Well I have finally been given admin rights on the Rolfe files so thought I would take advantage to make my first post.
As Nathan has said it’s been a really busy couple of weeks, with lots going on but there is now light at the end of the tunnel with the approaching European Adventure and only six, count ‘em, yes SIX days of work left! (can’t wait!)
We are off to dinner tonight to catch up with some friends, hard to believe it’s the last time we are probably going to see them unless they make it out to Australia. It’s a bit sad really, but trying to remain positive and think of all the exciting things coming up for Nathan and I such as moving back to Oz, meeting Nathan’s family, seeing my family and friends again, getting set up in our own home, finding new jobs and planning our wedding…..hopefully there will be lots of good times ahead.
The last couple of weeks have been rather busy and stressful. While this is the case we have been pretty productive, catching up with lots of people, crossing things off the list that we wanted to do in London and arranging things back home.
I have had an interview with the HR department for a web development job. After that I was giving a programming test, which I passed, and I have been moved to the next stage of interviews which is a technical interview. At this stage I am not too sure when that will happen but I would imagine in the next week or so. It definitely sounds like a good opportunity but we will just have to wait and see.
Work in London is majorly hectic. I have been working on a stock management system that will be used by Three mobile across the world for the last 6 months. I was hoping to have finished it before I left but no such luck due to various reasons. So now I am just cleaning up bits and pieces and starting to hand it over.
Back in Australia we have bought a car! We started out by looking at an Astra or something like that but figured that we would probably end up replacing that within a year or so, so we ended up buying a BF XR6 Falcon. It is a really nice looking car from the photos and should do us for a number of years! It only has about 50,000kms on the clock and has been fully optioned, except the iPod cable. L A big thanks has to go out to all the people who made it happen, Lesley (Kelly’s mum for making phone calls, organising inspections, viewing the car etc), Wendy (who is garaging the car until we get back), Marion (for chauffeuring Lesley back to the airport) and Dad (for organising the bank to transfer the funds etc). It was a big effort and we really appreciate it. Can’t wait to get home to drive it!
Anyone that knows me knows I love watches!! Well my beautiful sweet fiancé got home on Wednesday with a surprise pressie for me! The most beautiful watch I have seen, I soooo love it!! Thank you so much sweet heart. Surprise pressies rock!!
Well if anyone didn’t realise that i am excite about the travel we are doing and heading back to Australia, you should realise by the amount of count down timers on the side bar I am!
On Friday afternoon Kel and I headed down to Portsmouth to get the Pride of Bilbao ferry from there to Bilbao in Spain. On arriving at the port we kind of were worried about what we were in for. One of the first people we so was a 60ish year old woman wearing a sachet saying “Bevs 60th Booze Cruise”. Then soon after we saw the “Nauti Gals” hens night. Anyway…. We boarded the ferry and headed off to Spain. The trip over was pretty uneventful other than some rough seas. The cabins were small and very basic but clean which was something!
As well as the Booze Cruise and Nauti Gals there were countless bucks weekends. I think on the first night i saw a guy wearing a mankini, an Indian, leopard, ballerina, pirate etc (all guys). I think another criterion to get on board was to have multiple tattoos and a maximum of 5 teeth! I guess for £36 each you shouldn’t expect much more! They actually sell cases of beer, cask wine, and spirits in the gift shop. On the last night i saw a guy drinking vodka straight from the bottle outside one of the restaurants. All class
We arrived into Bilbao and did a few hour tour of the city which was great. We then headed back to port to rejoin the ferry. On arrival at the port we heard rumours of boarding being late. Well it sure was we sat (on the floor) in something that equated to a shed for about 3 hours with no information provided and staff only appearing now and then, and they had no information. There was no food available other than Pringles and chocolate, and beer (which suited most of the people).
We finally boarded about 3.5 hours late. Once on board we sat for another 2 hour meaning we left about 5 hours or so late. Apparently there was a problem with the backup generator circuit breaker. This mean by our calculations we would *just* make the last slow train back to London. Around midday on the final day the captain told us we would be about 6 hours late getting in which meant there was no chance of making the train. Luckily P&O put on a bus to London then we had to pay for a cab home getting in about 1:30am!
On a side note the bus driver had no shame in trying to shake us all down for money to drive us to our homes. We just pushed our way off and got the cab rather than getting into all the negotiations that were going on.
This week certainly is dragging on! Would i recommend the Portsmouth to Bilbao mini cruise. Hmm only if you want to have many hours of doing nothing!
At the beginning of the year Kel and I went to a wedding expo at Kensington. It was a little bit disappointing but we did get some unique ideas. There were some jewellers there that did workshops at which you make your partners wedding ring. Both Kel and I thought it would be a great and special thing to do. So last weekend we headed into Hatton Garden to make our wedding rings.
After an initial miss-communication and miss-quoting for some diamonds we came to a deal and started making our rings. You are assigned your own jeweller who helps you and shows you how to do each step and makes sure you don’t screw up.
So we started off by melting down the gold and pouring it into a skillet,. After that we put it through the rolling machine that flattens it out and shapes the band. Then we rounded it into a ring shape and did some filling to get it the right width and then polished them up.
It was a very special experience to make each other’s wedding rings. They have now been sent away to be hallmarked and the diamonds set. We get them back in a couple of weeks. Can’t wait to see them completely finished. During the creation of the rings you get given snacks, a bottle of champagne and then get taken out for lunch by the jewellers. If you get the chance i would highly recommend the experience. I will put up some photos of the rings when we get them back.
Recently I have had the pleasure of selling stuff through eBay before we head home. As a buyer it is great. You hold all the cards. As a seller it is crap. Here are 2 examples of how people tried to screw us over:
1) We listed a mudguard of my stolen bike. A guy won it, and paid. We went to get it out and realised it was missing a vital part of the clamping mechanism. We cancelled the auction and refunded his money £0.99. He then started going on and on about how his son had to ride to school and get his school uniform dirty etc and then telling us that he “didn’t know what feedback to give”. In the end for the situation to be resolved i offered to buy him one on eBay and have it shipped to his address if he made the payment again. He would not do that. He expected us to send it and if he was happy with it he would pay the money back. In the end we told him that we would have no security that he would pay etc and he decided to leave neutral feedback.
2) We listed a PDA (6 years old). A guy in Italy won it. We sent it in good working order. He got it and claimed there were 22 dead pixels. He raised a PayPal dispute and his resolution was for us to refund £15 out of the £17 he paid for it. We decided that wasn’t fair and asked him to send it back for a full refund which he refused to do. So his claim was closed. He then decided that it would be fair to leave me negative feedback. When i contacted him to ask him why they bad feedback as we tried to resolve the issue he said if i paid him £15 he would remove the feedback. This is now in the hands of PayPal.
I think that they need to allow the seller to give negative feedback and not be held to ransom by the buyers! In both cases we went above and beyond to try and resolve the issues and got nowhere. Anyone else experienced this?
