Christmas 2011

This was my very first Christmas by myself. Not bad really, for 35 years worth.

I managed not to be morrose at all though. I had my own tree, I called the family, and spoke with them on Skype for a good couple of hours and then I watched movies and did a lot of needleturn and went on a 'London Walk' walk of Dickensian London.

That was quite amazing - there was easily 100 people in my group of tourists, (the photo shows as many of the group as I could catch - no there weren't any other peoeople around, just us!) and there were five or six guides on the day. Obviously not much to do in 'ole London Town of a Christmas day. It was truely strage to not see a single red bus the entire day though. And the rain held off until the very end of the tour, which was lovely.

And then I cooked a proper christmas dinner. It even included roast potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots - although I managed to undercook the carrots and overcook the brocoli but never mind - it's really quite hard to judge food preparation times for just one person when I'm so used to cooking for many! Entre was Bree and specialty cheeases and complimented by a Jacob's Creek Shiraz/Cab-sav. And I even had my own little christmas pud with custard and brandy butter. So the food compliment was achieved.

On boxing day I caught the Doctor Who Christmas special, which was indeed special. Humany-woomany tears! Lovely.

Eight-Ball or Blackball?

Some useless information for you!

There isn't much to do in Aber most nights of the week, so for some time I've been trying to get my work mates to join me in a couple of games of pool. This evening I finally succeeded - only, the game they were used to calling pool was not the game I call pool.

Now as far as I was aware, there were only three games you could play on a Billiards table: Billiards, Snooker and Pool.

Billiards and Snooker are the same game both here and at home.

Billiards is the game where you have two cue balls and a red ball and you score up to 12 points depending on whether you can get just the red ball in, or the red and your opponents ball in... I think. I never really understood Billiards, and I think I always thought that Billiards was actually Snooker, but when I think about it, I do know the difference.

Snooker is the game where you have one white cue ball, 15 red balls worth one point each, and six balls of different colours; those being yellow (worth 2 points), green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6) and black (7). You have to pocket a red ball first and then you can pocket a coloured ball and the coloured ball gets replaced after the score is recorded until all the red balls are done and then you pocket the coloured balls in order... or thereabouts. This was the game I learned to play with my friend Nick Burden back when I was 9 or so - he had a table in his back room, and was Brilliant at it.

The game of Pool however, is a completely different kettle of fish. There is not one, but two games played under the name of Pool: Eight-Ball, an American game which is what is known as Pool in most of the rest of the world, and Blackball, which is the English version of the same game.

No wonder I was confused. The rules are remarkably similar, but the table and the balls are not.

The game I know is the American game. It has a white cue ball, the black 8-ball (logically so called 'cause it has the number 8 on it!) and then seven striped and seven plain balls of various colours with numbers on them. You are assigned either the striped or plain balls, and win when you have first pocketed your seven balls and then successfully pocketed the black. I spent many enjoyable evenings with Amy, Marty, DB, Jase and others at the Norwood pool hall playing this - which I always called pool.

The English version of the game has a white cue ball, a black ball and seven red and seven yellow balls. The balls are slightly lighter and slightly smaller than their American cousins and the balls aren't numbered. The tables are also slightly smaller, and have smaller pockets - just larger than the balls - which are hard edged, rather than the softer ones we often see at home. I played this for the first time the other night at a farewell do - but I don't remember what we called it... the evening was sober for me, but not for my companions. I don't think the name came up actually... :D

From the discussions we had tonight, I believe that the rules are pretty much the same. Fouls, when you pocket the white ball or your opponents ball, or when you miss a shot, lead to a double shot for the other side seem to be the same. You still have to pocket all your balls and then the black to win and if you pocket the white after the black, you still lose. But as with any game, the 'House' rules also apply.

