this was actually about 4 weeks ago now, but it was way cool walking to work when it was minus 8, and feeling the proper cold coming. Unofrtunately blog posting has been broken for several weeks, but seems to have now returned...at last!!
This is the view out of the side window of our lounge BTW
When it came we weren't prepared and hadn't fitted our winter tyres to the car, so we couldn't dribve anywhere.
According to the forecast there's gonna be cold and snow again this weekend, so maybe Steve and Emma will get to see some......
Friday, December 15, 2006
Monday, October 09, 2006
Events of September
So here we are, time has flown and its 6 weeks or more since I posted last. As ever, and as it should be, it's been a fine a busy time.
The end of August continued to be frighteningly hot and sunny as did September. Apparently September was the hottest on record in Sweden and everyone at work continues to tell me how "you won't be smiling soon - the winter will come". In truth it was shit cold when I rode to work this morning - I'm still going by bike every day, but then it was only 4 degrees, and as I keep telling everyone it's not England is the tropics and I'm quite used to commuting in winter temps. Obviously minus 20 may be more of a shock but we'll. Currently I'm having to wear golves and 3 layers to cycle, but I've got a long way to go yet before it gets too much. In all ikleyhood it'll be the ice that beats me rather than the sheer temperature.
Anyway - I'm warm now, thanks to 2 things in principle.
1. whiskey - a fine single malt 15 year old balvenie that Howard brought over in mid September (ok I'm rambling now and not talking in any particular date order, but that's the whiskey to a point). so yeah anyway - Howard came over (more or less or my birthday by co-incidence) and he bought me a bottle of this
Balvenie 15 year Single Malt
and frankly it's bloody nice - so thanks mate!!
But more to the point we went to a great restaurant where we ate the tasting menu and drank about 8 courses of wine. By god it was fantastic!! We were there for 6 hours more or less, and what with having started with a cocktails at The Sky Bar first (very nice), we were a bit the worse for wear at the end of it. But by god it was good - seriously - the best...so following that we went back to Howard's room / suite at The Grand Hotel and frankly they're nto bloddy kidding - this was one f'ing grand hotel room and drank G&T and whiskeys til later in the morning - but anyway I'm getting to the point - all this drinking and eating was suitably great but Sarah had a job interview the next morning, which considering we were both still pissed as buggery is quite surprising that we even made it, but make it we did (I went with her for reasons that are too complex for me to describe here), but yes we hauled our arses out of bed and made it across town talk foriegn languages with an italian and a bulgarian, and discuss life in stockholn generally.
Strange times indeed....but you know what - she got the job. Magic!!
so back to the point in hand:
why I'm warm:
2. cos we've put the heating on - not amazing world breaking news but relevant to my life I guess - the cold is coming and I'm excited - bring on the snow is all I can say.
So yeah - september, well auagust really,, the end of august was a holiday for me, some downtime from work before the partying events of england. Basically we hung out in town and inthe archipeligo and went to places like this Grinda where we swam in the sea and generally lazed on deserted islands in the sun. If I remember rightly, that's one of the many reasons why we're here....
So following that off to England we flew for parties and fun. First off we got to contend with the "terrorism alert". I use this phrase with a heavy bag of salt since I think most of it is all just political bollocks, but anyway, fortunately stockholm airport decided that we'd be quite able to take toothpaste on the plane without endangering ourselves, and they'd also decided that there was little value in making people queue for 6 hours in a rubbish airport terminal to remind them what a great job their government was doing "portecting" them. but yeah...anyway...
so Tom and Karen's wedding ensued and frankly it was damn damn fine. Two of my favourite people in the world getting married and having a big party. How much better than that can it get. maybe I should have a photo link at this point, but I don't, we didn't take a damn photo, not s single one, we were just having too much of a good time. We cruised down the Thames on the boat and drunk fine wine and talked with many people that it has been a while since we'd seen and had a beautiful evening generally. Thanks Guys!!
Following that it was off to a quick walking holiday to chill a bit before the next family wedding. We did 3 days of the south downs and man, it was HOT. 28 degrees one day whilst carrying all our stuff, but by god the views were great because of it, and frankly it was great reminder of why the british countryside is so loved (and missed by us at times). Life doesn't get much better than this ...and every night we stayed in lovely country pubs. great views, great food, good beer and stunning views, add to that the feeling you get after you've walked 25km, and what more do you need.
So we got back from that and Prima cooked us a quite wonderful curry. To stay with james and Prima (as I have done 3 times already in the last 4 months) is quite a priviledge, cos they look after me like something else....
But things never stopped (including the heartburn by this stage) and there was no time to dawdle, it was on to coventry for another wedding (Andrew and Karen) which was also a total laugh. I have pictures of this one, but I've kept them private in respect of others' weddings, so if you're a named contact on flickr then have a look, if not then well, suffice to say the normal events went down, and there was a chocolate fountain. enough said.
And then back to croydon for one last blow out (well actually 2) and a big slap up meal at the noodle bar whose name I have forgotten.
In truth it was 10 days of absolute madness and partying and 10 days of absolute regret in a way, because I just spent it with all my favourite people and it kinda reminded me the things I'm missing back in the UK. However much I love Sweden and however much I love the life I have now, there is nothing like your true true friends and their company.....
There were other things that happened in that period, but frankly, I'm loosing the will the type right now, and there's still more of september to cover.
So yeah - there we go, the rest of the time, well it's a bit of a blur.
My aunt and uncle came to stay
I worked a shite load
I went kayaking in the middle of stockholm - truly amazing fun, and a load of other interesting swedish lifestyle things happened.
now it's time to get away from the computer, as it's 12 hours since I logged on this morning.
laters to anyone who's still listening.
The end of August continued to be frighteningly hot and sunny as did September. Apparently September was the hottest on record in Sweden and everyone at work continues to tell me how "you won't be smiling soon - the winter will come". In truth it was shit cold when I rode to work this morning - I'm still going by bike every day, but then it was only 4 degrees, and as I keep telling everyone it's not England is the tropics and I'm quite used to commuting in winter temps. Obviously minus 20 may be more of a shock but we'll. Currently I'm having to wear golves and 3 layers to cycle, but I've got a long way to go yet before it gets too much. In all ikleyhood it'll be the ice that beats me rather than the sheer temperature.
Anyway - I'm warm now, thanks to 2 things in principle.
1. whiskey - a fine single malt 15 year old balvenie that Howard brought over in mid September (ok I'm rambling now and not talking in any particular date order, but that's the whiskey to a point). so yeah anyway - Howard came over (more or less or my birthday by co-incidence) and he bought me a bottle of this
Balvenie 15 year Single Malt
and frankly it's bloody nice - so thanks mate!!
But more to the point we went to a great restaurant where we ate the tasting menu and drank about 8 courses of wine. By god it was fantastic!! We were there for 6 hours more or less, and what with having started with a cocktails at The Sky Bar first (very nice), we were a bit the worse for wear at the end of it. But by god it was good - seriously - the best...so following that we went back to Howard's room / suite at The Grand Hotel and frankly they're nto bloddy kidding - this was one f'ing grand hotel room and drank G&T and whiskeys til later in the morning - but anyway I'm getting to the point - all this drinking and eating was suitably great but Sarah had a job interview the next morning, which considering we were both still pissed as buggery is quite surprising that we even made it, but make it we did (I went with her for reasons that are too complex for me to describe here), but yes we hauled our arses out of bed and made it across town talk foriegn languages with an italian and a bulgarian, and discuss life in stockholn generally.
Strange times indeed....but you know what - she got the job. Magic!!
so back to the point in hand:
why I'm warm:
2. cos we've put the heating on - not amazing world breaking news but relevant to my life I guess - the cold is coming and I'm excited - bring on the snow is all I can say.
So yeah - september, well auagust really,, the end of august was a holiday for me, some downtime from work before the partying events of england. Basically we hung out in town and inthe archipeligo and went to places like this Grinda where we swam in the sea and generally lazed on deserted islands in the sun. If I remember rightly, that's one of the many reasons why we're here....
So following that off to England we flew for parties and fun. First off we got to contend with the "terrorism alert". I use this phrase with a heavy bag of salt since I think most of it is all just political bollocks, but anyway, fortunately stockholm airport decided that we'd be quite able to take toothpaste on the plane without endangering ourselves, and they'd also decided that there was little value in making people queue for 6 hours in a rubbish airport terminal to remind them what a great job their government was doing "portecting" them. but yeah...anyway...
so Tom and Karen's wedding ensued and frankly it was damn damn fine. Two of my favourite people in the world getting married and having a big party. How much better than that can it get. maybe I should have a photo link at this point, but I don't, we didn't take a damn photo, not s single one, we were just having too much of a good time. We cruised down the Thames on the boat and drunk fine wine and talked with many people that it has been a while since we'd seen and had a beautiful evening generally. Thanks Guys!!
Following that it was off to a quick walking holiday to chill a bit before the next family wedding. We did 3 days of the south downs and man, it was HOT. 28 degrees one day whilst carrying all our stuff, but by god the views were great because of it, and frankly it was great reminder of why the british countryside is so loved (and missed by us at times). Life doesn't get much better than this ...and every night we stayed in lovely country pubs. great views, great food, good beer and stunning views, add to that the feeling you get after you've walked 25km, and what more do you need.
So we got back from that and Prima cooked us a quite wonderful curry. To stay with james and Prima (as I have done 3 times already in the last 4 months) is quite a priviledge, cos they look after me like something else....
But things never stopped (including the heartburn by this stage) and there was no time to dawdle, it was on to coventry for another wedding (Andrew and Karen) which was also a total laugh. I have pictures of this one, but I've kept them private in respect of others' weddings, so if you're a named contact on flickr then have a look, if not then well, suffice to say the normal events went down, and there was a chocolate fountain. enough said.
And then back to croydon for one last blow out (well actually 2) and a big slap up meal at the noodle bar whose name I have forgotten.
In truth it was 10 days of absolute madness and partying and 10 days of absolute regret in a way, because I just spent it with all my favourite people and it kinda reminded me the things I'm missing back in the UK. However much I love Sweden and however much I love the life I have now, there is nothing like your true true friends and their company.....
There were other things that happened in that period, but frankly, I'm loosing the will the type right now, and there's still more of september to cover.
So yeah - there we go, the rest of the time, well it's a bit of a blur.
My aunt and uncle came to stay
I worked a shite load
I went kayaking in the middle of stockholm - truly amazing fun, and a load of other interesting swedish lifestyle things happened.
now it's time to get away from the computer, as it's 12 hours since I logged on this morning.
laters to anyone who's still listening.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Down by the lake
Here's my by another one of the local lakes that i was at yesterday. We'd just done a 10K walk round the local nature reserve, and this is just by a picnic site at the end. I'm not overly sure what the duckboards are for cos they don't seem to lead anywhere and it would seem unlikely that you could launch a boat from the end due to the vastness of the all the reeds (or whatever they're called) - but then maybe in other times of the year they're not there and you could launch......
according to one of my work colleagues this is predicted to be the last good weekend of summer and from here on in, autumn and winter come, whether this is true or not we'll have to see, but I have one more week of work before 4 weeks away from my desk, with a micture of holiday and training courses.....nice!
