I officially owe lots of money to the men in suits..

So, I have a mortgage. It's official and to prove it the bank has just nicked nearly £600 out of my bank account as an 'arrangement fee'. Translation - money in return for them lending me money which will be repayed threefold over the years. I might set up a bank - I'm mystified as to how they all have lost money in the last couple of years as I have never been so conscious as I am at the moment of how they make money off you at every single bloody opportunity.

Anyway, enough whinging. Spring is after all officially here. The geese have arrived back from their winter holidays, parents and three children in noisy and ebullient form. They are currently practising their formation flying over the house then landing in the field and discussing in their loudest voices who did the best.

The crocuses (crocii?) are in such full bloom that they have fallen over under the weight of their own blossoms and there are bright green leaves unfurling on the dog roses.

It's odd to not be gardening but there seems little point as I should be in the new house in the next six weeks. There is plenty of garden space there but no actual garden - a lot of lawn and a few bedraggled shrubs. I'm not sure how much actual top soil there is either - this is Wales where you often discover granite mere cms under the soil. I'm planning on taking as much of my current garden with me as possible but will first have to find somewhere to plant everything at the new house.

I spend a lot of time at the moment imagining myself living there to get used to the idea and to wean myself off the current hovel. I think it is working. I nearly drove to the new house after my meeting today I was so convinced I already lived there. I was going to go for a walk round the reservoir and everything.

The estate agent board has a 'sold subject to..' sign on it and I have a mortgage - it must be real. Up until now I have been convinced that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax and that something would go wrong and I wouldn't get the house. From this point on if the whole thing falls through it will be very expensive as I will have paid for the survey, have incurred solicitors charges and the banks arrangement fee. Fingers crossed nothing goes wrong. How odd that by May I might be living in my own house though. For four years I have been agonising over the house search, despairing of ever finding anything and wondering if I should just give up and stay where I am. Now, in the space of just a few weeks, my whole world has been shifted like a kaleidescope and there is suddenly a new view ahead of me of what my life will look like.

Insuring I'm ripped off....

So, life is a little hectic right now. In addition to trying to buy a house I have been working in France, London and Dorset (small commute then!) and at the moment it is a miracle if I am in one place for more than three hours at a time. This is a little tiring but it's the life I chose, and still choose, so I shall not complain too much (today!).

The thing I do want to whinge bitterly about is insurance and house surveys. I met with the bank today to finalise the mortgage arrangements (aaargh - fear - debt - penury - fear...). As part of the mortgage I have to get a valuation for which they charge a small yet painful fee of £256.00 This is for somebody to drive by the house on their way home and say 'looks rubbish to me - I'd only pay X'. They then inform the bank of this on their headed paper knocked up on Powerpoint. It's a disgrace and the world's biggest con. I mean I could do that. You could do that. For god's sake, the Loyal Hound could do that.

The next option is to do a Homebuyers Report. This is when they do exactly the same thing but write a longer report explaining that though they didn't see anything because the door was closed / they didn't go upstairs / they never actually went there the house could have damp, a roof that will blow off if somebody sneezes, windows that don't fit, a boiler that will explode every other Tuesday. This is an even bigger rip off at £550. I could still do that, as could you. It's just a bigger con.

The last and only viable option is a Buildings Survey. This is where they visit the house and actually go inside. They are usually a qualified surveyor of some kind and they prove it by bringing damp meters, test tubes and pipettes and possibly a lab coat and they test everything they can find. Then they inform you that the house is a death trap, everything that could go wrong, just might and that you would be nuts to buy it. This small novella will cost £856.00. OUCH. There are so many other things that I could buy with that money. Things I'd actually like to buy. I mean, when else do you pay to receive bad news?

I would so love to be the person who says 'bollocks to that' and just doesn't get a survey but at the back of my mind is the fact that if I don't get the survey then Sod's Law says that I will end up with a house that does have death watch beetle encamped on the sofa watching daytime television and drinking Horlicks. If I get the survey at least I would know this, but if I don't then I will have bought a house with a sitting tenant that could make it worthless. So, I have had to agree to spend nearly a thousand pounds on a survey 'just to be sure'. It's downright depressing.

I mean, we seem to insure against EVERYTHING. Car Insurance, health insurance, contents insurance, building insurance, travel insurance, life insurance, mortgage insurance, public liability insurance (Ok I have that one for work but I do have it). The bank also wanted me to take Sickness Insurance and Trauma Insurance (I might need that one if I survive the process of buying a house which is vilely traumatic). If I saved up all the money that I spent on insurance I'd be a millionaire and could retire in a fortnight.

When it comes down to it I don't actually know anybody whose life has been ruined because they didn't have insurance. I do know plenty of people though who had insurance which didn't pay out at the vital moment because of some incomprehensible and devious bit of small print that said the insurance was invalid if you had a vowel in your name, or you tried to claim in the afternoon, or you preferred Cindy to Barbie.... you get the general gist. It's the world's biggest scam and I fall for it everytime. Why? well, just in case of course.

