dodgy quality (and video)
All true except the lyrics which imply I am tired from recreation…

Well aparently it does. I never seem to be able to find the time to write anything longer than a few sentences these days; most of those seem a little dull!
I guess the blog has always tracked how i felt about things, what I was up to etc. Things are dull, dull, dull. LOL. No travels to report on, not very much in the way of new experiences either. Lots of thoughts in my head: most of them not suitable for the blog! lol

SO Update time…

1 ) We’ve started saving for the epic return journey. It’s time for us to make a move (well as soon as the epic amounts of money are saved and the house is sold) back to the land of upside down. No offence England but you’re killing me !! As much as I love my friends and my family i KNOW that they’re all ok and will continue to be ok even when i am in the other hemisphere; that’s exactly what happened last time anyway.

Australia has it’s head screwed on right and the beaurocracy, lack of trust and pressure just drives me closer to the airport with every passing week!

2) We have bought a new camera. SPAN its a lumix jobby and it’s cool. Our old faithful HP Camera bit the dust after sucking the life out of yet another battery to the point where it was totally non -rechragable! LOF loves the fact that it has what we have called a “pap” mode – shot after shot continuously. He even followed me around a shop with it! Strange but celeb like.

3) Xmas shopping hasn’t really begun and need to get on with that…

4) See! It’s been over a month and i’ve run out of things to say…… tum tee tum tee tum….

LOL

It’s been a strange experience returning to ol’ blighty. It’s been 6 months now. I can’t believe it! I’ll be Mrs W in no time at all now (and that’s cool) but that 6 months has flown by, with all of its complications, reunions, brilliance and confusion. I still get asked by at least 2 people every day whether or not I’m “going back”. I now have a practiced reply: “Oh yes! It’s just a question of when”. In truth my head is now split and it goes 50/50.

My god I miss it though! The totally different way of seeing the world. But as someone said to me recently, the fact that I can see things differently may be of benefit to those who may be happy to open their eyes too. However, I’m not sure it’s my job to do that for others; or indeed whether there is any point! It’s very hard to remain inside my new ethos. I am sooo totally exhausted tonight as a result of workplace who actually seemed to have planned to have so many important things going on at the same time that I can’t see the wood for the trees!

This week I had deadlines for 120 reports (although, thank god, system outage means only half of that work needs to be done by Monday), I had to prepare a lesson for an annual observation ( and that was important to me), I had to help run two very enjoyable but completely hectic media days and I needed to get on top of a trip I am trying to organise next Wednesday. I stay and I work an extra 2 (unpaid) hours every night. That’s 40 hours a month… but the bosses decided that we needed to have two meetings a week every week for a while and they decided to do this at the same time that they expected us to complete all of the above! (!!???!!) I had my after school time taken away by two large meetings on four nights in the last 2 weeks. The result of these meetings meant even more work and most of it all had to be done by Monday 16th (the same deadline as the reports)! LMAO.

I feel that in hindsight, that calendar decision may have been a little unfair to all staff! Granted some of those decisions (the trip for example) are my own doing but CRIKEY! I hate feeling like I’m not on top of things… it’s so easy to sit here and give in and become a British English teacher; sit here for hours, in my own time (half asleep and exhausted) marking, writing reports etc to meet these unrealistic time scales. BUT – and that’s a big but I’m not going to. I can’t and I won’t.

Seriously… it’s not a good thing to have had all of that… I am drained and knackered and i need to rest. The fact that I am not going to have any free time until Tuesday to complete some of these things is not my concern… It’s just the way it is and so I have to learn to relax, accept that and get on with relaxing in my weekend! In truth most of the massive hurdles are already done but trying to keep up this week has been exhausting! lol

Ah well! I could really do with a nice stroll along the beach you see. Maybe to Glenelg. Sitting on the balcony at Starbucks (where they make actual coffee not the crap they charge you 3times more for here that does not resemble coffee at all) and watching the sunset would be just what the Dr ordered. I reckon I’d pop to “Goodlife” for a pizza too. MMMmmmmm that was tasty pizza.

