Sarcasm is just one of the services we offer

The Smilgin-Boxs Dancing!

2008-12-18T18:33:00.001Z

Anyone got the soldiers?

2008-04-14T18:01:00.002+01:00

The first batch, straight from our chickens' butts.

A Clucking Great Weekend

2008-04-13T22:24:00.013+01:00

The day finally arrived when we could pick up the new Box family members, Pru, Constance and Roley. We drove down to Surrey to pick up our three ex-battery chickens (ex-bats) and the girls spent a few hours this afternoon roaming around the garden. They're now tucked safely away in their lil hut for the evening - anyone for fresh eggs?

A sunny summers day in April!

2008-04-06T23:21:00.007+01:00

It's just like Christmas! A good way to thin out the farmers market, if nothing else.

Joe and Little Ollie

2007-12-04T18:19:00.001Z

Some time ago...

Another one of little Ollie

2007-12-04T18:09:00.001Z

Panamian Jump!

2007-10-30T13:01:00.000Z

From our holiday in Panama.

Lots of boxes.

2007-10-28T21:21:00.001Z

Just when we thought the hard work was finished, the unpacking begins. How quickly we forget how good things look, and become obsessed with putting things where they belong. It should be fun seeing if we can fill the wall units though!

Second room to be finished.

2007-10-28T21:19:00.000Z

Another room is done! It's been close for a long time, but our living room is now officially finished. The wall unit is painted, the floor has been waxed many times, and we have a neat pendant light that will eventually go above the dining table. It's a lovely room isn't it?

ooooo, aaaaahhh.

2007-10-28T21:18:00.000Z

We're so chuffed with the wallpaper in our bedroom, we thought it deserved another photo :)

Kitchen coming along nicely.

2007-10-28T21:16:00.001Z

The kitchen is getting close, and we're really happy with how it's coming together. The objective for this room, apart from making it very cool!, was to add more storage, but make the room feel bigger. It's a pretty small room with little natural light, and it previously felt very cramped.

In a moment of pure genius (in our opinion) we had the brainwave to remove the worktop, base units and wall units on the left side of the room (where the fridge is) and replace it with floor to ceiling shelves - creating an open larder-type setup. We thought the open shelves would make the room feel bigger (as the room full of wall units felt really claustrophobic) - and we absolutely love them!

The tiles are really cool, retro style white bricks with a neat bevel and were laid in a brick-wall formation. We have some more open stainless steel shelves near the oven, which I am dubbing industrial-chic.

But it doesn't end there. We've added a belfast sink, which has been sunken into the worktop, so it kinda sits above the work surface. We love belfast sinks, and had one in Tooting, but this installation is a little different from the usual exposed approach. We think it works well in the small available space.

So, almost there with this room. Only things left to come are doors for the kitchen units and a cooker hood from above the cooker hob (setting the smoke alarm off is getting a little tedious). We think it's going to be one of the coolest small kitchens ever (modesty, innit).

A glass of chilled, filtered water anyone?

2007-10-28T21:14:00.000Z

Our fridge is a space-age piece of gadgetry with a digital display for the temperature (yes digitial!), and an integrated brita water filter, which allows us to get a glass of cool, filterered water at any time of the day. It's just like our very own water butler. I shall call him Wentworth.

All but done in the bathroom.

2007-10-28T21:11:00.000Z

Bathroom... tick! (almost). We didn't really do too much in this room, but the small things we have done have made a huge difference. We took out the original basin cupboard, which was pretty minging, and replaced it with an amazing edwardian table from 1850. The lady at the antique shop we bought it from wasn't too happy to hear we would be cutting off part of the back leg and drilling a hole through the top, but we did it anyway! With a bowl basin plonked on the top, it looks the business. Soooo much better that what was previously there!

The shelves we added to the left of the mirror are really useful for storage, especially considering we lost the space under the previous basin. And the tiling we added to the side panel on the bath (same tiles as the floor) looks a lot better than the previous beech wood panel that there.

Sometimes it's the idea that's more important than the items added. Only thing yet to be added in here is a big, gorgeous mirror.

Action in the bathroom now also, we're on a roll!

2007-09-19T22:25:00.001+01:00

Progress has also been made in the bathroom, with some tiles ripped out, and.... well that's about it to be honest.

I love this.