I'm never going to be the person who doesn't insure, but I am it seems always going to be the person who bitches and moans about the fact that I wish I didn't have to. The only thing insurance seems to do, whether it be a survey or travel insurance, is insure that I get robbed once a month like clockwork.

Friday is Award Day!

A couple of weeks ago the lovely Not Supermum gave me an award. How very lovely of her is that? Unfortunately since then I haven't had much time to do anything with my lovely shiny award. It has sat collecting dust in the trophy room while I run around like a headless chicken. Now though I have polished it up and I am putting it here for all of you to go 'ooooh' and 'aaah'....


There is some rather fabulous text that goes with this award. Here it is: “These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

So, now not only do I get to go up on the podium and weep copiously and thank everyone I have ever met but I get to make other people go through the same thing. Huzzah. I only wish that I could do the links properly - I'll try but last time I turned the entire blog post into one giant link so don't hold out any hopes.

I would like to present this award to... (drum roll please)
Katyboo because she is the one who seduced me into this blogging malarkey.
Welsh Hills Again because she writes beautifully, and has also chosen to live in Wales which is worthy of an award in itself.
Not Enough mud anyone who kisses an elephant and gets set up on dates by the waiters in the hotel she is staying in deserves an award!
Country Lite because her blog is great and you should all rush off and read it.
Confuzzledom because she has a new and shiny flat and an award would fill her mantlepiece nicely!
Singlutionary This is a blog which gives the insider scoop on single life on the other side of the pond...
Australian in Florence. Monika lives the life I sometimes want - in Florence with a husband who she loves, travelling round to see as much as they can, eating wonderful food and then bloggin all about it!
Home Office Mum because this is a woman who has her own business, two small boys, a husband etc etc and is going to head off and sail a clipper ship for weeks and weeks because she can. Now that deserves and award!


Oh dear. Typing out all those links individually is exhausting work and I think I need to go to a post awards party to recover.....

HOLY CAMOLE & GADZOOKS!!!!

Things got a little frenetic last week so I haven't had a chance to catch you up on the drama of the search for a new hovel. As some of you may know I had put an offer in on a bijou residence in the middle of nowhere, just to the left of the back of beyond and I had been waiting to hear if I was to be the lucky owner.

The news was not good. A new buyer had appeared on the scene with a higher offer. Not much higher, but higher. However they needed a mortgage the size of a small country's national income. I chewed my nails, I counted up my shekels and I decided to play hardball. I refused to up my offer. I said I was the better bet, the nicer person and had shinier hair. I pointed out that the Loyal Hound was sought after by thousands and what an honour it would be to have him move in. I also pointed out that I had my mortgage lined up, I wasn't in a chain and I WASN'T UPPING MY OFFER.

A deathly silence followed. I panicked. Had I made a horrible mistake? Should I spend the weekend building a small mint and printing off some extra money? How important was food in the general scheme of things? Could I budget on not eating for a year and up my offer that way? OK, obviously I'm never stopping eating (even if perhaps I should). I held my ground (sobbing and wailing all the while mind you) and I went back to waiting by the phone.

So, after a week of sitting on tenterhooks (not a position to be recommended and should definitely be looked at by Health & Safety), the phone rang yesterday evening. It was a miserable grey day with rain driving horizontally across the windscreen as I drove home. Ironically it was one of those days when I wondered why I live in Wales when I'm sure I could have made a life for myself and the Loyal Hound in Jamaica. However, I digress. The phone rings. Naturally I can't find it to start with as it is buried under old receipts, cheque books, mascaras I don't use and bits of lint at the bottom of my bag. Despite this obstacle course I find it in the nick of time.

Who should it be but Smelly Sheet man. Shockingly, he has finally made a decision and his decision is (drum roll please) - FOR ME!!!!

Holy Camole, Gadzooks and Jiggery Pokery. Suddenly there is a very real chance that I will have a house of my own. After four years of looking the shock of actually getting something may be too much for me. I can't imagine it. Before I start dancing a jig I give myself a stern talking to. There is much that can go wrong between now and being given the keys and I won't get my hopes up in case I jinx the whole darn thing.

By the time I got back onto my mountain side the excitement had worn off and been replaced by fear. Crippling horrible fear. What if I didn't like it enough? What if I couldn't fix it up the way I had so merrily planned? What was I doing taking on a mortgage in the middle of a recession (god forbid, depression). What if I was attacked by yetis living in the surrounding forest? Aaargh. I am now living on an emotional rollercoaster of joy and terror at the possibilities that my life suddenly holds.

Deafening silence.

He hasn't rung yet. AAARGH. People say girls are indecisive but this is just ridiculous, and cruel.

Hurry up pale bachelor man, hurry up and ring me to tell me that I can hand over all my worldly goods in return for your house that smells of old sheets. If you don't ring soon I may have expired from frustration and then the offer will be no more.....