The Boy Who Likes To…

So it’s nearly Christmas. The missus keepsgiving a high picthed noise at the very mention of this word. I think if she gets too excited she may just pop.
I’ve done all my shoping. I even picked up some wrapping paper today. And now work have asked if I can go back to Edinburgh the week before Christmas.

The boy who likes to revisit cities.

So it’s cutting it really close to Christmas this visit. Although I’m not too worried about that as I’ll make sure there is plenty of time to get me to my home and pack before making my way to the missus to spend Christmas with the in-laws.
I will miss my Wii though. Having just got a new toy, being able to play it for less then a week and then having to leave it for over a week isn’t fun at all.
Although I am finding that I’m getting used to my Wii. I no longer ache, and I got me exercise age down from 58 to 47. Which is good. But still twice my actual age. So I need to keep on exercising more.

But with the possibilty of going away to Edinburgh again next week I have to do my Christmas wrapping to day, just in case I don’t get the time. But it wont feel very like Christmas as we don’t have a Christmas tree up in our house and I’ll be watching football while I wrap, instead of listening to The Best Christmas Hits 2007.

I guess I could always ring the girlfriend and have her sqeak really loudly down the phone about how excited she is haha, bless her.

Well work would decide to chose to do something like this weeks before I plan on leaving. After years of trying I’m (almost) rewarded for hard work.

The boy who likes recognition.

Since I started working, from the very first time, not just since moving to this job, I have always been a temp/agency worker. It’s not that I haven’t applied for permenant roles. There was a time when I applied for a bug ol’ bunch of permenant roles, but didn’t get accepted.

But all the work I have done while working in an agency I’ve always done to my best of abilities. Apart from one year long period where I was often late and got sacked twice. But since then I have grown up.

I have had some recognition in work. I’ve twice been asked to work away for a period of time (last time being last week). I’ve even won an all expenses paid weekend away in our capital. First class and five star. With some money to boot.

But other then a few bits of “rewarding” I have never been offered a permenant contract with any employer.

And now with just weeks left till I move out of here and towards London I have been taken to the side and offered I full time job.

If I hadn’t found a girlfriend who I love loads and happy to be with, this post would be very different.

Its hard to turn down something you have wanted for a long time. But somethings are more important.

So I’ve spent 5 nights here. Had wee fun. Not had to spend any of my own money (excpet for dinner). Been stroked by an over friendly manageress of an Italian restaurant and seen my 3rd German market in a week. But now its time to leave Edinburgh.

The boy who likes to return home.

This morning I woke up and as soon as I switched on the TV to watch the news I was reminded that had I not been in Edinburgh, right now a Wii would be sitting on top of my TV.
But I only have to wait till tomorrow now to pick up my new toy.

Just wait.

and wait

and wait.

But I am looking forward to getting home for other reasons. To see the missus. To get back to my own bed. To be able to have a snack without worrying about the charge to my room. Also a friend is having some gig organised so looking forward to that. Although it’s on a school night, so I shouldn’t really.

It’s been good fun in Edinburgh but I think I’d have to come back to really get the most out of it as everywhere has been closed. So will be good to come up and see the zoo, maybe the castle, but it’s a wee bit expensive. Although I am told it is worth it.

But I’m now just looking forward to the day passing fast and getting on that 3 o clock train. Fingers crossed I dont have any major delays like on the way up.
Fingers extra crossed that HMV have late opening times today, will mean I can pick up my Wii tonight.

In fact I think I’ll call them now…

Here are just a few things that I have noticed about Scotland (this excludes their fascination of referring to ‘Nessy’ as a person.
So here is my things found out while in Scotland

This is a little more work related, then Scottish related. But in the bathroom on the floor I am on, the hot water tap has a warning advising
“Warning Very Hot Water”
I’ve seen this warning many times before and know that the water, will indeed, be very hot.
But as I went to the loo on the bottom floor, I went to wash my hands and turned on the cold tap and had my hands slightly burnt, well not really burnt, but that kind of burnt you get from hot water. It seems that the bottom floor hot/cold taps are the opposite from the 4th floor ones. I just have to keep my eye out in other toilets.