2007-09-19T22:24:00.001+01:00

This is my absolute favourite piece, our new chandelier. We picked it up from a small antiques shop in St Leonards (South Coast, near where Pix's mum lives). I absolutely adore it. It's 50s apparently, and is the perfect welcome sight upon entering our little flat. Perhaps we have delusions of grandeur beyond our little two-bed with garden, but I don't care. We deserve opulence.

This will be decking.

2007-09-19T22:23:00.001+01:00

The mound of dirt you see before you will become our new decking. Excited? Not overly impressive (or progressed for that matter), but it's happening. And we like it. We think. The Poles are constructing a completely new structure for the decking and then laying new outdoor floorboards, which I think will look fab. Bring on the 'summer' (don't get me started) barbecues!

ooo noice.

2007-09-19T22:21:00.000+01:00

This is one of our favourite rooms, the main bedroom. It's really starting to come together now, and you can get a great feeling for how it's going to end up. The wallpaper looks amazing (in my opinion) and is well worth the weeks of pain with choosing and ordering and then chasing up non-delivery. The fact that I ended up with twice the amount of wallpaper (at no additional cost), also sweetens it a tad. Straight onto eBay with those 4 rolls, thank you very much.

The reclaimed radiator that we've put in here looks very cool (well chosen Pix) - and sets off our white bay window nicely. We only had one wall that required painting in the end, so we decided for a darker/warmer biscuit brown, eventually. We did originally send Aaron to the paint shop with the urgent task of matching paint swatches with our wallpaper, whilst we were away in Italy. He was understandably nervous about picking it without us seeing it, so we told him whatever he chose would be absolutely fine (providing it was the right one). Comforting no doubt. We then changed our mind upon returning from said holiday and went for a darker colour, but did use Aaron's (crap) choice in the spare bedroom (which looks great). Thanks Aaron.

Beginnings of a kitchen.

2007-09-19T22:18:00.001+01:00

The kitchen is really taking shape and we now have worktop, appliances (some of), and some very fancy larder shelves that we designed! The challenge with this kitchen was to create maximum work space and storage space, without it feeling as small and cramped as it previously did. Hence the use of open shelves. I think we cracked it, but time will tell. Let us know what you think.

Wall unit: check!

2007-09-19T22:16:00.001+01:00

Our super duper wall unit has now been finished in the living room, and it looks very cool. Well to be honest, it's not perfect, but we're not going to talk about the things I don't like about it (uneven shelves and inappropriate gaps), because we're positive people. And it's too late to do anything about it. And, as my wife assures me, it really does look great. Once it's painted and full of interesting books and things, I am sure it will be fantastic.

One down, quite a few to go....

2007-09-19T22:09:00.000+01:00

In a desperate bid to feel like we're gaining some momentum with the project, we've decided to start counting the rooms that are finished. The count so far is .... 1. Not particularly impressive granted, but it's a start. The first room to be regarded as done (but still requiring a few finishing touches) is the spare bedroom. As a result we've been able to move into a room where the floor isn't covered in an inch of dust, making it a lot easier to breath while we sleep. So, some clear benefits coming through already. We're really happy with this room, though it received the least thought from us during the process. The original pine floorboards have come up looking really good, except a square where they were rotten and the Poles replaced with new boards and then proceeded to cover them in a hideous varnish that resembles smeared poo, but we're ignoring that for the moment. Antique pine apparently.

It's a nice and light room with a lush garden to look out on. We're sure our many (foreign) visitors will feel at home during their stay in Chez Brondesbury.

Feature wall here we come!

2007-09-05T22:56:00.000+01:00

In true Changing Rooms style we have decided to go for a feature wall in the bedroom, using some lush wallpaper. After considerable deliberation (and samples), we settled on a lovely floral pattern from Osbourne & Little. The most expensive retailer for Wallpaper I subsequently learnt. This is the kind of place that has a showroom on the Kings Road, and gives you the paper in these ridiculously luxurious shopping bags, that you just know added another 20% to the purchase price. Oh well, it looks nice. It's going to look great when hung.

Now we're cooking, sort of.

2007-09-05T22:53:00.000+01:00

The kitchen is coming along, kind of. We have floorboards throughout, a new washing machine and new spotlights that dangle out of the ceiling like christmas decorations. I am assured that they won't stay like that. All progress is good.

