Websites, Work, Weddings, Welton and Wimbledon...

I was sad to read that Palace Fan is bringing his blog to an end after 5 years. He's had a good innings in the blogosphere and I'm sure he will start up a new one as he's moving with his family to Oz in the next couple of weeks. To be honest, it's touch and go if this blog will continue for much longer as neither of us seem to have the time to write even a few lines these days , let alone a whole post. We've both been that busy, which I'll come on to in a minute, and don't seem to get a minute spare these days. But we'll soldier on for a bit longer if that's ok with you!

So, the title of the post says it all really, and I'll go through them in order!

Websites; you probably know that since last August time I have been "experimenting" (that's probably the most apt description) with building websites for various different projects. I've put a lot of work into them and some of them have been quite rewarding financially, but for the most part it was my interest in IT, ecommerce and generally messing about with computers that kept me going. Well I'm glad to say that I've stepped away from 2 of these sites for one reason or another, and I'm now not stressing out trying to do a day job AND manage multiple websites.

When I started on these things were a bit up in the air (at Comet - and by the sound of it they still are up in the air!) and so I was just trying to have a backup plan in case I was handed a "thanks for all your hard work but we don't need you anymore" letter. Things didn't come to that luckily, which was a relief, but I carried on with the sites anyway.

In the end an argument over money (things usually come to that don't they?) put stop to 2 of the sites so now I'm just concentrating on our own venture, www.gardengear.co.uk, and hope to launch this very soon.

Work; the new job is going really well and I'm really glad I made the move from Comet. It was a bit of a gamble, but it has definitely paid off. I enjoyed my time at Comet, except maybe the last 6 months, but it was time for me to move on to pastures new. Republic is a smaller company but is on the rise and will become a big brand over the next couple of months/years. It's good to be in a team/company where everyone mucks in and the politics are not as prominent. Don't get me wrong , I'm sure Republic has it's fair share of politics , but I've been lucky enough not to experience them yet!

Weddings; things have slowed down a bit on this front for now. I'm sure Michelle will comment that they never even got going for me anyway ;0) My only involvement to this point was tasting canapes at Ramada Jarvis ; they were very nice too. Most of the invites have gone out though.

Welton; not quite content with having a new job and a wedding to contend with this year we decided to buy a house too! It's in Welton and is an absolute beauty! The garden is immense and we're both looking forward to getting out there and getting in touch with our Percy Thrower sides. We're hoping to complete the deal at the end of July, so not long to wait. One other added bonus is our new neighbours aren't French which is always good!

So finally onto Wimbledon; we "won" tickets in the ballot (well my Mum did really and was very kind to let us have them) so we hot-footed down to SW19 on the train on Tuesday. It was an absolutely glorious day, a bit too hot for me, and we saw some great tennis. Serena Williams, Rafa Nadal and Robin Soderling on centre court and a few random players on the outlying courts. We took a coolbag loaded with goodies and strawberries and generally had a top day out. I could have quite happily sat there for 2 weeks watching tennis, eating and drinking cream teas and for the most part doing nothing ;0)

Well, that's it for now, the sun is out, the sunday papers are in and England are up against zee Germans later on. Oh yeah and I forgot to mention I've become an uncle again. Andrew and Gemma have just had their first baby, a little girl weighing at 8 pound something. Congrats to them both.

Adios,

p.s. i'm sure you all got the connection with the photo of George W. Bush. Get it? All the words in the title start with W? Never mind!

Everybody needs good neighbours....

Peas and Rice (Cockney rhyming slang for Jesus Christ!) we've got another blog on! It's only just over a week since our last blog; anyone would think we were travelling again (more on this later). Well we've moved into our new house, it's not ours really it's our landlords but it might as well be ours, and we've just about settled in. The aerial man has just left after moving our satellite dish for the 2nd time in a month, again more on this later.

I think we're both getting a bit sick of a) renting and b) moving as it's the 2nd move within 12 months, more than a lot of people have moved in the last 12 years! It's not the actual being in different places that bothers us (or me anyway!) as we both love seeing different places as you probably know, if we didn't this blog probably wouldn't even exist. No, it's the upheaval of everything we own, and a few things we don't, (sorry about taking that frying pan, I really did think it was ours!) from one place to another. When you're travelling, moving everything you own from one place to another, is a piece of p*ss as it's on your back, but when you've been living in a flat for 12 months you tend to accumulate a bit more clobber. TV, iMac, Wardrobe, sofas, guitar(s), clothes, etc., etc. We haven't got nearly as much stuff as most people but it's still a chore. We had to get the company who made our wardrobe to come and dismantle it and get a separate "man with van" to move all the other shi... sorry stuff. Then there's all the bills, accounts, magazine subscriptions to change address details over , the list goes on and on. Anyway, the amount of times we have moved over the last 10 years is well into double figures. We both worked out that between us we've lived in about 20 places in the last 10 years. When I say places I mean different abodes, rather than different towns/villages/hamlets! So you'd expect us to be naturals at moving. Well to be honest, it's probably a less stressful experience than some people have , but still a pain.

