"All I want is a room somewhere
Far away from the cold night air
With one enormous chair
Oh wouldn't it be luvverly."
I often hum that song when I'm online, searching property 'porn' for our dream home. We've found it several times, as I shall explain, but in my usual calamitous fashion, things have gone awry at the last minute.
Having lived in rented houses for the last seven years, getting our own place is hugely significant. We want to be able to redecorate and hang things on the walls without having to put it all back to how it was in a while. But, more importantly, we want to become part of a community - something that seems to take seven years to establish, especially in Britain.
The first house we put in an offer on was taken off the market after the separated couple who owned it got back together. We put in a cheeky offer on a second house, which was perfect inside but lacked a big enough garden, and were pipped to the post by someone who offered the full asking price.
Then we compromised on road noise because a bungalow was in the perfect village location - only to find via the HIP report and several calls to the local council, that neighbouring properties had been bought up by a developer and it would soon turn into a building site. So we withdrew our offer. Then I got an email from the same estate agent, informing me that the property was back on the market - followed by a hasty apology after I hit 'reply' and said, yes I know, we put it there! To my immense surprise, the big boss of the estate agency then rang me and had the temerity to ask what it would take for us to change our minds about withdrawing our offer. He seemed surprised when I asked, "Would you want to live on a building site? In what was formerly a quiet cul-de-sac and was now being turned into an estate with seven houses where two bungalows existed?" He said it would only be for about six months and then all would be well. He just didn't get it. And he's in the business. I felt like referring the honourable (?) gentleman to my previous post on disliked individuals.
So we've now reached chapter four in our house hunt: We made a reasonable offer on a gorgeous bungalow, in the wrong part of town (but that was our Location, Location Location-inspired compromise - there always has to be one apparently), only to find that the owner wanted a £2000 mutual deposit and contract signed which (a) consisted of various points that should happen in the normal course of events anyway and (b) so that we would adhere to some kind of unrealistic time schedule. So, again, we had to pull out.
I know houses are in short supply at the moment, but should it be this difficult? It's seriously tempting to throw in the towel. But we've decided to wait until after Christmas and stick to our list of requirements and just persist. Our list is simply: Character features, garden, garage or off-road parking, village near to current and prospective schools, park or field nearby for essential football playing, walking distance to shops, near train station if at all possible. Now I know that property exists but is £100K out of our price range, so playing the lottery is also on our to-do list! Meanwhile...
I know that's slightly more than a room somewhere with a huge Lemsip-advert style chair but is that too much to ask?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
7) ROTA RANT
LOVE TO HATE
People who draw up staff rosters, bless `em, must rank next to traffic wardens, estate agents, bankers and scruples-less journalists in the least-liked list. It's a difficult job – factoring in people's leave, training, days' off and covering bank holidays fairly. So you have to be as obliging as possible to the roster king or queen in order to get a good deal. But when they make a mistake, it plays havoc with the lives of those staff. A whole two days were turned upside down in my case. I wouldn't mind if it was a one-off but this is the third time there's been an error in as many months.
To explain: I was expecting to be working on Thursday during the day but it turned out I was working overnight. No big deal, you might think. And, fortunately, I found this out before I'd bought my return train ticket – something I was just about to do in an extremely rare moment of over-organisation. But I HAD already humiliated myself by grovelling for some extra childcare as a one-off at after school club; I HAD agreed to give a friend a lift to a fitness class on Friday morning and, most importantly, I HAD just adjusted an important meeting for some voluntary work that I'm doing. Something I didn't feel I could adjust once I'd discovered, through phoning to double-check, that I was on a night shift. So struggling through the day yesterday, after very few zzzzzs, was not that pleasant for me or those around me.
Normal service should be resumed soon.......
Thursday, November 5, 2009
6) THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
THINGS THAT GET MY GOAT
1) How supermarkets always stack bananas the wrong way up for maximum bruiseness.
