Excuses Excuses

I've been a bit quiet recently (to be honest, I haven't posted anything for a month) but I've been caught up with a few things. I'd love to say I've invented technology to reverse climate change, or discovered a cure for malaria in crunchy peanut butter, but it's pretty much WoW, the Rugby World Cup, work and moving house. Moving house? Unfortunately so - the owner of The Grotto has decided that she wants to either sell or firebomb the place, and I shouldn't be around for either of those fun activities. While The Grotto certainly has its flaws, having to pack, purge, clean, shift, unpack and reorganize my entire life once again sucks a pretty hefty one. It only seems like last week that I managed to get the office set up and looking decent, and now I have to pull it all apart again. I hope everything fits in the new place, and I'm able to get everything working nicely without having to buy a bunch of new furniture or saw the legs off my nice dinner table.

I didn't have a lot of luck finding a new place in Sydney's landlord-friendly rental market, and had resigned myself to the classic fallback maneuver of moving in with my girlfriend's parents for a couple of weeks. Obviously this is a thorny road, but as they really are lovely people (and I didn't have any other choice) I had prepared myself mentally for the challenge. Luckily I was saved from the parental Thunderdome at the last moment by a nice place in Woollahra, which became available with mere days to spare. I'd already redirected my mail to my girlfriend's place, but I think I can deal with that.

The new place is nicer than The Grotto, but a great deal smaller. It's closer to work, but has fewer buses. I won't have to run the washing machine pipes into the kitchen sink, but parking is harder to come by. I have no idea if my new neighbours are a bunch of hooting louts, or if the hot water runs out after ten minutes or even if ADSL2 is available in the area. Gods, going back to plain old ADSL1 or (shudder) cable would be simply... barbaric. It's all a game of suck and see, with a healthy number of fingers, toes, and legs crossed for luck at the time. It is $10 a week cheaper, but that's not a lot when considering Sydney's inflated rental prices. What will make a real difference is being able to take the bus home after work each day, instead of a $10 taxi ride to rest my dicky knee. $50 a week saved? That's pretty damn good.