of what looks like a very nice flat in Aldershot for Thursday morning. Means a bit of a trek over there by train but needs to be done.

It's got 2 bedrooms which we don't really need but the spare one will be useful when parents and mates come to visit. It's very near the station which will be useful for me getting to work as the new company does a free minibus service from the station to the offices.

It's well within our price range so we can afford to buy stuff for the flat and still have social life and eat real food!!

Hopefully I'd be able to move in before the end of the month.

I'll keep you updated.

18 days left till I leave work.

The season-long loan of Stephane Dalmat had been announced Saturday but seeing as his sense of direction is about as good as Fulham, sorry, Man City midfielder Claudio Reyna's it was nice to get it confirmed yesterday.

He seems to be a good midfielder who should add some extra grit to the midfield. I think Simon Davies will be the one with most to lose as Dalmat is likely to play on the right and Digger's form has been decidedly poor over the last few months.

The interesting deals were those involving Chris Perry and Charlton's England international Paul Konchesky swapping clubs on loan. Charlton are short in the centreback department at present due to injuries and upcoming suspensions, and Perry has not featured so far this season and the signing of Mabizela will have pushed him further down the pecking order. So that loan move makes a great deal of sense for everyone.

Konchesky had been unhappy at Charlton and requested a transfer over the Summer after being played out of position for most of last season. We need cover and a successor for Ziege, as although Taricco has had a good start to the season he should only be a squad player rather than 1st choice at present.

The only issue I would raise is that Konchesky, who I rate as a very good player, will not actually spend that much time at the club during the next month. He was straight off on international duty after signing and won't be back until after the England U21 game next Tuesday at the earliest so he'd only have a few days with the squad before our next game against Chelsea.

The idea behind the loan move seems to be for Hoddle to have a good look at him and sign him permanently before the month is out. They probably could not have sorted out the finances and personal terms in time for yesterday's 5pm deadline so the loan deal would have been the only way round that deadline rather than wait until January when the next window opens.

Generally Spurs have done good business this Summer although Hoddle has recognised he will need to strengthen further in January. The failure to do that last season led to our season finishing with a whimper rather than challenging for a European place.

Elsewhere, Everton were busy getting jug-ears Jeffers back on loan and bringing in the highly rated Scottish youngster James McFadden. Sergei Rebrov almost returned to the Premiership as part of Big Sam's Foreign Legion up at Bolton but didn't get the work permit through.

And Chelsea spent a further 16m on Claude Makelele. The final cost of their Summer spending spree - a mere £111 million. Small change for Abramovich but possibly a massive millstone for Claudio Ranieri.

After several days on the run, the hamster has been found alive and well skinny.

Next door neighbours got home yesterday and weren't suprised to hear that it had done a runner as it was a bit of a Houdini on a regular basis in their house.

My weblog has just put three entries up with this title but no writing due to my excessive inappropriate use of the return key. Got to delete them now before people think I'm strange.

Anyway, getting back to the Great Escape. They have been decorating their hallway and noticed there was blood on the gripper rods on the stairs and a few 'little presents' dotted around near the top. Tonight they heard scrabbling around so lifted the floorboards to release the rodent. It's now being fed up on cheese and Winnie the Pooh cereal to help it get over it's ordeal.

All's well that ends well.

Other comedy moment since I've returned home from work was my girlfriend realising she'd cut up her Switch card by mistake. Well she'd cut it up deliberately but she shouldn't have.She thought because all the correspondence for our new joint account was being sent to me her card would go there too and that HSBC had just decided to send her a new card because her signature was wearing out on her current card. How they were supposed to know this, I don't know!

It was only when she asked me about the fact she got a new pin as well that things started to click. She's had to ring up the lost & stolen cards number to request a replacement card. She had to give a reason and instead of lying she admitted her stupidity.

She's also blown the best part of £40 down ASDA out of our joint account but seeing as most of the money in there is hers and she's going to replace it I can't complain. Still too busy laughing anyway!!

Got a text from my old flatmate from Uni, Little Chris, yesterday to announce he's working in London for the next few weeks. Have arranged to go for beers and a curry with him tomorrow night near Liverpool Street. Think we'll go over to Brick Lane for the meal.

My day will be spent going up and down motorways and sat in traffic jams cos I'm doing my PassPlus in an attempt to stop being a complete danger to society when I'm on the roads. Considering becoming a White Van Man for a couple of days when I have to move my stuff over to Aldershot so need some practice before I get let loose in one of those.

but not enough time to do some of the topics justice so just putting an entry in to show I'm still around.

Will do some proper entries asap as there have been several developments over the last few days that need to be written about.

is that I went and found a flat ready for my new job yesterday.

It's the only one that I looked at but it's a very good deal and they're still doing work on it to improve it even more.

Had to leave a £500 holding deposit so no-one else gets shown the flat then got to pay just over a thousand more to cover the rest of the deposit and the first month's rent. Time to raid the savings!

Managed to get to Aldershot earlier than planned cos I made it to Waterloo a lot quicker than expected so jumped on an earlier train.

Meant I had time to go for a wander round the town as the previous times I've been there I only saw the company's offices and Farnborough train station.

Due to move in on the 26th if we get everything signed in time so I've got a week after finishing work to get stuff sorted at this end and then enough time to get the new place looking respectable before starting my new job.

