Blimey where to start?!

Ah well let's go back to the big birthday... I spent the day at Champneys spa in Forest Mere which was bloody ruddy fantastic. Just pure luxury all day. We arrived in the morning and immediatly were handed white, fluffy robes which we then wore for the rest of the day. We swam, steamed, jacuzzied, cycled (not in the robe for that part!), sunbathed, got massaged, listened to talks and gorged ourselves on healthy-but-very-tasty buffet food.

I went with Den because it really wasn't Nick's cup of tea and it was just brilliant. Guess which celeb we saw there? Only Helen Mirren! The Queen no less. In the evening I went out with Nick for a thai meal to Mango's, a really cute little restaurant in Southampton. So a good 30th birthday and just what I fancied after weeks of grotty DIY.

Then it was back to working on the house, work work work blah blah for a couple of days before a weekend up in Berwick Upon Tweed with our friends Bob & Miles. There were about 17 of us in their huge, regal house all there to have a great time and they didn't disappoint. They cooked for all of us on the first night in true formal dinner party style, we played croquet at a manor house on the second day and finally all went to see Re-Take That. It was Bob's 30th and Miles had booked the band to play at the local theatre where he's the artistic director, all for her benefit. What a guy! Steve came with us in the Enema (new car) thank God to share the 9 hour drive there and back. So anyway a great weeked with such lovely people. There was much drinking, clubbing in dodgy clubs and eating of toast and cake.

Following that it was back to the grind of daily DIY, dust and plaster yada yada. Then the weekend following that one was again another cracker with a trip up to London to see James & Donna and stay with them in their lovely house. I managed to get to the Royal Academy to see the opening of their Waterhouse retrospective which was wonderful and magical in equal parts, and I also went on an afternoon hen party for my friend SJ who is getting married next month. We met up at a Pottery Cafe in Fulham to paint jugs then went back to Tania's flat for afternoon tea and a game of All Star Mr & Mrs featuring SJ & Mike on video! After a lovely afternoon I met up with James & Donna again and the 4 of us had a barbecue. It was swelteringly hot and the tube was unbearable which was the only downer.. I just could not handle London every day.

On Sunday afternoon we left them and drove up to Suffolk to see Leni, Dom & Huckleberry at their cottage in the countryside. Dom had built a homemade hot tub in the garden which involved a fire, pump, pipes and a large water tank. It worked really well! They are so clever at that sort of thing. Little Huck had grown up loads and was brilliant fun, and even Squeak the cat kind of behaved. He wasn't quite as wild as last time we saw him. We stayed with them for 2 nights and now we're back in Southampton after the WORST M25 drive I have ever experienced. Some big accident with a lorry on fire and 3 hours extra added on to our journey on one of the hottest days of the year. Cheers.

I've spent the last couple of days bagging up loads of rubble and taking them down to the recycling centre. Lots of patio slabs and bricks as well. Hot, tiring, sweltering work if I'm honest. The good news is that while we were away a guy called Dave has taken down the wall between our kitchen and our dining room and put in a very neat, boxed in steel beam to keep the ceiling from falling down. Also a guy called Toby has dug up our entire driveway with a mini digger, put in a soil pipe and filled it in again. The driveway now looks like shit but it means we will be able to have a shit under the stairs with a proper drainpipe. Hurrah!

It's Nick's birthday on Saturday so I'm looking forward to that, we're going up to Salibury for a party at Alex & Jess's house which is in fact for Alex's 30th (2 days after Nick's) so we are going to totally gatecrash and make it a joint party. I might even sneak in a cake...

The Big One

So... it's my thirtieth birthday coming up next week, bit of a big occasion. We've been working every day on the house and I'm feeling physically knackered pretty much every evening. What I wanted for my birthday was the complete, total opposite type of experience to being covered in bleach/plasterdust and feeling very unnatractive.

My mother in law and I are going to go and spend the day at Champneys having massages, lazing around on sunbeds, swimming, cycling and eating lovely healthy food. I absolutely cannot wait as I've heard it's just amazing. And in the evening my husband is taking me out for a thai meal.

