Bags of fun

Everything I own is in garden bags ready for the great move later today. It's a bit like being homeless, except, because I bad at giving notice I'm currently renting two flats. What a spaz.

I'm not a fan of moving house but this one should be relatively painless. It's not a huge distance and I don't have quite as much stuff as I used to have, although it appears I still own more than I think.

Yesterday I inspected the new place with the estate agent and we talked over all the points that were wonky. There weren't that many as the flat has been well looked after. It made me realise how spartan the new place is, which I suppose is the very definition of 'unfurnished'.

I have to work out the order of things I can't do with out, because I can't afford to buy everything at once. The current thinking is.

Right away
Bed (If I get an inflatable one it can be used in a spare room when I get a real bed)
Fridge (Although now I'm thinking this can go lower down if I can find a nearby shop that sells ice)
Cooker (there was one in the flat but at the last minute the previous chap took it).
Cups and plate set (Morning coffee is a sign of civilisation)
Knives and forks (See above)
At least one pan (I'll get more over time)

Soon
Washing machine
Curtains
Some sort of table
Chairs to go around the table

Quite soon
Cocktail cabinet
Sofa
A real bed
Hatstand
TV
Iron
The rest of the things a chap should have.

I'm quite looking forward to slowly decorating the place, I think as long as I can make food and I have somewhere nice to sleep I'll be okay. If I get a few collapse-able boxes I can use them as a temporary measure to store clothes. Then when I have real clothes storage places the boxes can go in what is going to be my study. See I've got it all worked out.

I'm learning stuff already and I've not even moved in. How come all white goods cost at least £100 pounds? Why is even an awful sofa so expensive?

Keys

I get the keys on Monday. This fills me with glee. The idea of being able to decorate somewhere entirely based on my tastes is mind boggling. I should have done this months ago, although I probably couldn't have afforded too. The deposit was huge, but luckly I had a bit of cash saved up. It's gone now, but I do have a house. WIN.

Yesterday was my company riding assessment. We have to be taken out by some police chaps and they say what they think of our skills. I was concerned about this as a black mark would mean that I wouldn't get to play on fun bikes.

It went well, the chap was impressed by my skills and he caught me a couple of things that have dramatically improved my riding. I'm now faster, and safe than ever before. Hurrah for knowledge.

I'm in Devon at the moment for my Mum's birthday. I'm also eyeing up more things to take back to the new place. It's completely unfurnished so I'll be living a strange life until I get the simple things like a fridge or a bed.

Oh and I'm thinking of starting a new public blog, but I'll let you know where it is if I do.

Fug and flats

I spent most of the weekend in a fug. I'm entirely sure why, but it was there. I did everything I could think of to battle the fug, I ate well, did things I like but it was there like a damp blanket.

Yesterday I went to the gym first thing in the morning and that seemed to help. It made me feel extremely good for a while and then I sick in the afternoon. I think this might be because I may have got a little bit addicted to coffee. I've given it up for a few weeks but I had some on Sunday as part of the attempt to de-fug. It was delicious, absolutely splendid but on Monday I had a head-ache, hold and cold flushes and the hairs on my arms were standing up.

Of course it could just have been another weird illness, there are loads of them floating around at the moment. It seems people are constantly unwell with things that might not be swine flu but could be. Yes, perhaps that's why I felt so awful yesterday. That's far more pleasant an option than coffee addiction.

Or actually it could have been that I had gym rage and pushed myself a little bit too far. I broke my personal record for burning calories in ten minutes and I think I hadn't drunk quite enough water before that. Also I went for a very disappointing meal at lunch time, so it could be that as well.

So it's not really coffee's fault, don't blame the marvellous black liquid.

In other news I'm looking at flats now. Well houses actually, for less than it cost to rent a room in London I can rent a reasonable two bedroom house. I don't need a second bedroom but I do need proper parking for a bike and that seems to only come with places with two bedrooms.

I've never lived on my own, so I'm not sure if I will agree with it or not, but part of the reason for moving is to be in the same town as all my chums so if anything I will have more of a social life.

Whoops, I found a motorcycle.

The move down to London was fine, I managed to do the whole thing without seeing the flatmate - I heard her come in a 4am (tsk curfew eh?) but that was it. Anyway, I loaded my stuff up fairly quickly with the help of van man and set off.

The journey down flew by because Van Man was a biker so we spent the whole trip talking about motorcycles and then he gave me an introduction to classic rock. It was very educational.

