Friday 24 April 2009

Early Morning Worrying

When a young dog needs to pee it's best not to ignore the warnings, so when Murphy started 'telling' me at 6.30am that he wanted to go in the garden I gave up all hope of a lie in and went down to the kitchen to let him out.  


Now if this was winter time, I would have stumbled down the stairs, let the dogs out, called them back in, suggested that they might like to go back to sleep for a while before dragging my weary bones back up stairs to my warm bed. But this is Spring time and the sun is shining and the birds and singing and we still have lots to do before the Estate Agent comes on Monday to take his pictures, so I decided to torment myself with BBC Breakfast News (you know how much I love a good rant in the morning) and then  make myself a cup of tea before starting another day of packing away some of the 'stuff' that apparently potential house buyers don't want to see when they are looking around your home (damn those pesky property shows)

But what do I pack away, that is the question?  should I cull some of my pretty collection of jugs that line the shelves of the conservatory - probably; and will I need to pack away the embarrassing pictures I had taken of the kids when they were little, the ones where they had to dress up in Victorian ragamuffin costumes - I love them , they hate them but what would a potential buyer make of them - probably report me to Social Services for child abuse. 

So you see my dilemma, there I am standing in my kitchen with Murphy tugging at my dressing gown while Bella is running around with a blanket in her mouth singing good morning to me (long story but suffice it to say, she's a retriever who thinks that it's her life's mission to bring you a present every time you walk in the room) all the time worrying about what I've got to do today.  

What's a girl to do other than make a cup of coffee, ignore the growing list of jobs and log on for a quiet 10 minutes while the dogs are happily chasing squirrels and drinking their own body weight in pond water. After quick moan on Twitter that I have a busy day ahead, I spot that one of my favourite bloggers has a new post and this is where the power of this interwebby thing really comes into it's own.

http://anexplorers.blogspot.com/2009/04/exhausted-and-befuddled-but-with-plan.html is the blog of a gentleman I have mentioned before.  He tells stories of his life in Canada, walks with his dog, pictures around his town and occasionally short stories that he's written.  He is erudite, charming and in a strange way, that is only possible because of the Internet, I consider him a 'virtual' friend.  But this morning I read that my friend has just been advised of his treatment plan of the chemo and radiotherapy for the cancerous growth in his esophagus's - sure puts my worrying about a silly jug collection into perspective.

Good luck with the treatment Barry, there are people all over the world rooting for you, people who because of a blog consider you a friend - as I've said before, this interwebby can be a powerful thing.

Monday 20 April 2009

Sorry....

I'm sorry that it's been so long since I last blogged but we have been very busy bees since Dave finished his last contract.


Earlier this month while we were down in Kent on a 'fact finding mission' we put in an offer on a house down there.  Why Kent. I hear you ask, when our old plans had involved either Cornwall or Anglesea, well the truth of it is that Dave and I feel that we are both far too young to retire and live the quite life.  We still fancy living by the coast but had decided that we should be within striking distance a potential source of contract work for Dave (I'm lucky I can write anywhere) So out came the map and Kent seemed the ideal county, it has lots of coast line and with the promised introduction of a high speed rail link from Ashford, an easy trip to Central London.

So fingers crossed that the solicitors get their fingers out and the Land Searches don't throw up some awful history of unstoppable coastal erosion and that we can be down there to enjoy some, if not all, of the summer on the south coast.

The past few weeks have been manic with trying to arrange a HIP on this house and get things started on the purchase but (without wishing to tempt fate) things seem to be moving along.  We haven't decided yet whether we want to sell our house yet or if we should wait for the inevitable rise in the housing market and just rent it out for a few years.  Either way we have been clearing out some of the stuff that we've accumulated over the past 18 years, so it's been trips to the charity shop and even more trips to the tip.  Where does all the stuff come from, I could have sworn that I did all this two years ago, the only explanation I can think of is that it breeds, if you leave two old towels in the garage to wipe down wet dogs with and go back to them 3 weeks later there will be 4 of the buggers sitting there laughing at you!(and yes G, we do still have the hang glider suspended from the rafters)

So that's it, the Big Move is back on, so if you fancy a fab house with fab neighbours in a quiet cul de sac close to the station and an excellent primary school - watch this space.  As the government in it's wisdom has decided that the housing market isn't fucked enough at the moment that it should insist that all houses need to have a full HIP in place BEFORE they can go on the market, it be a few weeks before you see a board outside the house, but when it's up I'll let you know.