I've gone and done it again!

Sure enough, even with the best intentions I have managed to completely neglect my blog and have not even written anything since April! it's not even as if nothing has happened - completely the opposite in fact!

I've heard it said that moving house, changing job, getting married, and having a baby are some of the most stressfull things to do in life - me and Katie have managed to do them all in the last few months!!

In the middle of June we finally moved out of London and back to the North - quite an easy decision to make really! The move went well and thanks to a couple of Polish guys the move went by without even a grumble!

Then at the start of July I started my new job with a high street back who had a few well publicised problems - it pays the bills - that's all I'll say!

On 8th August me and Katie got married, what an amazing day! The combination of friends and weather made it one of the best days ever!

Then as the icing on the cake Charlotte Mary Anne arrived a bit early on 30th August weighing in at a painfully impressive 9lb 4oz! So far we're 2 weeks in and I love being a Dad!

So that's a potted history of the last few months! Let's hope things calm down a bit!

Nearly Time

After about a year and a half here it's now getting very close to the time me and Katie reaquaint ourselves with the North East part of England - and about time too! My contract ends at the end of May and so I'm desperately hunting for a new job in the North - great time to be doing that but I'll find something! I hope!

One of the main reasons for moving now is to get Katie settled in with a midwife with the little person being due in September! Also it'll give us chance to get a house and get it in a state for a baby to move into! This all seems a bit grown up to me! Maybe about time!

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Oasis

For somebody who grew up in the 80's and 90's do you think I'm going against my generation to say I think Oasis are a bit bland now!?

London Again

Before I moved to London I often heard people saying that London is the best place to be and that it's got everything you could ever want - now I've been here for over a year I can announce that I reckon that's cobblers! It does have probably thousands of theatres, galleries, fancy restaurants and other things to see or do! The main problem is that I don't want to do those kind of things, I'm not a fan of theatre, some art is very good but not all, I don't like snooty restaurants who charge a fortune just because of the chefs name or reputation! What I want is my own space, to be able to see the horizon now and then and the opportunity to be where other people aren't so I can spend time with Katie with just us an not shouty annoying tourists or general people walking by!

Job Swap

Why is it that in most companies the people who are meant to be Customer Service professionals in call centres are often rude and very impatient and the people who actually do the work are very pleasant and cheery? Yesterday the Titish Brelecom engineer was a really nice bloke and very efficient unlike the call centre person - maybe they should swap roles for a while!

Some Companies Do Things Well...

Over the last few days I've had cause to deal with two of what I would describe as being extremely well known. The first I was very pleased with were O2, I managed to crack the screen of my lovely iPhone and although it wasn't in anyway detrimental to the everyday working performance of the phone it was all I noticed everytime I picked it up! So after a phone call to some very nice, pleasant people at O2 on Friday - it is now Monday and I already have my replacement! I've already a huge fan of O2 anyway and from my experience there Customer Service has always been Mint!

The second company who I will not name but will say their name rhymes with Titish Brelecom have been rubbish! We seem to have a fault on our phone line which causes the line to crackle almost 10 seconds and has been known to make calls inaudible. It is also making our DSL drop out too! So after reporting the fault to them just after 12 on Saturday by 12 on Monday we still had no response Customer Service level at 0%. We even called them on Saturday to see what was happening and were told by some lying sniveling little runt that we would be called back that day! Did we get a call back - did we heckers like! So today after calling them and speaking to a nice pleasant lady we have an engineer coming out tomorrow - although the pleasant lady on the phone did make sure she told me about the excessively high charges they have if it proves not to be the phone line - it made me think twice about getting them to come out at all just in case. I hope it is the phone line! This isn't my first time dealing with a problem from this company but I would love to say it would be my last - lets have a look at alternatives shall we!!

So in summary for O2 - well done, Titish Brelecom - useless!

Smoking

Like a lot of people I was absolutely delighted when the smoking ban was introduced in England! It meant I could go for an ale and not come away smelling like I'd been kippered! The only problem now is that because you can't smoke inside, lots of people have a cancer stick while walking along the street - which of course means on a regular basis that I end up with a face full of second hand smoke! After a while I thought that if it's ok for them to blow their waste fumes into my face then why isn't it ok for me to do it back to them! So from now on anybody who delivers me a face full of smoke I'm going to try my absolute hardest to overtake them and release my own special fumes in their direction! Although I'll not try too hard!

Just Testing

Quite often recently I've been updating my blog using email, however for some stupid reason it likes to stick HTML formatting in which I don't like! So, I'm trying an application I've just got for my phone and this is me testing it!

Humph!

Well - the time has come to back to work tomorrow, and am I pleased about that?! Am I buffalo! I can feel a severe dose of the back to work blues coming on!

2009

I decided this New Year that I wasn't going to bother making resolutions as they'll just be forgotten about by February. I decided instead that I would try and make commitments instead. This year is also going to involve making some massive decisions too, both me and Katie have to find new jobs this year and more importantly decide where. It all really depends on where the jobs are but I know where I fancy living and it doesn't involve London!

Hopefully this year should be a more creative year for me and Katie, we're both a bit arty (Katie more so than me) but don't seem to be able to make time so hopefully this year we'll get the chance.

I'm also going to try and really cut back the amount of drinking I do - over the course of the last year I've really begun to lose the desire to drink lots. Lots of the boozes available are really not nice and I often find myself thinking "I'll have a pint of that just because it's the best of a bad bunch", but why? If I don't really like it then what is the point of drinking it! I absolutely love a good real ale and a good red wine but their availability isn't always great, there's always a neat Jack Daniels which really floats my boat but I don't want to just drink spirits. I think I'm going to try and just have drinks that I actually want to drink, not just what's on offer! I want to lose weight so reckon doing this should help - as well as stepping things up in the gym and watching what I eat! This starts tomorrow!

This Year

I'm very pleased to say that I had a very relaxing and enjoyable New Year. Me and Katie were invited by Paul and Mary to join them at a cottage they had rented in Craster on the Northumberland coast. Normally New Year is a massive anticlimax for me, with all the build up and expectations it invariably turns out to be pretty dull and uneventful and I normally end up completely sozzled! Although I did end up being a little bit drunk this year it wasn't the usual throwing drinks down my throat session. I had a bad chest during the evening and so decided to go out and get some fresh air about eleven, I just went for a wander round the village and it was extremely quiet - the only real noise I could hear came from a couple of cottages who seemed to have a sort of party going on - the rest was provided by seagulls and the sea crashing against the harbour - it was lovely! After taking a few photos I slowly wandered back to the cottage and welcomed in the New Year with Big Ben donging away on the TV and a glass of champagne in my hand. It was fantastic to spend the new year with Katie and her family and I cannot help thinking 2009 is going to be a good one.