a geek, a broad

Cotswolds, Avebury; future plans

Monday, June 1, 2009

Firstly, will link to the map I’ve been using to keep track of where I’ve been, where I’m going and where I’ve been to. I’ve also put the link to it on the main page of this blog, on the sidebar above the photos.

Secondly, stuff I’ve been doing! Yesterday went with friend J to Avebury and the Cotswolds, checking out the henge at Avebury, stopping for pub lunch and “real ale”, then walking around Woodchester Park in the Cotswolds. It was absolutely gorgeous, stunningly green and luscious and delightful rambling through woods and fields. The weather has been quite warm – in the low-mid 20s (celcius) – for the past several days, and looks to be continuing for as far as is forecasted. It is the first of June, after all, the calendar first day of summer!

Thirdly, plans. I’ve been applying for work pretty constantly for the past couple of months, and all the leads that have come up have either ground to a halt or fallen through. So I’ve taken a look at my finances and decided to shift my focus from “working with some travel” to “travel with some working”. I figure that wherever I go, I’ll have to pay living expenses, so I might as well do that in different places around the UK.

To that end, I’ve arranged to rent a room short term in the seaside town of Sidmouth for June. (This will also be convenient for going to my cousin’s wedding in Salisbury at the end of the month.) I move down there on Saturday.

I’ve also been trying to get my head around how the next several months after that are shaping up, too. There are a lot of visitors from Aus tootling over from August-October, so I’ve been making plans to spend time with them. Here’s what the calendar is looking like:

June – Sidmouth, Devon.

July – Scotland – staying with friends and family, if possible. Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayr, possibly Isle of Bute and/or Aberdeen.

August – York & subsequently Yorkshire Dales; visiting other friends in the north – Doncaster, Merseyside.

September – possible road trip with a friend from Gloucestershire up into Scotland wilds. Touring a bit of Wales, and north-east England (Tynemouth).

October – possibly some walking with friends along the south-east coast path (England). This might happen in early September instead.

Thinking of trying to pin down some 9-5 work from October-December, perhaps even in London. There may be a brief continental jaunt in January, but a bit early to tell just now.

Exciting!

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Glastonbury, South Wales, Dorset, Hampton, Caerphilly

Friday, May 15, 2009

It’s mid-May–now well over the “this is the longest I’ve been away from home” line. Missing friends and family, but not technically feeling homesick yet!

Although I’ve definitely had it up to here with this bloody recession nonsense. My contract in Bristol has two more days left in it and I’ve been applying for jobs for the past 6 weeks, but with very little response. Am hopeful about a couple of opportunities up Liverpool way, but recruitment agencies are painfully disorganised when it comes to actually keeping me informed as to what the status of those are.

I may have a fall-back opportunity in London, and while I’d rather go to a new city (preferably in the North, where more friends are) than back to London, I may not have much choice. Am gradually coming around to moving back there, with the reassurance that I won’t be as miserable as I was last time I was there, solely because I’ll have income and somewhere to live. Plus, London is so huge, if I manage to get a convenient place to live, it’ll be like settling in a whole new locale in itself… Which is what I’ve enjoyed most so far: uprooting and landing in a completely new place. If only the job market wasn’t so prohibitive…

Anyway, in the meantime I’ve been veging at home a lot–I really like my place here in Bristol, it has a lovely garden and spring has been bursting over the past 6 weeks or so. Plus, there are cats here, very friendly cats who like to keep me company, so that’s nice. And it’s meant I’ve been able to save a bit more money. I’m hoping to do some more serious travel (still prob in the UK, though) in September when Aussie friends come over, so I’m trying to save as much as I can for then, instead of using all my money being unemployed now.

That said, I have got out to a few places on some day trips, with friends and housemates who have cars, mostly, as well as a couple of train trips. Seeing as it’s been a while since I posted, I’ll just dump some photos and notes here:

(Continued)

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Bristol and surrounds

Monday, April 6, 2009

It’s April! And has been so for several days, apparently. I can’t believe I’ve been here over two months already.

