... than the day job. I've had a difficult couple of days at work and it can be all too easy to let this sort of thing get me down. This time I"m trying to fight back though and rise above everything that's going on. The weather here in the UK seems to have turned in the last 24 hours. As I left my office (far too late) this evening the wind blew my umbrella inside out and broke one of the struts. Back in St Albans walking home from the station I had no option but to brave the elements. It felt fantastic though. It was still reasonably warm, but with a fresh edge to the ... read more
Garden planning
It's been a week of form filling, building societies and Mr C's birthday! The house is still progressing with solicitors involved and lots of paperwork being generated. This also means that we're starting to spend money, so fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong from here. Mr C and I have been to visit a couple of building societies about mortgages. We're waiting for one final piece of information from one and then we should be able to decide once and for all as to which we are going with. They will then need to get the survey done - fingers crossed that it won't ... read more
Home and woops…
I feel like I come here quite often at the beginning of a weekend to apologies for a lack of posts within the week. This may be a bit of a deja vu for some readers, but this time I have a damn good excuse (well at least I think so).On Thursday Mr C and I finally had an offer accepted on a house that we want to buy! This is the fourth house that we've tried to buy in the last year and to say that I am excited is an understatement!I know that there is still so, so much that may go wrong with this planned purchase but please indulge me on this for a little while and then I'll try and keep ... read more
Home sweet home
Mr C and I have spent the weekend trying to find a new home. In two days we've looked at eight houses in St Albans and driven round checking a few more out from the outside. We've been looking now for eighteen months and to be honest we're getting rather tired. Somehow when it comes to actually seeing the houses Mr C really enjoys it, but after a couple I start to feel rather weary. By the end of yesterday I was shattered.The good news is that we do seem to have found a couple that we like the look of. We obviously need to go back and look at them again, but it does at least tell ... read more
Wintery weekend
This is the wintery scene that greeted me as I left home to go to work on Friday morning. Walking to St Albans station was like walking through a blizzard - I was wearing wellies and my ski jacket and was white with snow when I reached the station. There the staff were advising us not to venture into London as there could be no guarantees that we'd actually get home again. I pressed on though and actually felt quite silly by the time I got into London as there everything was just grey and miserable looking. My colleagues had a good laugh though when I appeared in the office dressed for ... read more
Trip round Europe
Sorry that I've not been here blogging for the last week. Last week was incredibly busy, but then Mr C and I had a nice, peaceful weekend away planned. We flew out to Vienna last Friday and had a great weekend exploring the city. The slight problem came on Monday. After watching the news in our hotel room that morning there was no surprise when we turned up at the airport to find that our flight back to London was cancelled. In fact, no flights left Austria for London at all that day due to the snow back home!We'd flown with Easyjet and the truth behind those cheap flights is that if ... read more
Precious friends
While Mr C was at a work event this evening I met up with some dear friends for dinner in London. It's the first time that we've managed to catch up this year, but just an evening together makes me realise just how important friendship is. (All the two for one vouchers at chain restaurants that are freely available on the web at the moment also help the dinner out stretch a bit further than usual!)When busy at work I can be quite bad at making time to see friends, but it really is so, so worth it. I just need to try and do it a bit more often! ... read more
No time for goodbye – Linwood Barclay
The title of this book has this week more significance than I realised when I read it a week or so ago. Sadly this this week has had a complete lack of time for anything other than work and sleep, and a friend of Mr C's was tragically and suddenly taken away from him and his friends with no time for any of them to stay goodbye. Life can be incredibly cruel sometimes.------------------------------ Linwood Barclay's book tells the story of Cynthia who twenty-five years ago woke up one morning (with a teenage hangover) to find a silent house and no sign of her parents or brother. Even ... read more
Preparing for a Wassail
It feels like I've been neglecting this blog a bit over the last couple of week. Sorry, but life just seems to have been getting in the way of all the things I want to do. I need to try and maximise my evenings a bit more now that I've gone back to work. I seem to be struggling with this at the moment, but fingers crossed that I can create a better work - life balance over the next week.This weekend is a busy one down at the WWA as tomorrow we are holding our annual Wassail. We have an orchard area at the WWA and every January we always invite local people to go wassailing, ... read more
Chaos
Ae we really only ten days into 2009? Last weekend I remember feeling so organised for going into the new year; now I'm not too sure. So much seems to have happened in these last ten days that I'm not even sure where to start. Sorry there are no photos to accompany my words - I've just not had time to take my camera out of my handbag all week.I went back to work on Monday and was expecting a quiet week before starting all the regular meetings etc next week. Someone else obviously thought differently. I feel like I've been on a treadmill that's been getting faster and faster ... read more