Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

We went down to the Royal Armouries today between various pubs and found they had a new exhibit on The Tower of London (which is nice as they probably knicked most of their stuff from their initially 😉 ) so we went to have a gander.

It wasn’t amazing as it was stuck up on floor 5 and was more informational than physical exhibits to look at but it was never the less very interesting.

Sunday lunch made a much welcome return today though continuing Michelle’s hate campaign against Wetherspoon’s we had to go down to the Scarborough Hotel which provided us with some very nice meals indeed though at the kind of price you have to be prepared to pay at town.

After a short break round the Armouries we then headed to Oracle which was quite nice though it was £2.80 for a pint of orange juice and on top of that the hot girl behind the bar then tried to short change me by a £1! A damning indictment of our education system (I hope).

As inspiration to get the house sorted within a reasonable timescale we scheduled our housewarming for two weeks from moving in, which arrived on Friday. The evening included a reasonably enjoyable (though certainly cheap at least) Chinese takeaway meal followed by drinks and dancing long into the night. Good times.

Headed home on Wednesday night and decided to swing by my parents to pick up some mail. I ended up staying for dinner as our Canadian visitors, Diane & Nick had been preparing a huge stew so we ended up with a dozen or so of us crammed round the dining room table enjoying a rather nice meal.

I say crammed, my parents being quite so middle class have quite a large dining room table so it wasn’t that cramped lol. I really should make an effort to go home to the parents for dinner every so often though – it’s the only time I get fresh vegetables 😀 .

Having secured some time off work I spent last weekend down in Swindon visiting Kieran. While down there we made our way round Stonehenge, Avebury, some kind of castle ruins, a rather enjoyable meal out at the local Italian and a BBQ – as well as plenty of drink and good conversation too. All in all a very enjoyable weekend.

Went to The Original Oak for lunch on Friday as usual. But unlike normal, we never came back 😀 .

First off it was a bit of a celebration as Imran is heading off to Egypt today to get married (to a woman he has met before – once 😉 ) to we sent him on his way with a rather nice gift, some champagne flutes that Holly had picked up for him despite the fact he doesn’t drink 😀 .

Secondly, Stu who manages BetOptions which is the Australian office of our company was over on a flying visit so it ended up with almost the entire office heading out to the pub. Our food was a bit delayed too so by the time we had finished eating Rob told us we could take the afternoon off. Fantastic!

I finished moving house on Thursday.

When I say I finished moving, I have now moved everything in to my new place. It isn’t sorted yet, a lot of stuff is still in boxes, I don’t have a bed or a sofa but everything that was in my old place has now been transfered to my new place which hopefully means the hard work is over.

Now I just need to sort everything out in my new place which is looking like it should be coming along – my bed should be arriving today, I have my phone line up and running, the internet has been ordered and should go live on Friday and no doubt a huge council tax bill on the way so things are gradually coming together.

Headed out to the pub on Wednesday with Si and Sarann. Having had a lot (and I mean a lot 😀 ) of mixed grills at various pubs recently I can testify that the Deer Park is really worth the extra cash for their mixed grills. That said the service was a bit shakey all night.

There is just something wrong about everyone driving to the pub though. It seems part of my decent into young adulthood. Still, at least I still managed to spend the evening gossiping about people rather than having productive, mature discussions. Win.

Here’s a few more fun adventures with the new apartment…

We only have one key fob between the three of us. So I asked my letting agent who said I would need to speak to the building management company. I did, they told me I needed to speak to the caretaker. He told me I needed to speak to some guy in Shipley.

I spoke to the guy in Shipley, he said he had some in stock. I tried to order some but apparently they don’t take credit cards. It’s 2009, but they don’t. So I have to mail them payment before they can send them out.

I got a letter through from nPower telling me if I didn’t ring them in the next 14 days they were going to cut my gass off. So I rang them, not really having looked into it, and they told me that the apartment did in fact not actually have a gass connection.

I tried to at least get my electricity sorted but I needed a meter reading for that so I rang my letting agent who said they didn’t have one as they couldn’t get in to wherever the meters are so had had to request one off Accent the building management company who hadn’t got back to them.

The car park permit people are very much like my letting agent – they don’t answer their phones even when I’m trying to give them money.

The repairs division of my letting agent do answer their phones, but not when you press 1 for repairs on the automated voice at the beginning. You have to press 2 for rent payments and then ask to be transfered.

I needed to speak to them however as I would like my door handles to be attached to my doors and screwed in, not simply pushed on as several of them are at the moment. I also need a key to the balcony door, which they don’t have, so they’re probably going to have to drill the lock out and put a new one in.

Good times.

One of the perks of city living is the ability to walk to the pub and home again, finally removing my need to drive to Tuesday night socials.

It’s a bit of a walk up from my apartment though with the way back being down hill it feels a lot shorter at the end of the night which is always a positive. In any case it felt really good not having to worry about how much I was drinking for once, a great improvement on the situation.