Successful Dining

Posted: Sat 30 May, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Organised, Introspective, Single Life, Solo Dining | Leave a comment »

One of my things this year was to get myself being better at going out to restaurants on my own – something I’ve never been keen on, and one of my weaker points when it comes to being single.

So I’d made it a goal – a resolution, if you will – to go out and eat more in places on my own.

Thus far, it’s actually been remarkably successful (He said, modestly) and I’ve been really pleased, if I’m honest.

As well as the ‘proper restaurants’ I’ve been to – Grillstock in Bath, Kitchin in Edinburgh, Meat Liquor in Brighton, and a couple of others – I’ve also been doing the same sort of thing when I work on-site on Mondays.  That’s more pub-restaurant than anything else, but it still applies to the ethos.  Basically, when I’m on-site and it comes to getting home, I can choose to sit in solid traffic for two hours and more, or I can wait in the pub, have some food, and then drive home in 50 minutes.  Really, that’s a no brainer.

All told, I’m getting used to it, it’s not something that causes me a problem per se any more – and that rates as a success in my eyes.

There’s still more places to go, more restaurants on the list, and it’s all good.

Changing Terms

Posted: Mon 25 May, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Advertising, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Milton Keynes, Parking, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Last week, Milton Keynes suddenly changed their parking rates. Not by a lot, all things considered – it costs me about 20p a day more now – but it didn’t seem to have been very well publicised.

(Disclaimer : There may have been notices in local papers or whatever, but I don’t get those, so didn’t see anything. But there was nothing I saw on parking meters etc., so regardless of how much it was discussed/publicised beforehand, I hadn’t seen anything. And I’m sure I can’t be the only one)

One of the other changes, though, was that now you have to pay on Bank Holidays as well. That’s not been the case up ’til this week – it’s always been free – and it’s all just a bit sneaky.

Because it’s only happened for the second bank holiday weekend in May. So anyone who’s known it was free from the first weekend would be quite within their rights to assume it would be the same this weekend.

There’s more information about that change – they’ve put stickers on the parking meters etc. – but if someone had seen three weeks ago that they didn’t need to pay, would they even go near the parking meter this time?

I don’t know – but there’s definitely a lot of parking tickets been issued today on the bit outside my office building. Which indicates that my theory may be correct on this one…

Rationalising Things

Posted: Thu 21 May, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

Over the years, I’ve had a number of random ideas, and then bought up the relevant domain names.  I’ve done the same with business concepts, and also several writing ideas and the like.

When all’s said and done, that means I’m left with a whole bundle of websites and domains I don’t use – or (worse) that I don’t update, becoming the ‘net equivalent of ghost towns and cemeteries. They’re all started with good intentions, of course – but spreading myself over that many sites just isn’t going to happen.  I feel stupidly guilty when I remember one of them, and realise it hasn’t been updated in a year or more.

So over the rest of this year, I’m going to give up some of them completely, merge others, and really just rationalise things into a shape and state I can manage and maintain. Hopefully that’ll then give me some of the headspace I need – or at least reduce the guilt levels a bit – and I’ll see what progress can then be made.

D4D™ will, of course, survive the cull – as will the sites for my writing, and company.   Other than that, there’s a couple I’ll keep because I use them for other things, but over the next year there’s definitely going to be a reduction in the sites and domains I own and maintain.

Domestic Simplicity

Posted: Thu 14 May, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Housing | 1 Comment »

As has been pointed out before, I am emphatically Not very practical.  I can do some stuff, but I’m not good at it, and more likely to fuck it up than not.  And usually I’m OK with that – I accept my limitations on that score, and just pay someone to do it who knows what they’re doing, and is infinitely more likely to not fuck it up.

But I’m always happy to have a go, so long as there’s a back-up plan.

This week though, I didn’t have that Plan B, but the simple job worked out OK.

Basically, one of the brackets on the toilet seat gave out, and snapped. That seat’s been there a *long* time, so it’s not a massive surprise.  But obviously it’s something that requires replacing sooner rather than later.

