This Is It

Here I am. Here it is. My 52^nd and final post. We’ll not dwell on that sad fact for now – I have my week to tell you about!

Last week I decided to book Friday off work and head home for a three day weekend. And it wasn’t any old weekend – well, it was old... Dad, to be more specific, turned the grand age of 70!! But, to be honest, he still acts 13 so we’ll split the difference and call him middle aged. Mum had arranged for lots of dad’s friends to come by the house on Saturday lunchtime for some food and drinks and a slice of the best cake EVER. The cake was by Lindsay at Totally Baked Cakes. She’s brill and you should all visit them on Facebook or Twitter and send your orders in via the website immediately.

That evening, once everyone had gone and the crumbs had been swept away, just the 5 of us headed up to a restaurant called The Retreat. Everything was lovely. The whole weekend – just great.

Back in London and this week has mostly been about preparing to move to the new flat on Monday morning. Suitcases have been packed and moved downstairs and the 8^th move in the past 6 years is about to begin.

I’ve been trying to decide for a while how I’d end this whole thing. So I’ve decided to end by not ending at all. Before you (mum and dad mainly) get too excited, this blog will end today, right now. But, if you’re keen to read more nonsensical ramblings and see more poorly captured phone-photos you can join me over on my Tumblr page. This page will be updated as and when I have something to share. No deadlines and certainly none of this one-a-week malarkey!

I have really enjoyed writing these posts over the past year and hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. Oh, that’s another thing.. THANK YOU for reading them! If you didn’t keep coming back week on week then I’d have been sat here writing to myself – somewhat lonely. It’s been a bit strange bumping into people and hearing, ‘oh I saw that on your blog’, but really nice at the same time. So I'm going  to carry on writing, but maybe a bit less publicly!

And that’s it, that’s all I’ve got for you.

What I suggest you do now is click on that there Blogger logo in the top left corner, set up an account and tell me all about your next year in weekly bite sized chunks. Yes, I’d enjoy that very much.

Until… the next project,

Bren x

Southampton

Where was I?... oh that’s right, just running out the door on the way to catch the  train from Waterloo. I managed to do that (after a bit of a kerfuffle with my train tickets) and Kate, Binks and I bagged a few seats on a very busy Friday evening train to Southampton.

Once we arrived and met James at Southampton Airport Parkway we discovered Becky really wasn’t joking when she messaged us all earlier in the day and it turns out she really did have to work late into the night and so wouldn’t be able to join us. Super sad times. It’s been ages since we all got together but plans are already afoot for the next meet up..

Nat eventually turned up after driving all the way down from Newcastle, looking a little worse for wear and after having to stop for a little service station nap time. What a total trooper.

It’s been just over 3 years since we all met in Cape Town, South Africa and 2 years since we had our first Southampton based reunion. And even though it’s been some months since we were all together it only feels like 5 minutes. Once we'd all eaten and talked and talked and talked and (obviously) Ring of Fire’d we headed out to Southampton town to the Orange Rooms where we drank cocktails from pineapples and huge shells before deciding it was time to dance and heading over to Revs where the music was perfect for a boogie. For old time’s sake, we wandered through Chicken Land and an hour or so later I was passed out on the bedroom floor, half under the bed and half wrapped in a sleeping bag. Perfect.

The next day we only woke up around midday and realised James had already been in work for 3 hours! We made our way into town and met him for lunch. We decided that the best option was to stay in the sunshine and play mini golf! I was crap for the most part – but it was bloody great!! We popped into STA to see James at work and talk about what everyone’s next travel plans are. Back at James' we visited the allotment and fed the chickens!

That evening, instead of getting annihilated on pre-lash games and stumbling into a bar for more, we went for a LOVELY meal at Turtle Bay. I can’t recommend it highly enough; I had curry goat with rice and peas….. SO GOOD.

..and then came the cocktails. They were all rum-based. One of them had absinthe in. Surprisingly delicious.

Another great weekend and it was super to see the gang.

Back at work this week I’ve been doing lots of learning. There is more learning to come. I’m hoping at some point in the near(ish) future I will stop having to use the phrase, “I have no idea” in response to EVERYTHING.

In other news, quite a few people have been to the house to view my room, none have taken it yet...I can't really blame them. During the week ahead I will mostly be packing up the entire contents of the room in to bags and boxes ready for the move on October 1st.

