In shock

I got made redundant from my job of eight and a half years yesterday.
To say that it came as a bit of a surprise is an understatement.

I know there's no such thing as a job for life but I was busy in my last job and looking forward to the future.

I'm still in a state of shock today but have started to look to see what the market has to offer comparable to what I currently do. And the answer is not a lot. Not that I have a CV anywhere anyway. That's long gone on some old PC.

Since my financial stability is now up the creek the marriage arrangements, honeymoon and house moving have now been put on hold. Great timing, eh?

If it wasn't for the support that my other half has given me I'd be in such a state right now, though I'm sat here at home alone now, still shaking and so sad.

*sob*

A Date With Destiny

Things are slowly ticking ahead with the wedding preparations. We've heard back from the church (pictured) and been given a number of dates in August.

So far, all being well, Saturday 16th looks to be the ONE.

It all becomes a lot more real now that we have a date. It's as if a countdown clock has started and now we have to get everything sorted before it hits zero!

Next steps are to meet up with the priest next week and to start visiting possible venues around the area this weekend that won't break the bank. (Not so easy when the church is in Mayfair!)

We've set ourselves a budget and in a flurry of organisational genius I've come up with a long list of eveything that is likely to cost us something and estimates for how much each is likely to be.

It's not going to be a big wedding, mind, with 50 being the maximum number of people. This could fall further to as low as 35 depending on if people are around in the middle of the holiday season. But then less people equals less cost (we hope!)

I've chosen two best men as I've two best mates and it wouldn't be fair to choose between them. One can sort the speeches etc and the other is a good organiser so I hope that as a team they can get all their bits sorted. Not that I know what their bits to sort out yet as I've yet to look that up!

On the flat selling front, I continue to have viewings and one "very interested" buyer but no offers as yet. Similarly we've yet to find a house we like either so that's a big flat blank.

If nothing else it allows me to concentrate more on the wedding arrangements and there are a lot of those to get through!

163 days to go!

Progress report

Yes, it's an exciting random picture of a building!
This one's right by London Bridge.

No progress on the moving front at all, despite the price drop.

I'll have to see if I get any viewings at all on the weekend. As it stands the woman above me has decided to keep her flat at the same price that mine was just lowered from, so I can only see that that will make my flat look more attractive. Until she sees sense and changes her mind, that is!

On the wedding front, we've written off a letter to the church where we'd like to get married. It's in Mayfair (very posh, I know!) but it is a beautiful church with a hugh stained glass window behind the altar. The other half loves stained glass windows! It also excudes a certain spiritual calmness, so I very much like it. I got a call back from them to confirm receipt of our wedding request and apparently someone will be back in contact with me next week.

I am a bit worried that at this rate we'll be married but not living together!

The Long(er) Road To Work

As mentioned in a previous post, ever since we've moved offices from Baker Street to Marble Arch, my journey into work has become a lot quicker and a lot more pleasant. I worked out that I now saved myself a working week each year in time that I could spend longer in bed.

This is what my old (45-50 mins) main journey options were in the morning:
Acton Town -> Green Park (Piccadilly Line)
Green Park -> Baker Street (Jubilee Line)
or
Acton Town -> Hammersmith (Piccadilly Line)
Hammersmith -> Baker Street (Hammersmith & City Line)

Of course there were many other routes I could have taken but these would turn out to be the best for consistency and giving me an idea of what time I can leave the house in the morning to get in by a certain time.

Ever since the office move, my new route (35 mins) became a simpler one:
Acton High Street -> Shepherds Bush (Bus 207/607)
Shepherds Bush -> Marble Arch

But, alas, the good times are no more. Ever since Shepherds Bush station was closed with barely 4 weeks notice for the next 8 months, my journey in is more complicated and definitely a lot less comfortable.

My average journey time is now between 45-60 mins! And all because of one station closure! *sigh*

I now get a tiny no 70 bus with an unreliable timetable to East Acton station and then onto Marble Arch from there. However they have just decided to spend the next few months digging up the main road that the bus runs along so, thanks to the traffic, on some days, just the bus route portion of my journey takes almost as long as my entire journey used to be... Argh!

And it is a tiny bus. The few seats are cramped so close together that unless I sit at the back, I'd rather stand to be more comfortable. By the time the bus has gone two stops it's packed full with people standing and all the seats occupied.

The number 70 is supposed to run every 10 mins but that's just wishful thinking. I've a feeling that the rushed closure of Shepherds Bush has meant that they've not even considered the impact on travel links around the area.

