Cool! 15 May 2001
Many, many congratulations to Mike, Hayley and Livia for, well, Livia. Cool news all around, and I'm glad to hear that the birth went OK. Excellent news all around.
Stupid trivia moment: Mike's mum rang to tell me the news (she had to tell someone ;), and I got the call on my cellphone. The call came through, in fact, in the street. About 20 metres from where Mike rang me from New Zealand a year ago to tell me that he and Hayley were getting hitched. Now how's that for a coincidence?
Cool bananas!
Returned from the trip 14 May 2001
Just returned from a fairly hefty weeklong mission up north. It's kind of weird driving in the UK - if you're on one of the main motorways, the road signs include 'The North' and 'The South' as possible destinations. They're big on those north/south divides in this part of the world.
So we went drove up to Edinburgh via Whitby. Whitby was a laugh: lots of ruined old things, lots of steps, lots of tacky English seaside town. We ate whelks while walking along the seawall. Whelks may be an acquired taste. On the basis of my acquaintance with the Whelk experience, I doubt I'll bother acquiring it. I was interested to note that whelks are much larger than I'd thought: about 3-4 cm across.
Leaving the cosmopolitan delights of Whitby behind, we wombled off to Edinburgh. Now, I like Edinburgh. I'd only really been there once before (well, unless you count when I was four), and that time it'd been Christmas. Sounds nice? It was, until you factor in that it was 0 celsius with a 5 degree windchill, it pissed with rain more or less constantly, night fell at 3pm, and I'd arrived in the UK from a rather promising New Zealand summer only the week before. I didn't really appreciate the full joy of Edinburgh that time.
But this time! Full of the joys of spring! Full of sunshine and butterfiles and light and joy! Full of, fundamentally, lager!
I like Edinburgh quite a bit, actually. And why?
- It's a reasonable size. Edinburgh's small enough to be easily navigable via foot or cycle, and big enough to have a decent public transportation system. And it's also big enough to have that whole 'big city no-one gives a stuff who you are loneliness loneliness scream at midnight' vibe which I quite like. And to support an excellent bicycle shop, a red-light district, a huge amount of art stuff - cinemas, galleries, theatres - all over the place, and whacking greate wodges of historic buildings. All of which I think give a place some character.
- It's cycle-friendly. This is grossly underestimated when assessing a city. Walking around Edinburgh, you see a lot of cyclists. The cycle culture means that cars actually seem to watch out for cyclists. Trust me, if you think they're ignoring you now, try cycling somewhere where cyclists are totally unknown. Then you're not just an irritation, you're often considered to have no right to be in the road at all. Anyway, Edinburgh has a good critical mass of cyclists, and so the streets are pretty cycle friendly. It's also got a good, varied set of streets - none of this flat as a pancake crap that us Cambridge sorts have to deal with. OK, so it's easier riding on the flat. It's also dull.
- Cafes! Cafes everywhere! A plethora of cafes! And decent, real cafes too: cafes where you can go in and get a slice of cake that they baked this morning. OK, the UK is slowly waking up to the cafe revolution. But all too often the cafes that are opening up are based on the crappy model lead by Starbucks: pre-packaged food in a cooler, some bottled drinks, and a listless barrista. Do we want this? Do we like fuck! I want a cafe with some spirit, some soul; a cafe where the staff have an opinion about the whole thing, where the food and drink are prepared onsite, where the staff aren't in uniforms. Which is why it was nice to find that Edinburgh has a huge amount of cafes, and that a sizeable proportion of these are not the Evil Spawn of Starbucks. Man. Just having a lot of decent cafes around the place... bliss.
- The history. Mind you, we've got that here in Cambridge, and I can see it getting old real quick.
So yeah - Edinburgh rocked. Jared & Sharyn's wedding wedding off a blast. I won the toss with Heather to be Best Person - always use your own lucky coin, kids. An excellent occasion all around; good food, good booze, lovely people, good fun. Many congratulations to the bride and groom; photos posted as soon as we sort out a few minor technical issues.
After Edinburgh, we ended up heading down to York. York was also interesting, though was pretty tourist-y. I did enjoy York, but the constant barrage of tourist tat got a little old after a while. That said, the Minster was amazing, and the Jorvik viking centre was a laugh. We actually ended up spending much time just wandering around the city (including wandering down the river a couple of miles). The weather was insanely great - about 25 degrees or so. We actually had to stop and buy cooler clothes at one point. Now that's a nice day out.
So: home again, home again, jiggity jig. Rock on!