I've had a crackin’ weekend at home, it’s been dad’s 70^th birthday. But I’ll tell you all about that in my next post. My final post.

Until then…

Bren x

More pictures from the weekend:

Starting to Wrap Things Up

London is back to normal then. The mass exodus began as soon as the victory parade ended on Monday afternoon. Suitcases everywhere! Heading for airports, train stations and the dreaded M25. Not that I saw much of it – Tuesday was my rest day after working the weekend and I did very little. Well, I watched Parade’s End but we’ll not be talking about that – it’s awful!..A poor man's Downton.

This post isn’t going to be very long whatsoever and that’s for a few reasons:

Firstly, I worked all weekend on the stations at the Excel and although it was sunny and lovely and full of ice-cream and a guy called Damien (not important, we’ll leave that there) it wasn’t much to write home about or anything that I haven’t mentioned before. Secondly, as I mentioned, my day off this week was on Tuesday and was my chance to do something interesting to tell you all about. I didn't, I spent it in bed. Yes, that’s right, I did absolutely nothing and it was excellent. And thirdly, I really need to start weaning you off these – only two more to go!

A couple of semi-interesting things I’ve done this week…
It’s back to normal in the office. All the people who’ve been on the Games time 24/7 shift rota have returned to our main office so all of a sudden it’s busy and noisy again. Which is good! I’ve also got my first ‘proper’ mid-year review.. Now I’ve left the grad scheme I’ve had to agree proper grown up work objectives and all that (I can’t claim I’m fully aware of what they all are…) and this mid-year review assesses how well I’m doing towards meeting them by the end of year review in March/April. So, I’m sure that’ll be loads of fun…………………………………………

I’ve also been talking to one of the senior engineers in the team and have had an introductory session about SQL Servers and what DBAs do. I’ll be doing some shadowing over the next few weeks and will begin some formal training towards becoming a SQL DBA over the next few months. So that’s good too.

I’ve continued with the Life clear-out and have heard from my current land lady that someone is coming to view the room this evening. I won’t be here to show anyone around though (probably best, as I don’t really like the idea of having to lie to them) because I’m heading to Southampton for the latest instalment of Africa Gang Goes Wild.

Next week I’ve got flying mid-week visit from a few of the girls and the next group of grad schemers start. Yeah, the 2012 intake of graduate trainees start their induction week on Monday. Crazy, RIGHT?!

In other news…

Everyone who was allocated an iPhone or iPad for the summer has to give it back by 28^th September so if anyone has or knows of any iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S going at a reasonable price PLEASE let me know. I hate myself for it…but my HTC Desire just won’t cut it now I’ve been exposed to this Apple loveliness.

Must dash, I need to find my shoes for the weekend and finish sweeping. Just call me Cinderella!

Until next time,

Bren x

House Hunting

And so it begins. The Great House Hunt 2012.

What?.. Oh, yeah, I think I forgot to mention that I’m moving house. I told my landlady that I’d be out by the 30^th September so the pressure is on. And why? Well, as much as everyone who has been to visit over the past year has been lovely about it… this house is grim. It’s a grubby little student house, minus the students.

Moving house is such a pain in the arse. This will be my 8^th time in the past 6 years. I have now been in this house for exactly 1 year and 2 days (don’t panic, I’m carrying this on until I’ve done 52 posts) making it the place I’ve lived for the longest time since moving out of the family home. Mental. And even though I’ve been here longest it certainly doesn’t feel like home. Time to move on.

DEVELOPMENT: So I wrote the beginning of this blog a couple of days ago and since then I’ve been BUSY. I have now found somewhere new to live (pictures above and left)! It may be cavalier and a reflection on how much I don’t like the whole moving house process but I only went to one viewing. A lovely 2 bed flat just on the edge of Lewisham. I’ll be sharing with a girl called Dolly; she’s 24 too and works 9-5 Mon-Fri in central London. So, that’s that sorted.

Now I just need to actually sort out a way of physically moving my stuff – somewhat trickier. I have come up with one excellent solution though... So far I’ve got rid of 5 bin bags of belongings. Some to the charity shop down on the high street but most, unfortunately, has gone straight into the bin. I have three weeks to sort something out until I resort to Man with a Van.