Work is going really well–it feels so good to be back in the saddle again, giving my brain a workout and being part of a team. It’s proving challenging in some places but overall very stimulating, I’m very glad to be there. The contract was initially ten days over 2 weeks (full time), but the nature of the project means they’re better off spreading those 10 days out over a longer period, so I’m there for four weeks (four days, two days x 3). So I have two more weeks to go there but am hoping that it can be extended a little longer; aside from wanting to be employed, the project would really benefit from more time!

So, working two days a week means I have a lot of spare time to be doing other things, but I’ve tried to be frugal about my sightseeing–unfortunately I get paid monthly and just missed a pay cycle, so I won’t get the income from this work for another couple of weeks anyway. In the meantime I’m living off my Australian savings still. Which hurts to cut into, so I’m trying to keep the spending to a minimum.

I have been around a bit ‘locally’–visited Bath and a few of the sights there (Jane Austen Centre, Fashion Museum, Roman Baths), and went back to Cardiff again (walked around the Barrage to Penarth), and did some more sightseeing in Bristol (back to the Suspension Bridge, Bristol Cathedral, the Royal Academy of the Arts street art exhibition). Have also been taking advantage of the creeping spring to lounge in the garden on the hammock when the weather permits it.

The more I settle into and enjoy work here–and Bristol in general–the more reluctant I am to go back to London. I have loved relocating to an entirely new place, and jumping into an entirely new job with the understanding that it’s short-term. In an ideal world, I’d love to be able to take up opportunities like this around the UK for the rest of the year. But, as with so much right now, it’s probably all dependent on how kind the recession is to me. Still, I fully intend on making the IT specialist recruitment agency who are getting a cut of my pay work for me to find more!

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How to be a successful tourist: 1) obtain space ship/time machine…

Thursday, March 19, 2009

This week the weather has been unseasonably glorious (or so I’m told; apparently March is supposed to be dreary and rainy), so I’ve been alternately wandering about the surrounds and hanging about more locally, enjoying walks and the garden and open windows.

On Monday I wandered about Bristol a bit more, going over to the City Museum for a brief look (verdict: seriously disturbing taxidermy collection), then catching a bus over to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The bridge is probably the most famous Bristol landmark, and it was quite impressive–very difficult to photograph to capture the magnitude of it. On the Bristol side it also had a lovely park with an observatory; at the top of the observatory was a camera obscura and below it a cave passage through to a viewpoint at the side of the cliff overlooking Avon Gorge.

As the cave was £1.50 (as opposed to the camera obscura’s £2.50), I decided to give that a look. Shortly thereafter questioning why I always seem to think that English caves are a sightseeing opportunity not to be missed… I was the only one in there, the stairs extraordinarily steep and roof very low (I was bent almost double). The view was nice, though my leg muscles didn’t think so.

On Tuesday I caught the train to Cardiff, which was about a 45 minute ride (under the Bristol Channel!), at a brilliant £8 return. (I love my Young Persons Railcard, which gives me about a 30% discount on all rail tickets.)

Part of my reason for wanting to visit Cardiff was because that’s where BBC Wales does a lot of their filming–i.e. the majority of Doctor Who is shot there, as well as the Whoniverse spinoff, Torchwood, which is actually based in Cardiff–their top secret underground base is immediately beneath Roald Dahl Plass. So basically, Cardiff’s very prominent landmark is the nerdiest location ever. Naturally I was very gleeful to visit.

The bonus was, of course, in that while I was there, the TARDIS appeared in the most photogenic of locations. They’d brought it in as a prop for a photoshoot for some local cultural event, then left it out for a while for passersby to photograph and look inside. Best timing ever! See inset photo of me about to travel through time and space. I am looking intensely gleeful because it’s the TARDIS parked above Torchwood’s secret base. Nerd heaven.

I also did the more typical touristy touring of Cardiff by then going up to Cardiff Castle (Castell Caerdydd), which was fun (yay castles!), and again–perfect, sunny, clear-day weather for it. The lawns were all green and the daffodils still out, though the trees are still pretty bare. Blossoms are starting to burst out all over the place, but leaves on the deciduous trees are yet to come back in.