While out, hunting and scavaging for food, no way Im using work’s overpriced canteen, I came across a Gregs bakery. Well it wasn’t an accident really, I had been tipped off. So I headed down there as I know what they serve as that is the place where I normaly eat when in my home town (must remember to go Benjy’s next week).
One of my regular sandwiches is the the chicken mayo. Where I am from this comes with a tomato. Where my missus is from this has tomato AND cucumber (although I remove the yukky cucumber). But up here the chicken mayo comes with no tomato or cucumber. It’s funny how the same company can have the one sandwich but sell it in different variations.

In a conversation with Soup, it has come to my attention that alot of people use the word wee in Scotland. I half expected this to be a stereotype kind of think. I hadn’t noticed it too much while up here. This is due to everyone in the hotel being from main lan Europe, and only about 50% of the workers in the office, or around me, being Scottish. But last night in a conversation with a Scotsman it was the only word I could hear him clearly say. “blahblahWEEblahblahblahWEE…” and so on.
But across from my work is this shop that will confirm ‘Wee’ is a favourite word of the Scots.

The Wee Shop. A shop for Soup, her wee skirts for Not-So-Wee-Gay-Nights-Out.

So I lost out to girl voters. Damn it. I need more male readers.

The boy who likes to socialize.

 My employers have messed up my pay. Working for an agency means I pick up my pay weekly and if my wage slip isn’t authorised by Monday afternoon I miss my pay.
I have to hold my hands up and say, in all the madness of the late arrangement of coming to Edinburgh I forgot to send my wage slip to my boss. But did so on Monday. But it was too late. I got a call from my agency simple telling me that I wouldn’t be paid.
My next wage would be for two weeks, but in two weeks.  And I have direct debts coming out within that time.
There is a way around this, involving picking up a percentage of my wage by cheque. But that means I have to be at my home to get cheque and cash it. I wished there was a better way.
So I spoke to my bank. I asked if there was a way that I could get an small overdraft of perhaps, if not (as I hadn’t been banking with them long) transfer some cash from my credit card to my account.
I asked for a tiny overdraft, as I didn’t want to be given the opportunity to get in trouble, especially before moving home. But I was told that if I wanted to increase my overdraft it would cost £25 to do so, so maybe “I should think about increasing the overdraft as the maximum is £500.”
FIVE HUNDRED SMACKERS!!!
I couldn’t agree to that much, but it’s nice to see how helpful my bank want to be by giving me a credit card and offering a £500 overdraft having, not only been with them for about 4 months, but also that I join them having no previous bank account. Nice folk.

So having lost out 2 nil to girl votes on whether or not to go out last night, see previous entry, I went out for a meal with my work colleagues. I was seconds away from hanging up the phone to a friend, leaving the bar and heading to my room for room service and the football when a colleague met me in the bar
We took a walking tour around Edinburgh, from the Castle, in some loop-de-loop and to near the train station, in the cover of darkness. Throughout almost the whole of this walk I was desperate for the loo and didn’t really pay much attention to the conversation.
After what felt like a life time walking with my legs as close to be crossed as could be without actually crossing and in freezing weather we made it to a few restaurants. After umming and ahhing we deicded on a little under street level Italian place.
I went straight to the loo and on my way past the wash room seen some staff watching the Chelsea game so stayed and watched the game with them for a few minutes before rushing back to the table.
The night was alright. Some good laughs. Except at one point the conversation was stuck on wedding dresses. (One girl is wearinga  cape, I’d like to see how someone puts a cape on a wedding dress. Really!)
The meal was nice, not as good as the hotel food – I may slightly be turning to Alan Partridge, I know this. But afterwards we went to some bar called The Dome. It was very grand and very veryu pretty with all its flashing Christmas lights. Except from when the tree lights changed to red, and instead of softly changing colour then just flicked to red making people stumble as they stood chatting.
But everyone is out again tonight. So hopefully get to see a little more of the city.

I heard today on the BBC morning news that they can make a fleece out of 6 (or 12) plastic bottles? I never knew fleece come from bottles!

Top of the group. Guaranteed to be through to the next round. So the football game on tonight isn’t really that big of a game. But it’s still footy.

The boy who likes to watch sports.

So my second day in Edinburgh. Less the 48 hours. I haven’t seen any of Edinburgh. There are a a few other people who are staying in the same hotel as me and working in the same office. People to catch a taxi with in the morning and to eat with in the evening. One of them turned up only yesterday.
Before then one of the people staying at the hotel, a manager, had suggested we all go out on Wednesday as there will be more people staying at the hotel and there can be a bit more of a group thing going on.

