Update time!
So, nearly a month has gone by, and now I must have things to talk about!
I've not got any pictures to put up on here of the new digs because I haven't taken any yet. Whoops! I'll try and put some up tonight if I remember just anyone who happens to be reading this can see what splendour I live in.
The flat's round the back of a rather run-down looking house in a rather nice suburban road. The other properties on the street are in much better condition and quite a few have been recently done up I think (my flat's obviously been refurbished relatively recently as the cooker is nice and new). My immediate next-door neighbour is a very quiet Eastern European man who walks with a slight hunch and keeps his blinds permanently drawn; perhaps he's running a bordello in there or something, but if he is it's a very quiet one, and I'm actually just waiting for the day that he snaps and screams about my music being too loud or something as I haven't seen him since the day I moved in! On the other side I've got a middle-aged/retired lady who seems to spend most of her time pottering in the garden, and there's a fence between us so I don't think I'll be causing her any problems.
Now that I've cleaned it and made it my own I personally think it's lovely. It's not exactly a penthouse suite but it's much better than most of the places I looked at for both less and more; I'm not quite sure why I got it so cheap, although the fact that the previous tenant didn't appear to be paying any of his bills regularly might have something to do with it... the kitchen surfaces have some annoying old burn marks that I can't quite scrub out, and the toilet's a bit skanky (London water, innit?) but it's a nice clean place. A bit dark, unfortunately, due to there only being small windows in the kitchen part of the flat, but it's just about okay for the weekends and I'm used to unnatural light really.
I never knew just how much stuff you need to put into a house to function properly, though. Cutlery drawers, washing-up bowls, kitchen bins, clingfilm, a mop... it's far too domesticated and Almost Adult for me. I spend my evenings fiddling with my accounts spreadsheet and my weekends washing, dusting and cleaning. Next thing you know it'll be pension planning and DIY projects, and then I'll be totally screwed.
Work continues. That's pretty much all I can say, I suppose; I had a bit of a low patch towards the end of last week as I was bored out of my skull and really tired at the same time. I'm permanently on late shifts at the moment until our new female receptionist (yes, they employ by gender, there's a case for an Employment Tribunal if I ever saw one...) turns up next Tuesday, which gets a bit annoying; on the early shift you have a quiet morning but it gets busier and therefore more interesting, whereas on the late shift everyone goes before you do and no-one rings so it gets very boring. It's given me renewed vigour for ploughing through my Japanese textbooks (Most. Boring. Example Sentences. Ever) and Lizbob has suggested I write a novel in the downtime; unfortunately I really can't think of anything to write and can't really write anyway, but I shall probably persevere when I get bored of eighteen million sentences about "In our head office, the Americans are friendlier than the Swiss" or "Which telephone extension is this branch, Taniguchi-san?".
As part of the job's perks I get free theatre tickets, which is a pretty big bonus (especially when they're the best seats in the house!). So I took my darling sister to see Mary Poppins on Saturday night.
It's the kind of show where you essentially put your critical faculties on hold; it's not a dumb show, by any means, but taken on an emotional/simplistic level I absolutely loved it. However, it does have a few niggling script faults (it's essentially a series of setpieces slightly haphazardly strung together, and there's one antagonist character who's on stage for about five minutes total that I thought deserved a bit more stage time) and there were some technical things that really bothered me - the obvious infrared LEDs on parts of the set, for instance, the blatant steel harnasses for Bert to dance on the ceiling and Mary to fly into the roof, and the mike levels meaning that one big duet was all Mary singing sweetly and the other lady completely drowned out by the orchestra. I did have a wonderful evening, though, in the most amazing seats possible - front of the back block of the stalls smack bang in the centre, had masses of leg room and the perfect view. Awesome stuff!
Right, back to "writing" this "novel" then. A grand adventure in the best Clive Cussler position, I currently have a Greek archaelogist pinned to the floor of the Theatre of Dionysus about to be immolated for my first chapter...
