So, I’m sick. Contact with a cold-riddled Doctor (who caught it from some gunky human who came to the ED because they had… a cold) means that I’m feeling a bit crap. I feel like I’ve been ill loads this year, but that doesn’t really tally with reality, because I’ve had very few days off sick. I suppose I’ve probably toughed it out a fair bit, but I can’t be arsed on nights. I feel like crap and I was given the ‘go home early’ option and took it.
So, the world and it’s dog seem to have been plodding along just fine – I have been at work for what feels like an eternity. I originally had a long / complex post considering the vast awesome building project (in Cotham), which we’d been considering – the costings for which were coming in quite a lot higher than expected, really (much more than the per-metre cost we’d been looking at) – but that is now quite simply off the cards. The mortgage company informed us that their self-build mortgage requires that you:
(a) Own the land
(b) You complete the building up to the first floor level, and have it watertight, before they’ll give you cash
This simply falls into ‘not going to happen’ land. We could buy the land, potentially, but the fact that it has a building on it which is zoned as a commercial building, it turns out, is a further stumbling block. That would have to have a change-of-use approved and through before we could take out the mortgage too. It’s all just way too complex for us to do, and too expensive. Whilst we’re both sad at the passing of an opportunity to make something awesome in an area we’d like to live in, with potential for vast vast profit; we were both reasonably prepared for the possibility that it wouldn’t happen. And frankly, we’d both like to have a bit more garden.
On the plus side, Kathryn’s got a job interview – which conveniently falls on a day when we were planning to head that way anyway (albeit in the evening).
We also have a few houses for which we want to schedule viewings, and one of the houses we saw last week has real potential. Actually, they both do, but one of them was so damp it’s main potential was becoming a swimming pool – which was a real shame, because the house was a really interesting and attractive house. But so damp. And the plot of land it was on was sadly way too small and next to a main road.
We are, as usual, drawn towards where you compromise. Our wish list is impossible (or at least improbable) at our price bracket:
– Period
– Big garden
– Scope for improvement
– Garage or space for garage (or decent and significant off road parking, at a push)
– Interesting area (St. Werbergs, or Redland, or Cotham, hell even Bishopston or St. Andrews), or Countryside
– Commutable from Bath and Bristol
And it’s the location that is, as usual, losing out. Because some things we “need” and some things we “want”, and that’s the most flexible. It’s also lost out a bit because of where we are at jobs wise. We don’t know where Kathryn’s working, but I need to commute to Bath and we want to be near N&K&DDx2, and that lops a great chunk of Bristol and environs out.
Anyhow, plan is to go and see some houses, spend some time with the Kate/Nikki/DD Group and then go and see my mum. I have my Occy Health appointment for my new job, and also next week I start my course, say Hi (virtually) to my coursemates, and wonder what the ICU Docs are going to make of the one and only ED Nurse on the course. Colour me terrified. Lets hope they have a bit more respect for ED nurses than some of the new docs we’ve had in our department. Also planned for next week, or at least faintly pencilled in is collecting Rebecca Mog. For the first time in over a year she’s sporting a valid MOT and Tax Disc.
I’m hoping that the oil leak from the gearbox is sorted (apparently she was missing a seal*), the temperature gauge was apparently reading high (although we think there may have been a not-connected-via-voltage-stabiliser issue there), and the windscreen seal has been replaced without issue. I’m desperate to drive her, having been minorless for a year and a bit now.
Also, hopefully, we’ll get some interest (as in offer-shaped, as opposed to viewing shaped) in the house. People have been to see, and sounded quite positive today (we were in, due to an unnoticed message saying “you’ve got a viewing”). It’d be really nice if it could all come together at this point – I’m hoping to get a ‘Mortgage Promise’ on Monday, and after viewing a few more houses we may be more in a position to make an offer (subject to our house selling) – which would be cool. Knowing where we’re going and that we’re selling would be a huge weight off (I think) both our minds (certainly mine).
Anyhow. Oh, in other news, I’m hoping to get Dead Bug Jumping done next week. No promises until I’ve seen my workload for the MSc, but we’ll give it a go.
* I wonder if seals are human constructs too. That’d be why the gearbox place didn’t put them in, given that they don’t believe in other human constructs like, for example, time…
