We've moved

Wow what a week. I am currently sat typing in the new house, at the desk (bought last weekend) in the new office with A just having come up to get her laptop connected to the new MiFi. We have had a week of it and I'm pretty tired but tomorrow morning I can walk the five minutes to the office and leave Thomas at rest. Woop. Anyway, back to it (and this time I did make some notes at the beginning of the week).

Awesome cheesy chips for NFL watching

So last Sunday, after I published the blog, it was onto the sofa and settling to watch NFL again. We had some pizza for dinner and then, after the pizza was eaten (and I was still hungry as we only had one pizza that would normally just about do me) we put a huge pile of chips in and munched them with cheese and mayonnaise. The best thing about this was the cheesy part of these cheesy chips was a mix of super strong cheddar, and blue cheese. They were AMAZING and the evening was a really enjoyable one, particularly as this is probably the last NFL I will get to watch before the Super Bowl and then next year back in Bulgaria.

Glorious start to the day

Monday morning was a cold start and my notes about the day remind me that it snowed on the drive to the office and there was some quite impressive lightning as well; some winter weather was arriving. Every day last week I complained about not having a bacon and egg butty and so I also went past the cafe and got one for me and Lee. That really helped. The rest of the day was pretty standard and so on to Tuesday. One thing of note (I'm living such a rock and roll lifestyle) is the ice was so tough on Thomas on Tuesday morning that I managed to snap the scraper in half! Whoops! When I arrived at work it was such a gorgeous sunrise that I kept going to the window to take pictures as it changed; the one shown is the best of them all.

Lunch with friends is the best thing

Other than that sunrise I had such a lovely lunch meeting up with two old friends; one of them a mentor who changed my life pretty much and the other my old boss who is now a very good friend. We chatted away until it was past time to leave and still hadn't run out of things to talk about so it was agreed that this would not be a one off and another date will be set in the new year. I tweeted what came across as a very negative emotion after this but I meant it really positively; as much as I didn't want to come back and I don't want to stay, getting to see people and spend times like that really does make it so much better. The food was really nice as well and then, when I got home, A had a fantastic slice of chocolate cake for me which I ate and spread all over my face as per usual.

This week at work has been up and down; there have been days when I've felt really productive and other days when it has felt like I have been fighting my way through treacle. I'm still really enjoying it and the challenge and, other than when he is super grumpy, working with my mate is brilliant. I'm also starting to settle in with the other people there which helps.

We were still two whiskies light at this point

Wednesday night was Whisky Night. This has been arranged since before we even came back from Bulgaria and I had been looking forward to it for ages. The rules are simple; there are only two. The first is you are male as no women are allowed. The second is you bring a bottle of interesting whisky to share. We've had it before with too many people so this time we made a hard and fast limit of 10 so as to not end up so drunk we drink whisky we can't taste. This flexed up and down a little bit with there briefly being 11 booked on but, with everyone ill (and I was really not feeling well on Wednesday) one person dropped out due to this and another decided he couldn't be bothered to travel so we were left with a sensible headcount of 9.

Wonderful hot pizza

A couple were a few minutes late arriving so we started without but when we were up to compliment Jamadan headed out to do the pizza run and came back bearing pizza and cheesy chips for everyone. We sat eating and sipping and sharing the whiskies and it was lovely to see how the disparate group (it is various different of my social circles all pulled together) picked up where they left off before I went to Bulgaria.

Whisky night in full swing

With the food eaten we settled down to drinking our way through each of the nine bottles that had been brought. One of the guys had just got back from an AMAZING diving holiday where he'd been swimming in wrecked Japanese freighters, and a warship as well. He had one of those video things with him as he dived and he'd brought them all along so we hooked the TV up and had them playing for the duration. I was having very sensible sized measures as I was still feeling pretty ropey but this didn't mean that I could remember the final whisky as well as I wanted to. All the bottles brought were really nice, as per, and now I can't wait for the next one. I'm not going to arrange too many, maybe one more in April.