Its also harvest weekend at the moment, there are loads of people out working all the farms and combine harvesters all over the place. At the nature reserve this afternoon there a demonstration of traditional methods of farming and harvesting, because the 2 farms they run there focus on preserving old techniques and the like.
yesterday we met a volunteer group who work there who were working on a new project to restore some old farms and tracks around the area, because the nature reserve itself exists because in the past 2-300 years it was a major farming area outside of stockholm. So they're going down there today to demo their skills. Its quite cool stuff cos in a way its a bit like the old ray mears bush craft stuff, because there's lots of things like, making your own fencing and various craft type things like that.
according to one of my work colleagues this is predicted to be the last good weekend of summer and from here on in, autumn and winter come, whether this is true or not we'll have to see, but I have one more week of work before 4 weeks away from my desk, with a micture of holiday and training courses.....nice!
Its also harvest weekend at the moment, there are loads of people out working all the farms and combine harvesters all over the place. At the nature reserve this afternoon there a demonstration of traditional methods of farming and harvesting, because the 2 farms they run there focus on preserving old techniques and the like.
yesterday we met a volunteer group who work there who were working on a new project to restore some old farms and tracks around the area, because the nature reserve itself exists because in the past 2-300 years it was a major farming area outside of stockholm. So they're going down there today to demo their skills. Its quite cool stuff cos in a way its a bit like the old ray mears bush craft stuff, because there's lots of things like, making your own fencing and various craft type things like that.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
At least somebody is eating the cherries
There are a number of fruit trees in the garden, 3 apples, 1 plum, one immature pear and a huge 20 metre cherry tree. In truth I've tried a few apples but most have just fallen and gone on the compost heap. The cherry tree is dropping its fruit everywhere and currently the insects are having a field day, especially the wasps and the butterflies, as you can see here.
Whilst taking the photo I had waps crawling all over me, because unfortunately there are about 20 wasps to every butterfly.
Thanks to Steve for showing me how to take photos like this. When you see his dragonfly shots then you can see what can really be done.
Whilst taking the photo I had waps crawling all over me, because unfortunately there are about 20 wasps to every butterfly.
Thanks to Steve for showing me how to take photos like this. When you see his dragonfly shots then you can see what can really be done.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Where did I leave the car?
So here we all on Sunday night well into the 3rd leg of a 3 day drinking event to celebrate Steve's imminnent departure to Spain, Tom and Karen wedding and just general party feelings. Its was a fine time indeed.
We played some cool board games, Tom , Karen and Sarah cooked some great food on, we got to meet Steve's (ex) work colleagues and see how much they loved him :-) and for me, best of all, I just got to spend 3 days with all my old friends, its doesn't get much better than that.
James pushed the boat out and made some fantastic roast lamb for Sunday night and here we all are in the garden enjoying the rest of the evening.
But anyway , on to the point in hand. After 3 days of drinking and not much sleep, I made a brief visit to my old colleagues in the city and then jumped on the SAS flight out of city.
I got back to Stockholm about 10pm and basically was completely shagged. I'd parked the car at the airport but I was buggered if I could find it. I ended up wandering round the back arse end of nowhere airport car parks blindly wondering whether I was a tired idiot with no memory, or whether the car had been stolen (answers on a postcard which is most likely)
anyway - 30 minutes later - I did find it and managed to drive slowly and carefully home.
Great weekend though. Roll on september
We played some cool board games, Tom , Karen and Sarah cooked some great food on, we got to meet Steve's (ex) work colleagues and see how much they loved him :-) and for me, best of all, I just got to spend 3 days with all my old friends, its doesn't get much better than that.
James pushed the boat out and made some fantastic roast lamb for Sunday night and here we all are in the garden enjoying the rest of the evening.
But anyway , on to the point in hand. After 3 days of drinking and not much sleep, I made a brief visit to my old colleagues in the city and then jumped on the SAS flight out of city.
I got back to Stockholm about 10pm and basically was completely shagged. I'd parked the car at the airport but I was buggered if I could find it. I ended up wandering round the back arse end of nowhere airport car parks blindly wondering whether I was a tired idiot with no memory, or whether the car had been stolen (answers on a postcard which is most likely)
anyway - 30 minutes later - I did find it and managed to drive slowly and carefully home.
Great weekend though. Roll on september
Other stuff that has happened this week...
A big deer with antlers appeared in the garden 2 mornings in a row
The cat got more ticks and I had to remove them (try catching a cat, holding it between your logs, grabbed its head and tilting it backwards with one hand, while brandishing your tick removal device with the other - here's a tip, its bloody difficult and the cat can probably be relied upon to struggle intensly and make wierd noises)
I went to the swedish GP and had my ear syringed, after speaking a whole load of crap Swedish to the receptionist and the nurse. Good fun though in the end - and by god I can hear in my right ear again now!
I went go-karting again on Wednesday, but didn't win this time. I spun twice and came 3rd.
Things I'm reading - SQL Server development team intranet site - its full of interesting things.
I tried the new QOOP photo printing service which is tied into flickr. I've used their photo book service before, but haven't tried prints - we'll see how it goes - dead cheap and easy though - their interface was fairly impressive - as it was when I had my book printing previously. I can't recommend it enough.
I changed my blog template slightly.
I went to Croydon for the weekend and partied hard.
The cat got more ticks and I had to remove them (try catching a cat, holding it between your logs, grabbed its head and tilting it backwards with one hand, while brandishing your tick removal device with the other - here's a tip, its bloody difficult and the cat can probably be relied upon to struggle intensly and make wierd noises)
I went to the swedish GP and had my ear syringed, after speaking a whole load of crap Swedish to the receptionist and the nurse. Good fun though in the end - and by god I can hear in my right ear again now!
I went go-karting again on Wednesday, but didn't win this time. I spun twice and came 3rd.
Things I'm reading - SQL Server development team intranet site - its full of interesting things.
I tried the new QOOP photo printing service which is tied into flickr. I've used their photo book service before, but haven't tried prints - we'll see how it goes - dead cheap and easy though - their interface was fairly impressive - as it was when I had my book printing previously. I can't recommend it enough.
I changed my blog template slightly.
I went to Croydon for the weekend and partied hard.
Here's the local lake
These are the rocks next to Edsviken (the local lake) upon which I like to laze after a tough day at work. I can be here within about 5 / 10 minutes from home, and this was taken last week at about 6.30pm after work, when I went for a quick swim. There's some more on flickr, but basically I live on the other side of this lake - just over a hill. Nice! In the background you can see a guy contemplating jumping in - there's a mini sheer cliff face of about 6 to 10 feet high depending on how brave you are, where you can jump in from.
Alternatively you can go to the opposite side of the lake, where there's a nice grassy park to sit on, from where you can also take a swim.
Alternatively you can go to the opposite side of the lake, where there's a nice grassy park to sit on, from where you can also take a swim.
Why don't my toenails grow anymore?
a good question or what? ever since I've moved to Sweden they just don't grow. Does anyone have an explanation for this? Frankly I find it very strange.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
How complex can it be to sell a house?
So - my house sale must be as simple as it possibly comes.
I'm looking for a quick sale - have no chain - have left country and am desperate to sell. There's no holdups , no structural problems, no nothing.
My buyers also have no chain, they're first time buyers with money in the bank renting a house down the road.
We've both been ready to do the deal since about mid May - and yet its now nearly the end of July. This week we resorted to phoning the solicitors and the estate agents at least once a day, just trying to find out what the fuck everyone was doing, and what the possible delay could be.
It seemed to eventually turn out that basically both solicitors were just completely lazy and useless and the only reason they haven't exchanged is that they just couldn't be arsed. Frankly I'm unimpressed, but they kinda half me by the balls I guess. To change at this point in time would be pointless and they're now assuring us that they're gonna exchange this week, but by god its been painful. I hate to think how it would have been had either of us had somewhere else in the chain....
Its continues to stupify me how difficult a relatively simple process can be made. I suppose I could bang on here now about how easy it is to do such a deal in Sweden, but that'd just be pointless eh? I guess we should have just spent alot more time alot earlier in the process ringing them every day trying to make it happen, but frankly I'm paying them so why would I want to do their f'ing job for them...it's like "Have you phoned the other solicitor" - "well no" - " well do you think that maybe you should"...god its frustrating. Why they think its going to magically happen without them actualyl doing any work is beyond me....
I think that it would also be far fairer to note that Sarah has done all of this, and showed extreme patience in the process. i think I would have just called everyone a complete fuckwit by this point in time, and alienated any hope of the solicitors every getting off their fat arses to earn their money.
respect to sarah...
bollocks to solicitors....
Anyway - roll on us being given a huge sum of money - we're nearly there....
I'm looking for a quick sale - have no chain - have left country and am desperate to sell. There's no holdups , no structural problems, no nothing.
My buyers also have no chain, they're first time buyers with money in the bank renting a house down the road.
We've both been ready to do the deal since about mid May - and yet its now nearly the end of July. This week we resorted to phoning the solicitors and the estate agents at least once a day, just trying to find out what the fuck everyone was doing, and what the possible delay could be.
It seemed to eventually turn out that basically both solicitors were just completely lazy and useless and the only reason they haven't exchanged is that they just couldn't be arsed. Frankly I'm unimpressed, but they kinda half me by the balls I guess. To change at this point in time would be pointless and they're now assuring us that they're gonna exchange this week, but by god its been painful. I hate to think how it would have been had either of us had somewhere else in the chain....
Its continues to stupify me how difficult a relatively simple process can be made. I suppose I could bang on here now about how easy it is to do such a deal in Sweden, but that'd just be pointless eh? I guess we should have just spent alot more time alot earlier in the process ringing them every day trying to make it happen, but frankly I'm paying them so why would I want to do their f'ing job for them...it's like "Have you phoned the other solicitor" - "well no" - " well do you think that maybe you should"...god its frustrating. Why they think its going to magically happen without them actualyl doing any work is beyond me....
I think that it would also be far fairer to note that Sarah has done all of this, and showed extreme patience in the process. i think I would have just called everyone a complete fuckwit by this point in time, and alienated any hope of the solicitors every getting off their fat arses to earn their money.
respect to sarah...
bollocks to solicitors....
Anyway - roll on us being given a huge sum of money - we're nearly there....
more lakes = more swimming
A brief summary of the week:
Fell off bike (well actually 2 weeks ago now, but I still have the scars and scabs so it feels quite recent). This will teach me about riding a racing bike with smooth tyres on a cycle path made of gravel and loose material.