One of the bits of bad news from Wednesday was that my brother managed to have a car crash and it looks like he's written off his VX220. Luckily he escaped with some bruising and was very shaken by it. The other driver also walked away unharmed although both were checked over by the ambulance crew.

I managed to do my PassPlus ok on Wednesday. Can cope with motorway driving but I never intend to drive anywhere near the centre of London again!!! Absolutely ridiculous with the amount of stop-start traffic and the number of impatient dickheads trying to get somewhere 5 seconds quicker. Good experience though as my driving instructor said if you can drive through there, you can drive anywhere. Just waiting for my report form then I can send off for the certificate.

Went all the way up through Morden and Tooting Bec up to Parliament Square, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, up the Mall past Buckingham Palace and then home via Swiss Cottage and Brent Cross. Bit of a mission!

Went and met Little Chris in London on Wednesday evening. Went for a couple of beers at the White Hart by Liverpool Street station then eventually settled on getting steaks at the Cross Keys down the road. Very good food, had the steak done medium rare, nice and bloody!! (will go down well with the veggies!!) A few more pints of London Pride, which is fast becoming my favourite pint, and then it was back on the train home. Was due to meet him again next week but due to certain events which I will cover in a bit I won't be able to make it.

we were informed that my uncle - my mum's brother - had committed suicide.

I have been debating since then whether to mention this and what I should write. My blog is usually quite lighthearted and I'm worried that this entry could appear insincere but that is certainly not my intention.

On Tuesday my uncle had gone into his garage and set himself alight. He was discovered by the eldest of his 3 daughters, who called the fire brigade and the ambulance who rushed him to hospital but it was too late and he died there.

This came as a complete surprise to everyone as they had only recently returned from a family holiday in Spain and as far as we are ware there was no indication of anything like this happening.

It looks like the funeral will be next Wednesday, the day after what would have been his 47th birthday, so I'm having to arrange for some time off work on Tuesday to travel down to Devon with my family to attend.

Since we heard the news I have spent a lot of time thinking about what could drive a person to a) take their own life and b) do it in such a way.

Obviously no-one knows the full facts and what was going on in his head at the time but the method he choose would not have been painless and if it had failed would have left him horrifically burnt for the rest of his life so it must have been a determined effort and a decision thought could not have been taken lightly.

I can't begin to imagine how bad it must have been for his daughter to discover him, or for the rest of his close family to be informed of what had happened.

Another thing that made me think about mentioning this, both on my blog and to other people I know, was the reaction of others. I think there is still a certain stigma in society about suicide, where many see it as someone taking the easy way out instead of facing up to their problems.

I have mentioned death on my blog before but then it had been tragedies of a different type. Footballers who I didn't know personally, who had been killed but this time it is someone I knew, someone I used to see very year on our annual trip down to Devon at Easter.

At this time my thoughts are with his wife and children.

My mum has been very reserved and has hardly left the house since she heard about her brother. Luckily she has a lot of good friends who have been very supportive and my brother has also been off work due to his crash but more about that later. She seems ok generally, but it's obviously difficult for her to talk about it so she's been trying to avoid seeing too many people.

I managed to arrange time off work ready for the funeral. I'd be off on Wednesday anyway but we're travelling down on Tuesday afternoon so I needed to finish early for that. My manager has been off all week so I asked for a private chat with the other day manager. She was really good about it. Said I could go home at any time over the next few days if I needed to and said I could have the whole of Tuesday off if I wanted and not to worry about making up any time off. I said I'd rather be at work for the time being because it keeps my mind off things. We had a really good chat for about 20 minutes and it was nice to be able to talk to someone outside my family about what had happened.

Thanks to those people who left comments on my blog recently. Really appreciated and it kind of helps to know other people have felt the same way in similar circumstances.

My brother went and took pictures of his car today. He's still waiting for the insurers to decide whether it's a write-off. This picture shows the main impact. Luckily there was no passenger or they could have been seriously injured. He spoke to the other person involved today and she's ok but has some whiplash injuries as she hit his car front on but both airbags worked.

Work was ok yesterday but I'll be glad to get out of there in a couple of weeks. Will miss a lot of the staff but none of the customers!! Watched the last of the Phoenix Nights repeats when I got home. Got to wait over a month before I can get the rest of the items on my wishlist cos they're not out for a while but it will mean I won't pay for them till late November.

Work today seemed to mean continually listening to customer's complaints despite the facts they're the ones who owe us thousands of pounds. Almost ended up making a mad dash across London to see Brentford play Plymouth. Would have got in for a fiver with my Spurs season ticket cos of a special offer but my mate who'd suggested it had to pull out so just came straight home from work.

Ended up watching England put in a good batting performance in the final Test. Then kept an eye on the Scots beating the Faroes and the Irish drawing with Russia before watching England beat Macedonia. Turned over just in time to see the egg-chasers gain immediate revenge for last week's narrow defeat against the French by turning them over big time at Twickenham.

Just watched a valiant Wales performance as they held out for an hour before Inzaghi's hattrick helped them on their way to a 4-0 defeat. Their good start to the group stage means they are still in with a shout of the playoffs.

Been checking some insurance quotes ready for the new flat. Over a hundred pounds difference between some of the quotes. Need to check a few facts with the letting agent to make sure I get all the info right for the policy.

Planning to have a lazy day tomorrow. Will probably involve copious amounts of TV and t'internet.