and both of them have turned out to be complete and utter frigging loons.

I was kind of assuming that the women on there would be hard to speak to, what with being approached by scary/wierdo men all the time, but it seems that my nutter magnet works via the Internet too, and I'm two for two on the meeting nutters counter.

What am I to do?

I have to conclude that all the mentalists that I have been involved with (there have been many), have me in common. As the common element in all of these interactions is me, I have to assume that I am the common fault here. I don't want to turn into an absolute cock, and start treating women like shit. I'm a nice guy, I genuinely am, but it seems the nicer I get, the more likely I am to get shat on by a new-age-fruit-loop-nutter (V) or a half-crazed-mentalist-gold-digger (S/Crazy Lady).

I think I'll stick to speed dating, this whole Internet thing is shite for meeting people who aren't scary.

At least when I meet someone face to face for three minutes only, I can work at the Lizard Brain instinctual level, without getting the chance to use the higher mental functions to make allowances for people who are clearly lying cunts.

Just in case you were wondering, I'm not bitter, I just consider trust to be an important issue, and I'm getting kind of tired of having my trusting nature abused.

Another endless day

2004-12-17T23:52:00.000Z

Suffice to say I was badgered into taking the job, but on condition, I'm out of there the minute I have more cash waiting elsewhere...

Less than an hour later, I got asked for a slot on Monday for an interview (for a better paid, closer to home, more relevant, etc. job).... Typical!

So now I have to go to work on Monday morning, tell them that I'm going to be in late on Tuesday, and go for an interview in the City, then head to work. Arse. Suffice to say I'm not comfortable with this, it feels unethical, but I have to think of me and my (potential) mortgage now. I have no idea why the client agreed to this, I can only assume that they are getting a very sugared version of the story from the agency.

What else has happened today? More progress on the home buying front.

I also went to see another house, it was bigger and had more potential, and it came with a garden (bad thing!) , but it would have cost at least £20-30K more and I've already semi-committed to this one anyway. Mustn't be greedy now. :)

I've had Angel here since 1PM this afternoon, she has a minor cough so her mother took her to the doctor's surgery, only to be told, "Yes she has a minor cough, make sure she takes plenty of fluids". No shit, I'm starting to think that my ex has some sort of displaced hypercondria!

We've spent the day together, and had plenty of fun, now she's gone to bed, and I am about to now too.

Sleep well.

Start the day as you mean to go on...

2004-12-16T21:20:00.000Z

Or not. Since in this case I woke at the crack of dawn with a scorching hangover, I think you might agree, not something worth extending or continuing for the rest of the day.

Both J and I were bitter, twisted, and evil shadows of our former selves. J had spend most of the night in the bathroom, not being sick thankfully, but not being too well either.

Whilst I was constantly woken with dreams of being an estate agent in Jamaica, showing properties to my mate D, all of which were abysmal, one where you even had to climb between the front door frame and the wall to get in, in the basement of a tower block. Lord alone knows what dream analysts would make of that one!

At 10AM we both headed off to the place I'm buying, so that we could measure up and J could give me some ideas on decor and furniture arrangement. It was really good fun, we started the day with light hearted bickering like a married couple and then carried on with the same tone for the rest of the day.

After we had done the measuring up, we headed off to Brent Cross as J needed to buy a couple of things for her father for Christmas. While we were there, we had some pizza from the buffet at Pizza Hut, obviously I ate too much, but then nothing is new there. :)

We had a good look around in John Lewis', J was good with the ideas on the home front. We have decided that Red/Gold for the master bedroom with a wrought iron bed would be nice, and a brown/beige/leather/suede for the living room would be cool. Kitchen looks to be going in a green direction, and the bath in the bathroom is going to be made much larger, since there is so much room there. Oh and the guest bedroom and the fitted office have to swap places.

There has been news as regards the home purchase, which you can find here.

When we got back, I introduced J (now JG) to J (now JH) my other friend who runs the shop round the corner from me. They are both learning Spanish, so they had a little natter to each other while I looked on like a dumb fool. :)

I walked JG down to the bus station so she could start the journey home, and on the way she said how cool it was that I had introduced her to JH, she really liked him, which was really nice to know.

I headed back up to JH's shop and chatted to him for a few hours until he closed shop and headed for home himself. He's lost enthusiasm for the plan to convert the shop , I think he's getting the blues a little, I tried to enthuse him, but obviously I backed off before I started to sound like a broken record. JH also said how much of a breath of fresh air JG had been, and how he thought she was a really nice person. Cool, it's nice when friends from disparate parts of your life meet, and immediately get on with each other.

Yesterday when I was chatting with JH about my car, we covered the topic of the front windscreen washer jets. These need replacing on my car, they seem to have clogged up and are pretty much useless, unless I'm sat at the lights and the car is not moving. I joked that I should replace them and get some that light up when you switch on the light for the car. JH wasn't sure whether I was taking the mick or not, so he got me some of them. Luckily I was out in the car with JG so he didn't get the fit them. I've told him to fit them, but he must add an extra switch so that I can just turn them on for fun. It would be toooooooo embarrassing if they were switched on all the time!

All the while that the rest of the day was taking place, I completely forgot I had planned for an Estate Agent to drop by my place, so I had to get very apologetic later on the phone to him.

Talking of the phone, it never stopped ringing all bloody day long. Calls from the estate agent, my solicitor, my accountant, the mortgage brokerage. Not to mention LOADS of calls from various employment agencies.

