Mostly lemon based

Category: General

  • Just a quick trim…

    [shawn]

    (more…)

  • The good, the bad and the downright disasterous

    I’ve done it again. It’s another Rebecca. It is. I’m a big sensible adult now, and I can see when my insanity is trying to take me places where I really shouldn’t go. That’s why I’m getting a free timber and damp treatment survey done. And then I’m going down there with a surveyor who’ll do me a shiny shiny survey.

    But I love the house. God damn it, I love every mouse ridden damp rotting corner of it.

    [lots of pictures]

    (more…)

  • Do you see the impressed?

    Securon, the makers of my now faulty seatbelt and Charles Ware’s Morris Minor Centre in Bath have agreed, impressively, to replace with a new one, my 3 year old faulty seatbelt; this is better than I wanted and I am, to be honest, very impressed. Thus I shall favour them with gifts of cash (in exchange for a new hinge and a couple of windscreen wiper arms).

    In other news: The NHS has moved my appointment, thankfully to later the same day; but still. I have started to recognise that cheery NHS print on the envelopes and go ‘oh god, what day am I going *now*’.

    In other other news: My battle to get a letter between one consultant and one government department rages on; the consultant saying ‘it’s been sent’ and the government going ‘la la la not listening’. Thankfully I’m a student and this process is free, otherwise I’d really be ‘quite angry’. As it is I’m just kind of bored.

    Int other (other) other news: I’ve got an appointment to view this other house. I might do a driveby and see what it’s like – I *think* there might be pedestrian access to the back too (looking at the land registry – who now have a direct line to my bank account) so I may pop down there and have a nose beforehand.

    Sadly I can’t think of anything to describe as other (other) other (other) news, so I’ll stop there.

  • Sing if you’re proud to be British… Oh, you better not

    Uh, just click. Then weep for Britain.

  • Welcome to 1965

    Some things weren’t great about the 60s…

    Mmm, so lovely, so 60s, the kitchen of the past

    Tasteful, no?

    So I did my first house viewing today and I have to admit that I came away from it feeling… well… neutral. I didn’t love the house, and I didn’t hate it. I couldn’t see anything structurally terrible, it’s had its roof redone at some point, it had the potential for converting to a modern heating system pretty easily, but the floor layout sucked. Really sucked. And the potential for sorting out somewhere to park was small.

    And then we got into potential return; at the end of the day, whatever I did to it, a house in Barton Hill would struggle to recoup the money I put into it. I don’t want to make a huge profit (although I’m not averse to it) – I’m after somewhere to live. But I would like to get my money back.

    Obviously, having thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, I reached a stage of thinking, if it’s that hard then maybe that’s not the one for you. But I also had a bit of an epiphany. What I want is just not in my pricerange; it’s just not going to happen. So we have to reconsider ‘what I want’ and rephrase it to ‘what will be okay’.

    I’m not buying a house to be my home forever. I’m buying a house to hold me over until I can go to Canada. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

    And then I found another property, very similar ot the one I’ve just been looking at; sadly mid-terrace, not end terrace. Similar in fact, in virtually every way, except it sounds like it’s got a slightly better layout. Oh, and an outside toilet.

    It’s in a better area. If I’d’ve spotted it 20 minutes earlier I’d’ve rung and arranged a viewing; but sadly they were shut when I rang. So tomorrow, onto bigger and… well… actually largely the same size things. But hey :-)

    Hopefully I’ll feel more positive about the whole process tomorrow.

  • And with a summary of the news

    1: I’ve got my appointment through. It appears it may not be a mammogram; it’s a full breast exam though, comprising (potentially) an ultrasound (definate), a mammogram (possible), and a needle aspiration (hopefully unlikely).

    I am, unsuprisingly, not looking forward to this. It’s 5 days before my birthday. Be gentle with me, I’ll be stressed.

    2: My iPaq sleeve has arrived. It’s charging at this very moment. Now I need a PCMCIA -> CF card adaptor and the biggest CF card I can justify.

    3: I am going to look at a house tomorrow. I’m simultaneously scared and thrilled.

