Five Year Plan: 20% done
  Part One – What/How I’ve done

So, I’m now one year through that five year plan. Which means that – fucking hell! – I must now be thirty-six. The last six months haven’t been quite so productive as the first six, but that’s because there also turned out to be a lot of other stuff occurring that wasn’t on the initial set of plans. You know, things like “buy house”, “work on house”, “work on garden”, that kind of thing. It’s meant that in some ways I hit a bit of a pause, but in others I’ve been productive as hell.

Of course, the first year was always going to be about groundwork, getting a load of the basics out of the way so that the next two or three years can make more progress. Well, that’s the concept. Whether it’ll work out like that or not, I don’t know.

Anyway, here’s the list that I wrote up for last November 5th, so let’s see how it’s all gone – the comments are in italics, in case you hadn’t guessed…

  • Photography
    1. Get a Macro Lens
    2. Get a Wide-Angle Lens
      still deciding whether I really need one. Maybe soon.
    3. Finish the Portfolio website
      Completed, and with extra uploads on a fairly regular basis
    4. Sell/Publish some stuff
      Working on it, submitting it, and had one used in the Killarney page of an on-line guide to Ireland, although not for any money.
    5. Join a local club
      Still haven’t really found one. There’s a local club, but *shrug* I dunno.
    6. Get a decent flash
      Done, a Speedlite 580EX
    7. Start aiming to get work and projects
      Started, and ongoing. I’ve sent out some initial letters to a couple of places regarding projects, and I’ll be sending out more over the next month or so.
  • Writing
    1. Finish at least one piece of writing
      still working on it, although not all that quickly
    2. When a piece is finished submit it to the right people
      Reliant on #1 being completed
    3. Just see how things go
    4. Write more on d4d™? Maybe.
  • Work / Websites
    1. Build and work on the other ideas I’ve got in my head
      working on it, and getting some of them sorted
    2. Work (as always) on smaller sites, and do as many as possible
      so far, three new sites launched, as well as the photography portfolio
    3. Sort out permanent job for the first part of ’07 while we’re house-buying etc.
      All done, and no need to get that nasty ‘proper’ job after all
    4. Redesign d4d™? It’s about time…
    5. Merge lots of hosting accounts into one reseller account, and onto one server
      done
    6. Start getting better at invoicing for work done
      in progress, and all being done a lot more efficiently
    7. Develop some ideas in partnership with others, and see how they do
      In progress – I’ve formed a couple of small collaborations, and they seem (so far) to be working well
  • Education
    1. Sign up with Open University
      initially for a refresher course, and work from there
    2. Look at an official course/qualification in Photography?

      Yeah, OK, ‘Education’ is going to be the category that falls off the radar for ’07/’08, I’m afraid – mainly due to motivation issues, but also down to the fact I’m permanently busy doing other stuff. As such, any progress on this one is going to be a way off in the future

  • Other
    1. Restart the Archery once we’ve moved
      Made all the enquiries, booked to go and do it, but not yet got round to attending. I suck.
    2. Move to Norfolk
    3. Sort out work in Norfolk
    4. Buy house
    5. Start work on house, garden
      • I must say here, Herself has been the prime organiser of most (if not all) of the stuff below. We’ve got a long way so far, and there’s still a long way to go, but most of it is down to Herself’s organisation rather than mine
      • Wood Burner
      • Wood Pile
      • Making house initially liveable-in
      • Initial sort out of garden, lawn, veg patch
      • Dealing with various electrical issues etc.
    6. Get Planning Permission for house alterations
    7. Get Building Regs for hourse alterations
      all done
    8. Buy a car
      Bought, insured, taxed, driven it for about 10,000 miles already

Moving Phones

I should’ve known that the efficiency of BT in the last move was an exception, rather than a rule. I should’ve chased them up more, I know.

I was lulled into a false sense of security by someone who sounded efficient, but wasn’t.

So on Friday when I tested the old phone number at 3:30pm, and got a ringtone, I thought “Oh, bollocks.” So I rang BT’s Moving Home department, and eventually got through.

“Oh, I don’t know what’s happened there – the system seems to have decided that there was a problem with the order, and then we didn’t tell you about it”
Yeah, no shit. At 4pm on a Friday, imagine how happy that makes me.