On top of that I was being badgered to accept the low paid job on the other side of London, and after I had explained my position as regards the cash, the agent in question had a tax specialist from an accountancy firm contact me, to see if there was a way they could rearrange my accounts so that I could squeeze my bottom line out of the £400/day the client was willing to pay. Lots of emails were sent back and forth, and mucho chatto was done, the end result being that I agreed to head home at some point and read the documents this evening and get back to the agent tomorrow. (Phew!) Lots of pressure to sign!

As a steady background to all of the above, I received a number of texts from Crazy Lady, saying that she had finally got to work today, "thanks for the flowers, they are dead", "I'm ill, I've gone home", "The flowers were dead", "I couldn't take the flowers home", "I'm really ill I can't see you this weekend". All to be expected really, I just didn't bother responding to any messages with a negative connotation.

I mean, who the fuck says, "Thanks for the present" and follows it with, "It had died"? Isn't that the same as, "Thanks for the horse, but its teeth are looking a little shitty"? Gift horses and mouths anyone?

And what bullshit anyway, since when did flowers die in two fucking days. Such nonsense. I'll leave her to her own devices until she gets back to me. She really is a fucking mentalist, either that or she thinks I'm a thick as pig-shit. If she wasn't so goddamn sexy I'd have given her the push long ago. :)

Happy days! :D Who'd have thought I could be busy WITHOUT a job?

Christmas party

2004-12-15T23:52:00.000Z

This evening I went to a Christmas party with a bunch of guys I used to work for a couple of years back.

It was good seeing them, even if I don't get to work for them any more. We met up at Waxy O'Connors pub, and had a few drinks. I was the first one there, I'm the anal control freak for a reason. :)

When we had had a couple of beers, we went on for a great meal at the Joy King Lau Chinese restaurant. Everyone ordered what they wanted, then we all dipped into whatever appeared on the Lazy Susan as she spun on by. Conversation was great, the food was great, the atmosphere and the booze were great too! I got to try Chinese style rice wine, warmed with a little sugar by comparison to the much subtler flavoured Japanese rice wine Sake which is cooled and unadulterated.

The service was great, and the only crappy part of the night was trying to get home, we finally fell out of the restaurant at just the point of the evening when every cab is taken by a drunkard stumbling out of a pub.

I even managed to hail a cab, but 10 yards short of me, he stopped at a crossing and the bloke on the crossing changed his mind and got in the cab. Bastard! That was all my Christmas good will for the evening lost. :)

J and I eventually got home and chatted for a while, then we've both gone to our respective beds exhausted. And here I laze typing my entry for the day, replentant, semi-drunk and thanking the Lord for laptops with wifi. :)

Oh yeah, there was one other thing... I have the job, the one I did the final telephone interview for when Crazy Lady came online to chat to me.

Problem is they want to pay £400/day (about £100-200/day less than I usually command). I can probably make the figures add up and buy the house comfortably, but I'll be spending all my liquid reserves to do so, and on that low an income, I won't be able to build up a reserve again. That's a bit of a bugger, as it means at the end of this contract, I'll have to get another one immediately, or I'll be in shit on the mortgage payments... Bummer.

Anyway, more tomorrow on how that turns out.

Nighty night.

Ordered the roses

2004-12-14T23:29:00.000Z

Well I gave in and ordered the roses for delivery today...

And then S came online at about 2ish, saying she never got to work because she collapsed on the way to work, and had spent most of the day at the hospital.

So I guess she gets to receive the flowers tomorrow, if she gets to work. (Assuming that the collapsing and hospital thing wasn't an invention of her fevered mind.)

Unfortunately she came online about a minute before I was expecting a call for a telephone interview for a job, so I had to tell her that I would have to chip at short notice. Obviously she flounced off, but no surprise there.

She hasn't returned either of my texts this evening, so I guess I'm still in the dog house. :)

The telephone interview went well, and there has been plenty of progress on the whole buying a home front.

After that I popped out and bought what I think is the last of the Christmas prezzies.

Also I had a quick conversation with J, about her glasses, she was having headaches a few weeks ago, and I told her to get her eyes tested. She couldn't afford the test never mind the glasses, so I said I'd get them for her Christmas prezzie. I'm pretty sure I have bought for everyone now! (Thank the little baby Jesus!)

Now all I need to do, is get my flat tidied for the arrival of the landlady and another surveyor tomorrow.

If only I could stop yawning. I need my bed, maybe I'll get up early and tidy the house then... :)

I'm feeling good

2004-12-13T21:56:00.000Z

I've been to the doc this morning, my mental health is looking fine, so all is well in that regard.

I've been entertained today by the insanity that is crazy chick.

And I'm considered dateable material for three women and friendship material for another three, all the results are not in yet, but I'm happy with what I got!

I've sent an e-mail out the one of them, hopefully we can meet up tomorrow night, or early next week as I'm busy all the rest of this week.

One of the other ones was completely gorgeous (as in model gorgeous), so much so that I just relaxed and was completely blaseé about the whole thing, reasoning that I didn't have a cat in hell's chance! I could come up with some great reasons why she ticked me for a date, all of which being bad for my self-esteem, so I'm just going to read it at face value, and go with it, I'll send her an email, and see where we get...

As for the entertainment with crazy chick, what's with that I hear you cry! Well, she asked me if I was going to be available for Wednesday night, and I mistakenly said yes.