In other news this week:

I’ve been on volunteer shifts at the Excel centre, Canning Town and West Ham. I now only have two shifts remaining until it all comes to a close. The whole experience of front line duties during the Games has been fantastic. I’ve done my bit and smiled and cheered and laughed and I’ve misdirected customers and I’ve lost team members and I’ve even surprised myself when attempting to recall my high-school French. I’ve met celebrities* (list below)! And best of all I’ve been fortunate enough to actually experience the whole thing as a paying visitor too.

My latest spectator experience came yesterday morning as I left the house at 8am on my first day off in 10 days. I was excited. After seeing Olympic football, handball and hockey and getting to visit the excellent Olympic Park I was finally on my way IN TO THE STADIUM. Once again, thanks to Twitter (I can sense some of you rolling your eyes!) I managed to secure a ticket to the morning session of the Paralympic Athletics. Now, I’m no expert on disability sports but I do enjoy athletics and had done a lot of swotting up of the classifications and variances in the rules compared to the Olympic events.  A lot of people had not. But not to worry, rather than sit there listening to them guess what each classification meant or why each sitting discus thrower takes all three attempts in one go I got chatting and soon had a collection of people at either side and in front of me cheering at all the right times and able to identify the difference between a T38 and a F33. My work there was done.

I left the stadium and the park for the last time. It's likely to be 2014 before I visit again, once it has been transformed into a huge public park for the people of east London. But the sun was still shining and I had the whole afternoon soak it up. I decided that I would do something I’ve been meaning to get around to for a year now. About 8 years ago (maybe even more..) my nan and granddad finally moved up to Bolton in order to be closer to us and my aunt and uncle. Before that though, we would visit every year in the summer holidays (and Easter some years too – bonus!) their flat in Forest Hill. Yesterday afternoon, I journyed south of the river, to my soon-to-be home borough of Lewisham. I was excited to find out what I still remembered and to see if I could find the place without the help of Google Maps.

As I left the train station I had a huge sinking feeling. I didn’t recognise a thing.

Turns out I’d left by the wrong exit!

As I came around the corner I saw the WH Smith we used to drag mum to at the end of the holidays in order to get our new pencil cases and the pub granddad used to frequent where he was affectionately known as Dusty. I carried on up the road and was pleased to see the local swimming pool has had a revamp and that the small public library was still going strong. I turned left and had expected to see a mountain-like road that Me, Naomi and Jess used to tackle as youngsters...turns out the road has a bit of an incline but is barely even a hill. I finally made it to Shackleton Close and my nan’s unforgettable fire engine red front door. Sadly, it looked a little run down but maybe I was just seeing things through more mature eyes. The estate still buzzed with life and I had a quick nosey around all of our favourite old hiding places. After a while I began to feel a bid weird snooping around taking sly photos so moved on but it was really nice to go back and feel like I knew somewhere I hadn’t visited in almost a decade, so well.

Still in Forest Hill and on this journey through my past, I decided to revisit a place we visited at least once a summer, the Horniman Museum. It’s still fantastic. I visited my favourite gallery, the Music Hall and visited the photography exhibition too. I ended the day in the gardens of the museum where I phoned mum to have a little reminisce.

This weekend I have my final two station shifts and will hopefully find time to visit the Thames Festival – a real sign that I have definitely been here over a year now as I’ve already written about that fesitval 12 months ago!

I’ll have to dash, there’s a lady at the door asking to look at my loft space. Ooow er!

Until next time,

Bren x


Ps, Lists of celebs I've spotted/spoke to/had a photo with during the Olympics and Paralympics:

Jamie Murray
Kelly Smith
Alex Scott

Huw Edwards
Matt Baker
Peter Hendy
Boris Johnson
and I even got a Tweet off Rick Edwards after bumping into him at the Excel...

Pps, This amused/depressed/didn’t surprise me this week:

More pictures from the week (all of the best Paralympic Athletics pictures will be on Facebook shortly):

Feeling Proud (kind of..)

I’m writing to you from bed. I’ve been here since 3pm.

As I got in from Paralympic shift 2 of 9 it dawned on me that a bank holiday boozy bender in Manchester was perhaps not the best mental or physical preparation for this madness. But no matter, it will all be over soon and I’ll be stuck back behind a desk so I’m going to enjoy as much as possible while it lasts!