Went to see Pirates of the caribbean - part 2 - I was rather underwhelmed.
Reading "Inside Windows 2000" - which considering who its written by also reminds me that Microsoft bought sysinternals this week....no word of how much they paid though.
Jumped in several lakes - but again forgot to take my camera so I have no photographic evidence.
Made plans for trip to England next week, and in September
Made plans for a trip to the archipelago in August.
tidied up the computer room and finally cabled and filed everything properly.
Didn't do my tax return - didn't do my non residency in UK form.
Fell off bike (well actually 2 weeks ago now, but I still have the scars and scabs so it feels quite recent). This will teach me about riding a racing bike with smooth tyres on a cycle path made of gravel and loose material.
Went to see Pirates of the caribbean - part 2 - I was rather underwhelmed.
Reading "Inside Windows 2000" - which considering who its written by also reminds me that Microsoft bought sysinternals this week....no word of how much they paid though.
Jumped in several lakes - but again forgot to take my camera so I have no photographic evidence.
Made plans for trip to England next week, and in September
Made plans for a trip to the archipelago in August.
tidied up the computer room and finally cabled and filed everything properly.
Didn't do my tax return - didn't do my non residency in UK form.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Sandhamn
We took the boat to here at the weekend, and sat on the beach all day. Its in the depths of the Stockholm archipeligo. Its called Sandhamn and its a small island about 4km by 1.5 km.
Kings of Leon Rock
So I've been sitting at home all evening playing computers (as I often do at the moment) - well after its dark anyway - cos as a Swede said to me the other day - its summer , you must leave work by 5pm if not earlier every day - and take beer in the sun - its compulsory....they really mean it as well.
some guys were betting me at lunch the other day that I'd stop smiling come winter - or at least come half way through winter as I'm known at work for being a bit too jolly I think. Strange that - especially as I was a bit miserable in June, but then maybe its just that I stand out against the quiet and restrained swedish men somewhat...anyway
so yeah - I'm here and I'm listening to the kings of leon (youth and yound manhood) and frankly its just absolutely f'ing excellent and has had me dancing about the room and acting like a bit of a tit generally....nice!
On Wednesday i went to a party in central stockholm, and got absolutely ratted with a load of people from work. It was a pleasant evening indeed, I spoke alot of very bad swedish, we drunk alot of cocktails and I made a few friends.
It was a classic case of planning to leave at a reasonable hour, getting to the front door and then being confronted by drunken swedes saying "one for the road" - in swedish of course - and 2 hours and a bottle of whiskey later, well you know how it goes....
I can;t really remember how I got home, but I made it all in one piece, so alls well that ends well. It was good to be out and about and being social, although frightening difficult at times doing the whole swedish thing. fortunately of course we can alwasy break into english when anything gets tough, but I've been really trying generally.
Often at lunchtimes now, I have to speak swedish with my colleagues. They find it entertaining (sometimes) and I get some good practice.
Sarah has started a new swedish course this week, but I'm unable to because they're all during the day in the summer months. My next one ought to start in september hopefully.
anyway - beyond that my focus is about being excited with an imminent return to the Uk for toms stag at the the end of the month
so roll on croydon fun.
some guys were betting me at lunch the other day that I'd stop smiling come winter - or at least come half way through winter as I'm known at work for being a bit too jolly I think. Strange that - especially as I was a bit miserable in June, but then maybe its just that I stand out against the quiet and restrained swedish men somewhat...anyway
so yeah - I'm here and I'm listening to the kings of leon (youth and yound manhood) and frankly its just absolutely f'ing excellent and has had me dancing about the room and acting like a bit of a tit generally....nice!
On Wednesday i went to a party in central stockholm, and got absolutely ratted with a load of people from work. It was a pleasant evening indeed, I spoke alot of very bad swedish, we drunk alot of cocktails and I made a few friends.
It was a classic case of planning to leave at a reasonable hour, getting to the front door and then being confronted by drunken swedes saying "one for the road" - in swedish of course - and 2 hours and a bottle of whiskey later, well you know how it goes....
I can;t really remember how I got home, but I made it all in one piece, so alls well that ends well. It was good to be out and about and being social, although frightening difficult at times doing the whole swedish thing. fortunately of course we can alwasy break into english when anything gets tough, but I've been really trying generally.
Often at lunchtimes now, I have to speak swedish with my colleagues. They find it entertaining (sometimes) and I get some good practice.
Sarah has started a new swedish course this week, but I'm unable to because they're all during the day in the summer months. My next one ought to start in september hopefully.
anyway - beyond that my focus is about being excited with an imminent return to the Uk for toms stag at the the end of the month
so roll on croydon fun.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
a quiet evening at home
So i worked a 11 hour day today which was far too long and my head was a bit rotted at the end of the day, from looking at query plan cardinality estimations.
The cat's sitting on my lap and I'm stroking her ears. Life is good in the cat world.
If anyone wants to instance message during the day I can IM at work now, and at home of course, but I'm always online during the day and my IM account is globalgoat@gmail.com
login and say hello....
The cat's sitting on my lap and I'm stroking her ears. Life is good in the cat world.
If anyone wants to instance message during the day I can IM at work now, and at home of course, but I'm always online during the day and my IM account is globalgoat@gmail.com
login and say hello....
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
A slow week
I've been a bit miserable this week. I've missed alot of people in London and wished that I could just go out for a quick beer. Hey Ho - I'm going back on the weekend of 28th July for 4 days, so that'll be good.
Obviously I went back to London on the weekend of 9th June and I had a pretty damn fine time all in all. I rushed around and saw a lot of people. It was totally great to hook up with everyone, even if it was only for a few hours sometimes, but it was a bloody great time.
So there we go.
Thoughts apart from that:
Reading: Debugging Applications for .NET and Windows (well re-reading some of it in truth)
Meaning to also re-read: Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance – its been a while
Meaning to lookup: is there a new Douglas coupland novel out? Its been ages since I read any fiction, its just been tech tech tech for past 3 months
Apart from: Guardian Weekly, and a copy of the “real” guardian I got at central station during the week – G2 heaven – I do miss it.
Thinking: Cycling to work – brilliant
Exercising: see above + swimming in lakes, and more swimming in lakes – nice!! And a few weights at home since my shoulders are feeling almost fixed…..
Working: SQL Performance issues mostly this week, and fixing next door neighbours PCs – well trying to anyway, I always find it hard to say no to request like this, but then you just know what you’re going to find – a mirriad of half installed half removed malware internet downloaded hardware conflicting device crunching driver corrupting application hanging type of crap. If it was mine I’d wipe it clean and start again!!
Drooling over: New Lego Mindstorms NXT , due out in 6 weeks to general release – I need to try this I think. I definately need to build some robots. My neighbour has one of those robotic lawnmowers. I watch it trundle around the garden. In terms of lawnmowings, its utterly inefficient, it takes about 3 hours to cut a tiny 10 sq metres lawn, but its dead good to watch.....(insert your own comment about how sad I am here!)
Obviously I went back to London on the weekend of 9th June and I had a pretty damn fine time all in all. I rushed around and saw a lot of people. It was totally great to hook up with everyone, even if it was only for a few hours sometimes, but it was a bloody great time.
So there we go.
Thoughts apart from that:
Reading: Debugging Applications for .NET and Windows (well re-reading some of it in truth)
Meaning to also re-read: Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance – its been a while
Meaning to lookup: is there a new Douglas coupland novel out? Its been ages since I read any fiction, its just been tech tech tech for past 3 months
Apart from: Guardian Weekly, and a copy of the “real” guardian I got at central station during the week – G2 heaven – I do miss it.
Thinking: Cycling to work – brilliant
Exercising: see above + swimming in lakes, and more swimming in lakes – nice!! And a few weights at home since my shoulders are feeling almost fixed…..
Working: SQL Performance issues mostly this week, and fixing next door neighbours PCs – well trying to anyway, I always find it hard to say no to request like this, but then you just know what you’re going to find – a mirriad of half installed half removed malware internet downloaded hardware conflicting device crunching driver corrupting application hanging type of crap. If it was mine I’d wipe it clean and start again!!
Drooling over: New Lego Mindstorms NXT , due out in 6 weeks to general release – I need to try this I think. I definately need to build some robots. My neighbour has one of those robotic lawnmowers. I watch it trundle around the garden. In terms of lawnmowings, its utterly inefficient, it takes about 3 hours to cut a tiny 10 sq metres lawn, but its dead good to watch.....(insert your own comment about how sad I am here!)
Sunday, June 25, 2006
pictures of the new house
uploaded to flickr at long last - see previous post - I'm sitting on that terrace now, as I write this.
No web access at home
So here we are – it must be about 3 weeks or more since I managed to post something. My lack of internet connection at home is beginning to become tiresome. Here’s the thing, I’ve moved house (check out the pictures on flickr) and its f’ing amazing, but its taking an age for the internet to be enable at the exchange its just like UK really in that regard, there is the ex state run monopoly fixed line provider who has all the infrastructure, and my ISP, who has sold me a lovely deal of 24MB connection with first 3 months free, is being delayed in enabling my connection. Anyway, only about another 2 weeks to wait now hopefully, but its quite frustrating.
OBVIOUSLY, I can use the web at work, but for reasons to long to write here I haven’t – well not for much personal stuff anyway. A simple point would be to say that during the days I’ve been too busy to blog and upload photos etc, and in the evenings I haven’t been in the mood to stay in the office and do personal things.
Both mums were here for a week and Emma is here now, so its not been a good time to geek out at the office, when I ought to be at home socialising. Suffice to say I have much web withdrawal symtoms, so the girls have gone into town today and I’ve been walking round the garden outdoors, trying to find the optimal spot to connect to my neighbours unsecured wireless connection.
This isn’t as bad as it sounds, as he said I was welcome to share it its just that I can’t get a good signal anywhere. So I’m now sitting on his terrace, at his garden table – uploading my flickr and writing this. He’s away in the archipelago anyway, with the rest of Stockholm for midsummer weekend, so I have the place to myself – its just not the most ergonomic of desks!! I may actually go into the office later to use their connection as it might be easier.
There are about 4 other wireless signals in sight of here, but unfortunately all are encrypted…..
OBVIOUSLY, I can use the web at work, but for reasons to long to write here I haven’t – well not for much personal stuff anyway. A simple point would be to say that during the days I’ve been too busy to blog and upload photos etc, and in the evenings I haven’t been in the mood to stay in the office and do personal things.
Both mums were here for a week and Emma is here now, so its not been a good time to geek out at the office, when I ought to be at home socialising. Suffice to say I have much web withdrawal symtoms, so the girls have gone into town today and I’ve been walking round the garden outdoors, trying to find the optimal spot to connect to my neighbours unsecured wireless connection.
