Things That Happened

To start things of, have a kitten. In a cup. Stolen from Simon's Cat, which is awesome. Great animations on YouTube as well, which should get checked out.

I can't believe it's almost November! This month had so many really quite good tings and loads of really stressful stuff happening as well.

Let's start off with our flat. We now have a working shower! It's actually the best shower I've had since coming to London, it's got proper water pressure and all that. The path towards it was long and painful, so I think we definitely deserve it. Our landlord and his trusted plumber came to the flat on said Wednesday and "concluded" that the power shower and the current setup was indeed sub-optimal. I can just imagine them both standing in front of the temperature changing shower, scratching their chins and going "yeah, that's f**ked". I was agreed that the plumber would rock up again the Monday after to connect the cold water mains to our bathroom taps and thereby rendering the power shower obsolete. Unsurprisingly, the plumber didn't show up on Monday. Emails and texts ensued and on Thursday I came home to find our power shower including pipes running towards it missing, an extra copper pipe decorating our already quite piped-up bathroom wall, nice little holes in the wall where the mounting for the shower pipes had been and a large amount of general mess. But we had, for the first time since moving in, a properly working shower! Celebrations followed, with more frustration after the discovery that they've managed to disconnect the washing machine while fixing the plumbing. Thank goodness this could be fixed pretty quickly.

There still was/is the issue of the impending sale, brought closer to our attention by finding random estate agents showing people around the flat when coming home. Lovely. It's still kinda there, although Nicki had a massive go at our landlord for not letting us know and after I spoke to him in regards of the washing machine (he had to come in and reconnect it, I can't move that thing) he told me that he's sort of changed his mind. Apparently he didn't really want to sell, but got pestered by estate agents and put the flat on the market at a quite ridiculous price to get them of his back. Yeah, right.

There haven't been any estate agents loitering outside our flat since then, so he might've actually told the truth. I don't trust him further than I can spit, but at the moment we're safe anyway coz due to that peculiar beast that is the British fixed term lease the earliest he can get us out is end of February.

If it wasn't for the landlord, the flat's really quite ok now. We've put the heating on for the first time last week and even on low the place gets warm and cozy in now time. There hasn't been a gas bill yet, so it might turn out that warm & cozy costs us insane amounts of money. For the time being I'm just marveling in the thought that I won't have to wear 3 jumpers inside once Winter arrives. We've also acquired thick curtains for the living room and are proud owners of a coffee table (lovingly assembled by yours truly, I actually enjoy building Ikea furniture). The living room would look amazing if it wasn't for that eyesore of a dangerous to use gas fire, we even had a curtain left over which will be decorating our front door as soon as I've found a telescopic curtain rod that fits in the gap.

Ok, enough of that domestic rambling now, I've been out and about a bit as well. Most remarkably there was a Planet Angel in the Lightbox, which turned out full of awesome and dancing and hugging and having fun, which was followed by a pretty cool, if quiet, afterparty. Saw lots of my friends and got reminded why I love these people so much. There also was a bit of shopping, I've now got flats and heels for the office that are comfy and cute and fluffy boots just because I could. I still don't have winter boots, my calves are a tad too big for most normal sized boots so I'm now going to check out Evans for cheap stuff and Duo boots for the nice but expensive boots.

A shopping spree will happen at some point this weekend, although I may be going to Kew Gardens for a friend's birthday celebrations tomorrow. If I get up early enough, that is, as they've decided to meet up there at noon.

Work (I haven't moaned about work for a while, haven't I?) is going alright. Not too busy, interesting stuff to do, still neither a promotion nor a raise, which is aggravating.

I think overall I'm quite pleased with my life at the moment. I probably should find some wood now to knock on it or I'll jinx it all again...

Showers & Other Issues

You wouldn't believe what happened...

After sending a stream of emails to our landlord and then, after he just decided to put his head in the sand, to his brother (who's the "fixer" of the family & only springs into action if things are really bad) I've had a rather pleasant conversation with the latter last Saturday morning. He had to agree that, yes, the shower is indeed f***ked and the plumbings more than a tad dodgy. We agreed to give him a week to think about how to sort it out and I followed up on that a day or so ago. I really didn't expect what I got told yesterday. Good thing is, he's getting the plumber over next week Wednesday to assess the situation and see how it can be rectified. Bad thing is, they've put our flat on the market to sell! Great way to solve any issues if there ever was one.

According to our contract we still got until end of February next year, which is the earliest they can get us out. I'm not entirely sure I want to wait that long. I mean, why stay somewhere they don't want me, in the knowledge that in 4 month I have to leave anyway. I'm not sure if they would let us leave earlier and I don't know if my flatmate (who's still AWOL on holiday, thought she'd be back today but she isn't) would want to. But I see not point in staying here, I'd rather start flat hunting again straight away in the hopes to find somewhere nicer & cheaper (preferably), a flat with a fully functional bathroom, that's quiet(er) and maybe not in a council block (even if our council block is just a very small council block, it's still a council block). I want to stay in this area, I like where I am at the moment.

So, yeah, things aren't going entirely smooth right now.

This whole situation but a bit of a damper on my mood, which wasn't really that bad before I read that email. It would've helped to have Nicki here to discuss stuff, I think she's back tomorrow (if she isn't I'm starting to get worried).

Anyway, I can't change what's happening and part of me keeps thinking that maybe it's for the best - I like our flat, but there's always that thought in the back of my head that there may be even nicer places for less money (with better landlords) around. This might be just a dream and I should know better from experience. But still, I keep hoping.

Babs and I went to an improv theater last night called "Cellblock - 26 hours of voluntary imprisonment" and it was mostly fun. I like improv, well done improv, that is. We had a ticket for 2 hours of the 26, and 1.5 of those were really good. The rest was a bit awkward, sometimes you could feel the scene hanging a little and you just want them to come up with something cool and they don't. But all in all a very good experience and I don't regret spending £10 for the entertainment.

Today I went to Kingston, which is becoming my favourite shopping destination. It reminds me a little of my hometown, what with the older houses and less masses of people. I've been on a mission to find new winter boots for the last few weeks, slightly hampered by the extremely warm and sunny weather we had last week (can't think about boots when I'm wearing flip flops). The weather's back to it's more appropriate grey & cool now, so I should be ready to get them boots. The problem is, I really, really hate buying shoes. My feet are slightly to oddly shaped for shoes and my calves are just a tad too big to comfortably fit into boots. I've actually tried on every single boot in Clark's and even though some of them fit(!), none of them looked good on me. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood, I also tried on loads of dresses/skirts and most of them fit, but I didn't feel like buying stuff. I'll make another attempt on Thursday on Oxford Street, my old boots broke this spring and I also need new office shoes as mine are falling apart, so I really have not option than to get over my shoe shopping phobia (for the record, I've got no problems buying silly, totally not appropriate shoes, I just struggle with the real life shoes).

I'm sure I'll find my shopping mojo again at some point and it's not that I've got nothing to wear. I still haven't got my act together in terms of loosing weight (I'm a size 14 at the moment, I'd like to be a 12) and I've so far avoided going back to the yoga studio in Wimbledon. I don't particularly like the setup there, which doesn't help, and I'm contemplating going to Chiswick straight after work.

My life keeps falling apart each time I think it's finally found its groove, which is bloody annoying.

The thought of maybe, eventually, heading back to Germany keeps popping into my head every now and again, but there's nothing there for me at the moment and seeing that my brother is still living at my parent's coz building his house is taking longer than expected (new completion date is sometime May-ish) I can't even go back there.

I am going to Germany for a long weekend beginning of November, let's see what I think after that...