The Deed Finally Done

I haven't blogged the recent twists and turns in our house chain saga because frankly I couldn't follow them very well myself. Today the pressure increased another notch and looked like we were heading for another stalemate or worse, the final collapse. But when I got home from the office a call from the solicitors confirmed that contracts had been exchanged. Couldn't quite believe it. Phoned Ken and he couldn't either. So that's it. We're moving. Completion date set for the 22nd of October. Blimey.

The Best Thing Ever

Flickr continues to be 'The Best Thing Ever' (after Blogger obviously) as I witness more of my friends come online and starting to share photos and getting great comments from the other users. Fair warms the cockles it does.

Melted Cheese Saved My Life

Went out for lunch with t'wife. All you can eat pizza. Yummy! Melted cheese will solve all my ills!

Phil raised the bar by going and getting Pro status at Flickr. Blatently copying him, I've sent out my invites. Right now I just need one more then I'm in. Following the success of the Seascapes and Shorelines group, I'm also inspired to created a group myself.

Been check out some great mp3 blogs like Spoilt Victorian Child recently. Like the 'now playing' sections of these sites with lots of album cover images linked to Amazon. I was thinking of nicking the idea and adding it to the blog BUT the plain fact is I'm NOT playing anything at the moment. It's hard to be 'now playing' when ALL of your albums are packed away in boxes!

Morning Walk

Back from a walk. Bearwood going about it's normal mid-week business. The sun was shining and the wind was blowing leaves from the trees. People out in their front gardens talking. Called at Mikes but I guess he is over at Liz's place. Probably walked no more than two miles but I think it did me some good. It hasn't cleared my headache but the breeze blew away a few mental cobwebs.

Morning Headache

Off work again. Head still thumping. Can't seem to shift it. Drinking fluids by the bucket-load. Jacq's helping out up at school this morning. I'm going out for a walk.

A Whole World Of Pain

Weekend wiped out with the onset of renal colic on Saturday night. Pain like you wouldn't believe. Called doctors out twice to dose me up with pankillers. Discomfort continued and sleep broken. Checked in with my GP today. Not really sure what happens next. Blood tests done and specialist contacted. But do the pains return or has it all passed? I don't know.

Could The Chain Be Moving?

My training course went OK. Made it all up as I went along. I hadn't forgot as much Step 7 as I feared. Call from estate agents with news that the chain may actually be on the move! The people above us have pulled out of their purchase! BUT, have got an offer in on a vacant property. They have also agreed to move in with relatives by 22nd October to enable our part of the chain to complete. Good news.

If You Like That Sort Of Thing

Work OK if you like that sort of thing. Site in the morning and office in the afternoon. All went by in a bit of a blur. Grabbed some stuff together in an attempt to prepare for a training course I'm doing tomorrow on Step 7 programming. It's been at least two years since I've done any S7 in anger, so I'll be winging it bigtime tomorrow.

Mom and Dad agreed to store some boxes out of our front room which is a real bonus. If we're going to have to 'sit it out' with this house chain, then at least we should make a bit of space and put our dining table back together.

Watching Love Actually at the moment actually. It's not great, but I can't stop myself from liking Hugh Grant doing his 'Hugh Grant thing'.

Strain In The Chain

Took the day off today. Jacq ill. Did the school stuff. Got a haircut then onto the phone to start chasing up estate agents and solicitors. Filled the car with the last of the house trash and took it down the dump. Got completely soaked in the process. Call from the solicitors seemed to be saying it's time to sit tight or break the chain. Apparently attempts to bring pressure on the chain will have no effect. So now what? Wait for events to unfold I guess. Updated Ken on the situation. Agreed to try one last push tomorrow then, who knows?

Confusing & Fustrating

Lots of chain communication today but no much clarification. Amazed by a call from my solicitor who said she was 'struggling to remain professional' in dealing with the solicitor up the chain. This guy certainly seems to be giving everyone the run-around. Kens attempt to crank up the pressure on the chain seems to have stopped at him with a shrug-off. Confusing and fustrating.

Little Smasher

More talk with solicitors today but still no clues as to what's going on. Somethings got to give during this week. People in the chain are getting edgy.

Dylan fell over at school (again) today. He's always running around at top speed. This time he bumped his chin real bad. The little smasher. He went to Davids house to play after school and had a great time. Apparently Davids dad is in a Ramones tribute band. That's pretty cool.

Uploaded the basic front page to the Tingy website last night. Did a few mods tonight to continue the development. Quite pleased with it so far.

