Lewisham blogger’s meet up December 3, 2007

I had a very enjoyable evening with the Lewisham bloggers on Friday – an evening organised by Andrew.

After several pints of Proper Job (highly recommended) I made some, possibly foolish, promises about my future work at Greenwich.  (All in good spirit, you understand,  and only things that will improve the reputation of the council if I deliver them).  I’m not going to repeat those promises here – those you of that heard them, and remember them, can remind me if you think I’m slipping.  That’ll teach me to make promises when in beer.

A really good night all-in-all, where, as a newcomer, I was made to feel very welcome.

Farewell to Lewisham November 26, 2007

I’ve got a new job at the London Borough of Greenwich, and will be joining them in a couple of week’s time. So, it’s farewell to Lewisham for me, for the time being. Farewell to the physical world of Lewisham that is, as I hope that I will still have good relations with its blogosphere.

Lewisham has been a good place to work, I don’t mind saying. It’s well organised, and as an organisation, it knows where it is going, and what it is trying to achieve. I certainly felt that it was clear what I was expected to do to achieve those aims.

There are some fabulous people there: some real characters, some incredibly talented people, some hard workers (who I am always in awe of) and some who have been just really good to share an office with. (Plus some who are a mixture of all of these).

Not everything is perfect, and there are times when I didn’t like some things about the job – but you’ve got to expect that wherever you go, haven’t you?

For my part, I think I’ve left the parts of their website that I looked after in much better shape than before; I’ve helped to solve many technical issues; and I’ve certainly been able to make many suggestions on the strategy for improving and maintaining the site. It’s to Lewisham’s credit that senior managers do actually listen to us groundlings (sometimes).

A local post for local people August 1, 2007

The tagline of this site says that this blog is supposed to be about living in South-East London, and I’m keenly aware that I’m yet to share many thoughts on this.

I’m a keen follower of the goings-on in the Lewisham blogosphere, being an employee of the local authority for the borough, and it is two of those blogs in particular that inspired me to start this one (Andrew’s and Henry’s). Andrew was also very encouraging when I met him at the Catford beer festival.

I haven’t found a blogosphere for Bexley yet, but then, I haven’t looked that hard either.

So, a little bit about Bexley for you. Bexley is a village, and a London Borough. I live in both the village and the borough.

I love Bexley because I can get into London easily (though sometimes I have to run like hell to catch the 00:10 last train home of an evening – the taxi fare from London doesn’t bear thinking about) and get into Kent easily too when I fancy some fresh country air.

What I like best is that, on the outskirts of the village, is a farm shop and a fantastic butcher’s shop, plus an Italian Deli in the centre. This means I can put my money where my mouth is by buying local, and avoiding the supermarkets as much as possible. Smug. (I also think that supermarket shopping is a perfect way to ruin a perfectly good day off work – in Asda, no-one can hear you scream).

It’s not quite as lively as other places I lived (Greenwich, Forest Hill, Tooting, the East and West Ends of Newcastle) most of the time, but it’s kicking on a weekend, when the majority of its 9 pubs will be jam packed. This pretty much suits me.

It’s pretty foxy. We have a family of foxes living behind our garage, and they are very friendly, like the neighbours. As long as you put food out for them occasionally, they don’t poo in your garden (the foxes that is, not the neighbours – boom boom). I’ve discovered that they like cheese, cakes, the leftover vegetables after you’ve made stock, quorn chile, meat of any description and bread if there really isn’t anything else to eat.

There’s plenty of other wildlife, perhaps a bit too much. I’m going to be spending part of the forthcoming weekend trying to evict some squirrels from my loft. The council has some very good advice on this, I’ve noticed.

That was all very positive, don’t you think? More on Bexley at a later date, I think.

There goes July July 31, 2007

July 31 and it is only my second post this month. My lack of communication is entirely due to being away from everything online for two and half weeks. (Taking my playstation with me for the second week of my holiday doesn’t count, as that doesn’t connect to the internet). Since I spend most of my working life, and a lot of my leisure time connected to the net, I consider this a good and healthy thing. I enjoyed it too.

I don’t like blethering on about my holidays, so I’ll restrict my blethering to details that may at least be useful and/or of interest to you.

We picked up a canny little gite in the Languedoc region of Southern France on the Gites de France website. The website is pretty good, but there’s limited online booking facilities on it, so you’ll need to dust off your copy of “Tricolor French for schoolchildren that don’t see the point of learning it” if you want to bag yourself a gite. We were very glad we did, and had the pleasure of spending a week at the Domain de Bridau, pictured below.  (Staying on a vineyard reminded me very much of a classic Comic Strip Movie, Mr Jolly Lives Next Door, directed by Stephen Frears: “Living above an off licence – what could be better?”)

Knowing nothing of the region, we had randomly selected Beziers as a place to stay, but couldn’t find anywhere to stay, so we ended up near Pezenas. It seems fate was on our side as Pezenas is a beautiful place to lounge around. It has an arty, historical kind of vibe to it, and lots of nice places to eat and potter.

After popping back to blighty, and doing a quick jaunt around Blackheath with the lads, we were off to Cornwall for a week and a bit. The only useful tourist information I can offer is that the best pasties to be had in Bude are at Pengenna, and in Padstow at Morris’s. (Based on the results of my pastie survey, that is). That’s not to say that we didn’t go out and have fun in Cornwall, it’s just that I want to get you used to a certain kind of ‘information’ on this blog that you won’t find on others.

So, back to life, back to reality.

Evenin’ May 8, 2007

No promises, but this is what I think I might write about:

• lovely food, probably cooked by Mary and me, washed down with some lovely booze
• why I hate Walker’s crisps
• my struggle to put my education to good use in the IT business
• how to wind up BT – forever
• my latest consumer campaigns
• wild and crazy music
• online gaming
• living in Bexley, which is in Kent and South-East London, strangely
• working in Lewisham (maybe)
• yogurt fights, chair racing, elephant shaped flower-beds, why mice are irresistibly attracted to me and other stories from my creatively mis-spent, but not wasted, youth.