On the way home, I now get off at Holland Park and do a very brisk 10 min walk to Shepherds Bush to catch a bus back from there. So far, so good as I've yet to hit a rainy day during that part of the journey home.

There are still other routes that I'm investigating but so far they all come in at around the same journey time.

I am rather annoyed by the way that the station closed. Apparently it's a first for such a busy station to close when escalators are being replaced and it's not even having a lift put in to make it more accessible or having anything to expand its capacity before the White City Shopping centre opens right next door to it! It certainly beggars belief that they may have to do this in a few years time anyway to meet the Mayor's targets for accessibility on public transport.

But I guess money speaks louder than any words of complaint (and with less than 4 weeks notice, how much can someone complain?) and the Australian property developer "Westfield" responsible for the new shopping centre has won the day. I feel sorry for all the small shops around the Green which will now close because of the lack of custom and that's before they get bulldozed away by the impact on their business of a major shopping centre with large corporate stores competing on their doorsteps.

Complications

So, the merry-go-round that is the sale of my flat is still going on.

It's been 5 weeks and the viewings have pretty much dried up as the prices in my area have gone down, so it looks as if 10k will have to come off just to see if that improves things.

Granted we're not in such a rush to sell as we've yet to see anything that we fancy but when 2 bedroom flats and larger 1 bedroom flats in the same area come in at the same price as mine, I know I'm in trouble.

Still, every night before I go to bed, I tidy up the flat and every morning before I head off to work I make the bed so that it looks nice and tucked in like something in a nice hotel, just on the off chance that someone will do a viewing that day. It does get you down a bit though.

On a more positive note, we've started to push things forward a bit on the getting hitched front. We're sorting out a church and have found a nice one in Mayfair (not far from work) that we both agree that we really like. The thing is with her family East of London and my friends to the West, we thought it'd be a good compromise. Apparently we now have to write a letter to sort a formal meeting to discuss things further which I'm in the process of doing.

We've both met with my local parish priest, something that needs to be done in the Catholic Church to sort out a formal parish letter of freedom to prove I'm not already married. Solicitors get involved for a small fee too *sigh* And we're even going to attend a marriage course (another Catholic requirement, though one which probably isn't really that bad an idea.)

It all sounds so complicated, doesn't it?
And that's all before we've even got a confirmed venue or date!



The pic is yet another from the "Switched On London" series and is of London Bridge all lit up.

HMS Belfast last night

Part of something called "Switched On London". Worth checking out for some good night shots of London Bridge, Tower Bridge and bits 'tween all lit up.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy 4706!

Taken rather hurriedly with my compact camera as the battery was about to die on me...
London's Chinatown tonight. It's the year of the rat which according to the Chinese calendar, I am.

Thankfully it's not as bad as it sounds:
"Ambitious, clever and devoted to their family. Hard-working and imaginative. Not always sure of themselves and do not always plan for the future. Will always stand by their friends."

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

(which literally means, "congratulations, may you be prosperous" so winning the Euromillions rollover this week would be a good start.)

When sometimes, the view out of your window is worth waking up for

Please buy me! (One careful owner)

So after a ten day flurry of activity things have gone rather quiet on the selling the flat front.

I had a few viewings before any of the marketing had gone out but strangely enough since the actual marketing has now popped up in the local paper, agents' windows and on the main internet property sites, it's all gone very quiet.
To be honest I'm not 100% happy with the pictures. They either:
a) Make my flat look somewhat smaller than it actually is.
b) Make my flat look a lot more over-exposed in colour tone than it actually is.
c) Act as a good excuse for some nice local burglers to pop around as they show off the location of my PC, scanner and camera.

In terms of the actual viewings, there were a number of excuses over things they didn't like
a) Didn't like the location: Acton.
- Go figure. Why were they looking in Acton then?
b) Didn't like the Somalian cafe down the road and the locals hanging around outside it.
- I've never even noticed them until that comment was made but they're old geezers hanging out at their usual haunt not street hardened "hoodies!"
c) Didn't like the fact that part of the view out of the window (to the right) was of the local high rise estate. If you're wondering what this looks like, it's the building used as the exterior for "Nelson Mandela House" in the comedy "Only Fools and Horses."
- But look to the left and the view sweeps out as far as the south-side of the Thames. I can see the white roof of Earl's Court exhibition centre to the far left, Crystal Palace's transmission tower to the right of this, Fulham FC's floodlights to the right of this and a lovely vista with no tall buildings for about four or so miles beyond this. At night the lights in buildings in the distance twinkle and create quite a nice city scape view. Plus then the building directly below me is a retirement home, so it's nice and quiet but bloody well located for transport links.

