I made a very pleasing discovery this morning - a traffic free cycle path (and it's not just on the side of the road - it's between playing fields and patches of woodland) for the last couple of miles to work, which also leads naturally to an avoiding-busy-roads route for the next mile or two. I won't be able to avoid the city centre, but at least there traffic is so slow that it's not dangerous, and it looks like I'll be able to avoid fast moving traffic altogether.

I have what promises to be a good weekend ahead of me, in which I'll meet a few old friends, who are coming to Bristol entirely by coincidence, watch the FA Cup Final with at least one of the people I met this week, tear down lots of wallpaper and paint my room, and then move in properly on Monday when I have a van booked. As an added bonus one of the guys from work has offered to accompany me to London and back in the van, which will make loading it and manouevring in my parents' drive far easier.

posted @ 3:31 PM -

A map showing where I shall be living from Monday onwards. I'm looking forward to tearing down wallpaper over the weekend....

posted @ 6:43 AM -

Things are still working out nicely for me. I had forgotten how good a work environment HP provides (having been mighty impressed by it when I came here to interview), and this morning I had a meeting with my supervisor so I have some sense of direction. Obviously on day 2 of a 4 month project I haven't really sunk my teeth in yet - the first week will be spent reviewing literature on similar problems to the one I'm trying to solve, then I can pick one paper to replicate, and then I can finally get into doing something new on top of that. It's alright though - I've fallen foul of lack of structure in my work before, so it's very helpful to have one given to me, and to have a supervisor who while he clearly has better things to do than breathe down my neck constantly will be encouraging me to stick to it.

On the home front I will be moving in on Monday, because I managed to find somewhere I could rent a van from. There is a lot of decorating to be done in that house, which kind of feels like a hassle I shouldn't be dealing with if I'm only there for 4 months, but on the other hand it's fun to do, and once it's done I'll have the privilege of living in a newly painted and furnished house.

I went out for a drink with one of the people I was put in touch with by a mutual friend last night, and he seemed like a very nice bloke, so I now have at least one person to talk to who I neither live nor work with, which is definitely good. I have a stronger feeling than ever that I am going to enjoy these four months, as well as handing in a dissertation that actually feels like it represents me well, and improving my rather sorry level of fitness.

It feels particularly good to be me right now. Long may it last.

posted @ 1:52 PM -

so far so good part 2

I am posting this retrospectively - it's now Thursday afternoon. What follows is pasted from an email I sent to some people on Wednesday morning; at the time I hadn't set out to write any more in the email than I had posted here the night before, but I ended up writing a lot and only just managing to hit 'send' before my credit ran out on the PC I was using. I feel a bit lazy just quoting myself, but if nothing else I know I will want to read this at some point in the future, and it seems to fit here.

So far things are running suspiciously smoothly. Arrived in Bristol on time yesterday after an unusually pleasant train journey. Spent most of the way chatting with a very interesting elderly lady who used to be an RAF nurse, so has travelled an awful lot of the world and had the odd adventure.... Plus it has to be said that South West Trains' new trains have the first well-designed bike carrying system I've seen, which makes bike transport so much less hassle.

The I proceeded to turn the 10 miles I had to cycle between houses I was scheduled to view into 20 by appalling map reading (this is no exaggeration - I read it off the bike's computer at the end of the day), and to schedule my journeys perfectly so that as soon as I stepped outside it would start to bucket down with rain and as soon as I arrived somewhere the sun would come out. Let's just say I'm very glad the youth hostel has good radiators that stay on overnight, otherwise I would have had the joy of putting saturated shoes back on this morning.

