Way out west

The search for a new place to live began in earnest once I’d got back to London. Relations with certain housemates didn’t start that great and have progressively got worse. Even before the most recent lot moved in, I’ve wanted out. Finding somewhere to live this time has proved a hell of a lot harder than my summer move to Acton.

Back then I was easily pleased. Deciding that a lack of a living room was the least of my worries as all the housemates seemed to get on like a house on fire. Barbeques on the terrace, who needs a communal space? Me! I do!

I have, over the months, decided on things I would like in the next place I move in to. Obviously a living room is priority number one, eating meals in your bedroom every day is not why I moved to London. I’d like to sit down and watch a bit of telly with the people I live with. The place also had to be near shops. I chose Acton because Morrisons was just down the road, can’t be doing living out in the middle of nowhere. And finally the transport links had to be good. Acton is pretty well connected on rail, tube and buses, easy access to work and the city was paramount.

I like West London. I liked it before I lived here and I still like it. I know Ealing quite well now, so I was keen to find somewhere nearby. Shops, transport, Iain & Aleks, it was where I was basing my search. It’s been so much harder this time though, really expensive, female only lets…so I broadened the search to North London as well. Back when Iain lived at Wood Green, I liked the fact that this little corner of London was so well connected. The Green Lanes is a street like no other too, so I started looking around there. This was where I actually seemed to get somewhere regarding viewings.

Saw a few based around the ‘Haringey Ladder’, a set of roads off the Green Lanes, but a lack of connection with the potential new housemates saw a few crossed off the list. A house near Turnpike Lane was an eyeopener – how NOT to share a house – and it left me feeling a little low. Was it seriously this hard to find a place? I saw two that I really liked and was keen to move in. One just off Green Lanes and another in South Ealing. Everything I wanted, they had. But competition was high and they went with someone else.

I found a place on Gumtree in West Ealing that looked pleasant enough, an old house with ‘period features’, stripped pine floorboards and all that. The landlord lived-in, and was an older bloke, so this was less of a shared house and more of a home. The decor was a bit dated and tired, but it all seems to fit with the rest of the house. It gave it charm and character that you don’t get in shared houses. It had a living room, dining room, conservatory and garden – so communal areas sorted.The bedroom itself was a decent size, overlooking the street with a big bay window.

I made it plain that I was interested in the place. It’s pretty much ticking all the boxes, so made my intentions clear to the landlord, Gordon, and waited on a response. Didn’t take him long to go with me. I must’ve made a decent impression. The location can’t be faulted. It’s five minutes from West Ealing station, a further few minutes from a massive Waitrose. West Ealing Broadway is ten minutes away, with all manner of shops down there. Iain and Aleks’ flat is just a 20 minute walk through the tree lined streets that typify this corner of Ealing. It’s on a quiet street, save for the sound of the railway nearby. Having been brought up living really close to the Nottingham – Skegness line, this isn’t a problem at all.

I’m happy I’ve got what I wanted, and that this search is over. I’ve given up my evenings, not had a proper meal in ages, all just to see some real shitholes. I’m glad things are sorted now. I got the keys for the place tonight and I’ll be I there by my birthday. I’m more confident that I’ll last more than six months there.

A Maximum High

As always, I hate to go a month without an update to the blog – can’t let Christmas get in the way of that!

Things have been steadily busy since the start of December. We had our work do, where unfortunately I let my ‘dancing skills’ become known to everyone I work with. I blame the cocktails. We had a departmental Christmas meal too, which once again featured an alarming amount of alcohol. I like a good time as much as anyone else but I’m all too aware that I’ve been drinking an awful lot more since moving to London. It’s something, along with my overeating and smoking, that I am determined to rectify in the New Year.

The Christmas parties were fun though, as was seeing Shed Seven at Shepherds Bush Empire last weekend. As me and my mate commented on, £22 to see a fantastic gig compared to £27 to watch Forest play badly. A no brainer! The Sheds played all the hits, starting with Parallel Lines and ending with Chasing Rainbows, to top it off Chris Helme – of Seahorses fame – was the support act and played three Seahorses tunes. A great night.

My sister Megan got married yesterday. I am so happy for her, happy that she’s already found someone she wants to spend the rest of her life with, happy that Adam is a genuinely nice guy and someone I have no problem welcoming into the family and finally happy that she’s progressing onto bigger and better things in life, leaving the shackles of Radcliffe on Trent behind. It made me immensely proud and happy to see them marry, and as the ‘official photographer’, I was standing near the front so got as good a view as any on proceedings. And having the camera by my face thankfully disguised the fact that I was crying! I’m just a big girl really…

I’m glad to be in Nottingham over Christmas and New Year. I need the break from the stresses of home life, and in the new year the search for a new place to live starts in earnest. Until then, it’s a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the sad bastards who actually read my blog – you know who you are!

Change?

