Silvershed Blog

Isn’t it funny how there are unspoken rules about where you can and can’t go?

I commute on the train. Very rarely, I get to sit down. Most of the time I’m standing up, and sometimes I’m jammed in like a sardine. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why it changes on a daily basis, although I’m developing a hatred of those trains where they have the seats paired in a three and a two, rather than a two and a two. (And why aren’t there enough places to hold on when you’re standing in the door well, although that’s a different rant.)

This morning was a sardine day and we all shuffled up the carriage to let the last few people on. I found myself standing outside the nice, clean, empty, disabled loo. Why on earth weren’t people using the space? We were 10 minutes away from the terminus, so it was unlikely to be used, it’d help more people fit on, what’s the problem?

And yet no-one was interested. In the end two of us looked at each other, shrugged and went in. The other guy even put down the lid and settled down with a book, which was too far even for me. But I did get the most comfortable journey I’ve had in a while, with enough space to even do starjumps, much to the disgust of Minty who wouldn’t/didn’t come in. Ah well, if he prefers commuter BO that’s up to him.

One thing that’s really interesting about working in the city of London is you get to see all the places that get used in background shots while they do all their doom and gloom stuff about how it’s all going wrong. We’ll be watching the news about some new cock up, and instead of listening to the details, we’re pointing at the buildings in the background going “ooooh, that’s down the side of the Bank of England, that’s the route I take when I’m coming down from Finchley”. Lame, I know.

There’s often someone with a camera on London Bridge – in the mornings, you get film crews filming actors pretending to be businessmen, or shots of the floods of people crossing the river to get to the City, and in the evening you get tourists getting that shot of Tower Bridge in the dusk (and to be fair, it’s a cracking view and one that I’m glad I get to see every single day). But this week, there’s been much much more – a couple of crews getting the standard shot, but now joined with press photographers getting it too. This morning there was a group of about 20 bowler hatted actors, all in black suits, white shirts and red ties, storming along with us.

Of course, they got the pace completely wrong, and only walked very quickly, rather than frighteningly quickly, so they stood out a mile. And being London, not one person let on they were there, except for the odd tut because they were getting in the way.

I love this city.

I am very happy after finding the shop that Crumpler have set up in the UK (in London)

Funny how dreams tell you lots about what’s bothering you in real life, isn’t it? While we’ve been moving, we’d had our stuff in our old house, other people’s houses, storage, and our rented room. I’d been getting increasingly unsettled by this – I had no idea what I owned any more because I’d not seen some of it for 18 months, and I knew that a fair bit of it could vanish and I wouldn’t notice.

One of the nice things about living out of suitcases is I’ve learnt that an awful lot of what I own is just stuff, and could be abandoned quite easily. OK, it’s harder to make that decision when it’s there in front of you, but if the storage unit burnt down, well, so be it.

When we found out that the sale of our house had fallen through I started sleeping really badly, and having lots of lucid dreams about all our stuff. Do you reckon the one where I was sorting out our storage and found an anchor has any hidden meaning?

One of the best things about being in our new place is that all our stuff is finally in the same place. Even having it in the same county was a start. OK, so we’ve not got rid of NorthHouse yet, nor are we likely to for a while yet, but the relief is indescribable. And even better, now everything is together again we can start to get rid of stuff. Stuff that we’ve paid to store, and paid to haul round the country, stuff that is just a load of old shite.

I’ve not got a LJ blog, but I’m going to steal one of their features:
Mood: POSITIVE

Quite apart from signing up to do a 10k when you’re not a natural runner (which is a bad idea all of its own), a really really bad idea is to pass your race number to a friend. Who is a bloke. And rather good.

I’d said I’d do the London 10k in an hour, which looked achievable. I’d been training reasonably well, and while I’d found it a struggle, I was quite hopeful. And then my feet started hurting when I ran. I assume I’ve not been stretching properly, but reading some of the horror stories on line, I cut the running straight away, then started building back up, very very slowly, and very very carefully. The 10k was out of the window.

It seemed a complete waste to not use my face entry, so my friend offered to use the number instead. Rather than waste the entry fees, I handed over the pack that arrived, and waited to congratulate my friend on completing the race.

So I wasn’t expecting the rather terse email I got the day after the race. “Can you explain why a man ran with your number? He came 8th”. Ooops? OK, a fit and healthy 20something being the 8th over 30s Woman isn’t that surprising, but for some reason it just never occurred to us. I toyed with the idea of claiming to be a really bad transgender runner, but knew it was better to come out with the truth. And then grovel. Lots.

Thank god the organiser guy had a sense of humour, and just ticked me off. But somehow, I can’t see me entering again.

Cutting your own fringe.

It was driving me nuts, and I was too lazy to book an appointment for a fringe cut at my excellent Japanese hairdressers.

It’ll grow.

For those that don’t know I have finally taken the plunge and bought a shiny new Canon EOS 40D digital SLR camera. It is something we have talked about doing for years but was always beyond our means. As prices have continued to fall and as we were getting more and more frustrated with our point and click I thought it was about time we made the leap to what we wanted.

As well as the price falling recently there is also a cash back offer on where they send you £100 after you buy the camera. It seemed too rude not to take them up on the offer and I am a very happy owner of a fabulous camera.

