Things are a little slow at the moment on the web design front. Chelmsford haven’t been too demanding upon my time recently, and I’m still waiting to hear back from the folks at St Albans about what they want me to do with their web sites, so I’m sat here kicking my feet at the moment. I did send off a few flyers to local churches yesterday though, so hopefully I’ll find some more business from somewhere! I’m sure things will get more busy once people decide what they want me to do for them, it’s just rather irritating having to wait.

I also ressurected my sci-fi novel yesterday afternoon, and wrote another page or so. Since Anne-Marie has been at work she hasn’t really made any progress on her book, which has meant that I haven’t felt so guilty about not having written anything in mine! So, yesterday I made the effort and got myself back in gear. Well, sort of. I didn’t actually have long, and I didn’t get much done, and what I did write wasn’t exactly roll-on-the-floor-laughing material. I had to leave the writing in the evening, though, because I was going to a concert on campus, for which I had agreed to page-turn for the pianist. The Angell Piano Trio were performing (they’re the Resident Musicians at the university), and they were very good! The first piece they played was a duet for violin and viola, so I sat at the back of the theatre and watched/listened. Then I slipped out the back, down the narrow corridor by the side of the theatre and met the musicians backstage. They then played another two pieces, with an interval sandwiched between. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to work so hard – the music was fast and complicated in places, so it took all my concentration to keep up and make sure I was turning the pages at the right time! Actually I met up with an old chap in the audience in the interval, and he asked me “What happens if you accidentally turn two pages at once?” I’d been thinking about that when I was on stage. The basic rule is… you don’t!

I’ve finally sold my Fiesta! Hooray!! And what a liberating feeling it was, seeing someone else drive it away. It’s not that it was a bad car, by all accounts it did me very well. It was reliable, it was fairly economic, it was comfortable, easy to drive, handled motorway driving very happily, cheap to insure. It’s main downfall though was that it wasn’t a Mini. Some might call that discimination, and I suppose if the car decided it wanted to sue me I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Thankfully, though, I suspect the car couldn’t care less who’s driving it. The Fiesta was never a great communicator at the best of times. It never complained about anything, but by the same token it never really told me what was going on in the engine or at the wheels. That’s what I like so much about the Mini, you can feel absolutely everything, the car speaks to you and tells you exactly what’s happening. If the engine is struggling, you can hear it and feel it. When you brake, you can feel the brake pads pressing against the discs. When you are using the clutch you can feel exactly when the clutch plates are in contact with each other. When I drive the Mini, I feel like I’m actually driving, as opposed to being driven.

Unfortunately, I’m also having traction problems. Now, some may say this shouldn’t be a problem, as technically I shouldn’t be asking the car to do anything it doesn’t want to in the first place. But I’ve discovered that the tyres just don’t stick to the road well enough for my liking. Occasionally going round corners I find the front wheels slipping, and it takes a bit more effort to make the car go in the right direction. And while that may be exhilerating and exciting, it’s not all that reassuring. Minis have a reputation for being able to take corners well. Lulu managed this fine, but Neddy seems to be struggling to live up to that expectation. For instance, I went round the little mini-roundabout at Tesco the other day, and the front end just slid out in front of me, and if I hadn’t taken corrective measures I would have ended up in the garage instead of leaving Tesco! Not good. I think I may have to look into investing in some better tyres eventually. I’ll just have to hope that I don’t have to get anywhere quickly in the snow any time soon…

In other news, I went to see the latest Harry Potter film with Ellie yesterday evening. We were both suitably impressed. The special effects were very good (nice to see that special effects people have finally figured out how to do water), and some of the acting was superb. Harry was still a little two dimensional at times, and was definitely upstaged (dramatically speaking) by Ron and Hermione. In fact, one of Hermione’s lines at the end of the film, “Everything’s going to change now, isn’t it?” was right on the button, with just the right amount of emotion and feeling, the result being incredibly powerful. I have to take my hat off to the girl, she’s turning out to be quite a talented actress. “You Know Who” was well presented too, with a very impressive regeneration scene introducing him back into the wizarding world. I couldn’t help thinking, though, how uncomfortable it must be to have a flat nose…

We now have a nice shiny new shower. Our old one stopped working last week, just spontaneously died and didn’t come back on, so we had to call out a plumber. Or rather, we phoned the letting agency, who phoned a plumber, who came round the next day and said “wow, that’s an old shower unit”. He then phoned the letting agency, who phoned the landlords, who paid for a new shower, which the plumber ordered and fitted this morning. So there we go. It’s not a particularly special shower, just a simple unit with an ‘on’ button and a volume control. Oh no, that’s the shower radio…