We've gone green.

2007-09-05T22:47:00.000+01:00

We've gone for one of those colours that will either work REALLY well, or look like utter crap. And we've gone with it through most of the house, so if it's crap - it will be plentiful. Fortunately, I think we like it. It's green. (didn't think I would ever paint inside a house green, but we have). And it looks good. It's kind of like a sage green, but more interesting. It's actually called 'Cooking Apple Green' (I love that name), and it's how I picture old English houses. Our local pub is similar, and I love that place. So that must be a good sign. More pics to come later. Thoughts so far?

We're liking the Welsh. For once.

2007-09-05T22:38:00.001+01:00

The floors are mostly finished now and have been smacked with a few coats of wax. I think we love them. A lot. The best thing to come out of a Welsh school since Charlotte Church.

We shouldn't be allowed near tools

2007-08-16T14:07:00.000+01:00

In a spare hour last weekend, Pix and I decided to chisel up the concrete in the hallway (not sure why) to see what was underneath. We've always had dreams of restoring original tiles in a property, so thought we'd engage in a minor session of excavation. Upon initial inspection, the result was a success. We spent about an hour chiseling up half of the concrete to reveal original turn of the century tiles (black and white) which looked very cool.

Sadly, after further digging (and a consultation with Head Pole), we learned that the tiles only covered half of the hallway and to restore them would be difficult to say the least. So long story short, (after much frantic Polish panic) - the conclusion was that we would stick with plan A. Restoring the tiles would have almost certainly involved keeping the current floorboards, and therefore not using the Welsh Floor Boards (WFB). And after the well-documented saga/adventure that was the WFB, I don't think I could bare it.

Out with the old...

2007-08-16T13:48:00.001+01:00

We arrived home to find we no longer have a kitchen. This brings with it both positives and negatives. To summarise:

The Good

We're closer to having a new kitchen
The Poles are continuing with a good pace of progress

The Bad

We have no kitchen
We have no washing machine (or clean clothes)
Our new oven hasn't arrived yet, and won't for another week. I hope this doesn't slow anything down.

The Good wins out in this instance. Exciting times!

Getting there

2007-08-16T13:47:00.001+01:00

Some more plastering on one of the walls in the entrance hallway now. Starting to look very nice in here. Almost ready for the final decoration in this area, we're getting there.

Now for bedroom two

2007-08-16T13:45:00.000+01:00

The Poles have landed in the spare bedroom with a bang, and lots already done. Floors have been ripped up, spotlights put in, walls skim plastered in parts and a coat of undercoat already knocked off. They've also given the woodwork some attention, and primed it all ready for the decorating at the end. It looks like we'll run out of the Welsh Floor Boards before we get to this room unfortunately, so we've decided to sand the original floor boards and hope for the best. They'll be different than the rest of the flat (obviously), but I'm hoping that this will pass as character. I believe my wife calls it intentional-shabby-rustic-chic, or something.

Vodka anyone?

2007-08-16T13:37:00.000+01:00

Here are two of our Polish workhorses, absolute troupers that they are. And here is a picture of inconceivable amount of dust that they tend to produce. I am practically living off my ventolin at the moment! I am such a wuss.

I've got serious wood

2007-08-16T13:35:00.001+01:00

The laying of the floor boards is progressing well, with most of the large living space competed. It's hard to say how it will turn out just yet, but I have high hopes that the trip to Wales and weeks of preparing the boards (not by me) will be worth it. the Poles seem a little concerned about how the sanding process will go, as the boards are so uneven in parts, but I'm trying to explain that this is what we want. I don't think they get it to be honest.

No real surprise really as these are the same people who were happy to store my Special Welsh School Pine Floor Boards outside in the rain with 1 dust sheet protecting them from the British Summer, whilst covering a pile of our old laminate floor boards with 4 dust sheets and a few layers of the expensive acoustic membrane I bought for the ceiling insulation. It turns out one of the builders will be taking the laminate home to redo their hallway. The laminate is worth about £9.50 new. Deep breaths.

Would you Adam and Eve it, we've got new Do Me Good in the gaff. We're well chuffed.

2007-08-16T13:31:00.001+01:00

We now have new french doors and windows leading out to the garden from the living room. The new woodwork complete with double glazing is designed to provide us a little more peace from the hustle-bustle that is Central London, as well as a bit more warmth through the long, grey 9 months of the year (or as we prefer to call it, winter). The job of getting them in wasn't without it's hiccups, with much sucking through teeth by our Cockney carpenter. But Rodney (as we will call him) came through for us in the end. Not without recalling a handful of jobs, complete with inane detail, that he had recently done for VERY famous people. Bless the charming geezer.

The good work continues

2007-08-16T13:27:00.000+01:00

It's all happening, with our entrance hallway now getting some considerable Polish attention. We have new plastering on some of the walls, some coving on the ceiling, flash spotlights and our special new sliding door for the bathroom! The Poles are truly cooking with gas now (which we no longer are, as our kitchen has been completely removed - more to follow on that).

Let's add some period

2007-08-07T22:54:00.000+01:00

More progress today. We've started to have the cornicing in the corners of the ceilings added, which we're very happy with so far. I do think that is going to look really good once done. We've also had the framework for the sliding door to the bathroom constructed. We decided to remove the standard door from the bathroom as it was almost impossible to manoeuvre in there while the door was open. I wonder what they'll get done tomorrow?!

The Boy says "Hi"

2007-08-06T23:52:00.000+01:00

Our little Primo is doing particularly well and settliing back in nicely. He even bit me this evening, which is a sure sign that he is well on the road to recovery. He thanks all for your well wishes, and is looking forward to seeing you here once our house resembles less of a mud hut and more of a shabby-chic, modern-eclectic NW London flat. Loads of love x.

With every day comes progress

2007-08-06T23:41:00.000+01:00

Our fantastic Polish work horses (not sure about the direct translation there, as horse means stapler in Polish) did a great job on Saturday finishing off our new, fab, freshly-extended doorway into the reception room as well as finishing off the wardrobe. We seem to be gaining some momentum with the project now, which is very exciting. We now have repressed hopes of finishing within 6 weeks (he says while furiously tapping all laminated wood in sight). It's actually Monday night now, and we've had another busy day here, so more updates to come tomorrow.

A lot can happen in a week

2007-08-04T18:22:00.000+01:00

In the joy that has been Primo's return, we've been a little light on the renovation updates. The short of it is that good progress has been made. The builders have managed to rip down half of a wall (so as to widen a doorway you understand), do various structural works to ensure that the wall can still hold up the building, start work on some sound insultation in our entrance wall, and start work on installing our built-in wardrobe.

With progress comes a new level of mess and everything is currently under about an inch of red brick dust from the now-wider-doorway. But we refuse to complain whilst things are moving along at such a good rate. Don't worry, if things start to slow down I will commence incesent whinging. Some pics below will help you enjoy our fun!

He's sooo skinny

2007-07-27T13:58:00.000+01:00

OMG!! He's Back!

2007-07-27T09:11:00.001+01:00

After 7 weeks sleeping rough, our beloved and gorgeous little boy is home! After a tip off yesterday and some heavy duty staking out, Prodigal Primo has been secured and returned home safely! It's a bit of a long story (which I will elaborate on soon), but the up shot is the lil fella is home and sleeping next to Pix as I type this. Ahhh bless, life can now return to our version of normal.

Day 3: Bugger all to report

2007-07-25T22:59:00.001+01:00

Apparently 1 day equals a handful of floor boards stripped of nails and some insulation put up in a ceiling. Does 3-4 weeks means something different in Polish? .... like 3-4 months maybe? Oh dear. Here's some pics to keep you busy.

2 days, same mess, no real progress.

2007-07-25T10:43:00.000+01:00

Starting to think my conservative doubling of the builders' timeframes might not be so conservative after all. At least it was sunny, which provided the younger Poles with enough reason to work without shirts. As Francesca put it, "There were far too many moobs and muffin-tops on display." Not pleasant.

1 day and a lot of mess

2007-07-23T22:06:00.000+01:00

Finally building work has commenced in Chez Box. The Polish builders have made up for being almost 2 weeks late starting by making an incredible mess after just one day. I like to think that the size of the mess is equal to the amount of productivity, and as such, we will be finished this project ahead of time. I believe they call this blind faith. Nothing seems to be too much trouble for the Poles, with most of my requests (some as ridiculous as asking them to remove hundreds of nails from our Welsh floorboards) proving no bother. "It be fine" is the standard reply, whereas an English builder would still be grimacing with "Oh mate, that's not going to be cheap." God bless the Polish.