This isn’t as bad as it sounds, as he said I was welcome to share it its just that I can’t get a good signal anywhere. So I’m now sitting on his terrace, at his garden table – uploading my flickr and writing this. He’s away in the archipelago anyway, with the rest of Stockholm for midsummer weekend, so I have the place to myself – its just not the most ergonomic of desks!! I may actually go into the office later to use their connection as it might be easier.
There are about 4 other wireless signals in sight of here, but unfortunately all are encrypted…..
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Grilling Sausages Outdoors
There's nothing like it....make sure you always put out your fire properly though.
A busy but interesting week
Its Saturday morning and sarah has just returned from a flying visit to the UK to have all our possessions packed at the old house and shipped over here. This all went suitably to plan by all accounts, and in just 12 more days I can get out of this bloody hotel room and move into a proper damn house with some furniture. It can’t come soon enough frankly….I’m sitting here catching up on email etc now though listening to the artic monkeys and life feels good.
Anyway, all this feeling has led to is my continuing devotion to study and reading of various natures. This week has had 2 major events.
1. Microsoft finally letting me loose on real work – admittedly I’m still a bit slow compared to most other people there so I haven’t quite got a full workload in any sense, but at least I’m starting. I’ve done much bloody theoretical training the past 4 weeks, its been good to look at some real situations, and get back to solving people’s problems, although I haven’t actually solved any yet as they’re so damn difficult, but then that’s the whole point.
The basic point is that even the easiest of cases within my new workload is at the higher end of anything I’ve done before. This is what I’d hoped for and this is what I’ve got. Now I’ve made by bed I’d better damn well lie in it.
I’m loving it.
2. Swedish Classes starting
I thought that I would love this, but its not turned out quite so well so far. I am learning stuff and I’m enjoying the homework and self study but I’m not enjoying the actual class that much. I think this is probably because I don’t like the teacher that much which is something I‘ve never experienced in Adult education previously, I just don’t like her style very much. I think she may well be a good teacher, we just don’t gel very much. But anyway I‘ll finish the class, its only another 4 weeks and then maybe I’ll change to a different tutor.
Currently I’m reading:
“How would you move mount fuji”
which is a book about Microsoft interview puzzles and logical thinking etc.
Plus of course the usual amount of technical information which has become my style for the past 5 weeks.
I’ve also been playing with speed reading techniques and trials and evaluations following some interesting conversations at work about enabling yourself to take in more information and comprehend it better as well. I’m finding it shockingly fascinating. It may well be something I’ll put some time towards in the coming weeks. In fact it definitely will be if I think about it more now – its amazing stuff. I’ve always been a vey fast reader anyway (well so I thought) so it was interesting to quantify myself against an average set anyway, and then the idea of being able to double your speed is frankly remarkable. We shall see if it works or not…
So yeah the mid week section has just been work – Swedish class – homework – work – Swedish class homework.
Now that sarah’s back though I can just have a chilled weekend 9with maybe a little Swedish homework!).
Last weekend I spent a long time out walking on my own in the nature reserve up the road again. I found a great animal / bird watching hide and spent a while checking out some deer and lots of water / wading birds. As ever it was eerily quiet and I only saw a couple of other people in 4 hours or so, and yet its not like it wilderness, its just 10 minutes from the motorway and right inside the suburbs of Stockholm. There’s just so much space here.
I’m feeling halfway to being a proper employee Swedish resident now, as I got my first pay slip this week and used my sweidsh bank account and that type of thing. It all helps.
I’m going off in a few minutes to eat fish in a big indoor market in the city, which ought to be rather cool as well.
I learnt another interesting thing about Swedish employment law this week as well. Although I get paid holiday from Microsoft, apparently you also get paid by the Sweidsh government when you take holiday. The guys were having trouble explaining this concept to me, and they were saying things like “it seems to good to be true eh, but it really does work like this”. From what I understand it’s something like when you claim SSP in the Uk, or maternity benefit, in that your company may choose to pay you or not pay you under certain scenarios, but there is a minimum covering payment you get from the government in case you don’t get this as an employee benefit, thereby allowing people to take holiday without too heavy a financial benefit. It’s a legal right of any Swedish employee to request a 4 week consecutive holiday between June and august and the employer HAS to grant it.
So basically the more holiday you take in a month the more you get paid!! I have yet to see quite how true or valuable this is, but I’ll know next month when I’ve taken some.
Beyond that, well I’ve booked a flight back to the UK for flying visit of 48 hours on 9 june so I hope to catch up with lots of people then.
Anyway, all this feeling has led to is my continuing devotion to study and reading of various natures. This week has had 2 major events.
1. Microsoft finally letting me loose on real work – admittedly I’m still a bit slow compared to most other people there so I haven’t quite got a full workload in any sense, but at least I’m starting. I’ve done much bloody theoretical training the past 4 weeks, its been good to look at some real situations, and get back to solving people’s problems, although I haven’t actually solved any yet as they’re so damn difficult, but then that’s the whole point.
The basic point is that even the easiest of cases within my new workload is at the higher end of anything I’ve done before. This is what I’d hoped for and this is what I’ve got. Now I’ve made by bed I’d better damn well lie in it.
I’m loving it.
2. Swedish Classes starting
I thought that I would love this, but its not turned out quite so well so far. I am learning stuff and I’m enjoying the homework and self study but I’m not enjoying the actual class that much. I think this is probably because I don’t like the teacher that much which is something I‘ve never experienced in Adult education previously, I just don’t like her style very much. I think she may well be a good teacher, we just don’t gel very much. But anyway I‘ll finish the class, its only another 4 weeks and then maybe I’ll change to a different tutor.
Currently I’m reading:
“How would you move mount fuji”
which is a book about Microsoft interview puzzles and logical thinking etc.
Plus of course the usual amount of technical information which has become my style for the past 5 weeks.
I’ve also been playing with speed reading techniques and trials and evaluations following some interesting conversations at work about enabling yourself to take in more information and comprehend it better as well. I’m finding it shockingly fascinating. It may well be something I’ll put some time towards in the coming weeks. In fact it definitely will be if I think about it more now – its amazing stuff. I’ve always been a vey fast reader anyway (well so I thought) so it was interesting to quantify myself against an average set anyway, and then the idea of being able to double your speed is frankly remarkable. We shall see if it works or not…
So yeah the mid week section has just been work – Swedish class – homework – work – Swedish class homework.
Now that sarah’s back though I can just have a chilled weekend 9with maybe a little Swedish homework!).
Last weekend I spent a long time out walking on my own in the nature reserve up the road again. I found a great animal / bird watching hide and spent a while checking out some deer and lots of water / wading birds. As ever it was eerily quiet and I only saw a couple of other people in 4 hours or so, and yet its not like it wilderness, its just 10 minutes from the motorway and right inside the suburbs of Stockholm. There’s just so much space here.
I’m feeling halfway to being a proper employee Swedish resident now, as I got my first pay slip this week and used my sweidsh bank account and that type of thing. It all helps.
I’m going off in a few minutes to eat fish in a big indoor market in the city, which ought to be rather cool as well.
I learnt another interesting thing about Swedish employment law this week as well. Although I get paid holiday from Microsoft, apparently you also get paid by the Sweidsh government when you take holiday. The guys were having trouble explaining this concept to me, and they were saying things like “it seems to good to be true eh, but it really does work like this”. From what I understand it’s something like when you claim SSP in the Uk, or maternity benefit, in that your company may choose to pay you or not pay you under certain scenarios, but there is a minimum covering payment you get from the government in case you don’t get this as an employee benefit, thereby allowing people to take holiday without too heavy a financial benefit. It’s a legal right of any Swedish employee to request a 4 week consecutive holiday between June and august and the employer HAS to grant it.
So basically the more holiday you take in a month the more you get paid!! I have yet to see quite how true or valuable this is, but I’ll know next month when I’ve taken some.
Beyond that, well I’ve booked a flight back to the UK for flying visit of 48 hours on 9 june so I hope to catch up with lots of people then.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Rune Stone
This is from the national park just up the road from us where we go walking. Its about 5 minutes walk from the hotel and about 10 minutes walk from the new house. There's lots of stuff like this up there like stone rows and settlement patterns from about the last 1000 years. The park is one of the initial places settled around Stockholm as it is now apparently.
The Best place to work in 2006
Microsoft won the award today for best place to work in Sweden -2006, as voted by the employees. What can I say, I'm not surprised. That's what it says on the arm patch BTW for thos enot speaking swedish.....I could tell you that I heard the news whilst sitting on the sun terrace of the outlook cafe this morning having a coffee, but that wouldn't be true...well not the hearing about it then part anyway. So we all got these "presents" to celebrate. I can't say I'm surprised we won, cos its bloody great there :-)
I hear that its hot in England
Well its pretty damn warm here as well, 21 degrees today and sunny with it. The weekend is meant to be the same and I reckon we're gonna head for the outdoors, taken some sausages and grill them by a lake. Nice! I'm sitting here at the moment eaten prawn mayo salad type of thing on crisp breads, which is kinda like toast skagen (spent slightly differently but I can't be arsed to find the swedish character set currently and I'm on the UK laptop), which is a classic (I think) swedish starter. Smoked fish and salad to follow....tasty.
Today was a good day (well even better than the other days)
So yesterday afternoon we received our personnummers (like an NI number basically) but as documented previusly this leads to all powerful abilities in Sweden, where administrative doors open for you! Therefore today we managed to open a bank account, which of course means I can get paid this month, and also pick up our car - see flickr and other posts...So basically we're feeling pretty satisfied cos we've done nearly all the initial admin that is needed. Also we went to the bar up the road (Rastaurang Torget - which means railway restaurant) for a couple of quick beers, and it was dead nice, so we'll probably return there before we leave Akalla for Sollentuna at the end of the month. It seemed to be serving some fantastic home cooked food for about £5 as well, which is an added bonus. I saw the most amazing calzone appear from the kitchen, which confirmed my view that I had to return, but then I'd eaten pizza for lunch anyway, which is why I didn't dive straight in there.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
2 weeks down the line...Spring Holiday
I’ve sent about 30 pages of emails this morning, so frankly I can’t be buggered to write a whole load here at the moment, so I’m gonna cheat and post some exerts from the mails instead:
On the subject of work I’m having a truly mad time. I’ve been given 4 weeks to come up to speed and a reading / study list a mile long. The week I’ve been doing windows internals, processes, threads, memory blah blah blah. Its very very geeky and very very fascinating. It’s a bit of a challenge for me in truth, but then its nice to be pushed. I talk to the people around me, just the other SQL guys mostly and many of them have been at MS for 10 years or so, and they know so damn much. It feels like its going to be hard to contribute something at the moment. I reckon I will be fine because I trust my ability to do support at the end of the day, but its forcing me to push myself far beyond what I’ve had to in recent years. If this makes it sounds bad though, I’m describing it badly. Its truly the most brilliant techie geeky fun I’ve ever had, and I can’t wait to actually start working on real customer problems. I actually managed this week to answer a SQL question to one of my colleagues when he needed some help, so this may me feel good, and reminded me that I do know something….