She then said that she wanted me to make good on my promise. This would the flowers making their way into the world of weirdness again! I just didn't bother responding to that hint.

Later in the day I realised that I couldn't make it, in fact I'm going to a Christmas meal with some old work colleagues and J (from the same crowd, and who lives out of town) will be staying at my place too. I could cancel the meal, but it wouldn't be nice to cancel on J, and frankly I'm mercenary at the best of times, but not with friends, never with friends, and certainly not over someone who has been dicking me about for some time.

So I sent crazy chick (S) a text saying, "You're going to be pissed off, but can't make Wed, got something planned and someone visiting overnight".

I got a message back a couple of minutes later, "Is OK, no problem", followed by another one saying that she had booked us a table at a swanky restaurant and a room at an expensive hotel.

Now, I have noticed that S is only interested when, I am distant, as soon as I bend my will to meet her needs she loses interest. I guess I can see her point, if she wants a strong man to take care of her.... On the other hand she could just be a mentalist.

Anyway, theorising, that she was once more placing me in a test, "Who is more important, your friends and the friend you are having to stay, or me and a nice meal followed by a shag", I decided to test my theory.... I sent her a text saying, "Hang fire for a moment, let me see if I can rearrange my Wednesday...".

I'm pretty sure my theory was correct, and here's why, I received four (yes four) text messages in the next ten (yes ten) minutes:

"Don't bother, I just wanted to put things right as you are keeping your promise(*), maybe next week"
"I've cancelled the table and the hotel"
"before I see you, you have to keep your word(*)"
"No answer, forget it then"

* Reference to "The Flowers".

Now granted, I did suggest we keep to our original plan to just meet up on Sunday between messages two and three (although I started writing is before message one was received!). But I would like to point out that the delay between messages three and four was a whole two minutes.

My theory holds true, every time I bend to her whim, she gets uppity and freaks out.

Earlier this evening we had a chat by IM, she now claims to have lost a court case because of interference by her ex, and she wanted to rope me into her plans for revenge. Further testing my theory on her need for me to not bend in the slightest, I didn't bend, I just said, "No, its wrong and I don't want to do it". Oddly enough I got an "OK".

Why on Earth she wants to get revenge now, I have no idea, it would be obvious who was responsible so shortly after the court case (if it ever happened, don't forget she is a drama queen, and may be making all of this up). As it is frequently said, "Revenge is a dish best served cold", and in this case it will stop the plod knocking on your door the next morning.

After that, she said that she wanted to watch a film on Sunday, but didn't have a DVD player (which I took as a hint to buy her one), so I suggested she come round and we watch a film here (rather than buy her one).

So we are all back on, question is, do I send her the flowers, after last time she collected them, and then denied it. On the one hand, I may get a shag from someone who is sexy as hell who just needs a firm hand on the relationship's tiller, on the other hand it may be just more good money going after bad money.

See, I told you I could be mercenary!

Entered my ticks

2004-12-12T21:14:00.000Z

Right then the e-mail has come and I've entered my speed dating ticks into the web site.

What with having very little sleep in the last week, I've spent most of the day sat on my backside making a mess of my home and carrying on like a slob.

Thinking about it, that is what I have been doing all week... Lucky think I didn't take Kathryn home last night, she'd have thought I was an un-house-trained-pig! :)

I have also eaten mostly raisin bread today too.

Christmas cake and speed dating...

2004-12-12T09:42:00.000Z

Whew, what a day yesterday was!

I got up nice an early (after a hearty four hours sleep, eek!) and headed down to P's place, then the pair of us headed out to Borough Market and we did some of the Christmas food shopping... Yum!

I bought a huge Christmas cake and a massive Christmas pudding too! Then I realised that because of the alcohol, nuts and raisins, its just going to be me, ma and pa eating them! Wooooooooo Hoooooooo! I'm going to be weighing 20 stone by the end of the year! :)

Later I headed down to the West End, to meet D for a spot of Speed Dating. It is so long since I had that much fun!

D suggested it on Thursday night when we were down the pub, he gets really nervous around women, which is a bit weird as he does the same kind of work as me, and has to attend a lot of interviews. The way I see it the two things are not too dissimilar, your basically selling yourself to someone, and seeing in return what they have to offer to you, right?

We had a couple of drinks to calm down D's nerves (although, I must admit I was a tiny bit nervous about the whole thing too).

We signed in and we each moved to the assigned table to start our first date. I got a really great lady called Nicole, we were both speed dating virgins, so I suggested we go easy on each other! That got a laugh, and from then on it was easy. Then the bell rang, and we were told to start out first date. :) So Nicole and I got to have two speed dates... Do I expect sex the third time we meet? (Ha ha, I'm so funny!)

I was really worried that I was going to meet some really scary people there, and to be honest I did, but luckily they were blokes, thus reducing the competition! Heh.

In the end we had 24 dates all in all, and of those, only three people I would never want to see again, the rest I'd love to go on a date with or become friends with.

After the final date, you get to get up and mill about and chat if you want to. At this point a few of us got together and headed off to the Atlantic Bar, plenty of dancing ensued. It is years since I have been clubbing (apart from one isolated incident last year that is).

I spent most of the evening with a lovely lady called Kathryn (who happened to be my final date), doing some close up dancing and a bit of smooching. A couple of times she had to go and sit down, I think she was a little drunk, and then eventually her mate stepped in and took her home. I was so inebriated that I forgot to get her number, so I really hope she ticks me online, and we get to meet up again.