The house is progressing along... we're doing as much as we can ourselves. We're concentrating on the lounge at the moment which has taken a lot of preparation to get it back to bare, healthy looking walls. We've treated all of the mould with neat bleach, replastered and sealed the walls now ready for painting. Today Nick replaced the plug sockets and we took up all the upstairs carpets and lino and ran them down the dump. Interesting eh!

Ah well not much energy at the moment so going to sign off, sorry not a very exciting post...

BOO!

there you go

The DIY Begins...

It was the first day of full on internal work at the house today. Nick's sister Holly came too and we spent the day peeling back layers upon layers of flock and woodchip wallpaper - nice. It had been painted so was a bastard to soak off hence a day of solid work with not much to show for it at the end of the day. Oh well still it all counts towards the finish line eh. It was also very, very mouldy and fungal so we had to wear dust masks as we were making clouds of spores rise into the air with every scrape of the paper.

Slightly distracted as am watching obese teenagers on the telly while typing this and also stuffing my face with popcorn at the same time. Thems real big fatties! If I eat enough popcorn maybe I can look like that one day! Oh my goodness so BGT finished and now SueBo is in the Priory in London after having a breakdown. Such car crash tv you've got to love it/hate it but ultimately watch it! We recorded it and watched it yesterday, fast forwarding all the crap bits which is the only way.

So we had the weekend off from working on the garden/house. Instead we spent Saturday sunbathing then drove to Devises in Wiltshire for a wedding reception in the evening. It was a gorgeous do in a very posh boarding school building, like something out of Harry Potter . It's half term so luckily no kids around and it was really fun walking around reading all the rules on the boards and stuff.

My Dad & his partner Maggie were there and it was lovely to see them, especially to give our support to Maggie as her daughter very sadly just lost her baby girl. She was 2 weeks old and had been very poorly from the start with a very rare muscle condition. It was poor Maggie's first grandchild and I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like for her, Kirsty & Andy. They live out in Budapest which makes it hard as all their family and friends are back in the UK. it was just been incredibly sad and horrific for everyone and poor little Ella never really had a chance. It's so hard to even know what to say, everything you can think of sounds trite and cheesy. Anyway Dad & Maggie came to Southampton yesterday to see the house which was good. I'm glad they've seen it at the start of the renovations, it will look very different next time I hope.

Well I got rid of my grotty cold of last week but have a lingering hoarse throat so sound really gruff and manly. Feeling OK but really physically tired still from all the physical work. OH I just sneezed twice I shouldn't have written that I've jinxed myself.

You may have noticed...

... that I haven't been bothered to update my blog in the last couple of weeks. The odd video is all I have been arsed to do. Nick's only just shown me how I can put vid's on here so it's the complete novelty factor and you can expect many more.

Seriously though, at the start of it I didn't have anything to tell you or much to say. Then we went and finally exchanged on the house (YAY YAY YAY) and since then I have been too exhausted and knackered to find the time. Lame excuse, but I'm not used to intense physical exercise plus I have a stinking cold which is not helping matters. It's either a cold or it's hayfever but I'm pretty sure I don't get hayfever and I have that kind of buzzy head ears feeling which only comes with a cold. So. Busy busy busy.

The two of us have been spending the last few days clearing the garden, which isn't huge but is hugely overgrown and we have made 8 trips so far to Southampton recycling centre with a minivan load of garden waste. That's a lot of waste! And a lot of snails and spiders too. We found two slow worms today (is that how you spell that? Looks wrong.) which I am very excited to have in my garden. I love slow worms.

Obviously we went to see Juliette Lewis and the New Romantiques last Tuesday which was just amazing, then we exchanged contracts on Wednesday. We haven't completed yet, just waiting for the money from the bank but we are allowed to do the garden. Just can't get inside the house so luckily the next door neighbour Lucy is letting me use her outside loo! And there is a tap so we have water, although it runs at a trickle.