Seriously though, life here is pretty sweet. I’m still integrating administratively because the Swedes have a compulsory identity card scheme (sounds familiar?), which I haven’t received yet and without which you can’t do bugger all. My application is accepted its just at the processing centre currently, so I’m waiting on this. For example I bought a car last week, but they won’t give it to me without my identity card, and I couldn’t insure it either. I can’t open an account mobile, so I’m on Swedish PAYG system currently, and if I wasn’t living in a hotel still, I’d be having trouble registering my utility bills. Its airly all pervading but then there are apparently benefits. Once you are registered, it truly does track everything. Now obviously you could arugue whether this was good or bad from a freedom of information point of view, I have met Swedes who go both ways about whether its good or bad, but the major benefits is that their technology is completely properly integrated across all government departments, meaning that for example if ou change your address, you just tell these people and they inform everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, automatically for you. Apparently when you do a tax return, they already know EVERYTHING about you income and expenditure and they just send the form to sign and approve. The guy sitting next to me at work did his by SMS last year apparently!!
Stockholm is slowly starting to green up now. Tonight is the big festival where we celebrate the arrival of spring (and therefore have public holiday tomorrow). On another note there are 6 further bank holidays before end of June – go Sweden!! But there’s gonna be some huge bonfires lit and various weird games and stuff like “hit the cat out of the barrel”, don’t know what this is yet, but it starts at 8.15 tonight. Also apparently everyone wears sailors caps and throws them in the air a lot..we’ll shall see, I’ll no doubt put some photos up on flickr next week.
On the subject of work I’m having a truly mad time. I’ve been given 4 weeks to come up to speed and a reading / study list a mile long. The week I’ve been doing windows internals, processes, threads, memory blah blah blah. Its very very geeky and very very fascinating. It’s a bit of a challenge for me in truth, but then its nice to be pushed. I talk to the people around me, just the other SQL guys mostly and many of them have been at MS for 10 years or so, and they know so damn much. It feels like its going to be hard to contribute something at the moment. I reckon I will be fine because I trust my ability to do support at the end of the day, but its forcing me to push myself far beyond what I’ve had to in recent years. If this makes it sounds bad though, I’m describing it badly. Its truly the most brilliant techie geeky fun I’ve ever had, and I can’t wait to actually start working on real customer problems. I actually managed this week to answer a SQL question to one of my colleagues when he needed some help, so this may me feel good, and reminded me that I do know something….
Seriously though, life here is pretty sweet. I’m still integrating administratively because the Swedes have a compulsory identity card scheme (sounds familiar?), which I haven’t received yet and without which you can’t do bugger all. My application is accepted its just at the processing centre currently, so I’m waiting on this. For example I bought a car last week, but they won’t give it to me without my identity card, and I couldn’t insure it either. I can’t open an account mobile, so I’m on Swedish PAYG system currently, and if I wasn’t living in a hotel still, I’d be having trouble registering my utility bills. Its airly all pervading but then there are apparently benefits. Once you are registered, it truly does track everything. Now obviously you could arugue whether this was good or bad from a freedom of information point of view, I have met Swedes who go both ways about whether its good or bad, but the major benefits is that their technology is completely properly integrated across all government departments, meaning that for example if ou change your address, you just tell these people and they inform everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, automatically for you. Apparently when you do a tax return, they already know EVERYTHING about you income and expenditure and they just send the form to sign and approve. The guy sitting next to me at work did his by SMS last year apparently!!
Stockholm is slowly starting to green up now. Tonight is the big festival where we celebrate the arrival of spring (and therefore have public holiday tomorrow). On another note there are 6 further bank holidays before end of June – go Sweden!! But there’s gonna be some huge bonfires lit and various weird games and stuff like “hit the cat out of the barrel”, don’t know what this is yet, but it starts at 8.15 tonight. Also apparently everyone wears sailors caps and throws them in the air a lot..we’ll shall see, I’ll no doubt put some photos up on flickr next week.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
First days in a new job....
The obvious question from the previous post having just read it back (and looked at the photo) is why are you drinking beer for breakfast? Well obviously I’m not, but the point of this story is that you can eat pickled gherkins with whatever the hell you want, whether it be whilst drinking beer in the evening or with cheese and crisp breads in the morning
So anyway…..1 week later and here we are.
What with everything being closed for Easter we kinda had to stop sorting stuff out as everything closed down, so we just spent a few days hanging out and doing the Stockholm tourist thing. You can see the photos on flickr, its been a sunny few days, everything is starting to green up a it with hints of spring and the city is looking better and better.
We went walking at the nature reserve which is just up the road from us for a few hours on Monday and that completed a fairly chilled weekend of the usual type of thing from home really – cooking, eating, drinking, walking, hanging out in town. It was all good and the right way to be before the start of a new job.
So come Tuesday morning it was time to go to work – I must say compared to some jobs I felt decidedly relaxed the night before and I slept quite well. The morning came round and I headed off for my huge 3 minute walk to work. Quite a change from 90 minutes on London public transport.
I think I felt so relaxed because of the fact that I’d met so many of my colleagues in a fairly social situation at the interview stage and kinda felt that I knew what I was getting into.
Anyway the first morning, Alf, my new boss spent the morning driving us around to complete a few more of our administrative tasks. First off we went to Bostad to sign the contract on our new house. Then we went to the tax office to apply for a social security number. This all seemed to go frightening well until today at lunchtime they phoned me back to say that the copies of documents that I’d submitted were not correct and that we didn’t to provide some more info. Anyway – its all moving in the right direction if nothing else. It’ll be a while before I get a bank account, and therefore a while before I get paid, and it also turns out that I can’t pick up the car that we ought until I have a social security number from the tax office. At the end of the day though it all just takes a bit of time. We’re getting there.
Alf helped us a load yesterday anyway, translating for us in the offices etc. We also went to a couple of banks, but we couldn’t open accounts without the documents from the tax office. Its all quite chicken and egg really. Anyway onto Microsoft…
Even after 2 days in the office, the culture is distinctly noticeably different. Quite how much of this is down to Swedish work culture and how much is down to Microsoft I’m unsure as yet, but its been most pleasant so far.
Currently I’m just building and configuring my computers and the like. I could go on for ages about the amount and quality of kit that I have compared to BNY, but then this is probably taken as read! For those of you still at BNY though…..basically though I have a new server, a new tablet laptop, a couple of 19” flat screens wired together, a proper office chair and general cupboards, space and suitable equipment (basically it sure makes a change from buying all my own stuff whilst working for a bank). The space and comfort is very pleasing indeed.
Beyond my actual desk space, there’s the whole office environment generally. Everything is so damn spacious and comfy, there’s free fruit and drinks, the coffee is more than drinkable and you just kinda feel at home really. When I arrived my colleagues / boss had bought me a huge bunch of flowers and an easter egg to welcome me. Its just the little touches.
Obviously though I’m not saying that this is some great utopian vision of work life balance. At the end of the day the bank paid me nearly double what MS are paying, and frankly I was fine with that, cos it was a fair deal. I was happy with them being the crappiest damn employer in terms of anything but money, cos well they paid they fair due. The true trouble is that there were tons of people who weren’t being paid their fair worth who were being paid their crappy London impossible to live on salaries, and its those people that deserve to be treated better with all the benefits when the sheer financial strength of the package is not up to it. I guess I’m experienced and lucky enough to realise this, having worked for enough dumb ass financial houses and the like, but it must be tough for others in a different position. I’m just gonna enjoy the change of culture for a while yet…..
Everyone seems busy in the much the same way as any office, and everyone has the usual stuff going down – “we can’t afford that because of budget constraints” – “we need to focs on customer satisfaction” – the usuals, nothing surprising, but the pace, the people, the plesantness, the overall vibe for want of a better word is different. I think so far that I weigh on the side of this being the Swedish thing as against the MS thing, but we’ll see. After all I have worked for suitably trendy dot com startups in the UK – and the kinda tried to promote that feeling I think but it just couldn’t quite be managed.
Anyway enough the moment, if anyone has read this far then congratulations and respect to your great stamina! Many more things happened today, inside and outside of work, but I reckon I’ve had enough typing for the moment.
So anyway…..1 week later and here we are.
What with everything being closed for Easter we kinda had to stop sorting stuff out as everything closed down, so we just spent a few days hanging out and doing the Stockholm tourist thing. You can see the photos on flickr, its been a sunny few days, everything is starting to green up a it with hints of spring and the city is looking better and better.
We went walking at the nature reserve which is just up the road from us for a few hours on Monday and that completed a fairly chilled weekend of the usual type of thing from home really – cooking, eating, drinking, walking, hanging out in town. It was all good and the right way to be before the start of a new job.
So come Tuesday morning it was time to go to work – I must say compared to some jobs I felt decidedly relaxed the night before and I slept quite well. The morning came round and I headed off for my huge 3 minute walk to work. Quite a change from 90 minutes on London public transport.
I think I felt so relaxed because of the fact that I’d met so many of my colleagues in a fairly social situation at the interview stage and kinda felt that I knew what I was getting into.
Anyway the first morning, Alf, my new boss spent the morning driving us around to complete a few more of our administrative tasks. First off we went to Bostad to sign the contract on our new house. Then we went to the tax office to apply for a social security number. This all seemed to go frightening well until today at lunchtime they phoned me back to say that the copies of documents that I’d submitted were not correct and that we didn’t to provide some more info. Anyway – its all moving in the right direction if nothing else. It’ll be a while before I get a bank account, and therefore a while before I get paid, and it also turns out that I can’t pick up the car that we ought until I have a social security number from the tax office. At the end of the day though it all just takes a bit of time. We’re getting there.
Alf helped us a load yesterday anyway, translating for us in the offices etc. We also went to a couple of banks, but we couldn’t open accounts without the documents from the tax office. Its all quite chicken and egg really. Anyway onto Microsoft…
Even after 2 days in the office, the culture is distinctly noticeably different. Quite how much of this is down to Swedish work culture and how much is down to Microsoft I’m unsure as yet, but its been most pleasant so far.
Currently I’m just building and configuring my computers and the like. I could go on for ages about the amount and quality of kit that I have compared to BNY, but then this is probably taken as read! For those of you still at BNY though…..basically though I have a new server, a new tablet laptop, a couple of 19” flat screens wired together, a proper office chair and general cupboards, space and suitable equipment (basically it sure makes a change from buying all my own stuff whilst working for a bank). The space and comfort is very pleasing indeed.
Beyond my actual desk space, there’s the whole office environment generally. Everything is so damn spacious and comfy, there’s free fruit and drinks, the coffee is more than drinkable and you just kinda feel at home really. When I arrived my colleagues / boss had bought me a huge bunch of flowers and an easter egg to welcome me. Its just the little touches.
