The words wouldn't flow and nothing worked.

The words wouldn't flow and nothing worked.

You can't force it, letters drip from your fingers as they tickle the plastic keys.
Like magic they appear on an illuminated surface and then disperse, sending their message to screens across the globe.

The books in the cargo hold swell slightly, as if the letters within shifted and turned over to rest, or was it just a change in weather ?

On donkeys backs books make the slow winding route to the library, strapped safely into saddlebags to deliver the message of the age.

A soft click and the information appears. And appears again and again.
The message has gone, dispersed.

The words flowed too much, something stirred and the letters went to sleep.

The "inbetween days"

So here I sit, inbetween Xmas and New Years, dreading New Years eve because I just don't want to party like a looney, but I also can't face sitting in my room all night. If I had my way, New Years would be spent more like Xmas, with a nice big feast, chatting around the table and a civilised start to the New Year, mildly pickled.

Unfortunately, right now, I don't have much choice. Stay in on the "big night" and feel miserable, or go out and party and feel miserable for two days after. Yes, I could go to the party and not actually consume a great deal of alcohol, but then I'd have to watch everyone else get totally legless which really isn't fun.

The "inbetween days" have arrived due to a really tight budget and the fact that I only start work in early Jan. I would love to be working for the next three days. I do have a project I need to work on however - need to get stuck into that.

I'm longing to head into London and may do so tommorrow on a really low budget, which would involve a return ticket to Waterloo and walking everywhere. That would cost £2.40. The alternative is £5.20 for an all day travel card, which eats into my beer budget - hehe - mixed priorities !
Unfortunately, I lost my London A-Z in an accident with a bottle of olive oil, which somehow burst open in the draw of the B&B I was at, drenching the book. I'll have to load up maps of central london onto my mobile from the net.

To preserve my sanity, I've set aside £7 a day for a few pints and a pot of tea. I can't stay cooped up in my room for more than a few hours a day. The other £3 is for food, which I buy to last a few days. Sounds crazy really, but it's just the way I'm working it. I really enjoy coming up to the pub in the evening, saying hello to the bar staff and settling in to drink a slow pint or two, writing crap like this.

On the plus side, the people I'm staying with are chill. Had some great curry today which one of the house mates cooked - onions, mince, tin of baked beans and lots of curry powder. Damn tasty. Pity their taste in music and TV is so different to mine, but that's cool - makes life more interesting. By the end of Jan, I may actually know something about Football, but I doubt if I'll ever get a taste for R&B or Doof Doof music.

Feels good to have the use of a kitchen for the first time in over two months. The bathroom access isn't as bad as I feared and although they party hard sometimes, everyone cleans up after. The kitchen on Boxing day morning looked like a food bomb had hit it, but by that afternoon, it was clean.

I'm really glad I found the place I did, my initial fears over settling in have slowly faded as I get used to the place. Heck, I've got broadband, central heating, a good sized room and the place is in a good location - couldn't ask for more.

... but that dreaded new years eve. I can't describe how much I dislike the whole idea of it. It's building up in such a typical way :-

"What are you doing New Years Eve ?"
"Not sure, you ?"
"No idea"

So many people are just looking for the best option for them personally, rather than actually wanting to be in a specific place. It's so desperate and really brings out the worst in people.

I've even contemplated just getting a £25 hotel room for the night, locking myself in with some tasty food and leaving after it's all over. Sad, but true. Instead, I'll most likely be heading over to party with "the youngsters" and find myself staggering back home at 3am in the morning.

Agh, who knows, maybe there'll be some older people there who I can chat with. The last party I went to there was fun.

I'm just an old fart who hates New Years ! - grrrrrr.

Getting into the swing of Xmas with Quince cheese ?

I'm out buying starters for Xmas lunch with friends tommorrow and just couldn't bring myself to do the typical supermarket shop, something different was required.

Browsing around Marks and Spencers in Wimbledon yielded nothing but packaged overpriced preservative laden factory food.

I took a chance that the Borough market would be open and headed into the city and found it was !
Got here early enough to find it not as busy as my other visits, had a quick jolt of coffee - single espresso - and decided to get some cheese and something to go with it.

There's no shortage of cheese stalls and shops and I decided on Gorwydd caerphilly cheese after a quick tasting. Got a nice big £5 block which should be fine for 9 people.

The salvation army band were playing festive tunes which really set the mood, lots of smiling people, children running around, the market doing a brisk trade on the day before Xmas.