My arms and face are covered in scratches, I have weird sunburn marks on my back and I feel hideously unnatractive in my dirty, dusty gardening clothes which is what I've been in to meet all of our new neughbours in. They keep popping round to offer us cups of tea, tours of their own houses, gardening sacks, stepladders, garden chairs and one guy even came around with his petrol mower to do our back lawn! How amazingly nice are they all!!??? I have never known anything like it. Hopefully bodes well.

Ah well I am finding it hard to type as my fingers are tired and besides, Britain's Got Talent is on later and I need to save my energy to shout at the telly. Night! x

Juliette Lewis gig at the Talking Heads

'In The Navy' Ugliest Head Competition

Snatch Wars! Genius.

Stinky Feet

So it's probably my own fault for buying shoes at Primark but my GOD do my feet smell at the moment. My £3 pumps were clearly that price for a good reason.... that reason being they are lined with the crusts of cheese wheels. But I can't blame Primark really because my espadrilles also stink and they came from Debenhams.

The worst culprits are my Primark grey slippers. A couple of days ago we went out in Nick's Mums car to go on a muddy countryside walk and we all grabbed a pair of clean shoes to wear on the way back as she'd just got her car back from the garage, it was nice and clean and we didn't want to muddy it all up inside. So we went for this lovely walk in the warm sunshine and I had hastily picked up my slippers as we ran out of the door. Being left in the nice warm car they started to pong so intensely that the entire interior of the vehicle was imprinted with their foul odour. Poor Nick & Den had to suffer it the entire drive back. I found it funny which didn't help the situation; for some reason when it's your own smell it's not so bad. I think it's like that with farts isn't it, lets be honest. Weird how certain shoes smell and others don't at all though, isn't it. Don't worry, they've been boiled in the washing machine and smell like roses now. My slippers not my feet.

I am still jog jog jogging across the common here in Southampton a few times a week. Not sure whether I'm actually improving as I still find it quite hideously tiring and am a bit start/stop every few minutes. Got to be good though, that's what I keep telling myself.

I don't want to drone on about the house right now but it is still happening despite the efforts of the surveyor and we live in hope that it will all be resolved soon. I am enjoying the calm before the storm, so to speak, as when it completes my life will begin again as 24/7 DIY torture which I am slightly dreading. Nick is looking forward to it and I am dreading it. At least we're coming into the Summer. At least I won't be around there in gloves, scarves and two jumpers.

This will be the third place I've tackled in terms of renovation/decoration. The second project was our last home in Guernsey which was a three bedroom maisonette. I was in the middle of doing that when I started this blog, all those years ago. Before that we bought and did up an apartment in Plymouth on the waterfront. That was a one bedroom top floor place and my first attempt. It was very hard work, not least because it had no lift and we had to carry everything up several flights of stairs. The Guernsey project was much bigger and took much longer. This is bigger still, and is a house not a flat. I am slightly scared, it will be a lot of work and I am quite workshy, let's face it. It is, however, a beautiful house and in my mind I can see it finished. I've just been watching flipping Kirsty flipping Allsopp on the telly with her new show where she does up her Devon farmhouse by prancing around making candles and blowing glass. If only it were that simple Kirsty.

Although I really do miss my old home in Guernsey I know we sold it at the right time. I think I will always feel a bit sad about selling it because we did that place up with such love and effort it was a real emotional wrench when we left. I think it has made me stronger to sell and part with it because it was only a possession at the end of the day. Anyway why I think we sold it at the right time is because they have just announced house prices in Guernsey are down by about 12% and also because the land around it is now being developed so it's surrounded by noisy building sites.

And now we've also sold our campervan which was kind of our second home after Guernsey so now I feel like I am really homeless and don't have any possessions in the world. Although that is rubbish becuase I have a Fiat Punto and a room packed to the ceiling full of possessions in a secure lock up here in the city. Still, I have that vagabond feeling. Can't really explain. It's a bit frustrating because I really like having my own place and taking care of it and having friends round and most importantly having my own space. I have the best in laws in the world, I really couldn't imagine any better people to live with but sometimes I crave my own space. I think it's because I'm self concious and a bit of a twat at times and it' nice to do embarrasing things in private.