Obviously though I’m not saying that this is some great utopian vision of work life balance. At the end of the day the bank paid me nearly double what MS are paying, and frankly I was fine with that, cos it was a fair deal. I was happy with them being the crappiest damn employer in terms of anything but money, cos well they paid they fair due. The true trouble is that there were tons of people who weren’t being paid their fair worth who were being paid their crappy London impossible to live on salaries, and its those people that deserve to be treated better with all the benefits when the sheer financial strength of the package is not up to it. I guess I’m experienced and lucky enough to realise this, having worked for enough dumb ass financial houses and the like, but it must be tough for others in a different position. I’m just gonna enjoy the change of culture for a while yet…..
Everyone seems busy in the much the same way as any office, and everyone has the usual stuff going down – “we can’t afford that because of budget constraints” – “we need to focs on customer satisfaction” – the usuals, nothing surprising, but the pace, the people, the plesantness, the overall vibe for want of a better word is different. I think so far that I weigh on the side of this being the Swedish thing as against the MS thing, but we’ll see. After all I have worked for suitably trendy dot com startups in the UK – and the kinda tried to promote that feeling I think but it just couldn’t quite be managed.
Anyway enough the moment, if anyone has read this far then congratulations and respect to your great stamina! Many more things happened today, inside and outside of work, but I reckon I’ve had enough typing for the moment.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Beer and Pickles
need I say more? well...my breakfast now translates as folows:
marmite on toast = cheese and pickled gherkins on crisp bread
mmmm....
Categories: stockholmlife
marmite on toast = cheese and pickled gherkins on crisp bread
mmmm....
Categories: stockholmlife
The fallacy of expensive Sweden
So I've been here 4 days now, and as I suspected, and told a few people, everyone's expectations of Sweden being very pricey seem to be completely wrong. I qualify this with 2 caveats:
1. I agree that tax is High - but then of course I think this is a good thing cos it leads to high investment and a wel run country - ok this is a HUGE generalisation, but maybe you get the simple point.
2. alcohol and purchased in bars / restaurants is more expensive than London. Bearing in mind the exchange rate (VISA are currently doing it about 12.7 - this is the true tourist rate) - a beer costs 50 SEK = £3.94 and spirits are equivalent. I guess this is why everyone sees the country as like this - they come on holiday - they drink - they think its expensive. Its not like Spain for sure.....
that apart - eating out (food only) alcohol from the off licence, public transport, housing, cars, petrol, hotels, supermarket bills, CDs, mobile phones and calls - they're all the same or cheaper. (unless I have my rose tinted glasses on - that would be as opposed to my beer goggles of course)
Ok so this isn't exactly the RPI example contents but you get the point.
Am I complaining? No ;-)
Ok, so I accept there are a couple of expensive other things I've found - but you get the point.
That apart I still feel poor as I've taken a huge pay cut to come here ;-)
Categories: stockholmlife
1. I agree that tax is High - but then of course I think this is a good thing cos it leads to high investment and a wel run country - ok this is a HUGE generalisation, but maybe you get the simple point.
2. alcohol and purchased in bars / restaurants is more expensive than London. Bearing in mind the exchange rate (VISA are currently doing it about 12.7 - this is the true tourist rate) - a beer costs 50 SEK = £3.94 and spirits are equivalent. I guess this is why everyone sees the country as like this - they come on holiday - they drink - they think its expensive. Its not like Spain for sure.....
that apart - eating out (food only) alcohol from the off licence, public transport, housing, cars, petrol, hotels, supermarket bills, CDs, mobile phones and calls - they're all the same or cheaper. (unless I have my rose tinted glasses on - that would be as opposed to my beer goggles of course)
Ok so this isn't exactly the RPI example contents but you get the point.
Am I complaining? No ;-)
Ok, so I accept there are a couple of expensive other things I've found - but you get the point.
That apart I still feel poor as I've taken a huge pay cut to come here ;-)
Categories: stockholmlife
I bought car yesterday
which is quite weird after 10 years without one. Its blue VW Golf. Its nice, I wanted a Volvo V50 dual fuel eco car (I've got the saloon version hired at the moment) but couldn't bring myself to spend the extra 7 grand. Buying a car was bad enough after all these years. Buy hey we got a good deal (I think!) from the dealer, we get free insurance for 3 months, half price insurance for 2 years, its still guaranteed and its about 15 months old.
He even gave us 5000 SEK off when we couldn't choose which colour we wanted and because Sarah kept pointing out chips in the paint work of each one we looked at. The truth is of course that EVERY car in Sweden has chips in the paintwork after 5 minutes because of all the gravel they drop on the road during winter. But hey I wasn't complaining.....it was decidely painless experience after all this time, and I was never going to be one to haggle.
Mabe I'll trade it in for a volvo when the house has sold ;-)
Categories: stockholmlife, cars
He even gave us 5000 SEK off when we couldn't choose which colour we wanted and because Sarah kept pointing out chips in the paint work of each one we looked at. The truth is of course that EVERY car in Sweden has chips in the paintwork after 5 minutes because of all the gravel they drop on the road during winter. But hey I wasn't complaining.....it was decidely painless experience after all this time, and I was never going to be one to haggle.
Mabe I'll trade it in for a volvo when the house has sold ;-)
Categories: stockholmlife, cars
Last night in the UK - Sunday 9th April
great memories - thanks guys. This is one of out better photos as a group eh?
Categories: londonlife, friends, moving
Categories: londonlife, friends, moving
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
First full day in Stockholm
So here we are, waking up to our first full day in Stockholm.
I feel very very strange indeed. The last days have been pretty dan freaky frankly. James & Prima's wedding was totally great at the weekend, both nights were amazing fun. Sunday night then we went out with Tom, Karen, Steve and Jon and had some tapas and beers and a few laughs together. It was a fine was to spend my last night. Since then I've been a huge mix of really string emotions ranging from excitement, fear, trepidation, sadness, and some which I don;t really have the vocabulary for which could only be described as "come on then - I'm mad for it" - and "we're here - we've done it".
Monday during the day was spent packing and we saw all our parents at various points during the day, which was nice, but difficult as we hadn't alot of time to devote to them at that point as we were just running around packing madly.
In the morning Airpets came and took the cats away, and that was pretty damn tough. Sarah was in tears and I was quite choked. I know they'll be cool - but we're just a bit soppy about them, it'l be good when they arrive here. But that'll be a few weeks yet I expect.
Up until that point I'd fairly held it all together, with saying goodbye to everyone and all the organisation. I was just treating it like a project of things to do I guess and some of the size of it all hadn't really hit me. That night my last task before going out to grab some food down the road for dinner, was to take the compost up to the top of the garden. Now the top of the garden is probably my favourite place of all within that house and I just lost it completely and was in floods of tears, standing looking out across the park and the downs, the sun was setting, the sky was orange and beatifully lit, the birds were singing a dusk chorus and frankly it was a stunning evening and seemed to encompass everything that was good about living there. For about 30 minutes I was just absolutely gone, couldn't talk, couldn't communicate, just sobbing incessantly (as I am now a bit writing this!). This just kinda brought out everything else for me, and I was wailing at Sarah and well, it was both good and bad. Good to get it out I think. I thought alot at that point about all the people I was leaving behind. The thing is however much I know I'll see the people the question, I will miss them terribly and i will miss being able to just give them a call and meet up that same day or whatever. That's a tough thing to let go. When you're feeling like that everything seems a bit intense eh.
anyway.....
So last night, having arrived and sorted out the car hire etc. We checked into our apartment hotel. Its right next to work and it's just like a normal hotel really, apart from only part time reception and no restaurant. Obviously the benefits above that are that we have a small kitchenette and a fridge / freezer etc, with various pots and pans. Basically most cooking is possible apart from there is no oven.
We then went off to see 2 houses. The first was nice but they wouldn't take cats (mistake by the estate agent there) so we left fairly quickly. The second was really nice in a fantastic location overlooking a big lake with loads of great woodland and lakeside walking right outside. the owners were the most friednly people ever and we ended up staying for 90 minutes having loads of tea , cake and ice cream with them, and they then took us on a walking tour of the local area!! It was quite strange at first because of not being used to the hospitality of that type, but once you get over that, then it was fine. The only thing was that we didn't really want their house, as its not available until the end of June earliest, and I don;t want to live in a hotel until then. But hey, it was a great evening, we chatted alot and asked them questions about life and stuff, it was useful, and they got to chat to us about England as well because their son was going to university there in October.
So then we came home, grabbed a couple of snacks, because we'd stayed too long in that house viewing and all the supermarkets were shut, and had an early night. It had been a long and strange and quite emotional day, but surprisingly I slept quite well.
Categories: stockholmlife, moving
I feel very very strange indeed. The last days have been pretty dan freaky frankly. James & Prima's wedding was totally great at the weekend, both nights were amazing fun. Sunday night then we went out with Tom, Karen, Steve and Jon and had some tapas and beers and a few laughs together. It was a fine was to spend my last night. Since then I've been a huge mix of really string emotions ranging from excitement, fear, trepidation, sadness, and some which I don;t really have the vocabulary for which could only be described as "come on then - I'm mad for it" - and "we're here - we've done it".
Monday during the day was spent packing and we saw all our parents at various points during the day, which was nice, but difficult as we hadn't alot of time to devote to them at that point as we were just running around packing madly.
In the morning Airpets came and took the cats away, and that was pretty damn tough. Sarah was in tears and I was quite choked. I know they'll be cool - but we're just a bit soppy about them, it'l be good when they arrive here. But that'll be a few weeks yet I expect.
Up until that point I'd fairly held it all together, with saying goodbye to everyone and all the organisation. I was just treating it like a project of things to do I guess and some of the size of it all hadn't really hit me. That night my last task before going out to grab some food down the road for dinner, was to take the compost up to the top of the garden. Now the top of the garden is probably my favourite place of all within that house and I just lost it completely and was in floods of tears, standing looking out across the park and the downs, the sun was setting, the sky was orange and beatifully lit, the birds were singing a dusk chorus and frankly it was a stunning evening and seemed to encompass everything that was good about living there. For about 30 minutes I was just absolutely gone, couldn't talk, couldn't communicate, just sobbing incessantly (as I am now a bit writing this!). This just kinda brought out everything else for me, and I was wailing at Sarah and well, it was both good and bad. Good to get it out I think. I thought alot at that point about all the people I was leaving behind. The thing is however much I know I'll see the people the question, I will miss them terribly and i will miss being able to just give them a call and meet up that same day or whatever. That's a tough thing to let go. When you're feeling like that everything seems a bit intense eh.
anyway.....