I needed something else to go with the cheese (aside from crackers, which I'll get later) and was thinking about some tasty pate. Instead I opted for Quince Cheese. It isn't actually a cheese, but a preserve and a quick sample taste made my mind up - absolutely delicious. It's usually eaten with cheese and used a lot in Turkish foods.

Quince cheese takes a while to make - the fruit itself is like a hairy pear and needs a lot of cooking before it's edible.

Of course I got myself an extra small block of cheese for supper tonight, along with some rye bread and tomatoes, but the quince cheese will wait till tommorrow, as much as I'd like to use it later on my bread !

And I most definately deserved a pint of bitter, to be enjoyed slowly, at Nicholsons on the banks of the Thames, which is where I sit now.

I'll take another quick nip through the market before heading back to wimbledon, to snag some free samples of food on offer.

Possibly a bit of a walk through the streets of London before I return ? - yeah, why not. It's a sunny mild winters day.
My legs are a bit wobbly today, I walked a good 5 miles yesterday, but it feels good. It's the type of ache that you know is a sign of fitness. I think I'll write a diet book on quick weight loss with a snappy title - "Matts quick weight loss diet - sell your car and walk around London for two months"

Later to The Swan for another pint of festive ale - yum !
This is all part of the diet, as it's clear from medical research that rapid weight loss can be bad for you unless you counter it by consuming large amounts of beer.

I think it has the makings of a best seller.

Xmas in London is great, even if your out and about alone. The most important thing is I'm sharing tommorrow with friends, which reminds me, I need to find a reasonable bottle of red wine today.

Drink and be merry !
Happy Xmas Bloggers !

Lone fox.

Throw plastic bags into the wind and let them float back to you like black ghosts.
Kick the litter of yesterdays meal into the gutter and walk fast.
The train approaches and the speaker blares out.
"This is a security announcement, please remain vigilant at all times. Please ensure you do not leave any of your belongings unattended"

"The next stop is Walton-on-Thames"

Concrete on concrete as the ferris wheel turns, lights shine on empty streets as cars break the darkness with twin beams.

Time takes on a pattern of stops and starts. The minutes turn into stations and the train ticks onward.

In my sealed off pod I turn the pages silently, a buzz of music in my ears as I glance to the seat opposite.
Who are you ? What do you do ? Where are you going ?
No matter, zone out and feel the beats, turn the pages and leave the train for a moment.

Metro coffee and free news, silent chatter behind headphones and breathe and breathe and stop.

"The train approaching platform 8 is the 6.52 to Chessington South, calling at ...."

Routine is so quick to take hold, the quick excitement of the unknown soon lost.

The tower lifts into the bleak sky, overlooking the squalor below. A lone fox graces the siding and pauses, reflecting for a moment before vanishing down the tracks.

23/12/05

Xmas time

What people fail to realise is that Xmas is all about indulgence, overspending, January debt, family arguments, silly hats, going crackers, battery farm fresh turkey fed on turks from turkey (and sarnies for six weeks after), setting fire to cakes, pushing fairys onto the top of pine trees grown in china from fake plastic watering cans and generally getting so drunk, you think everyone looks like Santa.

So enjoy the Winter lights with your Family Presents stuffing yourself with Festive Fodder and the rest of us will go off and don silly hats and sing stupid carols about how good little jesus was visited by three wise asses.

Sushi in Wimbo

Got myself a desk today. It was built by midgets for dwarfs. It's actually a camping table that cost the pauperly sum of $15 from those unfine betrayers of taste and waste, Argos. It was probably knocked out in a sweaty sweatshop by sweaty asians and then shipped across three of the seven seas by a norwegian captain with a crew of polish deckhands on a liner owned by a greek called Steve, only to be sold to a South African Pommie who will discard it for use by squirrels from Richmond in a back garden in Putney.

As I type, it wobbles alarmingly. (beep beep beep beep beep beep beep - thwack !)

That may just be the consumption of english cider and Japanese sushi from Sainsburys, packed by Irish potato farmers out-of-work-russian wives in an Icelandic fish factory. The cider apples are definately British, but the orchards are worked by Afro-weilding-Americans, overseen by a Mexican with a large belly and a sombrero to hide it.

A veritable global pillage of people.

"Stinking Bishop" or "Slightly lonely Friday, Cheerful Saturday"

It's been a fairly hectic last few months, thankfully seeing myself finally working and earning in the nick of time.
The downside is a fair bit of loneliness in the evenings, which will get me down a bit until I get my own pad and can start really socialising in terms of things like hiking clubs, or art classes and other after work activities.

Tonight is going to be the biggest party weekend of the office xmas party season by all accounts, so I'll be sure to be away from the madness on the streets before 10pm.