Before moving to London, I had the terrifying realisation that I hadn’t really achieved anything. Obviously the word ‘achieved’ is dependent on what you class as an achievement. To me, this had to be something more than the three-year stint I put in at Royal Mail, moving mail around a warehouse at the socially destructive times of 6 to 10 at night. To break away from that and to get on with my life and do something is an achievement. Prior to getting this job, I’d spent the first part of the year becoming steadily more depressed at my apparent inability to find work. The high levels of unemployment were the major factor here, of course, but I had resorted to applying for even the most basic of jobs and was getting turned down. I’d started to question myself, and to question if I’d ever escape the Nottingham backwaters.

Everybody likes a bit of change, no-one likes to stay still. Even the most minor change is welcomed. The extent of what has happened to me and my family since the summer has been the surprise, but we take it on board and we learn to live with it. Be it good or bad. Now, I love my parents to bits. I had a great upbringing, and never fell out with my parents as most teenagers seem to do. If I was that way inclined, I’d stay living at my family home for as long as I could. But I didn’t want to be that guy who still lives with his parents when he’s 40, and that’s only 12 years away! Life is full of people who’ve got a story to tell, who’ve come over from different countries or just moved from their hometown to further their careers and/or raise a family. To be still living in the village that I was brought up in, seeing the people you went to school with remain doing the same things they were doing 10 years ago, it’s not for me. I’m all for meeting new people, making new friends, never standing still too long, what may be comfortable for them is not for me. What better way to make the break from all of this than to move as far away as you can?

I’d admired and envied Iain’s life in London. He’s worked his arse off to get where he is, he’s got the brains to be doing the job that he’s doing, and it was always something that appealed to me. There was a long-held desire within me to move to a different part of the country, to come out of the comfort zone and to see if I can make it in a strange city. A trip to see Iain in April was enough to sow the seeds of a potential move to the capital, one which came to fruition thankfully within a few months. I still look back in shock that I got the job I have. It’s not the best paid job, but even so, I managed to beat off the fierce competition and was ready to start anew in London.  An initial leg-up from Iain – letting me stay at his and Aleks flat while I established myself – took the pressure off slightly and let me ingratiate myself with my new work colleagues and start the hard task of finding somewhere to live.

Regarding the job, I’m happy with how things are there. Having been there since June, I now know enough about the place, the people and the job itself to enjoy and appreciate what I am doing. I’ve made a great deal of friends there, and certainly made established myself. This easy introduction into work life helped make the flat search easier. I moved from Iain’s place in Ealing to a house in Acton. Still in west London, but far enough away to feel a bit more independent. An old Victorian house, as seems to be the norm in London, this had been converted into a self-contained flat downstairs and the two remaining floors made up the shared house. This place has no living room, but made up for that glaring omission by having a sun terrace. The housemates all seemed pleasant too, a couple were in the room next to mine, another couple upstairs along with an Aussie girl. My first night in this house and they threw an impromptu housewarming. We sat on the sun terrace eating, drinking and smoking, what better way to ingratiate yourself into the new household?

Four months on, that was about as good as it got.

The couple in the room next to me split up. She is a lively and talkative person who I always chatted with in the kitchen when I came home from work. He is a quiet bloke, spoke little and didn’t socialise that much. So when she removed herself from the house, part of what made me like living here disappeared too. She still occasionally appears to move her stuff to and from the room, but she hasn’t been the same person since. The Aussie girl was another loud one (aren’t they always? ), she decided a few months into me moving in that she was going to go travelling across Europe, eventually moving back home to Australia in December. So that was another one down. The couple upstairs (she’s french, he’s south african) are also ones who appear irregularly. Although I’m kinda glad as I don’t like her fussiness regarding the cleanliness of the kitchen, which at times borders on the obsessive. The lack of the communal living area is really the killer here, everyone keeps themselves in their rooms, at times it can get desperately lonely in this place. It’s less like a shared house and more like a flat. My idea of a shared house isn’t this, it’s people who do things together, watch television together, go out and get pissed together. I made my decision a few weeks ago to move out once my contract ends in mid February. Aside from releasing myself from this increasingly miserable house, I want to move back to Ealing. Closer to Iain, easier for my parents to visit and the transport links are so much better.

I like change, it’s scary but it’s all brand new. The way we adapt and acclimatize to it, the challenge, is brilliant. Not all change is great though, least of all the passing away of my gran in August. It wasn’t a massive shock, her health had deteriorated over the years and as she often had said, she was ready and waiting ‘to go’. The grim phone call from my sister Megan upon hearing the news that she’d had a stroke was still a shock, especially when it transpired that stroke victims at that age (late eighties) rarely recover to any great extent, if at all. I didn’t waste much time getting back up to Radcliffe, I hadn’t seen a great deal of a her prior to moving down to London, so I had to see her even if it turned out to be the last time.

My mum and my sister had been caring for her almost round the clock. As I let her know on more than one occasion, my mum is a hell of a strong person for this. She was taking it all in her stride. Her own mother was unable to move, unable to speak, yet she carried on caring for her, spending the best part of a day at the care home she lived in. She had trained as a nurse before she got married and had kids, so the knowledge of what to do in this situation was already there in her head, but even so – it was her mother. If it was her in that state and me tasked with caring for her, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to see someone you love so much in such a helpless state.