I had decided to venture up to Manchester after cancelling a couple of weekend shifts. I thought I’d take some peppermint tea and we’d watch X-Factor and Total Wipeout and an array of appalling DVDs (has anyone seen August Rush??) and generally chill out and reminisce away not just a duvet-day but a whole duvet-weekend.

But no. Ooooohh no. Silly, silly me.

Before I’d even arrived at Euston for the train to Manchester I’d been told I was buying a weekend wristband for the whole of the Pride weekend. Good job I’d had that haircut I had needed, and had packed a few suitable clothes!

I can’t imagine I’ll tell you all about the weekend. Probably because a lot of it is blurry…

Friday looked promising… We were staying in! Alas, off we trotted to the local Sainsburys  to stock up on the ingredients to make a huge vat of mojito! And you can see the result here… rum, ice, soda, sugar, mint and lime. In a Union Jack bin. Classy bitches.

On Saturday morning we left Withington and headed in totown to watch the Pride parade. SO MANY PEOPLE. So many in fact I felt quite overwhelmed but Jenla was on hand to thrust a Strongbow in my direction and so, it began. I was supposed to go back to Withington at some point to change and see X-Factor(!) and pre-drink, but that didn’t happen. In fact, I didn’t make it back until after 5am on Sunday. Instead, I flitted from group to group and bar to bar meeting up with lots of people I’d not seen in months. Which was totally excellent, of course! But, when you have a drink at every stop it becomes easy to understand why the rest of the night was a blur.

Sunday required a serious Nando’s.

After we’d smashed that chicken’s back doors in we headed into town to an apartment-hotel where some friends were staying. Beer and brandy came next. Then there was dancing – oh how I love to dance – and singing and that was still at the apartment!

Sunday night I ended my Pride celebrations in the only way I know how – in Coyotes dancing next to the speakers so I can feel closer to Lady Gaga – idiot.

But a happy idiot.

On Monday I woke up and couldn’t find anyone at the house. Well, Rose was there but definitely several bodies missing! At 11 I got a phone call – they were alive, phew! – and all at the apartment. So I gathered my belongings, unable to believe that it was time to head back south already. We rendezvoused on the Canal, said some friendly goodbyes, headed for some much needed food (how good is Barburrito?!) then for the train.

Crackin’ time. Good one girls!

Wouldn't say I was particularly proud. Definitely pissed.

So here I am, back in full swing of ‘lympic-mania.

Unfortunately for you, since I missed a week's post I didn’t get to tell you all about my fun weekend at Primrose Hill and at a seminar about algorithms and metadata…………. We'll skip that I think. 

Until next time,

Bren x

Ps, THIS MADE ME LOL

More pic from this weekend and last:

Jen

So, it appears I’ve missed a week. Or two even, I don’t know..
August has been mental. I’ve been so busy, and when I haven’t been busy I’ve been totally knackered.

No. No, sorry, that’s a shit excuse.

Ok, I admit it, I’ve been avoiding this blog, putting off, thinking I’ll do it tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow... The best thing about tomorrow is that it never actually arrives.

I’ve done quite well over the past year in telling you all about what I’ve been up to but the moment has arrived where I’ve suddenly realised I’ve been keeping a very public diary and am aware how many people read it. I’m sure that sounds stupid, I mean how have I only just realised?.. But it was like a thunderbolt - I’M KEEPING A DIARY THAT DOESN’T EVER LOCK. There really hasn’t been anything (much) that I’ve not included in these posts, but it has been a properly shit two weeks and writing about it has not been top of the list of things to do. But I’m committed now, so deep breath and here goes...

I found out two weeks ago that a beautiful, intelligent, funny hilarious, caring, smiley, wonderful friend had passed away. Jen was 26 years old. She spent her all-too-short life caring for others. She was a mummy to baby Ava, a nurse to hundreds of NHS patients, a rock to her BFF Jenla and a bloody lovely person for the rest of us to have spent time with.

One of my favourite times was, as per, on a night out in Manchester. Jen was staying at ours and we were all Canal-bound. Jen in her mile-high stilettos and the rest of us in our Primarni pumps dancing through the night until we all rolled out of Cruz at 6 or 7am. And the next morning, eyelashes half way down her face, ‘good morning, where the fuck am I?’

