Here it is. My spangly new flat, com­plete with com­pu­ter desk and leather sofa…

… TV, Wii and plant …

… a table and another sofa thing …

… door and drawers …

… bedroom and dou­ble bed …

… a spangly tiled bathroom …

… and chec­ke­red floor for chess …

… kitchen with mic­ro­wave, toas­ter and washing machine …

… fridge, free­zer, cooker …

… and acres of work­top space …

… and finally my well cons­truc­ted desk!

Hoo­rah!

So, recently I gra­dua­ted, spent some time at home over the dis­mally wet sum­mer and loo­ked for a job. The job hun­ting aspect pretty much domi­na­ted my time. It star­ted out with two or three pho­nes calls a day from rec­ruit­ment agen­cies with a num­ber of roles they thought I might be inte­res­ted in, inc­lu­ding throughout my holi­day to Ply­mouth — everything from Con­trol sys­tems sales to supply chain mana­ge­ment — I selec­ted the roles that inte­res­ted me most to pur­sue — this trans­for­med into a mul­ti­tude of inter­views and tests. I tra­ve­lled to Lon­don, Surrey, Hert­fordshire, Lei­ces­tershire, Glou­ces­tershire and more, com­ple­ting no more than 9 sepa­rate inter­views. These inter­views inc­lu­ded apti­tude tests, inte­lli­gence tests, rea­so­ning abi­li­ties, pro­blem sol­ving tasks, data analy­sis tasks, group exer­ci­ses and other such nas­ties. For the sake of pros­pe­rity, these were with such com­pa­nies as Uni­le­ver, Data Con­ne­xion, GE Sen­sing (they do not refund tra­vel expen­ses), Smiths Aeros­pace and Ocado. Both Ocado and Smiths offe­red me a job, and I opted for the more inte­res­ting and supe­rior offer from Ocado, based in Hatfield.

Whilst not loo­king for jobs or hou­ses I tur­ned on the TV, lin­ked it to an AV out­put from the PC and watched some X-files or Twin Peaks to fill me up on my mystery-weirdness fix for the year. I am about half way through sea­son 2 of Twin Peaks now. Agent Coo­per is my hero. Any­way, moving onwards. With a job con­fir­med and a start date of Sep­tem­ber 10th I had 3 weeks to arrange vie­wings, par­take in vie­wings, make a deci­sion and sort out all the fine print, on a sin­gle soli­tary resi­dence. I arran­ged six vie­wings, two in Welwyn Gar­den City, two in Hat­field and two in St Albans for the bank holi­day wee­kend in August.

I can’t be bothe­red to find pic­tu­res of all of them, and to be honest, I want to for­get a few of them, they were that awful. In fact the last one we saw nee­ded a light on in every room in order to see anything… this being at 2 pm on a cloud­less day with the sun high in the sky. It was also dis­gus­ting with a shoddy door, the whole thing was tac­ked onto the back of a house — they wan­ted £625 a month for it!

Here is the second best can­di­date — a one bedroom ‘mini’ house. This was in wal­king dis­tance from where I work and was a strong con­ten­der at £650 a month. Although in the end we deci­ded the nearby ame­ni­ties weren’t great and living in Hat­field wasn’t the nicest of options.

My third arran­ged vie­wing for a stu­dio flat in Hat­field fell through, and in that spare hour we roa­med the streets of St Albans, pop­ping in every estate agents we came across on Lon­don Road. Even­tually one such agent had two apart­ments we could look at straight away, one just (the day before) coming back onto the mar­ket after a pre­vious deal had fallen through. The first of these was an atro­cious annex in Lon­don Col­ney, it was damp, sme­lled of wet and was pretty much a shed. We left (the family and Sam) as fast as we pos­sibly could. The second was a one bedroom flat for £725. This was like a breath of fresh air. It was clean, spa­cious, light, secure, well-appointed and very close to both rail sta­tions, the town cen­tre, a super­mar­ket and retail park, a large park with golf course et al. and a bus route to get into work. It was per­fect except for the price. We con­ti­nued loo­king at our other appoint­ments — except for one can­ce­lled two-bedroom vie­wing which nas­tily clashed with a much nee­ded toi­let stop on my part. The flat was always on our minds and at 3pm we deci­ded that I should go for it — and can­ce­lled any further vie­wings, the extra price was deci­ded rea­so­na­ble for the dis­tin­guished impro­ve­ments that it offered.