I wonder which lifestyle you would choose?

Because I had NO internet!!! I know! It’s a wonder I didn’t go crazy! But now I have lots of broadband bandwidth and can start to post, post, post!! Moah ha ha!

We’re in the house, we have a sofa, a TV a kettle and much much more! It’s taken a couple of weeks to get it looking like a home. We hadn’t got any furniture at all and so everything has been bought in dribs and drabs ( i can tell you now that as a direct result of us moving back to the UK IKEA has seen an increase in it’s sales and profits – no recession worries there!). It’s really nice to have our own place and to have the kitties to share it with us. Henny is lying on the sofa next to me, whining to himself about the fact that he might have to turn over in a moment.

All is well any hoo and now we just have to get used to living in the UK again!

Bridemaids dresses to sort out tomorrow. LOF needs to get himself a best man, a suit and a stag do… Ahhh plans, plans, plans… at least it keeps us busy.

We got the keys today…

We’re at mum’s tonight because until tomorrow we don’t own a bed! lol
But we officially have the keys and the dinning room is full of boxes… Boy what a lot of stuff for the charity shop

Well the house is nearly sorted. They told me that I might have to wait until NEXT Friday!! I was most unhappy about that so set about poking my nose into areas that I am sure only solicitors are supposed to poke. I called the mortgage company and let them know that I wanted the money to go through in hours not 7 days. They were surprisingly obliging and told me of a little known Speedy Fax number which I could ask my solicitor to use. They couldn’t guarentee the money would be through by the end of the day Friday but at the very latest it would be Monday – this was a big improvement on making me wait another whole week! A week in which I am off work and can unpack!

So… we instructed our solcitor to use this number, we went in to sign the contracts and then went to the bank to transfer the deposit. I recieved a phone call at 1pm (lunchtime) to tell me that all the money had arrived. Great! that should mean I can pick up the key and have all weekend to move things out of attics and into houses with the help of strapping young men who have the weekend off. UH ER! (Buzzer noise Unfortunatly, the vendors solicitors have informed me that their clients have not signed their contract yet.

WHAT?!!
Oh no!

So we have spent all afternoon trying to get hold of them to get them to their solicitor to sign. We were unsucessful…. Here’s hoping they managed to do it on Monday… I’m paying interest on a mortgage and I don’t have a house! EiK!

The barnio….

Ahh the barnio… that was interesting. Last you heard we had been invited to make another offer. Mindful of that fact that they had previously accepted an offer of 235,00 we offered 230,000!! Well, they’d messed us about and we had two other properties to choose from anyway. We’d both kind of moved on. They rejected this offer of course so we then thought ah well… we’ve had 235 accepted before so we’ll try that again. They rejected that aswell.
I suppose from their point of view we had gone all the way up to 2,000 over the asking price of 240,00 last time and they were probably hoping that we wanted the barn so desperatly we’d do the same thing again.
Obviously they were wrong… we weren’t in the same position as last time. So we told them that that was our final offer.
We then made an offer on another property and had that accepted!! yay! So we have a house! Of course on the way to the mortgage advisor to finallise the paper work Nigel Poole rang to say that they though that they really should have accepted our offer and would we wait until tomorrow to get an answer. It was very satisfying to tell them to get stuffed. Nigel Poole’s assistants will tell you anything to get a sale and to try and push you. Be warned. Walk away, Particularly if the sale on the property has fallen through 3 times previously.

So…where are we going to live?
Studley! Yep we’ve bought a house in Studley, Warwickshire. It backs onto Studley common and has a lovely view,

is detached and refurbished and has a big conservatory for the cats to lounge in. I will finally be able to have a reading chair in a sunny spot and line up my books on the window sill Yay! And Debs can pop round for a cup of tea after work. We havne’t seen each other for over a year!!!!! NO GOOD! AT ALL!
We should be in at easter