Though Bristol is much cheaper than London, I’ve still not earned any income yet so after that brief burst of tourism I’m trying to save more money again, namely by enjoying what’s within walking distance and pointedly not going shopping! It helps that the kitties here are very friendly and eager to keep me company, and that I’ve very much settled into my comfy, cosy room. And also that Tesco’s ready meals are surprisingly delicious.

I did splash out on my first haircut since the buzzcut in January, though. Now I’m back to looking sharp rather than unkempt. It’s amazing how fast it seems to grow.

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Live from Bristol

Saturday, March 14, 2009

I am all settled in to my room in Bristol and, as I am sharing the house with two cats (and two people), I’m often down the far end of the x-axis in xkcd’s Human Proximity to Cats graph. Which isn’t a bad thing. It’s good to have kitties around to scritch and natter at.

Naturally, bureaucracy tied itself in a bit of a knot and the HR dept of the agency I’m doing the contract for didn’t sort themselves out in time for me to start next week, so instead I’m starting my two week contract on the 23rd of March. So in the meantime, I have time to kill in Bristol and surrounds!

On Friday I bussed over to where I will be working to meet the team there, which was jolly good and made me look forward to it even more. Today I mainly lounged about the house, though I did go out into the sunshine for a bit (amusingly, despite it still only being about 12 degrees, an Englishman had his shirt off), and bought myself a cyclamen for my desk–I’ve missed having plants! Hopefully I’m here long enough to see all the flowerbuds open up.

On Tuesday I’m catching the train to Cardiff for a day trip, which I’m looking forward to. (Especially as that return ticket is cheaper than a daily ticket for getting around London! hah!) I’ll also try and make it to Bath at some point, probably next week as well–city sightseeing is much less crowded on week days.

Bristol is making me love Englishpeople and England more than London did. The pockets of culture in London were delightful, but overall it was too overwhelming, and strangers often alienating. The people here by and large seem to be friendly, down to earth and relaxed. I much prefer that. And the delightful accent!

I also love that Bristol is so explorable by foot. Might go ahead and give that another whirl tomorrow.

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Bristol ahoy!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Good news! I have work. A 2 week contract as a “Wiki Consultant” at a government agency based in Bristol. I start on Monday 16th March, and after going up for a visit yesterday, have got myself a room in a nifty Victorian terrace house in a funky suburb. I am 10 mins bus ride from city centre, 10 mins bus ride in other direction from work. And, as Bristol is much smaller than London (no! really?) only a 30 minute walk into the city centre, if I feel so inclined.

I’m very excited about my new room, and new job, and am so very pleased that it’s coming together!! Though of course, after weeks of comparative inactivity, since they offered me the contract I’ve been running about like mad, trying to wade my way through all the bureacracy required by the government not only to work in this country, but all the bureacracy required to actually work for the government. Phew.

So I’ve been spending a small fortune on public transport and getting very tired legs with all the zipping and running around. Tomorrow will be spent packing up the suitcase again, on Thursday it’s over to Bristol to settle in. YAY.

I’ve been having some adventures in London as well, which you can catch up on if you so wish via my Flickr set. I am looking forward to being in a smaller (and much cheaper) city. The friends I have in London will be not so accessible, of course, but Bristol itself is so much more wanderable than the indomitable capital, so I’m anticipating it’ll be less overwhelming.

But, after pounding the pavement for about 8+ hours over the past two days, not to mention getting up at the ridiculous hour of 7am, I’m ready to fall asleep now. At 10.30pm! I’m losing my edge. (That ‘edge’ being the slightly hysterical agony of insomnia. Works for me. Zzzzzz….)

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Same bat time, new bat channel.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Despite the time lapse, not a lot has happened since I posted last. I was up in Scotland for a week, where I caught up with a friend I hadn’t seen in literally 10 years (!) and who is also expatting (in Edinburgh), but mainly spent my time hanging out with my friend and fellow nerd C, who lives in Paisley (town not that far out of Glasgow). Watched a lot of TV, talked a lot of TV, ate good food.

