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Another move?

Yep, I’ve moved house again. Finally got out of the middle of town. No it’s just a few minutes home for me. No more traffic – terrific!

I’ve moved into a nice little cottage now, exposed beams and all. I was staring at the ceiling in my living room the other day, and It took me that those beams look just like a skeleton. The exposed bones of the house. Just though I’d share that with you.

Also, I just thought I’d complete my broadband NTL posts which I started back in December. I have to admit that since the orginal setup (which they utterly messed me around with) it was running as smoothly as I could hope for. Perhaps Virgin taken them over really picked up there customer care? Who knows…

Well that’s me for now.

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I've changed to electric green.

In the long and difficult struggle to fight global warming and pollution I’ve taken what must be the simplest step of all.



I quick phone call to Southern Electric meant I was paying for electricity from a renewable source: hydro-electric. I say “paying for” because I still think I actually get my power from the big menacing coal burning power station down the road, but at least my money is has its heart in the right place!



Also, I’m not entirelly sure that hydro-electricity is totally green anyway – I know of one hydro-electricity power station that is located in between two lakes, one high up in the hills and one much lower down. When the UK power grid needs extra power the flood gates open and water from the upper lake rushes down through turbines into the lower one. This is 100 % renewable… to a point… obviously the upper lake would haver to be replenshied faster than it was drained, this does not happen so what do you think they do? And this quite surprised me, when the power grid doesn’t need that extra power they take power away and use it to pump the water back up!



If you use SouthernElectric then you can have a look at the details here:

http://www.thepower2.co.uk/



Switch now! (It’s free and takes less than a few minutes). More and more electricity providers are doing this so check out you place now. (And if you find one for your area add a comment and tell everyone else.)



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It's been a while…

…and a lot of things have happened over the last month and a half.

Firstly, the biggy, I’ve moved house, and was the first time I’d moved with stuff I couldn’t fit all in my car. Not moved far though, just nearer the town centre, for a little less money with a little less space (and unfortunately a lot more noise…)

Secondly, I never finsihed my November story, but had very little time with all the moving.

Thirdly, went to amsterdam for a long weekend with Sharon was very enjoyable. Ann Frank’s house is certainly worth a trip, just be prepared to get a little emotional.

Fourthly, today I should get my results for the OU course I’ve been doing… but not had courage to look yet.

Fifth, just got a new Phone, it was the N93 I think I’ve mentioned before – got a cool Wi-fi connection on it which means I can surf the web for free in any open wi-fi access point. (But unfortunately not at home because I can’t transfer my web access as my new place has NTL and not BT, so I have no broadband access… I think I’m having withdrawel symptons!)

And there’s probably some other things I haven’t mentioned yet, but hopefully I’ll have time to write later and expand on the things I’ve mentioned above.

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Finished! Now I need some new deadlines…

It’s finally the end of another academic year – thats right my OU courses have now all been completed. Just sent my last assignment off yesterday – now I’m free to do nothing.

Well not nothing – I have to find a place to live soon as I’m moving out my flat – so that’s one deadline there.

However, that’s not really enough so I’ve signed myself up for a little challenge – to write a novel by the end of November, that’s “only” 50’000 words or about 1700 words a day. And the good news is I’m well on my way already, only 49,800 words to go now (which means I’m behind by about 4000 words…

#flag: OU, Novel, Flat

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I've got a living room!

It came, its here, I have somewhere to sit.

Yes, it only took three months but they are here and I think they look great.

My front room looks SO much better now, with the Futon (An ancient torture device) thrown out and my brand new sofa and chair in its place. Its sitting on them now, and I’d say it’s somewhere in the region of 1’000’000 times more comfortable than my futon…

I’ve been really worried that the delivery guys wouldn’t be able to get them up to my 3rd floor (or is that 2nd floor?) flat. In fact when I first met one of the delivery guys he looked up the first flight of stairs and said “It’s not going to get up there mate, there’s no room“, which was certainly reassuring… Luckily the other delivery guy knew that the sofa I’d bought actually had a really clever trick up its sleeve (or should I say through its underbelly) the sides of the sofa are designed to come off with a simple turn of a few screws. Hooray! (I didn’t even know that when I bought it, big bonus!)

