Wet weather, running, work and more gigs

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Well the cold weather is starting to settle in here - and its not even close to winter yet … and for the first time in my life I’ve started wearing scarves (£1 each from the bargain bin at Neu Look thank your very much) and am seriously contemplating thermals. Alright, it’s not that bad, yet, but I know its only a matter of time.

I finish up with Otten Penna on Tuesday. I’ve really enjoyed my time at Otten Penna, everyone has been really nice (they all want me to stay but there isn’t enough work for that) and I must admit it was nice sitting upstairs in my little attic office, listening to music and doing the occasional bit of work (Mallies workloads would shock most poms!). Definitely won’t miss writing manual cheques (some 350 of them), processing bills (200 odd) or the daily bus hassles (Margaret I now know how you feel! I hope the South Perth buses have improved but I doubt that.)

I was looking forward to a couple weeks off work (although my wallet wasn’t) but instead I jump straight into another temp job on Wednesday, this time working for a much large, insurance focused firm, Horwich Farrelly, in the city centre. It will be nice working only on a few minutes from home and in the city centre. Will be a culture shock after working in a tiny firm for the past couple of months, Horwich have around 200 staff and 7 in accounts.

Not sure how long this job will last, probably until my Prague trip on 20 October although they may want to keep me longer. My temp agent also wants me to start another position if she can get the right pay so things are still up in the air (I had temp agents fighting for me at one point - its all or nothing with them!). Wouldn’t mind working solidly for up to 6 months over winter so that I can save some money (as if that will happen) and do some proper travels in spring/summer. Once I have an idea on my work situation I can also plan some more weekends away as the travel plans have been lacking since I arrived here.

Running - as most of you know, I’m a mad runner. With the onset of winter that will have to come to an end but I will try to join a gym before I put on any more winter pounds. As a fitting end to my street running, I completed my first ever proper half marathon on the weekend. The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital half marathon which was actually in Swinton (a bugger to get to early on a Sunday morning!) raises money for said hospital and is a pretty small event with some 300 or so competitors.

The event saw us running along streets which were not blocked to traffic which made things interesting. Anyhow, I was pretty impressed with my time, I was hoping to finish in under 1:40 for the 13.14 miles / 21.15km and managed to do it in 1:30:30 (a piddly 30 seconds less and I would have broken the 1hr 30 mark).

And of course I’ve been to heaps of gigs (things really start heating up gigwise towards the end of this week):

The Magic Numbers (think Mamas and the Papas meets Fleetwood Mac) comprising two brother/sister combos, played an awesome, though late set (started at 12, finished 1:30am on a school night!).

iLiKETRAiNS (yes that is how they write the name) combine intense drums and heavy guitars with very morose vocals telling stories about obscure historical figures including a mad chess player, the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated and a hoaxed round-the-word yachtsman - not your usual rock songs about love and life in general that’s for sure! All sounds very serious and it is, but the band also managed to have fun and sound awesome at the same time. The support act, Shady Bard from Birmingham, totally blew me away and have become one of my favourite new bands.

My Brightest Diamond, a kooky (in typical Brooklyn, NY style) singer songwriter by the name of Shara and her backing band. Shara’s voice is amazing on CD and even better live - especially when she yells/screams/yelps the loud bits. She was also extrememely silly/funny and my friends got meet her after the gig but I stood to the back and just smiled and said a quick hello.

Menomena hail from Portland in the states and play quirky rock music although they look and act pretty ordinary. Support came from crazy Danish band Oh No Ono who looked like Wolfmother (ie big afros on skinny white boys) but played new wave dance rock with high pitched, incoherent lyrics - still fun tho!

Foals are from Oxford (a university town I’m hoping to visit soon) and play crazy rock music. The band were awesome, full of energy, very loud and the crowd, me included, were pogoing, moshing and crowd surfing (well I gave the crowd surfing a miss!). A short set but I left totally drenched in sweat.

That’s all from me for now. The next few weeks are going to be pretty crazy, my Prague trip is on 20 October and in the three weeks between now and then I have a trip to London for Lee An’s leaving drinks, a gig in Liverpool, start a new job and have 12 gigs to go to. After Prague things continue to be full on with an average of a gig every other day and hopefully some proper travels in between.

Pete

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Comments

[Kelly U]

Half Marathon?
You crazy bastard. Just sayin'.

[Margaret]

Hi Pete - glad to hear you have your own "bus stories" now. The great train from Mandurah is getting closer to being completed. They are testing the electricals next week so there will be no trains from Freo for a week and the Joondalup line will only run to Leerderville - lots of cars on the road and people walking ! We have had a few very busy months here at MSJ and looking forward to a slow down this month. Bec and Terri are doing really well. I heard you sent Bec a photo of " Elsa " and crew. glad to hear you are enjoying your music etc - It sounds like you are not working tooooo hard over there. cheers M