Digging

The council (or their friends) have been digging up our road. So far this year they've spent more time digging up our road than I've spent drinking tea, and less time filling in potholes than I have spent drinking coffee!! I'm not sure they have their priorities quite right.

First they put in traffic calming and road crossings in at the entrance to the road. I'm convinced it makes the road less safe rather than more safe, as you have to swerve into the middle of the road and towards traffic coming road the corner off the main road. I could draw a diagram, but I want to tell you about the second digging project of the year, so I'll skip over it for now.

Last week, holes appeared at intervals along the road. They were clearly working on a supply route for water, gas, electricity or sometime.

On Friday our gas was off. I had to resort to fast food when I discovered that our hob wasn't working. Still, it's not too important when the sun is out and summer is approaching. So I assumed it was all part of the process and didn't worry any more about it.

On Monday things were different though. I got back from a weekend away and Housemate Paul greeted me with the news that the gas was still off. This was a little more worrying, because the road was all filled in and the only reminder that anything had been there was a pile of cones and barriers ready to be picked up. I was starting to worry whether it was something in our house, but at 10pm I thought I'd look online on the off chance that there might be a helpline for this kind of thing. As it turned out, it was very easy and I was soon calling National Gas Grid plc.

A very kind gentleman calmly told me that he was very worried for my safety. I must not turn anything electrical on or off for fear of explosions, and I must isolate the gas supply to the house immediately and ventilate the house in any way possible. A gas man would call within an hour and make sure we weren't going to die in our sleep.

This all seemed a little over the top, but I was impressed by the fact that they were dealing with me seriously so I went along with it all. Except I turned on the telly. I've been turning electrical things on and off all the time and not had any problems, so I wasn't going to miss out on some TV for that. Somewhere across town a rather tired gas man got out of his bed and into his van so he could come and see me. He had a good sniff, using his rather tired nose, and a gas monitor. It turns out that there was no gas being supplied to our house, as we suspected. He reassured us, and we went off to our separate beds across town.

This afternoon, I came back from work to find this note through the door.



It turns out that they had managed to disconnect our gas supply during the road digging and had not reconnected it. This evening, there was also a brand new hole at the top of the road. A hole in the road, all for us! I feel so honoured!

My life - updated

Well, a lot has happened since the last time I mentioned anything. I think the best place to start would be at my last newsy post here.

I mentioned three things: being asked to move out of our house, having an insecure job and having a good holiday.

The landlady changed her mind so we can actually stay in our house. It's not a perfect house, not least because my room measures around 8' by 9', which is okay but I'd like more (and I'm not usually a person who says they need more of anything).

My job is still not secure, and incredibly, they have still not decided what I am going to be doing in the company. I don't think I'm going to be made redundant in the next few weeks, but dragging it out for months doesn't help morale in the place. Still, I'm less concerned about that now because we have a rolling one month contract on the house so we can basically move out very quickly if the job disappears. Everything is connected, as people always say.

The holiday story doesn't quite end there either. I mentioned that I ended up closer to two people and less close to a third. Well, that trend continued. I ended up dating one of them and seeing a lot of the second, while the third doesn't really talk to us and seems to have given up on The North, or at least our little corner of it, and is desperate to leave without saying another word to anyone. I don't like falling out with people especially when it affects a large group of people, but despite efforts to include him in social activities, it's not happening because all he wants to do is leave.

It seems like the last month has just been a progression of what has gone before. But then what do you expect? I mean, who are you to expect that my life fits into short blog-post size chunks? People like you are very infuriating when you start pushing me around and forcing your expectations on me. How dare you?!

If you must, there is one new thing. Martin's girlfriend Kelly has been living in or house for most of the year I have been living in The North, but she moved out recently. She has been a good housemate in my opinion, added a little je-ne-sais-quoi (spelling?) to the house. I have hardly lived with only blokes the whole time I have been here (despite all the anticipation that I was feeling). Let the fun begin!

A month without a post

When you get out of the habit of blogging it feels very strange to come back to it. I can hardly believe it has been almost a month. I have been battling with myself a bit because I don't really know what I should put in a blog post.

Until recently, privacy has not really concerned me. After all, most times we lose our privacy is in a beneficial way to us. We put our information on facebook so that friends can contact us, or to make it easier to exchange photos, and there is a whole load of other information that we might want to share. We have CCTV cameras so that criminals can be caught and keep us safer. I'm pretty law abiding, and surely the police don't have time to watch everyone. They only have time to look at particular sections of the footage where there is something wrong happening. We allow our internet traffic to be monitored for the same reasons, and our bank details are being monitored for our spending patterns to see if they vary suddenly because we have had cards or details stolen. We give companies our details of what we buy every time we buy something online or get a loyalty card. This allows companies to discover what we like so they can target their marketing so we are aware of new products, and they also pay us in loyalty points for the privilege.