We didn't get back till late so I only had time to unload my stuff before falling fast asleep in a room with no visible floor space - I'm amazed how much stuff I have, too much stuff. Since there isn't storage for all my things in the house the plan is to turn one of the garages into a storage place by cleaning it up a bit. I helped build the main garage many moons ago and it's be mostly used as a storage place for bits and bobs which is silly because there is a HUGE boat shed and a proper workshop, let alone a selection of stables and things to store junk.

So this morning I started on the garage ruthlessly throwing out broken printers and shoes that rats had eaten. The first hour or so was really hard work because the shed was so full of things that we couldn't even open the door to get in properly. While cleaning the shed out, I put a couple of long bits of wood in the boat shed and something caught my eye. A motorcycle! It's been there for years but I've not been in the boat shed for years so I hadn't noticed it.

It's pretty old and clearly being in a shed for at least a decade hasn't improved it but it's a motorbike and it is now my project bike. I'm going to get it running again and use it to bimble about while I save up for something more impressive. I found it (and many other useful things) because I was cleaning.

Who knows what I will find tomorrow?

P.S. for anyone who cares about these things I'm informed by a chum who has seen blurry photos of it that it is a Suzuki 125ER, possibly.

I'm leaving, on a packed train, don't know when I'll be back again

I've got a return journey to London today to pick up the rest of my stuff. I'm not really looking forward to it - I hate moving house at the best of times - but at least once it's done it's done so that is good.

The current plan, or at least the vague ideas masquerading as one is to stay down here for the rest of the summer (going up to London a couple of days a week when I need to) saving cash (this bit is going well) and then return to London for the winter with far, far less stuff. Realisitically I could get by with a far more stripped down selection of items - perhaps one or two novelity suits and that is it.

In other news I asked two of my dad's friends for motorcycle advice. One of them was really helpful the other one, who was for a while my dad's best friend in the world was less so. It was a bit weird really.

Well enough whiffling on about this, I have to catch a train.

Hello Pilgrim

Big changes going on, I've moved out of the flat in London. Or at least I will have fully moved out on the 10th when I return to pick up the rest of my stuff. It was overdue and I'll be glad to go out.

I'm not sure if I should forewarn the chap who is going to move in to replace me about the curfew. I should but I can't think of a way of doing it that doesn't sound, well a bit petty. I suppose the best thing to do is just leave it be.

So I'm back in Devon at the moment, I'm going to move all my stuff down here - and I do have an awful lot of stuff and plot the next move. I may live out of a suitcase for a bit - it's amazing how infrequently a chap needs a third pair of brogues for emergencies so it's quite possible to do this.

I've work to do at the moment which is thankfully not London centric but I'm reminded how living in the wilderness requires transport. It's not even optional here, but at least moving back into my old place for a month or so means that cash that would normally be spent on rent can be invested in a motorbike. Or at least that is the plan.

I'm not sure what the next step will be for me, I'm open to options. I could just move back to London once I'm armed with a motorbike but that seems like the easy route out, perhaps it's time for a new adventure?

Maybe I should just get out an atlas and start having some serious thoughts. I mean, I can be a struggling writer anywhere really so it's quite a flexible career.

Weekend adventures, part 1

I don't often have hardcore weekends, not that I'm slipping into an insipid world of wondering around Ikea in a daze and thinking about blinds but that normally I try to have at least one day of rest for every day of charging around doing something strange. So if Saturday is spent swinging from trees or racing motorbikes than Sunday will be spent reading the papers and listening to radio 4.

I don't know why I keep to such a strict system, I work strange hours in the week so occasionally have hours, or days off so weekends mean less. It's a couple of days when everyone is about to play but it's harder to do actual work.

This Friday started off in a fairly tame way. I spent the afternoon doing arts and crafts for work. After making some models and an excellent collage while drinking sherry I ambled over to Sloane Square to meet a chum for a post-work drink. This turned into quite a few after work drinks as we went to a hidden pub off a side-street I had been introduced to by a girl when I first moved up to London. After the pints we went to a Chinese Restaurant in South Kensington and then to a house party.

My chum sort of knew two girls who were, well International Party girls. I've encountered this breed before, they dance from city to city going out and meeting people as a career. They might have 'promoter' as an official job title but really their job is to have fun and search for future husbands. These two girls were from Northern Ireland, and having realised that they had missed their favourite flight to LA had decided to go out in London. They rented a vast flat in Kensington to use as a base of operations and even hired two chunky chaps to stride around topless near them. These two chaps were like Derek Zoolander, but with an angry hint of too many drugs and steroids just bubbling away under the surface.

So we met up with these sort of friends, even acquaintance would be pushing it, at their flat for pre-club drinks. We tried to play some moderately complicated drinking game because one of the hostesses insisted on it but a couple of missing cards made it almost impossible and so it was abandoned in exchange for polite conversation while sipping rum. One of the hostesses had decided I looked familiar and so spent about an hour trying to work out where she had seen me before. I couldn't place her and I normally have a pretty good memory for faces.

