OK so yesterday someone finally came and took Bags away to be fixed, and tomorrow my loan car is supposed to arrive* which means that this stupid car accident business has neatly wiped out my entire week's holiday. Or at least it has in as far as being able to go anywhere is concerned. Nice.
Also I'd deliberatley left all Bags' stuff in Bags - most particularly Serengeti and Antoine (the orange girraffe and yellow frog who've lived on Bags' dashboard since I got him) were supposed to stay there and keep him company**. However the man who came to take Bags away took them out "in case it doesn't come back" - I'd gone back to bed at the time because I'd had very little sleep and thought the tow-truck had already gone, Justin answered the door (totally confusing the poor guy) otherwise I'd have had to have told him there's a load more stuff in the boot... I'm not sure I'm quite sentimental enough to have tried to make the tow-truck guy leave Bags' friends on the dashboard to keep him company... but now I'm fighting off the stupid feeling that this is in some way a bad sign. Besides which it's pointless having taken two soft toys and a pair of sunglasses out of the car when (if he doesn't come back) there's a bunch more stuff I would have to go and collect anyway.
*sulks*
I just hope they can mend my car.
*actually it was "supposed" to arrive yesterday according to the insurance company but according to the garage who have the car I won't get it until tomorrow because that's the soonest it's available. bah.
**yes I know: I'm a sentimental sap, surely this isn't news to any of you?
Friday, January 06, 2006
Saturday, December 31, 2005
not my problem
I just had an interesting bit of role reversal: My neighbours came and banged on my door angrily in the middle of the afternoon*. It seems that someone finally ran out of patience with the noise and reported them to Environmental Health, who duly sent the Police round last night. I can't imagine who that might have been, but I suspect they might have done so a lot sooner if they'd known who to contact before now. Seeing as how nextdoor don't seem to give a damn when any of us ask them nicely if we can please get some sleep at 2am, and the nice people at Environmental Health are there to deal with exactly that kind of infantile anti-social rubbish.
Anyway, true to form, instead of taking the hint that their behaviour is out of order and needs to change, the children who inhabit next door were angry that someone had called the Police. I told them that it seemed about time someone had, but that otherwise I didn't see how it was my problem. Then I listened to a few more minutes' worth of angrily agressive and indignant tripe before smiling, wishing them a happy new year and closing the door.
As I understand it, if the nice people from Environmental Health haven't got their message across (and it seems they might not have) then they can (and will) simply take away the noise-making equipment.
To all my fellow taxpaying friends who've ever commented that they didn't feel they got anything for their money, can I just say a really big "thank you" for helping to fund the best new year present ever.
:)
* It's been the other way round, and the middle of the night most weekends since they moved in.
Anyway, true to form, instead of taking the hint that their behaviour is out of order and needs to change, the children who inhabit next door were angry that someone had called the Police. I told them that it seemed about time someone had, but that otherwise I didn't see how it was my problem. Then I listened to a few more minutes' worth of angrily agressive and indignant tripe before smiling, wishing them a happy new year and closing the door.
As I understand it, if the nice people from Environmental Health haven't got their message across (and it seems they might not have) then they can (and will) simply take away the noise-making equipment.
To all my fellow taxpaying friends who've ever commented that they didn't feel they got anything for their money, can I just say a really big "thank you" for helping to fund the best new year present ever.
:)
* It's been the other way round, and the middle of the night most weekends since they moved in.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
I'm OK...
... Bags however is not:
The short version of the story is that coming home from a spectacularly lovely family Christmas in Burghwallis, I foolishly took my usual route home over the Pennines on the A66. As I drove west the weather worsened until I was puttering along very slowly in a minor blizzard. I crested a hill into a stretch of road that hadn't been gritted, to find a number of cars (10 or so I think) strewn over the road at various angles. Turns out a Mondeo had collided with a jeep sending the jeep into the back of a police car (!) and then four more cars had crashed further up the slope trying to avoid the first accident. As I crested the hill two more cars had collided attempting to avoid the second accident. I tried to stop and couldn't, sliding downhill into the back of one car before being hit side on by another which also couldn't stop. Not fun.
Amazingly nobody seemed to have been hurt in all this car-carnage, at least two other cars (as well as my own) were rendered undrivable and had to be towed away. Two hours later as the truck carrying me and Bags left the scene traffic in both directions had ground to a halt, several more minor shunts had happened (some from stopped cars slipping down the hill into other stopped cars!) and the Police were closing the road to all through traffic with snow barriers.