The 3 places I saw via adverts all had something wrong with them - one was too far out, one was lovely but with a person I took an instant dislike to, and the third was in Easton, which I am told is an area some taxi drivers refuse to take people to - enough said really. Finally I met up with Sarah, a friend's [Brian's] ex-girlfriend, who by chance has just bought a house (picked up the keys yesterday) with 2 spare bedrooms and likes the idea of having a lodger for the first few months to help make up the cost of buying furniture and doing the place up. It's in Bedminster, which is about a mile south-west of the centre, so gives me a 5 mile bike ride or a shortish train journey to get to work. Should get me fit.... It's a decent place at the moment, but a lot of the decor has a tastelessness reminiscent of student houses, so with a few week's work we can turn it into a really nice house. The area seems reasonable; not the posh bit where everyone ideally wants to live (Clifton) but only the rich toff students can afford to when daddy pays (not that I would turn it down by any means, but nothing suitable came up round there), a few inviting looking pubs, none of the grime that some inner bits of Bristol have smeared all over them, decent local shops and a short walk into town. I am spoilt with having had so much on my doorstep in Brighton, but then I won't miss the noise, and this isn't far out....

I stayed in the youth hostel last night, which was surprisingly nice (up to the standards of Scandinavian & German ones - better than I expect in [ahem] Cool Brittania), but a shared room is not ideal, especially when the guy in the bed above me had to be out at 6am, but someone else didn't make it in till 2:30, so I've had less sleep than I would have liked. For the next few nights I'll be in a B&B near work. If previous experience is anything to go by it will be a far less nice place, and by Saturday morning I'll feel like Stanley in the Birthday Party, but a single room will definitely be an improvement. On the weekend I can move in to the new place, but there's no furniture at all and renting a van that weekend is proving difficult, so I may still stay at the B&B I have booked for the weekend, depending on whether I can sort out something to sleep on in the house.

My impression of Bristol so far is pretty positive. It is very obviously more of a city than Brighton, both in terms of the centre having the feel of somewhere significant, which I have missed over the last few years, and in terms of some areas having a sort of edge to them that only Whitehawk has in Brighton. Nothing serious - even when I was lost in St.Paul's I didn't feel uneasy asking for directions or anything like that - but they just feel like less of an insulated playground than Brighton. The waterfront area has been very nicely redeveloped, without ruining the old harbour, and the youth hostel is right in the docks, which is a definite bonus.

Today will be my first day at work, which I'm looking forward to, but I'm now so paranoid about my map-reading that I'm going to set off from here very soon even though it's only 4 miles away and I don't need to be there till 10. I'm awake anyway, so it's no better to sit here reading a book rather than there....

posted @ 2:57 AM -

so far so good

Time taken from arrival in Bristol to having a place to live: approximately 4 hours. A friend's ex-girlfriend has just bought a house, in a decent area, with 3 bedrooms, and needed a lodger to help with the cost of doing the place up. Only problem is that I'll have to move from one room to the other once it's painted, but that's a small price to pay for cheap rent in what will then be a freshly decorated room. If only everything were this easy....

First day of work tomorrow; I hope things continue to run this smoothly.

posted @ 6:35 PM -

and it's goodnight from me

Sorting my computer out is turning into a truly tortuous process. I've ended up doing a completely clean install, which means lots and lots of wasted time, and I still don't have all the software I want installed. Some reprobate has my Excel CD, which is most annoying. This time round I've lost a total of about 4 days to the PC; add that to the troubles I had in December and this starts to get serious. Obviously it wouldn't get me anywhere, but I am tempted to bill Microsoft for lost productivity for all the hours I could have been earning money instead of swearing at an inanimate object.

Anyway, I'm moving tomorrow, and part of the result of this is that I'm not actually ready. I still have quite a lot to pack and I'm in a bit of a mood because of it. I think as soon as I leave here the mood will lift because I'll go back to looking forward to where I'm going, but right now I'm being very snappy.

I'm shutting this computer down now, and updates may be sporadic here because I won't have a home computer for a little while. Same goes for email, so if you write to me and get no response please don't get worried or offended - Sam & Scott in particular I owe you both emails, but it may be a while till I can do anything about that.

posted @ 8:09 PM -