Monday, November 16, 2009

A word (or several)

Over the weekend we cleared out the shed. I say “we” but really, I mean “he”. In fairness, most of the crap in there was the boyf’s and not mine. It’s much tidier in there now. I even managed to get a space on the shelf for my few plant pots and tools. I’m not very green fingered, but I am enjoying trying!

So, after we (this time I do mean we) took all the crap from the shed to the tip (everything from bike tyres to cardboard boxes) we made a start on the living room cum dining room.

You see, we live in an old Victorian terraced house. Once upon a time it would have been two rooms downstairs, but at some point (probably in the 70s or 80s) the owners decided to knock through and make it into one long awkward room instead of two small dark rooms. While I can see the logic, I’m not a fan of knocked-through. It was one of the things I compromised on when we chose this house. I’m going to be less easily swayed this time, I promise.

Anyway, for the last year or two we have had the “dining room” end at the front of the house and the “living room” end at the back. It works well that way round, except for the wiring issues.

However, we’re thinking about selling the house and moving somewhere with a little more space, preferably a drive and/or garage, space for chickens and possibly further livestock*, out-buildings would be nice, or more rooms than we need inside.

Of course, there’s no way we can afford a house which has all of that, and is in a fit state to move in to without much work, and so we need to consider that. After the nightmare** that fitting the kitchen has been, I’m not especially keen to do it again. However I’m not enamoured with new-builds because they tend to have very, very small gardens.***

Anyway – where was I? Oh yes, the room. So since we eventually want to sell the place we’re going to put it back to the “conventional” way around. Or rather, we partially have, this weekend. It’s not so great at the moment because we’ve only moved the sofas, computer, fridge**** and dining table and chairs. This has not worked because there’s a big old bookshelf in the way of where the sofa should be, and therefore the sofas overlap in a bit of a mad way at the moment. We can live with it until we move the bookshelves, DVD shelf, CD shelf, Hamsters and the Welsh dresser. (Indeed).

Yeah, so not content with the chaos we had, we’re making more.

On the up-side, we have made an appointment with our mortgage lender and our bank to talk money, because if we can’t borrow what we think we need, we’re not going anywhere for now.


I’ve a lot planned for the next few weeks, it always gets a bit hectic around this time of year.

Firstly I’m off to Harrogate on Friday for the Knitting and Stitching show. This will be my third year there! I’ve given myself a much smaller budget this year than last, mainly because I already have quite a lot of yarn^, but also because of my next point…

Secondly we’re going on the work “London Weekender” trip. Mainly because the overnight stay is in our old university town of Harrow (well, almost – it’s in Kenton) – the boyfriend and I met at uni, and have fond memories of Harrow especially. We’ll probably do some free stuff in the day, like visiting the Natural History Museum^^. I’m also thinking about going to one of the London LYS, but I’ll check if they’re open first.

Monday next week we’re at the mortgage people.

Wednesday we’re at a party/dinner/charity thing.

Then, the weekend after that my folks are visiting to help turn the kitchen door around, to take away the fridge (and hopefully some of the tools) and such. I also plan to buy an iPhone that weekend as we will have been paid.

And then!

Christmas party: 4th Dec (before which I need a haircut)

Two whole free weekends pass before my Team Christmas Lunch (on a Tuesday), then Mum and Dad are visiting for Mum’s birthday – we’re taking her to Betty’s.

After that there’s just One Week until Christmas!^^^





*Potentially including goats, sheep, rabbits, ducks and/or geese. But probably not a cow.
**Okay, so it hasn’t been that bad, but being without a kitchen for a time is not fun, I get fatter and don’t get to cook (which I enjoy), and we spend too much money on takeaways.
***Not that our yard is that big, but I don’t want a six bedroom mansion with a garden the size of a postage stamp.
****So we have a new fridge in the kitchen, but I promised my Mum she could have the old fridge freezer, so it’s standing in the middle of my “dining room”.
^Now, I’m not going to suggest that I have enough yarn, or dareIsayit, too much, but I do have a lot.
^^If we actually make it there, since this will be at least our third “trek” to Kensington, and we’ve not made it into the museum yet!
^^^closely followed, six days later, by my birthday. No it’s not a cool day to have a birthday on. Most people I might think of inviting out to do something (usually a quiet meal, depending on if I’m working on the 1st Jan^^^^) are already doing something to celebrate the New Year, and I don’t like hijacking parties%.
^^^^I know, I picked the wrong job. I sometimes (every year for the past 5, maybe 6) have to work on the 1st January. Last year I was out drinking til about 5am. Even a gourmet burger on the company didn’t help much with that hangover. Boo.
%Especially not parties with people “singing” to SingStar (srsly, I thought I was not very good at singing, compared to these guys I’m Pavarotti!), and trying to have “incidents” involving areas of Newcastle that I don’t fully understand but know that one is bad…

No comments: