Around The World In 80 Waves

A great overnight stop in Gloucester staying with my sister Sarah, Kevin, Scooby and Tsar. I’m leaving my trusty Red Panzer surf mobile in their care for the next year.

Enjoyed a feast of British Fayre to see me well on my way. A massive steak dinner in the evening followed by a monster fry up in the morning. I wont be short of protein for a week or two.

More calls to Vodafone to sort out the stuff that supposedly wouldn’t be an issue after the last call/wasted hour of my life. You would think that converting from pay monthly to PAYG would be a painting by numbers operation, particularly because I stumped up £100 before the transition to make sure I would have plenty of credit after the migration, but how wrong you would be. Want to go into full rant here, but am resisting the urge to do a “Robert on the phone” (as described by my sister) preferring to stick another pin in my Vodafone voodoo doll! Todays bug bear was paying for technical assistance, for half an hour at a time repeatedly through the day waiting to speak with somebody, only to be told the systems are down and nobody has the ability to phone you back later. I must have been mistaken but thought you were a telephone supplier. (Clearly efforts at avoiding a rant have failed miserably!)

Notifying banks about a year of international card transactions is only fractionally less painful. Apparently answering “all of them” does not go well into a system when asked which country I will be visiting. Is this the 21st century or not?

Quick dash to the coach station to catch one eastwards to Heathrow to drop off my bags and catch up over a beer with Neil Stafford, who is a great friend of mine whom I owe so much to. That includes this blog website which simply wouldn’t have happened without his help. Many thanks buddy to you and those behind the scenes. More than happy to recommend his web marketing skills to anyone.

Final dash of the day over to East Dulwich in South East London where the flat I owned for the last 12 years was located. (The sale of which is funding this indulgence by the way.) Some of my lovely neighbours are also moving on and I was able to guest star at their leaving drinks because it happily coincided with my own departure plans. Great chance to have a final beer with so many old friends, almost all of which didn’t know I was coming. Lots of fun all round.

I will miss my bachelor pad in the big bad city, but the next chapter of my tale begins here. Hope you like the story.