almost witty

The trouble with suddenly having oodles of time on my hands is that instead of doing utterly constructive things, I find myself doing silly little things like looking at new cars, and new gadgets. Even though I don’t really have the money to buy them!

But lately I’ve found myself drooling over the Freecom Network MediaPlayer Drive-in Kit. This heavenly PC gadget would let me store music, pictures and video on my home PC network, and also connect to the TV so I could watch my PC-based videos on the TV. Which might mean I’d finally get to see the last two episodes of Doctor Who 2006 in full-screen TV, which has apparently led to the likes of Geoff crying…. Never mind the fact that I currently have about 300 Gb of TV programmes I have downloaded that I need to watch, and I find myself watching re-runs of the Star Trek movies on the Sci-Fi Channel. Even though I already have them all on DVD!

I’ve even been internally debating the merits between a Toyota Prius and a Honda Civic IMA as my next (relatively) environmentally-friendly dual-fuel car. Never mind that each one costs £17k a piece.

This is despite the fact that Comet are offering a laser printer for a bargain price of £40. I can even almost justify it - but yet, I still have yet to go out and buy the darned thing.

Nothing speaks of irony like only being able to look at and drool over new toys and gadgets at precisely the point when one is not earning enough money to buy them. But of course, once I am earning enough to buy them, I won’t have the time to enjoy them!

but this morning, I did something that I haven’t done for fifteen years. It was curiously and strangely satisfying basking in the glory of the sun, getting wet and dirty with it, and I look forward to years of doing it with Miss R.

Yes, I put some of my laundry out to dry on the washing line.

Ever since I left home at the tender age of 18, joys such as hanging washing out were denied me as I lived in a succession of student, then bedsit, then one-bedroom flats in city suburbs. With no garden or back space, I had to hang my damp clothes on radiators that would slowly turn dark with damp, and wait about a week before the clothes would dry out.

But when I moved into my new temporary digs, it not only came with a cool resident landlord and a huge airy room with jungle plants and wireless internet, it also came with a garden complete with washing line. So early this morning, I was taking my clothes out of the washing machine and hanging them on the washing line, juggling clothes pegs and sagging lines in the glorious sunshine. And lo it was good, working slightly in the sunshine. I stood back, and admired my handiwork as if I had personally handcrafted the Holy Grail of washing.

Fast forward four hours later, and it’s raining in Cardiff and my clothes are probably extraordinarily damp again. Sod’s bloody law.

So, phase #1 of the great move has been completed. Albeit with a huge number of comedy errors that make the Keystone Cops look like they should be engaged in the war on terror.

After seeming to spend the last two weeks throwing, packing and dumping - culminating in a climatic weekend with Miss R and I packing, and dragging five crates of magazines, one crate of glass bottles and 14 bags to the recycling dump - the time came to start the move on a sunny Sunday morning. On quite possibly the hottest day of the year. I was sweating in 10 mins.

So it started - but after an hour of moving stuff from the top floor to the van, the van was only quarter-full - and we still had half a room full of stuff. Miss R unfortunately had to disappear at lunchtime, so for the next two hours, I just lugged boxes from the top floor to the bottom floor.

I then begged Anni for some help in watching the van while I loaded it. And bless her, she took time out from a relaxing Sunday afternoon to sweat, move and generally be indispensable. My mate Dylan also came over to help move a bloody huge TV set - and they both navigated my inept driving of the transit van out of the cul-de-sac, and then onwards to the self-storage depot.

So we got in past the security, the keycodes, lugged three carts of belongings to the first floor, whereupon I suddenly realised that I’d left the keys to the self-storage place back at the flat. So I had to go back and get them while leaving Dylan and Anni - who’d never met before - in what seems to be a nuclear bunker with shopping mall muzak for half an hour. When they could have been relaxing in the garden on a Sunday afternoon. Gawd bless them.

Still, the last time I forgot my keys in moving house, I was moving from London to Cardiff - and didn’t realise till I was at Reading, about 30 mins in. So I had to drive all the way back, go back up to my London flat, and still couldn’t find my keys. Except when I returned to the van and found them in a bag beside me.

Eventually I got back, we lugged up more stuff and squeezed it into the storage space - it was like playing a giant version of Tetris. By the time I released Dylan and Anni from their voluntary duties, it was 7pm and the weather was a lot cooler.

But it wasn’t over. Now I had to move my “essentials” over to where I’m staying for the next month. Calling on the services of Rhys and Scott, this took another couple of hours before I tried to drive the van away while still leaving the side van door open - and then navigate it down a narrow side street. At this point, we were trying to unload the van in the dark, while the odd annoyed motorist buzzed at us to get out of the way - necessitating a drive round the corner to unblock the road.

The van was finally unloaded at 10.30pm - but the fun wasn’t over. I had to go back to the original flat and spend the next couple of hours, cleaning the place, and making a note of the electricity and gas meters. Except in my haste to get out, I left the notebook with the essential details behind. Doh.

So I didn’t get back to my new room till midnight - then it was time for a shower. Then I couldn’t sleep because I was so exhausted. But sleep I managed - until I had to get up early in the morning to return the hire van.

As I left my original flat (which I’d been in for four and a half years) for the last time, this charming sight greeted me.

So many many thanks to Miss R, Dylan and Anni, and Rhys and Scott. Couldn’t have done it without you!

For the last two to three months, I have been slowly agonising over precisely which laptop to buy…

Should it be the Apple Macbook Pro, which is gorgeous and slender but overpriced and lacking a right-hand mouse-button? The Sony Vaio SZ, which is again gorgeous and slender but overpriced? Or the Acer, which was relatively cheap but could be quite bulky.

Of course, what i really wanted was either the Macbook Pro, or the new AMD 64-bit dual-core processors to come out for a mobile platform. But time was ticking, and my total inability to commit to a computer platform (Mark Boulton once caught me sweating profusely in the Texan heat over whether to buy an iPod or an iPaq) wasn’t exactly going to help. I had to commit.

Monday: I suck in my gut, and place an order for a Sony Vaio SZ. It comes to about £1000 - but that’s £600 cheaper than UK prices.

Tuesday: Apple announce their new range of MacBooks, together with a price drop of the MacBook Pro to the point when it *just* becomes affordable. Although it says a lot about my wannabe-slave to the Apple design when I coo over the black Macbook for a while, before realising it’d look just about the same as any other black laptop out there.

Wednesday: My Sony Vaio SZ laptop arrives safe and sound at its temporary home. Thanks, Skarlett!

Thursday: AMD release their new range of Dual-Core 64-bit processors. Which basically means two 64-bit processors in a laptop! Gnash!

Friday: Intel are rumoured to cut prices on their Core Duo processors. Which would have made my laptop cheaper! Gnash!

Don’t you hate it when technology moves on in just five days ?!

Filling in this form to convert your Tesco ClubCard vouchers, I’m told:

“Attach your Clubcard Vouchers to your completed Order Form and then send them to us, remembering to affix a stamp to your envelope before posting…”

How stupid are Tesco customers, that they have to be reminded to stick on a stamp onto an envelope before sending vouchers back? Sheesh!