2) Why you have to pay all those miscellaneous extra fees to banks and solicitors when you're buying a house - there's enough to fork out already!
3) How I always dwell on the past and my husband is forever planning the future.
4) How you always bump into people you admire/adore/don't want to see when you're at your worst in the hair, zits, fashion stakes.
5) The way chocolate muffins speak to me, but apples and oranges don't....
6) Shop-bought sandwiches in this country - why are they 90% mayo and not much else? And why do we accept that it's ok to pay £2 or more for them when we know full well they cost about 50p to make?
7) Adverts. They make me buy things I really shouldn't & make my children nag about things they really don't need.
8) Children - the way they throw back your own personality at you when you're trying to tell them off.
9) My siblings - the way they've only got to make one reference (usually at huge family gatherings like at Christmas) to something you did when you were seven and you're back there, seething.
10) Exercise. I think more people would do it if it didn't make you sweat and look like you're about to internally combust. And if it didn't give you a huge appetite.
11) Arrogance - in anyone, no matter how wealthy, wise, or well-known. We're all just human.
12) The way my feet get too cold or too hot really easily.
13) Hearing tales of awful, unjust illnesses affecting innocent children or really good people in the prime of their lives. So unfair.
14) Defeatist attitudes.
Things that get me 'up' rather than down:
1) Cinnamon
2) Good coffee
3) Cheese and tomato toasties
4) Blue skies
5) Blue Jeans
6) My three really squishy 'down' pillows
7) Good books
8) Hugs
9) Elderflower cordial and sparkling water
10) Lovely clean new stationery
11) Eating grilled fish al fresco
12) Orange juice - no bits!
13) Radio 4 or 2 or Classic FM, depending on the time of day and levels of stress
14) Kind people.
15) The smell of baking bread or cut grass or tiny babies.
16) Children's giggles.
17) When I've written something that I think is alright.
18) When I lost 4 pounds and Wii Fit gave me an age of 29. Yay!
19) A really good gossip with old friends, preferably over a glass of wine.
To be continued......
1) How supermarkets always stack bananas the wrong way up for maximum bruiseness.
2) Why you have to pay all those miscellaneous extra fees to banks and solicitors when you're buying a house - there's enough to fork out already!
3) How I always dwell on the past and my husband is forever planning the future.
4) How you always bump into people you admire/adore/don't want to see when you're at your worst in the hair, zits, fashion stakes.
5) The way chocolate muffins speak to me, but apples and oranges don't....
6) Shop-bought sandwiches in this country - why are they 90% mayo and not much else? And why do we accept that it's ok to pay £2 or more for them when we know full well they cost about 50p to make?
7) Adverts. They make me buy things I really shouldn't & make my children nag about things they really don't need.
8) Children - the way they throw back your own personality at you when you're trying to tell them off.
9) My siblings - the way they've only got to make one reference (usually at huge family gatherings like at Christmas) to something you did when you were seven and you're back there, seething.
10) Exercise. I think more people would do it if it didn't make you sweat and look like you're about to internally combust. And if it didn't give you a huge appetite.
11) Arrogance - in anyone, no matter how wealthy, wise, or well-known. We're all just human.
12) The way my feet get too cold or too hot really easily.
13) Hearing tales of awful, unjust illnesses affecting innocent children or really good people in the prime of their lives. So unfair.
14) Defeatist attitudes.
Things that get me 'up' rather than down:
1) Cinnamon
2) Good coffee
3) Cheese and tomato toasties
4) Blue skies
5) Blue Jeans
6) My three really squishy 'down' pillows
7) Good books
8) Hugs
9) Elderflower cordial and sparkling water
10) Lovely clean new stationery
11) Eating grilled fish al fresco
12) Orange juice - no bits!
13) Radio 4 or 2 or Classic FM, depending on the time of day and levels of stress
14) Kind people.
15) The smell of baking bread or cut grass or tiny babies.
