Steve's Blog

Good news! The house chain is ressurected. Our buyers have found a buyer and this time they are in rented accommodation so the chain is really short and their new buyers want to move as fast as possible. The house in Portskewett is still ours and we could be in in 6 weeks.

Work is still good. No stress and very interesting projects. I am almost totally immersed in C# development now and haven't touched any CSS for over 5 weeks. The atmosphere in the office is very relaxed., so much so that Martin and Mark have both gone on holidays!! I am supporting the websites for a week but I really don't mind at all.

The travelling between South Wales and Clifton/Kingswood is becoming a little onerous at times, mostly going home when the traffic is heaviest, but it still doesn't take as long as it used to when I lived in Farndon and travelled to Peterborough. I did that for over three years so I should be able to cope for a few more weeks.

Funny how keeping in touch is still so difficult, even with e-mail and Instant Messenger. I mean to stay in touch with everyone at BMS but it never seems the right time to sit down and write an e-mail and whenever I see anyone on IM they are inevitably too busy to chat (at least thats what they say!). I will make more of an effort to stay in touch.

Not going back to Bourne this weekend so we may try to get to Cardiff to take a look at all the changes that we haven't had time to see over the last twenty odd years. Looking forward to seeing the Cardiff Bay area and maybe visiting the Dr Who exhibition.

The dogs are in their element living with the in-laws. They have company all day and get spoilt to the point of ruin. They love the park, especially the hillocks. Lincolnshire has always presented them with a flat perspective and now they can run up and down hills which they do with relish.

Been a while since my last update I'm afraid. There has been a lot happening during the intervening period. Carol has joined me in Wales and we have had to put our house back on the market.

It's nice having Carol with me in the evenings but consequently I don't get to spend time on the comuter, hence the lack of updates.

We got a phone call from the estate agents a week last Thursday telling us that our buyers' buyer was dragging his/her feet over exchange of contracts because they had to sort out the split of proceeds from the home jointly owned between them and their ex-partner. Then the following day the news that they had pulled out of the chain and we had effectively lost our sale too. Our buyers still want the house but they now have to resell their house. Our estate agents recommended that we put ours back up for sale too. We understand the reasoning but surely this means that we will lose our new house too because they will be given the same advice?

Carol called around to see the couple whose house we wanted to buy and was surprised and embarassed to find that their agents hadn't informed them!! They were a little shocked and equally as disappointed as we are. Good news is that as this is the second time this has happened to them, the fact that they haven't found a house themselves yet and that they don't want to go through the whole process again they are willing to wait for us to find new buyers. We have two viewings this weekend so fingers crossed.

Work is still good. I have completed three plug-ins now. A Task management system, a newsfeeed reader and a contacts database. The newsfeed reader was quite interesting as it is a batch process that reads an XML feed at midnight each day ionto the local database and that is then used to display news in the plug-in. Every day is different and the hours just fly by.

We have a TV crew coming in on Monday to film us at work. If Auros are successful at the Shell Business awards this will form the basis of a video projected onto a huge screen at the back of the stage during the award ceremony. God help them if they are still eating their dinner!!

I'm getting used to the mountains again and I really had forgotten just how pretty the valleys can be. Cwmcarn has changed quite a bit since I left in the early eighties. All the coal mines have gone and have been replaced by neat modern housing estates with almost identically designed little houses with newish cars parked on their block paviour driveways. A far cry from the dark and imposing pit head winding gear and rows of wash houses that I remember passing on my way to school. The supermarkets have seen off nearly all of the shops that used to line the main street of the village. Jack Hatfields cycle shop, Jandrell's newsagents, Stephen's clothing, the wool shop, the two butchers, Brace's bakery, Jones' furnishers, Dylan's chemist, The Italian cafe, Prosser's tobacconists and sweet shop, The outdoor off-license, Jandrell's paint and wallpaper shop, a shoe shop, the Cooperative supermarket and at least a dozen greengrocers. At one time there was even a cinema! All now gone and all that remains is a few stragglers and an open all hours corner shop owned by asians. The Cwmcarn Hotel is still thriving and hosts regular weekend rock bands. It was a honeypot for the youth of my day too. We shunned the more traditional Cwmcarn Working Men's club for the brasher, brighter and far more expensive ale of the Hotel.

