Welcome to Manchester

It's been far too long since I last posted and I've finally found the time to put pen to paper (or the computer equivalent thereof... fingers to keyboard perhaps?). Anyway, I've been in Manchester for almost a month now and after a couple of weeks on my friend's sofa in Salford, I finally moved in to my flat in Altrincham on the 15th. I got to experience the trams and commuting for a couple of weeks and now I have the luxury of being just over a five minutes walk away from the office. I'm within easy walking distance of the train station, the local hypermarket and the city centre so I'm very happy with my choice.

I'm finally settling in to my flat after having the day off yesterday to take delivery of a sofa - for the first two weeks, the only seating I had was in the form of an office chair - not particularly comfortable for lounging around in front of the TV but it was better than nothing. I had a few problems in the first few days - due to a lack of planning and some small problems with the flat. I arrived on the night of the 15th after collecting my keys at lunchtime, I only had the few bits and pieces from when I was staying with my friend with the rest of my luggage to come on Saturday when I went back home to get it all. Friday morning's challenge was trying to eat cereal without any bowls or cutlery... A strawberry punnet lined with a document wallet was fashioned into a bowl and a rolled up piece of card became my spoon - not perfect, but it did the job and it was only for one meal.

On Saturday, I loaded up my car, my mums car and a friends car and trailer with stuff and set off back to Altrincham - It wasn't a tight squeeze but the cars were all pretty full - it is very strange seeing your entire life packed up like that. I thought I'd be used to it now having done the same sketch for the past four years at university but this time it was everything not just the stuff I use regularly but my entire life, I now no longer have anything left at my parents house (apart from a couple of things I forgot to pack). Trying to find a home for everything is always a challenge. I like to know where things are if I'm looking for them rather than just know that they are in 'one of the boxes'. I used to rely on the enormous amount of space you get under a double bed to keep most things but here I have no such luxury, I really hate the inventor of divan beds. I have a small wardrobe and a couple of beside tables with drawers but other than that I am without storage space. I currently have a corner of the lounge as my dumping areas for empty boxes and the last few crates I am yet to unpack.

Yesterday was also the day I got the internet, four weeks on a 3G dongle is not brilliant especially seeing as it doesn't let you access the more advanced features of some web pages - most notably the BBC iPlayer and Google Maps - two services I use a lot - and the latter is particularly useful when you are new to the area. It has only just occurred to me that there might be a way to turn this off - and low and behold I find the answer after 10 seconds of Googling - doh! I also found the perfect spot to get 3G+ reception on Friday night - just as that information became redundant. Never mind, that is no longer a problem and my internet is no longer capped - to celebrate I downloaded about three weeks worth of iPlayer programmes that I'd missed and spent most of yesterday catching up on them in between visits from the postman.

I keep thinking of things I need to buy for the house to try and make it more homely, There are still a few things on my wish list - but I may save some of those for Christmas because they aren't urgent in any way. Tesco has a really nice homeware section that has consumed rather a lot of my money recently on cooking utensils and baking equipment that I hadn't budgeted for. I still have my eye on a couple of spring form sponge tins and a loose bottom pie tin but until I have the time to actually use them, I think I will put it off for a bit.

As for the reason I'm now living in Altrincham, I am quite liking my job, I didn't really have any idea what to expect but I think I am settling in quite well - there has been a small problem with my name as there is already a David Williams in the office and I am now the 'other' Dave which is a little bit annoying - but something I'm sure I'll get used to. I can;t imagine I will be mentioning too much about working life on here - there are all sorts of stories going round about people who say things about their job online and end up getting into trouble for it so if I keep this as a strictly personal life only thing then I wont be putting myself at risk.

Finally, I went back to Sheffield last weekend for the epic event that is Valve apparently I didn't post about it last time which seems odd as I would have said that it was a pretty eventful day. I suppose I was trying desperately to balance my personal/work life at that time that I had sort of pushed blogging to one side as something that could be sacrificed without too much compromise. Anyway, it was an utterly exhausting weekend. I arrived in Sheffield at about 21:00 - 21:30 and dumped my bags in the Octagon where I was meeting my friend who has kindly let me sleep on his sofa for the night. It had taken a bit longer than the trainline claimed but the journey was relatively straight forward although the compulsory last minute platform change did keep me on my toes. I got to bed at about 12:30 and as I was going to be back in for 8am I was already disadvantaged. Then I had to compete with the world's loudest fridge and a drunk housemate disruption at 2am, all in all, one of the worst nights sleep I've ever had I think!. The event itself went pretty smoothly, I was on lasers this time rather than my usual AV position but was overseeing the AV and had bought my toys with me so that if I got bored I could play. Incredibly the laser survived most of event and there were only a couple of times when it got confused and had to be reset. The deep bass from Valve has a tendency to play havoc with the sensitive equipment so we were very lucky this time. The out took much much longer than expected however. Valve's crew seemed to be on a go slow and weren't out until just gone 9am. By the time we were done, it was nearly 11am - very little sleep plus 27 hours working is not a great combination. On top of that, I then had to get back to Altrincham before I would get a chance to sleep - and then I was back at work at 9am on Monday morning. Still, I managed it - getting home was annoyingly slow, Sunday service meant I had to wait an hour and a half in Stockport to get back to Altrincham. I then had to work out how to maintain a normal sleeping pattern so I ended up having a short nap and trying to stay awake for the rest of the day. More planning is needed if I choose to do this again - even if Valve is an exceptional case.

I think that just about brings us up to date... in time honoured tradition, I shall leave you with some music - From Frankmusik's latest album, which features a lot of collaborations, this is Do it in the AM featuring Far East Movement - the rest of the album is pretty good too!