February Stars

More of an update on a few things than anything else.

First off, i’m still jobless. Though the Job Centre now seem to be realising I’m getting nowhere, so they sent me on a course to a place called ‘Ingeus’. It’s like the Job Centre itself, only if they actually helped you rather than just giving you money. They went through interview techniques, how to alter your CV to make it more attractive to potential employers, and other ‘secret’ methods of finding work. I found it more interesting than I was expecting, though it did drag on far too long. Can’t complain too much though, I got a free lunch and my bus fare was reimbursed.

Away from job woes, I spent the weekend before my birthday helping my brother move across London. I say helping him move, but aside from loading things into and out of the van, I had to make my way across London myself (three seater van only!). Normally this isn’t a problem, but the journey from Wood Green to Ealing Broadway is SO LONG. Thankfully on arriving in Ealing, I was pleased to find that it’s actually really rather nice. Wood Green was all good and that, but it was very ‘inner city’, Ealing seems like the suburbs. Where they live now looks like the posher parts of West Bridgford! On the way back, me and my dad tried a new way to get back home, along the M40. We’ve since found out that it is the most boring motorway ever. The M1 is a killer, but at least when you get to Northampton you can judge how long you’re away from home.

I never did make it to the West Ham game in the end. Seems like it was one mission too far! I did decide to take advantage of amazingly cheap tickets to the Norwich v Forest game in April (only £12 return!), but lo and behold – Sky moved the date. It costs almost as much again to get a refund on your tickets, so I decided to make a weekend of it and found a cheapy B&B around the corner from Norwich station. Carrow Road is rubbish, but Norwich itself is lovely city and well worthy of a city break.

April itself is a busy month. What with pre-match hospitality in honour of a friend’s birthday at the start of the month, followed by the above Norwich weekender, and finally a tour of the Castle Rock brewery prior to our last home game of the season. I did a tour of the cellars in the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem in December and I really enjoyed it (free beer helped!), this tour is longer  - as it’s an actual brewery rather than a cellar – plus as well as free beer you get free food.

Marvellous.

Same old…

Just a quick one, if nothing else than just to keep up my minimum of a post a month!

Christmas has passed me by, but not before I was given a late Christmas present. Being able to watch Forest beat Derby 5-2. I haven’t seen a derby game in over ten years and this is the one I choose?! I’ve been relatively muted on the celebration front purely because I’m not overly confident of the return game at Pride Park next week. Form goes right out of the window in these games…

Due to Forest’s progress in the cup, I’ll be making the trip south to our next opponents – West Ham United. Never been to Upton Park, but with tickets only £15 (and coach travel about the same) – it’s an opportunity I can’t miss. The game is at the end of the month, coinciding with a busy few weeks. My birthday being the focal point obviously, but a few days previous to that, I’ll be helping my brother move house.

Iain lives in Wood Green currently, but due to Aleks and her job in Slough, they needed to move to West London. He’d been talking about Shepherds Bush, but a place in Ealing has become available. A quick look on google maps shows that it’s suburb-y (like Colindale), but a lot more leafy. Shops are not on the doorstep like Wood Green, but no matter – Ealing town centre is only about five minutes walk away.

I’ll have a closer inspection in a few weeks, where I’ll help him move/generally be nosey…

Man of Leisure

No sooner had it begun last September, my career at the ILF is now over.

I left on Wednesday, given a decent enough send off by my team on the Tuesday – a meal at a local Italian resturant – and finally presented with a card and £20 H&M voucher the following day.

There is a genuine sadness at leaving this place. In all other jobs, I’ve not felt anything upon leaving, despite striking up good friendships. The relief at leaving that particular job was enough. This time though, I’m leaving a job that I really enjoy and leaving against my will. If I was ever allowed to throw a childlike strop and scream “It’s not fair!”, then it’s at this!

I caught the train immediately after leaving for the final time. I went down to London to see my brother. So, no real time to linger around. Besides, there’s an ILF night out on August the 13th, so anyone I missed saying goodbye to, I can see them there.

I met my parents in Central London, they were waiting for my brother’s fiancée to graduate from the SOAS. This meant plenty of time hanging around in a warm and muggy London. Nice! Eventually we got back to their place in Wood Green. That night we went to a Turkish resturant on the Green Lanes – a stretch of road in north London with countless eateries and corner shops of varying nationalities.

The name of the place was Antepelier. I’ve been there once before at Christmas, the service wasn’t amazing but that was down to some confusion over starters and main courses. The food was great, Turkish food cooked well is delicious and this was no exception.

The following day we went to Southend. Iain’s fiancée Aleks has, being Bulgarian, never been to an English seaside – or had fish and chips! Now, being in the south, we weren’t in the best place for chips – the north takes the prize for that – but we went to a place on the seafront called Neptunes which to my surprise cooked some excellent chips.

It has been five years, amazingly, since I was in Southend. I was last there in October 2005 when Forest played Southend. A group of us had stayed at a friends house in nearby Brentwood, so we made a weekend of it. It just so happened to be the same weekend that there was a fire on Southend’s pier. The two events are in no way linked!

