Plumbing

Posted: Tue 27 November, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work | Leave a comment »

At long last, the next stage of the work we need to do on the house is beginning. After numerous delays, the plumber has arrived today to take out the existing radiator off in the hallway, so that we can paint/decorate the hallway and put some of the bookshelves in.

Once we’re done with the decorating bit, he’ll come back and put in the new vertical rad we bought months ago, in order to keep the hallway warm while now being able to make use of the space that had been taken up by the current radiator.

Of course, it’ll also mean that the hallway is chilly for a while, as we’re not really at home this coming weekend – although I may find time to do some of it on the Sunday while Herself is working at another craft fair thingy. We’ll see.

But at least it’s another job that’ll be off the list by the end of the year – it might be early January before we get the rad reinstalled, but it’ll mean another room completed, and that’s definitely a good thing. It’ll also mean that my books can come in from the garage, and that is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

Five Year Plan: 20% done
Part Two – What’s next?

Posted: Mon 5 November, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, House Work, Own Business, Resolutions, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

So, as listed yesterday, the first year of that five year plan is completed. There’s still some work to be done on finishing off the foundations of it all, but everything is so far pretty much on track, which is a fairly impressive achievement in itself. (well, for me, anyway)

The problem with the next year of the plan (such as it is) is that a lot of it is either

  1. Hard to explain
  2. Related to business plans, which I (for obvious reasons) don’t want to bang on about here before I’ve got them started
  3. Dependent upon other occurrences, or on (to some degree) a bit of luck/chance
  4. All of the above

This means that the list is almost certainly going to be rather less exhaustive than last year’s one- and God knows, that one was no masterpiece of detail. So this is more an ‘overview’ than a list, and to some degree I also find that rather harder to keep track of and fulfil, due to the nature of the beast. I’ve got more detailed lists of plans and ideas carried around in an ‘off-line’ format- OK, OK, it’s all in my Filofax, which should probably be renamed “my Book of Lists and Notes”. (MBOLAN, or ‘T-rex’ for short))

So anyway, the basic ‘shell’ list is going to be something like this:

  1. Photography
    • Take more photos
    • Put the good ones in the portfolio site
    • Work on a couple of projects/themes
    • Possibly do a redesign of the portfolio site to fit in more with ‘brand ‘image’
    • Submit portfolio site and photos to various interested parties
    • Possibly make more use of Flickr, although that one’s a bit of a “don’t know”
    • Pull more attention to the portfolio site
  2. Business
    • Redesign/redevelop business website with a CMS etc.
    • Look at sorting out a proper business bank account
    • Keep generating new work
    • Continue with current work and clients
    • Get new contract – the one with the current place will definitely expire in ’08, due to tax/IR35 reasons
    • Work on developing new sites and business ideas
    • Minimise outgoings, increase incoming money
  3. Writing
    • Realistically? Get one solid idea written and done, if only for the head-space
    • Optimistically? Get two solid ideas written and done.
  4. House stuff
    • House alterations
      • Bathroom
      • Kitchen extension/upgrade
    • Garden alterations/work
      • Veg patch
      • Front garden/driveway
      • Main lawn etc.
      • Borders, beds, blah blah

And that’ll do for now. Like I said, it’s fairly “open”, but that’s still a fair old list from the look of it. I’m going to be a busy boy…

Five Year Plan: 20% done
  Part One – What/How I’ve done

Posted: Sun 4 November, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, House Purchase, House Work, Photography | Leave a comment »

So, I’m now one year through that five year plan. Which means that – fucking hell! – I must now be thirty-six. The last six months haven’t been quite so productive as the first six, but that’s because there also turned out to be a lot of other stuff occurring that wasn’t on the initial set of plans. You know, things like “buy house”, “work on house”, “work on garden”, that kind of thing. It’s meant that in some ways I hit a bit of a pause, but in others I’ve been productive as hell.

Of course, the first year was always going to be about groundwork, getting a load of the basics out of the way so that the next two or three years can make more progress. Well, that’s the concept. Whether it’ll work out like that or not, I don’t know.

Anyway, here’s the list that I wrote up for last November 5th, so let’s see how it’s all gone – the comments are in italics, in case you hadn’t guessed…