Xmas will see me at "unrelated family", that should be fun, but ...

I'm going to do my silent personal boycott of New Years again, I really can't stand it. Everything after 1998/99 in Edinburgh has been rotten.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all up for a good party, but not one borne out of the desperation of "We have to do something"
All good parties flow naturally and are not forced.

The idea of drinking yourself stupid and feeling crap for the first two days of a New Year is really rather stupid.

Enough of that, I'm moving and am really apprehensive about it, it will require another step out of my "shell" into a shared household living with more complete strangers.

It's a house in Wimbledon that is pretty much going it's seperate ways at the end of Jan, so it's a temporary shared situation. I'm taking over from a South African who is returning to Cape Town.

There are four other people there, three are all friends from the Cape, one a Spanish girl.
I met up with Randal last night - a really good fellow, in IT and studying web development. He's also a bouncer in his spare time. His friends staying there are a couple. I saw them briefly.

I will be moving into a completely new dynamic of a single shared bathroom and kitchen and will just have to find my space and socialise. I've never had a problem with that in the past, it's just the lead up to something like this always scares me a bit - but if truth be told, it scares everyone a little. Unchartered territory.

The real thing about this is the price - £70 a week and no deposit required.
The place is clean and is definately not a raving party house.

The same night I saw the place, I went to see another in the area and it was a typical youngsters commune scenario with all the baggage that goes along with it - fantastic if your in your twenties and doing it for the first time.
The place was crusty - cans and bottles all over, the housemates in the lounge eating totally crap food, as communes are like to do - chips and pizza washed down with lager. Every nook and cranny was filled with various items of clothing, furniture, rubbish and general brik brak - a house full of working party animals. Nice enough people, but I could see myself 10 to 15 years ago and knew I couldn't go back to this type of life.

So, on Wednesday I take a step sideways and that should coincide with my first earnings in the UK for 18 years - no idea what the hell the amount is going to be. That depends on the tax man.

I'm really tired and sore. I've had neck ache for two weeks due to stress and carrying stuff around all over the place. No idea how much weight I've lost, because I still have a beer belly, but from the front I'm noticably thinner and the double chin is fading - I should bloody well think so, 10 weeks of walking all over the show has to have some effect on the old weight.

I've had two colds, a runny tummy, but otherwise am "chipper" more than down - always a good thing.

That's the key to a balanced life - to remain upbeat and happy as much as possible, as there's nothing worse than continued whinging.

For instance, last night the bus decided not to pitch up in Odiham, which they often seem to do. My initial reaction was to curse, because the walk to Hook is 40 minutes, in the dark, around several incredibly busy highway intersections.

So, I made a game of it to see how fast I could get there, even taking into account the rather humourous fact that I'd decided to wear thin socks with new hiking boots. Great plan mat !

The first part is easy - pavements and street lights - but then you enter the danger zone. Being a bit of a prepared sort of bloke, I had a torch with me and disguised myself as a bicycle. Lucky I had that torch, as I was dressed in black from tip to toe - not a chevron encrusted jacket to be seen.

At some points I couldn't actually see the ground in front of my feet and managed to step into all but one muddy puddle, which I considered a good achievement. At least I didn't step in all of them.

It's exhilarating walking on a narrow road with huge 18 wheeler trucks thundering past.

... don't stare into the headlights ..

I made it to the station just as the 5.31pm train to Waterloo was pulling out, on the other side of the tracks.

Ah well, into the safety of suburbia and the incredible normality of Tescos until the next train.

Today is Saturday and I'm feeling good, off to meet another person at the house I'm moving into to discuss costs, then to pick up my post at friends and into the city - Yeah ! (been weeks since I've been there)
Going to snag myself some tasty cheese and bread from the market and wonder around for a bit. Take a few silly videos with my gadget phone, then back to do some work for a possible job position.

And the stinking Bishop ?
That's just some cheese I saw in the Deli in the "historic town of Odiham" where I'm working.

I thought it would make for a more interesting title.

Progress

My progress in London and further south is getting interesting, at least from a professional point of view.
As I sit on the Basingstoke to Waterloo train, at 20.20 I'm reflecting on opportunities and futures.

It's amazing to be at such an odd crossroads in my life, not really knowing what comes next.
A freedom so different from my younger years, a freedom dictated by the confines of society, so very different to our good blogger Dreaded Outsider.

His current journey is a different path, but one I can identify with to a degree, to seek a space away from the madness of city society and all it's trappings. In many ways, it's a path I'd love to explore as well.