And that’s what happened – I got the new seat, and also some pliers because I had a feeling it was going to be a twat to undo the remaining fittings and screws. It had been there a while, remember. And it’s rusted and nasty. So – pliers.

I got home, used the pliers, got the old seat off, put the new one in the right place, and did it all up. And it’s all gone together fine, first time.

It’s a small thing (story of my life) and I’d fully expect to be told “Jesus, anyone can replace that kind of thing” – and it’s true, they can. But for me, it’s still a nice feeling, knowing it just got handled and replaced with no hassles and hindrances.

That’s all.

Three Years In One Place

Posted: Tue 5 May, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Introspective, Single Life, Thoughts, Time, Travel | Leave a comment »

It’s now three years since I moved into the current house – which also means I’ve been single that long.  How time flies, and all that rot.

I’m definitely still here for another six months (that’s when the current tenancy expires) and I’m still undecided on what I do from there.

I suspect I’ll stick with it for another year’s tenancy, to be honest – unless anything in life changes radically in that period.  That’s quite scary in some ways, it’s almost like I’m feeling more settled and (almost) putting down some roots.

That’s not the case though – the current place isn’t where I want to stay longer-term, but at the moment it’s just convenient, and – as I’ve said before – makes travelling easy to just about anywhere else.

A Very Good Deal

Posted: Sun 3 May, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Shopping, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

Over the weekend, my toaster finally died. (You can tell this one’s going to be interesting, can’t you?) It’s done fairly well, daily service for three years, if not more. Over Easter it had started playing up, but then on Saturday it gave up completely.

So – off to the retail superstore of gloom. (It’s closest, I couldn’t be arsed with faffing about too much, and I had some vouchers to use up)

I had a look, and decided on this one, mainly because it’s purple – I’m shallow like that – and because it was £10 off the marked price, so £40 instead of £50. Fair enough.

But when I got to the tills, it scanned at … hang on … £19?  OK, I’ll check it with the customer services, but that’ll do.

As it was, I also had a number of vouchers (all in “You would’ve saved £x at a different store, so here’s the difference” price-match vouchers) that came to £25. So I effectively ended up with Tesco paying me £6 for my new toaster…

I don’t know quite how it all worked out like that, but I’m not going to complain.

[Additional] : When I went to customer services to check, in case a) the price was wrong or b) their system was wrong, I waited ages to be seen and then the person involved said “Oh, for electrical enquiries you’ve got to go back upstairs and ask them“. To which my thought response was “Fuck that, if you can’t be arsed to check it, I can’t be arsed to report it any further“.

So – a nice new toaster for  the princely sum of minus six pounds.  I can live with that.

Creatively Becalmed

Posted: Fri 1 May, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective, NCFE Course, Photography, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

This year so far – and probably for a bit longer than that, if I’m honest – I’ve not been getting all that much done on a creative front, and I don’t really know why.  It’s more a feeling of being bogged down, uninspired, and just not in the mood.

Writing is going better than anything else – lots of ideas, but nothing is particularly gelling at the moment. I’ve got a couple of things started, but it’s still bogging down, and not flowing.

Photography-wise, I haven’t even taken my camera out in ages. Really it’s been since I did the NCFE course, which is a bloody long time now. I don’t know why that seemed to flick the ‘can’t be arsed’ switch, but it has.  I’ve tried a few things and ideas, but it’s just all a bit “meh”, with no real desire to take the photos.

In some ways, the day-trips over the last few months have helped on that – I’ve taken photos, even if ‘only’ with the phone (although that’s a surprise, considering how good they’ve come out) but still can’t really bring myself to take the actual camera out for a day. A lot of that is also because I can’t be arsed with lugging it around and faffing about, but mainly it’s just the faff of it all at the moment.

I’m sure things will change again – I certainly hope so – and that the changes will be positive for once. The rest of this year to date has been positive, so I’m hoping that once I have some headspace and time, I’ll be more prompted.

(And I’m sure I’ve written about this a couple of times this year already, so forgive the repetition. It’s just something that’s bugging me at the moment)

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