Anyway, I’m well pleased with my new furniture, all I need to do now is buy a 32 Inch high definition LCD screen and my life will be complete (!)

#flag: Sofa, furniture, flat

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I've got a bedroom!

Its come at last. Two and a half month‘s after ordering it. I’ve finally feel like I’ve actually got a bedroom, instead of a few cardboard boxes I’ve been using as bedside tables!

Shipped all the way from Malaysia, I now have two bedside tables, a three door wardrobe and a 6 draw dressing table. Oh, and also two king size beds… You can’t have enough king size beds you know…. OK, so I actually got the second one because it came in a set with everything else but only worked out to be £10 more! So I’m going to try to sell it maybe at work or somewhere.

Nice dark wood, Japanese style, king size bed FOR SALE…

Edit: actually the spare bed is just a double one…


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Sit down and relax – not.

At the weekend I decided to buy myself a Sofa. Since I moved in to my new flat I’ve been siting on a futon – probably one of the most uncomfortable things ever invented to sit on, and when its in its bed position it isn’t much better (probably worst!), so it was definitely time to get something a bit more permanent.

So I decided to buy a sofa that was in a sale, had several hundred pounds off, and the store was offering interest free credit for two years which was a sweet deal as I didn’t real want to spend a lot of money all at once.

So I picked one out, and went through all the documents and signed my name at the bottom, the only thing now was to ring the finance company to confirm my credit and pay a deposit. As far as I know I’d have no problem with the credit so I paid the deposit and left the store before they had a final confirmation from the company… that was my first mistake….

About half an hour later i got a phone call saying the credit had fallen through and I wouldn’t be getting it. (As the information is confidential the finance company couldn’t tell me why, but the BIG problem was that they said they’d already confirmed the furniture from the manufacturer so unless I could find the money from somewhere else I would loose my £300 (pound sterling)

Dammit! (For moral of story find totd here!)

Conclusion – I’ve had to raid my savings to pay for it. (Well technically I haven’t yet, because I’ve got to wait 8 to 10 weeks for devliery…)

#flag: moan, flat, purchase

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Its here and its so broad…

Yep, you’ve guessed it, I’ve finally got Broadband in. Only took a week to set it all up, send me out a modem, and hook in. Not bad me thinks. Thanks PlusNet.

As I said before I’ll be reporting on how well they do, but so far I’m very happy with it. And I’ve even got a 2Mb connection – well it’s pretty fast for the UK anyway! (My last was only 512 k)

No, its late so I’m off to bed.

#flag: Broadband, PlusNet, link

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Broadband.

So I’ve made the plunge then and I’ve signed up for broadband with PlusNet. It was pretty cheap compared to some others, and it doesn’t have any download limits on. Also they were higly rated on ADSLGuide, a website I’d highly recommend if your looking to change or install your broadband.

Unfortunately, I made a mistake when I signed up and gave them my wrong delivery address so I had to ring up to change it. I called them on the phone and my first experience with them was a recorded voice on the line saying “Call waiting time’s are in excess of 15 minutes”, Great! Still, the good news is that it lied and I was only waiting about 5 minutes, which was good – although it was obvious they were busy at the time because they guy was speaking so fast I could hardly understand him!

It’s still going to take at least a week for it to be all set up, but when it is I’m sure I’ll be making regular reports of how good they are doing.

Now time for home. (I’m blogging from work!) Later.

#Flag: Broadband, PlusNet, links

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totd: Ice cream meltdown.

Hot apple pie and ice cream – my favourite desert. Just pop the pie in the over for 10 minutes if its small, and 20 minutes if its a big one.

BUT! If the ice cream is a bit to hard to scope out of its container, don’t be stupid enough to put it in the hot oven after the apple pie’s, even if it has been turned off for a bit. Ice cream is meant to be kept cold, and apparently so are the plastic containers…

In short: Ice cream containers will MELT even if slightly heated! (Note: it may look cool the way the box folds in on itself, but you just try getting the lid back on…Oh, and I expect melted plastic is poisonous in some way too…)

Doh.

#Flag: tip, ice-cream, food, oven, “Dont try this at home”, funny