It is a very capable camera and I am still getting to grips with what it can do. It has been a very long time since I was using the film SLR that I had. That got way too expensive to take pictures with as it was about £10 to get a film developed and printed.

I am now going through the dilemma of trying to decide what RAW processing software to use with it too. The provided Canon software does do the job but it isn’t very intuitive and seems to use slow and separate components to achieve the end result of converting the RAW image into a JPG file.

I’ve downloaded the Adobe Lightroom demo and was immediately very impressed with what it did and how easy it was to use. I’m only using the 30 day demo so far but I suspect it will prove itself good enough to justify buying it.

If you keep an eye out on our Flickr pages you will see new photos going up from now on as we start to take them again.

We went to a motorbike thing in Hendon today, and got to see the White Helments (on our Flickr). You know, sometimes it feels like England is stuck in a pre-war timewarp. There’s something really relaxing about watching chaps riding through burning straw on Triumph motorbikes. I felt like I was at a County Fair in oooh, 1938. And it was ace.

Actually, thinking about at it, we went to the Ideal Home Show yesterday. That was like something from 50 years ago too. I even picked up details for the Women’s Institute…

While I’m living in two places, I want my NorthHouse post delivered to my SouthHouse. Shouldn’t be too complicated, should it?

Ha.

I can see this turning into a rant of Fakiresque proportions, but having nearly burst into tears in the Post Office out of sheer frustration at the fuckwittery of the process and the counter girl (who was otherwise well meaning and polite) I need to let off steam.

Attempt the First
Excellent. I can do this online. Except it doesn’t want to know my middle name, and I don’t use my first name. No worries, I’ll just enter my middle name instead.

Oh, it wants to verify me against billing and electoral information. So I’ve got to let them who I officially am, but I’m sure I can tell them about my ‘other identity’ by fudging the form a bit.

Date moved out. Hmmm. I’ve not moved out. But they don’t mean forwarding date either, because that’s a different box. OK. Something else I’ll have to fudge. Feeling less confident about this now.

Oh. Look. It won’t verify. Mind you, it’s a computer, so it’ll be looking for logical matches. No matter. I’ll go to the post office and talk to a human.

Attempt the Second

“Where do I arrange mail forwarding?” “Do you mean redirection?”

I don’t know what you call it. I don’t care either. Why do these places think I care what they want to call their scheme (and yes, Orange Dolphin/Wombat/Iguana, I’m looking at you.)?

She very kindly starts walking me through the form, but I fail to see how this is helpful – it’s only what I’ve filled in myself online anyway.

I pass over my ID, and her face falls. “You’ll need to take the form home to got your husband to sign this, you can’t complete this today”

“Why? I was able to complete for him online, and when the form failed it didn’t mention ID or signatures for him, just me?” And yup, I just get a shrug.

Then, she asks me for the photo card for my driving licence, looking at me like I’m a thick. Er, it’s from the last century, love. They didn’t have photo cards then.

She carries on filling in the form for me while I stand there fuming. I’m getting increasingly irritated by the way she’s obviously having to read the form as she goes along – I don’t think she’s filled one in before, so she’s just as in the dark as me.

And then I notice. She’s managed to put down my surname, Stuart’s surname and our NorthHouse street name incorrectly – AND SHE’S COPYING IT FROM A PRINTOUT. FFS.

Aaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

I totally cannot handle fuckwittery, so at this point I’m batting back the tears of frustration, and in the end have to go “I have to go” and I snatch all my forms and documents back off her, and make a dash for it.

Intermission
And now, to cheer me up, some light entertainment (namely, a row with Understanding and Helpful husband)

“Well, if you’d just done it right online in the first place…”

Thanks, honey. That’s really helpful. And no, it isn’t just done by surname any more, as you keep helpfully asserting. It’s by name:
“Redirect all variations of first names (e.g. Susan, Sue). If you don’t mark this box only the listed names and titles will be redirected.”

Their suggested solution for confusing names (in this instance, people with double barrelled surnames who want the single bits forwarded too*) is to list the names individually. This is the fudge I tried, and which was rejected.

Next, I’m going to ring their helpline to work out what information they need. Who wants to bet that it’s based in India?

Attempt the Third
OK. I set myself up for this one. I know, should do better.

I ring up. I sit through multiple menu options – and then I’m told the office is now closed.

*Now, here is another world of pain I suspect we’re going to enter. We’ve been married ten years, and people still haven’t twigged what our surname is, so we do still get the odd thing misaddressed. That’s not even including people who peer at our surname, then carefully copy down one or other part of it, conveniently forgetting the rest. And it’s not even like they copy the Secondbit, assuming we’re just being poncey and giving our middle name. Sometimes I’ll get post to Mrs Firstbit, with no mention of the Secondbit anywhere.

Thought I’d better report back on the Jensen’s I got last week. My god, it’s absolutely wonderful, I’d even go so far as to say it’s the best gin I’ve ever tasted.

Goes down frighteningly easily, too.

Apparently, from a bit of a google, Jensen’s Gin is made by a local guy who churns out just 200 bottles a month. We can’t decide whether to place an order with the wine merchant, so we get one of them – every month – or whether this is a really bad idea.