Alex I love your reading suggestion. Right up my street I would think. I have just read Silence of the Lambs which was yes, very good, but my favourite was Hannibal. That is one of the best books probably that I have read. Just so well written. I have a lot of time on my hands for reading at the moment! This blog is turning into my weekly book review.

Achy Legs

Well I've just come back from two laps of hoofing around Southampton Common. It was my first jog for over a week and it really felt extremely knackering. Can't say as I particularly enjoyed it but I do need to fitten up. Because I've been doing nothing but fattening up for the last few months and I need to turn that around. I've invested in some Nike running shoes from TKMaxx so I'm not buggering up my knees any more when I stamp around with my head down and the earplugs in. I do have achy legs now though, hence the title of this post.

I was watching some old home videos the other day from about 8 years ago and I was a stick thin beanpole and didn't even know it. I think my metabolism must have altered over the last few years because I never used to bother to diet, just ate what I liked and didn't seem to have a problem. Arrrrgh cruel world! Now I have old ladies flabster upper arms that I want to lipo nad make a strawberry smoothie out of.

I have just come back from a week in mid Devon at my Dad's place. He was there with Maggie and the three of us went on some Devonshire rambles... across Dartmoor, Exmoor and through Lyndon gorge and it's big waterfall. I finally dug out my poor old cello and have been making lots of screeching wails on it... so depressing to think I used to be able to play grade 7/8 pieces and now I am so rubbish. Totally my own fault for not touching it for 11 years though... Anyway it's a lovely sounding instrument, must try to practise.

So the house is still being a nightmare. We are still trying to buy it but the surveyor was a right anus and put a 100% retention on it so we can't get our money. We're now having to get a buildings insurance claim instigated on the property by the current owner so we can satisfy the stupid bank. Even that might not do it, it's a total depressing disaster at the minute. We know it doesn't have subsidence, we've had our own surveyor plus a foundations expert look at it but that isn't enough for the dickhead surveyor that's doing the valuation for the bank.

And I've got unusually good hair today, which makes a change from the frizzy, mushroom cloud norm. Den has been at me with her original 1970's heated rollers and they are awesome! My hair looks Hollywood-curl chic. I literally feel like a filmstar from the neck up.

I've been feeling Jane Austen-tastic recently and am currently on Sense & Sensibility after just finishing Persuasion. I finished the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer which was highly enjoyable, in a kind of Christopher Pike/Point Romance teenage angsty way. Alex I see your point about it being Mormon propaganda but I still think you can read and enjoy them without having to take that on board. Very similar to CS Lewis and Narnia which I loved when I was little. There is some disturbing stuff going in the last couple of Twilight books which didn't sit that well with me, such as the imprinting, but in general I just like them in a Mills & Boon guilty pleasure kind of way... you know they're kind of shit and full of plot holes but you can't help enjoying them... kind of like a Big Mac or an episode of Hollyoaks. I will say that they arent anywhere near as good as Anne Rice's books if you're into your Vamp literature, but they are silly and easy to read.

I'm now also reading the Dr Strange and Mr Norrrel series, which is awesome. Adult Harry Potter set in 19th century London and written like a tongue in cheek Jane Austen novel... just genius.

Christmas Art

Here's a couple of drawings I made for people for last Christmas. The one of Mickey came out alright and the one of the twins is OK but it's really hard to draw babies facial expressions. I also did one of Nick's Mum & Dad but I don't have a photo of that one. Nick made me take these two.

Well I am off for another run this morning. My fourth time since coming back from Spain, I'm trying to go most mornings and I think my muscles are getting a bit less achy.

Via Espana

We're back in Southampton where is quite a bit colder than Spain. Southern Spain was gloriously warm for 5 out of the 7 days we were there. The other 2 is was kind of windy and cold, but that was OK as we found stuff to do. It was a very relaxing week and we visited a lot of places and found time for lots of sunbathing as well.

