Home!

Well, we made it back home from Kefalonia intact yesterday afternoon (after a little delay). The full account will hopefully be posted up in an extra-long entry within the next week or two, but suffice to say, Katie had an awesome first proper holiday abroad, and I was extremely pleased with myself for voting to return to the island. The food was gorgeous, the weather delightful and the Greek's were lovely (unless they were driving).

I finished a bunch of books over the course of the past two weeks, the mainstay of the set being the first two omnibuses of Gaunts Ghosts, and I'm just about to start the third novel in the Soul Drinkers omnibus. Despite the mass of misprints in the first novel, I'm coming to enjoy this twisted view - to be fair alot of the best stories are told as such - and I've spawned a few ideas from their reading. I have a recommendation to make also, Talking To Zeus, which was a book I picked up from the apartment shelf. It's a very nice read, with alot of quirks and laugh-out-loud moments. Anyone who has been to Greece or knows the country will appreciate the majority of the material contained therein, but it is by no means restricted to these groups of people.

Tomorrow we head down to Burnham-On-Crouch in Essex, to stay with my Grandma for almost two weeks. On the 11th, my birthday, Katie and I are heading into London to watch the women's basketball semi-final in the "North Greenwhich Arena"....so, the Dome. Before that, however, Katie is scooting off to Nottingham to see her sisters, and then onwards up to Blackpool for an interview with the M.O.D. for a data admin/dogs body job. We all obviously hope she get's it, firstly for the whole reason, lets face it, that money facilitates everything these days, and secondly because, lets face it again, the current job climate is awful!

In Burnham, we intend to play some Badminton, the Grandma-standard Scrabble (a long-standing tradition wherever she travels!), walk the doggies (of course), swim, possibly gym, and hopefully head to London Zoo, to take Katie to her first ever zoo (not to mention the fact that I LOVE zoo's...big kid alert). Not long after that and we shift a selection of our belongings from Coventry up to Blackpool, into the suave apartment that the M.O.D. are renting out for us while we househunt/go to uni/go to school etc etc. Apparently it's very nice, fully furnished and spacious with sea views; you can expect photos to appear on here.

Now that holiday is over I'm quite impatient to dive headlong back into university work, so much so I'm taking some Forensic textbooks to Burnham with me for some light (ha!) background reading. Hopefully this'll aid me in preparing for my second year, and make it as intuitive as the first was to pass! For now I'll content myself with cheering our team on in that massive event that be happening in the capitol there. Go Team GB!!

Sayonara

Well, we're ready to go! We were up at 6 and boy has this morning crawled by but, finally, we're about to head out to get the bus. This'll be my last post for two weeks (ish), but I'll be keeping a holiday journal, so my returning post should be extra-lengthy with (hopefully) pictures included. It should include some blerb from Katie as a guest poster, hopefully giving her take on a few parts of the holiday story.

FYI Our flight is from Manchester, leaving at a leisurely 6:15am. We expect to arrive in Kefalonia at 11:45 local time, and be at our apartment in Aghia Efimia by 1pm. Then it's into town for a little shopping and exploration, before donning the swimmers and having a dip in the cooling afternoon. The weather forecast is between 32 and 35 degrees C each day, with 0% chance of rain and no clouds either. Bliss.

Righteo, it's off to the station now. Sayonara!!

Customer Service: A Comparison

A veritable plethora of blogs today! I did warn you I was trying to kill time...anyway, this blog comes from two conversations I had earlier today. Here's the pre-amble; Katie and I are going to Kefalonia on Sunday, as I'm sure you're already aware. Amongst the stuff we organised when we booked it was a hire car for one week - Wednesday to Wednesday. All paid for and sorted to be delivered to our apartment, but then two weeks ago we hear from my Dad that you have to put down a deposit via a credit card when they drop off the car to you.