After that I was so high on life, I decided to walk home, (about 4.6m miles according to the RAC route planner) so I got in at about 3AM. I was utterly frazzled and went straight to my pit.

Then I was woken up by the gas man, come to fix my boiler at 9AM on the dot this morning. Bugger! Forgot about that appointment.

All the women are starting to mix in my head now, I can barely remember a distinct one already. And my notes (somewhat illegible at the best of time, but not helped by alcohol consumption) are worse than useless, what the hell does "Catsuit, Wig" or "Chips" mean anyway?

Having said that, I've done my ticking, and we'll see where we get. It makes more sense to go with gut instinct, which is what my ticks are, than trying to remember memories obscured by Ethanol. That's what the whole point of the three minutes is about right? Using gut instinct to determine a match...

Three months!

2004-12-10T23:18:00.000Z

Wow, I just realised I have been updating this blog for three months! Just so you know. :)

Anyway back to today...

I slept terribly last night, I was afraid of sleeping though Angel's assembly at school, I didn't oversleep, but then I didn't sleep either. :(

I went to see Angel play Mary in her school's Nativity play, she was really cute, and played a very regal Mary (well apart form the bits where she was waving to me :) ).

She had a bit of an emotional outburst when I went to see her after and tell her how well she did. She keeps telling me she really misses me when she's not with me. I can see why, she is a very loving child, and we do have a very close relationship. I don't want to rush to any rash decisions, but I am considering approaching S and proposing an arrangement for me to pick up Angel for a couple of hours each Wednesday evening. I'm going to think on this one.

After that I went to see another house, the property was nice enough, a four bedroom maisonette, but in a really wired layout (living room and kitchen at the top floor and bedrooms on the ground and first floors) but it does come with a patio garden, lots of built in storage, and is closer to the tube station in Zone 2, not Zone 3 where my current purchase is. On top of it will be about £30-35K cheaper than the one I'm buying right now. A good backup plan if this one falls through I feel.

After that I spent more time with J, helping him with the plan for the finance and development plan for his redevelopment of the unused space above his shop.

What else... I had a chat with S the crazy lady, she wants her flowers :) We are meant to be meeting up next Sunday, I expect her to cancel. I know I'm being negative, but to be honest it seems like realism to me.

Oh, and I booked to do some speed dating with D this weekend. D is totally shy around women, so I agreed to come along with him to help him with the nerves. And you never know, I may meet a non-nutter! (Fingers-crossed!)

Right, nighty night.

Didn't get the job.

2004-12-09T18:55:00.000Z

Well I've had a busy day today.

I've been out an practiced my golf swing down at the driving range.

Been to see my mate J, and helped him with his plan to convert the unused floors of his shop into flats.

Finally I got to go and see more properties, none of them really met my criteria, and the other one looks to be going ahead anyway, but I want to keep viewing properties until the other is a sure thing. Keep my finger in that particular pie as it were.

In other news (as you may have guessed by the title) I didn't get the job with the Japanese bank, ho hum. Bugger! Anyway I did expect this outcome, and it would appear that they are asking two people back for second interviews... Second fucking interviews? This is contract work not permanent work FFS!

There is always the interview from yesterday to keep my fingers crossed for. Now off to the pub. :)

Crazy lady is back once more.

2004-12-08T23:39:00.000Z

Just rolled in from the pub somewhat squiffy, and had a little IM chat with S, she claims that her ex has married his new g/f after only 4 weeks.

This was the reason she got so angry about the whole flowers thing...

No, doesn't make any sense to me either.

Personally, I'm inclined to think this is yet more bollocks she is inventing in her quest to be THE drama queen. Even if it is true, her total overreaction and sniping at me make her a drama queen in the extreme anyway. The guy was a shit so she claims, so why be bothered that he married someone else, lucky escape surely? Then again, I'm being a pragmatist, and it's not my emotions we are talking about.

Anyway, she's hot, so I'll let her have some leeway, I'm not dumb enough to let her control me, so no biggie.

Its official money lenders are desperate!

2004-12-07T21:44:00.000Z

I have not supplied all the documentation required for the mortgage and they have still approved it!

(Subject to survey of course.)

What ever happened to due diligence?

Lucky I'm not some dodgy fellow taking the mick eh?

Happy days! :)

I saved three lives today.

2004-12-06T22:02:00.000Z

Well... semi-directly I may have save three lives today. Today I gave blood, if you don't you should unless there is a medical reason not to do so.

Get off your arse and do it.

What else did I do? Went for a coffee by my mate J's place, let my landlady and a valuer in to my home so it can be valued. Er.... that's it. Oh no there's more, I got my hair cut, and hand delivered a cheque to the estate agent, and finally posted some stuff relating to the house off to various people.

Watched telly and played Halo 2.

Whew, taxing day! (Not.) I am officially a man of leisure.

But still no news on the job front.

My ex-wife is a loon.

2004-12-05T19:50:00.000Z

It would appear to be official, she is a nutter. It would seem that her latest attempt to twist my daughter's mind is to tell her that her surname will be changing to become double barreled.

A's surname is the same as mine obviously, S seems to think that it should change, and that A's name should be suffixed with S's new husband's surname.

Just in case you think I may be overreacting, let me just point out that I was step parent to her second kid for ten years, at no point was such a thing even suggested, in fact even getting into that area was enough to cause severe friction.