There has always been the tourist attraction of the Scenic Forest Drive. Cwmcarn Forest Drive is a 7-mile scenic route through the rolling hills and green mountains of one the country's largest urban forests. It's drawn visitors ever since it opened in the seventies. Now, however, it is a Mecca for all mountain bike enthusiasts UK wide. It has some of the scariest and most potentially lethal 'black runs' of any site in the UK. My sister-in-law lives in a bungalow opposite one of the hillsides that the bikers hurtle down lemming like toward one of the many huge jumps that spectators can stand under and wonder in awe as the young cyclists fly overhead. She has witnessed some quite spectacular accidents and knows of at least one fatality. The ambulance service has now taken to placing their on-call vehicle at the foot of the Scenic Drive at weekends to save the journey when the inevitable call comes in. The Scenic drive is very picturesque for all that frenetic activity and if you get a chance to visit I can recommend it.

I'm starting to feel at home in Clifton and take a walk most lunchtimes. The student population has swelled enormously since the second and third years returned. I now have to queue for my lunch in Subway!

We are planning on driving back to Bourne most weekends ostensibly to keep an eye on the house but also, more importantly, to get some peace and quiet away from the families bless 'em. Funny how absence can make the heart grow fonder. Bourne looked so very pretty as we descended down along the A151 from Colsterworth last night. I wouldn't swap my mountains though.

Seems like only yesterday I was driving down the A46 and already I am contemplating the journey in reverse. This weekend is special because Carol is coming back with me. Decamping to Carol's parents house from Sunday so a change of scenery and an extra mile and a half on my journey ;-)

The house sale has gone a bit askew today. Our buyers buyers are playing silly beggars. Apparently they are divorcing and whichever one isn't in the chain is making life difficult for the one that is. Upshot is we are putting the house back on the market whilst still maintaining the existing chain. Estate agents assure us that it is perfectly normal and above board. Just hope that the house in Portskewett is not going back on the market too! I'm sure that their agents will be giving the same advice though :(

Work has been a refreshing change to what I have been used to. I have struck up a rapport with the others and we are laughing and joking much more.

The company is taking us all out to see the comedian Mark Thomas in Cardiff in December as a treat.

Walked up Whiteladies road again this lunchtime found the railway station again and browsed the shops and restaurants. http://www.sugarvine.com/Bristol/feature_stories/feature_stories.asp?story=464
Click on the link and check out who owns the Picture House restaurant!

Carol finished work today. Bitter sweet so it would seem. She is going to miss some of her colleagues but is really looking forward to joining me.

Discovered that there is a toaster in the kitchen in the office. Martin made himself two slices at 10 this morning. It was a very mouthwatering aroma accompanied by the freshly brewed coffee. Guess what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow? :)

Got caught in a 3 mile traffic jam on the M4 at the Brynglas tunnels in Newport on the way home so cut off the motorway and took a shortcut through Newport itself. Ended up driving past my old telephone exchange where I worked on the 3rd floor 23 years ago. Amazed that I could still remember my way around. There have been some substantial changes but the old landmarks still survive. The Harlequin pub where I used to nip out for a sly half at 3pm with Hughey God rest his soul has, like Hughey, bitten the dust. It is shuttered and for sale. I can remember vividly, sneaking down the back stairs of the Exchange and through the gate at the back of the engineering yard, before negotiating the traffic on Malpas road to get to the pub without being seen. The traffic is much heavier these days! Hughey would still think it worth the effort if he was still around.

Can't wait for that toast!

Got up early again today and set off for work by 6.50. Arrived at the office around 7.35! Had to open the door and unset the alarm. Why am I so obsessed with getting in early?

Had another very productive day and managed to get a good way through my current task. Still a few days work left on it though. Mira the new contractor asked if we had any 3rd party components because she needed to output some graphs and a datetime calendar control in her pages. I was able to give her my graphing class and some code from CodeProject that did exactly what she needed saving the company at least $249! Kudos or what?

Mira is from Dunedin in the South Island of NZ. God alone only knows why she is living and working in the UK. Maybe she was driven out by Hobbits?

I chose to walk in a different direction for my lunch today. I went up the Whiteladies road because I wanted to visit Richer Sounds. I bagged myself a very fine pair of Sennheiser headphones to listen to my ressurected USB radio. More Cafes and wine bars. Lots of restaurants too. Vietnamese, Mexican, Lebanese, Italian, French..... Quite few nice pubs too with chalkboards full of strangely named ales.

As I was walking back to the office I passsed a street of familiar looking houses and it put me in mind of the lodgings that I once stayed in during 1979 whilst on a course in Shirehampton. I believe we stayed in Westbury on Trym but it may well have been on the outer edges of Clifton. I certainly recall visiting some pubs in Clifton at the time. Anyway, that reminded me that I had shared those lodgings with a colleague and friend who went on to be my best man. I suddenly remembered that he worked in Bristol and by coincidence I had his mobile number in my phone. We had lost touch for over 18 years but had met up briefly when we still lived in Farndon and he was visiting Nottingham on a football tour! To cut the story short, I called him and we are meeting for lunch on Thursday.

