White van men...

Saturday and Sunday were the BIG DAYS of moving in to the new house.

On Saturday we had a blue van, and Ruth took a picture of Jon and Andy the removal men.

Miraculously we got a futon and a desk up the stairs, and the day before, despite much reluctant grumbling, a mattress was shoved, twisted, yanked and generally deformed on its way to the first floor. Ruth did sterling work (shopping for rubber gloves, sandwiches etc). As Ruth pointed out the next day, we must all be getting old because we ended up in a quiet pub talking about mortgages and tax returns. Jon went home early to go to sleep!

On Sunday we had a big white van, and Simon and I became true white van men. I nervously drilled a hole in the wall for the first time, and this morning the house was still standing so it might just be OK.

I'm playing squash tonight, and given last week may well be injured tomorrow. That Sandland boy is dangerous.

New House!

Tuesday 20th February, I become co-owner of a whole house! Very excited, but also quite nervous about being responsible for looking after something so old, and rubbing the Grade II listing people up the wrong way.

Picked up the keys in the afternoon and stepped foot inside as owner for the first time in the evening. Was a really cool feeling. Being me all the time since we made the offer I've been expecting the worst - sale to fall through, roof to fall off etc. and now it's actually happened!

Hoping to move in on Sat/Sun, and first use of the wood-fired stove should be Tuesday after the chimney sweep has been (selfishly, I want a really cold spell of weather so the fire can do its thing).

More to follow when I we actually move in!

A snowy walk to work, and a long lost encounter

As predicted, residents of southern England, including Oxford were greeted with a covering of thick snow (nice), and the chaos and disruption that accompany such 'extreme events' as we seem to call them here. I had the pleasure of riding my bike over pristine snow up to Summertown early morning, and a snowball fight with Danny in Diamond Place carpark. I decided to walk to work and take some pictures, and here is a selection. More will be posted in my flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickhopwood).

I loved all the bikes lined up outside my flat with the snow on their frames and even the spokes, but the canal had to be the prettiest bit. There were quite a few people taking pictures and I guess that, like me, they considered snow a valid excuse for being late to work.

The reference to long lost encounters is about Ryan, Amie and Daviv Winningham coming to stay. I have a penfriend called Patrick who I have been writing to since I was 15, and who I visited in the USA when I was 16 and 18. Ryan is his brother, Amie Ryan's wife, and Dave their dad. It was cool to see them again - it had been 9 years since I'd last seen Dave and Ryan, and I think Ryan's hair was green (it isn't now thank god but apparently he had a mullet at one stage. ugh). We walked round Oxford, squeaked New College Mound, popped into G&Ds and had a pint in the Bear. All very nice. Then beer and curry (though I got the impression they weren't so used to drinking as we Brits) at the Bombay followed by ice cream and FIFA 06 at the flat.

Amusingly I learned from Ryan that after Patrick and I went on our road trip to Chicago in 1998, Patrick's cholesterol went through the roof. Perhaps something to do with us sampling every type of fast food chain at the roadside services between Detroit and Wisconsin Dells?

I don't have any digital pictures of them, but Ryan and Dave pretty much look like you'd expect of Americans, except neither are particularly fat. Dave wears ski cap from Montana, camera round neck, moustache, leather jacket, T-shirt; Ryan models a goatee, hoodie with reference to a summer camp somewhere, tracksuite trousers. Both enjoy white socks.

Return to the blog

It's been a while. I've been distracted by myspace and facebook and flickr and things.

What's been happening? Last weekend is probably enough to write about.

In order to keep my diving log active, on Saturday I jumped into a pool and swam around for a bit. This way I don't have to do a review course next time I'm on holiday, and I save 40 quid in the process!

Later on I met Beth and Daniel at the Head of the River, where there was a stag do or something, the stag wearing fishnet tights, a sleeveless top, a trenchcoat, and a nurses hat. This reminded me of the large group of (ugh) students in the Lamb and Flag on Friday wearing hideously coloured costumes that made them look like bad 80s pop fashion victims trying to look like the 7 dwarves without spending any money. Sorry, I've no pictures of either group, visually entertaining as they were. What I do have is a picture of Simon in his new hat, taken at the surf-style smoothie joint in Oxford.

Anyhoo, the evening progressed well and ended up drunkely in the Honeypot. This meant that Sunday was a little, er, slow.

When I got to Ferry Sports Centre for my gym review the Alka Seltzer were only beginning to kick in, and 'dizzy' would be a mild descriptor of the less than pleasant symptoms I experienced for that hour. I wasn't much better during Bodypump (to which both Simon and Sarah came) later on.

Still, a good session watching Peep Show series 3 on DVD soon distracted me from the head pain, aided by more Alka Seltzer, and by evening I was only marginally below par.