Conclusion: This is probably designed with the intent of A passing it on to me, and me being pissed off. How sad is that?

On the upside, she will have to get the name changed by deed poll, which costs money, so yet more wind up crap she will never do.

Other than that, it was a nice day, I helped my dad take his bike down to the shop to be fixed, and we bumped into an old friend, that we haven't seen for a long time (years in my case).

Then we got home, sat down as a family and had toad in the hole (vegetarian stylee) for lunch.

Then A and myself set off on the journey back down from Yorkshire and back to London, a really pleasant journey, we played "I Spy" a lot, listened to the audio book of Artemis Fowl and enjoyed the sunshine.

We just had time to give A a nice little meal when we got home, and then I took her home. (At this point she told me about the plan to change her name.)

Then I got home, and completed Halo 2. (Sense of achievement, oh yes, then restarted on a harder level!)

I'm knackered after the long drive, so I'm going to get an early night. I really ought to get out and do more stuff. But to be honest, my shins are killing me after yesterday's power walking with my dad, more effort with the treadmill I think.

Busy day

2004-12-04T23:05:00.000Z

All the stuff we planned for today, we did. Woo I'm exhausted!

Mum didn't freak at the restaurant. So that was good.

I need bed now, I just spent the last two hours trying to remove all kinds of popup/adware/spyware crap from my dad's laptop. Fun!

Goodnight!

Weekend ahead

2004-12-03T23:21:00.000Z

Well today I performed some preemptive laziness in preparation for the afternoon.

I picked up Angel from the school gates and headed straight up the M1 to my parent's place, five hours of extreme concentration, behind the wheel, entertaining a bored child, in mostly rush hour or equivalent motorway traffic!

I don't like the journey, but it is great to make that sacrifice to be with my parents and daughter simultaneously.

The plan for this weekend appears to be to get up tomorrow, go for a healthy brisk walk with my dad to start the day, then head into town get a few things and then head to the next town over and go for a Greek lunch (I luuuuurve Kleftiko!).

This may cause a few problems, the last time we went there, I found a tiny caterpillar on my salad, I'm OK with it, these things happen, my mother on the other hand is not so happy at the prospect, and may well kick off. Eeek! Fingers crossed.

Tomorrow evening involves a local pub , which reminds me I must text D&E and see if they are around for a couple of hours at the pub before I join my dad at the other pub. (I must improve my contact skills, more warning for friends is a good thing!)

Right I'm off to bed to read, and get some kip in for the morrow. Luckily I don't have to put the little one to bed, obviously she has been joined at the hip to my mum since we got here, so all kiddie maintenance activities (other than delivery of Asthma medications) are taken by the parental units, they love it, so does Angel, and I don't get a look in. All good. :)

One last thing, yesterday's bizarre suggestion, actually seems to have come off. An employment agent thinks he has an ideal position for me, so much so that he has offered to give me a contract (which will in effect be worthless) so I can get the mortgage underway. Its an interesting idea, and If I wasn't really extending myself doing this, I'd probably take him up on it. But as it is all my money is at least three months away, it's earning high rates of interest, but I can't get it out quickly. What to do? I don't want to buy this place, and then have it repossesed before I can get the money together to pay the first few mortgage payments!

Crisis of confidence

2004-12-02T21:13:00.000Z

Today was spent, second guessing my every move, until I realised I was doing myself no good (and frankly not changing a bloody thing anyway).

I spent a lot of the day on the phone getting details for various forms, and looking at ways of speeding up the whole home buying process.

For some reason a whole host of clients suddenly need people with my skills, so I took about 20 phone calls from various employment agencies regarding a number of positions, so it does look pretty positive at the moment as far as a job goes, whether this will come in time for me to be able to commit to the mortgage is an interesting issue...

I had a very interesting suggestion put to me today, for which I was expecting a follow up this afternoon that never came, although this was an employment agent, so saying "I'll call you later this afternoon", really means, "I may call you back, and if I do call you, it will be at some point in the next three working days". So we shall see what happens in the next few days. :)

I may or may not have devoted a part of the day to playing Halo 2 as well.

Paperwork

2004-12-01T22:58:00.000Z

Today I finally gave in an caught up with my paperwork, I have two big Ikea boxes full of folder organisers full of paperwork from the last three months or so that had to be sorted, filed and acted upon.

This is all in preparation for the mountain of paperwork that will be required for the whole mortgage thing.

Other than that the rest of the day was spent harassing the employment agency trying to get a heads up from the bank I had the interview with earlier this week. No joy, apparently they are interviewing people until Thursday now, so no chance of an answer until Friday. Add to that, that it is not a good idea to be the first they interview, as I'll no longer be fresh in their minds, and I'm starting to think that the odds are stacked against me here!

Oh, and I may have devoted an hour or five to obsessively scouring Jobserve for jobs and applying for them, whilst also submitting to a little warfare in the form of Halo 2.

Apart from that a very relaxed day, I must make an effort to go out and get a little exercise.

Today I am the laziest man on Earth!

2004-11-30T22:19:00.000Z

Today I got up at 9AM, did my morning routine in the bathroom, then went back to bed and read my book until 1PM.

Then I got up made myself beef madras and rice, went back to bed and ate it while reading my book.

I followed this with a couple of hours playing Halo 2.

Then I had a little kip from 4:30 until 6:30ish.

I got up, had a quick IM chat with a friend who cried off our planned night out this evening, apparently he was still recovering from a weekend in Prague.