We visited Gibraltar, which is bizarrely British and quite tacky (the town part). The rock is lovely though, with friendly monkeys and an impressive cave system that I didn't want to leave. I could seriously become a cave dweller if they all have cool lighting and play soothing, classic music like this one had, it was really magical with crazy droopy dripping stalactites that looked like melted candle wax and fishes gills.

We also drove a couple of hours north from the coast to visit the Alhambra Palace in Granada. It is more like 4 Palaces, all perched on an impressive hilltop, and I'm so pleased we had the chance to see it. You can see from the photos below that there is a lot to take in, and I'm really glad we went in March when it wasn't too hot.

Aside from those two highlights, we also went out from Calahonda (where we were staying in a friends apartment) to Mijas, a pretty hilltop town, Marbella which is pretty and massively touristy, and Puerto Banus which is quite expensive and not that impressive. Both in Marbella and Puerto Banus it is pricey, but if you go to the smaller, less touristy towns close by it becomes cheaper for drinks and food.

So a good week. And now we're back to the house buying shenanigans here with lots to sort out. I have a lovely tan but I'm sure it is soon to fade.

I am loving the Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer at the moment. Just watched the film which made me laugh unintentionally, but the books! The books are cool. I think all romantic girls everywhere can't fail to enjoy them, but boys will probably not, in general. Anyway I've got Nick's sis reading them and we're both loving them and can't put them down. I also read Wetlands by Charlotte Roche the other week, now that was something a bit out of the ordinary. Wouldn't say it was brilliant but it's quite unusual! Quite un-British in attitude.

The Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain!

*~*~*FAIRY GODMOTHER*~*~*

Here are a few pics of Catherine, Damian and their gorgeous little girl, Samantha! She's about 5 weeks old in these photos and as you can see she is already getting to grips with the camera. I went up to see them in Dunham Massey for a few days last week which was really lovely. Their tabby cat Tom was also a complete tart in front of the lens as you can see.

Damian works as the Head Gardener at the National Trust place there and they live in the most wonderful crazy old house, with a menagerie of animals including chickens and chinchillas. Catherine is pretty much the oldest friend I have; when we were little we used to pretend we were Princesses from the planet Zultria and through our teenage years we developed a penchant for Guns N Roses and the film Lost Boys.

Anyway they have wisely (?!) asked me to be Sam's Godmother which is awesome and a first for me. VERY exciting.

In other news we have negotiated a few grand off the house as the drains have all collapsed at the back, and it's pretty much all steam ahead with the trying to buy it thing. Went looking at kitchens in Ikea this afternoon, it was rather overwhelming.

Nick & I are flying to Malaga this Friday for a week. His folks are already out there and staying at a friends villa so we're all going to hang out and get some sunshine. We're going to Calahonda, but where I really really want to go is Granada so that I can visit the Alhumbra Palace. It's kind of a 'must see' for me. I think it's a couple of hours away so that's do-able.

I've started jogging! How about that. Not very far and not very fast and in completely unsensible shoes but nevertheless. I swallowed a fly last time I went out and even that didn't put me off, even though it made me retch. Need to lose a few pounds and generally be a more healthy person so while I'm not working it seems like a good thing to do. Makes me feel all smug and self satisfied saying that I go jogging, I think that's half the reason people do it if I'm honest. I'll most likely give up soon so better enjoy that feeling while it lasts!

Pictures of the House...

I like the front door. It is wider than average and with the pretty window above it.

2nd pic is the dining room, complete with a couple of original cupboards.


The 3rd shows the view from the front a bit better than the last picture. Also here we have the inside of the garage and one of the upstairs bedrooms.
Then no.6 is me looking very seriously at the cracks up the side. Someone told us it was old bomb damage from the Second World War! It is entirely possible which is very exciting.


And a few more pics of the outside at the back. The garden goes back about 70ft but it utterly overgrown and hard to make out in this pic. The second to last pic is the kitchen which yes, does need some work. It's still early days.. looks like we are buying this place. Whether that is a sensible idea or not I'm still not sure but I feel a bit more chilled out about it now!

