j 'blog

being slack I know...

but i have 'flu tonight and my head is in no fit state to think

So briefly: I went on a very nice walk with very nice people, on saturday: the Water of Leith walk in Edinburgh. Followed by dinner at the pub, of course.

Oh, dear and the battery is about to go on my MacBook... so I shall have to tell this story (better) later. And with pictures - I promise!

I was measuring up an empty office this afternoon - preparatory to doing space-planning schematics - and as part of this I had to position the existing aircon units (so that we don't have walls running through the middle of them!). Sounds easy enough? well yeah... except that to do it I had to lay the tape on the floor - from wall to wall - then eye up the centreline of each of the 3 the aircon units and line them up with the tape, which is fine. Apart from the bit where I was standing directly under the cold blast - right on the frontal lobe. Urk - major brain-freeze... Cracker of a headache when I got back to the office.

Well my legs are okay today. My thighs don't ache anymore.

I went for a hill-walk up Leum Uilleim (909m), a Corbett on the north edge of Rannoch Moor, on Saturday, with the Glasgow Region Under Forty First Footers.

It is a bleak but very beautiful place: from afar it all looks browny green and desolate; but as you get closer purples start to come through, and when you are right up in it, there are little white and blue and orange flowers and mosses and lichens, tiny purple alpine orcards and teeny tiny frogs.

The one downer was, in all this beautiul landscape, tucked under a rock I spotted a plastic Coca-cola bottle. Someone had taken the trouble to stuff their Twix wrapper inside it, and then thrown it away?! It is now in my rubbish bin at home. Funnily enough, the fact that it was the only piece of litter that adorned the otherwise pristine landscape, made it worse. Some places you get used to seeing rubbish everywhere, but there had been nothing...

It took me a while to work out why the walk / climb was so much harder on my legs than I would have expected - I know that I'm unfit, but not that unfit. but then I realised: the ground, being moorland, is covered in mosses and heather and similar and so is really springy unfoot (good to cushion a fall, if you fell) - it's like running on sand, uphill...

But the views were lovely, and we were very lucky and it did not rain. We followed this up with dinner at the pub / B'n'B by the train station. By the by that's all that's there: train-station, tracks and B'n'B... So a cheerful time had by all we caught the last train back to Glasgow and were home by 9.30pm.

F. was having a dinner party, and tired as I was, I was lured by tiramisu into joining. Once ensconced in the corner, with my legs up, and a glass of wine, there was no way that I was going to move for a long time. So I don't know what time it was that I finally dragged my tired limbs off to bed.

Since the internet was down again on Sunday, so I couldn't do my blog - I went and bought the final installment of Harry Potter: I won't bother to deny that I am a Potter-ophile, not after one of my workmates guessed that that was why I was overtired this morning, saying sagely: "you look like a Harry Potter fan." I'm not sure what that means...?

I have many photos from the weekend - so will sort them and put a sprinkling of the best on-line later in the week.

I have just realised that my NZ Visa Card is about to expire! eek it's all I have right now... Well it'll last me till next week anyway and hopefully by then I should have my Debit Card. And money in the bank! woo hoo!

But, oh! Speaking of visa's! My workmate, R, has a valid work permit, sponsered by her previous employer. Said previous employer closed up shop, hence her move to us. Being good and conscientious, she contacted immigration to notify them of her change in employer.

Bad Move...

They subsequently noticed an error (which they readily admit is theirs not hers): UK Registration is done in Parts (Including Uni Study) Part I, Part II, and Part III. R. is Part II equivalent and never pretended otherwise. The chap filling out the form, however, made a typo and wrote III instead of II. So now they want her RIBA certification (Part III) which she doesn't have and doesn't need to get a visa!

As a result she has had to stop work, and go back to India for a couple of weeks and then return and get her Visa re-stamped (I am not actually sure what this is supposed to achieve?) even though they admit that its their fault!

The biter bit of this charming story is that R's sister recently had her engagement ceremony, and R didn't go, in order that she could afford to attend the wedding in November (in India). Now, because she is going back this week, she won't be able to afford to attend the wedding...