So, concerned that we might not be able to accept our hire car from the company, I rang Avis to clarify. Tom picked up the phone, and asked what my enquiry was. Blunt, to the point, fair enough. I asked if we needed a credit card for the deposit. He said we don't have to put down a deposit, but a hold will be put on a credit card equal to the price of one full tank of petrol. When I asked if we had to have a credit card, he then asked what country we were hiring in. After I answered Greece, and more specifically, Kefalonia, he replied it has to be a credit card, and that no other form of payment was accepted.

I talked this through with Mum and Katie, and decided to ring back - we have no credit card, and there's no way we can borrow one of someone else's. Jenny picked up this time, greeting me with a good afternoon sir, asking my name and what she may do to help me. Already it seems better, no? After explaining the predicament she too asked what country and region we were holidaying in. She begged a moment's reprieve to check something, and a few seconds later told me that a visa debit card would be an acceptable alternative. She thanked me for my call and wished us both a good and enjoyable holiday.

Now I'm no customer service expert, but surely if you get into customer service, you should have at least a reasonable level of politeness, if not a genuine want to help others and sort out their problems. So now, everything is sorted for the holiday, and we now know when we get our hire car that we can hand over our visa debit card, safe in the knowledge we can have a week of driving around our destination island. Bliss.

Killing Some Time

To kill some time, I've edited a small writing sample that I worked up in practise. It's not a serious piece, but who knows, someone may get some enjoyment from reading it. I quite enjoyed the opening, which was the whole reason I wrote the rest of the piece; to give it some closure.

Anyway, here it is.

"Rock And A Hard Place"

I was in the toilet, of all places, when the first attack came. Sat in the cubicle with tissues pressed hard to my bleeding nose, the shouts were dying out. Minutes ago I had been out there, en route back to class, when a fight had broken out. Typically for me, my face was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and took the brunt force of an elbow to the face as the two combatants had begun -wrestling. The free-flowing blood from my bruised snout followed my path across the toilet and into my cubicle, in a bright crimson trail on the tiles. It was beginning to dwindle, mirroring the noise from the hall so, stuffing some balls of paper up my nose, I resolutely left the cubicle and headed back to class.

Stepping into the corridor, I turned at an unusual combination of whimpering and snarling. The thug whose elbow I had met so intimately just a few minutes ago was backed up in a corner, a five foot blonde stood in a half-crouch before him. My eyes found the drip-puddle of blood pooling about her feet and wondered for a brief moment if she had had some female-related trouble, at least until my eyes took in the detail of the rest of the hallway.

Fellow college students lay cast about the laminate floor, limbs tangled and, in some cases, missing. Body matter had been scattered, accompanying the spray of blood that had decorated the poster boards on the walls. Ripped clothes framed slashed muscle, and the full horror of the situation hit me. Like most kids of my generation, I’d played Resident Evil; I’d seen the films too and even had full-on discussions on what we’d do in the event of such an outbreak. But never in my wildest dreams had I thought that it would ever actually occur. The realisation escaped in a slight gasp from my mouth, quickly stifled but a moment too late.

She turned at my slight interruption, anger bred from the viral chemicals rampaging around her system decorating her once-pretty features. The blood stains on her blouse and the clinging human matter in her locks sent a shudder through me. Lacking her attention, the cornered heavy attempted to sidle away from her. Fingers curled into a claw, she whirled, slashing his throat and sending him gurgling to the floor. With her slightly distracted, I bolted. Down the hall and up the stairs I reversed my headlong dash when I saw the group of creatures hammering on the door to my classroom. Through a brief gap in the raging mass of bodies, I glimpsed my classmates huddling together whilst a few brave souls attempted to hold the door against the onslaught.

Returning the way I came I ran headlong into my petite pursuant at the top of the stairs, barrelling her over and carrying us both bodily down the stairwell. The whirl of limbs and blood, mainly from her but my nose had erupted again in our collision; we landed at the base of the stairs with an audible crack. I froze, fearing I’d damaged something important and awaiting her rage-fuelled teeth or claws in my skin. Slowly I unfurled from my foetal position, my face meeting her frozen rictus of hate at an odd angle – it had been her neck that had cracked.