So onto the Satellite dish. When we moved in there was an existing satellite dish on the front of the house which we plugged into our Freesat and everything was dandy. Then after a couple of days of pouring rain suddenly the picture went. And I mean completely went! Couldn't even get Come Dine with Me on More4. So, I asked around and got Al's mate from work, or rather Al from work's mate. He came round one evening tested different cables, different positions (for the satellite dish!) and to cut a long story short, we settled on a place about the kitchen window.

All was going well, until our neighbour (SHE IS FRENCH!!!!) returned from a trip away (to FRANCE) and knocked on the door. After the pleasantries exchanged; "hello I'm your new neighbour", "Hello I'm Matt", "Hello I'm rfaiurehriuhf (some French name)", "there's a problem with your satellite dish", "No there isn't, Al's friend came round to fix it, look it's a brilliant picture, come in I'll show you....", "Yes there is a problem , it's on my wall","...look the picture on HD is brilli.....WHAT???? YOU'RE WALL? SILLY FRENCH BAS.....". And it turned out that the upstairs of the house, doesn't match the downstairs of the house and our satellite dish was about 3mm (actually about 18 inches) on her side of the house. I tried reasoning with her and said "well it's not really doing any harm though is it? It's only a satellite dish" but apparently it is a problem and would you mind moving it please because I'm trying to sell my house, and I'm sure the kind of people who want to buy my house wouldn't want a satellite dish on their wall. So I had to get Al's mate back round and he moved it to the opposite end of the house, as far away as possible from the French side of the house!

Now I know that neighbours are extremely petty when it comes to territory but I did think she was being a bit over the top! I don't know whether it is the French blood as I know they are suckers for bureaucracy or the fact that she is just an arse but it's all sorted now. To be honest I would probably have been p*ssed of if someone had put a satellite dish on my wall whilst I was away on holiday but I like to think that I'd be reasonable once the initial shock had wore off and realised that it was a genuine mistake! Oh well!

Anyway, I mentioned travelling at the start of this and we're off on our hols again, to Askrigg in the Yorkshire Dales. It's really close to Hawes where they make Wensleydale Cheese (Oh No Grommit , it's the wrong trousers!) and Black Sheep Ale. So you can guess what we'll be doing for the majority of the week. We're heading off on Saturday morning and hopefully by Saturday afternoon will be troughing on Wensleydale and swigging Black Sheeps'

So there you go , there's a good end to this blog, hopefully I'll have some non-French related stories to tell you in a week or so.

Au Revoir!

p.s. Oh yeah I forgot, we live in Brough now, pronounced Brough. It's about 8 miles from Hull right next to the Humber Bridge! It's a lot more rural here, although "The Avenues" is also pretty rural this time of year what with all the trees out.

Thank (credit) Crunchy it's Friday!!

Do you remember that advert "Thank Crunchie it's Friday?"

Oh Sh*t! We missed a month of blogging! In our world of blogging Feb 09 doesn’t exist. It was a pretty bad month anyway, more on later, so no point dwelling on it.
Well we’ve been back from our fantastic trip to Sri Lanka and I can honestly say it was a well earned rest. It was almost a year to the day that we had touched down from our 10 month jaunt around the world and it was good to be on the road again. After a gruelling flight of 600 hours we landed in Colombo airport with not a Tiger in sight. Now usually when you’re on a package holiday there’s loads of reps hanging around rounding people up on minibuses and carting them off to their allocated resort. Not here, we wandered around the ample-sized arrival lounge for a few minutes, exchanged some money (£10 to be precise) and generally looked lost. After a while I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a smartly-dressed chap standing near the exit, holding a little red card. We sauntered over and sure enough he was our Virgin Rep; when I say Virgin, I mean Virgin holidays, he wasn’t a virgin, well I don’t think he was, but he might have been. Anyway, it’s irrelevant!

But as they say “all good things come to an end” and the holiday feeling certainly doesn't last long these days does it? Especially when you come back to a country (or even a world) that is in the worst economical situation since god knows when. Still I can’t help wondering that it’s been on the cards for a while, what with this spend, spend, spend mentality that seems to be the done thing these days.

