Quit your day job. Go on. I dare you.

I risked nearly £500 of my hard-earned quids at the end of last week by buying some Northern Rock shares at what I decided MUST be the rockest, bottomest price they could go to. Unless they went into liquidation. And surely that couldn’t happen?  As soon as a solution to the problem raised its head (ie a buyer was found), the price would shoot up surely? And boink!!! The boy Branson’s offer bounced the share price by 50%! I sold the shares again this morning and made nearly £250. Then I promptly rang up Northern Rock and paid my November mortgage payment partly with that money. Is that robbing Peter to pay Paul? It’s definitely robbing someone - the unfortunate Northern Rock shareholders probably. Damn spivs.

I got horribly drunk after work on Friday. I mean I got drunk in a horrible way. I’m tempted to claim I have no idea how it happened, but I’m fairly sure it was the guzzling of red wine, pints of Stella and whiskey that did it. I was only in the pub for a few hours, but already I was in a drink-spilling, big-gobbed, people-upsetting state of drunkenness. How embarrassing. I was supposed to go and meet some friends in another part of London, but as soon as I left the Hobgoblin in Angel I realised what a mess I was in and thankfully didn’t carry on drinking.

The hangover on Saturday finally made me realise I’ve been boozing far too much this week. A glance at the kitchen window sill confirmed it. It happens sometimes, but probably time to give the booze a miss for a bit.

OK, I can’t pretend anymore. I’ve properly had enough of London now. 3 months I’ve been coming into this office in Angel and the tank is dry. I’m sick of the tube, sick of the food, sick of the English, sick of the advertising, of the free fucking newspapers, the noise, the stress, the expense. I’ve had enough now and I want to go home. I want to drive my van, breath the fresh air, and see my friends.

There have been a lot of good things about the last 3 months. I’ve got back into my job, updated a few skills, my software, refilled my bank account, developed a good working relationship with a new client I’ll be working for over the coming winter and finally given up smoking.

But it’s been snowing in Chamonix, my ski pass is bought and paid for and waiting for me to pick up from montenvers railway station. It looks as though there’s been so much snow that the Compagnie Du Mont Blanc are going to open the ski areas early. So just today and tomorrow, a weekend and 5 more days of tying up the work I’ve been doing and then I can leave everyone to it and get on that easyjet flight to geneva I’ve been dreaming about for months.

So my friend, in whose flat I’m currently living, was supposed to be back from Costa Rica a few days ago. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him, though.

It reminds me of the first time I lived in London, many years ago. I was sharing a flat in Shepherds Bush with some random geezer. A nice enough guy, but not too bright. Anyway, when he got made redundant from his job I persuaded him that it would be a great opportunity to go travelling for a bit. It was just getting towards summer, he’d been paid off with a few months salary and there’d be plenty of phone bashing sales jobs waiting for him when he got back. The greek islands was my suggestion and off he went a few days later. He said he’d be back in a month. Three months later I was still living in the flat by myself wondering where the hell he might have got to. He finally turned up in the autumn. Turns out he’d got stabbed in a fight in his first week, spent a couple of months in hospital, then gone back to his parents’ place for a while to recuperate. He wasn’t too pleased that I’d nicked the nice double room in his absence either. I moved out soon after that.