Life is a series of paths that we choose, make or get thrust on us. Advertisers will say "life is a journey" to sell cars, stating the obvious. It's really a series of intertwining journeys often with the most incredible co-incidences thrown into the mix. It's no suprise that the idea of destiny is so deeply embedded in our minds.
Cars crash. Hows that for a journey.

Organised Chaos ?

Humanity, as I get older, gets predictable at the superficial level, but that's as far as it really goes.
The reality is so complex that surely nothing should function. The patterns so varied and infinite it's a wonder that our lives run some sort of ordered path, or is that just an illusion ?

The patterns in a leaf reflect the patterns in the branches it grows from.

Do our lives reflect similar patterns ?

When we think we have it all figured out, our logic is destroyed by the reality of the intersecting pathways of our many journeys.

Our comfort zones can be dismissed in an instant, either through choice or accident.

Enough of the twaddle, best to just get on with the business of living then, have a few drinks, smile, listen to some music.

My only real issue now is my loneliness, but that will change.
It's great to be working and it's interesting to be thrust into an office environment with dynamics I learn day by day.
My age has taught me caution and I proceed in that manner with my dealings in new social environments.

The group of people I'm working with are good people.
It's fun, I'm enjoying it.

The one key thing that I feel bonds all humans no matter where is humour, it's as deeply universal as music.
The moment you share a joke and a laugh with someone, you begin to bond even at the most basic of levels.

Anyway, my interview after work last night went well, I will be receiving a "test" via email which consists of a few photoshop files and instructions on how to proceed to knock together a website from them.

The company aims to be the biggest web dev company in the UK and operate from a series of converted barns on a working farm. Amazing place.

In addition, the company I'm contracting for have expressed an interest in hiring me full time.

I had a chat with the recruitment lady who picked me up at the station to drive me to the interview about driving to the area, she lives in Clapham Junction, close to Wimbledon. It takes her around 90minutes to drive to work in rush hour, which isn't too bad.

If I do land a job this year, I'll have to work out from my earnings on the contract job whether I can afford to get a second hand car. Friends just picked up an old but sound Renault 4 for £500.
With all the usual extra expenses incurred with the purchase of a second hand car, a budget of £650 sounds about right.
It doesn't really matter what type of car it is, so long as it's reliable.

Woking not Working

After a dismal night at the Woking B&B I foolishly decided to move into, I'm back in Wimbledon.
I managed to bail out of the deal this morning, with an excuse about finances. Thank God.

I'm not sure what possessed me to say "yes, I'll take it" in the first place, aside from the obvious shorter commute time which would've saved me two hours a day. Quite frankly, I'd rather commute 3 hours a day extra than stay another night in that dump.

My initial viewing on Sunday didn't reveal all the nasty details. I certainly noticed it was a huge step down from where I was staying, but at the time decided saving a few hours was worth it.

When I arrived on Monday night after work to book in and put my bags in the room, it dawned on me how poor my decision was.

There was a pervading smell of stale oil and old carpets, curtains, bedding and furniture.
The walls were paper thin, so everything in the house was audiable, which wouldn't have been so bad if one of the other guests didn't have a horrible hacking cough which went on all night.

The furniture was circa 1970 and was cheap and nasty when new. The bad sagged in the middle. The TV remote, for some obscure reason, was covered in clingwrap. All over the walls were horrible tatty posters and bits of paper with slogans like "win. win. win big"
There was even a Dandy poster and to top it all off, a CD stuck to the wall covered with a few tatty bits of xmas decoration.

The complimentary coffee sachets were in a bowl that hadn't seen a dishwashing in a few decades.
It reminded me of the Jarvis Cocker song, made famous by Trainspotting.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a snob. I've lived in really basic accommodation, camped in all sorts of rustic locations and have even slept in a car for a few days. Heck, I stayed in Kibbuzim, Moshavs and Hostels for eight months in my twenties. The difference was that although these places were basic, they were clean.
After an hour in that B&B room, my skin was already starting to itch. Ingrained dirt like that obviously has a huge amount of nasty mites.

After a hard days work, the last thing you want is to arrive back in a smelly dump to sleep on a bed that has seen more bodies on top of it than a Soho hooker.

I'm too old to have to deal with that and now I'm working and earning, I don't have to.

The area around is actually really stunning, however, this B&B is on the outskirts of that. When I was walking around trying to locate it on Sunday, I was really looking forward to seeing it, because the houses I was passing were all really well-to-do and the people around very friendly and well spoken.

Woking center is also great - there's parks and canals. I won't knock the area at all and would live there.