A relaxed Sunday afternoon 29 April 2001
It's been a pretty mellow day. Last night was spent out boozing and eating in honour of Heather's birthday. OK, so her birthday is actually on Thursday, but we're off up to Edinburgh next weekend, so early was the way to go. A nice evening was had by all, despite extreme crowding at the restaurant. Ah well. We finished the evening by walking home and having a few quiet whiskies. This morning was thus not quite as zippy as it might otherwise have been. We woke up about 10am, pottered around the place until about 11:30, and then went out. Specifically, we went out to a garden centre near Huntingdon. The idea was to have a nice little drive, and make sure that the car wasn't about to fall apart. I'm sure you'll all be happy to know that the car survived the journey, and looks to be in tip-top shape for the long-haul drive to Edinburgh next weekend.
Will Self once said "Britain is too small; if you have a high powered car to drive around in it's like a roundabout." We aim to destruct-test this proposition soon.
That aside, we wombled off and had a good time at the garden centre. A few short hours (and some utterly, utterly crap scones) later, we'd spent up largish and were homeward bound. Got home about 4pm, and promptly spent three happy hours in the garden, planting stuff and digging other stuff up. I bought some rather nice bamboo, which we've planted on the border with the Neighbours From Perdition. We also returned with a rose (now planted in the garden), certain garden tools, a kentia palm and some fertilizer. It's been a fun afternoon, and I could definitely get more heavily into bamboo.
More self-pity 25 April 2001
It's been an interesting couple of days. A lot of family stuff is coming down, but I'd rather not talk about that on this web site. I mean, I know that only three people and their dog read this, but I'm never sure which three. Or which dog.
Actually, it's an interesting question. How much do you censor yourself when it's only the anonymous mass of web users who read your site? What if you're pretty sure that you know everyone who visits you site personally? What if you're not? What if you've given your mum your URL? I did that yesterday, and I'm vaguely wondering if she'll visit. Hi Mum!
Feh. Since I never come up with astounding personal revelations on this site (as I'm sure you've noticed, I mainly just complain about the neighbours), I'm not actually too worried about who reads it. Mind you, I put the URL for my old site on my CV when I first came to the UK. I got a job, but apparantly the web site meant that everyone was interested to see what I looked like. It's a weird thing, innit: what kind of impression does your web site give of you?
This for free: I'm not putting the URL here on my updated CV.
Weather is intermittantly good. I managed to bike home today during the one 30-minute period of torrential rain. Oh joy. The back garden is still a scene of unbridled devastation. All my indoor plants are doing well, though: I bought a number of young Sarracenia a few weeks ago, and they're all pitchering madly away. I got a number of 2-year old seedlings, and they're really cute. They seem to like it in the house - I've placed them so they get a lot of afternoon sun, and the pitchers are going like gangbusters. At the moment, most of the plants have at least one pitcher going up about a centimetre a day. Lovely stuff. Unfortunately, the seedlings weren't labelled - as far as I can tell, most of them are anonymous hybrids, but there's a few that look pretty kosher species. I also acquired a few named specimens: a Sarracenia purpurea var heterophylla and a standard Sarracenia flava. They're going very nicely. I'm particularly impressed with the purpurea - I love purpurea plants, and the all-green form is quite attractive. And feeding up the purpurea var heterophylla will be fun while I wait for my purpurea venosa to put up another bloody pitcher - the recalcitrant little so-and-so is still just sulking as a rhizome. Ah well.
A cavalcade of Henry 19 April 2001
A lot of stuff has come down. I can't write it all up now. So here are some distracting images.
Henry
Heather and the furry little bandit
Henry - but slightly closer to the camera
Jack and Henry bonding over a cuppa
Dogs find cameras fascinating
Easter Sunday 15 April 2001
An interesting day. Shortly after posting yesterday's entry, we had a bit of an altercation with the neighbours' kids. To wit: they were standing on the roof of our shed. Now, this shed is cosied up to theirs, so they'd just climbed up their side and got on the roof. Fine. So we've got a couple of kids on a very slippery roof (our side is covered in moss - I've been meaning to clean it for a while now), which is a) about forty years old and b) asbestos. Whoop! So Heather yells at them to get down, they tell her to piss off, and it all gets a little ugly. A hasty gloss will be drawn over the rest of the afternoon, but suffice to say that it was all a little interesting.
And then when we took Henry out for his 6pm walk, we ran into our neighbour, mother of said kids, coming back from down the road. She fussed over Henry and asked us if he was our new dog, and then told us that she'd sold her dog (good thing, the poor wee thing was miserable) because it'd gotten too big. You might have expected this of an Alsatian, but never mind. We told her about her kids being on the shed roof and giving us cheek. A polite and thankfully brief interaction all around.
