Taking a holiday
It’s been a long time since I took a holiday, in fact I can’t remember whether I’ve ever taken a holiday while at Karova (not including the Christmas holiday and the very occasional single day off) - so Paul took it upon himself to book me a week off and I decided not to argue with that. It’s been great.
Things got off to a fantastic start when I met Heather at the train station on Saturday afternoon (after a morning spent tidying up!). As always when Heather’s around, so were smiles, giggles, good conversation, and general merriment. Owing to us both being ridiculously hungry we decided to dump her stuff in my flat and go straight for some of Wales’ finest sausage and chips (from the chippy by the tram station, for anyone visiting Llandudno) and headed off to the Haulfre Gardens to plonk ourselves down on a bench and catch up. I remember us taking a brief walk along the Orme after that, but there memory fails me. I think perhaps we went shopping for chocolate, but whatever we did it was a pleasant day and we ended up cooking some Chicken Tonight (I was chief microwave operator for the veg) before I got a bit nerdy and we started watching videos and listening to tunes in the living room. We perhaps stayed up a touch too late on saturday night, the bottle of red (2002 Barolo, nice stuff) and general tiredness not entirely helping my efforts to teach Texas Hold’em, but eventually some Sasumu Yokota appeared on iTunes and we pretty much collapsed. Sunday would have been better if only I hadn’t felt sick, which put a bit of a dampener on things 
As it was the trip to Betws-y-coed wasn’t quite the funsome prettiness I’d hoped. Regardless, I had a great weekend, and thoroughly hope that Heather did too 
Here’s a little clip from Sunday evening of us chilling out on the beach:
Monday I decided that it was high time I got around to painting the bathroom ceiling. I remember thinking it was disgraceful when I moved in two years ago, but somehow I got used to it and stopped noticing that it was skanky. A quick trip to Homebase to purchase some goggles, a paint tray, roller, brush and cleaning spirits, and a trip to Londis to grab a few newspapers (taped together as paint-drip-protectors - who gets news from a newspaper anymore?!) and I was sorted. I’d forgotten just how tiring it is on your arm painting ceilings, but at least the job’s done now. There was just barely enough paint left in my tin. After that I did a proper wipe-down of the walls, which were pretty dirty in hard-to-reach places too. Not because I’m a filthy person I hasten to add, but because the bathroom has no ventilation and only a paltry extractor fan - so it gets and stays pretty damp in there. Anyway, it’s all clean and nice now.
Tuesday I drove home to Stoke as I had to sign something for my parents. It was only a brief stay as it was an un-planned trip, but it was nice to see people. Matt and Kath were just back from their three month trip around the world so it was very cool to say hello to them. Unfortunately schedules didn’t allow for a proper catch-up so I’ll have to pop back in a week or two and we’ll have to have a get-together at a pub. There was also some very cool news which I’m fairly sure I’m not allowed to talk about yet!
The rest of the week has been a bit of a blur to be honest, though it’s been nice getting to sleep-in. Having said that it’s the end of the week and I’ve found that my sleep pattern has changed itself to a typical student one - up at 11am, but still awake at 1am. It seems like that’s how my Circadian Rhythms would like things to be. Which is a shame because it means I waste a good morning sleeping, and because tomorrow I need to be up at 7:30am and back into my normal work routine.
On Thursday or Friday Ben and myself helped Vicki build her bed (she’s moving in to Ben’s house). Thursday I dropped in at work to pick up my shiny new GPS system - a Nuvi 200W. This means I will now be able to take off and go to pretty places with my camera - I’ve not done that before (and in fact have barely explored any of Wales) because I have no confidence whatsoever in my navigational skills. Now I have something to tell me ‘left’ and ‘right’, so that’s very cool.
Friday was Paul’s last day at Karova, he’s moving on to be an Marketing Director with another local IT company, so I again dropped by work. We went to the Garddfon and had a pleasant meal. I had thought Paul was coming back with us to the office, but it turns out he stayed there for a pint so I didn’t get chance for a proper farewell. That’s not too bad though as I’m sure we shall be seeing him again
This weekend I’ve been working on some web stuff that I’m not going to talk about for fear of jinxing it, and been out for a couple of walks with the cameras. I’ve not checked them yet, but I suspect there’s nothing good on them - but that’s OK, the point was more to get outside than to take awesome photos.
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- Sun, 30th Sep 2007 at 21:09 UTC
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