You may be wondering why I didn't just get another B&B in the area, the answer is simple - time and transport.

When your getting up at 6.30am in the morning to get to work for 8.30am, working till 5.30pm to get home for 7pm, there's no time. I can't do personal surfing/phoning while I'm contracting to look for accommodation. That leaves just the weekends.
Sure, I could be looking right now for B&B's in the area - fact is, I have already looked extensively for prices in the £20 to £30 a night range - I found a few, all booked out till next year, except the dirty place I spent a night in.

My choice this morning was clear - phone the B&B in Wimbledon to see if the room was still available and return for the forseeable future.

I'm happy now, back in The Swan having a nice curry.

I have an interview after work tommorrow in a nearby area to Odiham and have Friday off because the office I'm contracting at has their office party that day. That's good, it'll give me time to sort a few bits 'n pieces out and head into London for some more exploring.

Work wise, things couldn't be better. I'm doing some easy stuff and some challenging things - honing my web skills with advanced CSS2 layouts. I tell you one thing, it's a damn side better than working in a pub, or WHSmiths !

Best of all, it's in the great dress tradition I'm used to - casual !
And my interview tommorrow ? - heh, no worries about tie and shirt, so long as I'm smartish with black jeans and a jersey and well groomed, sorted. I'm fairly certain it will mean grabbing supper on the run after the interview, as I'll only be back at the B&B after 9pm. Hope I get this job and that it starts early Jan.

Any South Africans who have never been over to the UK or to London, you can't do wrong with Wimbledon if your willing to spend £150 to £175 a week in a B&B. Even if your only in London on holiday for a week or so, it's a far better idea than central London, which is only 15 to 30 minutes journey away by train anyway.

My future plans are mixed - there's some tough times ahead. If I land this job near Hook, I will need a car very quickly, but I also need to get more permanent accommodation. At this stage, I see at least another two months of temporary living and long commute times. Fair enough.

I'm reminded how tough it must be for families who decide to go abroad to relocate - when it comes down to it, I'm on easy street.

Video - requires Quicktime - download Quicktime Alternative if you don't have it for PC. (vids around 500k each, very small, not the best quality)

Video of the Woking B&B room - http://www.3r.co.za/bb_matt/london/vid/wok-bandb.3gp

Video of the Wimbledon B&B room - http://www.3r.co.za/bb_matt/london/vid/
wim-bandb.3gp

And the kitten at Wimbledon, Coca, who loves the desk in the room -

http://www.3r.co.za/bb_matt/london/vid/wim-cat.3gp

Woking up in the morning

Well, I'm now in Woking, such as it is.

I'll stay here for the duration of my contract, but I'm not sure if it's the right place for me, Wimbledon is a far better place to stay in terms of access to London and a nicer town centre plus the added bargain of a really stunning village up the hill from Town.

I'm in The Wheat Sheaf on Chobham road which is a nice enough pub, a little modern for my tastes, but bright and friendly seeming. Big problem however, no internet access.

The B&B I'm staying at is very basic, but also friendly. It's not a patch on the Wimbledon spot in terms of lux value, but the area that it's in is very posh. The B&B is sort of nestled on the edge of that posh area in a far more modest house.
There is broadband there, but it's wired. I can see two wireless networks from my room, one is a secure one which I can't get into, the other is unsecure but won't connect and is intermittent - I'll see what I can do. If I can get a cheap Wireless Access Point gizmo to plug into their broadband router that may do. At work, I don't have the time to access the net for personal stuff unfortunately. I've given myself 30 mins a day for lunch as I need to get in as many hours as I can.

Anyway, the B&B will do for the next few weeks.

I'm now on a slightly tighter budget. With enough money to last 3 weeks tops. I should be paid before Xmas, around the 22nd/23rd.

Planning for an interview at another place near Hook, a permanent job, so I may need to stay around that area - there's Basingstoke, Guildford, Woking, Farnham and Fleet to look at in terms of temporary accommodation until I can afford my own spot.

Right now, it's head down to the grindstone for the next two weeks, work flat out. After that, I'm fairly certain there will be no more work prospects starting. I'm actually hoping to wangle another 2 or 3 days of contract from the 20th but it's unlikely.

If there's no work opportunities until Jan, I'll move back up to Wimbledon over the Xmas period.

I'm feeling rather "flat" in terms of writing creativity, but need to keep this Blog going for reference.

I know it may be really boring right now, but the fact is, that is kind of reflecting where I'm at.

Work is interesting to me, but it will make for even more boring blogging than this.

