Ageing (dis)gracefully!
Archive for April, 2007
What A Crazy Week!
Apr 27th
This last week has been a bit of a whirlwind, dominated by the fact that we have had an offer accepted on a house we want to buy.
I appointed a solicitor to take care of the conveyancing on Wednesday afternoon, got all the paperwork through yesterday and filled it out last night before walking around to the solicitors office and dropping it off in person. No point in posting it when it’s just down the road!
The solicitor is costing us ?550 + ?95 VAT. Not the cheapest quote I got, but I never wanted to go for the cheapest. I have heard too many horror stories from people who have gone for the cheapest only to find out it was cheap for a reason!
Have already written the first 2 cheques aswell. ?200 deposit for the solicitor and ?270 for Bristol & West to carry out a valuation on our prospective home….and thats just the start of the charges. We have to pay a 1% stamp duty aswell because the house is over ?125k, so its a whopping ?1554! Seems a tad unfair, but thats the way it is!
So everything is now out of my hands. The solicitor will get on with their searches etc and Bristol & West should start processing the mortgage next week.
Watch this space 
Offer Accepted!
Apr 25th
The offer has been accepted on the house we want to buy! ?154k in the end as the vendors were quite stubborn on moving below the asking price. I consider it a small achievement that we got them down at least 1k.
The house buying lark is very confusing though …looking around for solicitors at the min.
Bristol City Centre – I HATE YOU!
Apr 25th
Was supposed to be going to a Porcupine Tree gig in Bristol last night. Unfortunately we didn’t even make it there ..absolute nightmare.
Directions from the Carling Academy website didn’t take into account the MASSIVE roadworks in Bristol City Centre….. We were stuck in traffic for 3.5 hours, missed our turning aswell which meant looping around the 1 way system another time!!!
We pulled over when we found a very questionable pay and display car park, was contemplating parking there and walking to the venue, which we still hadn’t found, when these couple of drugged/drunk ppl came over to the car and wanted to buy fags from us?!!!!! We then noticed we were in the centre of St Pauls!!!!!!! We left sharpish!
Unfortunately, before we knew it, we were back in the M32 (again, stupid 1 way system!!!)
By this time it was 8:30pm – petrol was running out (we used half a tank sat in traffic for 3.5 hours) and my temper was severely frayed. Rather than attempt the same thing again, with the prospect of only seeing the last half of the gig at best! – we decided to go home.
Words cannot describe how gutted I am today.
A Rather Large Development
Apr 23rd
We shall be putting in an offer on a house tomorrow morning. Sounds a bit out of the blue eh? Well it kind of is!
We have been saving a deposit for a mortgage since January and have ammassed a fair old chunk since then. We were not even thinking of looking until July at the earliest, to ensure we have as much of a deposit as possible.
Last monday morning, I was getting ready for work and had GMTV on in the background. As I went about my business I noticed they were doing a news piece on rising house prices. My ears pricked up as I heard them say that house prices were, on average, 31k more than this time last year! A quick scan of the local papers backed this up to a degree as since the last time I had looked there was a definate hike in prices.
With this playing on my mind I decided to book us an appointment with a mortgage broker. We popped in after work on Thursday last week …gave all our details across and after about an hour of advice etc we were matched up with a mortgage that best suited our needs. They put it through then to see if the lender would lend to us – and within 10 seconds it came back as agreed. So the gauntlet was set! The broker advised us to find a property and come back to him when we wanted to buy.
Fast forward to Saturday morning, and we decided to pop into a few estate agents in town to register our details and see what was on offer. Within 20 mins we were viewing our first property! It was a little surreal to say the least!
All in all we viewed 6 properties on Saturday in what must be one of the most tiring days I have had in a long time. Property number 5 blew us away though…we both came out of it with smiles on our faces, and we both loved it.
I made another appointment today for another viewing and we went back this evening with Lucy’s parents to see what they thought. They liked it almost as much as us I think ….and the short of it is, we shall be making them an offer tomorrow morning!
Exciting stuff! Watch this space 
His Masters Voice (& a bit of London)
Apr 11th
Went to London on a work trip today…. all in all a 12 hour day, including the 2 hour train journey there and back. I’m knackered!
Popped into HMV on Oxford Street when I was there…. I love that place! They had every single Porcupine Tree album, every Marillion album ..and tons of copies of their new album …they even had it displayed in the ‘Recommended New Releases’ section. They also had pretty much every album by every band I enjoy. I was like a kid in a sweetshop!
It was so tempting to get out the credit card and spend spend spend! ….. I did not give in though ..it’s the devils work is the credit card!
Holidays
Apr 9th
It’s Easter Monday today, a Bank Holiday ..meaning an extra day off work. I already had all of last week off, so this little bonus is nice and means a short 4 day week to follow.
It’s been a really good week actually. We have been out and about, visiting places such as Sidmouth, Street & Dawlish. All very enjoyable and most of which involved a nice long drive, enabling me to whack the new Marillion album up loud and cruise along like a good old Sunday driver
Took a few photo’s on my travels (only a few). I tried to capture the distant image of a ship stranded off the cost of Sidmouth, you know, the one that was all over the news a few months ago? Well it’s still there …. unfortunately you can barely see it in my pictures …god damn rubbish 2 megapixel camera! (photos to follow when i can be arsed)
Somewhere Else
Apr 6th
Received the new Marillion album, ‘Somewhere Else‘ today! It’s chuffing fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!