Our day trip to Wales, or as the Welsh say... 'beth 'r annwfn did e jyst ddeud?'

2007-07-19T23:13:00.000+01:00

With our current house renovation project about to kick off, I thought it might be a good idea to chronicle the process. As with our previous project, I am expecting DYI disasters, living with few amenities and lots of dust. However, the biggest difference with this project will be that we're getting builders in to do the vast majority of the work, and they will turn it around within about 2 months (we hope!). They're already a week and a half late starting the work, so we're off to a terrific start.

The weekend before last Pix and I took a drive to Wales to pick up some floor boards that were salvaged from an old school. To be completely honest, I am not sure why we did this as it was a helleva lot of work, but it was kind of fun getting into a van for a road trip, playing daft games like Geography for literally hours.....!

Things we've recently accomplished:

Found a paint that we like (this has taken us weeks)
Bought 4 old church chairs for the living room
Moved all our stuff into storage (hopefully making the whole thing a lot easier)
Pretty much got the lighting plan sorted

Things we need to get sorted soon:

Get B&Q to colour match the paint we found, as the sample we like is from the world's most expensive supplier (£40 per tin I believe!!)
Find kitchen units and doors for kitchen
Manage to convince the Polish builders that they should actually start the project
Further convince them that they don't mind doing all the work required on our dodgy floor boards (i.e. pulling out all the old nails, cleaning, sanding, varnishing and polishing them). I am hoping this request will be met with the typical Polish reply of "No problem, it be fine. We do."

I've included some pictures below to give you some indication of how the flat is looking and the state of the floorboards. I promise I wil try to keep this updated regularly through the project so you can all be impressed with the pain that we seem to put ourselves through.

Much love to all x

Lost Cat

2007-07-03T14:56:00.001+01:00

Our little primo has been missing for over 3 weeks now. Please come home Primo.

Down to the wire...

2007-02-27T14:38:00.000Z

OK, we've been told by basically EVERYONE involved that we are set to complete the purchase next Friday (7th March). Now this is great news, as we have tenants moving into our current flat the following week. However, this all essentially means nothing, as we are yet to exchange. So, can everyone please cross any spare limbs that we exchange this week. If we do, we should be fine. If we don't, there will be the two of us (plus one eyed cat) homeless. Well, not really, but it will be a major pain in the @rse.

Tenants, sorted.

2007-02-12T10:06:00.001Z

We now have tenants sorted for our Tooting flat. Now if we can just get the exchange on the new place sorted, we'd almost be there. Why does everyone else always move on things so slowly?! Curse them. :-)

Anyone wanna rent a flat?

2007-02-01T09:21:00.000Z

Shabby chic, eclectic minimalism I am told. It's really just a 2 bed flat in the curry capital of South London, Tooting. Fingers crossed, we find a tentant this month, so we can move into the new place end of February. More pics of the flat, at the link below.

Our Tooting Flat/

Who says computers aren't fun?

2006-12-15T10:23:00.000Z

Some more pics

2006-12-12T14:45:00.000Z

Nothing much to report on the house front at the moment. Mortgage applications, solicitors, land searches, surveys etc are all taking place as we speak. Heard from the surveyor last night. "No major issues" apparently, which I am led to believe is a good thing. Let's hope his report goes into a tad more detail. I think, if all goes to plan, we'll be on track to be in the new place late January. Fingers n toes x'd. Here's another pic of the living room and one of the bedroom to satisfy you all over for the time being. A fresh coat of less offensive paint is on its way I think!

Time for some more pain.

2006-11-27T16:30:00.000Z

Now that we've finally got our flat as we like it, with renovation complete we naturally decided to look for a new place. We had been concentrating our search on a small area in Northwest London, called Brondesbury (very close to Queens Park). After several months of looking including at least 1 crack den, we finally found somewhere! A tedious offer process followed, and after a week of uncertainly we were given the good news.

Fortunately we can move straight into the new place, with some long term renovation plans to be tackled down the track. All that's needed in the first instance is a change of colour from the sick enducing salmon walls to something a little more subdued and warm.

Here's one pic to get you started, more to follow soon. Please keep fingers crossed for us, as we now have about 1-2 months of legal rubbish to endure.

