The Blog of James Smith

I spend a lot of time feeling tired.  I think this because I have stopped having afternoon naps, which were once one of my favourite parts of the days.  Ah well, I have been sleeping a lot the past few days.

As per usual for Christmas, I got several books.  Also as per usual, I have now read most of them.

A month or two ago I bought a book called The Way  Of Shadows by Brent Weeks, which was the first in a trilogy.  It was very good.  Highly recommended if you like assassins and treason and treachery and magic and all that standard fantasy novel stuff, but given a different twist.   People die, bad things happen and punches are not pulled.  I received the second and third books as a present for Christmas, and have devoured them both already, though admittedly, I am rereading the third one, as it is by far and away the best of the three in my opinion.

I also got Neal Asher’s collection of short stories - The Gabble.  The thing that annoys me about anything that Neal Asher writes is that there is never enough of it.  His novels are not short, but I always feel they could be longer.  I still think he is the one of the greatest tellers of stories and constructors of worlds I have ever come across, but I always wish that certain areas were expanded on.   However, these stories felt right.  There was enough to them to explain them but not so much that you expected more.  Very good.  On a total aside, my dog has only ever chewed two books, both of which were written by Neal Asher.

Speaking of dogs, I am going to feed mine now.  She has spent all day in the garden running like a loon and is looking decidedly tired.  Which is always good!

Today has been a very odd day at work.  Lots of stuff to do, but have found parts of it very hard going.  Work still got done (he hastily adds), but I found myself rewriting bits of stuff, as I just couldn’t get what I was trying to say out in the right way.  I think I succeeded in the end.  Hopefully.

Also, now that the £15 billion of work on the West coast mainline has finished, every train timetable has changed.  I am having to adjust my morning and evening routines, which is a bit of a pain in the bum, but I have suffered worse trauma in my life.

Now to try and catch the 18:48 train.   There is a slightly earlier one at 18:31 or so, but it goes from platform 13, which anyone who has been to Manchester Piccadilly train station will tell you, is about a 10 minute trek to get to from the actual main part of the station.

I snore.  Apparently.  I know this because at various times throughout the night I am punched and told to shut up by Jordan.  She likes to let me know she is awake.

However, snoring is a bit mundane, so based on one article I read on the BBC website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7785118.stm), I am convinced that I have sleep apnoea, and that if I didn’t I would be the perfect specimen of health and well being.

Whew, I sure am glad that I have sorted my life out and that being lazy and tired isn’t my fault but someone else’s.  Now I can eat whatever without feeling guilty, as it isn’t my fault!  Brilliant.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty nightmarish.  We currently have the builders in, and while they are doing a goodish job, we have been plagued by various incidents that would be okay on their won, but not all in the same week.

The joiner built the stairs wrong then quit, so the builder is having to get a new staircase built, so we are still currently without stairs.

The builders broke a gas pipe, so transco had to come out and make it safe.  BY TURNING THE GAS OFF.  Great.  So we then had the coldest night ever.  I was okay, but Jordan is a heat person, and hates being cold.  Me - I prefer to be cold, I find it easier to sleep.

SO we still have only half a flight of stairs, everything is covered in soot and we are living out of one room.  Not the best way to be living at the moment.  However, it will all be finished in a week.  Hopefully.

Am at my parents today, to see my dog, who has been staying here while the builders have been in at my house.   I didn’t realise quite how much I missed her until I saw her last night when I got here.

So I have managed to fail again at trying to write three blogs a week.  However, there are mitigating circumstances I feel.  At the moment we have the builders in, and currently not only are there no stairs in the house, the toilet is less than a foot away from a 10 foot drop, with nothing to stop you falling off.

Also, the contents of the entire house are now in just two rooms, as we are having a lot of work done, so I don’t have a computer other than the iPhone at home currently.  Which isn’t really an issue, as it can do pretty much every thing I need it to, up to and including ftp access to websites.

Excuses excuses though.  As I said, we currently have builders in, and I will give you a brief list of what they are doing:

• Moving the back door
• Moving the stairs 180^o so that it is facing the other way, and changing the incline and other such things
• Removing the chimney brest from the kitchen and second bedroom and replacing with steel to support chimney stack, which cannot be removed.
• Building a cupboard under the stairs
• Building out the floor where the stairs where
• Extending the bathroom to about double it’s current size.

The good news is that the building regs people are currently happy.

Then once we save up some more £££ the bathroom that is currently in the bedroom will be fitted and then we can move onto getting the kitchen in a decent state.  Maybe.

So I gave made it though 3 weeks if work, and to be honest it is better than I thought it would be in several diferent ways.

People are cool.
Work is interesting.
Office is very nice.

However, there is one issue. I am currently on a virgin train, traveling from Manchester to London. Yesterday I was in Southport and the day before in Doncaster. I am hoping that in a bit it will not be as busy but it’s not too big a deal.

Bring on the weekend - rugby and cricket to watch!

So I have watched and/or listened to  a lot of rugby this week, and to be honest, it has pretty much been all disappointment.  England lost to Australia, which is fair enough, but the way they lost - ill discipline and crappy scrummaging is not good.  Ireland were miserable against a misfiring New Zealand, with only Scotland putting up any sort of fight and only just losing to South Africa.  Other games were a bit blah as well.  then to top it all off, Northampton lose to Bristol by one point.  So that was all round a crap weekend for rugby in my opinion.

On the upside, on Friday I had lunch at Sam’s Chop House, which is one of the best places to eat in Manchester.  The beer there is pretty good too, though I wouldn’t recommend it for more than a few drinks and a meal as it can get really rammed in there.

So I left my previous job at an SEO agency about 6 months ago, and then went freelance for a while, and have now just started up with a new SEO agency.

There are several reasons why I went from freelance to working full time again, but the answer is two fold:

1. The current economic climate is a bit crap
2. Working at home is lonely and a bit boring

I have to say I am very happy with the new job so far.  Office is right smack bang in the middle of Manchester, overlooking Piccadilly Gardens, there is a Bar Burrito 2 minutes walk away, and the work is interesting and with large big name clients.

I have vowed to myself that I am going to write in this at least 3 times a week, so lets see how I do with that.

So Saturday morning, I took the dog for a walk.  I meandered through Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Chaple, the edge of Stockport and then walked home again.  It took me the best part of two hours, but it was highly enjoyable (crazy eh?).

Not being entirely sure how long the walk was, I used Google Pedometer to work it out.  4 and a half miles (you can see the route here).  Doesn’t sound that impressive, but it is a lot more walking than I usually do.  Ever.

I think I may take another walk with the dog next weekend.  Different route, but the same sort of length.

1 visit to Jessops.com and 50 quid later and my digital camera is back in action.  Awesome.  I am now going to post hundreds of photos of my dogs now!