Tag / Friends

by Gareth

Found a house to buy!

Well, the house situation has moved on a little bit… I made an offer on a house yesterday and it’s been accepted! Scary!!! Actually, the house belongs to Jeb & Nicky (who I know from uni in Birmingham, and they now live up here), so I know the house is in good shape. The only problem I may have is that they haven’t got anywhere to move to yet, so it’s like a kind of mini-chain situation… I’ve got to hope my landlord doesn’t give me my notice too soon, otherwise I may have to find a solution for myself and all my stuff between houses.

The party at Rhona’s was cool – it was a good train journey down, much better than driving… I could just sit back, close my eyes and listen to some CDs!! It was cool catching up with people – Rhona’s off to India on Wednesday I think, and I also met Naomi’s new husband Nick for the first time. It was good seeing Bin again as well – oh have I’ve missed his little chats!!!! ;o) Also, Fiona was there as well, and I’ve not seen her for a long time, so that was good too. There are some photos of the night here.

by Gareth

Looking for a new place to live…

Current news – luckily the house I’m living in still hasn’t sold so I haven’t been given my notice yet! I’ve just spent the last two days looking at various houses to buy, but with no real joy, although there is one which may be suitable. Hopefully, I’m arranging to view a load more next Tuesday (my next free day), and who knows… maybe I’ll find my perfect house that day!

Have decided to travel down to London for Saturday evening to go to Rhona’s leaving party (she’s off for a few months to work in India, which has been a bit of a surprise for everyone!!) I’m going down Saturday lunchtime on the train, which only takes about 3 and a half hours (slightly quicker than driving there!), and I’m coming back on the Sunday morning so it’ll be a fleeting visit. Actually it should be pretty cool, ‘cos Naomi should be there (and unfortunately I couldn’t make it to her wedding over Easter, so it’ll be good to catch up), and Bin’s going to try and get there as well. Maybe some other ex-uni-guys will make it as well, so it can be like a mini-reunion!

Have had to take down the CU Oldies website for the moment…. to be honest, it really wasn’t complete, but also I’ve run out of web space to host it ‘cos Skeggy Stewards has grown so big… I’m even having to store a lot of the new pictures on my own website!

by Gareth

Catching up…

Thought it was about time I did another news update for the site. It’s early Sunday evening and I’m at work (woohoo!) doing a few bits and pieces that need to be finished by the morning. Got back from working at Spring Harvest in the early hours of Wednesday morning… we’d decided to stay for the evening stuff since we were already on site and didn’t have to pay(!), but that kind of meant that we didn’t actually leave Skegness until about midnight, and it takes 4 hours to get from there back to Manchester! And considering I’d just finished a week of working 17+ hour days, it possibly wasn’t the wisest thing to do driving back so tired. Anyway, apart from a couple of times when I found my eyes closing involuntarily, and decided to pull over to avoid dying, the journey back was okay… trouble was I had to get up four hours later to make a trip to the railway station!

Other news… my landlord has offered to sell me the house I’m in and I’ve got to give him a decision this weekend. After much thought though, I think I’m going to pass on it, and desperately try to find somewhere else for me to buy before he manages to sell this one! I love challenges!

I’ve spent quite a bit of time the last few days with my websites… www.skeggysteward.co.uk is pretty busy at the moment for obvious reasons… I’m hoping to make it a load more interactive very soon, and may shift it to another server which allows for scripts to be run thanks to a guy I was sharing a chalet with at Spring Harvest – more info on that when I get it. Also, I’ve been fixing a few problems with Tom’s website, and over this next week I want to try and pull together the CU Oldies website with some more content and a slight re-design on the look.

Anyway, better get back to work and do what I’m paid for!!! ;o)

by Gareth

Lifegroup walk

I’m feeling quite tired at work today! Went for a pretty major walk in the peak district on Saturday – I think it was only about five miles, but there were a lot of steep uphill bits, and it was pretty muddy! And unfortunately I don’t have any walking boots, so my old trainers with not much grip weren’t much use at all! It was pretty good though, although I was close to quitting in the first half hour, and was ready to go back to the car and wait for all the others!! Anyway, once I’d done the first major bit, I did actually enjoy it! There are some photos of it here.

Struggling a bit at work this afternoon – I’ve got to write a script by tomorrow morning for Angus Deayton to read… yep, that’s him off ‘Have I Got News For You’. It’s got to be a three minute monologue promoting subscribing to MUTV, but it’s got to be written in his style which is a lot harder to do than you might expect – especially since I’m not really a comedy script-writer! Oh well, I guess I’ll come up with something, but I reckon he’ll end up having to add his own ad-libs!

by Gareth

Launch night

Just got back from a kind of launch night for a new band produced by Zarc Porter and Mark Pennels called ‘The Band With No Name’ (www.thebandwithnoname.com) and they were pretty cool! It wasn’t exactly my taste (hip-hop/rap/dance) but I could appreciate the quality of it. My mate Jeb asked me this morning if I wanted to go ‘cos he had a couple of complimentary tickets, so I wasn’t originally planning on being there. We drove probably about 10 miles into the Cheshire countryside to this massive hotel in the middle of no-where, on a hill overlooking the whole of Manchester (was a pretty impressive sight!) and saw this band perform some tracks and outline their vision for working with kids across cities all over the UK. Andy Hawthorne was there as well, and he gave a short talk and it all sounded really exciting! I did feel like me and Jeb were the outsiders slightly ‘cos there were probably about 150 people in this function room, and I’m sure they were all reasonably important bods… I recognised quite a few faces of people from events I’ve been to. Anyway, came away with a nice goodie bag with a poster, single and t-shirt, so all in all, a good night!