New Rapture Video

2006-11-09T10:07:00.000Z

WHOO! ALRIGHT - YEAH... UH HUH!

12 months of Comedy

2006-11-07T09:55:00.002Z

Went to see a comedy show on the weekend called the Jeremy Lion show. Absolutely gold it was. The actor is a friend of family and won a Perrier for this show in Edinburgh. P*ssing funny. You MUST go and see this... only on for this week though.

http://www.jeremylion.co.uk/

Oh dear god.

2006-11-06T09:20:00.000Z

Bonfire night in Lewes was certainly an eye opener. The evening kicked off with race involving ladies running down the street dragging barrels of fire. Then the men took their turn, creating an equally ridicluous spectacle. Then the parade began, and the street was filled with burning crosses. Now I'm a lapsed catholic, so fortunately this did not offend my sensibilities .... however it was quite a sight indeed. Lewes is a heavily protestant area, and this bonfire night tradition celebrates the memory of 17 Protestant martyrs who were burnt at the stake in the town during the Marian Persecutions of 1555–1557. In short there was lots of violence and lots of people being killed (mainly by the Catholics), and now every year, the town takes to burning excessive numbers of crosses whilst parading through the streets. Some kind of 16th century group therapy I expect. Truly a bizarre and incredible sight. Quite fun, even.

Awesome Swing.

2006-10-20T10:31:00.000+01:00

... I don't even play golf - but this is hot.

Boy done good.

2006-10-18T11:25:00.000+01:00

Peter Andre is living every Gold Coast man's dream. They certainly do breed them oddly at Benowa High School hey lads?

Read all about it 2.

2006-10-13T09:06:00.000+01:00

Some more press coverage for PrintTiger. This time a full page feature.

Read it here.

Check out PrintTiger here.

Read all about it.

2006-10-12T15:20:00.000+01:00

Our super fantastic print management application, Print Tiger, has recently been featured in PrintWeek. A woeful headline (I had to reread it 4 times to understand it), but great coverage nonetheless.

Read it here.

I Heart Food.

2006-10-12T10:59:00.000+01:00

Went to a cookbook author's evening for Anna Del Conte at Blueprint Cafe last night. Food was delectable, with my fave being the proscuitto di San Daniele. The flavour was amazing, and the meat was so light. Gotta get me some of that, never going back to boring old di Palma again! The evening took a slightly strange twist when Antonio Carluccio half put his arm around me as he brushed past our table, which just felt wrong. Wrong because it was invasive, or wrong because I slightly enjoyed it? Maybe I'm a closet feeder.

I strongly recommend Anna's cookbook.

It's about time.

2006-10-11T13:30:00.000+01:00

Finally a responsible company such as HP has released a quality digital camera that allows you to slim the subject. We can now put a stop to all the large people ruining good photos for us gorgeous people. I was thinking that maybe the update to this camera could allow you to replace the heads of your loved ones with those of celebrities. Which would be so much better than having photos of your actual friends. I think we're missing the point a little tho, which is why would you want to be friends with a fat person, or take their picture? Well done to HP for making such an unappealing concept seem bearable.

Victory for the South Massive

2006-10-10T21:36:00.000+01:00

Another year, and another 10km of dragging myself around Hyde Park. Last Sunday was the annual Run London, where we fool ourselves that we're fit and curse our lack of training. This is our 3rd year running the event, and probably our best year. Unfortunately Sam (my running mate) and I got disconnected early in the run, and lost valuable time looking for each other - but all in all, I think we ran quite well.

This year was North London versus South London (go South!) - and we won. Thrashed the poncy gits up north by a considerable margin of 15 seconds. How embarrasing to be from North London.

Check out me finishing it here.

Fist name: Daniel
Last name: Box

This time I really will train for next year! Do it.

Blue is the colour

2006-09-13T11:36:00.000+01:00

A good mate took me to watch Chelsea beat Werder Bremen last night at home. Was ace fun, despite being sat behind a rather large man who was more interested in sourcing sweets from fellow spectators than watching the game. I wonder why these kinds of people bother? He probably watched about 5 mins of the game, with the rest of the time spent shitting in the ears of all nearby. He had a little double act going with his mate, who was clearly there to laugh at the fat man's "jokes". I think they were ghey. Top night though.

