On the way at last

The journey has finally started ! I was fortunate enough to be able to scrounge a lift by HSS and car to London (thanks, Michael) so left home on Friday morning and reached London that evening. I departed with a mixture of emotions - it's an odd feeling to go away for such a long time as, although I will be home at the end of January for a brief spell, I feel that I really won't be living at home properly for almost another two years. One of this mixture of departing emotions was frustration - as part of my plans to keep in touch I had ordered a Dell mini laptop weeks and weeks ago. When I placed the order, I was quoted a ten day lead time which (if adhered to) would have meant having the machine about three weeks before my departure. However, that was only the start of it... delay followed delay and despite the best efforts of a friend of a friend who works in Dell, my neat little 1kg laptop failed to materialise before departure. Yesterday, I went into London's West End for a wander around and found myself in a Curry's store looking at a range of mini laptops wondering, will I or won't I ? Well, you can probably guess - I did and am now the proud owner of a new Advent 1gB RAM/120 gB hard drive mini laptop, almost as compact as the one I never got from Dell (and a good deal cheaper).

Of course, the real problem is going to be getting my money back from Dell as they've already processed my payment for a machine that I suspect they haven't even started to build yet.

Last night, I enjoyed a great meal with friends at the Prince Albert in Camden, one of the many great gastropubs in London(whole roast partridge for me). Gastropubs seem to be part of a development that hasn't really arrived properly in Dublin for some reason, but I believe that Vaughan's Eagle House (in Terenure) is changing all that and has been getting some great reviews recently.