I went round to see Julian’s new baby last night! She’s so sweet!! All small and wrinkly and cute and asleep! Ellie and I had been invited round that evening to “wet the baby’s head”, and were told that there was a bottle of champagne needing to be drunk. Sadly Ellie and I couldn’t help with the alcohol (I had some orange juice, Ellie had a glass of water), but we were straight round to see the baby nonetheless! Julian and Liz are both looking tired but happy, which is an interesting mix, but very understandable. I shall have to go round and visit again soon, this time taking my camera – I was at Ellie’s last night when we were invited round so I didn’t have my camera with me at the time! I took a couple of pics on Ellie’s camera, but it would be nice to have some of my own too. Anyway, I know Julian doesn’t read this blog, but my warmest congratulations to them anyway!

Bbbbrrrrrr….. it’s ccccold outside! I’ve just been to post some letters, the post box being about 30 seconds from my front door, and I was cold before I even got to it!! And the air smells of snow. The weather reports said to expect snow by the weekend, which could be interesting!

I’ve been having fun with web design today, too. I came up with a couple of rather good-looking designs for one of my clients, so we’ll just have to see which they prefer. Interestingly, I’m finding it easier to put ideas down by sketching them on paper first, which in some ways is a bit old-fashioned, but I find it very useful. Good old pencil and paper – never let me down! I also installed Adobe GoLive today, which is a web design program, but it didn’t appear to do anything that I couldn’t do already, so I don’t think I’ll be using it after all.

Oh and I’ve put some photos up on my photolounge of the Murder Mystery evening last weekend, which was a lot of fun! I’ve also decided that Mitch and Chris J are never to be put in the same room again. It’s just too dangerous for our sanity. In some ways they remind me very much of Joe and Chris T who were in the CU a few years ago. There again, where you got both of them together, the average sanity level in the room plummeted. I was at the World Cafe this week, one of the evening events put on by Christians on Campus as part of the Mission Week, and made the mistake of trying to keep up with a conversation between Mitch and Chris. I won’t even try to explain what they were talking about, it just didn’t make any sense whatsoever. I tried to contribute to the conversation at times, but I just couldn’t keep up, my brain isn’t random enough. On the other hand, I found out last night that I have more quotes on the CampusCrew quotes board than anyone else… not quite sure how that happened, but I reckon it’s more to do with the people who listen to me than what I say!

I went out and bought myself a new phone today. No, this isn’t impulse buying, this is business. I thought it would be a good idea to have a phone for business use, so as to keep costs separate. It was only a cheap phone, it doesn’t do much, but it doesn’t need to really. I’ll also know by which phone is ringing whether to say “Hello” or “Good morning, Matthew Dawkins Web Design, how can I help you?”…

Children In Need was good last night, I was watching it at Ellie’s. It was slightly disappointing though that they had to repeat some material… they’d obviously spent so much on getting Madonna to sing live that they didn’t have enough money for the rest of the evening! Still, they managed to raise a good lot of money, which is always good. There just didn’t seem to be quite so many random things happening this year. I did manage to watch it all the way to the end, though, which I was quite pleased about. I was rather tired by the end of it, but thankfully I had my car with me so it was just a quick drive home afterwards. I did have to scrape the ice off the windows before I could drive anywhere – apparently it’s going to be a cold winter this year.

Right, well I’d better make myself a cup of tea. I’ve not had one yet today, having had to go out to Tesco with Ellie this morning to buy food for the social tonight. I’ve also got to have a shower and get myself ready for this evening, practise my french accent, do my hair, try to draw a french moustache on my top lip… All good fun! Oh and I think the birds really like the fat balls I put in the garden. One of them has been eaten so much that it’s fallen off the bird table twice! There’s not really much left now, so hopefully they’ve discover the other one, which is a bit nearer the window!

We had a starling on our bird feeder this morning. I bought a couple of little fat balls last weekend to go in our garden, and this morning I saw our first beneficiary of that purchase. There was a wood pidgeon around too, but he couldn’t figure out how to get to the fat ball – he stood on the fence, then he flew on to the top of the bird table, but he couldln’t work out how to get to the food hanging underneath! Too heavy to cling onto the ball, and neck too short to reach down to it from above. So he flew over to the bird bath, only to find it frozen over. Ahhh, poor thing.