Anyway, all this was leading to me learning a few things and having a great evening. I taught the English guys how to play 8-ball pool, and then proceeded to get walloped for the first three games. I thankfully won my last two, thus saving myself from complete disgrace, but will have to pick up my game if I'm to have any hope of a reasonable reputation. Next week we're going to play Blackball and I expect to get even more soundly walloped... but them's the breaks. :)

GTHBA.

You'll think I'm crazy...

But I really enjoyed driving around England. Everyone has told me horror stories and say it's blood awful, but I think I have inherited dad's love of driving, 'cause I found it fun. It was certainly very zen.

Yesterday saw me driving from Exeter to London and back to drop off some stuff at my storage thing and I found the trip really easy. The roads are good, the services are fabulous (at least five different shops, always including a cafe. Mmmmm... coffee...), the other drivers are polite, the speed limits are not limiting and with a GPS unit, there was so little stress the nine hour trip was a breeze! I actually found driving through London easier than driving through Sydney because of the GPS taking all the stress out of navigating.

I took the M5/M4 route through Bristol and stopped off at Reading for a job interview on the way back (don't get your hopes up, I'm not too confident about that part), and I didn't get caught in a single traffic jam. I was hellishly lucky about that last bit I know, but all the same, the drive was a lot more pleasant than I was led to expect. Admittedly I have probably done a lot more driving than most of my friends here, what with all the countless trips between Melbourne-Adelaide and Canberra-Bendigo I've done, but still...

So, having spent a lot of time on the motorways yesterday, today I took to the back routes. I drove down to Torquay (Lovely, pretty little town that trades heavily on it's Agatha Christie connection, with a gorgeous Abbey) and spent a relaxing morning wandering around and having tea on the terrace by the water! :) I also went to Cockington, a model village nearby, and spent a lovely time wandering around the grounds there.

And then I wound my way up through Devon to the edge of Dartmoor, and somehow managed to find Castle Drogo.

That was fun.

I really didn't believe that there were as many narrow lanes around the place as I had been told, but I found, and spent hours driving on, a whole heap of them today. So narrow you can't open your car doors if you stopped and passing another car is an adventure. I had to do that several times and it was damn hairy! You can only do it at certain spots on the road, so I actually spent a fair amount of time going backwards so that I could reach said spot and let another car pass me. I'm so glad I spent so long driving a manual when I was younger, otherwise today would have been impossible!

Castle Drogo was interesting. The last real castle built in England, it was constructed between 1911 and 1930 I think, with a break for the war. Very stylised. An Englishman's ideal of what a castle should be I think. Luxury and comfort and central heating and grandeur and opulence (three, count them, 3 kitchens!). Not sure it was really worth the 8 quid entry price though. But I found and went and had an actual Devonshire tea, in Devonshire (my first in eight months of living here would you believe?) at the cafe there, so not a wasted trip by any means.

Now, I'm knackered. But yeah, I enjoyed driving in England. Go figure.

Black Ice - Ouch!

I discovered what Black Ice looks like this morning. It masquerades deceptively as just normal ground but is incredibly slippery.

I took an inelegant tumble.

Only minor damage to one knee but still a very painful shock to the system and now my body is aching in strange places from muscles that were contorted in weird ways.

The thing is, my work trousers were undamaged, my thermals likewise excepting a few blood stains, but my epidermis is peppered with holes and currently leaking!

I don't get it.

Backblog: The better part of valour is discretion.

From Shakespeare; Henry IV, Part One, spoken by Falstaff.

On the 6th of January I wrote this:

SNOW!!!

I at first thought this morning that I would walk to work. It had been snowing pretty much all night and was continuing to do so plentifully.

It took me just the six steps from my front door to the footpath to decide otherwise. It was manageable but probably would have taken me twice as long to do and a 90 minute walk is not something I wanted to do. I caught the bus instead

This is my front gate:


This my front door:


And this is a tree on the way down into town:


Weeeheeeheee!

This was my backyard three days later:


SNOW!!!