Southend was as good as I remember, proof that Essex can indeed do seaside towns. It was also nice to accompany somebody on their first trip to the seaside. While she got her first taste of the British seaside, we went once again to the Green Lanes the following day to try a Bulgarian resturant.

Bulgarian food is much like the rest of eastern Europe – but with the added influence of nearby Greece and Turkey. Cheese and meat seem to be the staple of their diet. In fact the dish I had, Guveche, was full of Bulgarian cheese, feta, ham and egg. Absolutely delicious food, but not the healthiest it must be said…

I’ve ate very well these past few days, it’d be so easy to put in weight living near all these places. Sadly, I was also the victim of counterfeit money whilst down there. Not from change given in a shop though, from a bank!! I had got out £20 at the Santander on Southend high street. When two tens came out, one of them looked an odd colour, but I thought nothing of it – like it’d been mistakenly washed or something.

I attempted to use it at the chippy later on, but after talking amongst themselves, they refused to accept it. My brother and dad gave it a closer inspection, my brother mentioning that it doesn’t feel like the right paper and also that the foil markings and numbers had worn. I’d been had – by a bank!

Back in Wood Green, I tried to use the tenner at Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s. Both self-service machines just point blank refused to accept it. I then went into the local branch of Santander where I told the assistant my predicament and she explained that without proof of receipt, I couldn’t prove I’d got the £10 out of one of their machines and so they couldn’t help. To make it worse she’d actually ripped the top part of the note near the strip to check it was real or not. So now it looked even more dodgy.

So they didn’t help in Wood Green and I wasn’t prepared to go all the way back to Southend. Besides which, for all they know, I could present them any tenner and say I got it from their machine – I can’t conclusively prove it! This whole episode pissed me off, as if I don’t have a great deal of cash as it is – a bloody bank, an establishment where you’d NEVER expect to be given fake money, they’re the ones who have screwed me over. Santander will never get my business again, the bastards.

Away from dud money, Nottingham Forest announce their new kits. While officially not out until next week, some pictures of the new home kit have emerged. Part of Umbro’s new tailored range, the new top is plain red with our two European Cup silver stars taking pride of place above the Forest badge. It looks great, a minimalist design that gets away from the mess we had last year. Thing is, Foreat have given over the running of their shop to an outside source. Kitbag will run the online store and the club shop. Meaning a better, more professional service, but apparently it’ll result in the shirt being available only from Forest. No cheaper alternative at Sports Direct. You pay the 40 odd quid or nothing! Charming.

Viva España!

Well, we all know now that the new champions of world football are Spain – and well deserved too. They played the best football of the tournament, consistently so. My initial thoughts on Argentina being potential champions kinda fell apart! But this is why I’m not a professional pundit.

I enjoyed the later part of the World Cup, but bizarrely it was the final which was the worst game of the lot. Spain were frustrated at every turn by Holland, who were desperate to stop Spain play their passing football which would have otherwise seen the Spaniards dominate the game. Shame that the dutch felt that the only way to stop Spain was by being dirty, but I guess if you ever get to a major final then it isn’t how well you play, it’s that you win.

I’ve now got a real hunger for the new domestic football league season to start. I’ve missed it, to be honest. Forest still have yet to do anything of note this summer, but we always do things late. I’ve no doubt the wheels will start rolling soon.

Going to London next week to drown my sorrows as a newly unemployed person. Just the first part of next week to go.

Indulge Me

First post of the new decade. First post of the fourth year I’ve been writing this blog. Will I ever shut up? Not likely.

It’s the 1st of January TwentyTen, 2009 is over and I have plenty to be happy about. Not that the past year was bad by any stretch, it’s been the most productive year I’ve had for a good long while. I managed to get a new job, finally freeing myself of Royal Mail and the dead-end nowhere ‘career’ that I was facing. I finally have a decent job with equally good prospects. Plus I earn a few bob more too. I also managed to lose all the weight that I had gained. I’ve done this time and again over the past decade, so while it is great that I’m now thinner, I’ve been through this all before to refuse to believe that the weight I am now is the weight I will remain. Don’t get me wrong, putting on seven stone again is not on the agenda, but it never was before. That, sadly, is life! Christmas has also come into it to, i’ve indulged myself an awful lot this festive period, no doubt a few pounds heavier than I was this time a few weeks ago.

So, I look toward 2010 feeling good about my future, rather than being fat and a failure. Not sure what to expect this coming year, apart from a new phone, and being 27. The iPhone contract is nearing its end and I’m ready to dump the 18 month year old technical marvel for the equally brilliant Samsung Pixon 12. A 12MP camera phone. Was it a good camera or a decent MP3 player i desired in my next phone? Turns out it’s a good camera. Will be certain to blog about this phone when I get it shortly.

Other than the overindulgence, this christmas has been great. I spent a few days down in London with Iain, who is without Aleks as she’s back in Bulgaria. So it was a few days of Xbox gaming, drinking and trawling a wet miserable Oxford Street, but a change of scenery was needed. I’m a little sad that the christmas break has come to an end, but also looking forward to getting back to work. I don’t think I had that with Royal Mail, even when I started there.

Prediction for 2010? Nottingham Forest promoted to the Premier League – you heard it here first!