I also had a meeting with an accountant this morning! I’ve been looking into what I need to do to set myself up as a freelance web designer, how to start my own company and all that sort of thing, and someone recommended that I go and see this particular accountant, as he specialises in small businesses. I had trouble finding somewhere to park at first (even in a Mini) but got in eventually. So cold this morning. Anyway, this guy was very helpful, very friendly. I’d read lots of information in books and leaflets, but it all sounded really complicated and offputting, so it was really useful to hear it all from someone who knew what they were talking about, explaining it in plain English in terms that I could understand! It turns out that starting my own business isn’t as complicated as it might seem, I just have to tell the Inland Revenue that I’m going to be self-employed, keep a record of all my incomings and outgoings, and fill in a tax return at the end of each tax year. That’s going to be the hard bit, I think, but that’s what accountants are for! This particular chappy charges something like £150-200 to sort out all of that, but at the end of the day that’s just a one off payment for a service once a year, so I think I can take him up on that offer!

So, it looks like I’ll be going freelance. Great! I was designing myself a nice fancy web site last night, and I shall start looking for a domain name soon too. Having said that, I’m almost tempted to just stick with the minipix domain name and have people come to my web site through that. Anyway, yey! It’s progress, and I’m quite excited by it all now!

Some of you may remember Liz, ex-ex-ex-ChapAss. She’s working at a Christian residential and conference centre in the Bedfordshire countryside. Seems she dropped my name into a conversation, and various people in the St Albans diocese have found out who I am. So I’m off to St Albans today for a meeting with some important people, with a view to helping with their web sites. Not sure yet whether that means they want their web sites redesigned or just updated. I’ve looked at the sites they’ve referred me to, and they don’t actually look too bad. Obviously there is plenty of work I could do, just a case of making sure we all know what we want and what I’m capable of providing.

I also checked the oil in my Mini earlier, as I’m off on a longish journey later today. Thankfully the level hasn’t really changed since I last topped up, which means that there is no oil leak, and that the only reason there was no oil in the car when I bought it was the negligence of the previous owner, not a problem with the car. Which is a relief!

I had four people come round to see the Fiesta yesterday too, which was fun. Unfortunately there’s only one buyer amongst them, it was a bit of a family outing. 7:45am there was a knock on the door and father-in-law and son-in-law were taking a look. The father-in-law was off to catch a plane though, so they didn’t stick around long, just had a look round, started the engine, asked a few questions. Then at 5:15pm the mother and daughter arrived to have a look. Again, they didn’t stay long, as it was getting dark by then and it was freezing cold outside. But they took it for a quick drive round the block and admired the CD player! Just have to see if they want to make an offer now…

This morning Ellie and I went into town to buy ourselves some new identities. At least, we trawled round all the charity shops looking for costumes for the Chaplaincy Murder Mystery Evening next weekend. I’m supposed to be a French poet and artist, so we were looking for a beret-style hat, a velvet jacket, and anything really French-looking! We managed to get a flat cap, which will just about do the job, and a waistcoat and frilly shirt. Ellie also bought a couple of furry things that she can put with her costume – she’s playing a Russian countess! We spent a couple of hours wandering round them all, then trying to find the ones where we’d seen things we’d liked! After all that we had lunch in Castle Park, did a little bit more shopping, and came home. Good day’s shopping I think!

And you may have noticed that this blog is packed with entries now, thanks to a script that Phill sent me. He designed the blog I was using before (XBlog), but now that he’s also now gone over to WordPress he created a little script to automate the migration. I had to fiddle around with it to get it to work, because for some reason my web space was on safe mode, but we’re all sorted now, so all’s well! You can now use the search box on the right to search through all my blog entries for anything you like, which is pretty sweet!

Right, I’m gonna go find me something to eat for dinner now. TTFN!

As some of you may know, I’ve kinda got into a lunchtime routine at home now of watching Neighbours, Doctors (out of the corner of my eye), and Diagnosis Murder. Good old Dick Van Dyke! DM is like the highlight of my day (if I don’t count Ellie), but yesterday I didn’t get to see most of it. Just as it was starting Esther rang me to get me to pass on a message to Phil because she was running out of credit, then over the next couple of hours my boss kept ringing me with questions and problems, each call lasting 1-10 minutes, separated by 5-15 minutes. So what I saw of DM wasn’t really enough to understand the plot at all. I felt quite cheated.

