Can it really be more than a month than I posted? Seems to be somewhat of a refrain, these days. I’ve a whole list of things I want to write about but at the moment they don’t seem to be getting beyond that. I wish we’d been busy doing all sorts of interesting things but aside from a couple of interesting outings and a weekend sailing in Cornwall last week (which I might blog about one day) we’ve actually been rather more tied up with family, funerals and a rather scary episode with Pip in hospital a couple of weeks ago when she was treated for (what turned out not to be) meningitis. We’d been out for our anniversary, came back around 12.30am to a worryingly high temperature-d Pip. To cut a long story short, we ended up in A&E on very little sleep, and lets just say this – it was probably hard to work out which of us was requiring medical attention in the taxi on the way to the hospital…
When not hugely busy with all sorts of things we continue our musings as to whether we should try and buy a house. Or, rather, flat. I wouldn’t be surprised if a parking space is all we can manage once we take into account everything that we need to consider costs wise.
The flat a couple of doors down the road is on the market for £535,000. That’s a lot of money for a technically 2 bed property, even if it is in zone 3. The afore-mentioned funeral has led to a possible potential source of deposit, so conversation has taken a slightly more interesting turn but one of the myriad things that worries me about committing to somewhere we are fully and totally responsible for financially is the hidden costs. Surveyors in the first instance, but then all sorts of problems that whilst might be covered by insurance, would also be costly and annoying to fix. We had a flood in our cellar a while ago and it occurred to me just how annoying paying for the replacement of pipes and in due course, relaying the floor will be. We also haven’t had live TV since April. I’m pretty sure the problem is with the external aerial not our internal equipment but it hasn’t bothered me enough to call the Landlord to sort the problem, yet. If we owned the place though, that would be entirely our problem.
The upside to owning of course would be that I could garden properly. We’ve done our best with our small space this year, and it looks like the tomatoes, radishes and sweet peas might actually start bearing something worth picking. The roses we brought in remembrance of each of our grandmothers have also been doing well. In fact, even the rose which my grandmother sent me as a bare root and I have managed to grow into a plant bore one rose, and now, another.
So, decisions, decisions, but it’s not all bad in this little rented place. Maybe we will stay put a little longer.
Photo by me – Regent’s Park Rose Garden – Father’s Day. Post in conjunction with L&G.
