Posted: Wed 14 October, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Food, London, Thoughts, Travel |
On Saturday, I had another London day – they seem to be becoming more common for me currently, and there’s a few more in the near future – which was thoroughly enjoyable, in sometimes unexpected ways.
The primary reason for going was that another friend had bought tickets for a matinee performance of the National Theatre’s “Three Days in the Country“, which I knew absolutely nothing about, but was happy to go and see. (In fact, that was pretty much the theme for the day, as it worked out)
However, me being me, I decided to make a day of it, and went in dead early. I went in by train, for once (it being an easy walk from Euston down to Waterloo and the South Bank for the NT) and had a basic outline ‘plan’ of “Get in to London, walk down to somewhere central, do something, meet up, see the play”. It really was that basic.
So, for the random thing to do, I ended up going to the Royal Academy and seeing their exhibition of works by Ai Weiwei. I’d been in two minds about seeing this – mainly through not knowing much more about Weiwei than the general media gubbins, and not being overly taken with the stuff of his that I knew of.
As it turned out, the exhibition was brilliant – I really enjoyed it, far more than I’d expected to. As with the Hepworth one I saw a while back, it still had too many people dithering around being fuckwits (which rankles a lot when you’re paying to go in, on allegedly limited numbers) but was still great.
I’ll write more about the exhibition in a different post (because it requires more detail than this one) but if you do get the chance to see it, it’s well worth doing so.
From the RA, I crossed the road and visited Fortnum and Mason, which I hadn’t been in for years. You can be sure I’ll go back there soon for some naughty treat-like things that you don’t see anywhere else. While there, I had a brunch of eggs hollandaise, which was ace. It was just that kind of day.
And then a continued walk down to the South Bank, meeting up with friends, having lunch, seeing the play (also excellent) and eventually walking back up to Euston and heading home.
A really enjoyable and utterly relaxed day, with 20km walked as a side benefit.
Posted: Fri 9 October, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Domestic, Driving, Food, Milton Keynes, People, Weirdness |
Last night, while driving home from a meal, I got stopped by the police. The conversation was kind-of entertaining…
“Hello sir. Do you know why we’ve stopped you?”
“Well, it’s half nine on a Thursday and there’s been football and rugby on, so I’m guessing that you think I’ve been drinking, because I’ve taken two roundabouts absolutely correctly, which is something that no other sod in Milton Keynes ever does”
“Yes, sir. You’re driving carefully and trying to not attract attention, so we think you might be over the limit. When did you last have a drink?”
“Ummmmm. June?” (I’ve since realised I had one in September, but hey ho)
“OK, can you blow into this device please”
“Yeah, no worries. I should warn you though, I’ve just eaten a brutally spicy curry, so it might melt the little plastic tube”
I blew an absolute zero – same as I have on the other two occasions I’ve been breathalysed. And the tube didn’t quite melt, but it was close. I’ve also now recommended the curry place to the local police, which has to be a good thing.
However, I can’t deny that it does gall me slightly that I’ve now been pulled over twice in my driving history – and on both times, it’s been for driving properly and to the limits/conditions, rather than anything that’s actually wrong to attract attention.
Posted: Thu 8 October, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Gigs, London, Music, Sociable |
Having bought the tickets for Massive Attack yesterday, it’s looking like January 2016 is going to be a busy one…
Alongside normal life, I now have tickets for
- Henry Rollins in Bristol
- Henry Rollins in London
- Massive Attack in Manchester
- Massive Attack in London
- Billy Connolly in London
So yeah, that’s going to be pretty eventful…
Posted: Wed 7 October, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Gigs |
As regular readers will recall, I’m a bit of a fan of Massive Attack, and have been for a long, long time. I’ve seen them live a good few times, and really love a lot of their stuff.
So I was thoroughly happy to see the news that they’re releasing new music this year, and doing a tour in Jan/Feb 2016.
Pre-sale tickets became available for the tour this morning, and I’m now seeing them twice – once in Manchester, once in London.
Needless to say, I’m already looking forward to it!