I checked for the mail, which luckily had been dropped on my doormat by my neighbor when she returned from work, so I didn't even have to go down stairs. There was lots of mail all related to home buying. I read though that, and formed a game plan.

I popped out to the supermarket for a few essentials.

And then a bit more Halo 2, some Kingdom of Loathing, and now I'm back off to bed to read more of my book.

What a glorious day, but tomorrow I must start making lists and plans regarding the planned house purchase, especially with regard to money.

Nighty night.

The interview

2004-11-29T20:34:00.000Z

It all went well, unfortunately they have other people they are interviewing until Wednesday, so I won't hear until Thursday earliest...

Fingers crossed.

I'm starting to stress about this now. :(

Time to try some positive thinking.

Wow!

2004-11-29T13:57:00.000Z

The offer on the new home has been accepted...

Now I have to focus on getting the job, and not coming across as being desperate!

Please funnel all mojo, good thought and positive karma this way at 4PM!

plskthx!

Moroccan food and good conversation

2004-11-28T23:48:00.000Z

Went to a lovely Moroccan restaurant yesterday evening with J, the lovely lady I was crushing on a while ago. The food was great (I've never had Moroccan before, so it was all new to me) and the wine was good, but the conversation was better.

We talked about lots of things, people places and how to fix the world and our lives.

This morning we got up and headed upto my favourite cafe (next door to the previous evening's food) and had a huge fry up. Yum!

Then we went for a walk in the park and we drove past the front door of the place I'm trying to buy, so she could see where it was.

J being an adorer of all things DIY, has already offered her services and those of her nephew to fix the place up come the summer, should I need the help (or have the cash to pay).

I dropped her off at the station, and being the tragi-geek that I am, I proceeded to play Halo 2 for the rest of this afternoon and this evening and er... this night too!

So much for more housework. Although I did have a visitor with a few technical needs, so I made an effort to do the washing up and the hoovering before arrival, so not a complete wasted day.

What the hell it's the weekend, who said I have to do anything? :)

Woke up and started the day with an insight...

2004-11-27T16:36:00.000Z

I woke up this morning, and got to work on all the housework that has been building up for the last week or so. This is great reflection time for me, gives my hands something to do that doesn't need my consciousness to be involved. It's usually doing the housework or sitting on the loo that I make my greatest insights. (At least 20% of my PhD thesis came to me setting on the toilet I'm sure!)

Anyway, as I was folding the laundry this morning, I started to think about the last couple of months, and the whole V thing, and then, I made an effort to put together a time-line for the whole relationship, and what had gone on.

It struck me that I had failed to make one final insight into all that had gone on.

While V was with her bloke E, and she knew I was crushing on her, she was the cat with the cream, she had E who was cute and came and went on his own whims and gave her enough sex to keep her reasonably happy, and then there was me, available for her at all times and willing to bend over backwards to do whatever she wanted to do.

I realised the point when it all broke down, was when E gave V the push. When V told me this, she asked if I thought it was good news for me (or something to that effect), me being the realist(?!) that I am, I said no. To be honest at that point I had concluded the best we were ever going to be was friends, and so E being off the scene didn't open any doors for me, I was certain at this point we would never be an item. I said words to that effect to V.

The cat had lost the cream, no cute E to fuck her when she needed it, and me no longer crushing on her and entertaining her every nonsense.

For a couple of months up until that point, I had noticed that I initiated every conversation, and it was all one way. The only real response was when she was shooting me down, then she was all fired up and ready to go.

Over the few weeks that followed me saying that I was no longer interested, her bits of random sniping became more and more pronounced, until I decided to see if we were friends or I was just a handy emotional punch bag to get her angst out of her system. To that end, I just stopped contacting her, I wanted to see how long before she picked up the phone, started an IM, texted or contacted me however.

For a couple of weeks (normally we chatted daily) I heard nothing apart from the one "Are you there" when I left MSN on "Away".

Eventually she IMed me while I was online, and we had the chat that I knew was coming, she said that she was uncomfortable that I was crushing on her, I pointed out that I wasn't anymore, nor had I in fact been crushing for weeks. So she decided that we couldn't be friends because I didn't stimulate her.

Obviously I was really hurt by this, I might be many things, but I'm certainly not boring, ask any one of the many friends and acquaintances that I have.

So I have to conclude that either she was telling the truth and I didn't stimulate her and that is a problem she has, or it was a just a bullshit reason to get me out of her life.

I'm inclined to think it was a bullshit reason to get me out of her life.

Lets face it, I'm not stimulating because I'm not a tattoo covered biker, and I'm not stimulating because I'm not rich, I'm Mr. Average Chap of 33, one ex-wife and a six year old kid, no excitement there at all.

Of course the whole not rich thing was just her perception, I tend not to let the women I am interested in know what I have in the bank, they tend to like you for the wrong reasons.

As for V, well she likes to think (at the grand old age of 27) that she has the answers. The truth is, I don't think she knows what she wants, but she's not prepared to get off her arse and achieve anything, but happy to wait for it to land in her lap. I wish her well, but think it is somewhat tragic that she lives the life she does, she is a clever woman, who could really do things, but she is not prepared to go to the mountain, much like Mohammed, she wants the mountain to come to her.

I was disappointed that she chose not to say bye face to face, or over the phone in a personal manner, but to say it via a blog post. I really did think she was more mature than that. Such is life.

