The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
I had a bit of a chat with one of the women who run the DiNA (one of the on-site cafes on campus). They go through about 15 boxes of teabags in a day. That's just them. Figure the same with Pebbles (the other cafe) and that means that there are roughly 3000 cups of tea sold every single day on campus. Now if you consider that there are maybe 1000 people on campus, that means an average of 3 cups of tea sold for everybody in a day.
This makes me smile for some reason.
Sometimes I'm such a nerd, I scare myself.
What do you do when you *really* want to check your email because you've not had a chance to do it all day but you *really* need to go powder your nose?
You take your wireless laptop with you, of course.
Sad, sad man I am. Having said that, I'm sure that among my readers I'm not the only person to have ever done so.
In other news, good news for a change.
I came back from a wii session in the Sanger shared facilities conference room this morning to find that I had a plain brown enveloppe waiting for me at home. Opening said enveloppe revealed a short letter and a handwritten cheque. It seems that the Home Office has refunded my failed passport application. This is more confusing that it seems, as it's written in big bold letters on the application form that refused applications will not be reimbursed. That's why I was so pissed when it first got refused, over a month ago. I so wasn't expecting this (and neither was Katy – her reply being “Since when has the government decided to be nice?”).
I'm guessing that it's a spin-off effect of my “pseudo” diplomatic visa. In any case, I'm not complaining and it's £335 that's going straight in the piggy bank.
Went into town to go pay that cheque in and send off my grandfather's 100th birthday gift. The old coot has been saying that he won't make it through the winter for the last 40 years and now he's going to receive a letter from the Queen :)
Now I'm back home alone save for the cat. Katy is in Derby (pronounced Daaaaaaaaaarby – the 'r' being optional even) to visit Rita. The cat is being shockingly nice. He's jumped on the bed this morning and butted me in the face demanding fuss. He's jumping on the couch to sit on my leg and watch the snooker world championships. He's climbing on the coffee table to stretch and put his paws on my stomach to beg for fuss.
Somebody has clearly doppelgangered our cat, but I'm not complaining. He did however finally kill Katy's plant that, frankly, had been slowly dying of neglect on the windowsill in any case. It did require some impromptu vacuuming lest he be tempted to use the soil on the carpet as a room-sized litter box but it's a small price to pay if he remains such a nice cat.
And now, Daleks!
EXTERMINATE!!!!
I feel completely useless today. Katy has infected me with the most dreaded of diseases, man flu. I'll probably survive, but it's going to be at the cost of several days of moaning and groaning.
A brief recap of recent events:
– Katy's parents came over for 3 days over Easter. We ate too much, drank too much, gardened, and were told that we're horrible cat owners because we do not feed our cat enough.
– Katy had an interview for a potentially better job at a nearby research institute. On paper, everything looks better, with more money for less work. See what happens. She's also sent off (today) an application to become a mobility guide dog trainer for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. They have an opening in Essex, so we'll see what happens with that as well.
– We've been selling off CDs and DVDs that we don't watch or listen to anymore. So far, we've made close to a hundred quid. That's always good.
So yeah. Interesting times.
But I still feel like crap.
I hate changing from DST to EST (or GMT, as is currently the case). I always feel fucked up for a few days as my internal clock struggles to adjust.
So yeah. Been quiet for the last little while. A few interesting things happened, but mostly it was a day-to-day thing. I was a pseudo-bachelor for most of last week, as Katy was taking some R&R in Leicester to go walkies, do puzzles and generally harass her dad. The whole week I was alone, I did not kill the cat. This is, for me, a major accomplishment.
We went on a little day trip to Norwich this saturday, which was nice and we went to see 300 at the cinema this sunday, which was decently bloody and violent. We'll probably buy the DVD when it comes out.
I found out last week that my contract is being renewed for another 3 years. It was a touchy thing for a while. They were always going to offer me a renewal, as my boss fairly lavished praise on my work (which, you know, is always nice!) but since we're funded by public research grants, balancing the books is always tricky. Our main operating grant is running out next year and they haven't secured a replacement for it yet, so they weren't sure if they could offer me a 3 year contract or simply a 1 year bridging contract.
I was fairly blushing when my boss told me that, although they don't have enough money to renew all the contracts they want, mine is one of those they really want to keep. I think I really hit a home run with the OLS. I never expected it to be so popular. The thing I'm working on right now could potentially be bigger, if I can get it to work properly.
So yeah. Happy dancies at job security :)
Things are brewing, they are.
Katy and I are hemming and hawing about possibly buying a house. We found something really, really nice in Great Chesterford. There's tons of reasons why it's tempting. It's a well-proportioned 3 bedroom semi-detached that's less than 15 years old. It's pretty much ready to move into. The area is nice. It's on the shuttle bus route to work, it's close to a train station so we can jaunt to London (not that we'll be able to afford going anymore, but that's another matter entirely).
The downside is, of course, money. It's a big chunk o' cash. It's on offer for £235,000. That would mean a montly mortgage of £1500. For you canadians out there, that figures to about 3400$CAD… That's a looooot of money. Even when you're being paid in pounds. A third of our gross salary will go straight to the bank, and that's hoping interest rates stay as they are (or hopefully go lower).
We've been crunching the numbers for the past week. We can get the mortgage in principle. My contract is safe for the next two years, in principle. Our budget would be tight, but doable, in principle. We'd have to reign in some of our more colourful spending, but we probably need to do that anyway.
It would mean we'd be on the property ladder in the UK, which is probably not a bad thing considering that house prices have doubled in the last 10 years (and even more, really). The people who bought that exact house paid £140,000 in 2002. The one thing that scares me is that the market is ripe for a correction, which means that prices will drop. Having said that, they've been saying that for the last few years. It will happen. The question is when.
