Mega blog update

This is going to be a long one due to having been overly busy with things. Also a bit patchy and random as most of it has been written before the broadband was activated so the timings might be wrong.

1) Archery

This has been going OK, but I did have a bit of a disaster when I last went as I had an arrow launch slightly early before I'd aimed fully and it hit the frame of the boss. Unfortunately rather than getting embedded it snapped in half, leaving me with only 6 arrows for the bow. I'll have to get some more at some point, but the nice Easton ACC arrows aren't exactly cheap. I think it was because my hand was slightly sweaty and it slipped on the release aid, and since the trigger is so sensitive it just went.
 
However because of the house move and things, I didn't get a chance to go for a month, which led to a few changes. The indoor season has started and because of that and the demand, you now have to book into a morning or afternoon session. Despite it only being 20 yards indoors, it took a while to get back into it again. I had to tweak the sight a bit, which took a few rounds to get right, but once I did, I started to shake a bit because I wasn't used to shooting the bow. But it was still good fun.
 
Also went to the open day at The Longbow Shop - that was great. It's an incredible shop, even if it's completely out of place in an industrial unit in the Birkenhead docks. Had a go with a longbow sharpshooter competition, which was to get an arrow into a 30mm ring. Only the third time I'd ever shot a longbow, but it went OK and I got surprisingly close! I love my compound bow but perhaps one day I'll look into something more simple.
 
2) Berlin fail
 
I was due to go to Berlin on the 9th October to see my brother. The original plan was that he, my cousin Pauline and I would do the ASICS Grand 10k. However due to Pauline's illness, she initially couldn't do the run and then when she discovered it was a bit more serious she pulled out of the trip all together, so I was going to go by myself. However due to the motivation failure I experienced over the summer due to feeling a bit down and miserable, I wasn't in any fit state to do the 10k either.
 
But anyway, I was all set to go, even if the timing wasn't great due to the house move that was coming up. For the first time ever I wasn't really looking forward to going to Berlin, both due to the house move and other reasons I might go into later on.
 
On the day though, I felt quite cheerful about going and was looking forward to it. It would be a good break to get away from the house move worry. However on the way there I got caught up in a traffic jam on the M56. It ended up being closed all day as there was a really nasty accident not far from the Runcorn turning. I got stuck in the traffic not long after Deeside. I used my phone to find out what was going on, but there was nothing I could do and I ended up stuck in the jam for nearly 6 hours and missed the flight. And also due to the chaos caused by the M56 closure, there was no way I was going to make it to the airport at all.
The only option Easyjet had was to book the following day's flight as I hadn't made it to the airport, but after all the stress of the failed journey and various other things, I just told them to stuff it and cancel the return flight on the Monday.
 
3) House move
 
This has finally happened. Due to the issues with moving stuff from the old house, we engaged a removal company to do it, who said they had moved people from all sorts of challenging properties. Fortunately, they were correct, although they were still unable to get their vans up the track, even after the neighbour dug out the turning area. They ended up shuttling everything down the track on a trailer hooked up to a Land Rover. However because they were doing it in quite big batches, it worked out OK.
 
The house still wasn't too tidy by the time they turned up but they were very efficient at packing. It took them about a day and a half to empty the house and then my Dad and I spent the rest of the time shoving the leftovers into our two remaining cars. We did some cleaning but while we had two hoovers, the bags filled up and the replacements had been packed. There was also some epic bonfires of stuff that could be burnt, which was quite fun.
 
But then at last it was done, the house was empty and it was time to go. We had already made sure the keys were safe, so it was time to lock up for the last time and get going. My Mum didn't bother going around the house one last time, but I did. It was a strange sensation. After all, for various reasons, I've lived there all my live apart from a couple of years. However the final evening was cold and dismal and pissing down with rain. I will miss the place, but not how hard it was to look after and keep clean, and the car-destroying track.
The next day I took the keys to the estate agent and then joined my Mum where she had been staying at a friend's house. The wait took a while at lunchtime we got confirmation that I could get the keys to the new house at about 12:25pm. However I got to the estate agent to be greeted by a sign saying they were out at lunch until 1:15pm! Argh! And even then the woman hadn't had the confirmation she could release the keys because she had been on lunch and had to call her manager. But finally the keys were there and we could get in. The removal people were there pretty promptly and emptied their two vans much quickly than they loaded them!
 
On the Saturday, Rob and Em and Mum's friend Kate came to help, which was great as I thought I was going to lose my mind at that point! Kate brought two dogs who get on fine with Sandy, but having two little and one large dog following everyone around was a bit of a hindrance!
 