Posted: Fri 2 October, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Domestic, Getting Organised, Own Business, People, Sociable, Thoughts, Work-related |
This week I’ve secured and extended my current contract through ’til the end of the year – which is a pretty decent situation to be in.
However, I know that at some point in 2016 I’ll be looking for something new, and it’s making me think a bit about how it’ll work out.
The thing is, I’ve now been working in the current one for a year, and I’ve very much become used to working in my own office, at my own speed, with my own company. One day a week of on-site work, which has been enough on the whole workplace socialising thing for me, and the rest of the time I’ve been able to avoid general inanity and bullshit – which has been lovely.
I’m convinced it’s one of the things that has resulted in my general equanimity and contentment this year (as written about recently) so in some ways I’m really not looking forward to a return to four or five days a week on-site – which is the likelihood for the next contract, unless I can get very lucky and another ‘working from home’ contract – but we’ll just have to see how it all works out.
I’m not going to borrow trouble, though. It’s just something I thought about while looking at the contract extension and so on.
And really, only time will tell how things work out in the new year.
Posted: Thu 1 October, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Domestic, Laziness, Own Business, People, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related |
As regular readers (what few there are) know by now, this year I’ve been renting a small office in a big building. On each floor there’s ten or so small to medium-sized businesses, so there’s a fair number of things going on at any given time, and deliveries are just par for the course.
What surprises me (still) though is how unaware so many of the people in those companies are. It’s a regular occurrence for delivery people to come up and not find a business, so ask another one where the recipient business is. And it seems like hardly anyone else knows even who’s on this floor, let alone the others in the building.
All of which strikes me as pretty strange. After all, the people at this end of the building walk past all the other businesses/offices on the way here. Yet they obviously haven’t paid attention to the signs outside the other offices, saying who’s in each one.
I know the names of all the companies – not the employees, obviously, that’d be stalkery – and where they are on this floor. Come to that, I’ve a pretty good idea of all the businesses in the building – if not a precise direction then at least to the point of which floor, and which way to go out of the lifts to get to them.
Surely I’m not the only person who does this? It’s only a basic awareness of stuff around me, after all…
Posted: Fri 25 September, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, 2015 vs 2014, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Thoughts, Work-related, Write More, Writing |
While I was wandering around London last weekend, I had the time to do some thinking about the whole ‘not feeling the need to move on’ thing, which was much-needed.
There’s a lot of reasons for not feeling the need to move on at the moment, as I’ve written about already. I won’t bother with all those again, because this one is actually something else, something I hadn’t really looked into massively.
Basically, at the moment I’m really quite content with life and how it’s shaping up.
That has it’s good and bad aspects, for sure. Obviously it’s good that I’m content, that I’m at peace with things, and not yearning for change. It’s not something I’m massively familiar with, it’s all quite new, but I’m not going to complain.
On the downside, it also means I’m not feeling a huge level of urgency about things – certainly not for moving, but also with life in general. It’s kind-of all steady at the moment, which is fine for the time being. I don’t know that I want it to stay like that long-term though.
I am a lot less angry and irritable, though – and that’s primarily a good thing. I’ve noticed, looking back, how much D4D™ has changed over that time, looking back to when I started vs now. Life’s a lot calmer – but it’s also quite a lot duller.
Sure, people still piss me off. Life still pisses me off. But it seems (at the moment) to wash off again pretty quickly. I don’t feel the need to rant, to vent things out when I do get pissed off. (Well, not as much, anyway) But that also makes D4D™ less ranty, less annoyed, and somehow less amusing – both for me, and for anyone else still reading this rubbish.
It also goes some way to explaining (I realised) why I’m having problems getting going on some of the writing ideas. I’m not angry enough, not needing to vent out onto keyboard/paper. I need to find another way to do things, which may take time. We’ll see.
All told it’s a good thing, a sign of positive change – but it’s also going to have some knock-on effects, requiring some though and some further changes. That’ll take some time, and some sounding out of options. But it’s all good, and all entertaining.