A few people stayed in the apartment I'd booked but most left about midnight and I headed to my bed. As I got in I started shivering and my teeth began to chatter; I was feeling really unwell and so I pulled another duvet on top of the one already on me and curled up into a ball. I fell asleep eventually but woke when the skylight, above my bed, suddenly banged round in the wind and it started hailing onto me. I fixed this, went back to sleep, and woke again a bit later feeling a lot better. The fever had broken and my head felt clear. When the alarm went off for me to get the train to work, though, I was back to feeling pretty bad and so I decided to not risk becoming worse and to work from home for the day. I made it to the flat before 9am, via the slowest ever bus, and was able to get involved pretty well despite feeling horrible.

Friday is always a work from home day and it was another one with lots of feeling progress being made. Late afternoon we headed off to the estate agent to get the keys for the new house. We were a little late due to traffic, and then I did two circuits of the ring road trying to find somewhere to park near their offices, but it didn't take long to sign everything and get the keys. We'd had an email during the day saying the heating was broken but as we were sat in the office it was confirmed that the engineer had managed to fix it; all good. From there we drove Thomas to the house, unloaded (and put the heating on) and then headed up to Blackpool. Harrison had finished at the garage and we needed to collect him so we went straight there, ordering a Chinese for A to collect and bring to the studio while I drove Harrison up there. Once again I ate lots of prawn toast and sweet and sour pork balls with egg fried rice and then I went and hauled the last of the bits from storage, with a very full stomach making me wish I'd done that first.

Harrison ready for the off; loads of room

We left Thomas at the studio and drove Harrison back to the flat and parked him out back, then went in and pretty much went straight to bed. I let A have a bit of a lie in and was out in the freezing cold (my shoes were actually sticking to the tail lift on Harrison!) to start getting everything loaded and ready for getting across to the new house. Bless him, John woke up and came to give me a hand and pretty soon we were all at it. It did not take long at all and so rather than have breakfast at the flat we waved goodbye to John, jumped in Harrison, and made it to the new house very quickly. I did the unloading and A jogged round to the local shop to get bread and she made some very nice bacon butties for half way through the process, eaten sat at our table. The new landlord and lady came past as well, just after we had arrived, and they were lovely. They brought us a pipe for the washing machine and seem accommodating. We'll see.

It didn't take that long to unpack but the new bed was a bit rickety and I found that we didn't have the right bits for it; it took two trips to B and Q to source the right bolts but this trouble was counterbalanced by the fact that getting the sofa in (which is REALLY heavy) was rather easier than expected. Dinner was fajitas eaten again at the table and it's so nice having somewhere to sit and eat together. Our evening was spent relaxed on the sofa, me reading and A playing a game, both of us really enjoying the peace and quiet after the noise of the main road at the flat.

The moment we got into bed, however, there was a loud "CRACK!" and it sagged; what had appeared rickety to both of us had turned out to be flimsy. With a bit of quick thinking A suggested that we put the still full suitcases under to support it and this worked a bit, though it wasn't that comfy and after finding herself with a bad back rolling into the middle A got the fold our mattress and ended up spending the night on the floor. Not the best of ways to spend our first night in the new house but at least both of us slept in the end.

The bottom light flickers on for less than a second. Sometimes.

Today has been another busy one, with a drive to the studio to collect Thomas, and bring back the three seater sofa and some wood to reinforce the bed with. It was a good day, we got to see my business partner (getting married next weekend) and another good mate at the studio and Harrison had another good run to check him out. There has been a light flashing on the dash very irregularly; it did it three times on the run from Blackpool back to the flat on Friday night, and twice maybe on the run to the new house but not since, and so I was very keen to push him a bit on the way back from Blackpool today. It did not come on once and so I'm less concerned now. The link from which that picture came suggests it is water in the fuel, but I'm not sure if it may just be a faulty sensor?

I fixed the bed (putting uprights underneath the middle wooden piece every 10cm or so) and it seems much more comfortable so hopefully we'll be able to stay in it tonight. We've also straightened the front room and got the book shelf up. A is off to collect a load more bits from her friends in London tomorrow so we'll have a TV to plug the lappie in for watching films, lots of cookery stuff, and a huge bean bag as well.

So dinner is nearly served  and I'm going to get this posted and switch off; we're on mobile internet here so I'm going to have to ration myself until I know what usage we are getting and if I need to get more data. I've just seen that it is hammering down with rain outside so hopefully my first walk-to-work won't be too damp. Next weekend could be a late blog, maybe not until a week tomorrow, as we're very busy at the weekend so don't shout at me if there isn't a Sunday post.