16) Children's giggles.
17) When I've written something that I think is alright.
18) When I lost 4 pounds and Wii Fit gave me an age of 29. Yay!
19) A really good gossip with old friends, preferably over a glass of wine.
To be continued......
Sunday, November 1, 2009
5) TACT AND DIPLOMACY
You know how we mums have to carve out a network of people to help us achieve the unachievable? Like match working hours with school drop offs and pick ups somehow? Well, I've managed to do that with the help of an equally busy mother of two, who also owns a huge dog, and likes to keep herself fit through swimming and horse riding. So far, so much in common. The bad news, she's as tardy and disorganised as I am!
So, at parents' evening, having been told by my seven-year-old that he had to be at school for the register by 7:30 (when it's actually between 8:30 and 8:45) , I queried this with his teacher, to raise a laugh.
"Well, he would benefit from arriving at school a little earlier," was her exact response. That was me told! I hadn't realised that assembly was at ten to nine. So by showing up at quarter to, we weren't technically late but nor were we giving him much chance to take off his coat, hang up his bag, put his lunch bag on the trolley, hand in his homework, read a book and chat with his mates before being ushered into the hall.
Poor kid. I was a little chastened. Especially as he had truthfully told his teacher that he was always ready on time, but it was his mum or his neighbour that he always had to wait for! Oops! So how to broach this with my school-run sharer? My sister-in-arms. My fellow mum and tantrum-tolerator who's only too willing to divide up the odd bottle of wine or home-baked delight with me too?
Of course, I chose the coward's way out. At a night out with our other halves, after more than a few halves of the bottled kind, I told her a carefully edited version of the above story. I said we (noting to myself mentally that, of course, she was always waaaay later than I ever was when it was my turn to drop off) really must make a new half-term's resolution to get the kids to school earlier. Aim to leave home at ten past, then we might actually get to leave by quarter past and get to school by half past instead of quarter to.
She laughed, but my OH did tell me I'd handled it in a sneaky sort of way. How else could I have handled it without sounding obsessive-compulsive or seeming to rebuke her for being disorganised? Aside from that other playground etiquette dilemma where another child has hit or bitten your child (or vice versa, which is even worse) that must rank in the top ten of delicate matters we mums have to contemplate. Any tips?
So, at parents' evening, having been told by my seven-year-old that he had to be at school for the register by 7:30 (when it's actually between 8:30 and 8:45) , I queried this with his teacher, to raise a laugh.
"Well, he would benefit from arriving at school a little earlier," was her exact response. That was me told! I hadn't realised that assembly was at ten to nine. So by showing up at quarter to, we weren't technically late but nor were we giving him much chance to take off his coat, hang up his bag, put his lunch bag on the trolley, hand in his homework, read a book and chat with his mates before being ushered into the hall.
Poor kid. I was a little chastened. Especially as he had truthfully told his teacher that he was always ready on time, but it was his mum or his neighbour that he always had to wait for! Oops! So how to broach this with my school-run sharer? My sister-in-arms. My fellow mum and tantrum-tolerator who's only too willing to divide up the odd bottle of wine or home-baked delight with me too?
Of course, I chose the coward's way out. At a night out with our other halves, after more than a few halves of the bottled kind, I told her a carefully edited version of the above story. I said we (noting to myself mentally that, of course, she was always waaaay later than I ever was when it was my turn to drop off) really must make a new half-term's resolution to get the kids to school earlier. Aim to leave home at ten past, then we might actually get to leave by quarter past and get to school by half past instead of quarter to.
She laughed, but my OH did tell me I'd handled it in a sneaky sort of way. How else could I have handled it without sounding obsessive-compulsive or seeming to rebuke her for being disorganised? Aside from that other playground etiquette dilemma where another child has hit or bitten your child (or vice versa, which is even worse) that must rank in the top ten of delicate matters we mums have to contemplate. Any tips?
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