Not a happy end to an otherwise wonderful family Christmas, but I'm all in one piece and it could have been much much worse. Fingers crossed that poor old Bags isn't a total write-off.
The short version of the story is that coming home from a spectacularly lovely family Christmas in Burghwallis, I foolishly took my usual route home over the Pennines on the A66. As I drove west the weather worsened until I was puttering along very slowly in a minor blizzard. I crested a hill into a stretch of road that hadn't been gritted, to find a number of cars (10 or so I think) strewn over the road at various angles. Turns out a Mondeo had collided with a jeep sending the jeep into the back of a police car (!) and then four more cars had crashed further up the slope trying to avoid the first accident. As I crested the hill two more cars had collided attempting to avoid the second accident. I tried to stop and couldn't, sliding downhill into the back of one car before being hit side on by another which also couldn't stop. Not fun.
Amazingly nobody seemed to have been hurt in all this car-carnage, at least two other cars (as well as my own) were rendered undrivable and had to be towed away. Two hours later as the truck carrying me and Bags left the scene traffic in both directions had ground to a halt, several more minor shunts had happened (some from stopped cars slipping down the hill into other stopped cars!) and the Police were closing the road to all through traffic with snow barriers.
Not a happy end to an otherwise wonderful family Christmas, but I'm all in one piece and it could have been much much worse. Fingers crossed that poor old Bags isn't a total write-off.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Thursday, December 08, 2005
<rubs eyes blearily>
what?
go away: I'm far too busy swimming and doing a job I love and driving insane distances to and from work/home, I don't have time to write all that down for you. shoo.
Why did I think living in the middle of nowhere was a good idea? <looks at room> Oh, yeah. that. well yes my house is deeply lovely* but really two and a half hours a day is too much to lose to travel. There's just so much else to be done! It's making me very sleepy trying to live a full life, work a real job, and still commute. "Commute" is on its way to becoming a four letter word.
What are the compensations? well there's the house, which I love. Then there's the views. I know I've done this to death already in earlier posts, but really the views on my drive are amazing. Yesterday Justin and I drove through two stunning and staggeringly different ones: in the morning we flitted over a monochrome landscape of ice and frost lit by a sky on fire, then at night we skimmed under banks of fog in between which loomed a gigantic red crescent moon. I'll miss that when I move back tocivilisation the city. That and the space.
What's this post about? no idea I just felt it was time for one... I'm busy, life is good, beautiful things are happening and I don't have the time to sit and write them down for you... that wouldn't matter so much if "you" weren't also me a year from now. ah well.
*new photos are on their way, promise
go away: I'm far too busy swimming and doing a job I love and driving insane distances to and from work/home, I don't have time to write all that down for you. shoo.
Why did I think living in the middle of nowhere was a good idea? <looks at room> Oh, yeah. that. well yes my house is deeply lovely* but really two and a half hours a day is too much to lose to travel. There's just so much else to be done! It's making me very sleepy trying to live a full life, work a real job, and still commute. "Commute" is on its way to becoming a four letter word.
What are the compensations? well there's the house, which I love. Then there's the views. I know I've done this to death already in earlier posts, but really the views on my drive are amazing. Yesterday Justin and I drove through two stunning and staggeringly different ones: in the morning we flitted over a monochrome landscape of ice and frost lit by a sky on fire, then at night we skimmed under banks of fog in between which loomed a gigantic red crescent moon. I'll miss that when I move back to
What's this post about? no idea I just felt it was time for one... I'm busy, life is good, beautiful things are happening and I don't have the time to sit and write them down for you... that wouldn't matter so much if "you" weren't also me a year from now. ah well.
*new photos are on their way, promise
Saturday, November 26, 2005
music!
OK I'm being officially rubbish at blogging aren't I? Sorry.
Tell you what, go listen to some really fantastic music while you wait for me to stop being so busy.
:)
Tell you what, go listen to some really fantastic music while you wait for me to stop being so busy.
:)
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
update
I've been shockingly remiss at blogging of late haven't I? my appologies folks I'll endeavour to do better in future.
As it happens for the past week and a half I've been doing a pretty bad job of most everything... except my job, which is still all new and shiny and which I'm still loving! Even though (or possibly because?) it can be quite demanding, and is making me really quite tired most evenings (and thus bad at almost everything else, like keeping in touch with people - sorry about that.) It's a good kind of tired though. A sort I haven't felt in a long time.