Retracing our path on the stairs, I briefly marvelled at the patterns our fall had cast about the walls, before continuing cautiously towards my classroom. To my relief, a few more of my classmates had joined the others at the door and were managing to stalemate the strength of the disorganised creatures. Amongst them I spied one of our lab techs, Dan, his once-jovial features snarling and contorted in his thirst for my classmates flesh. I could see a door opposite me that I knew led to a connecting door to my classroom; all I had to do was get there without being seen.

I withdrew my wallet, figuring I wouldn’t need I.D. or money in the days to come – if I made it that far – and flung it frisbee-style down the hall past the horde. It slapped hard against the connecting-double doors at the end of the hall, drawing the attention of the lot of them, and I darted across to my target. To my relief I managed it without any of them noticing, though in my haste I forgot about the mechanism that shuts the door. With a moderate clunk it closed, and I stood with my back pressed up against it with baited breath. Thinking myself safe, I eased away from the door and headed along the shelves of lab equipment and into my classroom.

My entrance was met with initial shrieks of fear, until I managed to explain it was just a nosebleed and a close encounter that had resulted in my bloodied appearance. With a few hugs of acceptance and relief, I joined them and took in our situation. Somehow the second exit had eluded their minds in the midst of the struggle, but my entrance had rung the proverbial bell in their minds. An ominous crash came from the door – the creatures were breaking through. Having managed to bypass them myself and fight off one of their number, my friends and teachers looked to me for leadership. An ear-splitting crack from the door signalled the imminent breaking of the door and desperation seized me. I cast about for ideas to stall our adversaries advance, and a chill crept up my spine as I noticed a bite mark on Jonny’s arm. The situation was hard, and it was about to get harder.

Graduation, Exploration, Anticipation

Well, what a busy weekend that was! The blogging slipped slightly this past week, but that's par for the course when you've had as much to do as me! First off, let me congratulate my other half, Katie, on graduating with a 2.1 this Friday just past. It was a wonderful occasion, very exciting and a great atmosphere, and it was a good opportunity for me to see what's to come this next two years!

Katie and I left Coventry Thursday morning on the train and spent a rather humid day with her parents around Preston, before the big event on Friday. A lot of sitting around and waiting time, and we finally saw Katie get up on stage to receive her scroll. She was very good; she didn't trip, didn't do anything wrong, even when Clare whooped out at her name in the rollcall! We then spent a little time eating dinner with Clare before hitching the train over to Blackpool to meet Mum, Ian and Jack.

They were staying at the Hilton hotel (ooh lah lah!), whilst we were in a humble family-run bed and breakfast just around the corner from one of the prospective houses we were looking at the next day. It was a really sweet place, with a cute and functional room (with a decent tower-view), and a to-die-for full English breakfast each morning!

Saturday started with one such breakfast, and before long we were picked up by Mum and Ian to begin our day of house-touring. I won't go into each and every house we visited, suffice to say as you would expect, there were a lot of nice houses, each with one or two issue that realistically discounted it from our consideration. There was one that has become the favourite; a six bedroom house in Bispham. It has huge rooms on every floor, and the second floor (third storey) is a perfect mini-apartment for Katie and I.

Sunday was a nice relaxing day, we spent an hour or so in some amusements dropping pennies and two pennies into the machines, before having a seaside-standard of fish and chips followed by ice cream. Jack and I both had a double-cone with bubblegum and cool mint ice creams (the bubblegum was an awesome flavour), whilst Katie had a double scoop ice cream in a waffle cone. She had a rum and raisin and mint chocolate combo, the mint of which was the best I'd ever tasted. Following a short paddle in the sea we dropped Ian back at the Hilton and piled in the car to head back to Coventry.