So last night, having arrived and sorted out the car hire etc. We checked into our apartment hotel. Its right next to work and it's just like a normal hotel really, apart from only part time reception and no restaurant. Obviously the benefits above that are that we have a small kitchenette and a fridge / freezer etc, with various pots and pans. Basically most cooking is possible apart from there is no oven.
We then went off to see 2 houses. The first was nice but they wouldn't take cats (mistake by the estate agent there) so we left fairly quickly. The second was really nice in a fantastic location overlooking a big lake with loads of great woodland and lakeside walking right outside. the owners were the most friednly people ever and we ended up staying for 90 minutes having loads of tea , cake and ice cream with them, and they then took us on a walking tour of the local area!! It was quite strange at first because of not being used to the hospitality of that type, but once you get over that, then it was fine. The only thing was that we didn't really want their house, as its not available until the end of June earliest, and I don;t want to live in a hotel until then. But hey, it was a great evening, we chatted alot and asked them questions about life and stuff, it was useful, and they got to chat to us about England as well because their son was going to university there in October.
So then we came home, grabbed a couple of snacks, because we'd stayed too long in that house viewing and all the supermarkets were shut, and had an early night. It had been a long and strange and quite emotional day, but surprisingly I slept quite well.
Categories: stockholmlife, moving
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Farthing Downs in Spring
Our last day out walking in the UK for a fair old while, but what a day to go. We walked from the old house at Coulsdon, up farthing downs and then out past chaldon in the Downlands Circular Walk. As you can see the weather was spectacular and when we reached the farthest point, on the north downs way itself, we could look back towards London and see all the way to the West end and Docklands. Along this walk we saw many things that encompassed the thoughts and feelings of the past 7 years, 2 houses, working in the city, much beautiful outdoors, and a lot of silence and thought, setting your mind ready for the next stage. Its wierd I've spent all my time walking here in the last few years, thinking about what life may bring me as my mind wanders and meanders along, in a totally relaxed state, and now here we were realigning our thoughts for relocation and a big change. We then looped back the the fox for lunch and then the last few miles home. About 12 miles in all and a great great way to say goodbye to the UK. It doesn't get much better than that. Then its off to the weddings and to say goodbye to everyone.
Categories: londonlife, walking
Categories: londonlife, walking
Can I come to Stockholm with you?
Its the last day together for us and the cats. Kipper obviously wants to come with us which is why he's sitting in the packing box. Little does he know that he's off to stay in the cat hotel with Daisy tomorrow morning. They got their passports now, its just that we haven't got a house yet and they can't stay in our hotel. It'll be sad - we'll probably cry when they leave, but I met with people at Airpets last week, and they're really nice and super friendly with their animals, so I know they'll be in good hands. Maybe we'll give them tuna for tea as a treat....
Categories: cats, stockholmlife
Categories: cats, stockholmlife
Monday, April 03, 2006
The final BNY leaving party
So here it is - number 7 , the last blowout. The question here is, Am I?
1. celebrating a Crystal Palace goal from the game coincidentally on in the background of the bar we were in.
or
2. Attempting a ghost impression
3. dancing in a very drunken fashion
answers on a postcard....
Categories: londonlife
1. celebrating a Crystal Palace goal from the game coincidentally on in the background of the bar we were in.
or
2. Attempting a ghost impression
3. dancing in a very drunken fashion
answers on a postcard....
Categories: londonlife
The winner
enough said - the iron gamer 2004 is settled.....it took 18 months but finally we're there - god it was close - last game, last round, everybody in it. blimey - it made mario kart special cup seem like a walk in the park.
Categories: londonlife
Categories: londonlife
Friday, March 24, 2006
Cocktails, dinner and shots
4 of us from work went out last night for the latest round of my continuing leaving party. This was round 5 from work. The previous rounds consisted of:
1. Long boozy lunch at Plateau in Canary Wharf
2. Lunch an Ubon in Canary Wharf
3. Dinner at Aubergine in Chelsea
4. another lunch at Plateau
Its been a fine time indeed. Last night we went to the Oxo Tower for a quick cocktail, followed by dinner at Tas in Waterloo. It'd been a while since I'd been to Tas, but it was as good as ever, always worth a trip, and always such incredibly great value. We had the £10 set menu plus a couple of extra mains cos we were feeling. (You can see the photos of the food in flickr). So after a couple of bottles of wine we piled into the Wellington pub just opposite Waterloo and then got a bit outrageous drinking all sorts shots late into the evening. By the end all semblance of respectability had been dropped and we were drining black vodka, absynth, whiskey, and aftershock (washed down with a few fosters for Dom with typical Aussie style). What we didn;t realise was that they have a late licence there now - so we didn;t get chucked out til after midnight, by which point we were a bit of a state, and I had to jump in a taxi all the way home.
Frankly though a great evening, and that's what leaving parties should be about.
Parts 6 and 7 of the leaving do are to follow next week, with part 7 being the final blow out with the majority of my colleagues next Friday night in Canary Wharf. This time I've got a hotel room booked......
Categories: londonlife
1. Long boozy lunch at Plateau in Canary Wharf
2. Lunch an Ubon in Canary Wharf
3. Dinner at Aubergine in Chelsea
4. another lunch at Plateau
Its been a fine time indeed. Last night we went to the Oxo Tower for a quick cocktail, followed by dinner at Tas in Waterloo. It'd been a while since I'd been to Tas, but it was as good as ever, always worth a trip, and always such incredibly great value. We had the £10 set menu plus a couple of extra mains cos we were feeling. (You can see the photos of the food in flickr). So after a couple of bottles of wine we piled into the Wellington pub just opposite Waterloo and then got a bit outrageous drinking all sorts shots late into the evening. By the end all semblance of respectability had been dropped and we were drining black vodka, absynth, whiskey, and aftershock (washed down with a few fosters for Dom with typical Aussie style). What we didn;t realise was that they have a late licence there now - so we didn;t get chucked out til after midnight, by which point we were a bit of a state, and I had to jump in a taxi all the way home.
Frankly though a great evening, and that's what leaving parties should be about.
Parts 6 and 7 of the leaving do are to follow next week, with part 7 being the final blow out with the majority of my colleagues next Friday night in Canary Wharf. This time I've got a hotel room booked......
Categories: londonlife
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
House Hunting in Stockholm
Here's a picture of Sigtuna, which is the oldest recorded settlement in Sweden. Its about 25 minutes north of central Stockholm and is currently our favourite town that we'd like to try and get a house in next month. This picture is taken from a walking / skating track which has been cut into the frozen lake next to the town. We were out walking on Sunday afternoon with all the locals, who were out taking a stroll.
Categories: stockholmlife
Categories: stockholmlife
A weekend in Spain
Me, Tom, James, Jon and Steve all went to the Oliva at the weekend to celebrate James' imminent wedding. We all stayed in Jon's fantastic house in the old town. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera, but here's a picture that Steve took last year from the roof terrace overlooking the town. We had a fantastic time and basically spent 48 hours eating and drinking. It was also pretty great to see everyone together in an easy relaxed environment before my imminent departure to Sweden.
Categories: friends
Categories: friends
Thursday, March 16, 2006
yet more domain reorganisations
due to bloggers' inability to publish active FTP - I've had to move all the domains back to blogspot again. Also Borrowlodge is now closed and forwarding to globalgoat.
If you want to see the wedding photo archive you need to be invited as a contact to view my private flickr archive. (The main public flickr archive is available by clicking on the link in the side bar.) If you want me to invite you, then email me at flickr@globalgoat.com.
Categories: blogging
If you want to see the wedding photo archive you need to be invited as a contact to view my private flickr archive. (The main public flickr archive is available by clicking on the link in the side bar.) If you want me to invite you, then email me at flickr@globalgoat.com.
Categories: blogging
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Here's some pictures of my journey to work
Sunday, February 26, 2006
So much to do, so little time
So, I spoke to Microsoft this week and booked our flight to Sweden for 11th April. This is D-Day. Between then and now we've got a few things to sort out, and of course there's a whole load of stuff going down in our friends' lives as well! Over the next 3 weeks, purely in travel terms I've got to:
fly to Luxembourg for work on tuesday
fly to sweden to go househunting early next month
fly to spain for James' 2nd stag night
generally go to work most days and look interested
go to the swedish embassy to get some permits
beyond that, there'a a huge range of random and not so random things to do at home. Sarah is packing and decorating like mad before the house goes up for sale on Wednesday. I'm sorting out finances and all sorts of other administrative crap, but so far so good - its all going to (a fairly rushed) plan.
The last week here in the UK should be pretty mad, cos for a start there's 2 days of James & Prima's wedding to go to, but of course 72 hours after that finished, we'll be off to Stockholm.
I don't even know at the moment whether they'll be any time for a leaving party....
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
fly to Luxembourg for work on tuesday
fly to sweden to go househunting early next month
fly to spain for James' 2nd stag night
generally go to work most days and look interested
go to the swedish embassy to get some permits
beyond that, there'a a huge range of random and not so random things to do at home. Sarah is packing and decorating like mad before the house goes up for sale on Wednesday. I'm sorting out finances and all sorts of other administrative crap, but so far so good - its all going to (a fairly rushed) plan.
The last week here in the UK should be pretty mad, cos for a start there's 2 days of James & Prima's wedding to go to, but of course 72 hours after that finished, we'll be off to Stockholm.
I don't even know at the moment whether they'll be any time for a leaving party....
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Dirty Volvos in Sweden
Now that we're moving to Stockholm, maybe we'll buy our own Volvo, and see if we can get it as dirty as this one we hired in Ostersund last year.
Monday, February 06, 2006
BLIMEY....we're off to Sweden
So I resigned today...it went quite well all in all, in fact it went damn well, everyone seemed to be happy for me, which is always a good sign. So no longer the Bank of New York in London, instead me and Sarah are selling up and we're off to Stockholm, and not only that, but I've managed to get a job with Microsoft in Sweden. How cool is that? Well basically very cool indeed - on many levels:
1. It means that I'll be able to support us when we arrive
2. Microsoft will no doubt help me with a few points of integration
3. I'm gonna work for Microsoft in a cool techie role.
4. Change is always rewarding, and quitting your job and country of residence in the space of 2 months is some pretty hefty change.
5. see point 3....
I'm gonna miss working with several of current colleagues (Dom, Frances, Sam, Howard, Tim and others) and my current boss John has taught me a whole load about the bigger (non techie) picture, but its time to move on.
More to the point I'm sure I'll miss all my London friends and family as well, its bound to be a bit tough, and god, let's not forget relocating the cats as well, cos that's bound to be quite stressful, but these are all details, and at the end of the day, its just logistics (or that's what I keep telling myself!) If I tried to write the full list here of things to do...well you can imagine, its quite long....
The past 2 weeks have been fairly mad, what with 2 telephone interviews with Microsoft, flying to Stockholm for a very very intense day long interview, including some very challenging technical tests, my wedding anniversary and general thoughts and planning on how the hell I'm gonna close down all my London connections in such a short space of time. But hey - it'll be fine. All I can in summary is that I feel alive and shockingly excited, so let's see what life brings...