Moving house seems to be the national sport here these days. When we move, I'd like to think we'll stay there until we need to move elsewhere in the UK or Canada for work reasons… Anyway. As a workmate just said, it'll probably be the biggest financial investment we ever make.
So yeah. Watch this space. We're going for a second visit this weekend. Who knows what'll happen by monday…
Last weekend, I cooked. It was good, though it was ridiculously bad for my diet. I made stuffed mushrooms and chicken wings and salsa and tomato apple chutney and fajitas.
It was good.
Katy and I drove up to Manchester this past Friday to go visit Anna and Rho, who were (finally) getting hitched. Google says it's a bit less than 200 miles, which should take about 4.5 hours. That is, of course, when it's not snowing and raining cats and dogs. The drive up north was fine until we hit the M56 coming into Manchester. Because of road works, poor visibility and truly appalling lack of signage, we completely missed our exit and ended up on the M60. Not too much of a problem, because we had directions on how to get to the hotel from the M60 ring road, so all good.
We were at junction 5. Our hotel was at junction 23. We just needed to drive a bit more and we'd get there eventually, right? That's what we thought, until we mysteriously ended up on the M62 headed for God know's where. We stopped at some services to get some tea and directions and finally got back on the motorway and get to our destination. The hotel was in sight!! But then we took a wrong turn and ended up halfway to Anna's before we found the way to the sodding hotel parking lot. Katy was drived-out by that time, so we took a cab to Anna and Rho's.
We had a bit of a chat/rant while I cooked some curry*, ate some and went back to our hotel for some sleep. We took the bus into town the next morning and had a bit of a pootle in the city center before meeting up with everybody in a pub before the registry office ceremony. The ceremony itself was nice and simple and quiet and cute, then everybody cabbed it back to Anna and Rho's house for a post-wedding party. I'd brought some food over the night before so that I'd have something allergy-friendly to eat for the party but, due to crossed wires, most of it god used to make sandwiches. Luckily, I was able to find lots of goodies here and there, so it worked out in the end.
I have to say, I'm getting old. I don't like large crowds where everybody has to shout to get heard over the music and everybody is trying their best to drink everything in sight. Give me a quiet dinner with a nice bottle of wine anytime. Like I said, I'm old and I'm proud of it. Now get off my lawn!!! We still had a nice time talking to people in small gatherings, so that was good. Saw Rita and Tim, which we hadn't seen since the wedding.
One thing I have to ask members of the sisterhood who read my blog. What the hell is the deal with lesbians and big leather bracelets and short, spiky haircuts???
Driving back home was an altogether completely different experience. It was nice and sunny on the way home and, just as we were nearing the M6/M1/A14 junction, we decided to surprise Katy's parents and drop in unexpectedly for dinner, causing a mild panic but it all turned out nicely. That was a fun way to end the weekend and we made our way home to Cambs to face the beasties and get ready for another week.
* We'd planned on inviting Anna and Rho to dinner on Friday night, but they had company coming and would be ordering up from a curry house. I proposed to cook dinner for them and had bought enough supplies to feed 8 people. However, because it took too long to get to Manchester, they had to order in anyway so the mountain of curry I made – though highly acclaimed – was relegated to tupperware in the fridge :(
Been a slow weekend. Katy worked on both mornings. Saturday, she went gallivanting with Donna to parts unknown in search of an aquatic pet center and a tree frog (don't ask) while I spent the day cleaning and sorting out paperwork in the office. Sunday was spent lounging in while I cooked a roast chicken and Katy did an apple crumble.
Slept really badly last night. Really vivid and disturbing dreams. Guess I have lots of things on my mind at the moment.
We were approved for a 240K mortgage, but we decided that we didn't want to move just yet. Bidwells is renewing our contract for another year (well sorta – we have a yearly contract, but after 6 months, they can give us 2 months notice if conditions change – but they say that we're “preferred tenants!” and that they have no plans to give us the boot. whatever) and we're comfortable in that house. What we need is stability at the moment, and it seems that the universe is conspiring against that.
We went to see a house in Great Chesterford that would have been an interesting fixer-upper though, but I can't be bothered with DIY just now. This week should be fairly sedate (I hope) and we're going to Manchester to Anna and Rho's wedding this weekend.
I took this picture at 7:30 am. When I left for the office at 9:30, most of it was already gone. As I look out my office window now, it's all gone.
This is not proper snow.
Fooey.
I've been criticized for being quiet recently, so I figured I should go through the motions of updating. Life is fairly quiet at the moment. We're still licking our financial wounds from the end of last year, so we're not going out much, though I did buy myself half a kilo of nice tea and a little tea ball so that I could brew it at the office.
Had a bit of an allergy scare last week, but I think we have strong suspicions who the culprit is. We blame the office microwave. It reeks of curry. We've eaten most of the foods that were suspects and since I didn't die, we've ruled them out. I was a bit angsty and bummed from that, but that seems to be slowly going away.
Went to the gym once this weekend, and compensated for that by making a batch of the most decadent muffins you've ever seen. So yeah. That's useful. In my defence however, I was really productive this past weekend, doing umpteen loads of laundry and dishes and cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom. It seriously needed it.
The cat is now officially on adult food, and since we found a brand he'll actually eat and like, things are good on that front. We need to take him to the vet sometime in February to find out if he was only born with one ball or if it's simply not descended and will need surgery to remove.
We're going to start planning our weekend in Manchester soon. Anna and Rho are getting hitched (finally!) and that's cause for celebration.
As I said, I don't really have anything major to report on. This is a good thing though, because it means that things are finally settling down :)