  • Photography
    1. Get a Macro Lens
    2. Get a Wide-Angle Lens
      still deciding whether I really need one. Maybe soon.
    3. Finish the Portfolio website
      Completed, and with extra uploads on a fairly regular basis
    4. Sell/Publish some stuff
      Working on it, submitting it, and had one used in the Killarney page of an on-line guide to Ireland, although not for any money.
    5. Join a local club
      Still haven’t really found one. There’s a local club, but *shrug* I dunno.
    6. Get a decent flash
      Done, a Speedlite 580EX
    7. Start aiming to get work and projects
      Started, and ongoing. I’ve sent out some initial letters to a couple of places regarding projects, and I’ll be sending out more over the next month or so.
  • Writing
    1. Finish at least one piece of writing
      still working on it, although not all that quickly
    2. When a piece is finished submit it to the right people
      Reliant on #1 being completed
    3. Just see how things go
    4. Write more on d4d™? Maybe.
  • Work / Websites
    1. Build and work on the other ideas I’ve got in my head
      working on it, and getting some of them sorted
    2. Work (as always) on smaller sites, and do as many as possible
      so far, three new sites launched, as well as the photography portfolio
    3. Sort out permanent job for the first part of ’07 while we’re house-buying etc.
      All done, and no need to get that nasty ‘proper’ job after all
    4. Redesign d4d™? It’s about time…
    5. Merge lots of hosting accounts into one reseller account, and onto one server
      done
    6. Start getting better at invoicing for work done
      in progress, and all being done a lot more efficiently
    7. Develop some ideas in partnership with others, and see how they do
      In progress – I’ve formed a couple of small collaborations, and they seem (so far) to be working well
  • Education
    1. Sign up with Open University
      initially for a refresher course, and work from there
    2. Look at an official course/qualification in Photography?

      Yeah, OK, ‘Education’ is going to be the category that falls off the radar for ’07/’08, I’m afraid – mainly due to motivation issues, but also down to the fact I’m permanently busy doing other stuff. As such, any progress on this one is going to be a way off in the future

  • Other
    1. Restart the Archery once we’ve moved
      Made all the enquiries, booked to go and do it, but not yet got round to attending. I suck.
    2. Move to Norfolk
    3. Sort out work in Norfolk
    4. Buy house
    5. Start work on house, garden
      • I must say here, Herself has been the prime organiser of most (if not all) of the stuff below. We’ve got a long way so far, and there’s still a long way to go, but most of it is down to Herself’s organisation rather than mine
      • Wood Burner
      • Wood Pile
      • Making house initially liveable-in
      • Initial sort out of garden, lawn, veg patch
      • Dealing with various electrical issues etc.
    6. Get Planning Permission for house alterations
    7. Get Building Regs for hourse alterations
      all done
    8. Buy a car
      Bought, insured, taxed, driven it for about 10,000 miles already

Garden Guff

Posted: Sat 20 October, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work | Leave a comment »

Yes, today has been spent back out in the garden, straightening up an existing pergola, and then putting decking at the bottom of it, along with an extra dollop of decking to one side.

Obviously, we have help this weekend. Herself wouldn’t trust me to do this by myself – and with good reason, I’d have screwed it up royally. Hell, there’s still time.

Already we’ve found one problem, which is that with the decking in place, the floor level in the pergola is raised to the point where I run the risk of whacking my head into the pergola roof/rafters/beams/whatever the hell they’re called. Oops. I’ll just have to be careful, won’t I?

Still, it’s all gone OK, so that’s something.

Building Regs

Posted: Tue 25 September, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work | 1 Comment »

So we got told yesterday that the Building Regs application for the stuff we’re wanting to do on the house has been approved.

It means we can now start to go ahead with knocking the current bathroom and toilet rooms together- and removing all the bloody horrible green tiles and avocado bathroom suite. Ah, the 70s, don’t you just love them?

I don’t yet know exactly when we’ll go ahead with the work- we’ve got to find a reliable plumber first, which appears to be quite a challenge in itself- but at least this is the final stage for the moment in getting everything organised and ready to go. Happy day.

Of course, once the work starts we’ll still have some kind of site visit to organise with the Building Regs people, but that’s a way down the line yet. For now, well, it’s just good that we’ve got everything we need (except for the bloody plumber) in order to get us started when we’re ready.

New Seeds

Posted: Sun 2 September, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Green Garden, House Work | 1 Comment »

We’re already getting organised for next year when it comes to the veg garden, greenhouse, and the decision about getting chickens.

Last week I went to the Real Seed Company, and ordered (among other things) some chocolate brown sweet peppers and some fluorescent purple chilli peppers. They should both be interesting – this year we’ve had massive success with normal chillis, and did OK on the bell peppers, although they weren’t great, and had a nasty reaction to sporadic watering.

Over the winter, we’re going to be making some additions and alterations to the greenhouse we inherited from the previous owners. It needs new shading put up, the automatic vent openers need replacing, and all that kind of general maintenance guff. Should be fun.

And yes, we’re even thinking of getting some chickens. It won’t be ’til Spring now, but that gives us some time to do some planning, get things in place, and all that kind of thing. We got a couple of books this week, so it should be interesting to see how things go.

Bank Holiday

Posted: Mon 27 August, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, House Work | Leave a comment »
  1. Mowed the lawn
  2. Changed the wilderness at the far end into something that will one day be a chicken run, and then into another veg patch
  3. Dug up two full rows of potatoes, and one full row of carrots
  4. Moved a whole dollop of wood from the driveway to the woodpile – now it just needs to be cut up
  5. Did some shopping
  6. Visited the garden centre
  7. Put together two new compost bins
  8. Connected up the new water butt to the other two
  9. Tested the new site for work, that’s releasing on Wednesday

There’s probably a couple of other things as well, but I just can’t think what they are right now.

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