Now, we'd also recently got a letter from the council saying that they'd talked to our neighbours and informed them that they were in breach of their tenancy and they should, in general, pull their socks up or else. I reckon that our neighbour must have gone home and put the merry fear of God into the kids. The reason I think this is that for all of today, any time they've seen us in the street - or passing the house, or anywhere at all - they've shouted "Hello next-door neighbours!" in exaggerated unctuous accents. It's hilarious. They're trying to piss us off by being exaggeratedly inoffensive.
So the neighbour situation is taking another fun turn for the weird. Ah well.
Spent most of the afternoon at the annual Leckhampton House Easter Egg Hunt. This involves running around the gardens at Leckhampton (Corpus Christi's graduate centre) deciphering clues and finding chocolate. A barrel of laughs is guaranteed; I helped organise it last year. However, the fun factor is at least partially contingent on good weather. Whoops! I've lived through Japan's rainy season, including a couple of good-sized typhoons. I'd say on a scale of 1-10 of serious precipatation, this afternoon hit an 8 at a couple of points, and definitely averaged a 5. Soaked to the skin, man. Utterly soaked. Afterwards we were sitting inside having tea and biscuits, and you could feel the trench foot setting in all around you. We came second, though.
Haven't had a chance to do any gardening in consequence. Have borrowed a drill from Martyn, and plan to do a couple of minor odd jobs around the place. I'm quite interested in the possibility of planting a stand of bamboo. Mind you, I'm also looking at putting in a trellis and planting some passionfruit. A taste of home... of course, I still need to get this bloody lawn finished first. Ah well.
A spot of gardening 14 April 2001
Midway through the Easter break everything is going pretty well. We missioned out yesterday (Good Friday) and purchased a number of garden implements. A happy afternoon was then spent digging as much of the garden up as possible. It's bloody hard work, and I'm damned if I know what we're going to do with it afterwards, but a sizable portion of the garden now looks like a freshly-plowed field. Regardless of the fact that I've only got a very hazy idea of what I'm going to put in there, the six year-old boy inside me is most satisfied with the devastation. What only yesterday was a perfectly good dilapidated back garden is now a huge mass of churned soil. The local birds are picking the weeds off. It's most nice. Of course, it's also totally unusable.
In desperation - and mainly because I don't know what else I can do with the area - I also bought a 1.5 kg box of "Family Lawn Seed". I guess you can take the kid out of the suburbs... Mind you, I'm currently back in the suburbs. Funny how it all works, really.
Our feeble gardening attempts are being ably assisted by Henry, the westie. We're looking after him for Easter. He's a lovely wee dog, though he does have a rather distressing tendency to eat things. Not, you understand, important things: the furniture is so far safe, no food raids have occurred, etc. However, when we're out in the garden he does tend to have an experimental chew on anything he can find. Including, so far, but not limited to:
- Clods of dirt
- Old sticks
- Blackberry vines
- Ladybirds
We've managed to stop him before he's eaten anything too dangerous, but he does seem very keen on chewing on the old broken fence post in the garden. I figure it's good for his teeth and isn't causing any damage. Mind you, he's getting pretty mucky. There's only so long that a white dog can romp around in a garden full of freshly turned earth and stay pristine.
It's great having him, though. He's a bit of work (frequent walks), but it's extremely calming having him in the house. As I write this, he's lying next to my feet, occasionally licking my toes. Whoops! The neighbours' kids are making too much noise in the back garden, and he's off barking at them. Man, that's loud in an enclosed space. He's a good guard dog, but this can be a bit of a disadvantage: random passersby set him off, and it can take a minute or two to calm him down. However, it's worth it just to have him bouncing around and yipping with joy each time you arrive home.
Other fun thing we now have in our garden: a compost heap. I sat down beforehand and read all the info about it: how you're supposed to maintain the proper nitrogen/carbon balance, how you should turn the compost at regular intervals, etc. Then I bought a great big green plastic bin and shoved 200 litres of weeds into it. Well, I'm sure the nettles'll give it a bit of pepper, anyway.
Went out with Heather last night and saw Bridget Jones's Diary. Having read the book, I was most impressed with the film. Well worth seeing, and very strongly cast to boot. I was surprised that Renee Zellwinger's arse doesn't get separate billing, though: it spent more time on screen than any other part of her. Not that we're complaining, mind.
Rock hard! 10 April 2001
Just saw / heard the new Orbital single, "Funny Break". Very nice. Roll on the new album, say we!
