1/5/2010 My new gaff

Subject	My new gaff
DateCreated	5/1/2010 7:16:00 PM
PostedDate	3/12/2010 9:05:00 PM
	Well, I got moved OK - with a little (well a lot actually) help from my friends.  It was chaos, but I guess these things always are. It took much longer than expected but maybe it always does.  Quite a few trips in the van (thanks Jason!) were needed, but fortunately we didn't have far to go so it could have been a lot worse. At one point I was sure we wouldn't get all my gear (and there is a lot of it!) into the new place, but somehow we crammed it all in. There's not a lot of room left for me though!  There was stuff literally piled up to the ceiling, and you could hardly see any of the floor! Next day I started the massive job of trying to sort things out and make some space. I'd thrown a huge amount of stuff away before the move and I thought I'd been quite ruthless. Actually, I hadn't been ruthless enough! I ended up having to chuck out even more stuff - I didn't really have any choice if I wanted to have room to actually live in my new place. It was a couple of weeks before I even had room see the TV. When I eventually tried watching it I discovered it had suffered somewhat in the move and the picture was buggered.  - I think it was probably put in the van with the screen next to one of my PA speakers and the magnets in the speaker cabinet did for the CRT. It still worked - as long as you didn't mind a multicoloured Atari logo rainbow effect over the picture.  I managed to create quite a bit of much needed extra space by dumping the TV (shame as it wasn't that old and worked perfectly before) and my recently acquired (free from the drawing office at work) massive 19" professional quality monitor. The picture quality was terrific, but my desk was literally sagging under the weight of the huge CRT screen and it was so bulky I had to move my desk a few inches away from the wall to accommodate it. My perfectly good spare 15" monitor had to be junked as well as I didn't have space to keep it.  I bought a new 22" LCD widescreen TV which doubles as a PC monitor - so saving a lot of space and also enabling me to dump my TV/DVD stand as well saving even more space. The new place would probably be fine for anyone who has next to no possessions or clothes. I guess I don't actually need all those guitars and amps - some people manage with just one of each. I could probably lose a lot of my Hi-Fi gear as well as I don't need to have stuff set up in several different rooms any more. Several weeks after moving all my CDs, tapes, vinyl, videos, DVDs and books were still in boxes all over the place. I have become very familiar with my local B&Q and Homebase, and my car can find it's way to those places by itself following the grooves I've now worn into the road... I was surprised I could even fit 8 foot long shelves into my car, but now they are on the wall and holding (nearly) all my CDs, books, etc there is a lot more space. RANT WARNING: You may want to skip the next paragraph.  I had no internet for five weeks after moving in - which as you can imagine was a real pain in the arse! It took Talk Talk 2 weeks just to connect the phone, then another 3 weeks to get my broadband working. They were incredibly slow and if I'd known how long it was going to take I would have gone elsewhere. I was expecting a more reliable and faster broadband connection as well, as I'm now nearer the exchange and it's a partly optical line. At my old address my supposed 8 meg broadband was less than half that and very unreliable. Now I'm supposed to be getting 10 meg, but the piece of shit connection is just an unreliable as before!  I guess it is actually faster for downloads and is pretty quick when it's actually working properly - which isn't very much of the time. Having no internet for five weeks meant it was harder to keep in touch with the rock 'n' roll world, and I missed out on a few things by not finding out about them in time (or maybe at all). Other things I just didn't have time for - I had to miss two nights at The Gaff that I was really looking forward to the weekend I moved.  I couldn't update my website either, and even now I can't access all my stuff on the old server and may never be able to. Apart from it being on the small side (I know there will never be enough room for all my stuff) I like the new place, and I settled in amazingly quickly.  It's not perfect, but it could be a lot worse. I'm further away from the tube station/night bus, but still in easy walking distance. On the other hand I'm now closer to the main line into Kings Cross - which is also faster than the tube. Swings & roundabouts. I'm also nearer most the local pubs.  Things have settled down nicely after a few weeks and life is returning to what for me is normal. I'm getting back to my old routine of going out too often and missing the last train, etc.