But, in spite of this I did get one positive viewing, a lady who said that the flat ticked all the boxes and now she wanted to check out the value based on the area before getting back to the agency. Given that we've not heard anything since I'm guessing that she was either a phony fibber or else realised that Acton wasn't her "cup of tea" and had looked elsewhere.

*sigh*And so the quest to sell continues...

A rant about estate agents...

So after many weeks of sifting through and then throwing out or giving away clutter (approx twenty five large black bags worth plus one 32 inch TV), removing all signs of personalisation/individuality/character from my flat, giving it a nice new paint job and enduring paint fumes for a few days I finally got to the point where it was ready to go onto the market.

*phew!*

So I ended up choosing two local agencies who have to share my spare set of keys between them. "It's okay. We get on well. We've done a lot of business together in the past. There should be no problems sharing the keys", I was told by one of the estate agents.

Two days later I missed out on my first viewing because one of them had forgotten to give the keys back to the other. But then what do you expect? They are in the much maligned estate agency business after all so they have a reputation to uphold...

To be honest, just like in any profession there are the solid grafters and then there are the cocky w**kers. We've come across both. It really is a minefield out there.

It still surprises me how we've come across quite a few agents who aren't willing to show people around on weekday evenings. Along with Saturdays, THIS IS THE ONLY TIME THAT US PEOPLE IN GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT ARE GOING TO BE AROUND TO VIEW FRICKING PROPERTIES!

And yet they still umm and ah and annoyingly sometimes never get back to you.

Then you get the ones who can't be arsed to register you. "Just look on the web. We put our properties on there as soon as we get them." (Yeah, right!)

It really is bloody frustrating. Can we please introduce some standards of conduct here please?!

Anyway, so I'm now having to keep my flat in a state of perpetual perfectness. Which means keeping the place as spotless as possible, making the bed every morning (argh!), making sure the bins are empty, that the cushions on the sofa are nicely arranged(!) and that there are no potentially wiffy things in my bin that might go off during the day!

It also means that for the first time, the spare keys to the flat are with someone I don't really know so I have to do something I've never felt compelled to do since I've lived there: put the chain on the door as soon as I get home. Though to be honest, it's more to avoid someone coming in to do a viewing unannounced when I'm starkers than anything else (half the bathroom is visible from the front door.)

So, to be continued....

Onto the next thing

Marmite bottles with big hearts on proclaiming "I Love You!" and even more confectionery featuring hearts than I've ever seen in Selfridges plus hot cross buns and even large chocolate eggs in Woolworths.

I guess Christmas must be over and it's time to start peddling the next commercially lucrative things. *sigh*

As it is I've been quite organised and had sorted something out for Valentine's Day two months ago and I guess that Easter is unseasonally early this year at March 23rd but even so, that's still eleven or so weeks.

As much as I like hot cross buns and Easter eggs, should they really be selling them already in the second week of January!?

2007 - A Mainly Positive Spin

January (The last long-haul adventure?)

• Went on a trip to Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.
• Made it back in one piece.

February (A moving month)

• Moved offices down the road from Baker Street to Marble Arch knocking 15 minutes off my average journey time giving me back almost a working week each year in time that I can now spend in bed. Zzzzzzzz.
• Took the other half to see Dirty Dancing on Valentine's Day which she liked (a lot) and realised now that I bemusingly didn't blog about this at all.

March (The month I became a debt-free man)

• Finally(!) sold my mum's flat and used the money to pay off my mortgage.
• Blog re-christened to reflect it's wider-wordly aspirations. Ironically, August excepted, just as I stopped travelling.
• April showers arrived early as it rained (a lot.)

April

• Made an April Fools' joke about something on my blog. Can't remember what though!
• Had a brilliant day out at London Zoo. Would recommend anyone go on an April week day when it's relatively quiet. It's well worth it.
• Played Guitar Hero II (a lot.) Sadly had blisters to prove this.

May(-us horribulus)

• Caught some kind of flu-ey thing.
• Left my keys at work and had to go all the way back in to get them.
• Had a hoodie try to set his dog on me.
• Moaned (a lot.)