No Cornish Pastie from Cornwall... :(

Today for work we had to go out to one of our sites and stake out a piece of land which is going to be sold off. GPS and measuring tape and stakes and yellow paint and huge mallet and wet weather gear in hand, we drove down to Falmouth to meet our contact. This was my first trip into Cornwall, despite living on the very border of the place, and I was looking forward to seeing the place which all Devonians make fun of and all Cornwellians believe is superior to England (they don't believe they are English). Two hours of beautiful countryside later, I was well impressed. The site was fun too - something that had been constructed for the second world war and no longer required, it was a tad overgrown and we waded our way through wet grass that was longer than our stakes were high - so trying to get a true line between points was a tad difficult, but we managed in the end. But I didn't get to taste a Cornish Pastie! They are apparently the best in England and highly recommended, but we couldn't find a place to buy them from. Ah well, next time perhaps.

JVC

I went to an interesting pub this evening. A new friend suggested I go along to the open mic night at this place. It wasn't a bad pub but the stand out was unfortunately the buck's party of wanna-be sailors who turned up just ahead of me. All dressed in white and most wearing only a singlet with lashings of coconut oil... they kind of stank. They were into getting smashed so fortunately only stayed a short while but in that time they made a lot of noise. The music during and afterward was quite palatable though so all good. Another experience I never expected to have but enjoyed. Having no expectations really is the best way to enjoy life I think.

Knocking Pipes

My pipes creak!

I have never experienced this phenomenon before. I've heard of it, and read about it in novels, and seen it on TV. And from one memorable episode of red dwarf, I laughed my head off about it. But I've never witnessed it.

This is an older house so when I moved in I was expecting the usual creeks and groans. There are also 12 people living here (finally established the actual number) so I kind of expected strange noises to be happening and didn't really think much on those I did hear. There were a couple of regular one's I noticed in passing but didn't really pay attention to; there was a fairly persistent knocking sound that I thought was probably something loose somewhere and a door-closing recurring creak that puzzled me. But I never thought they were coming from my room. But so they are!

Today for the first time, I noticed that the heating element / radiator things were on finally. I went over to mine to get warm and then heard the knocking I'd been hearing coming from beside the radiator. And the noise that sounds like a door is gradually creaking shut is the radiator itself.

So I have talking pipes! How very cool. And how very annoying!

Bliss...

This has been a week of new experiences. Tonight I tried my third; a meditation class at the Ashoka Meditation Centre. I've been using guided meditation cd's on and off for years now to help deal with stress and generally reduce my worrying quotient, but I've never been to a class before.

I can't honestly say I'd thought I'd ever go into a Buddhist centre. A meditation class, yes - that's something that's been on the 'to do perhaps one day' list rather than on the 'must do' list, so I hadn't actively been looking into it. But on the way to Exeter on Saturday, I passed the centre and it's literally two minutes walk from my house. In fact, if it weren't for a fenced garden in the way (very pretty btw), I could see it from my front gate. It was one of those 'Ho boy - that's too neat to be ignored' things. So then I looked it up on the web - and guess what? Thursday evening classes at five quid, and a drop-in with no commitment policy, which would balance out the week nicely since choir will be on Tuesdays... so, why not?

The people running it were surprisingly normal and the participants even more so, and it was a good mix of sexes and we all sat on chairs bar the nun leading the meditation - not at all like I was expecting having been to Thailand and seen the Buddhist shrines and temples there. It was actually really interesting. The nun didn't go through any doctrine either that I could tell. The center has other classes if you're into that. But they do go through a 'course' - foci for the meditation if you will - and the current one is on anger. Rather insightful. I believe I'll be going again...

Life in Digs...

For the first time in my living-arrangements-career, I am in what could possibly be classified as digs. I have lived with family, I have lived with friends and I have lived alone. I have lived in houses, town-houses, appartments and flats, in barracks and hotels and I have lived in backpackers, but never in quite this situation.

