Mega Update 1 - the world of work, fireworks and Jonathan Coulton
Ok, so it's not quite the 'tomorrow' that I promised, but looking back at my 'recent' entries it seems that i'm averaging about once a month lately so at least it's better than that!
It's been rather hectic round here lately. Where to start with the update?
Well, the business has been going really well and keeping me busy. I spent three days at the Tatton Park Food Festival (standing up smiling at people for 8 hours for 3 days is *tiring*) and handed out about 1500 leaflets. A few of those led to people emailing me about courses, so that was good. I've done a couple of other ones too including a full day course yesterday which seemed to go really well.
I also added another aspect to my business by signing up to a franchise organisation of cookware parties, selling products endorsed by Jamie Oliver. It's rather nice stuff that I don't mind bringing to show people* and talking about because I basically want it all myself. So since I joined up about a month ago i've been doing a few parties (for friends so far) and have booked to do some local christmas fairs.
This has all been very exciting and just starting to properly get going. So obviously this is the point at which I get two job interviews... one of which I didn't actually end up going to because I attended the first one and got offered the job on the same day! This was last Thursday. They pretty much wanted me to start immediately, but I asked for a week to get things sorted so I start on Monday. I try not to write things in here that are too specific with regards to work and personal matters, but it sounds very exciting and really interesting so I may tell you all a bit about it once i've started and settled in a little bit.
So yes, Thursday afternoon was the interview, and two hours later I had a phonecall to tell me they were offering me the position. So it was very fortuitous that I had previously made plans that evening to go and see Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm! sessifet25 had arrived at our house earlier while I was out (having had her own rather interesting day that she chronicled elsewhere) and the two of us set out to the house of smescrater and mrs_crater who had kindly offered to put us up for the evening, living nearer to the venue than we do.
Which reminds me that I also haven't written about the fireworks party that hobnobs and I attended at said house, which was lots of fun and involved FIRE! and geeky discussions and several people ducking nervously from fireworks that were possibly slightly too ambitious for the size of gardeny they were being lit in. hobnobs also liberally distributed perry from the 35 pint box which he purchased at the AFPCamp and opened a few days before the party. There's still a fair bit left too!
Anyway, the four of us trouped into Manchester to the gig, stood in a queueueue for a while getting slightly confused by all the giggling teenagers, until we realised there were two gigs at the same venue and one combined queue, and they were there for the other one. Mr Hanson or something like that? I have no idea. Eventually they let us in, but there was still quite a while before the gig started. So we wandered into the student bar for some beer and a hit of student nostalgia, and ended up getting distracted by conversation long enough that we missed the start of Paul and Storm. Oops.
We made it upstairs in time for the pirate song though (AAAAAHHRRR!) so that was ok. They were great and so was JoCo, I haven't laughed so much in a while. There was lots of audience interaction, mostly good, despite a few chaps standing at the back near us who I think unfortunately had gotten a little too enthusiastic with the beer and persisted in talking to eachother loudly over the songs and banter.
After the gig we were all rather hungry, so there was an expedition in search of Pizza! This was the first of several quests over the weekend, but I think I shall continue to write about that in another post tomorrow or sunday, since this post is getting quite long and it's getting quite late. I suspect that if I keep typing it's going to stray into the territory of being too long to bother reading to the end.
Until tomorrow!
*I am seriously impressed by the carving set for example, it's a properly sharp, Japanese steel, perfectly balanced knife! Plus a fork and steel! For a reasonable price!
It's been rather hectic round here lately. Where to start with the update?
Well, the business has been going really well and keeping me busy. I spent three days at the Tatton Park Food Festival (standing up smiling at people for 8 hours for 3 days is *tiring*) and handed out about 1500 leaflets. A few of those led to people emailing me about courses, so that was good. I've done a couple of other ones too including a full day course yesterday which seemed to go really well.
I also added another aspect to my business by signing up to a franchise organisation of cookware parties, selling products endorsed by Jamie Oliver. It's rather nice stuff that I don't mind bringing to show people* and talking about because I basically want it all myself. So since I joined up about a month ago i've been doing a few parties (for friends so far) and have booked to do some local christmas fairs.
This has all been very exciting and just starting to properly get going. So obviously this is the point at which I get two job interviews... one of which I didn't actually end up going to because I attended the first one and got offered the job on the same day! This was last Thursday. They pretty much wanted me to start immediately, but I asked for a week to get things sorted so I start on Monday. I try not to write things in here that are too specific with regards to work and personal matters, but it sounds very exciting and really interesting so I may tell you all a bit about it once i've started and settled in a little bit.
So yes, Thursday afternoon was the interview, and two hours later I had a phonecall to tell me they were offering me the position. So it was very fortuitous that I had previously made plans that evening to go and see Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm! sessifet25 had arrived at our house earlier while I was out (having had her own rather interesting day that she chronicled elsewhere) and the two of us set out to the house of smescrater and mrs_crater who had kindly offered to put us up for the evening, living nearer to the venue than we do.
Which reminds me that I also haven't written about the fireworks party that hobnobs and I attended at said house, which was lots of fun and involved FIRE! and geeky discussions and several people ducking nervously from fireworks that were possibly slightly too ambitious for the size of gardeny they were being lit in. hobnobs also liberally distributed perry from the 35 pint box which he purchased at the AFPCamp and opened a few days before the party. There's still a fair bit left too!
Anyway, the four of us trouped into Manchester to the gig, stood in a queueueue for a while getting slightly confused by all the giggling teenagers, until we realised there were two gigs at the same venue and one combined queue, and they were there for the other one. Mr Hanson or something like that? I have no idea. Eventually they let us in, but there was still quite a while before the gig started. So we wandered into the student bar for some beer and a hit of student nostalgia, and ended up getting distracted by conversation long enough that we missed the start of Paul and Storm. Oops.
We made it upstairs in time for the pirate song though (AAAAAHHRRR!) so that was ok. They were great and so was JoCo, I haven't laughed so much in a while. There was lots of audience interaction, mostly good, despite a few chaps standing at the back near us who I think unfortunately had gotten a little too enthusiastic with the beer and persisted in talking to eachother loudly over the songs and banter.
After the gig we were all rather hungry, so there was an expedition in search of Pizza! This was the first of several quests over the weekend, but I think I shall continue to write about that in another post tomorrow or sunday, since this post is getting quite long and it's getting quite late. I suspect that if I keep typing it's going to stray into the territory of being too long to bother reading to the end.
Until tomorrow!
*I am seriously impressed by the carving set for example, it's a properly sharp, Japanese steel, perfectly balanced knife! Plus a fork and steel! For a reasonable price!