I think I may suddenly have become the victim of a family IT support incident. I ended up ordering a copy of Microsoft Works 8.5 from eBuyer for my nephew who's dodgy copy of Word had given up the ghost. Word 2002 actually comes bundled with Works all for 39 quid. Anyway he has now asked me to do a website for his plastering business. Doh! I sense that this is just the start?

Been a while since the last update because I have been back to Bourne for the weekend. Left work a little early on Friday and hit the M5 for 5pm. Amazed that I navigated through Bristol in next to no time only to hit the delays on the M5 a few minutes earlier than I would have had I left the office later. Turns out that there had been a three car shunt south of Cheltenham. Made really good time after that and got home for 8.30pm. Carol was very pleased to see me after a whole week apart and she had several chilled beers waiting for me in the fridge bless her.

Felt good to be back in my own house too. The stretch of A46 between the M5 and Leicester is becoming very familiar and I no longer need the Sat Nav to feel comfortable that I'm on the right path. I leave it on for the traffic information but fat lot of good that was. It told me that there was a hold up at Cheltenham and asked me if I wanted an alternative route. Of course I responded in the affirmative as you would only to be told, a little too smugly I thought, there is no alternative route!

Had a brilliant weekend even though it was busy. We took down some fixtures and fittings in anticipation of the impending move and mowed the lawns, washed the cars and packed some things in boxes. We also drank a couple of bottles of wine and chilled in front of the TV. I think Carol has missed me as much as I have certainly missed her. Thankfully we only have this week before she joins me in Wales.

We had planned to hire a van this weekend to move the TVs and PCs etc. to storage in my parents spare bedroom, in fact we had booked a Luton and the services of my Brother-in-law. Got some unwelcome news on the chain today which meant that it is likely to be several more weeks before we exchange so seems a little premature to start shifting things just yet. Decided to postpone for a while and save on the storage costs until we get a firm date. We have pulled back on accepting a quote from the removal company too.

Drove into work today in record time, 45 minutes, and the journey was quite pleasant. Topped off with a delightful ten minutes watching a fox cub outwitting two cats in the office car park. At one point he was just 5 metres away from me and entirely unaware that he was being watched. Foxes are magnificent animals, just like miniature dogs, I can't understand why anyone would want to hunt such a noble creature. Cats excluded that is, obviously they have scores to settle.

Work was a delight again. I am really enjoying it and that is entirely genuine. I am left to get on with things with no distractions from PLs or emails, in fact I have still only got 5 emails in total after 1 full week. I'm about 3/4 of the way through my first development task and learning new stuff along the way. I'm quite pleased with what I have done so far but also amazed at how much stuff I had forgotten since my time at NatWest. I am now doing all the things I used to there and I am not restricted to a small aspect of UI, and not constrained by the frameworks.

The other developers are thawing and now laughing and joking with me a little more. I think they were sizing me up for the first few days but feel they can tease me a little now. Martin, the designer, is a petrol head (what is it with IT and cars?). He has three cars, one of them is a TVR, one an MG and the third a mini.

I have plugged in my old USB radio and I am catching up on the Archers.

Took a walk around Clifton again today. Getting a bit more adventurous and walked further down the hill toward the river Avon. Discovered a Subway sandwich shop and treated myself toa Vegi Delight. The whole village is now thronging with students. It makes for a very pleasant lunchtime stroll. Better than Tescos at Hampton at any rate :) I am toying with the idea of visiting the zoo one day. It's a ten minute walk from the office. In fact the Netherlands National circus has set up camp on the downs today. Loads of cars parked along the road as I made my way home. I can't believe that all the parking is free around Clifton. I guess that it is mainly residential but there are a lot of office workers out and about at lunchtime si there must be a lot of businesses like ours around.

Heard that Ian Mellor 'resigned' today. Haven't any details but chatted to Lionel on IM and he said he would fill me in on the details if I rang him. Foolishly I closed the IM session without taking his number down. Doh! He probably thinks I blanked him now? I even looked his number up on the BT directory site but it was not the right L Reynolds. The L Reynolds I called was a nice chap though, he was very understanding when I called him Lionel.

Had a quiet evening in with my parents. My mum had to brush away a tear because I bought her a little box of Cadbury's Roses. It was a last minute impulse buy too. They were on the till at Morrisons where I stopped off to buy a few veggie ready meals. Best 99p I have spent so far this week.