And so after an hour at the bank this morning: I finally have a UK Bank Account! Don't I feel special!

After the traumas of Thursday day, it was nice to meet up with my new friend S.C. for coffee in the evening.

I was a wee bit cheeky: while flat-hunting I met S.C. when I went to view her ex-council flat. She has done it up very nicely, I just decided that I couldn't bear to live in Dennistoun - for some inexplicable reason it reminded me of Avondale... So I declined, and moved to the Westend - much more my scene - but asked her if she would like to go for coffee sometime? She was very happy to do so, and doesn't seem to hold it against me that I didn't want her other room.

Well, we had a lovely evening, and got on very well. And then she invited me to her friend's flatwarming the following (Friday) night!

So a month in Glasgow and already I had a social event clash! Heavens! But I decided that the Flatwarming definitely had the edge over the Walking Group Pub-night.

The party was lots of fun, and I met some nice, interesting people: a chap who builds submarines, someone else who works in a paint factory, more people who work in forensics (with S.C.), and a pair of apparently inseperable, bottle blondes who could have come straight from the streets of Parnell! Also S.C's new flatmate: G, who is a paramedic and a very nice chap.

But what with having been to the pub earlier with a few people from work, and the very odd drinking game that the host decided everybody had to play, sometime after midnight. Oh, yes, and embarrassingly enough, somehow succeeding in slamming my head in the taxi door on the way home? I had a wee bit of a headache yesterday...

Nevermind: today was beautifully sunny, so I got out and about with my camera - and have uploaded a few photos of Glasgow summer. (Which I realise are a trifile soft having been reduced for uploading. I shall have to work out an optimum file size!)

ka kite ano

I got myself in a bit of a lather on Thursday: the most irritatingly, ridiculous piece of bureaucracy - but it does seem to be about to be sorted, tomorrow morning hopefully it will all be resolved. So, anyway, this is what happened:

I went to the bank to try to open a bank account. In order to bank my very first pay cheque, and to hopefully start functioning on Bristish Pounds rather than NZ Dollars - which unfortunately don't last long in translation...

I had already found out that I needed proof, not only of identity (no sweat, passport can do that) but also proof of address. Also that only certain forms of evidence are acceptable for this. I assumed that the letter confirming my NINO - ie from a Government agency - would be acceptable. No.

I was told very clearly, and shown little leaflets to prove it, that the only things that are legally acceptable for proof of address in the matter of opening a bank account are:

- Council Tax bill or payment book. (that's my flatmate's concern...)
- Utility Bill (ditto - no, mobile phone bills are not acceptable)
- Full UK Driving Licence (well that'd be a long time coming!)
- Bank Statement (ha bloody ha!)
- Original mortgage statement (ditto)
- Current local Council Rent card or tenancy agreement - private tenancy agreements are not acceptable (but you can't get a Council House without verification of a bank account!)
- Original HM Revenue and Customs issued tax notification and correspondance (I thought that was what I had - apparently not...)
- Benefits book or original notification letter from the benefits agency and/or job Centre Plus (who sent me my letter with my NINO) confirming the right to benefits at present (well I suppose that I could quit work, go on the dole and get a bank account - but that would seem a trifle extreme...)
- Solictor's letter confirming recent house purchase or land registry confirmation (well that's highly unlikely)

I confess I was fuming. There must have been steam coming out of my ears!

I explained all the above to the Accounts lady at work, saying that if I couldn't resolve it before the end of the month, I'd have to give her my NZ Bank Account details. Anyway, one of the Partners overheard, and later asked her to contact the bank that the firm uses and see what could be done. Anyway, they have agreed that the firm can guarantee me: writing a letter confirming my address and salary. So I have an appointment tomorrow, and with luck thatll be the end of it!

So then, my next Herculanean Task will be tackling the NHS...

Having spent the day dimensioning (no! make that re-dimensioning) the plans I have to revise and resubmit to SAC, I was very much in need of a drink. Thank god there was a bottle of wine in the fridge. I am feeling much happier now!

I think it's also a bit of the anti-climax thing: just been a bit today. Everything is ticking over now: so it's "and then? now what?!"