They helped empty a lot of boxes and get things sorted out to a reasonable level. I had a problem because I couldn't find any of my clothes, but eventually found them in a box labelled Tools. They had been used to pad the tools for some reason.
 
The new house is livable in but does need a bit of work. The decor is very retro and 70s, which isn't the end of the world. The toilet and bathroom need work - the current plan is to bash the wall down and combine them into a single room again and replace the bath with a decent shower. Otherwise, the curtains need doing as most of them were taken, the carpets are all dreadful, and the wallpaper isn't great either. The kitchen is 
OK apart from some terrible fake tiles.
 
I've got more space than I had, but haven't quite worked out how best to utilise it. However one thing I did was buy a larger screen. The Dell 23" monitor I've been using since 2010 or so just won't cut it any more. Not that there's anything wrong with it - it was a bloody good upgrade from the crappy CRT TV I was using before anyway, it's just too small now. I ended up buying a Samsung 40" TV, which is absolutely stunning. It's also a smart one so it can do all sorts of clever things that I haven't been able to use without broadband. However the single problem with it was that it didn't have a VGA input for my old 360. However since the 360 has been on the way out with optical drive problems anyway for a while, it was a good excuse to go out and get a 360 slim with HDMI to replace it. Works fine.
 
I've also replaced my faithful Yamaha surround amp, which I've had since 2002. The reason was that there was a new model for a reasonable price that had HDMI input and switching, and it just made everything a lot tidier and easy to manage.
 
The poor dog has been a bit confused but seems to be adapting. At first he got excited when cars drove past as the only time you'd hear cars in the last place is if they were coming up. He's been a bit anxious at times though and sometimes comes and tries to get into my room so he can sleep on my bed.
 
The only casualties in the move were an aerial photo of the house that was framed - it got cracked, and my Jazz Bass no longer works. It's physically fine but there's no output. It's probably just a loose wire. I'll have to pop the control plate off one day and have a look, but while I was testing it the A string snapped - argh! So it's in disgrace at the moment. I do like it though, so I'll fix it up at some point. I finally succumbed and bought a Squier Bass VI, which is an odd beast as it has a 30" scale and is tuned an octave down from a normal guitar, but otherwise is a guitar, whammy bar and everything. It needed some work, a new bridge and strings, and I haven't got it intonated properly yet, but it makes some great sounds.
 
So far we've met a couple of the neighbours who seem very nice - there have also been a couple of cats in the back yard that the dog has chased. Hopefully they will take the hint and bugger off!
 
For a while after we moved in I seemed to have an allergic reaction to something, but it did eventually clear up. It was theorised that it was the different dust in the house causing it.
 
4) Misc
 
There are only a few things really, the house move has been everything for weeks now. However there have been a couple of events like meeting up with Robert and Chelsea at Rob and Em's house after they got engaged while on holiday. That was an interesting thing as I knew Robert was going to do it but hadn't had any confirmation, so I had a dreadful feeling she had said no. But fortunately it's all good.
 
Finally finished the mammoth Voyager rewatch, which was good. Yes, there is a lot of mediocre episodes, but so long as you don't sit there and moan that it should have been more dark and gritty like BSG then it has some good episodes in there. The finale seems to get a lot of hate, but I don't mind it and think it's quite decent. 

After finishing that, I started the boxset of the 10 movies that I got for my birthday. I worked my way through them in quite good time. They were quite fun but the later TNG movies are pretty bad. I don't particularly like Insurrection and Nemesis is fairly pants, the only good bit is the Enterprise ramming scene.
Exercise has been pretty poor for ages because of feeling ill with a cold and the the house move, but I've been dragged out for a couple of bike rides by Andy, which went surprisingly well after not touching the bike for over a year. Both rides wer about 15.6 miles on the same route. The first one wasn't too bad, but the second one was noticably better. My legs coped OK apart from hills where I really struggled, and there was a certain amount of saddle soreness for a couple of days afterward.
 
On another Saturday it was Andy's birthday meal - a week later than it was supposed to be for various reasons, but partly because I was going to be in Berlin (bah!). It was in the Con Amici, which was pretty good as usual.
 
Been reading the Game of Thones books on my phone, via the Kindle app. They are pretty good now that I've got the hang of reading them, if that makes sense. Keeping track of who is doing what and where and everything can be quite complicated. I've finished the last published one anyway - blimey, can't wait for the next book!
 
Another recent event is something completely unexpected...discovering someone I've known for a while and had a bit of thing about was also feeling the same way about me. That's been going on a little while now, and it's been absolutely fantastic. However due to business commitments the time we can spent together is limited. Skype and E-mail were a big help before we moved, but it took quite some time for the broadband to be connected, which was quite difficult.