I have made a few videos on my mobile of me wondering through Woking on Sunday on a Rekkie which may be interesting to friends and family, however, I have some excellent "sketch" ideas I want to do at some point involving touring around London, one of which will require some props - a hammer, a cucumber, a large bread roll and a table outside Buckingham palace. I'm sure you can figure out the reference, it will all be in the execution as to how funny it could be.

I've got my shopping in for the evening and some bits for the week, in case your interested :-

12 nartjies (actually, satsumas)
6 pita breads
1 tub humous
A tiny bottle of olive oil
A tiny bottle of Balsamic vinegar
10 filter coffee bags with sealed in coffee - will give them a try to see. I HATE instant coffee
2 litres of water
4 cans of bitter

I've cut right back on meat, some days not having any at all. I will eventually cut that down to once a week, although I don't think I'll ever give it up entirely. I also am trying to only eat organically produced meat. There's a stunning Deli in Odiham that makes food with produce from small farms in the area, all completely organic free range and very well priced. There's a lot of that happening in the UK, although it's vastly outnumbered by processed crud.

Giving up Gluten and Wheat will take me a while, because it's inconvenient right now without a kitchen to work in. It's also very difficult to get hold of.

Tonight I will prepare some pita with humous, olive oil and balsamic, two nartjies for pudding, all washed down with a few cans of Bitter.

I'm going up to London on the weekend for the day to the markets to get some food and do some walking and touring.
I NEED to get some Cheese, I absolutely HAVE to get some cheese and some wheat free Rye bread - the stuff with a hectic crust and soft middle. It is so damn tasty, words cannot describe. Again, this is all organic small farm produce that you can only find in specialised markets. I'll also buy some natural cider - a 2litre jug for £9 - expensive, but I'd like to get fairly drunk on Saturday night and natural cider is good for that. The only drawback with combining that cider with the cheese and bread, is that it gets rather windy. I'll say no more.

Another boring blog then - sorry folks, I'll try to get more creative soon, but right now, I'm tired and just want to have a few beers, some food, watch telly and crash.

At least I can get up an hour later tommorrow !

Oh yeah, the last few blogs have thrown planning, punctuation, spelling and flow to the winds - I really don't have the spare time to edit stuff anymore and just Blog as it flows, that's just the way it is.

This was posted using my 3G phone, all images off in Firefox and will hopefully not be more than about 40k total data size - it costs £1.35 a mb, so it's not to be taken lightly. Fantasic that I can just hook the phone up to my laptop and connect, but anything more than a few pages of text is not advised.

Leaving Wimbledon

Tommorrow, I leave Wimbledon after 8 weeks staying here, pretty much all in the same B&B.

I'm on my way to Woking, I've found a very reasonable B&B there in a good area.

The reasons are one of the commute to my contract job, which will free up a LOT of my time and allow me to get more sleep !

Instead of getting up at 5.30am, I'll now be able to get up at 6.30pm and instead of arriving back at the B&B by 8pm, I should be back by 7pm, or if I'm lucky with bus/train connections, 6.30pm

That makes a world of difference.

I did a rekkie to see the B&B today and it is relaxed, in a good area, 10 minutes walk from Woking town centre.

I like the look of Woking - it seems pleasant and relaxed.

I'll write about woking probably next weekend, as I won't see it in full daylight again until Friday next week - I have the day off on Friday due to an office Xmas party that I'm obviously not invited to - actually, not really obviously. If I were the boss, I'd ask if the freelancer would like to join in. The guy who has hired me is obviously the kind of person that has no time for temporary "friendliness" - that's his problem I guess. The way I see it, it doesn't cost anything to be friendly with people, but that's me.

Anyway, time for a last pint down the pub and then I want to get back to see Top Gear, one of the best TV programs around if you ask me !

Early night, tommorrow, I have to lug a heavy backpack and my laptop a mile to wimbledon station.

Got friends to pick up three bags of stuff for temporary storage at their place and I've turfed out a bunch of crud I've accumulated over the last 2 months - a few magazines, boxes that various electronic goods came in, that type of stuff.

... moving on ....

(coming to this Blog soon, Video ! - I'll try and make it funny, I promise)

Wall of confusion

My oh my, a wall of confusion today bought on by lack of sleep, too much sugar, too much activity, I don't know what - too many beers ?

I've stretched myself so thin without enough planning, spinning like mad.

It's set to continue for a while, tommorrow I need to get packed, get some of my stuff over to friends, do a rekkie to Woking to check out a B&B and then get up at 5.30am to get to the office and after a long day, over to the new place I'll be staying at, assuming it's ok.