Alright then, it's now Wednesday and everything for holiday is sorted. We have all our clothes organised, documents and money are all in order and transportation to the airport is sorted. All that's left is to wait for the time to pass, which I'm terrible at. At the moment I'm extremely impatient to at least get to the airport, though the holiday will start unofficially Saturday morning about 11, when we leave for Coventry train station. We have two changes en route to Manchester Airport, where we'll eat an early dinner before heading out of the Terminal to check in to the Travelodge. Finally we'll (attempt to) sleep until 2am Sunday morning!

For now, I've got some more time to kill, so I'll plug another blog before I leave Saturday, probably Friday evening. Until then.

Idiocy

Well, that was stupid, wasn't it! I refer to, of course, my complete and utter fail on Saturday. Saturday was, as I'm sure you'll all know, the last day of the month of June. 30th of June. Anything important spring to mind? Oh, yeah, just the closing date for Black Library Submissions. And I completely blanked it. Forgot the whole thing. Had my 1000 word submission ready and waiting, went out on Saturday, came back home, had a bath, chilled out, midnight ticked by and I was none the wiser. Yesterday I woke up, lay there staring at my ceiling thinking about the day to come and what I could do, and lo! THEN it comes to me. C'est La Vie. It'll have to wait until next year then won't it!

As a way of compensating for this, I've applied for a job today. It's working for age concern at one of their charity stores in Blackpool. Ok not the greatest of jobs, but its weekends only (at first anyway) and would earn me a cool £300 a month. Which, If I got the job, I would not be disappointed in! What with the likelihood that Preston College will give us only three days of the week to be in for lessons again (like last year), I could realistically expand to Mondays and Fridays, and possibly an afternoon or morning depending if any of those three days are half days or not. Even without any half days, expanding to four days a week would give me a net income of £650 (-ish). Alright tax starts ripping a fair bit into that and obviously there are other expenses to consider, but overall I'd quite enjoy that!

I've just looked up from my laptop as another realization has hit me - and this time its a good one - it's 12 days (and 5 1/2 hours) until holiday! Sure I'll be bouncing off the walls when we check into the Manchester Airport Travelodge the night before, but still, if you want to be technical then that's the countdown. This has given me yet another blossom of thought to ponder- the passage of time! It seems like yesterday Katie and I were in the Cooperative Travel shop in Preston booking this, now it's fully paid and we're almost there! The same applies for my first year of university - where the spock did that go!?

Onto hobbies; book-wise I've FINALLY managed to claw my way through The Red Duke (by C. L. Werner). Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic book, and a brilliant read - every time I picked it up It was hard to put down, but for some reason, every time I went to pick it up I just found something else to do. Maybe my reading mojo has evaporated, but I'm hoping not. Being back in Peterborough for a few days, I've not got any of my to-read list with me, so I've started once again on the Eisenhorn trilogy by Dan Abnett - a sure-fire awesome read.

Hobbies Part Deux- I said before that I had managed to string together an army list that I was plenty happy with, well know I've got doubly good news on that front! First off, from looking at my models here in Peterborough I have discovered that I have about fifty percent of my army already (albeit a different colour, but that can be rectified). Secondly, I've come up with a name, colour scheme, heraldry and back story for them! I'll need to do some test-painting on some unimportant models beforehand, but I'm pretty sure the colour scheme works awesomely. And, luckily for me, I've picked heraldry that Games Workshop (and Forge World) both produce icons for, so there's less work for me in attempting to sculpt them from green stuff! Huzzah!

Hobbies Part Trois - Katie has taken an avid interest in the models and collecting, so much so that I've gifted her with a mini-army of her own. She's been looking for a hobby to keep herself occupied with, and I guess my constant babbling has brain-washed her! Naturally she's going for a Chaos army (need I say more?), and we've devised an ad-hoc army for her to start collecting. As additional reading I've given her The Founding Gaunts Ghosts book to read as a starting point for breaking into 40k - I plan on re-reading it again soon anyway, so will be able to answer any questions she has and facilitate the entrance into the world of crazy geekdom!

Well, a fairly lengthy post today, so I'll stop harassing you and let you get on with whatever you want. Later!