Even Calmer

Lovely day today. No stress at all. Sun shining this morning. Inspired some photography in the garden. Layers of foliage catching the sun in my camera for maybe the last time.

Went out for a most enjoyable Sunday lunch at the California Pizza Factory in Harborne. Dylan and I had a great light sabre battle at the table in which he cracked me up by using his Jedi powers to summon great weights down onto my head.

Did some paperwork in the afternoon to catch up for Friday. Ready for another week. Bring it on.

Calming Down

Things are calmer today. Back into the normal weekend routine. Swimming was fun as usual, the kids are doing great. Afternoon spent battling with more stuff in boxes. Tonight I'm browsing through CD's of photos to find stuff to upload to flickr. Loving that site right now.

Moving Day Nerves Part 2: Fear Of Phonecalls

Working from home today. Yesterdays nerves about the move were tested even further by a series of phonecalls with various people within the chain. Things are still dragging on but I'm not quite sure for what reasons. Everyone was telling us a different story and the result was much upset. At one point we were convinced that the whole thing is about to fall through. It still might. We're just hanging on again for another week in the hope of agreement on completion. Suffice to say not much paperwork got done today. I'll have to do more over the weekend to cover today.

Ballet lessons restarted today for Harriet. We waited in the car during her lesson. Dylan playing on the GBA. He's just discovered the joys of Sonic The Hedgehog.

Moving Day Nerves Part 1: The Beginnings

Skipped a blog post last night due to tiredness and a generally offline day that was mostly work and not much inspiration. Today was only slightly better.

Finished on site today. Working from home tomorrow. Catching up with paperwork then getting busy with 'move' stuff. Car full of trash ready for the dump. Furniture to dismantle into movable pieces. STILL no firm word on the completion next Friday, I AM getting a bit twitchy now. Worst case scenario involving frantic phonecalls to any removals firm not fully booked for that day. Still, plenty to focus on with the packing.

Good Deed Done

The drive to the office was soothed by a good helping of Cocteau Twins. The office itslef was the usual morale draining experience. New laptops all round the place. That helped motivate me. No sign of mine. Not even ordered. I was in the mood for a good moan at Steve but Trapper mentioned that this years pay awards are sorted this week. So I've decided to leave any moaning till next week ;)

Got some new comments and new contacts on flickr which is always very cheering. Some of the photos on there are so amazing. And the flickr site itself continues to rock. The new slideshow is great.

This evening we went to IKEA to pick up a chair for my Jacqs dad. Took it over to his place and put it together. Good deed for the day done.

Grumbling & Tumbling

Another site day of little note. Snagging forever. Not very interesting but I suppose I shouldn't grumble. Could be worse. HAS been worse in the past! Don't know what's gonna pick me up if not me. I AM trying, honest. I'm not feeling sorry for myself here, well not much.

Jacq chased the chain today and guess what? Messages back in the afternoon by coincidence that the 24th just MAY be a firm date. Must phone them again tomorrow to try and get it fixed so we can book removals.

Kids were bouncy when I got home. Dylans friend David had been over after school. Harriet generally bouncy about everything. Stuffed my face with pizza then tried to get them to calm down to sleep.

A quick trawl around my usual spots on the web, news sites, blogs, flickr, and now I'm done. No update from Phil and now he's up in Scotland commissioning. Benny checked the blog and picked up on my 'oh so subtle' work moaning. Uploading on flickr. Fumbling on Photoshop. Mumbling.

Zombies Under The Stairs

Watched Shaun Of The Dead on DVD last night. It rocked! Funny, cool and a bit scarey, all the things that the reviews said it was. Makes me want to dig out the Spaced DVD's.

Today was spent in the scarey place known as 'under the stairs'. Clearing out the last of the trash and boxing up the bits to be moved. Glad to report that not much was salvaged for the move. Just goes to show how much pointless rubbish had collected under there. Resolve to be more organised in the new place.

Rest of day spent playing with the kids and now I'm kackered. And here comes another week...

Remain In Light

My current hire car has a neat MP3 CD player in it that has kept me most entertained on the journeys between home and site. I've quite a sizeable collection of MP3's to choose from. But most of the tracks I've downloaded from Soulseek are 'nice to haves', not essentials. That's because the essentials, I already own.

On yesterdays journey home I was blown away by an exception to this rule, the wonderful Remain In Light by Talking Heads. I downloaded it because my shitty old tape version doesn't sound too good anymore. What an album! Hat's off to the genius of Byrne and Eno!

Another week ended and no confirmation of a firm completion date. The communications from these solicitors and estate agents is very poor. No wonder people get stressed. Oh well, another weekend, another round of packing away belongings.

