Jonathon Wardman

House Hunting

Monica and I have recently been looking to buy a house. We got a mortgage agreement in principal, set our budget and set about looking for houses.

Living in the south east of England house prices are notoriously high, so I thought I’d take a look at some areas I have a connection to and see what the same budget — £300,000 — would buy there. For reference, let’s see the kind of property £300k will buy in Surrey and Hampshire.

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Wedding

Now I know I haven’t finished with the second half of the stag weekend posts so forgive me, but I wanted to write this now before I go away.

I’m heading back from Scott and Jess’ wedding this weekend. They had a handfasting ceremony and asked me to do their photos for them. While I was, of course, honoured that they would ask me and trust me to shoot such an important event, I was more than a little nervous. While I’m comfortable shooting live events and theatre, I had actually never previously shot a wedding. Wedding photography is not something that I have ever really wanted to get into, but I have known Scott since we were very young and Jess a few years now, so I agreed on the understanding that they know my style and they knew what they were getting.

I travelled up on Friday morning and stayed with my dad for the weekend. (I’m not sure how long I will have that luxuary now my mum has started her new job. Their house is up for sale and I guess it all depends on how long that takes to sell.) [read more]

Friends' House Warming

Tiara: £10; return train ticket: £62.75; party supplies: £33.00.  Total: £105.75.  Not really too bad for a weekend spent at the other end of the country with my friends, although I could have saved the £33 given none of the supplies were actually used.

Last weekend a couple of friends, Ben and Emma, had their house warming party.  They’ve been living together for a couple of months now, but hadn’t had chance to get around to having a party until now.  When I first found out about them moving in I asked when the party was going to be.  I was told they weren’t having one.  Of course that meant that when I received the invitation I couldn’t exactly say no.

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Sins of the Father: rehearsal one

I have a friend, Ben, who runs his own theatre company.  They are a bunch of people he’s got together through work, university, theatre school and the like, and they put on plays.  Their work is, to be honest, generally ‘challenging’.  I read but didn’t see their last work.  I’ve just come back from the first dress rehearsal of their current work. [read more]

Back to college tomorrow

I don’t know why, but I’m so tired today! I slept in for ages, and it wasn’t as if I got to bed that late (hmm, must have been about 2…), and I slept yesterday afternoon, but I’m still tired, don’t know why. Anyway, I’m going to be in bed by 12 tonight (that was the plan anyway, lol) – its back to college tomorrow, and although I don’t have any lessons until 12.45 tomorrow (because of this new 2 day timetable thing), I still have to be in at 9 for what will be, I’m sure, a total waste of time meeting.  I don’t know what I will do with the rest of the time I have to spend before tutorial.

This holiday has gone too quickly.  I suppose its because of the very long weekend at the beginning of the week (the Jubilee), mainly.  But anyway, I can look forward to only 6 more days of college (how good does that sound, lol)…spread out over 3 weeks (slightly less good)…meaning only 17 1/4 hours of lessons left (heh, how sad is that, counting the hours 😛 ).

Yesterday I met Natalie in Halifax, and we came back here.  In the afternoon we went with my mum (my dad was going to come with us, but he didnt get back from the other house soon enough), to the Halifax charity Gala.  It was better than most years, but you know what that sort of thing is like, its not great.  I suppose it is a nice day out of the house, and the atmosphere is good, and I got to have an ice cream (I have been after one for ages, but I havnt been able to get one because wherever I went the vans were either just dissapearing over the hill, not working, not there at all (like at the market, grr), or there when I was going past on my way somewhere else!).  Anyway, I got one, lol.

The other notable thing was that I saw James.  We were friends at primary school, but he changed schools (from the one I was at, to a private one, a few villages away).  We didnt see each other much after that, but we did occationally.  The thing is, James always wanted to be a paramedic when he was at school, and yesterday I saw him – now a memeber of St John’s Ambulance.  I was really happy.  Sadly he was ‘working’, so we didnt get to talk to each other, but we passed, and smiled.  I think thats great 🙂

So today, I have done very little.  The most notable thing being that I made some cheese scones…they are very nice, but no where near enough cheese, so I will remember that for next time.