It's raining rain 10 April 2001
Fun fun fun. While wandering randomly around the place, I found a review of Jet Jaguar's first album. Which just goes to show, there's nothing so nice that you can't make it sound wanky by writing an OTT review. That said, I'm now interested in acquiring the CD by Boards of Canada, so there's a start.
It's been a fun couple of days. Family stuff is still bad, but we're dealing. Looking forward to Easter. I plan to spend a fair bit of time sitting around in the garden and chilling hard. Or rather, I plan to spend most of my time working hard on the garden, trying to get the damn thing into something vaguely representing order.
When we moved in, the garden was an absolute disaster area. OK, that's a little strong: there were a lot of weeds, a scrappy gravel area that had obviously been installed because it was thought that this would be easier to maintain than a lawn (hint: only if you actually bother weeding occasionally), and a large heap of rotting vegetation at the bottom of the garden. On closer examination over the next week or so, I discovered a total of four garden tools lying discarded in the weeds, total value circa £30. I also discovered that the large heap of rotting vegetation also included value added chicken wire! Fun! Looks like an old fence had somehow been included in the mix. Add this to a couple of old tree stumps (which I have yet to dig out of the ground) and I start thinking 'skip'.
So the plan for Easter was to get a skip and blitz the garden, removing anything that looked at me funny. A few other touches - like the really scruffy old fence that the previous inhabitants had nailed to the perfectly serviceable old fence in front of the property - had also been slated for removal. Unfortunately, one phone call to Direct Skips later, I've been told that if I want the skip just out in the street I'll need a permit from the city council. Said permits are a doddle to acquire, but generally take about a week. So they're not going to rent me out a skip for this weekend. Damn. This being despite the fact that they've rented me a skip before and never said a damn thing about this requirement. Ah well.
Thus, the plan for easter is to remove all the weeds, try and dig out some of the bloody gravel (and redistribute it around the rest of the garden - borders etc), and get a compost heap going. I reckon it'll be a bit of a laugh. And I'll have Henry the wee Westie helping - he's staying with us over Easter. It's very comforting to have a small white dog following you around.
I'm slightly worried. Having moved out to the suburbs (well, to the edge of a council estate), I am now looking forward with anticipation to being able to spend Easter weekend doing home decoration stuff. I'm even seriously considering buying a drill to fix a couple of things around the house. And does anyone have a bandsaw I can borrow?
OK, so it's not that worrying. What's worrying is this: on Friday, I was at that most English of social occasions, a Tarts & Vicars party. Loads of people dressed up as a variety of interesting religious figures with peekaboo nipple costumes underneath. Groovy. I meet this Aussie bloke and get chatting away. And one of the first things he tells me is that the Nasdaq has rallied that afternoon. Now that is worrying. I've reached a stage where complete strangers think I'll be interested in the stock market.
Feh. At least I've still got me plants. Got a nice delivery of some Sarracenia the other day: a dozen anonymous hybrids (2 year-old seedlings) and two very nice well-established plants One promising Sarrecenia flava var maxima and a lovely Sarracenia purpurea ssp heterophylla. The purpurea has four pitchers at present and it's stunning. I'm just waiting for my old purpurea ssp venosa to pitcher again this year - the contrast between the two subspecies is amazing. Lovely little plants, lovely little plants. So now our windowsills are crammed with plants again. It's a good feeling.
Hmm. Maybe it's time to resurrect that idea of an armband of carnivorous plants as a tattoo.
I've felt better 31 March 2001
So yesterday morning I get a phone call from my mother. Family stuff has got worse. I don't want to go into it, but suffice to say that I spent most of yesterday at work quietly suppressing the urge to break things. In the evening, we went hooked up with the kids and went on to a work social. Said work social being, as it was concisely described on the invitation, a piss-up in a brewery. The Milton Brewery in point of fact. I've done a couple of brewery tours before, and they're usually interesting. A few small glasses of the flagship products, a talk about how the whole thing is done, and that's about the size of it. Total time maybe, what, an hour? Not in this case, however. Upon walking in, we were all given pint glasses and told "there's the barrels, good luck." Basically, for your money (£10) you got all the beer you could drink. In my state of mind, this was a Bad Thing. We eventually left at about 11. I was absolutely shellacked. And thoroughly pissed off. The walk home took a hell of a long time, and involved me screaming, swearing and occasionally kicking immovable objects. All of which certainly helped me deal with things. Of course, when Dad rang at 9am this morning, I wasn't in the best state of mind to discuss things. All in all, it's been a bit shit. But then you get that.
