I'm so terrible at updating this thing.

Anyway, here I am. And I do still read my flist every day, I just don't post!

I work. I get the train. I get train rage. (£960 for my ticket for 3 months this time around, and they haven't got me home on time for two months now! And it'll be more when I renew at the end of March. IF I renew...because....)

We're probably moving to London. That's the big news. We've talked about it for ages, I've talked a bit with my Dad (he's already going to come with my step mum and stay and go to the theatre - yayes!) but this latest price increase, plus Jojo hopefully getting a job end of this month/next, will be the kicker that makes us move.

We're leaning toward Acton (not South! Ick. North, probably.). Wembley wouldn't be too bad. I really want to be North of the river, because of work, and I don't want to be out East, so it was North or West. I don't like Shepherd's Bush, so we needed to be further out than that! And Acton, whilst not wildly exciting, is affordable (sums are current rate +bills+travel must equal slightly less than potential rent + bills.) And I'd like to be able to cycle to work, therefore keeping travel costs to a minimum. Plus we're not big on the nightlife. We're old and calm nowadays! We'd just like to chill, have parks close-ish, a few amenities not too many miles away, that sort of thing.

My big renting issues are  No Lower ground/garden/basement/ground floor flats. Ugh, can't cope with being at (or under) street level. Double glazing is a must. GFCH. Good transport within walking distance. Enough room to swing a cat. We'd prefer unfurnished, but a lot is furnished, so we could cope. We only own 3 book cases and a bed, really! And I'm not wild about flats which weren't purpose built, but, that said, I've seen some nice ones.

Anyway, any of you Londoners, feel free to tell me Acton is terrible/brilliant/too stabby/boring/where else I should live!

I take after my old man so much...I KNEW he'd be late, and hence, my cleaning is also late hahaha. Well, no, my cleaning was ALWAYS going to be late. But I knew it wouldn't matter. Besides, I sorted meself so the most important cleaning is done (floors, their bedroom) and am currently doing the bathroom - top tip, shiny taps and clean porcelain can hide a multitude of other sins XD. Then I shall do some gentle dusting/putting away etc.

(They should be here now, btw, and have just rung to say they're only at Winchester - so prolly a good hour and a half away!)

A couple of people have expressed interest in seeing me new flat, so here we go:




So there we go. And I shall go and unpack some more.

I'm unpacking. Unpacking books into our new flat - yayes!

Jonathan has already unpacked most of his books onto my bookshelf, so the top row and two of the next row down are taken up by Dale Brown etc.

I'm organising my books to try to make it look like I'm both intelligent and interesting to the casual observer. Jojo's helped with this by putting two shelves of 'classics' up. I've then put all my art books and poetry books and other interesting tomes close to the top. At the bottom I'm hiding all my books about sex and cars. My extensive collections of TV-Tie-ins will go somewhere near the middle. They're important to me, but I'm not sure they're helping my image. My Biggles collection will also go near the top - because damn, he's Biggles, and he's cool!

In other news, First Knight is on the TV. Every time I see Sean Connery I ACTUALLY think I'm watching my Dad. Same wrinkly face, same beard etc. Not the same voice, however.

...yeah, first day back blues, doesn't everyone have them today? Actually, I was fine, started the day with a wonderful cycle to work (following wind, how I love thee!) Then had an argument with Juju, then just worked the day away. Unloaded a few tonnes of steel - which was ZOMG so cold!!! I swear, it got colder between 0800 and 1000 than it was at about 0650 when I was out and about.

I thought I'de struggle to get up, but I was up at 0430, wide awake. Did go back to bed until the alarm at 0530, obviously, but still!

I guess lots of people aren't back yet though, as I only passed a couple of people on my way in to work today, whereas normally it's reasonably busy.

I've decided to try to do a picture a day from work and inflict it on you all...could be anything from me to one of the lads to something I've made to just a random shot of something that caught my eye. So now, Mn-Fri there will be Steel Yard Piccy of the Day! I will always put them behind cuts, phear not! And this will last until I forget to take one tomorrow the end of the year....hahahahahahaa, yeah right.

I'll have to bluetooth over todays later, when I can be bothered to get off my arse and find my mobile phone.

In other news...went shopping after work, bought pizza which was buy one get one free...yayes! Frozen pizza...but y'know, they're only wee....I'll fit it in the freezer no worries.

ZOMG. Flatmates...what are you doing?? I have managed to wedge it in after removing the outer box and completely unloading, then re-loading the freezer...but have had to sellotape the door closed! WHY do we have 7 packets of pitta bread?? And why are SIX of them open??? Ack!