    4: I went swimming today. I need to go swimming more often, as I am unfit.

    5: My MP is on the committee examining the ‘Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill’; he seems to be pro it with some changes. I remain very skeptical. Infact, I remain against the bill’s passage to law.

    6: Securon wish to examine my faulty seatbelt to see what was wrong with it. I have been offered a new replacement on the basis that if Securon want it back after examining the faulty one then I give it back in 2 weeks time. *sigh*. I think that’s probably the best I’m going to get. So, I’ll give them a ring and arrange to drop it back on Friday (I hope).

  • Oh dear god I’m tired.

    So, Friday night, I’m planning my weekend away to say goodbye to Trey – who’s heading off to climates colder and more northern – and I arrive home after my day shift to a phone call which runs thus:

    Mum: “Kate… the cistern’s leaking again…. quite a lot…. do you think you could come down and fix it…”

    The temporary repair I did a while back (because I couldn’t get the right bit) had finally given up – well, actually it’s given up because I replaced the ball-valve with the same type of ball valve instead of going with my (feminine?) instinct and deciding that the plumber had fitted the wrong kind before and changing to the type of valve I thought it should be.

    Unfortunately I’d also agreed to collect my Victorian cistern for my new house (which I have not got) from Freecycle – before I left on Saturday – and so it was on Saturday morning that I flew out of the house and round Bristol to collect a toilet cistern. Having collected it the bloke said ‘do you want the toilet too?’ – I looked, and a Victorian toilet in *staggeringly* good condition (apart from being somewhat mud filled) became mine also. Of course, this meant that my original time saving plan was somewhat destroyed – having an *entire* toilet in the car was a bit much when travelling a couple of hundred miles.

    So, I switched back, headed home (enabling me (handily) to collect my camera); unloaded the toilet and cistern and piled back in the car only to discover… a car accident.

    Then I joined the M4 Roadworks queues. I got to my mums. I fixed her toilet cistern (seeing a pattern?). I jumped in the car and (more…)

  • Today

    So, after I posted my last post, Nikki – friend and saviour – came round and persuaded me to take the day off work and just try to get my mind off stuff. After a cup of coffee, and me nearly breaking down on the phone to work in a conversation which ran:

    Kate: Oh hi *name*; It’s Kate, I’m afraid I won’t be in this afternoon…
    Colleague: Oh… Are you okay?
    Kate: Um. Err. Not err….really….no. *concentrates on not crying* Um. I’ll be in tomorrow though.

    This is of course patently ridiculous, but it’s so much not what I need at the moment. Anyway, I spent the day round at Nikki’s, we went out and found the house I was interested in was sold yesterday (my fault, I didn’t notice it was in an earlier auction than I thought it was. Which is a bugger). In fact, that made me feel even more crap.

    But after a while we went and played with her welder:

    Not too bad for a first days attempt. Lots more practice required though I suspect.

    And now I’m home I’m going to watch Anime and eat Pizza.

  • I’m sure it’s nothing, but…

    Medical related. Possibly triggering. Possibly TMI. (more…)

  • Unclean! Unclean!

    When I was filled with the youthful joys of the world (i.e. a few years ago) estate agents (realtors) were considered somewhat slimey. Indeed, my family’s experience with them left me thinking that dealing with Estate Agents was somewhat like diving headlong into a bucket of jellied eels.

    Dealing with estate agents was an experience wont to make you wash yourself clean afterwards.

    Oddly though, their obsequeous nature appears to have vaporised. I presume this is because houses more or less sell themselves, and the job of the estate agent is now to simply extract money from you – not to actually put any effort into finding houses for you or anything silly like that, because you’ll find the house using the internet, turn up, view it and buy it or not. They are now glorified typists – putting houses on the market at ridiculously insane prices (entering their details on their website) and then creaming off a huge chunk of the money.

    *sigh*

    Anyway, dealing with them today left me feeling frustrated, annoyed and completely demotivated.  Well, that and dealing with my favourite government deparment again. Oh, and the NHS. *sigh*

    I don’t really have any energy and this just saps what little there is right out of me. Like a fracking vampire.