My gran was still awake and aware of people and things by the time that me, Iain and Aleks appeared. Despite being pre-warned as to the state that she was in, it was still an awfully traumatic sight to see her like that. She began crying as me and Iain came in the room to see her, obviously distraught that we were seeing her in this state, and mindful of the fact that this was ‘the end’. Still, she had enough strength in her left side of the body to be able to reach out her hand towards me. I couldn’t take much more of the intense emotion of it all soon after that, neither could Iain, so we had to leave. Upon hearing a few days later that she had become less and less responsive until the point that she passed away, I’m content to know that she recognised us the last time she saw us.

The funeral was equally upsetting. Never in my life have I been to one. I’ve been lucky to have had no deaths in the family prior to this year, this whole process and the mourning aspect of it was all brand new. The service itself, while I remain uncomfortable with the religious aspect of it, was very well done but the emotions were always at the surface. The sight of my mother, uncle and aunt embracing by the coffin at the end of the service was one that set me off into floods of tears. I’m not one to reel in my emotions, I will never do the manly thing of keeping it all inside! The emotion of that day still gets to me, and still bothers me. In fact it does make me well up even writing about it, which is probably the reason why I’ve taken until now to go into any great detail.

It’s all seemed to happen so far this year, it must be something about 2011, because it wasn’t over yet. My sister decided just a few weeks ago to get married. She’s been seeing her boyfriend Adam for a while now (over a year I think), and he proposed to her while she was over in Northern Ireland with him (he’s based there, as he’s a member of the armed forces). An engagement can be forever, Iain and Aleks are engaged and have been for a few years now, but to hear that she wanted to get married next month was a big shock! The reasoning behind it is Adam being back in England for a limited time, and something to go with them being given army housing if they’re married by a certain date. So they set the date for December the 23rd – a christmas wedding. They are to be married at West Bridgford registry office, and will be having the reception in the Test Match pub – of which the meal will be a christmas one. By her own admission, she’s on a budget, so won’t be doing anything extravagant. She feels it’s less about the day and more about the fact that they’re married, which is fine. She deserves all of this after what she had to go through with her last loser of a boyfriend. Adam is a nice bloke, and I’m so glad that he’ll be my brother-in-law and not the prat she was dating before!

There’s still a month and a bit to go of the this year, and I’m waiting for the next thing to happen. It’d be good to get to December the 31st with no more major shocks. Here’s hoping…!

I’m a changing man!

The monthly update! Got in today before November comes along…

Work has been good, previous problems with a certain work colleague have been ironed out and I’m getting to know my workmates better. Some might say too well, if a few drunken nights (and one day) have been anything to go by. Still, what better what better way to ingratiate yourself eh?

I’ve been worried recently about my weight. I reached the lowest weight I’d ever got to last Christmas, albeit helped by my then newfound intolerance to lactose. I seem to have put on weight since then, nothing major thank god, but enough to concern me. I buy my own food, decide my own portions, so it’s all down to me. I’d like to think I could be stricter with myself and know when to say no, but a quick look at pictures of me from three years ago reminds me how good I am that…

I’m confident it’s something that I have control over, I’m just disappointed that I couldn’t have used last years weight loss as a springboard to lose some more. I guess I’m just in unknown territory, my weight is steady for the first time in my life. I’m either losing it or putting it on, this is all brand new.

I’ve also decided to move once my six months here in Acton are up. Nothing against Acton itself, or the house, but having got word that two of my housemates are leaving, I’m thinking of going too. I enjoyed living at Iain’s, and while that isn’t an option, deciding to move back to Ealing will do. Closer to my brother – who I really would like to see more of socially than I currently do – and the transport links are better. Trains to Acton from Paddington are every half hour. Trains to Ealing seemingly run all the time! Plus the shops are better.

I need to give it a good long think, my contract runs until mid February, so I’ve got plenty of time to start looking.

Faster, Faster!

We’re now hurtling towards Christmas. Take no notice of the date, or even the fact that it’s fairly warm for the time of the year, the first few days of this month saw all of the (soon to be) endless Christmas merchandise roll onto the shop shelves.

It doesn’t bother me, and nothing has changed this year. I’m glad that time is passing quick for once. All the months of self doubt, sat in Nottingham wondering if i’d ever find a a decent job again, for all I care the year can go by in a flash. I’m ending this year in a much healthier state than I started it. I recently got a letter from work telling me that my probation period had passed without a hitch, and having spoke to many a person at work, it seems this really would be the job for life If i wanted it. I’m not looking that far into the future, but It is great to have finally got some security. I loved working at the ILF, but the temporary nature of my job bit me in the arse at the end.

Although having lived a few months paying bills, rent and buying food like a normal person, while I am quite happy with the £16k wage I am getting, it isn’t something I want in the long term. I can live on £16k no problems, but the amount of restrictions I have to place on myself now is always at the back of my mind. Thankfully my scrooge-like attitude with money should see me through!