But on a good note!: my sister and brother-in-law are having a baby - in December - and had the anatomy scan yesterday: and it is a healthy, (we'll assume) happy, (yellow) baby boy! (in a bag of goo according to the father to be!).

And the sun is shining here! finally better weather than Auckland! - not that I'd wish a month of rain in one night on anyone...

Finally back on line again after R. did - well, something? - to the way his wireless was set up and only F. could access the web. So, in trying to remedy the situation, he left none of us with access for nigh on a week...

Having explained my absence / silence, I have to admit that I've sweet f.a. to write about: I get up, have breakfast, go to work, get lunch at lunch time, do work, come home, eat dinner, have shower, go to bed. Get up again in the morning... oh what a scintillating life...

You know, I never thought that I'd say this: Glasgow's footpaths are at least as bad if not worse than Auckland's. Rumpty, bumpity, cracked and dishevelled. Sections and strips that get dug up are resealed in a different finish, with little blobs of tar that'll go all sticky and soft if the sun ever gets hot enough - perhaps it doesn't here... It's kinda nice, makes me feel at home.

Speaking of the sun: it's actually been a very nice weekend. No, now don't be so surprised: it is summer here after all!

I was a (very) trifle hungover this morning - which is a bit lame seeing as I'd only had 3 glasses of wine over the evening. It just goes to show how little I've drunk over the last month. But it was a good night last night: I went to a pub night of a walking group I'm looking at joining. I didn't know anyone, but then that's the point isn't it - get out there and meet people...

So all fine and dandy, until I arrived and realised that I hadn't a clue who, out of all of these people at the bar, I was actually there to meet! So, I got myself a drink, enquired of the barman if he knew, by any chance? No luck there... Thinking that it was better than standing around looking stood up, I went over to a big group of people, who looked a bit hearty, and about the right age, and asked if they were they? Very blank looks. Actually, one young man looked at me as if I was slightly deranged! By a very fortunate chance however: a light-bulb lit up over one of the women - "are you here for the walking group?" Yes, actually, I am... By shear coincidence she had run into a friend at the bar earlier, who said that she was there to meet others from a walking group, but that no-one had turned up yet. So she took me to find this friend. And two other lost women trailed along behind having over-heard my query and subsequent revelations. So it all worked out quite nicely!

So I met quite a few people, as various members turned up. One of them turned out to be another architect; and the woman who had initially aided me (I ran into her again later at the bar), is the daughter of two architects. Well, I guess that's typical: if there is alcohol, there are Architects... Although usually, it's builders that I seem to meet everywhere? Especially ones with wee chips on their shoulders about F*ing Architects!

I have also finally replaced my camera, and am subsequently in a very good mood.
I got a Pentax K10D, and am still learning my way around it, as it is markedly different, in some ways, to my old Pentax IstDs.

Oh! and I have a NINO! I can't believe that something so critical has a name that sounds like a manga character!

Since I have a camera, finally: some photos of my new home!

Further to my last: I was rudely awoken yesterday morning by one of the same likely lads who had been making all the noise the night before (and before that!) - oh! and rattling on my doorhandle... So having not been able to get to sleep until after 2am, and then sleeping badly anyway, I was woken at 5.45am by this twerp knocking on my door, I said (all bleary, still half asleep) "yes? what?" and he just kept knocking. Thinking that it was later, maybe 9.30am, and maybe the Guest House staff wanted to take my towels or something, I opened the door. To be met by a tall fat man in his underwear looking past me at the room in curiousity!
I said "Can I help you?"
He grunted something unintelligible, so I said "This is my room - what do you want?"
I repeated myself once or twice, and then tried to shut the door.
He took hold of the door and pulled it open further so that he could step inside - thereby forcing me backwards in to the tiny room, with nowhere else to go?!
I repeated "This is MY room!"
He stares around myopically and then says "wrong room" and leaves!

I was sorely tempted to go after him with something heavy - like a baseball bat! Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately!) I didn't have one to hand just then...

Ah well - I am now out of the Guest House and into the flat! and as soon as K. has moved out the last of her gear, I can move in proper!

I am SO relieved...