In un-house related news I have been not working, just behaving like a retired person really! With lots of walks in the countryside and visits to the New Forest. We went for a picnic there on Monday and I had to shout 'BAH!" at the naughty ponies and wave my arms at them because they caught a whiff of the mini cheddars and were trying to trample down our picnic blanket. Earlier that day we did a 5 mile walk called the Lepe Loop and we saw a field of Llamas plus a buzzard. Wildlife a plenty! Yesterday I went JOGGING can you believe around Southampton Common and today my legs ache so much I can hardly do stairs. And this morning I had my hair highlighted for £16 at Southampton College by a student. Bargain of the century as it's turned out really nice. I don't think I'm ever going to pay for a proper hairdresser again! They also do a whole range of massages and facials which are all under a tenner... fantastic. I will definitely be going back.

Lifted from facebook...

So this is a things from facebook where you put an X by each book that you have read. The government (?) reckons that each of us have read at least 6 of these. I've cheated slightly because there are a couple here that I didn't finish... and you can't include films. I've kept this lest on my blog so I can update it if and when I read any more.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks X
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere X
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson X
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton X
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Photo From the Uptairs Window

So this kind of shows part of the U shape of houses that this house is a part of. The green in the middle is a large, shared area plus we also would have a big back garden. This photo doesn't really show you but it is rather lovely and Jane Austen esque as you walk around it.

Still as Undecided as a Fat Bird in a Cake Shop Who's Only Allowed To Buy One Thing

ARRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

DOUBLE AAAAAARHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Looks like we're buying the house.

We had our offer accepted and went around there yesterday and today with various surveyors/drains people to give quotes and advice. My head it is literally spinning like a jet propelled top from what they said and I still don't know if we're doing the right thing. Thank you guys for all the advice though, I love you all! That sounded cheesy and American but it is true.

The main things about the house is that it either has a) possibly wall tie failure or b) possibly a collapsed drain that has caused cracking and a small amount of subsidence. It has a few cracks on the gable end and it's knowing what those cracks are that is the issue. When the house was flooded last month there was over and inch of water throughout the ground floor so you can imagine the state of the plaster and floors in there. We are either brave or stooopid in believing we are tough enough to take it on.

Nick went up into the very dirty loft around there yesterday and found a very old book on existential philosophy. Maybe I should read it to find out if we're doing the right thing! It seems to be whispering "get a job get a job", it's a feisty little number.

Still it's not 100% that we're doing it but rather than 50/50 I would say it's more like 60/40 for. It's making me feel physically sick with nerves and I nearly vommed the other night which is kind of good as my appetite has been slightly suppresed. Great way to lose weight! No, obviously I don't want to be so stressed that I puke but we made some bad financial decisions last year that ended costing us potentially thousands of pounds and I can't bear the thought that we're being stupid with our money again so I am really, really nervous about it. Still, I pretty much hate all banks as a result so I would rather have our savings tucked away in a property than in a bank at the moment. I think. Interest rates suck arse right now, that's for sure.

This is the most awesome book I have read in a long time. Just go and get it out of your library and savour it. I steamed through it in a few days and kind of wish I had taken my time to enjoy slowly. Honest, it's brilliant!

Oh - also read 'The Graveyard Book' by Neil Gaiman, another brilliant one although it's for the sort of Harry Potter age group. Doesn't matter! Kids books rule!

You Spin Me Right Round Baby

The last few days have been pretty hectic, in an emotional (definitely not physical, we have been really lazy) way. We were supposed to be heading off by ferry to France next week to begin our Euro travels 2009. Instead we found a house that we both felt ticked all the right boxes for us here in Southampton and have been toing and froing with offers via the estate agents. We didn't plan on buying a property until we finished our travels but Nick has been keeping an eye on the market around this particular area that we like here in the city and this particular one really does look good. We viewed it on Tuesday and since then have been going around in circles changing our life plans.

It is a total wreck, with water everywhere inside from a terrible leak and cracks on the outside that worry me a great deal. It hasn't been lived in for a while and smells awful inside. EVERYTHING need doing - electrics, knocking walls down, plasterwork, central heating....