This scintillating conversation ended when they had to dance off to get to the club early, we were left in the flat with another girl who had appeared so we could escort her to the club when she was ready. I was slightly taken aback by being left, as strangers in a flat after only having met this girls about an hour ago. We didn't do anything, but we could have.

Anyway we ambled into the club, got whisked in to the VIP area and fed bottles of Vodka. This was all well and good until about midnight where the place filled up massively and got a bit sinister. Chaps were doing drug deals right in the middle of the club, or if they weren't dealing they were buying very expensive tic-tacs.

We decided this wasn't really our scene and the vodka had run out so we went to a flat for a light party (as in short) before we would rejoin the main group to go to the larger house party in Kensington. We ended up drinking grog at 3am with some girls who didn't drink and that we hadn't met before. It was all a bit strange. My memory gets a bit hazy at this point but at about 10ish I woke up on a sofa while a chap in a top hat arranged a cab to take him to the train station.

I managed to get up and then made my way home feeling a little bit woolly. There wasn't much time for rest, I had a quick wash, a power nap and I was off to the second part of the weekend...

To be continued

Old friends

Today I spoke to an old friend via email. He was probably my closest friend from the age of about 16 to about 24. We fell out of touch, I don't really know why. I think there was a misunderstanding over something and then in that traditional male way we just didn't talk. Since we didn't live near each other anymore we couldn't solve it by just going to the pub and having a pint.

Anyway we are talking again and I'm delighted, absolutely delighted. Friends are to be treasured, I may have to go on a trek up north to go and see him in a pub and catch up properly. Some other stuff happened today which was good but it's not as exciting as an old chum reappearing.

Oh and I'm trapped in the flat. My flatmate double locked the door without realising I was inside, and well I can't actually leave. I suppose in the event of a fire I could try jumping out of a window but it would be quite a fall. I better not start any fires then.

Man flat

The flatmate is away this week, she is going to Cannes for some work stuff so I've got the place to myself for a week. Since I'm alone I've been doing all the things that she doesn't approve of, well most of them. I've not been out late yet, but that's because I was so exhausted on Saturday after bike school.

The main room in the flat has become a lot more blokey, instead of only having high-end fashion magazines there are motorbike magazines and manly newspapers everywhere and my bike gloves are drying in the sun. Radio 4 is on constantly in the background and I can still smell the bread I made earlier - cooking things that smell is forbidden. Tomorrow I think I'm going to roast a chicken, I can't wait.

Name a scary thing

If I were to ask you to list somethings that scare you, I'd imagine that sooner or later needles would be mentioned. While they don't inspire absolute terror in everyone they do tend to make people a little nervous, like clowns I suppose.

Anyway I was poodling around in the kitchen making some supper when I spotted an bottle of gin. 'Oh how lovely,' you might have said if you were the sort that speaks out loud to yourself. Then you would be given pause before you reached for the pretty dark green bottle.

Why you may ask? Not because it's empty. Oh no, because it's full of needles. It's positively brimming with hypodermic syringes. My flatmate hasn't taken up smack as a hobby, she has them about because one of her new beauty thingies to tan her skin involves injections. I can't decide if this is better or worse than smack. It's jolly alarming either way.

Maybe I'll pass on the martini tonight.

Living with girls

Living with girls is tricky. They are complicated sorts with things one has to take into consideration - there are places that knives go and places they don't go and sometimes a cup of tea is exactly what they need and sometimes exactly what they don't and how dare could you suggest that.

It makes me go misty eyed about my old flat shares at university. I lived with a chap called Pricey as a sort of old couple. There were other people in the flat, a constantly stoned Geordie and a tiny chap who technically lived there but actually spent most of his time at his girlfriends. The shower was in his room so this worked out well. He had a giant telly with sky so you could watch television while having a shower which was an interesting experience.

Anyway, back to Pricey and I. We quickly became a proto-couple. While we both had various girlfriends we cooked for each other if we were about and would often just to to the pub to talk nonsense. It was very nice, the closest we ever came to a fight was what sort of sauce would we make for pasta. My tomato based one or his cheese based one. We both enjoyed cooking so it was more of a 'no it's my turn to cook' in a very polite way.

Because we cooked so much - from raw ingredients - we lived like kings at university. I don't think I've ever eaten so well since. I'd bring up game or ducks from my mothers house and he would get all sorts of interesting supplies from the supermarket he worked at in the evenings.