Having sett­led that mat­ter we spent the after­noon drin­king in a nearby pub, watching the foot­ball results (which were also ami­ca­ble). I remem­ber having a lovely large glass of New­castle Brown Ale, before moving on to Wethers­poons to have Steak for din­ner. It was a nice eve­ning all around. We were there for the wee­kend, so on Sun­day we had a pic­nic in Veru­la­mium Park — right next to my new flat. Crispy fresh baguette, pasta and salad selec­tions and a Mars bar to cap it off. Acti­vi­ties also inc­lu­ded “pla­ying catch in the park”, buying expen­sive chi­lli cho­co­late, a tour of the lake, exci­te­ment over the kid­dies water park fea­ture, remote con­trol boats and Ye Olde Figh­ting Cocks pub. Then we hea­ded back to Bris­tol, with Sam going north. I would move in on Sep­tem­ber 3rd, the next Monday.

In the week follo­wing I spent some time lear­ning Java, mana­ging my web­si­tes and fran­ti­cally sor­ting out the huge depo­sit and one month’s ren­tal pay­ment (£1800) to be made avai­la­ble in only four wor­king days (bank holi­day issues) in clea­red funds! That was a laugh. On the Fri­day I watched Knoc­ked Up at the cinema with Mum and Stu, post scrump­tious Chi­quito Lazy Boi star­ter. I also watched the Bris­tol Rovers vs. West Ham game on Sky as well as a num­ber of the England vs. India ODI’s, inc­lu­ding the stun­ning 8th wic­ket part­nership of 99 runs to seal a win, which we cele­bra­ted whilst eating chips on the way back from visi­ting my Aunt (avec gra­dua­tion photos).

With only one car the pac­king nee­ded to be ruth­less and pre­cise. Fit­ting a com­pu­ter, tv, all the clothes I will need for a num­ber of months, croc­kery, coo­king pans and uten­sils, duvet and sheets and any addi­tio­nal enter­tain­ment I deci­ded to bring was akin to those crazy Christ­mas toys that involve arran­ging sha­pes into a cube.

* Cho­co­late Muf­fin Break *

Mum and I arri­ved in good time via M4 and M25, sig­ned the con­tracts, pic­ked up the keys and moved in, with Sam quickly behind us with her odds and ends and a much nee­ded set of dra­wers. Then we set about with the ickle things — arran­ging inter­net and phone ins­ta­lla­tion, sor­ting out water, gas and elec­tri­city, tele­vi­sion license, fin­ding myself a com­pu­ter desk, filling my cup­boards with food (Sainsbury’s is very expen­sive!), unpac­king and making myself feel at home. Mum left the next day, to return to work, it was a sad goodbye, and I had that melancholy fee­ling all day.

I think that is enough of the tale, I have now been here ten days and obviously the inter­net has been ins­ta­lled (20mbit, woo!) and once again I have spent too long wri­ting this, it is late and I must go to bed to get up for work tomo­rrow. All I have left to say is thank you so much to Mum, Sam and Stu — your help was inva­lua­ble, I couldn’t have done it all without your help.

Ove­rall Degree cal­cu­la­ted as: 86%
First Class Honours

Well, that’s it, done and dus­ted. Uni­ver­sity life is now offi­cially over — I am no lon­ger a stu­dent. My four years stud­ying a Mas­ters in Elec­tro­nic Engi­nee­ring at War­wick Uni­ver­sity have come to a fruit­ful end. It’s odd thin­king of the very first day when I moved into Roo­tes with my big boxes, going up the stairs for the first time, seeing that awful bright yellow paint, unpac­king and chat­ting with Sam and Kayte for the first time. Good memories.