As it turns out, the order had got completely lost in the system. No idea why, and no-one can tell me, either. Bunch of tossers.

But in fairness to them, within 2 hours of being told, the landline had switched over to the new number and the new place without any further hitches. That bit is simple, by all accounts. (Doesn’t explain why it takes them two weeks notice usually, but there we go)

Broadband, however, is a problem. Supposedly it takes five working days, regartdless of anything else. It’s incredibly annoying, but again it’s one of those things where there’s really nothing I can do except wait. Oh, and phone them on a daily basis to see how it’s going. *grin*

But ’til Monday June 4th, it looks like I’m stuck with slowband. And oh God is it slow, after being used to ADSL for the last four and a bit years…


Working

Before anyone asks, yes, I ddi feel somewhat guilty about working while all the moving stuff was going on. However, it had been agreed between Herself and I that this was the best way to do it. There’s a few good reasons, but the main one is always the best. Money.

Because I’m a contractor, I don’t really get sick pay, or time off pay. Not going in to work costs me/us money – and it’s a fair amount on a daily rate. While we’re not on the breadline- far from it- nor are we so rich that we can say ‘oh, sod it, a couple of days off, doesn’t matter’.

Equally, well, most of the work was being done by other people. We’d got a removals company doing all that side of things, loading up their truck/lorry/whatever and so on. We’d already packed just about everything – the PC etc. got done on Thursday night- so it was a matter of taking the bed and desk apart, and all the rest got done by the removals people. Herself had her family helping too, which was another great bonus, and meant that things ran smoothly.

Oh yeah, and it also means I was up at 6am, working from 8-4 so that I could then get home and carry on doing work on getting stuff set up and so on once it’d been moved in to the house. Equally, with the way the house will be worked on, we’d only really got four rooms to get sorted out initially (living room, bedroom, office, and kitchen) – most of the rest of our combined stuff is going to be put in storage in the garage at first, and will be gradually migrated as we sort the place out.

So while it may sound like chaos (and probably is chaos) there’s method in our madness. And I’m sure I’ll be made to make up for it over the weekend. (Particularly if the fucking phone and broadband aren’t sorted out)


One Week To Go

This time next week, we’ll be moving to the new house. And about bloody time, too.

The time between completing the purchase and actually moving in has been well spent, though – as detailed previously, there’s been a lot of work done, with workers in and around the house pretty much all the time – if we’d moved in before all this, we’d have been living in a bombsite for the last month, and Hound would be absolutely orbital. So it’s for the best that we’ve delayed moving ’til now.

But at the same time it’s been hard work, and it’s felt like being in limbo. Just about every night, and pretty much every spare moment, we’ve been up at the house dealing with stuff, or organising stuff to happen. It’s been enormously busy, and I can’t deny that I’ll be happy to just be in the place – at least we won’t be having to travel between houses (even though it’s a short distance really, only about five miles each way) every day, and so we’ll have more time to get things done ourselves.

Oh, and more time to walk Hound round the local fields – in that context, we’ll be back to how we were in Bracknell, with the poxy idiot getting taken out pretty much every morning at some ungodly hour before I go to work. On that score, Attleborough is bloody horrible for dog-walking (again, as I’ve said before) with no decent places for a stupid collie to run, without either a) walking for half an hour first to get to the playing field, or b) getting in the car to go past the railway station to the playing field.

From next Friday, though, we’ll be moved in, and will have a field roughly 30 seconds away. (Five seconds, if Hound ever escapes…)

I can’t wait.


Four Days

The completion of the house purchase came in just in time.

It’s meant that – oh, lucky us, oh frabjous day – we’ve got the four-day Easter weekend to do some of the initial work on the place, before we actually move there at the end of April.

It’ll mean we can get rid of the horrific carpets in the place, the manky wallpaper, and the truly horrendous little faux-stone ‘ornaments’ in the garden. Oh, and whatever’s been left in the garage (apparently they ‘didn’t have time’ to clear it out. *ahem*) can go in the skip too.

Yes, we’ve managed to hire a skip already. Impressive service – ordered at about 10am, and there by 6pm same day.