June

• Made the (as yet not achieved) joint decision to move in with the other half.
• Got to go to see England play at the newly re-opened Wembley Stadium.

July (Music month)

• Saw Tori Amos and Suzanne Vega live as well as a rather good (though pointless from a message stand point) Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium.

August (The triple-header holiday!)

• Went to Rome and got engaged.
• Went to Dubai and bought a ring.
• Went to Hungary and saw my late grandmother for the last time.
• Oh, and in between these, won a compo to see K T Tunstall live at an intimate gig, which was kinda cool.

September

• Had a birthday where I could commiserate the fact that I was now closer to 40 than 30.
• Saw the excellent Patrick Stewart staring as Macbeth in the West End.
• Got (almost) up-close with Gwen Stefani.
• Saw the first set of Christmas decorations go on sale in the shops at the end of this month!

October

• Met my favourite author, Neil Gaiman, and got my copy of 'Stardust' signed along with a photo on my camera which I eventually retrieved after having walked out without it.
• Bought a scanner and scanned in most of my old photo albums (which took a very long time.)

November

• Went to a brilliant firework display in Ealing for Bonfire Night.
• Saw (or rather tried to see) a not so brilliant Oxford Street lights switch on.
• Saw an atrocious Amy Winehouse 'performance.'

December

• Succumbed to peer pressure to join Facebook and met up with some old friends through it.
• Attended a most peculiar christening.
• Won preview night tickets to "Winter Wonderland" in Hyde Park but it turned out to be a Winter wet land.
• Had yet another brilliant Christmas and New Year with the other half and her family.

General

• Went to the cinema a paltry 39 times.
• Blogged 80 times.

Winter Wetland

I entered a competition through the Londonist website to win a pair of tickets to a preview night of the Winter Wonderland event that's going on at Hyde Park Corner at the moment and "shock! horror!", I actually won.

Having completely forgotten that I'd entered the competition, the phone call from a nice sounding lady the day before the preview was to happen was a very pleasant surprise.

My memory being like a sieve nowadays meant that I'd also forgotten to tell the other half that I'd entered and after a bit of gentle persuasion along the lines of "come along tomorrow and watch me fall on my ass as I attempt ice skating for the first time", "it's free" and "it's only ten minutes away from work", we were all set for a nice evening.

Unfortunately the good old British weather wasn't going to let us get away with things that easily. The following day, Friday, felt like one of the wettest days of Winter, so far.

I spent some of my lunch break doing a quick reconnaissance of the area and taking a few shots of an empty park. The weather was cold and cloudy but by late afternoon it had started to take a turn decidedly for the worse.

I periodically looked out at Hyde Park, from my window at work, willing the dark rain clouds to go away and the wind to abate. And truth be told, it did a little bit. Come evening the wind was no longer howling like a wolf and it was no longer raining cats and dogs. Now it was just raining small hamsters and puffing like a bulldog.

Nevertheless, we thought, "it's free" and with our brollies protecting us from the majority of nature's cruel taunts we stepped out across the park and gave it a go.

To be fair, so did a few other people but not many. It was a lot emptier than it would normally be and this was a blessing in disguise.

Unfortunately I didn't get to ice skate for the first time. The rink was covered in an inch of water and only the brave, intrepid souls or the foolish dared to venture out. I was wearing jeans and knew that just a single fall (all but guaranteed for me) would have me soaked through in freezing cold water and turned to an icicle in no time.

We did try out other things though. Out first port of call was the giant wheel, a kind of mini London Eye with pods, that could seat a family, slowly rotating around to give you a good view of the surrounding area.

In our case the view was mostly obstructed by the rain though it was quite atmospheric and we got a pod to ourselves which allowed us to cuddle up as the rain lashed the pod and the wind howled around us. The other half loved it every time that a gust of wind blew the pod from side-to-side whilst I wondered what our chances of survival would be if the pod did actually fall (slim.)

I would however recommend the wheel (dependant on price) if you happen to pass by on a clear day or night.

Next we ventured into one of those capsule rides where a video gets played in front of you and the capsule rocks and rolls around in time with the video. In the case of the Winter Wonderland ride, it was a small excerpt from "The Snowman" accompanied by the requisite "Walking In The Air" song.

And boy was it naff! The rocking and rolling didn't really have much to do with the very grainy old video being played in front of us and the floor of the capsule was like one giant, muddy puddle as people got on and off with their wet shoes whilst nobody cleared up in-between.