Anyway, there’s loads of stuff going on at the moment; at work, I won’t talk about it on hear as it’s depressing, and on the home front too! Yes, we’ve got to move again, although it’s no fault of our own. We’re hopefully moving to a gaff in Hessle, which if you ask anyone at work, is absolutely miles away from town, but for those of us who travel and indeed commute (more than a bus-ride anyway!) it’s about 17 minutes door-to-door. When I say door-to-door, I mean literally door-to-door. I can fall out of bed , straight on a train, stumble up St.Jamesons St, and into Comet House. It’s also a lot nearer to Michelle’s work so she’s happy about that.

I haven’t really got a great deal more to say. Things are still ticking along, nothing really interesting happening, everyone seems to be buttoning down the hatches and trying to power through this credit crunch. Hopefully I’ll have more to talk about next month when we’ve moved, and will be waiting for our next holiday.

Adios,

If you don’t like computers or technology then don’t read this!

Now then! It has been an absolute age since I've blogged, in fact I know exactly when it was, the 22nd Dec 2007. Michelle has blogged a massive 16 times since then and as usual her blogs are a lot more interesting than mine. In fact ‘I’m getting bored just trying to write this and I’m only 3 sentences in! I remember reading “Palace Fans Blog” a while back, where he said he’s getting quite “blogged down” with all this blogging business; “nothing interesting to say”, “can’t be bothered telling people about mundane, every day life stuff”, “not allowed to slag off work as some regular readers are from work, and I might get sacked”, etc.etc. Well I’m not stupid enough to slag off work on here, and to be perfectly honest, I’ve got nothing to slag work off about (at the moment!) as things are going well. I promised myself I wouldn’t get (as) cynical as I used to be and definitely wouldn’t get stressed anymore. There’s people in Bolivia who live at 4500m above sea level in concrete huts, with no running water, heating, let alone a 50inch plasma tv and 4 computers under one roof (more on later!)

So what shall I write about then? Well there’s not a lot I can write about except maybe my new PS3!!. At this point I have to apologise in advance to Michelle and Kirsty as to be honest they’re getting sick to the back teeth of me and Stewart talking about gadgets, tv, computers, routers, WEP, DLNA, PVD, BluRay, HD, etc. So, sorry girls.

So on we go. You probably don’t know this but a vast amount of my time during the last two weeks in Chiang Mai was talking and thinking about technology with Alan (from eComet). The remainder of my time was spent sunbathing, eating Thai food, and drinking Chang beer usually in that order. Anyway, back to technology. Alan is, like myself, and Palace Fan for that matter, an Apple geek. We love to talk, think, live, breathe and dream about Apple computers, iPods, iPhones, and iAnything. I can understand Michelle showing no interest in these conversations and to be fair I show no interest in shopping conversations, or discussions about applying foundation cream before blusher. In case your wondering we do have a lot of things in common though, we both love travelling, obviously, reading, watching films, walking, eating, drinking, sleeping, I could go on. Another point worth mentioning is that Alan is such an Apple lover that even his wife is called Apple! And along a similar line, Palace Fan called his first-born Max, get it Macs, Max?

Anyway, back to Chiang Mai. One of the things I promised myself when we got back and had earned some money was a games machine of some sort, be it an XBOX360 or a PS3. Now I’ve always favoured Sony Playstations and have owned all of them at some point. I sold my PS2 before we left for the bargain price of £30 to Wellsy from eComet. I hadn’t used it for ages and knew that it would be obsolete by the time we returned. There seems to be a massive debate at the moment in various forums over which of the two games machines are better, XBOX or PS3. There are all sorts of factors, which I won’t bore you with here, to consider. To be honest I think the XBOX is probably winning at the moment, for two very good reasons; there are more games out and the Live/Online play looks better than the PS3. New games are usually written for the XBOX and then ported across to PS3, with the old PS2 this was the other way round. However, one of the main reasons I opted for the PS3 was the Bluray player. Anyone who is remotely interested in TV/DVD will know that Bluray was declared the victor in the High Definition DVD wars (not to be confused with the War on terror that has probably had less coverage!). So, now that Toshiba has thrown in the towel it seemed a good idea to opt for a games machine with a built-in player. It’s worth noting too, that the Bluray player in the PS3 is by all accounts a pretty damn fine one. I remember when I bought my PS2, with build-in DVD player, and DVD was really taking off at the time. However the player in the PS2 was absolute sh*te; every film watched through it had a slight green tinge. This worked fine with the George Romero classic “Dawn of the Dead” as he purposely filmed it to give everything a green tinge, but anything else was appalling. I suppose Shrek would have looked quite decent though!