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
1. It means that I'll be able to support us when we arrive
2. Microsoft will no doubt help me with a few points of integration
3. I'm gonna work for Microsoft in a cool techie role.
4. Change is always rewarding, and quitting your job and country of residence in the space of 2 months is some pretty hefty change.
5. see point 3....
I'm gonna miss working with several of current colleagues (Dom, Frances, Sam, Howard, Tim and others) and my current boss John has taught me a whole load about the bigger (non techie) picture, but its time to move on.
More to the point I'm sure I'll miss all my London friends and family as well, its bound to be a bit tough, and god, let's not forget relocating the cats as well, cos that's bound to be quite stressful, but these are all details, and at the end of the day, its just logistics (or that's what I keep telling myself!) If I tried to write the full list here of things to do...well you can imagine, its quite long....
The past 2 weeks have been fairly mad, what with 2 telephone interviews with Microsoft, flying to Stockholm for a very very intense day long interview, including some very challenging technical tests, my wedding anniversary and general thoughts and planning on how the hell I'm gonna close down all my London connections in such a short space of time. But hey - it'll be fine. All I can in summary is that I feel alive and shockingly excited, so let's see what life brings...
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
Friday, February 03, 2006
I've been rather busy the past 2 weeks
Because of this, I haven't really had the chance to post. I have a list of technical entries that I need to document, and more importantly some interesting stuff to write about my visit to Stockholm last week. For various reasons which will appear in the next post, I can't really document what happened there until the matter is offically closed, but hopefully it'll close later today.
In addition to this it was my 1st wedding anniversary last weekend. Me and Sarah went to town for the (extended) weekend, with me taking a quick 24 hours in stockholm on the Friday.
On Thursday night we ate in Levantine, the small lebanese restaurant just opposite Paddington Station (London Street). I've been many times before and its a personal favourite of mine. Despite knowing the menu well, as ever I was suitably impressed with the food. We had the meat based mezze menu, which was utterly utterly fantastic, containing all the normal lebanese classics. As ever after this they served us the most massive plate of mixed fresh fruit - more of a platter than a plate in fact - along with a 5 tiered tower of lebanese nutty honeyed sweets. It doesn;t get much better than that.
Following that we checked into the Hilton hotel over the road, since I had to be at Heathrow at 5.30am the next morning, and I couldn;t be buggered to travel from home. The hotel was built when Paddington was, and resides above the concourse. Its a true design classic and in my opinion both inside and out, and has recently been refurbished inside. Our room although small (there seemed no point getting a bigger one as we were only there for 7 hours in total) was beautifully finished in lots of walnut veneer (I think) and a lovely marbled bathroom. In addition to that its the type of place where when you walk into the foyer you take a breath as its rather stunning. My other recommendation would be to always use the stairs rather than the life, as the staircase itself is rather beautiful, especially when it sweeps down into the foyer.
On Friday night I just chilled at home, but then I'd been on the go in Stockholm all day and was utterly mentally exhausted (more info to follow).....
Saturday afternoon we went to see a cock and bull story in the curzon soho, which was good fun, and an enjoyable film. Then we checked into the Holiday Inn in Mayfair had a few drinks and went off for an evening of fish eating.
First off we champagne and oysters at Bentleys in Mayfair, which was dead good, and then jumped in a cab to Islington for dinner at The Fish Shop. Again its an old favourite of ours, but always good fun and great food. I have a roasted cod with broad beans, celery, peas and lardons (amongst other things).
Following a nice long and relaxing breakfast the next morning (the HI Mayfair dining room has some very comfortable chairs compared to some I've been to), we strolled through Green Park and St. James Park before catching the train home. Nice
Categories: londonlife
In addition to this it was my 1st wedding anniversary last weekend. Me and Sarah went to town for the (extended) weekend, with me taking a quick 24 hours in stockholm on the Friday.
On Thursday night we ate in Levantine, the small lebanese restaurant just opposite Paddington Station (London Street). I've been many times before and its a personal favourite of mine. Despite knowing the menu well, as ever I was suitably impressed with the food. We had the meat based mezze menu, which was utterly utterly fantastic, containing all the normal lebanese classics. As ever after this they served us the most massive plate of mixed fresh fruit - more of a platter than a plate in fact - along with a 5 tiered tower of lebanese nutty honeyed sweets. It doesn;t get much better than that.
Following that we checked into the Hilton hotel over the road, since I had to be at Heathrow at 5.30am the next morning, and I couldn;t be buggered to travel from home. The hotel was built when Paddington was, and resides above the concourse. Its a true design classic and in my opinion both inside and out, and has recently been refurbished inside. Our room although small (there seemed no point getting a bigger one as we were only there for 7 hours in total) was beautifully finished in lots of walnut veneer (I think) and a lovely marbled bathroom. In addition to that its the type of place where when you walk into the foyer you take a breath as its rather stunning. My other recommendation would be to always use the stairs rather than the life, as the staircase itself is rather beautiful, especially when it sweeps down into the foyer.
On Friday night I just chilled at home, but then I'd been on the go in Stockholm all day and was utterly mentally exhausted (more info to follow).....
Saturday afternoon we went to see a cock and bull story in the curzon soho, which was good fun, and an enjoyable film. Then we checked into the Holiday Inn in Mayfair had a few drinks and went off for an evening of fish eating.
First off we champagne and oysters at Bentleys in Mayfair, which was dead good, and then jumped in a cab to Islington for dinner at The Fish Shop. Again its an old favourite of ours, but always good fun and great food. I have a roasted cod with broad beans, celery, peas and lardons (amongst other things).
Following a nice long and relaxing breakfast the next morning (the HI Mayfair dining room has some very comfortable chairs compared to some I've been to), we strolled through Green Park and St. James Park before catching the train home. Nice
Categories: londonlife
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
An unreasonably long journey
So, I'm standing at Honor Oak Park last night, waiting for the stopping train home. The first train gets cancelled (10.25pm). Ho hum we think, and defer back to the pub for another drink. We get back to the station for 10.55 train and its saying "DELAYED" on the board, so we use the help point to talk to the controller to see what's happening.
He informs us that there's a broken down train around Waterloo East and therefore there are no trains coming south currently, and they don't know when there will be. Getting home is starting to become slightly problematic, especially as I know I have to be up at 5.30 today for an early support shift.
So anyway, our only option seems to be to go back north again, into central London to try to connect to another train service somewhere, as trains are still running north. So off we trot back to London Bridge on the stopping train.
We arrive at London Bridge at about 11.15 - we're now an hour into our journey and all we've managed to do is go 5 miles in the wrong direction. At London Bridge there turns out to be total mayhem. There are no trains anywhere on the Croydon / Brighton line and there are hundreds of people standing around, getting just a slight upset at not being able to get home.
So 30 minutes later and we're still standing there having listened to a ridiculous selection of contradictory announcements which are based around the premise of "a train will be coming soon" - "oh no - apologies that train is now cancelled". Large synchronised groans can be heard from hundred of people after each successive piece of bad news.
Finally 11.50 a single train is found from somewhere and everyone is told to get on it, if they wish to go south to Croydon, from where in theory they can change to other services.
Unfortunately there are 2 fatal flaws in this plan:
1. Many people like myself have already missed their last train home even if they do get to Croydon.
2. There have been no trains south for about 90 minutes now, and there are now several hundred people equating to about 6 or 7 trains worth of people trying to squeeze onto a pissy little suburban commuter train.
At this point in time, I lose the will the carry on, go to the cash machine and find myself a black cab who will take me all the way home. I sit in the back and watch London fly by, at last heading in the right direction.
I get home at 1am, knowing that I have to be up in just over 4 hours, and head off to bed to grab what sleep I can.
At 4.45am the cat sits on my head and wakes me up.....
Categories: londonlife
He informs us that there's a broken down train around Waterloo East and therefore there are no trains coming south currently, and they don't know when there will be. Getting home is starting to become slightly problematic, especially as I know I have to be up at 5.30 today for an early support shift.
So anyway, our only option seems to be to go back north again, into central London to try to connect to another train service somewhere, as trains are still running north. So off we trot back to London Bridge on the stopping train.
We arrive at London Bridge at about 11.15 - we're now an hour into our journey and all we've managed to do is go 5 miles in the wrong direction. At London Bridge there turns out to be total mayhem. There are no trains anywhere on the Croydon / Brighton line and there are hundreds of people standing around, getting just a slight upset at not being able to get home.
So 30 minutes later and we're still standing there having listened to a ridiculous selection of contradictory announcements which are based around the premise of "a train will be coming soon" - "oh no - apologies that train is now cancelled". Large synchronised groans can be heard from hundred of people after each successive piece of bad news.
Finally 11.50 a single train is found from somewhere and everyone is told to get on it, if they wish to go south to Croydon, from where in theory they can change to other services.
Unfortunately there are 2 fatal flaws in this plan:
1. Many people like myself have already missed their last train home even if they do get to Croydon.
2. There have been no trains south for about 90 minutes now, and there are now several hundred people equating to about 6 or 7 trains worth of people trying to squeeze onto a pissy little suburban commuter train.
At this point in time, I lose the will the carry on, go to the cash machine and find myself a black cab who will take me all the way home. I sit in the back and watch London fly by, at last heading in the right direction.
I get home at 1am, knowing that I have to be up in just over 4 hours, and head off to bed to grab what sleep I can.
At 4.45am the cat sits on my head and wakes me up.....
Categories: londonlife
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Crystal Palace haven't beaten the Miami Dolphins since 67 BC
So its FA Cup weekend, and something is really really bugging me. I think the first time that I noticed this was when the Premier League (I still refuse to call it the Premiership) highlights went to ITV. Suddenly there were all these statistics before every match about; "Birmingham haven't beaten so and so team since 1965". Well frankly so the fuck what - since it would normally turn out that in fact Birmingham hadn't played so and so team since 1966 anyway, because they'd been in different divisions! In my mind this is just plain shoddy cheap journalism looking to report something interesting where nothing is in fact there.
So anyway, I was playing pool with Steve yesterday, playing mighty well I might add...and they've got Sky on in the background, and well maybe Sky having been dealing in quotations suchs as the above for many many years now - but ehy're just trotting out this crpa again and again, about teams which haven't never bloody played more than one game in 50 years anyway - and frankly - well I'm unimpressed.
Categories: crapmedia
So anyway, I was playing pool with Steve yesterday, playing mighty well I might add...and they've got Sky on in the background, and well maybe Sky having been dealing in quotations suchs as the above for many many years now - but ehy're just trotting out this crpa again and again, about teams which haven't never bloody played more than one game in 50 years anyway - and frankly - well I'm unimpressed.
Categories: crapmedia
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