5 years and 2 days!

jsut realised i've been writing this blog for exactly 5 years (and 2 days). Not bad for a non completer-finisher.....

Offer accepted!

Blimey O Reilly we’re bought a house! Well, not quite but we’ve had an offer accepted. So it seems that all our efforts of trooping round houses every evening and weekend for the past couple fo weeks have paid off and we were able to feel confident that the one we saw on our fuirst day of house-hunting was not a knee-jerk response to desperation but a valid positive response to a lovely home.

After our fairly smooth wedding planning period I was still really concerned that the house-hunting might be the real sticking point with our polarised approaches to life in general coming out. In reality it wasn’t half as bad as expected, with the fact that, in the end, we have surprisingly similar taste in what we like and don’t like, and ultimately both felt very strongly about the house we have found.

What the process has emphasised is our different approaches to things (life in general perhaps?) – in that I get really excited really quickly, rush ahead with major excitement and then almost as quickly die down and lose enthusiasm. Paul, starts at the other end of the scale, with an apparent lack of enthusiasm (he’d obviously describe it as cautious positivity) and then works his way up. When we meet in the middle it works fine , but if we time it wrong I have passed the middle point and given up just at the point he’s getting going. I think even paul would admit that he actually enjoyed the hosue-hunting process a lot more than he expected to, although we were both getting a little weary further down the line.

So now it’s the roundabout of mortgages, HIP’s, surveys, etc etc. given my nature I’m obviously keen to start buying woodburners, french dressers and curtains. For some reason Paul is saying no…….

 

It's Emma's hen night in a couple of weeks. I made my friends do it therefore the pleasure is passed on! This ones in Cardiff, which is fine, Quad-biking, which is also fine; comedy club in evening; again, fine. NOT fine is the "famous women" fancy dress theme. For goodness sake, the ladies I will be joining that evening score an average size 8. I'll double that size and add on some more for good measure. Whilst they can look cute and sexy dressed as Lara Croft and Wonder Woman, I'll be leaning towards Barbara Cartland or Vicky Pollard (or the only gay in the village).

Anyway, after a bit of harrumphing I went with the positive attitude approach and decided to go in feet first and ordered one of these!

It arrived yesterday, Paul nearly wet himself with laughter when I tried it on.

Should make for a fun night (please note I don't intend to wear it quad-biking....)

aah this takes  me back

I'm still struggling

this damn rash keeps coming back and its driving me nuts.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh

well we sold our house in a pretty impressive 6 days.  Brilliant!  That said, we then came to the stark realisation that we had to get our rear ends in gear and find a place for us to buy.  Yikes!

so we took last Thursday off and spent the day trooping round houses and checking out peoples dodgy decor.  House hunting is a great way to remind yourself that one man's meat is another man's poison.  And also to help me put my decorating mistakes in context and realise that, whilst I have made some errors of judgement over the years, I do fundamentally own a certain level of taste compared to many a home-owner.   Then there was the house which had not be touched in 30 years, which seemed more like a museum or a tribute to the 1970's than somewhere you could actually set up home.  The owner also didn't believe in putting the heating on so the delightful 70's wallpaper was set off nicely by the smell of damp socks.  Yum.

We've seen some grim places and some lovely places, but so far not put in any offers.  One house has ticked our fancy but we are planning on checking out a few more this week just to see how it sits amongst the others.

we'll keep you posted! 

yikes...

so we got an offer, not a bad one actually, certainly not a cheeky one, but we're pushing it to see if we can get a little more.  and frantically searching for a House ourselves now.  We keep swinging between ostentatious frivolity, which would see us mortgaged up to our eyeballs for the rest of time, and frugal sensibleness which means less rooms/smaller garden/flock wallpaper but the ability to give up work sometime before the end of this century.

ah decisions decisions.

we have Thursday off to do some actual real house-hunting as opposed to the virtual stuff.

Girl in need of Kirsty and Phil....

Paul HATES Location Location Location.  Me, I love it.  Especially when Kirsty is pregnant cos she holds no prisoners when her hormones are a-raging.  We could really do with them now, although that plan is somewhat scuppered by Paul's visceral reaction.   I can imagine their insightful comments on our relationship as I stamp my feet and sulk when I don't get my own way, as Paul tries patiently to remind me that we can't afford the £500K barn conversion with a turret and a roll top bath.

As you may have guessed, we put the house on the market this week.  The guy came round Tues and took some photos, it was in the paper and on the website on Thurs and Sat morning we had a call that we had a viewing in the afternoon. 

Project Panic. 

Out went the chilled out plans of relaxing, shopping and a little lying on the sofa, and in came plans of scrubbing, shifting and generally hiding things in the loft.  It took most of the day but by god the house looks nice.  Why haven't we kept it like this for the past 3 years?  The cats were completely freaked out by the rare introduction of the hoover to the carpet, and we hid most of our OTT DVD collection in the loft (retaining key ones such as the Goonies for emergency viewing).  The final trick was moving a load of stuff to mum and dad's garage (serves them right for being in Vietnam!)

So after 2 viewings we were optimistic (in Paul's case - terrified) that there may actually be some movement in the housing market and therefore had to re-plan our Sunday to include checking out some houses for ourselves.  Cue me dragging Paul round Cheltenham and outskirts checking out the exteriors of houses to try and establish what does and doesn't get us excited in house terms.  Exhausting, but worthwhile.

One of the viewers came back this afternoon for a second look, strangely keen on establishing the number of socket points in each room.  Its a classic case of mummy and daddy buying a house for their 20ish year old "youth" son, who, whilst not completely conforming to the ASBO stereotype, had difficulty showing  a great deal of enthusiasm for the whole process.  Possibly based on the fact that his parents live about 2 streets away so he would be expecting to return home for tea and washing anyway.  I struggle to feel comfortable to sell my house to this kind of cliche, but frankly my morals can be twisted when it comes to cold hard cash.  Still, as Paul is frequently reminding me, the fat lady ain't yet sung, and even if we get an offer it's bound to be a cheeky low one.  Then comes the hard decisions, bargaining and panic that we need to make our own decisions on where we live.

Looks like the days of weekends watching back-to-back episodes of House may be put on hold for a while, as I deal with the other House-related challenges.