Mind you, the rest of today's been pretty good. Meredith, a kiwi mate currently living in Hackney, came up to Cambridge for the day. Meds is a top chick, and it was great to see her again. We took her around the pretty bits of central Cambridge (i.e. nowhere near where we live). It's nice to do the tourist schtick every once in a while. Mind you, it gets to be a pain in the arse if you have to do it every week, but today was a laugh. The weather was decently springlike, people on the street seemed happy, and we spent an enjoyable afternoon wandering around or sitting in The Boathouse chatting. If you're going to have a hangover, you might as well get out a bit with it.
A quiet saturday 24 March 2001
Actually, I realised the other day that one of the irritating side effects of this little saga with the neighbours is that the only time I'm updating this site is when they've done something to piss me off. Ah, using your personal web site to vent - it's a grand old tradition. It is more than a little frustrating that I can't be arsed to write anything when things are going well, though. Of course, this is one of those whinging comments where the only proper reply is "Suck it down, if you think you should be writing more when you're in a good mood then fucking well do it." So: head out of rectum, and onto happier things.
That stock market, eh? Through a cunning miracle of timing, our company managed to get bought out by a major American company shortly before the markets crashed. When we got bought out, our stock options suddenly became worth real, solid money (bearing in mind certain legal constraints). In the two weeks since that's happened they've become worth 25% less, and still dropping. Since we can't sell the bastards 'till September at the earliest it's all academic anyway, but I'm amused to note that as soon as I become a stakeholder in our great corporate enterprise the share price plummets. I've been reading through all the shit they gave us about how the share option thing works, and I'm buggered if I can figure out whether or not this can work out as an advantage. Ah well.
Found quite an interesting article about my piercer of choice, Hamish at Flesh Wound in Wellington. He's a bloody good bloke, and comes across really well. Good lad.
And to (unfortunately) drag the conversation back to the neighbours - yes, I did nick the gnome back yesterday morning. A 6am dawn raid (I was going to the gym anyway) was carried out, and the gnome is now resting near the computer upon which I'm writing this. Hmm.
Gneighbours gnick gnome 22 March 2001
About two months ago, I was pruning some of the bushes in front of the house. Under one of the bushes, I found:
- A brick.
- An empty milk bottle.
- A garden gnome.
Cool, I thought. I put the brick around the back of the house, washed the bottle out, and took the gnome upstairs to show Heather. The previous inhabitants had left a lot of stuff around the place. In the back garden, I'd found about £30 worth of gardening equipment left in the undergrowth - a spade, rakes, brooms, etc. Impressive. The gnome would be in line with this slightly haphazard approach to taking care of your stuff. In the end, we decided that we really weren't the gnome types, and enthroned him on the pile of bricks in our back garden. And there he rested.
Until yesterday.
This morning, Heather noticed that our little gnome friend had gone a-wandering. This is somewhat worrying. Not that we gave too much of a shit about the gnome himself; more that he'd disappeared right out of our back garden. The pile of bricks is right next to the gate, but at an oblique angle - you couldn't see the gnome unless you were actually in the garden itself. So some bastard had gone into our garden for some other reason, seen the gnome, and decided to half-inch it. Not good. Who could do such a nefarious deed?
And then ten minutes later, walking the dog, she noticed the gnome sitting in our neighbours' front garden.
That's right: not only do they nick our gnome, but they then stick it out the front of their house. Woo hoo!
So we've called the police, and complained to the council, etc. Let's just say that Heather had a really fun time explaining to the duty sergeant quite why we were so pissed off about a wandering gnome. It's all a bit of a massive pisser, but it's another brick in the wall and all that.
And of course, the beauty of it is: it's outside their house. Hence: five minutes' work at 6am tomorrow to nick it back. And then we're enshrining the little bugger inside. Photos once we return with our mighty trophy. Grr.
About the 'dog' comment - Heather has started occasionally dogsitting a young West Highland Terrier called Henry. He's really cute, and an exceedingly well-presented young dog. I'm going to get some photos up... once I take 'em, get 'em developed, and upload them. Maybe there is something to this digital camera malarky. Anyway, Henry belongs to a woman named Suzan who works at GTL - I first met him when she brought him into the office 'cos she couldn't find a dogsitter that day. He's just a wee puppy (though getting bigger at a rate of knots), so she's not comfortable about leaving him by himself. It's great having him to stay with us. I love dogs, and I love having one in the house. Please, no bets on when we end up getting one for ourselves. ;)
Edinburgh, dogs and babies.