Definitely not recommended for anyone, of any age!

Then we tried out the haunted house which as grown-ups you don't really expect to be very good, now do you? After all I remember going in these when I was little and not finding them particularly scary then. Is there such a thing as an actual scary haunted house ride anywhere?

Anyhow, it was more gory than scary though I did get a great laugh out of the bloke with scary mask who jumped out at the other half just after we entered and made her scream her head off. Hehe! In fact that was the highlight of that ride.

We then strolled around watching kids slide down the giant toboggan ride, which did look like good fun but, as with the skating, was off limits for us sensible adults in the still pouring rain.

And finally we checked out the German market which was okay though very touristy and very small compared to others that I've seen or heard about around the country.

So, though slightly dampened by the weather conditions, for free, we'd had an interesting evening out and finished it off with a lovely pie and mash in Selfridges food hall. Yum!

The case of the peculiar christening

I went to my first christening the other Sunday.

Other than my own baptism, I'd never been to one of these before. And it was quite a peculiar affair indeed.

First off, it wasn't in a church but in a members-only bar/club in East London. So loads of people drank their way through the while thing.

Secondly, though the other half and I turned up half an hour late, the christening was delayed by...get this...the West Ham vs Tottenham game that was going on that afternoon!

The celebrant had to wait for the match to finish before half the intended crowd turned up!

And when it did finally start, it was a strangely informal affair. The celebrant was an Archbishop of the episcopal church from Kent (nobody seemed to know what this meant so I'm not sure who had arranged for him to officiate.) He dressed up in his full purple robes for the occasion whilst young children of all ages roamed around the hall making as much noise as they wanted whilst the whole thing carried on.

By roamed, I mean that the little 'uns ran and crawled in front, behind and sometimes through the ceremony whilst it was going on with the archbishop (who apparently had five kids himself) carrying on just fine.

It was obvious that neither parents or God-parents of the little boy to be christened has stepped into a church in a long time. They looked on baffled. So, to ease the discomfort of the mainly West Ham partisan crowd, the celebrant got everyone to sing "I'm forever blowing bubbles" as the first hymn! (It's the West Ham theme tune.)

That's how bizarre the whole thing really was!!

Long Time No See

Having joined Facebook recently and deciding that only people I really like will get added as friends rather than any Tom, Dick or Harriet, I found myself rather restricted.

Whilst lots of friends-of-friends are on Facebook, my immediate circle of friends only has a small number of people who are IT literate and have heard of Facebook.

So no friends-of-friends-of-friends etc.

But it was a small group. Too small...

I guess that some people feel pressured into oneupmanship. You see all those people with hundreds of "friends" and there's me thinking that I probably don't even know that many people! Besides, Facebook doesn't really work if your group of friends is too large. You just get bombarded. It's almost as if you need an inner and outer circle, something I'm surprised they haven't implemented yet as standard.

Nevertheless, I hunted around a bit more, typing in a few names into the search box to see who else I could find. As luck would have it some of my old school and university friends were on there (though not many, which was surprising) so I sent a few friend requests out and waited...

When I got a few replies, I started the obligatory "Hello. How are you?", "How are things?" going type messages with them and to cut a long story short, I ended up arranging a meet up with four of my old uni mates.

It'd been over ten years since last I'd last seen them. We all used to hang out together durng those formative years and even went on a fly-drive holiday around North-East America after we finished uni, from which I've had some great memories, but distance and laziness did me in.

They all lived in Surrey (we went to Kingston Uni) and I didn't. Without a car, and no direct form of transport, it'd take me almost two hours to do what should be a relatively straight-forward trip down to see them.

And...it just never happened. They kept in touch which each other whilst I grew further and further away.

Anyhow, it was great to see them all and the bizzare thing was that apart from a few more grey hairs or, in some case, slightly less hair, we were all basically the same!

One of my friends had got married (on the day that I went to Nepal so I never made it to the wedding) and had had two kids (one of whom was a junior monster) whilst another is getting married next year. Spookily one of my friends had not changed at all, in so far as I even thought that he was wearing the same clothes (or very close to the same clothes) that he used to wear 10 years ago!

Oh well. We all got on pretty well, though meeting on a Friday in busy, noisy pubs was probably not ideal for catching up type chat and I did have to rush off before everyone else as we'd met in Clapham Junction and their journeys home were more straightforward than mine.

Hopefully the beginning of some better friendships, I hope?

To be continued, I guess...