I signed up with a 3G phone contract - a moment of madness I suspect, geek gadget desire.
I'm now with Vodafone and am sporting a shiny new Nokia 6680 - this phone has all the bells and whistles, including a highly dangerous 3G internet connection option, which can also work as a modem for my laptop.

Why is it dangerous ?

Simple really, at £1.25 a meg the potential to eat up cash is massive, so I need to exercise extreme caution. Bottom line, text only surfing and very minimal surfing and email.

Luckily, the B&B I'm moving to has internet access, so the phone connection won't be required that often. I just tried it now via the laptop and it works well - too damn well.

Added to my confusion is the fact that my DVD drive on my laptop packed in after I tried to install the Nokia connection software - bam, it no longer will read any disks. I have no idea whether it was the nokia disc or just a general failure. I also don't know how to fix it - maybe a CD disk cleaner will work ?
Maybe new firmware ?
I don't know. All I do know is that the laptop set me back £700 - it's under guarantee, so I now have to make time to get into London to take it to the shop I got it from.
That will require me to back up all my data and wipe the disk drive - but how can I back up the data without a DVD drive ?

I really don't know.

It's at times like this when I miss the relative simplicity of a stable home to live in.
Lord only knows when that will happen.

At least I'm working.

At this stage, the money I have left will last just enough to get me to pay day and I'm still not sure where my next job will be or when.

Doing the math, I have enough money to pay for accommodation, food and transport for the next 3 weeks and that's it. If my pay doesn't arrive on time, I'm screwed.

In addition, my backup plan of selling the laptop to survive is now screwed, because the DVD drive is bust.

Nasty, very nasty.

Taking the laptop back to where I got it will require them to send it away for repairs or whatever, which will most likely take at least 2 weeks.

An external DVD drive is going to set me back too much cash.

Damn Damn Damn, I'm just too overloaded with info, I feel like a hard drive that hasn't been defragged for years.

What to do ?

I have to move to Woking, it's essential for my sanity. Commuting 5 hours a day is going to do some serious damage to my planning.

My big hope is to land that good permanent job starting ASAP - I should make at least £1500 from the two week contract job, which will see me through till the end of Jan, however, there's not much chance of being able to get my own spot until Feb if I do land a job. For a reasonable pad, the initial outlay is going to be £1000. Expenses for a month will be in the order of £500.

Time to tighten the belt buckle a notch further, get down to work and live in the cheap seats for the next few weeks.

The contract job was perfectly timed to be honest, if I had waited another week or so, I would've been in dire straits.

I now realise exactly how laid back and relaxed I've been for so many years and how much complete freedom I had - but there is a cost for that freedom, a lack of security and a comfort zone bordering on being in a rut.

I don't regret my decision as I'm really experiencing things in a big way. I also don't miss Joburg yet, two months on. I just miss family and friends and the freedom of more spare time than was good for me.

My 2 month short term plan is to get my own pad - a place I can walk into and sing, cook, throw my stuff around, shout, talk to myself.

The long term plan is to further the career with an aim for an Australian move in a year or two.

The even longer term plan is to form another business, buy a small cottage/flat/bedsit near the coast hopefully with the whole family around.

If New Media is to be my continuing career, I have a LOT of catching up to do, I've coasted for a few years. By now, I should either be a programmer or a 3D artist. Instead, I sit between the two positions of web designer and web developer.

The method to my madness of going contract or permanent is to get thrown right in the deep end, sink or swim. That is the ONLY way I seem to be able to pick up new skills.

Left to my own devices I flit from idea to idea without ever completing anything.

I need deadlines, hectic deadlines. "You don't do it, you don't get paid" deadlines.

Wall of confusion.

A whole new reality ?

So my second day at work was great, but the commute sucked and always will do - have to live with it.

Today, I left the office at 5.30pm still not really sure how the hell the buses work in this little town.

There's a bus stop just on the corner near the office, but the timetable is completely whack.
It turns out that the 200 bus, even though it is listed as arriving at 17:39, never actually stops there, but rather, a few minutes walk away at the traffic island which spins traffic to various other villages.

I found myself standing at a bus "shelter" in a blustery and rather chilly rain storm cursing when the bus failed to arrive on time. 10 minutes late, 15 minutes late - what the hell ?
I then saw a 200 bus nipping along the other way and quickly ran across the street to chat with the driver. As he told me "there should be another bus along the way now", suddenly there it was on the other side of the road.

I acted quickly and got the driver to flick his lights to get the other bus to stop.
I thought my luck was out when he told me he couldn't stop at Hook because the main road was closed due to a festival, but he dropped me 5 minutes walk away.

