End of week 1

Well, it's been 7 days now since I landed in the Scottish Borders to start my new life as a bike mechanic.

The week has been emotionally and physically draining, but as each day passes I'm settling a little more. Leaving home last Monday was by far the hardest thing I've ever had to do and the 4.5 hour drive up was a sad & lonely one.
The job is great though (working on bikes all day AND getting paid for it - what more could I want!), the people very friendly and the setting stunning.

To be honest, I'm still struggling to take in the beauty of the surroundings because it all seems so surreal at the moment. Travelling to work through valleys & mountains as opposed to the suburban sprawl of Birmingham is something I'm still in awe of. Hopefully, once I start cycling to work (had to leave my bike in Brum, but put that right by ordering a new one on my 2nd day at work!) i'll appreciate just how lucky I am.

Outside of work, things get a bit lonely and I struggled with the isolation in the first few days. This isn't helped by the fact we have no TV signal at all, although Nic is currently arranging for Sky to be installed once we get planning permission for the dish.

My digs are fantastic! Check out these pics:















Kitchen (DUH!)















Living Room

Yep - think I did alright here :-) Housemate, Nic is sound - we share the cooking / washing up duties and he likes Xbox so no worries there! Just need to finish unpacking, get a bed and sort some furniture out and i'll be sorted.

Not had the time (or inclination) to check out the local pubs / nightlife yet, but I'm sure i'll get round to it when I'm a bit more settled. Tend to spend my spare time watching movies & on the Xbox so decided to do something a bit more constructive - hence this blog :-)

Sunday saw the heaviest snowfall i've seen since I was about 14. The place looked more like Canada and although it was bloody freezing cold, it was quite a good laugh. Despite the 5 inches of snow, there were STILL loons turning up to ride the trails on their bikes, although business was pretty much nil so we closed early and got an extra half day off - YAY :-)

I got Nic to take a pic of me outside the shop yesterday :



















Sunday 12th March 2006 - 13:00


I also took a shot of Peebles, the closest town :



















Peebles in the Snow - Sunday March 12th 2006


So there it is then - the first week of my new life. Overall, it's been surreal. Still seems strange to have so many aspects of your life change in one go and I think it will take a while yet for me to get my head round it all. That said, I'm doing the job I love in one of the most beautiful parts of the world and I'm determined to make a go of it.
Thanks to my family for the constant support they've given me this week and I hope to see you all up here soon :-)

To Emily -I miss you more than I can tell you here and however hard things have been over the past few weeks, your phone calls and words of comfort have kept me going. I still love you dearly.

With that, I'm off to do something with my 2 days off. I will endevour to update this blog at least twice a week, so stay tuned and as they say up here "F***ing Hell, it's freezing!"

;-)