Then it was back to London, feeling anxious about taking a week off instead of intensifying job hunting. The maternity leave position I’d been hoping for fell through, though I have a couple of other leads–possibly some more IT work in London in a couple of weeks, or some contract work in Bristol. Still in limbo about those, though, waiting from On High. Otherwise, I’ve been registering and pestering temp agencies, and applying for a bunch of positions found on Guardian Jobs. London seems to be the place to get work, but still, all anyone talks about is how terrible it is to be unemployed right now. Sigh.

Meanwhile, I had been staying at A’s place (taking over her room as she’s gone back to Aus), but as the month was up and I didn’t particularly want to pay the council tax all by myself for the next month (most expensive borough, apparently, £130 or somesuch per month), I’ve relocated. Presently I’m staying in Hampton, thanks to the generous hospitality of a family friend. Though I’ve gone and looked at a few rooms, there’s really not a lot of hope in me getting a place to live when I don’t have any income (i.e. cannot demonstrate I’ll be able to pay rent).

So! I’ve not been getting out a lot, as it’s far cheaper to stay under the doona all day drinking tea–even if museums and so forth are free, food and public transport are far from it.

I did manage to get out today, though, going on a walk in central London contrived by my museum-geek friend N, visiting churches and Roman ruins and temples and so forth from Bank down Fleet Street and ending up on Victoria Embankment (from whence I walked over the Thames, past the London Eye and to Waterloo Station). It was all quite pretty, even though partial Sunday closures turned some of the landmarks into labyrinths. As well as the pretty architecture, London is chock full of gruesome local history (there are frequent informative plaques about the plague, the great fire, grave robbers, serial killers and poor hygeine).

In less man-made news, spring is now clearly on its way here. The sun is setting at 5.30 (instead of the 4ish it was when I arrived), bulbs are sprouting flowers out of lawns all over the place, and all the empty winter trees are trembling with buds ready to burst. I’m very much looking forward to spring leaping forth, especially as I’d just missed it when I was here in 2007.

One of the good things about being in a new area now is that I’ve got whole new stomping grounds to explore on foot, including Bushy Park practically just across the road. So that should keep me entertained cheaply for a while, though it’s supposed to get cold again next week. (It was positively boiling on Friday, it got to about 12 degrees!)

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In transit

Monday, February 16, 2009

As I’m typing this I’m on a train heading up the east coast of England/Scotland (not quite sure if we’ve crossed over into Scotland yet or not). The train has free wifi!

I’m on the right hand side of the train (window seat of course), so I get to view the seaside while those sitting on the left get to view the sunset. Here’s a shot I took a few minutes ago:

Well, it’s not seaside all the way – we seem to dart in and out of the coast. We’re quite close to it right now, I can see a huge verticle rainbow coming down onto the hazy horizon of the water. And now we’re going through a town full of redbrick houses and are coming around a bend to go over an aqueduct-like rain bridge. Hard to take photos when my auto-focus keeps focusing on the dirty window!!

Will stop typing and enjoy the view.

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Whee, rollercoasters. (Not.)

Friday, February 13, 2009

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks since I last updated–at least in my state of mind, sigh.

The day after I posted last time the country had a collective moment of insanity in the form of a snow day. A woke me up first thing by throwing the curtains open and demanding I look outside–the snow that had been steadily falling the night before had resulted in a most delightful outlook. We dressed warmly and hoofed it out of the house and up to Richmond Park, where there were a considerable amount of locals marvelling, tobogganning, throwing snowballs and so forth. It was gorgeous, though walking got tiring after a while, and the shine dimmed on the novelty a tiny bit when it started snowing in my face on the walk back. (More snow photos here.)

The snow was still around the next day, though much of it had been slushed up by traffic and refrozen into ice, which was unpleasant to walk on. Meanwhile, Melbourne was having a week of 40°+ days.

I spent the rest of the week hanging about out of the cold, visiting the gorgeous V&A, having dinner with friends and stumbling upon landmarks.

Saturday morning I woke to news of the Victorian bushfires and immediately went into panic mode; I checked the CFA incident report site and it only listed a few small grassfires at Kinglake, already contained. We tried to call home but it went straight to voicemail. Next we heard news that the whole town had been destroyed; it’d happened so fast that the CFA hadn’t had time to get up there, let alone issue any warnings or reports.