I've not got any pictures to put up on here of the new digs because I haven't taken any yet. Whoops! I'll try and put some up tonight if I remember just anyone who happens to be reading this can see what splendour I live in.
The flat's round the back of a rather run-down looking house in a rather nice suburban road. The other properties on the street are in much better condition and quite a few have been recently done up I think (my flat's obviously been refurbished relatively recently as the cooker is nice and new). My immediate next-door neighbour is a very quiet Eastern European man who walks with a slight hunch and keeps his blinds permanently drawn; perhaps he's running a bordello in there or something, but if he is it's a very quiet one, and I'm actually just waiting for the day that he snaps and screams about my music being too loud or something as I haven't seen him since the day I moved in! On the other side I've got a middle-aged/retired lady who seems to spend most of her time pottering in the garden, and there's a fence between us so I don't think I'll be causing her any problems.
Now that I've cleaned it and made it my own I personally think it's lovely. It's not exactly a penthouse suite but it's much better than most of the places I looked at for both less and more; I'm not quite sure why I got it so cheap, although the fact that the previous tenant didn't appear to be paying any of his bills regularly might have something to do with it... the kitchen surfaces have some annoying old burn marks that I can't quite scrub out, and the toilet's a bit skanky (London water, innit?) but it's a nice clean place. A bit dark, unfortunately, due to there only being small windows in the kitchen part of the flat, but it's just about okay for the weekends and I'm used to unnatural light really.
I never knew just how much stuff you need to put into a house to function properly, though. Cutlery drawers, washing-up bowls, kitchen bins, clingfilm, a mop... it's far too domesticated and Almost Adult for me. I spend my evenings fiddling with my accounts spreadsheet and my weekends washing, dusting and cleaning. Next thing you know it'll be pension planning and DIY projects, and then I'll be totally screwed.
Work continues. That's pretty much all I can say, I suppose; I had a bit of a low patch towards the end of last week as I was bored out of my skull and really tired at the same time. I'm permanently on late shifts at the moment until our new female receptionist (yes, they employ by gender, there's a case for an Employment Tribunal if I ever saw one...) turns up next Tuesday, which gets a bit annoying; on the early shift you have a quiet morning but it gets busier and therefore more interesting, whereas on the late shift everyone goes before you do and no-one rings so it gets very boring. It's given me renewed vigour for ploughing through my Japanese textbooks (Most. Boring. Example Sentences. Ever) and Lizbob has suggested I write a novel in the downtime; unfortunately I really can't think of anything to write and can't really write anyway, but I shall probably persevere when I get bored of eighteen million sentences about "In our head office, the Americans are friendlier than the Swiss" or "Which telephone extension is this branch, Taniguchi-san?".
As part of the job's perks I get free theatre tickets, which is a pretty big bonus (especially when they're the best seats in the house!). So I took my darling sister to see Mary Poppins on Saturday night.
It's the kind of show where you essentially put your critical faculties on hold; it's not a dumb show, by any means, but taken on an emotional/simplistic level I absolutely loved it. However, it does have a few niggling script faults (it's essentially a series of setpieces slightly haphazardly strung together, and there's one antagonist character who's on stage for about five minutes total that I thought deserved a bit more stage time) and there were some technical things that really bothered me - the obvious infrared LEDs on parts of the set, for instance, the blatant steel harnasses for Bert to dance on the ceiling and Mary to fly into the roof, and the mike levels meaning that one big duet was all Mary singing sweetly and the other lady completely drowned out by the orchestra. I did have a wonderful evening, though, in the most amazing seats possible - front of the back block of the stalls smack bang in the centre, had masses of leg room and the perfect view. Awesome stuff!
Right, back to "writing" this "novel" then. A grand adventure in the best Clive Cussler position, I currently have a Greek archaelogist pinned to the floor of the Theatre of Dionysus about to be immolated for my first chapter...