Surrey Calling!

I am making a big change in my life. It is bigger than anything I have done before. I am upping sticks completely and moving to Surrey!

Sophie is at University in Farnham, at the U.C.C.A. there. She's going to (hopefully) be there for another two years. That's a hell of a long time to be travelling up and back from Devon... it's hard going more than a few days without seeing her. My solution: Move there.

First off, I wanted to find a place to live. Being a non-student (and seeking a job), I thought this might be difficult. Indeed, Sophie's first phone call involved a woman laughing at her, telling her she'd never heard of such a thing and that we'd need luck. Thankfully, the next call proved more positive!

The tenancy agreement is signed and ready to go and we will have a "two room suite" in a five bedroom shared house in Hale Road, Farnham. It will be redecorated too, and we have the opportunity to add our personal influence to the house, as the landlord is very open to what we want to do. That includes putting my dartboard up and hopefully improving my form!

As well as a house, I needed to sort a job out. How else would I be paying the rent; Sophie's loan won't cover it! I took a couple days off and had three interviews. At the second interview, for a firm in Alton, I felt right at home as soon as I sat down. Wettone Matthews' office is very similar to Easterbrooks' Sidmouth office. Thankfully, they liked me as much as I liked them and offered me the position of Trainee Accountant. I will be starting ACCA training next year and will be getting a nice pay rise!

What else in my life will change with this move?

Well, my duties with Rockbeare Rangers Football Club will reduce drastically, as they have already begun to. As of next season, I shall merely be Webmaster. And President or Non-Executive Director! I want a poncy name after being one of the Club founders! I will miss playing, especially with Ian on board to change the Club's fortunes...

Goodridge (link requires Facebook account) will also be doing without my services! They have replaced me with Johnny Beer and I guess he can do the job! I will be getting a team shirt and might play the occasional game when I'm back visiting any weekend! My testimonial will be coming up soon, hopefully against Mikey P's team.

I will not text my postcode to 66611 and neither should you. But I digress.

Darts is taking a back foot. Which it needs! Instead, I shall help Sophie improve her game. She's really keen to get better. Actually, I think she just wants to beat me!

I'm leaving my friends and family behind. It's lucky most of them are on my Facebook really! It's going to be difficult at first, knowing only Sophie's Uni mates, my new housemates and my new work colleagues. This is the only scary bit of the move really. My increasing social anxiety worries me, as I don't want to freeze among new people. First impressions mean a lot!

The move is the weekend of 19th July. My new job started on Monday 21st July. I think I'll start a Facebook group. I mean, you'll wanna know when the Leaving Do, Housewarming and other such parties are... right?

My Life in Thirty Seconds...

Which is probably how long it'll take you to read this post!

My life is far more complicated than is absolutely necessary, usually by my own doing. I take a lot on, often too much at once. I help people out, as I feel I am a naturally caring person, and this has led to me getting shafted by various people.


Rockbeare Rangers are having a mixed season. And I've certainly had my ups and downs at the Club. I've given my two penny' worth to people that have asked, but for those of you that haven't, here's the quick version:

I helped form the Club, with Mark Walters (Chairman) and Ed Haine (Club Treasurer), as a number of us fancied playing regular football in the league. Some of us had played before and weren't happy with where we were, some of us fancied a change, some of us had never played league football before.

We needed someone to take control, and given my extensive Football Manager knowledge, I thought I'd have a go. A few positive friendlies later, I fuck up the start to our season by changing formation. I wonder if it would have made a difference.

After five or so games, the so-called Player Rep decides he's taking over. No discussion with the Board, just the players. And so begins the internal war. Now, I distanced myself from the Club for a bit by spending time with Sophie in Farnham. I still went to training (was injured for one week) but I was never likely to make the first XI. I was fine with that.
But the Board as whole were becoming more and more annoyed by the players trying to run the Club we had started. And not for the right reasons. So the Manager was replaced, in the proper manner.

This Manager subsequently left for personal reasons! We have now found an experienced Coach to come in and show us what has been going wrong. And after one training session and one half time team talk, things are already being learnt! We have a tough match at home to Awliscombe United tomorrow, who beat us 1-5 at their place. The report will be on the site on Monday!

We currently sit fifth from bottom in Inter 2. We have the promise to finish higher...


Money is a real concern right now. My "friend" Codge has his Mum die in October 2006. I leant him my Credit Card to help pay for the funeral. See? A nice guy, I am.
He screws me over. I'm left having to pay £125 a month to pay off his Credit Card debt, while he gives me between nothing and £300 a month... usually nothing. This leaves me a tad short, given I have my own debts to contend with!!

In addition, my previous house has outstanding bills. One of my former housemates is rubbish with money, choosing mainly to spend his on drugs. It leaves the rest of us trying to keep the debt collectors at bay.

Help will be at hand in May, when I upgrade my o2 mobile phone account. I'm thinking of getting a Sony Ericsson k850i, the latest model in my current phone's range on Online 30 (24 month tariff) as it includes unlimited o2 to o2 calls. I shall read the small print before I do...!


My love life really couldn't be better! Sophie and I have been together for over a year now and are closer than we've ever been. I could gush about how great she is, but you may be eating so I'll direct you to my Facebook profile if you wanna know how fantastic she is. Having started as a long distance relationship (she's originally from Hull), we have gone full circle while she is away at Uni in Farnham. We spend every weekend together though and are constantly on the phone or MSN to each other.

We do make the most of our time together, and try very hard not to take it for granted. We go for drives in the country, try to visit our families (mine is easier to visit as they're closer) or just stay in and enjoy each others company. Needless to say, we have an amazing sex life! We are so in tune with each other and that makes all the difference.

Sophie is currently doing a three year university course in journalism at Farnham UCCA. If she follows the journalist route, she would need to live quite close to London. To this end, I shall be attempting to relocate to Farnham in the summer. For someone who has never lived more than 14 miles from his place of birth, this represents a huge step. This is proving rather difficult though, as changing jobs and houses at the same time is nigh on impossible sometimes. It's all very much in the mixer at the moment, nothing is definite, apart from the intent!


Darts isn't going well. As many people know, I've played darts for over half my life... and once upon a time I used to be quite good at it. I've represented my county at Under-21 level and have gotten to the second round of the National Youth Competition. I captained my own side in the Sidmouth League for many years and now loosely captain a team in the Honiton League, not by choice! But my season has been appalling. Never have I suffered from such nerves. I am confident in my ability and know I can beat a lot of players in the leagues in which I play. But recently, my nerves have cost me games and I even missed the board completely going for bull!

So I'm taking a step back. Regardless of what happens in the summer, I will not be playing league darts next season. I will practice, play for fun and teach Sophie how to play. The way it's been going, I have not been enjoying my darts. And that's despite playing with two teams of people I really gt on with (mostly). Playing for fun is the only way to get my enjoyment of the game back...!


Work is alright. We've just had a hectic January at Easterbrook Eaton Limited. But on top of that I have a few personal clients. For privacy reasons I won't go into detail, but taken on this work outside of my usual office hours has been a little stressful! I can't help that I'm so damned good at it...

If I do end up moving, I will look at what I want to do. No doubt I won't change vocations just now... but a man of my intelligence should probably put it to the best use possible. I will apply myself more!


Well, there's a short (!) look at my life. I know... it's not that bad really!