Off work this week, in a bout of "use it or lose it" holiday. Aside by being lazy and getting up quite late, not to mention having a really annoying cold, I've actually had a rather productive week. I've got an ongoing project to rationalise all the stuff cluttering up the flat, and I've mostly been doing stuff related to that. Got a new bed, which I spent Tuesday afternoon building, topped off with a nice new matress, which should hopefully help me sleep better, as the old one was knackered. Given me much more accessible storage space in the bedroom, so I can (hopefully) keep things tidy now. Dismantled the old wooden base, plus a load of old storage units, then took it all up the tip - surprising how much you can get in the back of a 1.4 SEAT when you actually try!

The bed sorted, I've now turned to the computer. Picked up my new laptop today, so I've been twiddling about with the PC, mostly taking out the 250gb which serves as my backup / media library and popping it in a rather groovy Icy Box external enclosure. Very handy thing indeed. The laptop has Vista (boo hiss), but the ultimate plan, once I've got everything sorted) is to dual boot Linux on there, which will doubtless involve ironing out some problems. The external drive means I should just be able to copy over my home directory files to the fresh Linux install, so I shouldn't have to reconfigure anything. I guess I could just stick with Vista, as it does everything I need, but it would be a shame to throw away three years of Linux knowledge for the sake of convenience. We shall see.

Tomorrow sees a visit to the dentist, plus a trip into town for a few things. I had to drive in today to get the laptop, and the traffic was just murderous. Makes me glad I don't have to drive to work, as I think I'd go insane if I had to sit in that every day. I'm lucky in that I can either stroll in or hop on a local branch line, which is much less stressful. You only really appreciate how much needless rushing about goes on when you step back from it. Last time I went into town on the train I had a really chilled day - mooched around a bit, did a few things that needed doing then lounged around in Starbucks reading a book before having a nice wintery stroll home through a local park. No road rage required. I do sometimes feel that all this stuff about the "24/7 society" becomes self fulfilling. We hear people telling us that we live in this online age, so we feel the need to be constantly occupied, constantly on the go, when there really isn't the need. Don't let the marketeers tell you how to live - have a slow day once in a while, it's fun!

Anyway, minor rant aside, all in all, not a bad week. The flat needs a good clean top to bottom, after which I shall doubtless collapse in a heap. Been nice to get away from the office for a bit, although I go back into the teeth of month end, which is always fun.