Long Day On Site

Long day on site equals short post at end of day. Head still in the same kinda place as yesterday. Please get me to the weekend somebody.

I don't think I'm coping as well as I'd previously thought with work-related issues. But as soon as I say to myself 'right, I'm going in to see my boss', I feel overcome with a sense of futility. So whaddya do 'bout dat?

Another Short Post Of Little Substance

Because my head is full of work rubbish and real life worries I can't seem to string together much of anything to post about. Core time at work today as Dylan wanted me to take him up to school and then home early for visit to father-in-law. Talking tonight with Harriet about her role in looking out for Dylan at school. Like any parent, I wish I could be there for them all the time.

Watched new series of Grand Designs that started tonight. Beautiful house on Spanish hillside. Classic image of the swimming pool edge dropping away against a clear blue sky.

Site tomorrow for a few days so mostly offline. MUST get my current Tingy designs out of photoshop and onto the web. I'm so slack.

Ignoring The Idiots

Surrounded by the noise from idiots in the workplace. I can't get the volume high enough on my iPod to block them all out!!! Help!!!

Bunker Mentality

Still feeling same as yesterday. Focus required. I think I may have to have words with my manager today. If I don't then I'll just carry on with the same negative thoughts. We'll see where his head's at when he comes in.

Ken phoned last night. Possible completion date 24th Sept. Fine by me. Let's do this.

Monday Morning Full Force

Stressful journey to work due eternal roadworks and various accidents. As I made my way across Coventry town centre I wondered why I was bothering. I knew that as soon as I got into the office I'd be moaning about something or other. And I was right.

This can't be healthy. Must try MUCH harder to keep my head down into work stuff and let the shit fly around overhead. Keep telling myself that it's none of my business but it still stresses me out to witness the piss-poor performance of the place.

At least I know there's an escape route available.

Sunny Funny Weekend Honey

Swimming lessons on Saturday morning and Dylan passed his level 1 test! Well done Smasher! Harriet still on level 6 but swimming so well now. Getting up to level 7 is tough as that's when the lessons start using lengths rather than widths.

More box packing in the afternoon. Not much interesting to report about it, but I still find it to be quite fun. Jacq sorting out the monster lavender in the front garden as the bees seem to have had their full.

Sunday yet another nice day. BBQ over at Lizzie and Steves for Maddies 3rd birthday. Harriet and Rebecca spent the entire afternoon linked togther by their GBA's. Funny watching them walking around everywhere together. Having Pokemon trainer conversations that the adults could not understand. Well me and Jacq could, but that's cos we're cool parents, aren't we? (Well, we try. Not TOO hard though cos that's a bit sad.)

Ending The Working Week (Pleasantly)

Dylan felt much better this morning and was happy to go to school. I did a few hours of work stuff this morning, Photoshopping screen dumps for a technical manual I'm writing for my project. When a natural break came I stepped out into the garden for refreshment. What a civilised way to work your day!

Packed the lappy away in the afternoon. Took some stuff down the dump then picked up the weeks groceries. Mom & Dad came over in time to collect the kids from school with us. Dyl seemed a bit tired but perked up once home. Harriet yelped for joy when she spotted the Pokemon comic we had brought up to school for her.

Rest of day spent in a variety of pleasant ways including a bit of a go on Spiderman 2 although I'm STILL not getting my share of the web-slinging action! Spoke with George and Ken to get the latest in the saga of the house chain we're all in. Seems that there MAY be an agreed date by the end of the week. I do hope so. I was shocked when Ken told me that we'd been doing this for 19 weeks now!

Just Catching Up

So what's happened lately? Well not much in real life due to working on site for excessive hours. But a recent email from Fergus enthused me as we connected over JG Ballard. Spookily, after JGB being in my recent thoughts, I picked up his latest book Millenium People in a booksale shop.

What little time I've spent in the office this week has been spent in the usual manner of full-on bitching mode. Learnt today that our star project is running at a margin of -25%!!! Well call me stupid, but that simply CANNOT be right! One HAS to despair! Anyways, good to see 'best mate Phil' in the office today, if only to pay respect to his recent blogs and now playing Sonic Youth. Chap!

This update finishes on a low note as my 'Super-Best-Boy' Dylan had a miserable return to school today. Apparently, at his cousins house yesterday, he hurt his neck bouncing on his Aunties bed. So the pain from his neck plus returning to school caused quite some trauma this morning. Thankfully I'm working from home tomorrow so I get a chance to look after him. Bless.

And that's the update for now. If I don't see ya, well have a good 'un.