Jose Mourinho, Jose Mourinho

Unleashing the Tiger

2006-09-09T11:15:00.000+01:00

Our new print management application, PrintTiger, is being launched next week, and the site has now gone live. It's called PrintTiger, cos it's designed to help Tigers buy print more effectively. Huge thanks to Sam'n'Googe for some really cool work.

Time to lock up the remaining Aussie icons

2006-09-08T22:17:00.000+01:00

If this week has taught us anything, it's that we need to hold onto the legends we have left. Perhaps a variation on the Big Brother house? So far my list includes Johnny Farnham, Jimmy Barnes, Ray Wilke, Boom Crash Opera and Warwick Capper. Anyone got others?

It's been a stinker

2005-06-24T17:55:00.000+01:00

The weather here over the past week has been amazing, with temperatures over 30 most days. The city is one of the best places in the world when it's sunny, as all the grumpy poms seem to be happy and a lot easier to tolerate... Last weekend I had to work for some of it, but managed to get out to the park for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon, which was very relaxing and nice to have a cold glass of Pimms.

I'm not sure what's on for this weekend - I suspect it will involve some DIY, but hopefully some relaxing as well. I don't have any work to do, which is great news - and I fully intend to make the most of it.

So what's happening with the house? I will try to organise some pics, but for the meantime here's an update: The bathroom is mostly done, with the floor just needing a few more coats of paint (we painted the floor boards white - which looks quite cool). The bedroom has been pretty much done for a while, but we had the carpet pulled up again today to put some more sound insulation under - so I hope that has worked well. We also had a loose floor board which made an awful noise everytime you walked over it, so that should be gone now. We had a carpenter build a wardrobe for us, and that's going to be installed next week - so the room will be pretty much done. In fact, I think I might buy a flat screen TV for it this weekend - as we only have a crappy old box in there at the moment - so that should be some fun.

From here we need to sort out the flooring in the kitchen/diner area, so that we can install the kitchen that has been sitting in our front room in flat packs for about 2 months. Then we will be well on our way, left only with decorating sort of work, which is easy peasy! So it's slow going, but positive nonetheless.

What else? Work has been typically busy - but fingers crossed I might be able to take a day or two of next week. God that would be nice!! Bit bored of it at the moment, but a little break will sort that out I think. We're off to Italy in a few weeks for a wedding, so that's something to look forward to. Weather should be nice - and we get to return to the wedding venue for a different wedding - how cool!

That's about it really. I'm going to pack up now and go meet Sam for a quick drink before heading home to the family and a curry. I hope you're all well - and I look forward to speaking to peeps soon!

Long weekend coming up!

2005-05-25T14:35:00.000+01:00

Got a few free minutes, and thought I'd take the opportunity to put up a quick update on the week so far. Work has been typically busy, but a little less frantic than the last few weeks when we had people away. It was Andrew Ballem's (Australian friend who is currently living here) birthday yesterday - and a group of had dinner and a few drinks at one of his local pubs in Belsize Park (very nice area). There was Aaron, Sam, Cleo (Sam's g/friend), Pixie, Adrian (another Ozzie friend living here), Tim and Lisa (more Australian friends who are living here for a short time), and another Adrian (Andrew's friend) there - so it was quite fun. The food was really nice, and the surrounds very comfortable, so it made for a good time.

I was hoping to have tomorrow and Friday off, but now I think I have to come into the office tomorrow for a little while, but I am going to do my best to limit it to just a few hours. With so much DIY work to be done, I really need to spend some quality time in the flat during the day when I am free to make as much noise as I like and get on with it. Fingers crossed I make some progress over the next few days. Pixie is away this weekend on holiday with a friend, so it will give me a little extra time to get on with it (as I'll have nothing else to do), although there is talk of some picnic in park action on Monday afternoon (Monday is a bank holiday, for what I am unsure - but we don't question these things!). So that should be nice. It's always fun to see everyone, especially little Madeleine, who is just the cutest!

Well that's all about I have time for at the moment, as it's now about 8pm and I really want to get home. I will try my best to keep this updated (weekly maybe..? We'll see).

Hope everyone is well, love to all

Dan

First post

2005-05-21T14:55:00.000+01:00

This is the first one in yet another attempt to be a blogger. Can't help but feel I am too lazy for this, but here we go (again).