Bye V, nice knowing you while it lasted. I don't wish you any ill, I really do hope you sort your life out in the end.

New blog

2004-11-27T01:27:00.000Z

I realised that the home buying was taking over, so I have started a new blog to just deal with that. "I'm buying a Home" can be found here.

Self destructing, relationships and general mental state will continue to be reported here.

Normal service will resume shortly. :)

Apparently we are playing "Silly buggers"

2004-11-26T18:14:00.000Z

I got a call from the estate agent again today, the vendor hasn't accepted my offer, but they wanted to see a proof of address and a proof of identity. For anti money-laundering purposes apparently...

Hmmm, the correct response I think is, "What the fuck!?". (And I don't often use multiple punctuation I can tell you, I'm the son of a retired English teacher after all.)

I tempered my initial thoughts somewhat and came back with the following answer, "Let me get this right, yesterday they point-blank refused to play the game and negotiate in the universally accepted manner. And now they haven't even accepted my offer, but they're expecting me to jump through hoops?"

Estate agent: "Er, yeah, I'm not too happy about it either, on the good side at least they haven't rejected your new offer and they're asking for this, so this could be a good sign that they are ready to progress now".

Moi: "Er yeah, I'm not convinced."

At about 2PM this afternoon I dropped by the office and handed over a bank statement (I was careful to choose one with a £125K balance, ho ho, hopefully should stop them prating me about) and my passport, when they had finished taking copies, I very calmly and carefully explained to the estate agent, "I want to buy a place with the minimum of fuss or hassle, to that end, any further nonsense, or playing their own game and expecting everyone else to dance to their tune and I'll be withdrawing my offer then looking for somewhere else to buy."

The guy was most contrite, and tried to explain that his job is to work for the vendor, I explained I could see his point of view, but after only one day I was at the end of my tether with them, they had had as much leeway as they were going to get. Twice in two days they had changed (or attempted to change) the rules of engagement for this process. Twice is enough for the whole deal.

I received a call this evening from the estate agency again, apparently the vendor does not work weekends so no news until Monday now, fine by me. He also let slip that mine is the only offer from their estate agency and that there are no offers at all from the other two agencies. All good news, this property has been on the market for three weeks now, and just three months ago would have been snapped up in a matter of days, now there are three estate agencies trying to sell it, and there has only been one offer (from yours truly) in three weeks. I am so in the driving seat, if they accept my offer, I may retract it and resubmit back at £335K just for fucking me about.

Yes, I know I have a low tolerance for people titting me about, or inventing new rules once the game has started. :)

Plan in need of revision already...

2004-11-25T21:48:00.000Z

Hmmm, the plan has gone to shit already! A bit quicker than even I suspected it would. :)

So what's happened then... well first of all my employment has fallen through, funding was coming from the US not the UK, and given the current exchange rate and the insistance of GWB that the US economy should collapse in the next two to three years, the guys in the US just don't have the readies to pay me with. :(

So boo-hoo, no great job, no being paid great cash. On the upside though, about an hour before that call came through, I got a call from an agency with an interview request, and being the somewhat prescient person that I am (or maybe its just that I have been though this particular cycle a number of times over the last decade) I went ahead and organised it just in case this one fell through.

So all mojo sent on Monday at 4PM will be most appreciated.

What else? Oh yeah, my initial offer on the maisonette was rejected, no surprises there, I didn't really expect them to go with the offer, the whole point of negotiation is they ask for too much, you offer too little, and then you meet in the middle somewhere.

However their response was somewhat cumbersome, it turns out that the vendor of the property is actually a company that sell reposessed properties (hence the unexpectedly low price I guess), and their immediate response was to say, "No, what's the maximum offer you will put in?".

Obviously I didn't answer that, on account of me not being a complete and utter fucktard and of course having a clue what negotiation is (what with doing it professionally for the last 12 years of my life).

Anyway that figure is for me to know, and for them to find out (painfully slowly if I can manage it, what with having to find a new job and reorganise a mortgage again).

In the end I made my displeasure clear, what I was expecting was one of the usual responses, such as "No, but you are close to a figure we are comfortable with", "yes", or maybe, "No, you are miles away from a figure we are happy with", but certainly not, "No, tell us the absolute max you will spend (then we can add 5K to that)". Then I gave them a new figure of £340K to play with. I was asked if that was my maximum bid, and I responded along the lines of, "maybe... maybe not".

The way I see it, they have a property in need of work, the season is slow at this time of year (no one wants to buy now, they're waiting till next year), I've got the money (as far as they know anyway), so all in all they can be rid of the thing soaking up all the cash in their pockets now, it's a good deal for them before the market drops any further!

Oh yeah, and had a call from my brother's solicitor (she came highly recommended) regarding the conveyancing of the property, looks like the bill is going to come to over £12K when stamp duty is included, not to mention another £500+ for a survey.

We shall see what tomorrow brings... this is fun though right now. I didn't expect the plan to hold long, but less than 24 hours was a surprise! :)

Onward!

W00t!

2004-11-24T20:12:00.000Z

A most busy and productive day...

I got the job, got the money I wanted, and a job that is just great working with great guys. I sorted the mortgage and put in an offer for the maisonette...

Woo-bloody-hoo!

Real life changing, growing up stuff, who'd have thought I'd be here a week ago, when I woke up and decided to buy a home?

I believe that I may have set a personal record for impulse purchasing. (£335K)

Fingers crossed that the offer is accepted. All mojo being sent this way will be gratefully accepted.