Unlike many people, I don't believe there is some big 'evil' socialist agenda to all this. I don't really think that people are collecting information about us all so they can control us better. However, I think the technology is almost there that someone with bad intentions could start to use our information against us. An article in Time magazine (that I only flicked through or didn't buy) got me thinking about it. They say that use of tracking from mobile phones along with shopping habits from banks and loyalty cards would allow companies to target marketing more closely than ever, placing shops in the right locations or making person-specific advertising. At the same time, video analysis software is gettin better and better and could soon allow large amounts of CCTV to be analysed with a lot less hassle than by sitting people in front of screens. It's still a little way off, but probably not that far, if the price of computer processing power keeps decreasing as it is, and with companies like facebook holding onto our details long after we even close our accounts, things that happen now could come back to bite us.

Blogging is not really a part of this, especially because the blog is anonymous to all but the people to whom I tell the address. But it does leave me being careful what goes on here. And just recently my life has got lots of parts to it that I need to be careful about talking too much about.

I couldn't just keep you holding on on without telling you (my loyal readers) what has been going on though. After all, I haven't spoken in Rachel, ChrisE or indeed anyone else for far too long. So here is the rundown, in a slightly more secretive manner. I might tell you more later, when I find an interesting way of telling all the interesting stories attached, because there are interesting stories attached to all of it, especially the last bit of news.

Firstly, we have to move out of our house. That means searching for a new one and all the hassle and panic of househunting with an upcoming deadline after which we are homeless.

Secondly, my job is at risk. So are a lot of people's, but my company has reached the stage where it is culling large amounts of staff and we have been told we are at risk. That would all be fine in times when I could go and live at home for 3 months, find another job and move out again. But right now there are not many jobs, and I might be given the boot just after signing a new six month contract on a new house, which would leave me stranded in The North without any good reason to be there! Urgh!

Thirdly, I had an awesome holiday in France. I went with three people, two of whom I am now much closer to, and one of whom I'm less close to. That's why I don't want to talk about it in detail though. I'd have to be very careful to write about the people who came, and it would be odd to write much about the holiday without mentioning the people I went with. Our holiday was great though, full of variety both in the country or in a city. We had experiences to tick boxes in every section possible - cultural, scenic, awe-inspiring, challenging, celebratory (I had my birthday away), sporty, unexpected, lazy. And it was cool. I'd definitely do a road-trip/camping holiday with friends again. Awesome. I might put something better if I find a good way of writing. I just don't have creative juice today

Advice #37

Does your house smell of weed? Are you parents about to visit? I have stumbled across a type of tea that tastes great but also according to my housemates, smells of weed. So, if you have guests who don't approve, just let them smell the tea and they will think all the smell came from the tea and not from any more sinister sources. It is
Oolong +Raspberry from Birt and Tang who, by the way, make other excellent tea too.

NB. This will not remove the smell, nor is it a guaranteed solution. If it doesn't work, remember that it was all martin's idea, not mine!

"Diary entry" OR "Setting for the next scene"

So my grown-up life has started up north. This is definitely the biggest change for me since going to university. Life here was unlikely to be as fun as university. After all, I don't know as many people, I have to work full time and it's a pretty industrial area instead of being rural and picturesque. On top of that, everyone speaks with those "up-north" accents and it feels funny to be posh and southern!

It's fun though. It's exciting to go somewhere else, meet new people and do new things. I have new housemates in a new house at number 4, although getting a new house took a little longer than expected so I was forced to sleep on someone's sofa for a while. But now I have wonderful things like a bed and a room and storage space and things like that!

My housemates are great too. There's martin and there's paul. Martin likes motorbikes, his girlfriend kelly, KFC and his guitar. Paul likes cars, gadgets and films. Those are in no particular order (before you start drawing conclusions about martin and his motorbike). They also like tea and don't really drink coffee. Unfortunately I know very little about motorbikes, kelly, KFC, guitars, cars, gadgets or films. Especially films. But they are all laid back and it's now an opportunity to find out things about all of the above things. And we have football and being men in common. And for men, that is often enough.

So, while I miss living with girls very much, living with blokes will be good too