We’re playing around with some new themes on the blog - this is a prototype, there might be a rotating image header after a bit, but do bear with us if this blog has more looks than Madonna’s back catalogue over the next few days. Anyway, as per usual Brennan has outdone herself on prolificy so I have to chip in with my token tuppence for a bit.

So, this is my first entry as a UCDSU alumnus - like Ciara, I left office at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday morning - and so far I can’t say I’ve been all too overcome with emotion about leaving the job. Somewhere around Spring a switch flipped in me where things at work seemed to tire me more than excite me and while I don’t regret taking the year out of my life for something that at times has stirred passion in me that few things have ever matched, I do feel a natural sense of conclusion in quietly slipping out and getting on with other things.

Having started the new job this week - with the Affordable Homes Partnership - and with Ciara still doing her job in Croker and her evening classes, we haven’t been seeing quite as much of each other as we’re used to, where instead of going to work together and going home together, we work in different places and don’t get every evening together either. When we have gotten time to ourselves this week we’ve taken to watching The Office (obviously) in bed. Having made it as far as the Christmas Specials (after four attempts!) I came across the first thirty-odd seconds of this bit:

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I think it says pretty much all there is to say about life down there - you really are just thrown together with people with whom you have little but the same CAO preferences, and being able to spend it with a couple of people who just fit into your life anyway is quite a special thing and for that I’m very lucky and truly grateful.

So that’s that then. What’s next? Accidentally making the Six One news (clicky) yesterday for a couple of seconds with the new workplace being featured in a report by Gareth O’Connor and including a shot of me from a not-so-flattering angle. Well for some, eh? If anyone’s bored call AHP free on 1800 365 555 over the weekend - that’s me doing the voicemail.

Amusingly enough, the press release that went out from the photocall last week (recall?) carried myself and Steph’s home addresses for some reason, and my local radio station in Meath, LMFM, called work on Thursday asking if they could get a number “for that young man who got an affordable home, just to talk to him about his experiences of trying to find housing”. Now that was a call-back that was worth listening into. Imagine, my new employers denying my adoring public a chance to speak to me? I suppose it would probably never reach the same glorious peaks as my appearance with George Hook last August anyway on other matters accommodation. Which reminds me - I must throw up an mp3 of that.

Anyway, today’s drenched Saturday shall be spent importing my 70GB-odd of music from the external hard drive - and about ten hours’ worth of new podcasts - onto my re-formatted laptop (my God, the speed…), so expect more frequent posts today with me reminiscing about/guffawing about/taking the piss out of a decade’s worth of a music collection.