Autumn leaves

Action shot

I found this photo of me on Twitter, posted by one of the schools I've worked with.
I did also get renamed flora.
But I guess you can't have everything..

London

I had a work event in London today. Between the trains being delayed, there was also a tube strike. Nothing like queues to get onto the platform...then to get onto the train...
It was so cramped and hot I thought I might faint again. It was pretty awful. I definitely don't want to work in London!

But, I did get breakfast. And apparently it's award winning. A banana bread sandwich on a boat!
I'll definitely go there again.

The event was really good, and I met some great people.

With the tube in a mess I walked back to Paddington station. Worth it for the sunset!

My rubbish day

Please, allow me to enlighten you about my rubbish day. I put in an offer on the kingshill road house at 9.30 in the morning and it got rejected in the evening but I stressed over it all day.

I put the offer in early in the morning because I had a hospital appt in Oxford. Hospital was fine but had to have loads of blood taken for tests. Between the heat in the hospital and my house stress I fainted in the hospital (which is an extremely underwhelming experience as I guess people faint on nurses all the time). Eventually they let me leave after a glass of cold water and being fanned a bit.

I got the bus into town and still felt a bit odd, had some lunch (I found a really good Korean place in the covered market) and thought I was feeling better but got the bus back to seacourt park and ride just in case. All fine.

Then I drove out of the park and ride as though someone had replaced my brain with a potato. I drove as though the exit is one way- so ended up indicating to turn right in the lane or oncoming traffic. Then possibly ran a red light? A police car gave way and let me out so I was like 'don't do anything else stupid or they'll pull you over'. I was too busy trying to drive nicely, got in the wrong lane for the A420 and cut the police car up again 🤦.

Maggie rang saying she's been speaking to building control and has a new plan. I rang our solicitor and could hear her rolling her eyes. Awaiting 'new plan's update. Solicitor advises to continue with kingshill road enquiries. But they rejected us. So it's pretty irrelevant.

I did find another house to look at, so we'll go check it out on Saturday.

Then we had a message from Maggie saying she's going to do the building work in about 2-3 weeks.
Argh!
So I've arranged for Jenni and Therese to stay at ray's and maybe for Marley to stay at my parents.
So we now need to move all the furniture.

My final potato brained act was to drop the car off in Sainsbury's car park instead of the garage.
I did figure it out and get it to the right place.

Against everyone's advice I had a generous gin after my shitty day. It hit me like a ton of bricks and I fell asleep at about 9.30.

Best thing for it really.

Lazy Sunday night

My night started out well- with the house to myself!
I've got my m&s Christmas spice candle on the go, green tea, Agnes Obel on Spotify and I'm working on my crochet again.
The cat was asleep on the PlayStation so I figured it was all good.
After an hour the cat woke up. Results were as expected. But too funny to be cross with her. Gross thought because the wool is all wet where she's been chewing on it.
(I think she'd like to go out but next door have fireworks so she'll have to stay in for now).

I'm feeling much less trapped by the house situation right now, so I'm finding bit easier to focus on crafting... Or anything to be honest.
I hadn't realised how stressed it was making me feel.

A new contender

As you can see from my previous post, I got proactive booking house viewings to try and get us thinking about what we're looking for.

Staying where we are and going ahead with buying has a number of issues:
1) the loft needs stripping out.maggie is going to do this but no timeframes have been given, we can't choose the builder band we'll be left to deal with the mess.
2) as a result of 1 we lose a room but are still paying 20k more than the average price in the area for a 2 bed.
3)all of the above is exhausting in terms of legal wrangling.
4) we still need to paint the front room wall
5) the new external render needs painting
6) the bathroom needs tiles on the floor
7) the downstairs ceiling needs painting
8) the carpet downstairs needs replacing

So, we figured if we found a bigger 2 bed with a decent garden and off-road parking that needed less work we'd make an offer.

After 8 viewings we have a contender-
The work that needs doing:
1) The upstairs carpet is hideous so we will need to replace it
2) the textured wallpaper in the bedrooms needs replacing

....and that's all.