This final year was spent in Red­fern cam­pus accom­mo­da­tion, with old friend Ste­ven and new flat­ma­tes Jo, Madhu­mita and Robert. It has been a great year. Here is a short but happy-memory indu­cing list. Ten pin bow­ling — both real and Wii based, mas­sive marathon video game con­quests (Bur­nout Revenge, Kata­mari, Bom­ber­man, Wii Sports, Red Star), birth­day cele­bra­tions, the adven­tu­res of Bobby Green and Snowy Bob, tal­ka­tive fridge mag­net non­sense, watching Pla­net Earth, fridge and free­zer space mayhem, the rot­ting cele­riac, Madhumita’s bell rin­ging and supers­ti­tions, the donkey-film fiasco (and the asso­cia­ted eeyore jokes), New Year cele­bra­tions, Christ­mas deco­ra­tions, Madhumita’s quo­tes and blue tac sculp­tu­res, outings to Zizi’s and Piccolini’s “I could be a vam­pire — but you’re vege­ta­rian”, eating two meals at once in Wethers­poons after Oceans 13, sha­ring artsy fartsy films with Jo, going on walks around Heron­bank (to my sec­ret pond), taking trips to the per­fect Arts Cen­tre Cinema (£2.50 stu­dent tic­ket for films such as Zodiac, This is England, Infa­mous and others), buying bar­gain £3 DVDs from the now defunct Fopp, jug­gling in the kitchen (3 ball, 4 ball, mill’s mess, 5 on the floor), the faulty Xbox 360 issues, com­ple­ting that Mars EBM assign­ment, Future Elec­tro­nics “big time” and “for sure”, kitchen visi­ting spa­rrows, wood­pec­kers, rab­bits, squi­rrels and a sin­gle fox, War­wick Art Centre’s tuna jac­ket pota­toes with salad gar­nish, my inter­net ban and resul­ting scrubs marathon, base­ment lab conc­rete slab tes­ting for hours on end, pain­ful all nigh­ters on 300 page pro­ject report and pos­ter, my poor tummy and appen­di­ci­tis, rewar­ding revi­sion marathons (and mis­sing the Bris­tol Rovers pro­mo­tion), lear­ning man­da­rin chi­nese, the lunar eclipse on the night of Steven’s birth­day meal and wii com­pe­ti­tion, watching Liver­pool knock out Chel­sea on HD pro­jec­tors outside in the gar­den after feas­ting on a BBQ, rea­ding Graeme’s fri­day eve­ning “wee­kend joy” texts and laser/smell of bur­ning eye sto­ries, eating fresh French baguette and Camem­bert after retur­ning on a long hard bike trip to Tes­cos, the moun­ting rust pro­blems my bike suf­fe­red as a result of being left outside in the rain, the mag­pies attac­king the bin bags, the “cost-cutter” chime, the inc­re­dibly wet sum­mer, pla­ying Fris­bee on the green outside, watching films with the TV at the foot of the bed, watching the clea­ner rota­tion as ours was off sick again, buil­ding up recyc­la­ble skysc­ra­pers in blue bags, pla­ying corri­dor golf with the plas­tic golf set and Ste­ven losing his ball under my bed, pla­ying long range corri­dor darts and skitt­les, being solemn as Madhu­mita rushes away for the last time, doing that 1000 piece puzzle on top of my dra­wers, buying fans and crea­ting cus­tom made wasp nets, seeing Madhu­mita play Halo, boi­ling up the kettle and having a nice cof­fee and crois­sant break­fast before star­ting revi­sion, pla­ying Scat­ter­go­ries and LOTR Risk (too geeky?), rea­ring my grape found cater­pi­llar to a full fled­ged moth, indoc­tri­na­ting Sam in the ways of BSG, taking down my pos­ters for the last time, Jo’s regu­lar parsnip-carrot and mince meal, Steven’s toad in the hole and chips, Roberts plas­tic cut­lery and balloon antics (see: Madhumita’s cup­board), Madhumita’s smelly night time thing and yoghurts left in the mic­ro­wave, the 2 for £3 tesco piz­zas that got me through, wee­kend trips to Lei­ces­ter to visit Sam where we would shop at Fen­wicks or on the off chance go to Riley’s or cook something won­der­ful and ins­pi­red. And taking pic­tu­res for the last time as I pack up the car and pre­pare to go home.

And so on 26th May 2007 Bris­tol Rovers retur­ned to the third tier of the English lea­gue, now ter­med “Lea­gue 1″, bea­ting Shrews­bury in a close pla­yoff final 3–1 at Wem­bley. Because of my horrid exam finals I was for­ced to miss this dream Wem­bley occa­sion, although every time I go and watch they tend to lose, so maybe it was for the best. I also had fears of the Don­cas­ter sce­na­rio when that quick 2 minute goal went flying in.

Let’s look at some of the good moments from the season:

What a Goal!

And another against City.

The Rovers sup­port at the JPT final in Cardiff.

Road to the Playoffs.