You must understand that the weather is really rather foul at the moment - 9c, blustery wind with all sorts of rain, dark. On the train to work, it only gets light toward the end of my journey. When I leave the office at 5.30pm it's been dark for an hour already. That's ok, I kinda like it.

Walking in the rain and pitch black would be close to suicide.
It's all very well walking in the morning light with a mild drizzle, but on a dark evening, walking on muddy country sidings along busy roads is best left to foxes, badgers and nutters.

It's a new reality for the next 2 weeks - about 5 hours commute there and back door to door.
It leaves me train time and weekends to get bit 'n pieces done.

And now, I suddenly understand the concept of bad diet, or at least, food on the go.

For the last two nights, after work, I've got to The Swan around 8.40pm and ordered hot food - it's essential to my survival I think.
In the mornings, it's a cup of Amt coffee at the station and one of those energy bar/oat bar type things.
Lunch is a quick snack - I've found a great deli that serves organic stuff.

For the commute, music and a book are essential.
This evening I got myself a few cans of cider for the journey, cranked up the music on my cheap 'n nasty CD mp3 walkman and chilled.

I've been playing at living in London until now, the new reality is working and commuting.

That's ok, it's a means to an end - I think ? - whatever.

Put on the Gorillaz loud and tune out for a while ...

First day of work and the joy of public transport, namely, buses

First day of work and the joy of public transport, namely, buses

I'm tired now, having a pint in the pub and a much needed plate of hot food - I went for an all day breakfast - I need it. It's 9.00pm and I've just relaxed after 14 hours on the go, after having had a rotten nights sleep, typical.

Don't feel like blogging at all, but I'll make this entry anyway, for the sake of it.

Working in a small village 40 miles from London central is not easy if you don't have a car.

Morning :-
Up at 5.30am
Walk to station
Get 6.30am train to Surbiton
Change at Surbiton for train to Hook
Get to Hook at 7:49am
40 minute walk to Odiham
Arrive at office 8.30am

Afternoon :-
Leave work at 5.30pm
Bus doesn't arrive on time, as I'm inquiring in a shop, it goes by 20 minutes late
Order taxi from pub and wait 30minutes
Get taxi for £6 to Hook station
6.31pm train to Surbiton
Change at Surbiton to arrive in Wimbledon at 7:44pm
Walk back to B&B

It's for 2 weeks and I'll have to get used to it - can't think, brain dead.

At least I did well on my first day contacting - thrown right in the deep end with no time to "settle in", you just have to get in and work. I'm using a very temperamental old PIII with 512mb ram which is a dog.
I've had to figure out a few other peoples way of working and work along in that style.
Not easy when you feel like you just want to curl up in bed and sleep - I got about 4 hours kip last night, too many thoughts racing around in the old noggin.

I was going to go out and about Saturday, fuck that, I'm going to get up late and about all I'm going to do is my laundry (woooohooo) and some online stuff and visit friends for an hour or so.
Sunday I have to go up and meet Mom in Stratford before she heads off to South Africa, drop of a few bits and have a coffee then it's Monday work.

Anyway, it's all gone mad.

I have to try and sort out this damn Umbrella company for tax reasons - without it, I don't get paid.
Now I'm furiously trying to sort out when I get paid, because right now, the Umbrella company reckons end of Jan. The agent is furious and will sort it out. It's all really rather complicated, but standard practice. I get a job via the agent, if I don't have a limited company, I have to get hired by an Umbrella company for tax reasons. The company I contract at pays the agent, they take a cut. The agent pays the Umbrella company, they save me money because they use offshore bank accounts, but they also take a cut.
I sign a contract with the Umbrella company.

Then I got 4 calls today about different job contracts and actually couldn't take them for obvious reasons. I told all of them to call back after 5.30pm. None of them did. Suprise suprise.

I also noticed I got an email sometime from a company who wanted animated flash banners done for around £25 each. I just noticed that this evening, sent me files and everything. I'll have to send a polite reply back and say I'll get it done on Sunday I suppose - on the train. Lord.

No worries tho, busy arranging an interview for a permanent job at a way cool web agency close to where I'm on this contract. If I land it, I will have to relocate.
To be honest, I'd prefer the possible 6 month contract in Soho starting in Jan.
But how to arrange that interview if they need to see me soon ?
I'll have to sacrifice 3 hours of pay I suppose.

If a do get a perm job 2 hours commute from London, I'm getting a car ASAP.

Spin spin spin goes the head.

Too tired to even research anything online right now - bleh.