I went to the theatre again with Ellie tonight, to see a play called “No Exit”, which was about hell. Interestingly they described hell more as a psychological torment than a physical one, which actually lines up more accurately with the Bible’s version of hell anyway, from what I can tell. Very interesting. I’m also feeling quite cultured just of late, having been to the theatre three times this term to see fairly intellectual and arty plays. Oh, and The Woman In White a few weeks ago too. Also very good.

This morning I’ve been trying to import all my old blog posts into WordPress using a script that Phill wrote. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get it working yet, but I’ve sent him an e-mail and hopefully we’ll be able to get it all sorted soon! I’m going into town later with Ellie to go shopping – we’ve got a Murder Mystery evening next weekend, so we’re gonna tour the charity shops looking for costumes. I’m playing the part of a French poet and artist, so I’ll have to brush up my French accent… and figure out what I’m supposed to believe in, as my character is an anti-fascist… I never did understand politics!

Ok, so I’ve got this new blog set up and I’m pretty much happy with it for now. I’ve made a link to my old XBlog, which I shall probably tinker with tomorrow and make sure people can access the history on that too (never did get round to doing that before…), but I think I’m gonna scrap the Etomite blog altogether. Never really got on too well with the interface, bit too messy. Which leaves me with a bit of a problem – what happens to the blog entries that are left on there? Now, obviously they are old news, and not altogether ground-breaking, but they are history. And they do cover a fairly significant event (purchase of my Mini). So… I need a solution…

In essence, I’m going to try to sum up everything that was on that blog in one go, right here. Tall order? We shall see.

First off, I welcomed people to my new blog. Shame that didn’t last…

Secondly, I raved about the Mini I had just bought! And that’s a piece of news definitely worth salvaging. I had to go all the way to Kent to pick it up, which was quite a long way, but definitely worth it. I had a meeting in Chelmsford just after lunch, and then took the train from there to this little village called Higham. I’d had fun with money earlier in the day, what with almost losing my wallet in the bank (left it at the counter after I’d got the cash out for the car – muppet!), and then the bank making an error and not actually taking the money out of my account. My statement showed the money coming out, and then instantly being all put back again, which effectively meant that the bank had given me a wadge of cash for free! Sadly it wasn’t a permanent error, but for a few days it was as if the bank had paid for my new car! It was actually quite convenient, as it meant I wasn’t running perillously low on money for a few days before my savings account was emptied. God works in mysterious ways! Oh, and I had an interesting drive home too, as they had closed half of the Dartford Tunnel and also closed juntion 30…

Thirdly, I put a picture of the car in question up on the web. When I get round to it I’ll put it up here too so you can all continue to marvel at it.

Fourthly, I said “grrr” to the bonnet, which wouldn’t open, which meant that I had to take the grille off to get it open.

Fifthly, I managed to get the bonnet fixed by hitting it with a hammer. Then I checked the oil and found the engine to be completely empty. Not good. Seems I’d been driving around with a dry engine, causing untold damage and probably causing it to heat up excessively too. Again, “grrr”. So that was a trip down to Halfords in the Fiesta to buy some oil, of which 2.5 litres was duely poured into the thirsty Mini. Which, incidentally, has been called Neddy.

Sixthly, I told people how busy I had been, working on various things. Actually not all of it classifies as ‘work’ – I’m sure playing around with my blog technically counts as ‘play’! On the other hand, it is web design, which is my job after all… I was also playing around with some new DTP software I had just bought, Adobe CreativeSuite, a very professional and powerful set of tools if ever there were any. Which there have been. And then in the evening I went to Alex’s Commissioning Service at the Chaplaincy, at which I played keyboard, various people did readings, the Bishop of Colchester preached, Julian stood nearby looking short and feminine, and we all ate lots of cakes and things afterwards.

Seventhly (this is getting a little ridiculous now), I noted that someone came to look at my Fiesta. He seemed like he knew what he was doing, and seemed to like the car too. Said it was exactly what he was looking for. Sadly, though, he hasn’t phoned me back to make an offer, so he must have found a better car somewhere else. I also raved some more about Adobe CreativeSuite, and said that I was going to see Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride at the cinema in the evening, which was very odd. Very odd indeed.

And that’s about it, thank goodness. Apologies that this is such a long post, and doesn’t actually give you any new news, but for the sake of history I felt I ought to put it in. You never know, thing blog might actually be useful for something one day…