Chaotic and Packed
Posted: Fri 21 June, 2019 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Domestic, Getting Organised, Gigs, London, Single Life Leave a comment »The last couple of weeks have been quiet on D4D™ because life got in the way – and life was just stupidly busy.
Over the last two weeks, I have
- Attended the 2019 Lead Developer conference at the Barbican in London (involving driving to London late on Monday, two days of conference and hotel, coming home mid-evening on Wednesday)
- Late-night ferrying of friends after their wedding anniversary meal (and padded out that time by going to the cinema)
- Done a day on a sponsored walk thing with friends at a fitness group I attend – my own contribution was 32 laps of the 600m track set out for the event, adding up to 19.2km (just under 12 miles) which pleased me
- Seeing the parents
- Attending the “Chefs Reunited” one-off meal at Monica Galetti’s “Mere” restaurant – all courses cooked/created by either Monica Galetti or Rachel Humphrey, who worked together at La Gavroche
- Attending “Conversations with Nick Cave” at the Barbican
- Been on-site on two separate days in Chesham
- Done all the usual work schedule stuff as well
and - Before the end of this week, I’ll have also attended two food events this weekend.
I must be utterly, utterly barmy.
Seven Years
Posted: Sun 5 May, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Housing, Looking Back, Milton Keynes, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s seven years today that I moved to where I currently live. That’s the longest I’ve stayed in one place since I moved out of the house I grew up in.
As I’ve said before, I never expected to stay here this long – it was a location of convenience, a house that came up at the right time, in the right place, and was affordable.
As it turned out, it was more that it was a convenient location, a place to stay that’s easy to get away from, easy to go anywhere else. For the moment it’s still that.
It’s not ideal. It’s a tiny house, which suited my needs then and now – there’s no spare bedroom for friends to stay over or anything, but that’s part of the price I pay, and it just means I go to them instead. At the same time though, I can’t deny I’d like a bit more space, so I could take my books out of their boxes, that kind of thing.
I’ve been looking at other places and so on, but there’s nothing (yet) that’s grabbed me, that’s made me think I want to be there rather than here.
There’s six months on my current tenancy (the first one was a six-month-only one, just in case I turned out to be a nightmare tenant etc., and since then they’ve been annual renewals) and I’m going to take that time to assess things, see if there’s anywhere else that would work better for me.
I might still be here in a year’s time. I might not. We’ll see.
Getting Out More
Posted: Sat 4 May, 2019 Filed under: 2018/19, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Gigs, London, Single Life, Travel Leave a comment »I really need to remind myself that long weekends are meant to be about relaxing and doing less.
Over the next four days, I’ll be…
- Socialising with friends at a barbecue thing (and probably doing a fair amount of the cooking)
- Going to three concerts
- Seeing the parents
It’s all a bit busy – and the following weekend isn’t much quieter. Thankfully there’s some time off in the meantime, but yeah, all a bit chaotic. Again.
Fortnight
Posted: Mon 18 March, 2019 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Single Life Leave a comment »On D4D™ it’s been a bit of a quiet month so far.
That’s mainly because it hasn’t been a quiet month in reality, and updating here took a back seat. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
Thankfully, from here on things are getting a bit quieter for a while, so I’m hopeful that I’ll have the time and brainspace to update here more regularly again.
I’ve got some thoughts and been letting my brain chunter off on a few subjects. With luck that’ll lead to some more posts and so on as well.
It’s been a long old month, considering we’re only three-quarters of the way through it…
Poorly Sick (part two)
Posted: Mon 4 February, 2019 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Getting Out More, Gigs, Health, Single Life, Stupidity, Travel Leave a comment »Last week’s “Poorly Sick” has continued on for the last week – although also not helped by my own general idiocy.
On the Tuesday, while coughing my lungs out (mmm, tasty) I drove up to Manchester to see friends, and then go with them to see Massive Attack at the Manchester Arena. And then drove home afterwards, like a friggin’ lunatic. By the time I got back – Wednesday morning, 2:30am – I’d twatted my ribs with the coughing I’d done, and felt fairly rough.
Wednesday was spent at home feeling ropy (while also getting enough work done to keep people happy) and Thursday I was on-site down in Chesham. I was feeling shitty enough there (and cold enough, the office being ridiculously cold) that I left at lunchtime and came home to thaw out.
Friday was also quiet, spent mainly at home.
Saturday was a trip to London to meet another friend and see “When we have sufficiently tortured each other” at the National Theatre (Spoiler : Don’t bother, it’s cobblers)
And then Sunday was another daft day-trip, this time down to the edge of Somerset to see other friends. And back home the same day, getting back at midnight on the dot.
So yeah, a week of being comprensively unwell while still being daft.
Hopefully things are back to a more even keel this week, but time will tell.
Ticket Admin
Posted: Mon 21 January, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Gigs, Single Life Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I spent a bit of time organising myself. Primarily this involved taking all the tickets I currently have on my noticeboard for forthcoming events, and making sure all the dates for them were entered in my phone, so I don’t double-book myself.
The trigger for this was that there was one particular day where I very nearly ended up not just double-booked, but triple-booked. It’s already double-booked, depending on what I decide to do and how some things progress between now and September, but triple-booking would’ve been really silly. Fortunately that latest event is occurring on two consecutive evenings, so I was able to make it into a busy weekend rather than a “for fuck’s sake” weekend.
But it made me realise that there were other things that I hadn’t yet listed in the diary, which was always going to end up biting me at some point.
Now though it’s all good, I’ve got everything diarised – and yes, as it turned out I’d forgotten a couple of booked things (thankfully with no clashes, although there’s one that’s going to make life a little bit interesting along the way) But all sorted for now, and I feel pretty good about that fact.