We liked the same stuff, would go to films and have a nice time. Girlfriends would drift in and out of the flat but not disturb the manly harmony. Sadly I left Scotland to go to London and Pricey couldn't leave his beloved country.

I suppose any future flatmate or girlfriend is going to be compared against the gold standard of Pricey and, well they tend to fall rather short.

A biscuit day

I've been thinking about food a lot recently, especially raw food. Food you can pick of the vine and stuff into your mouth. Food that is so tasty you can't just go 'hmm' you have to sing about how lovely it is while doing a little 'this is tasty' dance.

This might just be because I'm drinking less, or just living a healthier lifestyle. Or perhaps I spend so much of my day frowning at a laptop or pacing around trying to squeeze thoughts out that even the slightest distraction becomes terribly exciting.

I think It's Australia day tomorrow and there is some sort of bash going on. I wonder what I'll make of the cocktails after this mostly puritan lifestyle. I'm hoping that even the most megre Sea Breeze will be exiting now.

In other news my poor flatmate has just been told today by a chap (the chap she has been having an on-off thing with for the last ten years) that he never loved her. This was done in a way that implied that he was entirely blameless for messing her around for the last few years and if anyone was to blame it was her. Honestly people can be such shits sometimes.

She was of course rather upset by this but after sorting out some other aspects of her life and a decent cup of tea she seems to be okay. It really should have been a cup of tea and a biscuit but we don't have any in the house. We probably should, for emergences like this where a person just really needs a biscuit. After all you never know when you are going to have a biscuit day.

Things I will never do again

1) Cook fish in my new apartment. I made a fish and rice thingy using haddock. I felt an urge for rice, I was thinking about the book Empire of the Sun and that makes you yearn for the stuff. Although the book is about being a child prisoner of war in the far east it is really about rice. The first time I read it I spent the whole time in front of the stove, slowly stirring a pot of rice with a woodern spoon.

Anyway, I digress. The fish thing was pleasant enough but the damn smell of fish just won't leave the flat. It's a like the person at the end of a party who just won't leave no matter how much you yawn and change into your dressing gown.

2) Go out with a girl who says 'I don't like to win every arguement'. This is girl code for. 'I only date men who treat me like shit, if don't act like this I will be angry at you'.

3) Go to a gig to see a band only because I fancy the girl who told me about them. This band will always be loud and you won't be able to hear anything they are saying because the guitarist will have turned himself up too much in an effort to upstage the lead singer. Admittedly I've always ended up having at least an affair with a girl after she has introduced me to a band. So being partially deaf just seems to be rite of passage.

4) Refer to anything to do with sex as a 'rite of passage'

5) Hide in the library from fish smells.

6) Do blog entries that are lists.

Why don't you come over to mine to work?

A simple enough question.

Between two chaps it can mean just the facts. I have somewhere we could work let us work there. Although it normally means lets work for a bit and then you will start trying on my hats and then we will get drunk and before you know it we will be on the Eurostar to Paris to see if our Schoolboy French is good enough to pick up Parisian girls. It wasn't if you were wondering, sadly asking where the train station is repeatedly while winking is not enough anymore. But that is a different story for a another time.

Anyway, I have a friend coming over to do some work here. A female friend with curves, eyelashes and all the other lovely things about women. It was supposed to be brunch, and then it turned into tea and now she is going to come here for a bit and we shall decide what happens next. This girl has appeared previously in this blog and was known as the Party Organiser. Lets link back to a blog that pretty much sums up our relationship so far - Many Girls in Pants.

For those that can't be bothered to look she is stunning, dark haired and more than a bit firey and sort of thinks I'm a moron. Actually that's not fair anymore these days she just thinks I'm a bit slow, with hair that is too long.

So I used to swoon at the slightest chance she would appear. Recently my ardour has cooled a bit. I still think she is stunning but I realise it would never work between us as anything more than friends. So friends we shall be.

Which is a surprisingly grown up statement I feel a chap could do well to think like that more often. Still it doesn't hurt to put on a nice shirt if she is coming around, possibly a smoking jacket one just happens to have knocking around.

The Shining

Just like in the Shining the library of this building has a scale model of itself. I think this is so you can study it and when you get possessed by evil spirits you can chase your son through it quite successfully but ultimately get outwitted by him backtracking in the snow.

Anywhere, here is a picture of the building with a crudely drawn arrow showing my flat.

Lifestyles of the louche and infamous

I'm still settling in which is code for half my life is still in suitcases and bags in the hallway but it is all good. Today I made my first visit to the library, In fact I'm in it right now typing away. Let me take a picture.