I am now living in an old, very large house, which used to be a B&B of some description. I guess you would call it a boarding house, if this were the 1950s, only in this day and age we have to cater for ourselves. I have a room to myself with a lock on my room's door, but am sharing the facilities with possibly 10 to 14 other people. Yes, that many.

Now, that's actually not as bad as it sounds. There are eight official 'Rooms' in this place, but two (those which I believe have couples living in them) are en-suite, so I actually only share two bathrooms with as few as five, but possibly 10 other people, if each room actually has a couple living-in which I don't believe. I don't know how many are really here, but there is only one bed in each room so maximum of 14 others. I've met five of the housemates in passing, but I've caught glimpses of another two and then a few are supposed to be on holiday, and I've heard but not seen another couple...

Anyway, I don't think you can call it a share-house, as we don't have to ever talk to each other. There are no shared bills and each room has their own allocated cupboards in the kitchen and have to supply their own dishes and plates and saucepans and washing-up liquid and laundry powder. You even have to take your own toilet paper to the loo each time you go as that's not shared either. We all pay the landlord for all bills and he has a cleaner who looks after the common areas and that's that.

I guess this'd be like living in one of the huge share houses in London, where everyone is crammed in and living on top of each other. Only, we're not. Crammed I mean. My current bedroom is definitely the biggest room I've ever slept in. But then I always thought of those share-house arrangements as being a lot more communal.

So is this a classifiable living arrangement? Is this a boarding-house-without-board or digs or a classification of share house I've never heard of before?

I suppose others will tell me it's not so unusual so maybe won't find it strange. But this living-alone-with-other-people-who-you-never-see thing is rather weird to me. Detached but a part. Apart but together. Isolated in a crowd. Alone but not.

So and so. Strange to me.

The Beginning of the End...or the End of the Beginning?

Today and tomorrow are my last two days of Freedom. The end of my holidays and the beginning of a new career as a GIS Consultant - I have a job! But as I haven't received the contract yet, and I am supposed to start on Wednesday, I'm a little dubious as to the validity of the position it must be admitted! Anyway, I can hope - I have a starting time at least. Yay for me! I won't get paid until August though, so it won't seem quite real to me until then I don't think. Actual Pounds. Wow. Will be able to buy stuff... Mmmm... Stuff...

In the mean time I am looking for a place to live - which is proving more difficult than I had anticipated. This is more due to fact that I need to get my head around the amount of money I'll have to pay for accommodation (which is truly frightening!) and the difficulty of finding compatible housemates (people I can actually converse with in a language I speak) on the right tube line (so I can get into work in under an hour - honestly, it would be quicker to walk from some places!) and not within a neighbourhood which scares me silly (and there have been a couple I would just not feel safe living in) than actually finding a place because there seem to be loads...but then appearances are deceiving here. The process is interesting none the less.

I also visited some lovely places on the weekend. I went to the Borough Market with Richard on Saturday which was amazing - so many different vegetables! I hadn't seen a good majority of them in the flesh before, only on TV, so I was feeling very privileged to be able to touch and taste them -I wanted to buy samples of everything just so I could try them! I also got very wet for my first time in this country, as it absolutely poured with rain, so I feel like I've had a baptism of sorts and can feel myself truly introduced to England! I then visited Sarah and David (family friends) on Sunday and walked around Marylebone, visited the Farmers Market there and walked around Regents park (absolutely gorgeous!), and had tea in a lovely little cafe in the middle somewhere. So I'm now feeling more at home in this place. Have caught up with almost everyone I know here, but still have plenty of things I want to do, so it is all good.

So, all in all, I am quietly happy. I am scared of not finding a place and apprehensive about work and worried about money but I am also excited about visiting all the bookshops on Charring Cross Road, and amazed at being able to go to a different musical every week of the year and not repeat myself, and in awe that I can buy a ticket to go to Berlin next weekend if I so choose... I know for sure and certain that I am alive. And this is very, very good!