Back in October of last year after being locked in a stressful half year haze of soliciation I finally completed on the purchase of my first home, a one bedroom flat in London. I was quite lucky that the flat is located within reasonable distance of buses and the tube network, and most of the flat has been left in good condition.

The kitchen however was one thing that absolutely needed changing as it’s been around for about ten years; the cooker is outdated, the styling is far from modern, the walls were yellow (yes, yellow…) and the lighting… well that’d be a strip light.

I looked around at all the various providers in the UK (MFI, Magnet, etc), MFI by far had the largest range within my price range but lost my custom simply by the attitude of the sales person when confronted with the small size (1.9m x 2.1m) of my kitchen. Magnet have a gorgeous range but given the cost versus the amount of time I’m likely to live in this flat, it would probably have no return.

At the time the sales were in full swing and though not my first choice, a colleague of mine had a relative working as a kitchen sales advisor for B&Q’s kitchen department. I was spoilt rotten as he drove all the way from the Cardiff store to visit me and helped me plan out the layout for the new kitchen which nobody seemed to actually care about, have to love the Welsh (or anybody out of London) for their politeness.

So we’re six months down the line now and my living room is basically full of flat pack kitchen parts stacked against the walls, appliances, and that’s not where it ends as not everything would navigate the tight hallways in my block of flats, so some of it is out in the hall.

I’m feeling really boxed in and this is only really the beginning of it as my living room looks in to my kitchen, so on my week off whilst the kitchen is being fitted I’m going to either be trapped in my bedroom to give the fitters space to get on with it, or I’m just going to have to get out of here.

The fitters are already running late, we were supposed to be starting on Friday to skim the ceiling. It’s really important to try and get the ceiling work done first so that no painting is required once the new units have been fitted, obviously this reduces the risk of damaging them before the work is even completed.

Two hours after the fitter was meant to arrive I’d heard nothing. After a few phone conversations with his boss it turns out that his car had broken down, but nobody had communicated with anybody, and certainly nobody had bothered to communicate with me.

I hope that tomorrow morning we get off to a good start so that I can enjoy my new kitchen without too many issues, and it goes without saying that the sooner I can reclaim my space, the sooner my stresses will fade away.

The past year I doubt anybody has really seen me out and about much, I’ve invested most of my time in decorating my new flat, my career, but socially I’ve been a bit of a hermit (I hate that word).

Over a coffee in Soho square not so long ago a friend of mine told me a story about some Russian friends of his family that were visiting the United Kingdom; they had some ‘interesting’ views if not a little rude on the way British women present themselves and how they considered the average British person’s priorities to be wrong. Are they right?

I got promoted earlier in this year to be technical co-ordinator at one of our company offices, it’s an awkward title and an even more awkward role; essentially it was meant to be my task to transform the way project managers and account managers thought about the technical requirements for projects and ensure that technical architects and developers are engaged at the right time to be able to plan and deliver projects successfully.

An excellent opportunity, but one that requires a great deal of trust and respect from senior colleagues before you can give a respected opinion and start changing peoples mindsets. This is one opportunity that did not turn out as planned, unfortuantely I ended up being spread into the resourcing system gaps like wood filler.

I’m one of those people that likes to learn whatever I can and solve problems, so I’m good at filling the gaps… it just got too stressful though with no sign of anybody actually wanting to plan for the future or take any weight off of me.

At my company due to our size we are broken down into smaller teams called ecosystems, and thankfully my management have listened and I am now being moved into another of these smaller teams where I will most likely be on much larger projects and have a lot more that I can contribute to.

I also benefit from the fact that the office this team is based in is thirty minutes closer to home. So that’s less stress, and a shorter commute, not to mention summer is right around the corner. I’m just going to hold that thought for a while.

Bit of a plug for the charity work we’ve been doing back at the office; none of that web design lark, one of our very own creative team has been responsible for the design of a pair of flip flops for Save the Children in the UK. We’ve also been responsible for some promotional design and also the email marketing (which I had to code today, with like… tables and everything, a sin to web standards!).

If your feet are aching to break out of those stinky trainers over summer and have their chance to breathe, then the funky red flip flops are for you.

Priced at only £9.99 the proceeds will help in the fight against poverty, disease, injustice and violence against children both in the UK and globally.

For those that aren’t already part of the revolution in discovering music that is Last.fm, it’s the flagship product from the same team in the UK that first brought us the AudioScrobbler music engine.

AudioScrobbler builds a music profile based on the artists and tracks that you listen to using either the Last.fm Player or via a plug-in for your favorite audio player.

Last.fm uses the data collected by AudioScrobbler and adds features such as social networking, tagging, forums and also journals to the mix, offering many ways for you to share your musical tastes with friends, view similar artists to the ones built up in your music profile, listen to samples of your recommended artists and much more.

Some of the most interesting features that I use most often are the ability to read about an artist that I am passionate about, and then view similar artists and explore their musical offerings.

Tag based exploration is also a favorite feature of mine, along with tag based radio allowing users to listen to randomized tracks belonging to a particular genre.

The new offering from Last.fm now includes a shiny new dashboard element that breaks down into the following sections:

• My friends online – a summary of which of your linked friends are currently listening with Last.fm and the most recent songs that they’ve been rocking their feet to.
• Last.fm Recommended Artists – a short list of artists that you might be interested in based on your previous listening habits, and also a collection of free songs that you can listen to in full.
• My Weekly Neighbours Online – other Last.fm users who have similar music profiles, and the last track that they listened to.
• Recommended Recent Journal Entries – journals written by other Last.fm users that have been linked to artists that match your music profile, or from groups that you have joined in the forums.

Overall the new features provide even faster access to exploring new music that is matched to your listening habits, and the new design which is still being tweaked with shows a lot of promise of being more appealing to less technically minded users.

I decided to pay off my credit card this morning because things are moving ahead quite quickly with the flat I’m purchasing and I wanted to make sure that I didn’t have anything outstanding to worry about before all the big money needed to move around for it.

When it comes to checking over statements I am not the best person, I buy from a lot of different locations as I move around through London on my way home or when I’m just experiencing things at the weekends, but this morning I noticed a debit that had come out from a post office in a location that I knew I hadn’t been to, and besides I’d rarely ever be seen in a post office with the queues that seem to form in them.

I won’t give out any details, but a relatively small amount has been taken from my account, which I’ve reported to my banks fraud department. I was talking to a friend about it this morning and by possibly the strangest co-incidence he has also been charged an amount by the same mystery post office.

Both amounts were small, so whoever has managed to gather our collective details is smart enough to have tried for amounts that wouldn’t be noticed, but I am still a little upset that we live in a society where people feel within their rights to go to such lengths to take from others.

A large majority of people work hard for their income and their personal possessions, these become part of our livelyhood. Many of those people share with others, be it to a charity or to friends, associates and colleagues via other means.

The people who have the “courage” to commit fraud, taking from the hard workers, an act of hiding behind many guises unable to face the world, what do they actually offer to society? All they are doing is taking from it, with not a care for who their victims are or what situations their victims may be in. I simply don’t understand it, and definately don’t think their is any room for it in our rapidly evolving society.