And that is what we’re going to be doing all weekend.


Halle-bloody-lujah

At long last, I’ve just had word from the estate agents that we’ve completed on the house purchase.

And about sodding time, too.

Happy, Happy Day.


Work/Life Balance

One of the things that’s always being blethered about in TV programmes like “Relocation,Relocation” and the like is ‘Work/Life Balance’. It’s not a phrase I usually like, as it’s one of those things that’s usually indicative of someone who’ll spout every buzzword known to man at any given opportunity – but then at the same time it’s something I find myself thinking about more and more.
In fact, that was the exact motive behind the move to Norfolk. It’s also something I need to think about a lot more for the future, and how I want to plan things.
Of course, the real ‘balance’ side of things still isn’t going to happen this year – and possibly/probably not until even this time next year. There’s a lot that’ll need doing to the new house once we (finally) complete that process and move in. The garden needs a lot of work too, although I think Herself is going to do the majority of that – her fingers are far greener than mine. But there’s still going to be a fair amount of heavy labour involved. So over all, yes, I think it’ll most likely be April ’08 before we really start enjoying the place, rather than just working on it.
Work-wise, Norfolk really isn’t a great place for a web techie – well, not in the context of normal business stuff, anyway- unless, of course, you want to work in the IT department of Norwich Union. Which I really, really, really don’t want to do. It might mean that I end up working away from home during the week again, although there’s still some decisions to be made on that score too. But at the same time, and pretty much on the same timescale as the house stuff (i.e. over the next 12 months) I’m also aiming to get my own business up and moving, doing a number of smaller local sites, as well as that plan for launching my own sites, and seeing what works and what doesn’t with them.
At the same time, I’m also going to be working fairly hard on building up the photography portfolio as well. While Norfolk and its surrounds aren’t great for a web techie, they’re bloody marvellous for a photographer, and I wholly intend to take advantage of that over the coming months. Some of the ideas I’ve got on that score will have to wait now ’til Autumn comes around, but at the same time they may be all the better for it. Others really start coming into their own now, and would work less well come Autumn, so it all works out, one way or another.
In the end, I currently think that it’s going to be this time next year before things really settle down. There’s a lot to be done in that time, and it’s going to be a lot of work to get it all sorted.

But – and this is the thing – already we’re far, far happier, and more relaxed, than we were in Bracknell. Yes, the pace of some things (fucking house purchase) takes some getting used to, and in that kind of thing I’m still probably far too driven and impatient with buffoons, but well, that’s life.
Hound is definitely far happier out here – if for no other reason than that she gets to go to the beach fairly regularly, or on big long walks through Thetford Forest, or Knettishall Heath. But she’s more relaxed about other things as well – fireworks, jet planes, loud noises and so on. Of course, Hound being Hound, she finds other things to be stressed about instead – like the phone ringing – but we’re working on those. And once we’ve finally moved, we’ll have fields all around us, she’ll be able to go for decent walks on a more regular basis (for example, the morning one will be across fields, instead of the current use of the local recreation ground – if there’s one thing that Attleborough is bizarrely shit for, it’s places to walk dogs. On that score, Bracknell was far more useful)
It’s not just Hound, either. We’re (probably) more relaxed, allbeit in different ways. My commute takes a lot longer than it did from Bracknell to Wokingham (although nowhere near the shitebag day that involved working in London from Bracknell) but I get t sit on a train and usually see deer, hares, rabbits, and the occasional fox. (Of the four-legged russet-coloured variety, pervs) Or alternatively, F15s, Chinooks, or Blackhawk helicopters. (What can I say, I’m a geek) The train isn’t jam-packed with Blackberry-wielding tosspots, nor is it standing-room only. A good 95% of the time, I get to sit at a table, and either do some extra website work, or bash out rubbish like this. Or read. Whatever.
Herself has a job that is – in general – OK, and she seems happy with how everything’s working out. Or at least she will be once the fucking house purchase has completed. (Can you guess yet what our current main stressor has been? Thought not. I’ve avoided mentioning it so well.)
Yes, life at the moment is actually pretty good, and it’s beginning – just beginning, mind you – to feel like that elusive balance may not be so far out of reach after all.