If I’m honest, I’m not really sure what I believe about the afterlife. But I’d like to think she’s out there somewhere getting up to all sorts of shenanigans, and if not then I hope she’s resting in peace now.

Jennifer Murphy
02/10/1985 - 12/08/2012

Normal service resumes later this week.

Until then,

Bren x

London 2012 - 'We did it right'

The London 2012 Olympic Games are over.
7 years of preparation and anticipation, 18 months of scrabbling to secure tickets, 8 weeks ‘negotiating’ a few days annual leave, 5 days training to be a volunteer and now it’s all done. Well, not all... We’ve got the Paralympics in two weeks time but please let’s have a breather and reflect on what a BANG TIDY job we all did. Right from the spectacular opening ceremony to the madness of the closing ceremony, everything was fantastic. Even the Aussies think so!

There have been so many highlights I could go on and on and on... Mo Farah, Jess Ennis, Katherine Grainger and Gemma Gibbons just some of my favourites. I also surprised myself by really getting into the boxing competitions and we did fantastically well in both the men’s and the inaugural women’s contests with 5 medals, including three golds. And the coverage, OH THE COVERAGE! Didn’t the Beeb do well! TV, radio, web, etc... all marvellously delivered by outstanding and knowledgeable presenters and commentators (I’m starting a petition to see DAME Clare Balding, she is fantastic!)... And all we paid for it was about £5.50 from our license fee – super!

I saw Giggsy and the rest of Team GB play football at Old Trafford, and handball and hockey inside the Olympic Park. Mum and Naomi also got to the ExCeL to see the Women’s Freestyle Wrestling event too. As well as all that I sat with thousands of other at the big screens outside the Velodrome whilst The Real McHoy won yet another gold medal and cheered on the Brownlee Brothers as they swam, cycled and ran for glory. I’ve smiled at people, said hello as I passed, taken photos for them, even hugged one guy (I got carried away watching Sir Chris) and enjoyed every minute of it.

Amid all of the Olympic business, Jenny and Jenny’s sister Robyn have been staying with me for a week or so too. Robyn started the baby fancy dress company Little Babas and won the opportunity to sell her products in a pop-up-shop in Richmond. Its part of the Mary Portas backed Pop-Up Britain scheme, involving new entrepreneurs and giving them a platform to show people what they can offer. Staying with me and going to the shop every day over in Richmond has meant a long commute across London every day but hopefully it will all prove worthwhile!

I met up with Amy who was down in London with some Merseyside Constabulary colleagues on a 2 week attachment with the Met and had a day off – we went to Hyde Park to visit the Live Site and had a great time! 4 huge screen showing different sports, a stage where we saw Nicola Adams and her gold medal, ice cream, beer and music from Temper Trap, Ocean Colour Scene and Feeder.

I’ve also found time to visit some of the Olympic National Houses – Casa Brasil put on a show every night with samba beats, more beers, and even the sunshine came out to say hello and I got chance to catch up with Heather and Jimmy.
In between all of that, mum, Naomi and I climbed to the top of the O2 arena too!

So yeah, it's been a fairly busy ol' week...

I’m now back in the office for a couple of weeks during the ‘Transition Period’ between Olympics and Paralympics. But there is no time to rest! We’ve got the start of the Premier League season which this season includes no fewer than SIX London based teams, and the annual Notting Hill Carnival over the bank holiday weekend. I’ll be doing a few Travel Ambassador shifts here and there but it’s mostly back to the desk job for me until the Paras start on Wednesday 29^th August.

So during the ‘break’ I’m making sure I get all the important stuff done... I’ve sorted out my Fantasy Premier League team for starters! And Lord knows I need a haircut, I currently look like a shaggy dog but what with my hairdresser being in Stratford town centre I just haven’t been able to face it.

The tag-line for the Games has been #InspireAGeneration. And I think it has worked, for me at least. I’m now looking into, statistically, which Olympic sport is the ‘easiest’. I mean, who doesn’t want a free jolly to Rio in 2016?! I think I might have go at wrestling and see how I get on...

London 2012 and the Games of the 30^th Olympiad, you have been proper crackin’!

Until next time,

Bren x

More pics: