The Big Smoke

[same_difference]

So yes back in London for the third week, hopefully only five more days (including a very long final Monday to go).

Work wise it's going well. I've got a bit less than 5 days left now (as I worked a long day today) and so far I've planned out the work that's needed doing, produced the most important tests and in doing so learned the limitations of what VSTS2010 will actually allow you to do, versus what you'd want it to do (the joy of Microsoft once again), and hopefully with a lot of focused effort I can get the tests all done by the end of Wednesday, giving me a couple of days to try and create and produce some load test results. Thankfully it does seem like the time spent planning should pay off, which is good because it took up about a 3rd of the time I had. The bank continues to be a pleasant place to work, and Perdita's gone for the quietly ignoring my existence approach. It's a quiet office anyway, so while it's not particularly friendly it's thankfully not awkward.

Now last week I made the most of my time in London. Tuesday I went out and met with usagi_half and her Johnny who joined me at Kentish Town to watch my younger brother at an open mike comedy night He's been doing standup for 18 months now so it was good if weird to see him perform, sadly he died on stage. Though in all fairness I don't think the fact that the room it was held in was unpleasantly warm helped matter, but some of the comedy was quite good, and he was certainly in the better half of the performers. Will be seeing him again this Thursday downstairs in the Kings Head in Crouch End apparently. Hopefully this time he'll do better.

Wednesday Ed and valient_starr joined me for the Earl's Court CAMFRA beer festival. It seemed silly not to go considering it was all of 2 minutes walk from my hotel. At it I got to have Kangaroo again, this time in burger form, and it was as nice as I remember. I also tried a handful of ales. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I prefer porters and stouts to pale ales, preferably on the heavier side, just not too heavy. Also that while I like the initial taste of citrus-y ales any more than that is a bit much.

Finally Thursday was spent having an evening meal and pleasant conversation with usagi_half, Johnny, Anette, Phil and Nia at a nice gastro-pub Phil new about near Farringdon Station. In the end the thing I most remember from the evening is all the people Richard Hammond doesn't actually look like. I'm very grateful to usagi_half for organising it, and everyone else for the company.

This week I'm planning a less busy week, considering the work load to be done, but we'll see how it goes.

The weekend was very good for one particular reason: we now have two new bookcases. The ones we ordered to custom size arrived Saturday and once again PinePlus proved to do really nice furniture for good prices [/end advert]. The end result being that most of Saturday afternoon was spent sorting out books, DVD and games on to shelves. I can't say how happy it makes me to have my possessions set out in my house at last, and to finally have them out of the boxes four years since I had to pack them in. Plus all but one book has come out undamaged, which was a long background worry not come to pass.

Other than that, Friday evening was spent too tired to do much. I ended up being able to finish at 1:30 on Friday, and while that made for a nice quiet tube journey across London, there was a signal problem at Chippenham so I didn't actually get home until 5pm. The rest of the non bookshelf weekend was spent cleaning the house and preparing for a visit by theminxiekitten and her little 7 month old boy Tobias. On the one hand I didn't therefore get a chance to make any progress on costumes for Aya, on the other hand I did get to make Minxie the spaghetti and meat balls I had promised her on her birthday 18 months ago, and they were very well received by Minxie, her mum and Tobias. From the sound of it her Mum is also keen to come and help me sort out my garden next year, which is a big plus. Seeing them for the little bit I was in Bath for was lovely, and I hope all have a good time for neomogrox's birthday.

Oh yes and the other thing I have learned is I can add teething screaming 7 month old babies, to the list of things that don't wake me up (the list includes alarm clocks, thunderstorms, storms at sea, larp battles, pneumatic drills within 6 feet, and fire alarms* among other things).

*Well sort of, they work eventually...

Finally as for actually being in the Big Smoke? Well I still feel constantly tense and on edge, though talking to people's that not uncommon even if you've been in London a while. I'm more and more convinced smoking becomes more prevalent the closer you get to the South East. Plus people seem to be active much later in more numbers than in Bath. Finally there's the tube. First I still can't believe how hot it is even at night (today was the first day I didn't have to have a shower when I got back to the hotel just because of being on the tube), for some reason the Bakerloo seems to be the warmest of all. Secondly the tube breaks you of feelings of personal space and surprisingly quickly at that, it's taken me all of about a week and a bit to get to the point where a journey where people aren't in physical contact with me is a comparatively pleasant one... All in all like most forms of public transport it would be reasonably convenient and worth using if it wasn't for the rest of the public.

Right shower then sleep, working a 9 hour day after waking up at 5:30am is doable, but exhausting.

Oh and the hotel messed me about so I'm near Paddington rather than Earl's Court this week.