I’ve read that not many of the games out currently stretch the PS3 to it’s limits, but this will change over the next 12 months, when the developers get to grips with all the technology. Incidentally, the games that I’ve played on the PS3 look pretty damn fine, so I’m looking forward to the next 12 months. It’s not just about the games though anymore, as now this black box is supposed to be the centre of your universe, or as they call it a media hub. You can surf the net, look at your photos, watch tv through it (or you can when Sony release the Play TV attachment in a couple of months), stream music/video from your PC/Mac. Now this topic deserves another blog on it’s own and that would be really boring. I spent most of last week trying to get the streaming working from the iMac to the PS3. This is where XBOX wins again as this is a lot easier to do. I’ve seen Ben’s working and it is pretty cool. Obviously a Mac isn’t as straightforward as a PC and of course it didn’t connect to the PS3. I even had to download some software (Nullrivers Medialink) which I got working but only intermittently. I’ve still not finished tinkering so maybe on my next blog, sometime in May at my current rate, I’ll have sorted it. I’m sure it’s something on the router, and my theory is that the traffic coming from the PS3 is caning the router which thinks it’s a Denial of Service attack and then just blocks it.

So, the PS3 is sitting underneath Stewarts brand new 50” Pioneer plasma TV. The picture quality on the games is absolutely stunning and the TV is not even full HD. It’s only 720p, the maximum is 1080p, although this is a bit of a sore point in the house, as it means Stew will be wanting another TV in about 12 months. (If Kirsty’s reading this, which I doubt as it’s turned into a rant about technology, she’s probably cursing me at this point! Sorry Kirsty!). I’ve been playing a game called Heavenly Sword last week in between fiddling with the router settings. It’s the usual story; lots of hacking and slashing, fighting medieval-type knights with huge swords, and generally trashing everything in sight. There’s one scene where you can smash food-laden tables up, and then pick up the food and throw it at the enemies. I picked up what looked like a grapefruit, threw it at a huge shield bearing knight. Needless to say it did little damage and he followed up with a skull-crushing blow to my head. Oh yeah, the main character in this game is a girl, I can’t remember her name, who wears a bikini (or something similar) and wields, yes you’ve guessed it a Heavenly Sword. She is hard as nails and some of the moves she pulls off are fantastic. I don’t know how she does it though as I’m just pressing buttons as fast as I can in any order. It seems to work though as I’m on the 6th level now.

The Bluray movies look even better. I’ve rented the BBC Planet Earth series, the one that BBC constantly broadcast on the BBC HD preview channel on SKY. I’m not that much of an AV geek like Stewart is and will settle for a fairly decent picture on a TV, but when you see this it just blows you away. You find yourself not really concentrating on the DVD itself, but just marvelling over the picture quality. “Look at that ant in the background, look how detailed it looks, you can even see the hairs on its legs”. This reminds me of a classic Carry on Film joke; it’s the one when they’re all going on holiday. One guy Bernard Bresslaw, I think, says to another, possibly Kenneth Williams, whilst sitting on the plane and looking out of the window, “Look at those people down there they look like ants”. The other replies “They are ants, we haven’t taken off yet! Classic.

The only downer is that Bluray disks cost about £20, so it’s not even worth thinking about upgrading all your existing DVDs to Bluray, like everyone upgraded VHS to DVD. I’ll probably wait a while before I buy any Bluray disks to be honest as I’m not willing to pay anymore than £10 for a film. Currently I/We rent them from Lovefilm.com which works out pretty well. You can rent games from them too, so even better. You can have any 2 films at home for as long as you want. You send them back when you’ve finished with them and then the next 2 off your list turn up. All the postage is free too. You can add what you want to your list and prioritise them. Most of the time they do send you what you want in the right order, although sometimes if you have a 5 disk series in your list, like Lost for instance, they send you them in the wrong order. You end up watching the end of the series finale before you’ve seen the start, although in the case of Lost I don’t think it makes much difference do you?

So that’s about it really; turned out to be one of my longer blogs, but I’m sure most of you are thinking it’s my dullest blog. Maybe I should have called it “If you don’t like computers or technology then don’t read this!”. In fact that’s what I’ll do, I’ll call it that and hope that only Palace Fan, Stew, Geoff, Ben and Alan reads it! If you have got this far down and you don’t like technology then sorry, but to quote Little Britain “ I did warn you!”

Adios

P.S. There’s over 1600 words in this blog! I used to struggle in GCSE English to write 400 words on “Discuss Wilfred Owen’s poetry and his use of alliteration and onomatopoeic phrases in relation to the First World War”. It’s amazing how much you can write when you’re not put under pressure or the subject is boring!