This was fine. It meant Monday I can get some rest.
Tuesday I can watch the footy.
Wednesday I can see more of Edinburgh and have a proper night out.

Now the new manager that arrived late yesterday has suggested that we go out tonight.

But I was really looking forward to staying in, eating and drinking without worrying about payment and most important, watching the footy match.

Now I have to decide, be sociable with people who are paying for my hotel/expenses and who work for the same company? Or watch football? Social or football? Daddy or chips?

I’d prefer to stay in, not worry about money, eat on the room tab and watch a game. But what excuse can you use? Will “Football” be a good enough excuse?

My starting point. The missus bed. Somewhere in London. The finish line. Some bed in Edinburgh. In one day.

The boy who likes to travel.

 So it got to the very last minute before everything was confirmed. It wasnt until about 5.56pm Friday (4 minutes before I left the office) that I received confirmation that my hotel had been booked.

I did receive some good news though on Friday. I got a call from the nice folk at HMV who said that I will definitely have a Nintendo Wii on launch day. Sweet. At first I thought he was just rubbing my nose in it as I couldn’t pick it up on Thursday as I am in Scotland. But the God like voiced man on the other end of the phone said “You have until Saturday at 6pm to pick it up.” It wasn’t what he said that made it sound God like. It was what he said. So I can pick it up on my return.

Back to my journey. So I woke up at 830am on Sunday. Had an uneventful coach journey to my home town. Then I had another journey, not as long by train. About half way through the train ride we stop in the middle of no where. It appears there is some signalling problems. I hate being on a train in the pitch black. Not knowing what is around you, where you are, how fast your moving is a little un-nerving. The whole World could of vanished and you could be in some twilight void and not even know what has happened.

After EIGHTY EIGHT minutes of waiting and chatting to the passenger next to me (who was late for their parents birthday celebrations) we got a move on.

A few hours later and I arrive in Edinburgh station, very tired and almost an hour and a half late.

I get a long taxi ride to the hotel. Why my manager picked a hotel miles out side of the city centre I don’t know? I get in to my room at 9pm. Almost 12 hours after waking up. Not bad time for travelling under 450 miles.

Up to know all I’ve seen of Edinburgh is what it looks like at night, through a rain covered taxi. And all I can say up to now. There is alot of lights.
But with every touristy thing closing at 4pm (before I finish work), being kept in a nice hotel miles outside the city centre I doubt Ill see much.

Although tonight I think I’ll be heading straight to the hotel. I’m shattered. It doesn’t matter how big my “double size” bed is or how many comfy pillows I can get, they didn’t help me sleep through the howling wind last night. I was woken up three times thinking there was a Banshee on the roof out to kill me.

Just gives an excuse to come up here again at some point with the missus. But looking at the hotel and train rates, it might be cheaper flying abroad.

So I was asked to step in to a meeting room with the boss. I was a little worried. Turns out though that he want’s me to go to Edinburgh for the week. Unfortunately I have to work.

The boy who likes to travel.

So this isn’t the first time I have been asked to go away somewhere for work. Last year I spent a week working in my ex employers head office helping set up some new process. This was fun and there was much to do.

But what is there in Edinburgh? I’ve checked and there isn’t much. The castle closes at 4pm and the museum at 5pm. So If I work until 5pm each day then I miss the touristy things. The only other thing apart from touristy is to eat and drink. Work are paying for it (well mainly the eating) so I’ll have to just do that.

I’m looking forawrd to it. I’ve never been to Edinburgh. My only time in Scotland was before I was a teenager so I don’t remember much. And I always enjoy visiting other places. So I’m pretty excited.

Except that I was only asked to go Edinburgh yesterday. And it wasn’t a definite thing. Last night after I had a wash I realised I had done no packing and it was already 11.30pm. So I had to rush some ironing. I can’t do this at the weekend as I am staying over at the missus so I can’t pack through the weekend.

The other thing that is worrying me is that there is little over 4 hours left in the working day. At the momnet I have been told that I AM going, but there is no hotel reservation or train tickets at the moment. This is all very last minute.

All that plus I havent a clue what I’m doing when I get there or even where to go, I’m still looking forward to it. I’m sure it’ll be fun.

The one draw back is that I was suppose to be collecting my Wii at midnight on Thursday. Which I now will not be doing. Damn it. I’ll have to wait till they are next in stock.

So if things work out like they are planned it could be quiet around here until a week Monday. I will be back. Don’t worry.