Right the picture you see now is almost live. Or at least it was when I typed this. I'm sat at the main table in the library but there are a good dozen others. It's a pretty large rom, I think it is a converted school hall - there is even a stage at the one end.

Behind me is a courtyard so you can take some air if you need to, it seems like a bit of a folly but since I don't have to look after it I think it is marvellous.

Let me take a picture of that too.
I took this photo near one of the windows so you can see the door from the library into the pointless courtyard.

Across the hall from the library is the residents gym which as far as I can tell is never used. Last time I poked my head around the door they were playing Phil Collins on the T.V. which is probably a warning sign. The idea of having a gym nearby is pleasant but as I can't find most of my socks, let alone anything for doing fitness related activities I think it will have to take a backseat some what while I get other more pressing matters organised.

Speaking of other matters the surrounding area is full of interestingly windy roads which would be ideal for riding motorbikes on. Perhaps Operation New Life should include finally doing my bike test and getting some road wheels?

Moving

At last the move is complete. After what seems like weeks of shifting stuff around we have finally got everything that should be in the flat in and everything that shouldn't, out.

My move when fairly smoothly, I did a lightning style raid on my old flat and bundled up everything I owned. It only took about 45 minutes and then unloading at the other end took about the same amount of time - thanks to having lots of people around willing to carry things.

The really big move was helping my friend who has brought this flat to move in. This was a multiple stage process as we had to get items from storage, and her old place as well as swap various things out of the flat into storage (like an extremely heavy sofa bed). On Saturday I spent about 10 hours solidly moving heavy furniture so now I have forearms like Popeye.

My bedroom is very much a bed room, the bed is vast. I think it's (the bed) about the same size as my old room in West Hampstead which only had a single bed in it. I have large doors that lead onto the balcony so in the summer months I can lounge about in bed enjoying the sun and warm breezes that one is bound to encounter this far south.

The building is amazing. It's a Sir Giles Gilbert Scott design, his old architectural school I think. If you hadn't heard of the chap you would have seen his work he designed the iconic British telephone box and this building is faintly reminiscent of that. Not that it is red with only one room and smells of tramp pee but that the windows are made of lots of small panes and it has a stocky well-made appearance.

I've only explored the complex a bit, because most of the time was spent carrying something large there wasn't much of a desire to take long detours. The Library is wonderful, I think it is a converted school hall but either way it is a large quiet space with working tables and a few slightly showy books. On the first night we spent here I was so excited about having library access I couldn't sleep. What a nerd eh?

Also through the course of the weekend two new words have been invented I will share them now.

Pigwood (noun). Special wood use to make expensive items of furniture that weighs more than pigiron or lead. Can be used to describe any item that weighs far more than it is should.

Usage - 'This coat must have buttons made out of pigwood'.

Tesselload (verb) The struggle of trying to fit strange shapes objects into a van that should fit together but seem to be resisting all efforts.

Usage - 'I can't get this bloody sofa to tesselload'.

All I want is a room somewhere

For the first time today I saw some of the details of the place I'm going to move into. Yes, it's not typically terribly wise to move into somewhere when you haven't seen a single thing about it but then I'm a risk taker like that. I live life on the edge, it's just the sort of rebel I am.

Plus the friend I'm moving in with always lives in the most ridiculously lovely flats so it didn't seem like too much of a gamble.

It's stunning, it has a balcony and doors and rooms and things and I'm sure I will like it very much. It even has a gym as part of the complex and rather strangely, a library. I've never heard of an apartment block that has a library for residents before. What sort of books will be in the library? Will it just be a slightly pretentious name for a quiet place?

If so that might be a good place to do some writing, especially for a chap who has to write an outline and first chapter of another book because a publisher emailed him before Christmas and begged him to submit something before she goes on maternity leave.

Operation New Life

The plan to start 2008 as almost an entirely new person is progressing extremely well. I've got a new flat sorted with a friend and hopefully I should move in this Friday. Moving should be a doddle as well as armies of friends have offered to help with the move.

Even better H has managed to blag some sort of turbo super van to help with the move so we will be screaming around the streets of London moving my needlessly expansive wardrobe and shoe collection to it's new home.

Friends are ace, I dread to think what would have happened if they weren't around.

Hurrahs!

It looks like my tramping period may be drawing to an end. A very good friend who I lived with briefly last year just called and said she is desperately looking for a flatmate!

This news made me dance with joy, I mean really dance. I did a jig and everything. The flat is in Putney but I'm sure with a bit of practice I can learn to turn my shirt collars up and tuck rugby shirts into my jeans.

More than that I'm really looking forward to moving in with this friend, she is a lovely girl and we get on really well.

Gosh I'm so excited, it's silly. This really would be landing on my feet.