The boiler is older but in good condition, the extension has a flat roof so will need reproofing at some later date but no immediate issues.

I'm taking my Dad to give us a second opinion on Monday.
And if he's satisfied we'll make an offer!
😁🏠

Anyone who fancies spending their Xmas break stripping wallpaper let me know 😂

Crafting with Abi

Abi is super pregnant now! She invited me over to do some crafting on my day off, although we didn't do as much crafting as we had planned... Plenty of gossiping though.

I stopped off at milletts farm on the way for coffee and a Chelsea bun, and to pick up lunch- bread, soup and smoked goats cheese... And a cake, of course.

I also had a look in the garden centre. It's already Christmas at frost's!

Slight house disaster

So, those of you who know us will know that we have been in the process of buying the house we're renting since the end of August.
We were supposed to complete on the 31st, but it looks like Halloween is not an auspicious date.
And the 30th definitely isn't.
Long story short, no one could find the building control sign off for the window in the loft room (which is my craft space and sewing room, and we use as a guest bedroom). Building control were happy with the window. But the loft conversion is illegal. And a fire hazard.
So it either has be be finished with extra flights of stairs, enclosed staircases, a new hallway etc or stripped back to a loft.

We want it stripped back before we completed.
The landlady has said she'll agree to do it but only after completion. Which is less than ideal and extremely risky. The work might never get done and leave us with an unsellable, illegally converted house.

Lots to think on.

We're going to see 8 other houses on Saturday.
Hopefully it'll help us to make some kind of decision- this house with the risks and high price tag for a 2 bed or a different house...

We shall see.

I'm trying not to think about it all too much to be honest.
So here is my costume at my not housewarming Halloween party. It's all been a rather epic headache with no end in sight. I mean, we haven't really list anything yet. We're not stuck with anything. It's just frustrating.

But, at least by posting this I can hopefully save myself the heartache and headache of having to repeatedly explain this. I struggle to do so with civility.

Happy birthday to me 🎂🎃🎉😁

We started the day with some rather bracing paddle boarding.
Having got home at 2am (allowing for daylight saving) from Dita, 8am was slightly brutal.
Marley hasn't got the hang of the clock's changing and doesn't have any comprehension of lie-ins so she got us up at 6:45am.
This means that I should have been ready to go, but sleep deprivation isn't great for organising yourself.

Paddle boarding was ace! The new boards Tracey and I bought work really well.
We tried to go out on Monday but we couldn't get the pumps to fit. It turns out they're just new and too stiff. Traff saved the day!

After paddle boarding I had a quick bath and we went to Los Gatos for lunch. On a Sunday they only serve paella.
At 1.30pm.
And there is a triumphant song as the chef serves it.
So Ray, Andy, Traff, my parents and I tried their fancy lunch paella.
It was good. Definitely worth another visit.
With Ray's ice cream for afters.

We come back to the house for cake after.

In the evening we met with our landlady to talk through the sale stuff, but that is a tomorrow problem.

Frosty morning

Last night the temperature really dropped, and it's going to continue to get colder over the next week. It's almost like we skipped autumn out completely and just went for winter.
Not that I mind, Autumn is my favourite season but I do like having a sparkly garden.
We woke up this morning and the grass was frozen.
Marley disapproves of the frozen grass and is just glaring at it. She's taking snack breaks but the last hour and a half has been thorough glaring.

I'm not sure I have any properly wintery clothes suitable for today.

Dita Von Teese

Bri managed to get Dita Von Teese tickets!
I asked T to do my hair for me to help me to keep up with the burlesque girls Bri was going with, but actually, I was pretty underdressed compared with the other attendees.

I spent a fortune on merch too.. but these things happen.. I showed restraint thought and didn't buy a signed photo of her nudist cat!

The show was incredible. I won't ruin it, but if you get the chance to go then do!
Just go dressed to the nines!

The upshot of this is that I brought my birthday in eating BBQ space invaders on the train!
Yay for 60p crisps!
Start as you mean to continue!