I am, however, abso-frickin'-lutely ravenous today. I think it's being out int he cold all day. I just wanna eat! And I barely took any food to work, so I will have a nice hot pizza soon. Yum.

Well, it's not often that I spend a weekend in my flat. In fact, in the two years I've been living here, it's probably only about twice, and that's because people have come to stay with me. So This weekend, apart from going to work yesterday morning, I've basically been in and around the flat, doing chores - most of them long overdue.

Went out for a breakfast date with friends this morning, and after a full english was ready to take on the world.

Broke the vacuum cleaner - And, on a side note, given that I only touch a vacuum about four or five times per year, I find it unfair that I've now broken two in a row in our flat. However, I noticed a while ago that although we have a new Hoover HEPA filter super-silent vacuum cleaner now, the old one was still around. So I asked what was up with it, and apparently it 'didn't suck'. Now, our new Hoover one has NEVER sucked, for 'silent' read 'wail like a thousand tortured banshees' and the HEPA filter works so well because it doesn't suck up any dust in the first place, so there's nothing to filter... and then I just blew it up, so I decided to take a look at the old one, cleaned it, changed its bag and gave it a bit of luvvin' (washed its filters, then used a hair dryer to give them a blow dry etc) and now it sucks like a prostitute on overtime pay. So everyone's happy. I also found all its old nozzley ends.

So my room is now cleaner than it's been in a long time. I've not tackled the bookcase, and that still needs to be emptied, cleaned and re-arranged. I even moved my mattress for the FIRST TIME EVER. And as it went down on the new carpet, the square of carpet under it is fuzzy-wuzzy new and still the right colour, whereas all the other carpet it flat and sorta...not the same colour anymore. Not because I'm a minger - well, not just because of that...but mainly because of all the builders who tramped through the place during the renovations plus it's a cheap carpet that now has no pile left.

I also bought a new plant. Don't remember what the guy said it was, but it's got cool flowers and he didn't reckon I could kill it through neglect, so it was perfect.

I feel the urge to take some pics of my abode, actually...weehee! PicSpam!

And five minutes later..I'm back! With pics!

( my humble abodeCollapse )

It's never that tidy, man...treasure those images XD

My flatmate walks into my bedroom and says "That just sums you up."

I look questioning.

She points to my floor next to my bed. "A half drunk bottle of cheap vodka leaning against a bottle of Liquid Silk Lube."

I'm not like that at all, honest.

SO last night, about 9ish...we were told all our radiators and pipework are being ripped out at 0815 this morning. Can we move everything we own away from the walls and cover it with dust sheets.

OMFG. Angle grinders at dawn - literally.

Luckily jonboy1 was down with me to have a mid-week Sunday ;) so he helped move stuff, but as we had to sleep in the bed, and my room doens't have much more than stuff around the walls and the bed on the floor, we piled stuff around the bed and sort of dustsheeted the bookshelfs (now wobbling delicately in the middle of the room)

This morning I had every intention of being up early and sorting the other stuff...but when my alarm went off I hit 'off' instead of 'snooze' and when I woke up it was 0658!! If I'm not at the bus stop by 0705 then I'm late for work by about 5 mins, which means I lose 15 mins pay for the day, which comes out of my overtime paid time..so is worth quite a lot to me.

I ran up the hill at about 0703 and got my bus. Having fought dust sheets and lobbed everything onto my bed and covered it.

I get home at 1900 to find chaos. Lovely rads, but pipe work over our entire flat, huge drill holes through walls, rubble everywhere, dust everywhere etc.

Now my bed is my island..the only bit of space I own. Although I found the architect's drawings and worked out that there won't be a pipe on the wall where my bookshelf is, so I moved that back for safety.

Once again my world is dust and dust sheets. unuseable kitchen, bathroom is crazy...::le sigh::

Still, soon be over. And our landlady who complained that we'd put ONE pin tack in ONE wall will die. Now we have 4 inch holes through every wall...some of them drilled in error. HUGE plaster chunks missing and solder dripped over everything plus burn marks on the paintwork. Oh, and they've discovered BIG damp in the end room too. BWAHAHAHA.

So, when we moved into the flat, there were two silverfish in our bathroom. The were terrified of us, and we figured our being here would mean they left. They were quite young, it's probably their first place together, y'know?

Could we have been more wrong? They didn't leave. They had bebes. And then they had bebes, and then...you get the picture. I swear we're now living with about 20 generations of the bloody things. Little ones that run like fuck when you go near them, up to Grandaddy who sits on our blue bathmat and doesn't move cos he's so big he knows he can take your leg off if you go to tread on him.

So, anyone got any tips on silverfish eviction? Something less drastic than staking out the bathroom with a vacuum cleaner and picking them off one by one...