April / May 2004

I wish I hadn’t taken so long to get a journal entry written.  April and May have been very busy and very significant in my life.

Easter was in April and I had made all kinds of plans to do some fun things with Kat but as with many of my plans, they didn’t actually come to fruition.    We ended up lazing around Romford and then made a mad dash to Boston to install a computer that Kats Dad had bought, and then another dash back to my parents house again.  That day was the first day that our respective parents had met each other and things seemed to go quite well.

Other things Kat and I did in April and early May was to go on the London Eye.  The actual date we did that escapes me just at the moment.  I’ve been on the wheel twice before but I think this time was my favourite.  The weather was slightly overcast but it was still a good view up there.

On the May Day weekend I took Kat to Colchester to meet Paul and his girlfriend.  Kat hadn’t been to Colchester before and I can’t remember the last time I went before then.  Unfortunately Tim wasn’t around and we never got to meet any of the other friends I know from there.  We had fun though, we shopped and we went to the uni.

We spent lots of April organising our moving in together.  May 7^th was my last day working for Dalgleish.  Before that though, the first Wednesday in May I went to a going away party for me that was well attended at The Crispin by Liverpool Street Station.

So on May the 8^th I moved in with Kat here on the outskirts of Birmingham.  Very on the outskirts in fact, I could throw stones into Worcestershire from our main room windows.

It has been fun getting the place from a shell to a lived in place.  However  it hasn’t all been smooth riding.  My “Az” computer bit the dust when I turned it on the first time.  I am insured, but I still have to get a PC engineer to create a report for me.  I don’t know any around here so that isn’t great.

There are a few things that need sorting around the flat.  A window handle is broken and the rings on the oven need fixing, not sure what stopped them working but they didn’t work one day and haven’t done since.  I have to take a day off work to get that fixed next weekend.  After a week or so an electrician came and sorted out the wiring in our house so we could have lights that worked properly and a shaver point that worked.  I have since bought a new shaver unit.

I registered for work and was initially offered a job at Yellow Pages only for them to change their minds and as I was coming back from the city centre rather disappointed I was offered a job at Legal & General.  Somewhere I still am at the moment.  I like the place, especially as no one has yet to call me “the temp” if only it paid a little more money then I’d be really happy, but I guess I always find fault with a job somewhere.

My fascination for monopoly boards is rearing its head again.  I now have at the flat a Wonders of The World Monopoly and a normal Monopoly as well as the Simpsons Monopoly I bought today.  I also have a giant Coca Cola bottle for change, something else I’ve wanted for ages.  Unfortunately I think it is going to take about ten years to fill up anywhere near the top, I might be 40 before I get near – how frightening is that.

Just as June tips over (June already!) I have booked a holiday for Kat and I to go to Florida in the winter and also ordered ADSL.  Kat got a position change where she works and a slight pay rise, it was better than being made redundant which was what was threatened.

I went back to see my parents at the weekend, the Whitson holiday, that was a fun weekend, we saw The Day After tomorrow, a film I must remember to enter into my Movie Listings page, its been a while since I went to see a film.  Then on Sunday we went out for lunch at the Liberty Bell and then went on to the pub quiz.  It seemed like I was never away by Sunday, but everything looked a bit strange when I arrived late on Friday night after a mammoth wait for a train to London.  They also made us travel via Marylebone on the way back to Birmingham.  I got to read my Dave Gorman book and Kat got some sleep but  I think we’d both rather have been on a fast train home.

I’m now reading Bill Bryson books and have an idea for another short to long story called “The Temp”, well actually I thought about it whilst I was at Dalgleish, but it’s a bit more refined and a lot less angry now.

June promises a full month.  I hope I remember enough to make the next journal entry an interesting one.