The Sunday Post

I didn't know whether to carry the blog on or not when we got home, and to be honest I'm still not sure that I can write anything interesting enough for anybody to want to read, but I'll give it a go..

We've been home 4 days now and I'm still glad to be home (so is Matt) I've being staying with my mum and dad and on Thursday Matt went back to Droitwich to see his family, which is where he is now (or at least that's where he's supposed to be!!) I have spent the last couple of days finding all my clothes and shoes (a task in itself) updating my C.V, drinking gallons of tea and watching trashy t.v, as well as spending time with Stew in his lovely new HOOSE, oh yeah and getting the much talked about new hair doooo!!

Travelling certainly opens your eyes to a whole new perspective in life, and I can safely say I feel a totally different person for the experience. Life back at home is an absolute walk in the park to the life we have lived for the last 9 months. Everything at home is familiar to us, even the faces of people driving up the M1 on the way home from Heathrow looked familiar. I know what bus to catch (my dad will be thinking well why do you keep asking me for a lift and to borrow the car then!!) I know the route the bus will take, I know where all the shops are, I know where to buy what I want. I can talk to anybody (I just don't want to) I don't have to convert the price of everything into Sterling. I don't have to find somewhere to do our washing, I can use the phone and know it isn't going to cost me 50p a minute, I know where to get good fish and chips. Are you getting the picture?

Life at home is soooooo easy and at the moment relatively stress free. Every day that you are away when you're travelling you are constantly thinking and planning, where you will travel to next, how will you get there, how much will it cost, how long will it take, where will we stay, how long shall we stay for. At home your life is almost a matter of habit and we can manage most days without even having to actually think about what we're doing. Get up, have a shower, go to work, come home, have dinner watch T.V and go to bed. I'm not criticising that kind of life, quite the opposite, I now appreciate the most simple of pleasures.

Yesterday I walked to Stew's house which is about 2.5 miles away from my parents house, I loved it. I could have taken one of a hundred ways to get there, because I know them all, I knew where I was going and roughly how long it would take me to get there. You probably think all this sounds really crazy, it may make more sense to other people that have travelled, surely it can't just be me who feels this way after 9 months on the road?!?!

I think back to all the buses, trains and planes that we have travelled on since we have been away, and all the people who have got us to our next destination, i.e the bus driver, the pilot, the taxi driver. I'm home now back in my comfort zone and all those people are still out there, driving the taxi's, driving the buses over the Andes in shit weather on hazardous road, none of the experience is lost on me. It is like being dragged out of 'reality' and thrown into a surreal existence for 9 months and then all of a sudden being plunged back into the 'real world'

We are already talking about our next trip, which won't be for another 6 years as we have a few 'grown up' things we have to tend to first, like me getting a job, us buying a house and getting married. It all takes time and money.

On Tuesday I am back on the road again and getting the National Express to Birmingham to meet Matt, we are going to hopefully get me an engagement ring (oooooh how exciting) and I will see Matt's family and friends, so really looking forward to that. We are then going 'darn Sarf' to see Gary and Eve and the infamous bump, and hopefully catch up with a few work colleagues (only the elite) before we head back 'Ooop North' so start 'Life in a Northern Town'

I can honestly say that 2007 was the best year of my life in so many ways, our travels, Gary and Eve's pregnancy, our engagement, Stew and Kirsty's new house, and so much quality time together. We have enjoyed so many new experiences together and seen so many amazing places, it is difficult to put it all into words.

It was sad when Matt left on Thursday to go and see his family, I felt like I'd lost a limb after spending so much time together, he has being an absolute rock while we have been away. I can't wait to see him again on Tuesday. Matt Looby you truly are the best friend this girl could ask for and I can't wait to be your wife :o)

They think it's all over... It is NOW!

Well, we arrived back in the U.K at 6am today and it was fluffing freezing (STILL IS)!! It is such a great feeling to be back, as much as we have loved every minute of our travels (even Oz!) it is good to be 'Ome.

Anyway, I'm not writing a BIG blog 'cos I'm suffering from travel/motion sickness and finding it difficult to form sentences, which is most unlike me!

It was a great feeling driving up the M1 on the way home from Heathrow, knowing that we are making a fresh start 'Ooop North'

Not sure if any of you ever used to watch Victoria Wood, but she used to have a comedy show and one of the sketches was a woman reading the news. One of the news readers gags went like this "We'd like to apologise to all our viewers in the North... It must be dreadful"

I love the North, it's full of Northerners, and they ALL acknowledge you when you give way to them on the roads!

As Oasis sang... It's good to be back!