Luckily we were soon able to make contact; the family and homestead and dogs were okay, despite the entire forest being burnt out around it. But that was an extremely unpleasant few days there and the trauma of it lingers–my home town is gone, people I know were killed, and all in horrific circumstances. I wish I could be there to better come to grips with it and also help out where help is needed, but as I cannot I’m nonetheless grateful to be somewhere where the media is not constantly saturated with the horror; I can distract myself, at least.

In other me-news, I’ve been doing some pretty impressive stressing about finding work and somewhere to live, and subsequently getting paranoid about money and how quickly it’s spent in London. Today I finally got off my butt and pushed the anxiety aside for long enough to contact some people about rooms to rent, as well as investigating and contacting some temp agencies. Right now I’m of a mind for some mindless data entry that brings in cash and doesn’t mean I have to answer phones (still not quite that confident/comfortable with the British people), hopefully through a temp agency that will be able to find me work in other cities when I want to move on, too.

I’ve also arranged to catch the train up to Glasgow next week, in order to a) sightsee, b) visit a friend and c) just get out of London before I go a little (more) mad at the inertia. I’m sort of second-guessing myself for that decision now as I know I need to find somewhere to live by the end of February, and now I’ve finally started doing some of the things I need to do to sort that… I’m leaving the country for a week. On the other hand, I really do need to get away for my mental health, and hopefully I’ll be able to come back a bit more refreshed. And there are a few places I can stay short-term yet before I’m on the streets.

So, fingers crossed.

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Current temp: 2.9° celcius.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

It’s really bloody freezing right now. But according to the forecast, this is the warmest day for the next several days… Tomorrow is slated to reach a high of 0°, and snow is forecast for Monday!

This is exciting (because! snow!) but also somewhat worrisome (because, COLD). All my pounds right now are going towards food, transport and gas for the heating. On the one hand, I could stay in and burn some more money on staying warm; on the other I could go out and enjoy the shiny sights–and probably freeze to death. I suppose I could find somewhere to go that’s heated in a way that I don’t have to pay for?

Speaking of the quest for free heating, I have actually managed to get out of the house a number of times since I arrived, especially once I got over the worst of the plane flu. I’ve had a couple of turns about Richmond Park, a visit to Kew Gardens (it cost me £13 to get in!), and done some roaming about central London.

I stumbled on Trafalgar Square entirely by accident: it was about 4.30pm, twilight, and I was wandering hopelessly about Leicester Square, wondering what I was going to do for the next two hours before meeting friends. It was cold and wet and I was reluctant to go into any of the over-priced restaurants in the vicinity. But then I spied the sign “National Gallery”! And followed it hopefully down a footpath and between some buildings when suddenly… Holy crap! Hi, Lord Nelson! It was gorgeous at that hour, too, golden lights (Big Ben even in the background there), deep blue sky, everything shiny from the rain. And Wednesday, so the Gallery was open until 9pm and free for me to bask in its heating for a couple more hours.

I’ve been meaning to go out again to get to Trafalgar Square and the Gallery proper and perhaps even the Tate (not to mention Westminster and so forth) during the daylight, but sometimes it’s difficult to rouse myself enough to get out of the house before 12 (I mean, I wake up at about 8, but it takes another few hours to convince myself that I do want to go out into the cold, no, really), which only leaves a few more hours of daylight. Also, being so very out of my usual familiar comfort zone, and not having a proper room/bed/space of my own (though have somewhat taken over the separate lounge here) means that it’s a slightly more painstaking process than usual to recharge my introvert energies if I’ve been off socialising or gallivanting. So I’m good for maybe one day out of two.

Which is what it is! Would rather take the time to hibernate when I need it rather than lose my mind. Next week I’ll be venturing forth into the cold anyway, to do a bit more socialising and also see Amanda Palmer play in Camden (!). Hopefully next week I’ll also hear with more certainty about some possible work; whatever the outcome of that I ought to be able to make some firmer plans about where I’ll live and work.

I am feeling the itch to get out and do more travelling, though. The knowledge that anywhere north of London is only going to be colder is only a little bit discouraging.

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