Realising that I do most of communication with my mates online now I’ve taken a step futher and installed a couple of Instant messangers.

So I’m now on ICQ number 2418877565 and Yahoo ID:Newtiswrong (for which I use the rather splendid Trillian basic client)

And SKYPE , name:newtus.

So if you ever want to contact me or even just chat give me a buzz.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1329362959167995041

This week has been a week of final things.

After 6 years I’ve finally tidied up the attic, which was the Lair of Newt until last summer.

Our foster cat Tabitha went to her new home, and settled in straight away having a quick nose around the her new house like she owned the place before curling up under a radiator.

We had our final recycle bin collection last week, and we missed it.

I had my final bottles of real ale from the shop round the corner.

I got up bright and sparky this morning, and am now in the process of packing up the kitchen. Then its on to misclanous debris around the house, before packing the essentials (clothes, food and cats) next weekend.

Talking of which this time next week I’ll be recovering from a healthy hangover, and doing the last of the packing in a nice calm and relaxed manner. NOT

Instead I’ll be sick to the point of voming, running around like a headless chicken squeezing the last of the packing into overburdened cardboard boxes. What jolly good fun.

Taking a quiet moment to myself.

Things are begining to get busy on the move front as we pack up the rest of our belongings. Rach has looked into hiring a Pickfords van, since we’ve sold the Leeds house we are going to have to move everything in one go. The cats are still bonkers. BBC is clingy and keeps on attacking the many cardboard boxes that are accumilating in the front room. We reckon this is because BBCs previous owners left him when they moved house. I keep on cuddling him and reassuring him that we are not going to leave him, but alas at the end of the day he is not a small person in a furry coat and can not understand my words. This leaves us with a rather oddly behaving cat, who is spending most of his time charging around the house.

I’ve been kinda demotivated at work after putting the online results live. Catching up with more mundane work, uploading of documents, at the moment, before finishing off another website. I’ve realised however that my job is always going to be filled with projects of various sizes and that I can’t afford to ‘deflate’ energywise after finshing one. Onwards and upwards!

Off to see Clutch/Corrosion of Conformity in Manchester this Saturday with Nice Andy (Andy Martyn). In the strange posistion of going from Leeds and returning here afterwards. If we had moved house it would make more sense to return to Oldham, but because I’m not 100% sure of how to get to the new house it has been struck off as a bad idea. Especially with a drunk Mr Newt stubbling around in the dark.

Talking of upcoming gigs quite fancying going and seeing American Headcharge at Bradford Rios on Sat 28th. Also there’s Coheed & Cambria, nice anthemic melodic heavy metal with a bonkers prog-rock sci-fi story line going through their songs rapidly becoming a firm favourite despite being almost grrrless, playing Thursday 2nd Feb in Manchester. Will have to pull my finger out and book one or both very soon.

This is all itsjustaname’s fault

Got up nice bright and early and had a good train journey in. I was actually awake so carried on reading Colleen McCullough’s The Grass Crown, a tale of the movers and shakers in the Late Roman Republic Sulla/Marius era. Gripping stuff which after a slow start is begining to get reallly going. If you liked Rome on Tv recently I’ld recommend this book.

Then got in and made the online results section of our website live. Its a modest output, one set of results for 200 students, but it represents 2 months of nail biting absolute deadline pant wetting stress and a major crossing the rubicon moement in my career. Its up and thus far glowing praise and no problems.

Later today I’m off to go play Cthulhu Rising, which is basically Cthulhu mets aliens. The first session was well good, so really looking forward to it.

And best of all Rach has just rang me to tell me that we’ve been made an offer from a local investor’s agency for the house. So no loose ends, money in the bank, when we move to the new gaff. Best of all I don’t even have to finish off the decorating in the front room. YAR!

After work on Thursday went straight from work to our new house in Oldham. I’m still blown away by the travelling times. The longest part was the walk down to Victoria station from where I work in Picadilly, roughly the equivalent of walking from the Train Station end of Leeds to the market. Nearly missed the Rochdale stop, it was so quick (15mins on the Leeds express)! Rach picked me up, but it would have been just as quick to go by bus (~10mins). I’m going to like this lots 😀

Had the in-laws round for “xmas eve”, beer n nibbles and a game of Canasta (boys vs girls and we lost , *sulk*). It was a resounding success, but everything took four times as long since we were still finding out where everything lives.
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Tommorrow in the strange land I inhabit is Xmas. Tonight is XMAS eve, where we and Rach’s parents Brian and Elaine, will gather round our new house in Oldham for nibbles and beer. Tommorrow is Xmas with nutroast for us and Turkey for them, presents afterwards under the Xmas tree, followed by eventual coma due to too much beer and chocolate.

All this is because Rach was working on the real xmas. It was weird doing my xmas shopping yesterday. While I was buying my presents, grumpy monosyblic men where trying to return unwanted gifts. There wasn’t the crush of people and I got it all done in about one and a half hours.

The rest of the weekend is going to be spent exploring Oldham for the first time. Then back to Leeds Sunday afternoon, and the new year starts for real.