No signs of crazy lady S, bridge burnt me thinks. :D

Right got to go, I have a hot bath to run and a half a bottle of chilled white wine to drink while reading a good book. A minor private celebration I think.

Laaaaaaaaaazy day

2004-11-23T22:26:00.000Z

Today I have sat around and done pretty much nothing. I just about managed to clean my kitchen (who'd of thought that cream cleaner would bring up limescaled stainless steel so well?)

I was meant to go and meet an agent today, but I totally forgot, he didn't help by sending the contact details to an old email address (even though I gave him the new one) . Anyway, I'm to give him a call tomorrow, and we'll meet up then hopefully.

I got an email from my favourite ex-employer... they want me back, yay!

All I have to do is convince them that they want me for six months not four (or at least write a contract to that effect for the mortgage lender) and to pay me at least £450/day and I can get this mortgage sorted out and buy my lovely maisionette! Double yay!

I'll drop by their office tomorrow and start the negotiations. Whoop!

Fingers crossed for a new home.

Away for an evening

2004-11-22T23:48:00.000Z

Yesterday evening, I drove to my brother's place after I dropped A back off to her mother's house.

We ate huge steaks (that I bought from Borough Market Sat AM) and lots of roasted veggies, yum! All cooked to a T by T my brother's g/f.

Then the three of us watched Something's Gotta Give, cute film, but oh so slow!

I drove back into London this morning, and then spent the day furiously applying for jobs.

Lots of irons in the fire, and lots of progress being made, made it known to all the relevant agencies that I'll take a low rate for a job as I'm getting a mortgage sorted out for a house.

Fingers crossed that the interview requests start rolling in tomorrow and the job offers start rolling in by the end of the week.

It seems I am re-energised. The great thing about someone telling you to fuck off (nicely or nastily, it doesn't matter) is that you normally have two options on how to deal with it. You can either get upset, try to analyse it and as a result make yourself upset, or, you can say "Your loss" and move on with your life. I seem to have made a third option, a bit of careful analysis and then the "Your Loss" scenario. This way I feel that I have learnt something from what happened, but to be honest, I know who will be regretting the decision in the months to come, it won't be me, since I didn't make the decision...

Oh, on another note, can't remember if I mentioned it or not, I sent S (the crazy lady) some roses and chocs, she claims not to have received them, but the Interflora agent's description of the two people who collected the failed delivery describes her and her flatmate perfectly... Someone is telling porkies and I think I know who it is. Anyway she flounced off when I asked her if she was sure for the third time, she put the phone down, I suspect I shall never hear from her again. :)

Funny really, I'm not sure what her problem is, she's hot but too much effort, I'm tired of crazy people in my life, I give up officially, (unless she's buying dinner on Wednesday :D).

Head games are for arseholes, why can't I find someone who isn't an arsehole?

Genius!

2004-11-21T01:42:00.000Z

One of the craziest things I've seen in a while, seriously clever stuff though! It's QuickTime download, well worth sticking with for the final product though.

A fine day

2004-11-20T23:45:00.000Z

Started with Borough Market after a bit of an over sleep, followed by The Incredibles.

Just for the record anyone with a dodgy copy of this film, should go watch it down the cinema, you will not be able to appreciate this at home on your 19" monitor! Pixar (and Disney I suppose) deserve your cash for this film, its a cracker!

More superlatives!

And more here! :)

Found out today that my daughter A has been bullied at school for the last few weeks, I'll be dropping by the school to lay down some ground rules with the headmistress of the school.

I was bullied terribly at school and I know how utterly soul destroying an experience it can be. (Like you hadn't guessed!)

That's not happening to my little angel, so the school have a couple of weeks to sort it out, and if there are no results, angel is going to get a crash course in kicking the living crap out of her adversaries. Obviously I'll be telling the headmistress this, so she has some incentive to get the problem fixed at source before I introduce the tools to A for her to fix it the hard way. It's all very well having a "Bullying policy" but if a kid (well my kid really) is being bullied, policy-schmolicy, the shit is going to hit the fan.

I shall keep you informed.

Starting to get really excited about buying the house, I'm all a quiver, I'm even seriously thinking about working again! (Wow!) I seem to be really energised and positive right now. Cool!

I got dumped :)

2004-11-19T05:33:00.000Z

Obviously S is a drama queen, she needs to feel agitated, so she invents a little drama and dumps me as a result after each date. Then we chat, she calms down and then we are ok. (Sheesh.)

Anyway it appears (and I have to read entrails here) that I was dumped today because I didn't stay the night last night and sleep with her.

No, it doesn't make sense to me either. But I'm pretty sure that the whole "Male Vs. Female" logic thing comes into play here, so I have the wrong tool set for tackling this problem.

On the upside, I'm sure it will blow over in the next couple of days or so.

The rest of the day was spent looking at houses to buy, I think I have found an nice maisonette with 3 bedrooms, a study, and a huge living room coupled with a huge kitchen. There is a little cosmetic work to be done, but I reckon I could offer £20k less than asking and get it! The vendor is (and I quote), "Very open to offers"!

Now I just have to get the mortgage sorted out, oh and a job, ha ha, just the right time of year too!

No news on the V front. Although, I guess I'm being optimistic expecting an answer soon (if ever).

Right got to go, must pick up the daughter for a weekend of fun. (Including going to see The Incredibles, yay!, been waiting a long time for this film).