Balance and Boredom

Good Evening!

I'm living such a weird life at the moment... spending way too much time away from home, getting nothing practical done... but I'm mostly on top of the boredom thing. Now just have to make sure my life is balanced enough that I don't end up killing myself!

OK... I'll run you through the last month and a half. I came back from skiing and there was work... only.

And work was good! Really interesting. I've been given the opportunity to develop improvements to our system that I suggested - a freedom I didn't imagine I would have within the first few months at Mintel. But apart from work, my social life wasn't really going anywhere. Life in my house has been much quieter since Lee left, Phil's been doing temp jobs and saving cash, and Andrea's been studying *sigh* so the really good backup of sociable housemates was fading rapidly... but somehow I think I overcompensated :-)

Firstly, I started dragging Claire to salsa! We go to a Tues night class in Lee - Debbie is one of the teachers, she's really good and taught at the old class I used to go to (the one that burned down... did I mention that??). Since I spend the whole day sitting these days, it's so good to move about a bit. I *need* to go back this week - we've missed the last few lessons!

Next, I started meeting up with random friends. I met Joanna and Mike in Krakow during summer, and they moved to London about a month afterwards. They came over for dinner before Christmas, but then I hadn't seen them for ages. We met up for a couple of nights in Feb, ate at some really nice places and saw some jazz. We saw the "Fat Cats" at the 100 club - Linn invited me and suggested the venue, but in the end she was too busy sorting out a deal for clients (on a Sat night) to be able to join us! Perhaps life isn't so glamorous for lawyers, after all :-( ... Anyway back to the point, Joanna and Mike have now both got architecture jobs and seem to be settling in quite nicely. I *must* introduce them to my other group of random cool friends I've been catching up with recently, the walking crew.

At the end of last year (before it got reaaaaly freezing! Ohh haven't mentioned yet that it's been snowing tons here!) I went walking with a group of Germans and Dutchmen to Henley Bridge... The "walk ringleaders" are Stefan and Martin... they invited me to the Battersea Beer Festival a couple of weeks ago. There's a club here called CAMRA (the "Campaign for Real Ale") and they run these events... well try to imagine a crowd where the average participant has a 10-inch wavey beard (Werzel Gummage impersonators, all of them??). Haha but was really good fun, and tried some nice ales (the best - Farne Island Pale Ale, brewed by Border [& Hadrian??]). I dragged Tony and Petr from work too, so was nice to get the IT guys out and about a bit.

The weather wasn't too nice, but they were planning a walk on the Sunday, and I ended up walking the eight miles between Otford and Eynsford with them... it was spectacular - we wound around oast houses and climbed up and down muddy hills to reach a couple of castles and a Roman villa... although it was after I'd been out with Mike and Joanna at the 100 club, and hiking on 3 hours sleep was a bit testing at times! Lunch was Pheasant and veggies at the Kings Arm pub... love trying random food :-) Mind you still haven't done the whole jellied eel thing yet!

And in the last few weeks - work has been *really* busy. I worked on Sat for two weeks running, but needed last weekend off (more about that in a sec). We're working on a new release of our new product monitoring site GNPD... the current plan is to have the site ready for testing on the 14th, beta release on the 21st and full public release a month later... fingers crossed! Hope there's not too many weekends of work required as it's quite tiring.... and really cold in the office.

But still managed to get out and about... after the first Sat I worked there was Liz's (walk leader Stefan's gf's) birthday party (at South London Pacific... haha cheesy name but they make really good cocktails and a really good atmosphere). We danced until 2-ish, and I didn't feel like going home - had to make the most of my one day weekend! So I went with Martin to my old crepe shop on Old Compton St. After walking round in circles for a bit (err a bit concerning cos we both think we've got good direction sense) we managed to get there. Hrmm don't think I mentioned this story last summer - I dragged some teaching collegues there near the end of the school year, then went there with Phil the week after... and spent too much time talking to the really friendly Polish waitresses behind the bar. I had such a good time talking to Ursula that I realised that the whole talking-at-work thing was quite annoying, and I *GAVE HER MY NUMBER!*.

Arghh! I'd never handed my number to a waitress... it was really quite odd... I walked away and thought "Sam, you idiot, you were just having a nice chat and now she'll think you're weird!". I didn't want to seem like a stalker so I never went back... until this time with Martin a couple of weeks ago. I didn't expect the same waitress to still be there (as I thought they were only in London for summer) but she was! I didn't mention anything to her about what had happened 8 months ago, but as I sat sipping my capuccino, she asked "are you Sam??". I couldn't even remember the poor girls name, but she remembered who I was, when I was in the shop last, and what I used to work as... turns out that they were so busy on the night I was there that she had lost my number. "No problem" said her friend, "he's been here two weeks in a row, he'll be back again soon"... and silly Sam goes and disappears for 8 months! We're in email contact now so hopefully I'll be able to drag Ursula, her boyfriend and her crepe-shop friend out and about at some stage.... tis always good to meet randoms :-)

OOh and then the next week I worked I went *proper* clubbing. I'd like to go more often - tis not often that I go to a big name place. I went to "The End" with James, George, and his girlfriend (gee I'm bad with names at the moment!). It was quite good - but as you can imagine I was pretty tired after working the whole week and going out straight from work on the Saturday. I definately liked the quieter, funky room better than the loud electronic one... Hrmm won't be much longer that I can avoid being firmly mid-20s!

So it's not been all fun and games - been doing *something* productive - I'm moving out! I've been here for nearly 2 years, so it's about time to move on. After the clubbing night I went to Canary Wharf to meet up with my to-be housmates - I'm looking around at properties with Katie, Rob and Nasrine... After discussing where we wanted to go and researching for a week, we took off and saw two properties Saturday, and saw another one tonight. Currently we're looking pretty much anywhere east of Vauxhall, west of Surrey Quays and north of Clapham (inclusive). I'm not too picky, so long as I have a dining room where I can talk to my friends while I cook for them in the kitchen! :-) I'm handing in my notice tomorrow, so I *need* to find somewhere... otherwise I suppose I'll be dumping my gear wherever I can and crashing with someone ;-) But nahh I'm sure it will be fine. Buying my Mum a flight over from Australia for a combined xmas/bday present so moving in April should be a good plan to ensure that I'm settled before she arrives in May.

Wish me luck people! I'm actually having too much fun looking around properties, so shouldn't be too hard to find something.

Ooh details of my birthday dinner here tomorrow! But for now I'm going to fix a cuppa and get an early night. Keep well :-)

Posted by Sam at March 07, 2005 11:06 PM