It is a Herbert Collins house, in a listed conservation area. It is beautiful from the outside and is in an estate that feels like something straight out of Jane Austen. It has a long back garden that faces southwest, the best direction in my opinion.... three bedrooms, garage, parking, lounge and a separate dining room. So even though it needs a shit load of work it could be really really something special. These properties are very much in demand historically speaking, but with the market the way it is who knows what the future holds.

Of course it's going around and around my head that we are buying at a really bad time and the market could drop considerably so we would have to get a really good deal on it. It will be really complicated to do up as well, especially if the cracks are subsidence. And our travels would have to be put on hold. I wish someone could just say to me the right thing to do. Do we go for it (and remember it is really very rare that a Collins house crops up on the market with parking) or stop being so silly and continue with our travels??? There is no easy answer and it doesn't help that family members seem to be either extremely for it or vehemently against it.

These things are sent to try us, right?

Back in Sarfampton

I'm feeling a bit more bloggie now that I'm back from skiing. I think my new years resolution should have been to blog post more than once a month for 2009. Of course that is easier said than done, especially when facebook is such a darned distraction...

Skiing in Bulgaria rocked. Officially. The flight was better than anticipated, as the plane was much more modern than the Monarch one we flew to Florida on last summer. We lucked out with the extra legroom seats as well which was fortuitous. And they even gave us shepherds pie! Even though is was only a shortish flight! All is forgiven.

Once we arrived at Sofia airport we were whisked to our hotel by coach with a bunch of other trippers. It was WEIRD to be on a package holiday after all of our travels, and have all the guides trying to sell you excursions and all that crap. It was late at night when we arrived so couldn't take in the surroundings very well but it was definitely snowy. And icy and cold.

The Rila hotel was huge and very budget, despite it being rated somehow as 4 stars. Am I just too picky? Nick summed it up well when we described it as '80's Novotel stylee'... Our room was a really good size with en suite bathroom and big corner balcony and telly, but it was horrendously noisy late at night, quite cold, with very dodgy electrics that blew twice and yellowy/brown tap water. Nice. It was such a cheap holiday that I shouldn't complain, it really was fine to be honest, once we'd made some earplugs out of toilet paper. CLEAN toilet paper.

There were different areas to ski in which was good; lower down the slopes were quite busy and full of dangerous beginners falling around everywhere, but you could take a gondola right up to the top of the Musala mountain and there were quite a few great runs up there at the top. Sadly on 2 days the gondola was closed due to high winds but we found a third area with 3 different red runs to play on. No broken bones to report, just one rather large bruise on the side of my thigh that is shaped exactly like the end of my ski pole! It has snowed just prior to our arrival but then didn't show all week so by the end the lower slopes were getting back to bare earth, thick slush and ice. I found them quite a challenge like that but Nick didn't really like them and stayed off. We saw many people on crutches in our hotel, I feel quite lucky I wasn't one of them.

I really am so pleased to have gone, the last time I was so slow and couldn't turn and now I am much faster, can turn and even managed a black run at one point. To be fair I didn't realise it was black until we'd reached the bottom and Nick spotted the sign, or I wouldn't have done it. I felt quite confident on the red runs by the end of the week.

Borovets itself is very chavvy and seedy, with lots of go-go erotic bars and crap like that. Bars pumping out Euro pop selling 'full English breakfasts' and telling you they're 'cheap price! Asda price!' I guess that's what most Brits want when they go abroad. Very cringeworthy.

In other news! ... My very good friend Catherine and her husband Damian have just had a baby! She is called Samantha Elizabeth and was born on Thursday 5th Feb weighing just under 6lb. Massive congratulations to them both and hurry up and post some pics on facebook or your blog please...

We are hanging around in the UK until this weekend when our friend Ben is coming down from Birmingham to stay. Then we plan to hit the road, Jack, at some time next week., depending on snow/ice conditions here and in northern Europe. This week we are getting the van ready and keeping busy doing lots of last minute things. The van is being serviced today so fingers crossed they don't find anything terribly wrong with her.