A new level of London experience

Last night was a new high in stress levels - I've been granted a company car and, given the limited parking spaces, drove it home. The catch is that I work on the other end of London to where I live. See, our offices are in an industrial park in North West London in an area called Park Royal. I live in Greenwich, a nice village-style area in South Eastern London on the Thames. The AA site suggested a travel time of 54 minutes. I managed the drive in 2hrs 25min. That time included getting lost twice and calling my housemate James to beg sympathy (he was very supportive).

My first UK driving experience? Besides navigating winding streets, London traffic, trying to read badly-lit sparsely-spaced roadsigns and feeling like I was going in circles the biggest difficulty was that I'd been given a 4-door Saloon (sedan) - probably not the perfect choice for London driving. Let's say the drive through to our behind-apartment parking was the icing on the cake.

I think I've started to recover from the initial trauma. I'm planning to invest in a London A-Z and familiarise myself with the area (apparently that will assist in navigation) before venturing forth again. Wish me luck.

An update

Dear World,

I am still computer-less, although (finally) Orange decided to not only supply a modem but also enable our ADSL connection.

My weekly correspondence (not quite love-letters) with Acer has not really progressed. Acer Support in Canada send me a regular cut and past suggestion to a) ring a 1-800 number (strangely enough not available if you are calling from an overseas number, which I've stated clearly the last 3 times) or b) log an escalation request via their website (which incidently doesn't seem to work). I think they may have succeeded in resigning me to finding alternative options. It's hard to persist in talking to somebody who is going to such effort not to listen.

Meanwhile, life goes on. London life is flitting by quite fast, although I still have yet to book any time away. Last week I started on a longer-term job. My first day was like Christmas, with corporate toys piling up on my desk - mobile phones, company charge card requests and laptop computers formed a pyramid of geeky yuppie toys. My phone can take pictures, and play music and record things. Woot for me!