So about a month ago me and my friend Dan found a nice four bed place in Earlsfield after looking round the Wandsworth area for what seemed like an eternity! The upshot is that now we have a house (renting) and the commute to work will be cut drastically. At the moment i hawl my arse out of bed at around 6:20am every morning and stumble into work, coffee in hand, around 9:15am depending on what's happening with the trains. Living in Earlsfield however, will now cut my commute to a mere 20-30 minutes! There is much rejoicing on my part for the extra time in bed!
The more astute of you will be asking, "but you've got a four bedroom house....and there are just two of you...why?" Well, since we put down a holding deposit (£500 each) to take the house off the market, we've been advertising the spare rooms on places such as Gumtree in order to fill the extra rooms.Needless to say that neither myself or Dan can afford to pay double rent and with the move in date now looming (June 11th) it's getting closer to squeeky bum time.
At this late stage in the game we've had someone take one of the rooms, but there is still that nagging at the back of my head. The nagging takes on my mothers voice....it's not a mean thing, it just seems to take on that tone that has become familar to me over the last couple of decades...sorry mum! I'm nervously checking my emails today to see if the girl we showed the house to yesterday has made her decision......nothing yet......i'll give it another five minutes. If i don't hear anythign from her, our hopes, not to mention money, lie with tonights candidate.
Will we have to pay extra rent? Will our final housemate step forward into the spot-light and save us from immediate debts and unmanageable costs? As soon as i know, i'll post something......
.....still no new emails on gmail.....damn....
Walking back through my local highstreet at 10pm last night, i noticed a few unusual things posted to the outside of my local NatWest branch.
While this obviously isn't some internal marketing scheme (although that would be genius, boarding on insanity), it got me thinking on how effective this kind of action is?
The posters were probably put up after the branch had closed yesterday and after everyone had left, so after 6pm is perhaps a good guess. No doubt they would have been removed by the first members of staff to arrive at work this morning. So i wonder how many people actually saw them and took notice?
I had initially walked past the first 4 posters and it was only the last one that caught my eye (they were all identical, i just didn't notice them). After reading, and taking a picture of the makeshift sign, i realised that there were more of them including one strategically positioned above the cashpoint.
Is this kind of thing more of an effort than writing to the bank manager, or is it less effort but just a little more public? Personally i think it's less of an effort. My parents probably wouldn't dream of such a public action, my mother's thoughts would be "what if someone saw me putting them up?" Others however have found that this is a more effective way of producing an action. The bank, in this case NatWest, has spent hundreds of millions of pounds over the years building a brand identy, and the last thing they want is for that identity to be damaged. Although that might be a little extreme in this case, from tiny acorns, mighty oaks grow.....or something profound along those lines.
The last thing banks need right now is more bad press, be it national or even local.
So i know i haven't really updated this in a while, but from now on i'll try to update as much as possible......i promise!
Let me give you a quick run down of what's been going on in the past....err..4 months?... wow.
OK so there are probably four areas to cover and i'll seperate them into different posts for the sake of simplicity:
1) Lacrosse goings on
2) New job (woohooo!)
3) Moving house (at last)
4) and some other stuff
First lets pick up where i left off. Lacrosse. You may or may not know that i play a bit of lacrosse for a team called East Grinstead and following on from the South of England trials i attended in the back end of last year, i was delighted to be selected to represent the South at the British National Championships.
We did ourselves proud in the tournament, beating Scotland and Wales to eventually finish 3rd place, after being beaten by England U-19's in the semi-final, who in turn lost to Cheshire in the final (most of the senior England players play for Cheshire).
It was a fantastic experience and it was definately two of the most gruelling days i've ever had. On the back of this and my performances for East Grinstead during the season it was my absolute honour to pick up the 'Players Player' award and the 'Coach's Award' at our end of season dinner a couple of weeks ago. The team of guys i play with week in, week out are brilliant and i share the awards with them.
I'm currently househunting with three other people for a house in clapham ideally near the station. Looking for a house always seems to be a bit of a pain in the arse. . . Admittedly this is the first actual time i've been seriously looking with an actual date in mind, but still! Saw somewhere tonight down northcote rd and the agent was an absolute typecast, estate agent. Anyways i'm sure it'll be ok in the end.......
Hi
OK so this weekend's been another busy one for me....no real change there....but two days and two lacrosse games later you start to ache a bit. I've been playing men's lacrosse for a few years now, going back to when i started up the Northampton Uni men's lacrosse team, after which i moved back down and started playing for East Grinstead (who i play for now). I've always enjoyed playing the game, but this year i've been spending more and more time training, playing etc, sometimes it's four times a week, and the minimum is twice a week. Previously i had no other commitments, so it was great, but with moving up to London, making it more costly to come back and play for East Grinstead and after starting to see a girl, my time is becoming ever more precious.
I love playing lacrosse and the guys i play it with are a great laugh, but i've got to start thinking about how i can really divide my time, i guess i need to prioritise things. Too many fun things to do, but not enough time to do them in .....(please don't read this and think i'm refering to my girlfriend as "a fun thing to do" lol!!!)
Anyway's enough pondering how to spend my time. This weekend Grinstead lost to Walcountian Blues 11-2....we got nailed. At times it was as poor as i've seen us play. Not to mention the fact that i rolled my ankle in the first 10 minutes.....but we've got to pick ourselves up and push on. We know we're safe in the Premiership for another season, so it's been a great year so far. We just have to keep training hard and playing for each other, as a team.
On Sunday i was selected to play for the South of England team against a team of LDO's (read American college grads come over to England to teach lacrosse for £10k a year), and waking up with a painful, swollen ankle was not how i wanted to start the day. Nether-the-less i made the trip up to Hemel Hempsted and played the first quarter before my ankle started playing up. Thinking that i'd rather play the rest of the season than continue playing today and risk putting myself out for the season, i pulled out of the game. It was something i really didn't want to do, but had to put club responsibilities and general health first. Well in the end, The South of England beat the LDO team (Soco & Lime....rubbish name) 13-11. It was a pleasure to shar the same pitch as some of the best players in the South of England, and i hope to do it again real soon. In the mean time, has anyone got a spare ankle i can have??
Here are a couple of pics....i'm the fool in the orange boots which for once, matched the kit i was playing in. Yes i know, i've got my eyes shut in the main pic....brilliant.
