Since moving to this house I've not had much luck with computers.
First it took me 3 weeks to get the internet, then Porl's keyboard died, so I went keyboardless, then finally last week the switch on the pooter died. It wouldn't turn on at all, so I bought a new case.

Unfortunatly my techie wizard lives in Ormskirk, and I don't anymore. So I had 3 options.

• Wait a fortnight for techie wizard to come up and build it for me.
• Pay the computer shop to build it for me.
• Figure out how to build it myself (and possibly blow the computer/house/me up in the process.)

Being the impatient person that I am, I went with the doing it myself.

And it works!
Nothing blew up, no electric shocks, a few cuts on my hands, but that seems to be compulsary. My pooter is purring away happily beside me now, and it's much quieter as the fan got a thorough clean too.

I might have a new hobby, or career change ahead of me.

Internet access at work may be a dangerous thing.

Hello

Back again

Things have been a bit busy recently. However, we're in our lovely new house, there's still boxes everywhere, and will be until we get storage organised with the help of my wonderful Dad. We moved on Friday the 10th, we managed to get the living room looking almost straight by the Sunday, so it was starting to feel like a home. On the Monday we went into town to find a pub, we found the Q Inn, and there was an acoustic night going on, we've met some lovely people here, and the Q has beome our local, even though it's the furthest pub away from us. We managed to get Jimmy a bed sorted by Friday, and that's when it really started to feel like home for me.

unfortunately even though the net was working for Porl, the firewall continued to block my computers' existence. A couple of days ago Porl again tried to get it working (upstairs tweak something, come downstairs, check it, still no luck... repeat) after 2 hours of this I lost patience with the clattering up and down stairs so I had a look. Five minutes later tick box found, problem solved. So I'm back online, and I even waded though all the masses of emails (about 700 of them, must remember to unsubscribe from things before I next move house.) I'm quite surprised and touched by how many emails and other comments I've had from people who missed me, or at little noticed my absence.

Other happenings in no particular order include

• ITC gig - 'twas very good.
• Matt visiting - 'twas alcohol fuelled, involved another trip to the Q, late night ramblings, and rants at Presidential candidate debates.
• More trips to the Q and some fantastic acoustic nights, plus more friends made here.
• House warming party, with everyone visiting, lovely to see everyone. Some people loved our hills, others weren't so enamoured. I wish so many people weren't allergic to the cats.
• I handed in my notice. I'll miss my job a lot, and the clients even more, but the commute just couldn't be done.
• I got a new job (the cats have been giving me lessons on landing on my feet.)

The new job seems good, today was my first day, I think I'm going to like it. It seems sufficiently complicated to keep me interested, but a relaxed enough atmosphere to keep me from premature greying. Plus I do like being able to tell Sales Reps, sorry, Account Managers how to do their jobs. Working with Lucy is going to be fun. I made her go to the gym. I refused to be used as an excuse for not going. Now I've just got to try to find a way to help her quit smoking.
The only down side of the job is the travelling. I left work at 7:45 this morning, 20 minutes walk to the station, got the right train into Manchester, then stood on the Metro platform for 20+ minutes waiting for a tram. So I was about 20 minutes late on my first day in work. Not good. The bosses do know that the Metro is tempremental, but apparently they're going to clamp down on poor time keeping anyway. I'll try getting the same train tomorrow, but if it still goes wrong then I'll have to start getting an earlier train to compensate. Grrrr. Tonight I got in at 6:30, and I'm exhausted.

I'm sure I've missed loads of things out, but I'm tired and longing for a lie down. I promise to update again before the month is out.