Ready, Steady, Relax

I'm back, and as usual I could do with a holiday to recover from my holiday.

We had a bad start after some thoughtful soul decided to set the M1 on fire (or something), resulting in the M1 and the North Circular being closed. The ensuing gridlock caused us to miss our flight.

After the fraught journey to the airport, we thought that the obvious choice for relaxation would be to spend the night at Gatwick, ready for the first flight the next morning. Not in a hotel though, for that would be wasting precious house deposit funds. No, no - nothing but the finest hard plastic seat next to the loud-as-hell video game machines for us.

The only solution was to drink as much alcohol as we could before the delightful airport pub closed, and then purchase a magnetic games compendium from the 24 hour WHSmith and play drunken chess all night.

I understand chess follows the same principle as pool, in that there is an optimum level of alcohol consumption for a player to achieve their full potential. Enough to provide confidence verging on arrogance; not so much that one loses visual and spatial skills and throws up on the table/board.

Bleary eyed, and with my drunken chess victories tucked safely away for future bragging, we finally arrived in Guernsey - a mere 19 hours door to door.

The holiday was business as usual from there on in (except that we had jet lag from travelling only 2 longitudinal degrees). Swimming, gym, jacuzzi, tennis, sauna, walking, sightseeing and sunburn by day; eating and drinking too much, and sleeping too little by night.

And now I am home, I have unpacked, and I would be very grateful if you could pass me that lovely soft pillow and shut the curtains on your way out...

True Love

Next week my husband and I celebrate our second wedding anniversary - yey! We'll be away in Guernsey, so I've booked us a meal here, and I'll be sure to pack my champagne-drinking hat and a super-glamorous outfit with a stretchy waistband to fit in all the courses I intend to scoff.

We've actually been together for almost a decade, so we're well over the honeymoon phase, but I love him more than ever (even when he does put the empty cartons back into the fridge).

After facing the very real fear of losing him to illness this year, I'm especially grateful that we made it through to see this anniversary, and hopefully many more to come.

In keeping with my anonymous blog theme, I chose the headless arty shots from the album to share here. I can assure you that a more traditional with-faces shot made it to the mantelpiece.

Ok, sentimental post over and out. Back in a week...

Doing The Happy Dance

We've had our offer accepted on the new house! We are tentatively celebrating, but of course it's not over until the solicitors and mortgage lenders have screwed all parties concerned, so fingers crossed it all works out.

In other news, my in-laws had an unfortunate "copious amounts of champagne supplied at no charge" incident at the wedding they attended last night, ultimately resulting in my mother-in-law throwing up violently for a couple of hours and then insisting on sleeping on our bathroom floor for the night.

In a surprising reversal of fortune, I think we're going to have to lock away the alcohol when we go away tonight, and consider grounding her for at least a week.

Running Around Like A...

I am so manic this week. We've only been home for a few days, and we're off again on Saturday.

The parents of my brother's wife have very kindly let us all use their timeshare apartment in Guernsey this year to take my Mom away as she hasn't had a holiday in years.

I also have my in-laws to stay again as they have a friend's wedding to attend tomorrow in London. They will be here with their usual mayhem this evening until Sunday.

Meanwhile we have the moving house issues to plan for, which included such gems as negotiating badly, panicking about money, and executing ninja DIY skills to get our current place ready for rental.

On top of all this, I have decided to turn over a new leaf in terms of organising my working time. On Monday I learned how to use Microsoft Project, and I fear life will never be the same again. I have timetables, schedules, milestones and deadlines - in other words, discipline - and all of it self-imposed. What was I thinking?

Missing: Negotiation Skills

Did I mention that we found the house of our dreams whilst on our travels?

It's in just the right location - walkable to the town centre and Tatton Park, but quietly tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac.

It has 5 bedrooms, a beautifully laid out downstairs which has been designed and decorated so perfectly that we wouldn't have to do a thing to it, and best of all it has a separate study for me to work (and blog) in peace.

It's a little slice of surburban bliss - a far cry from our current 2 bed basement flat in London (not that I don't love this place too, in its own special way).

Falling in love with the house, however, was the easy part. Now we have to try and get our mitts on it while still leaving ourselves with enough money for a few of life's little luxuries, like electricity and bread.

The estate agent said they were looking for 'close to the asking price'.

1. We offered about 10% less.
2. They rejected our offer.
3. We decided to walk away, as our offer was already over what we had budgeted for.
4. We found out that they had received 2 other offers well in excess of ours, but that if we could increase ours by £10k they would accept it, since we are in the enviable position of not being in a chain (we are going to rent out our London flat rather than selling it).
5. Today we are going to ask them to split the difference by offering another £5k.

I don't think we've really ruled out offering the whole extra £10k.

Let this be a lesson to you children - emotional attachment and money make a very bad combination.

Update: We've ended up offering another £7.5k. They're thinking about it *sigh*

We're Not Afraid

It seems we picked a fortunate time to be away from London.

I can’t help thinking that if Mac hadn’t been off work after the heart surgery, he could easily have been caught up in the bombings. Maybe his illness was a blessing in disguise.

It’s absolutely heartbreaking to hear of the innocent people who lost their lives at the hands of these cowards. On the other hand, seeing how Londoners have reacted to this outrage makes me so proud.

They, whoever they may be, should realise that they chose the wrong place. They can’t terrorise Britain. It will only make us stronger.

Bon Voyage

Tomorrow we set sail for the West Midlands for it is the land of my forefathers, and of my forefathers' forefathers. Well, some of them anyway.

Mac has decided he needs a change of scenery while he recuperates from surgery, so we're off visiting for a few days.

Our itinerary is as follows:

Thursday: Travel to Birmingham. Try to get some work done and fail miserably due to family chaos factor. Meet up with friends for drinky-poos.

Friday: Try to get some work done and fail miserably due to hangover from drinky-poos.

Saturday: Travel to Manchester. Try to remain sane and fail miserably due to in-laws chaos factor.

Sunday: Begin long and arduous house hunting process in anticipation of our move away from the Big Smoke. Try to enjoy estate agent banter and fail miserably due to estate agents' alternative view of reality disorder.

Monday onwards: location TBA.

My trusty laptop will be accompanying me, but whether I manage to get any blogging done in between the travelling and the chaos remains to be seen. I'll be in touch once I reach dry land.

Domestic Bliss

The next time my dearly beloved husband decides it would be a good idea to put the empty butter back into the fridge, I am kicking him out. He's on his final warning.

Is this just a man thing, or is the pointless retention of empty food packaging not gender specific?

May I also take this opportunity to apologise to the lovely man in our local butter-selling shop, who had to suffer a pre-breakfast me, complete with yesterday's clothes and pillow creases still on my face.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I am grumpy from oversleeping and therefore getting no work done this morning. No sirree.

Apologies also to Mr Gandalf. I do know that there are more important issues in the world - just not before breakfast.

Use Only Under Adult Supervision

There's been a serious cheese sandwich related incident. With blood and everything. I have to tell you, it doesn't look good.

Send plasters urgently. And antiseptic products. And maybe some gossip magazines.

In other kitchen news, don't buy decaffeinated teabags, for they are the work of the devil.

I think that about covers it.