So what am I doing that's making me all tired and happy? I'm working as a Desktop Publisher for an investment company, "Scotland's leading independent investment manager" according to their website and I can well believe it. Inevitably there's a certain rose tint to my view of the place just now, but I really like working there on all sorts of levels. Not least being the corporate culture of the place which is pleasantly relaxed and grown-up, lacking a lot of the company characteristics and management mannerisms that frustrated me in certain past employers. For one thing it doesn't feel like an institution. Only one regular bell sounds during my working week (the fire alarm test), there are no mass migrations of teenagers (or anyone else) every 45 minutes, I can (and do) chat with my colleagues while I work, and I don't have to tell anyone to do anything (least of all to be quiet!) which is blissfully liberating and keeps me from feeling like a grouchy git.
I love working in the city centre, and being properly in Edinburgh every day (as opposed to being shut in a silent room in a stuffy building in Morningside) is amplifying my already growing need to move back there. Soon. That said the commute is really no less arduous than before (1hr 10min each way usually) and is generally shared with my fantastic housemates - we've even kitted the cars out with a shared bike papoose so that each of them can piggyback Justin's beloved Caliban at the same time as a full compliment of passengers. Brilliant!
At present my contract is for maternity cover until mid April, so life has direction but also a sense of freedom in future possibilities. Career-wise I get to spend the next 6 months icing the cake of DTP experience which I slow baked between June '01 and June '05, and which (un-iced) appeared less enticing to potential employers than it seems it deserved to. That little bit of insight right there is probably my favourite thing about my new job: I got it on merit, and I'm good at it! I beat four other candidates at interview, and while it's still early days all the feedback I've had so far says I'm doing a damned good job. Better even than that, I get to do work that I love and am good at, and which I can already see myself improving at. There's space in this role for me to stretch my skills and learn new things, and (with hindsight) running out of that space, more than all the bells and bureaucracy is what frustrated me so painfully in my work life over the past couple of years.
-
On a semi-related note, obsevant visitors will have noticed that the 'work' section of splateagle.com is under virtual dust-sheets. I'm not yet 100% sure what's coming there, or exactly when... but the little glimmers of ideas I've had for the revised section are interesting so if you're so inclined feel free to watch that space.
As it happens for the past week and a half I've been doing a pretty bad job of most everything... except my job, which is still all new and shiny and which I'm still loving! Even though (or possibly because?) it can be quite demanding, and is making me really quite tired most evenings (and thus bad at almost everything else, like keeping in touch with people - sorry about that.) It's a good kind of tired though. A sort I haven't felt in a long time.
So what am I doing that's making me all tired and happy? I'm working as a Desktop Publisher for an investment company, "Scotland's leading independent investment manager" according to their website and I can well believe it. Inevitably there's a certain rose tint to my view of the place just now, but I really like working there on all sorts of levels. Not least being the corporate culture of the place which is pleasantly relaxed and grown-up, lacking a lot of the company characteristics and management mannerisms that frustrated me in certain past employers. For one thing it doesn't feel like an institution. Only one regular bell sounds during my working week (the fire alarm test), there are no mass migrations of teenagers (or anyone else) every 45 minutes, I can (and do) chat with my colleagues while I work, and I don't have to tell anyone to do anything (least of all to be quiet!) which is blissfully liberating and keeps me from feeling like a grouchy git.
I love working in the city centre, and being properly in Edinburgh every day (as opposed to being shut in a silent room in a stuffy building in Morningside) is amplifying my already growing need to move back there. Soon. That said the commute is really no less arduous than before (1hr 10min each way usually) and is generally shared with my fantastic housemates - we've even kitted the cars out with a shared bike papoose so that each of them can piggyback Justin's beloved Caliban at the same time as a full compliment of passengers. Brilliant!
At present my contract is for maternity cover until mid April, so life has direction but also a sense of freedom in future possibilities. Career-wise I get to spend the next 6 months icing the cake of DTP experience which I slow baked between June '01 and June '05, and which (un-iced) appeared less enticing to potential employers than it seems it deserved to. That little bit of insight right there is probably my favourite thing about my new job: I got it on merit, and I'm good at it! I beat four other candidates at interview, and while it's still early days all the feedback I've had so far says I'm doing a damned good job. Better even than that, I get to do work that I love and am good at, and which I can already see myself improving at. There's space in this role for me to stretch my skills and learn new things, and (with hindsight) running out of that space, more than all the bells and bureaucracy is what frustrated me so painfully in my work life over the past couple of years.
-
On a semi-related note, obsevant visitors will have noticed that the 'work' section of splateagle.com is under virtual dust-sheets. I'm not yet 100% sure what's coming there, or exactly when... but the little glimmers of ideas I've had for the revised section are interesting so if you're so inclined feel free to watch that space.
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