Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

Just so you guys know in advance, my 25th birthday party is on Sat 28th June. And it's free-for-all fancy dress. So mark it in your diaries and start planning a costume, cause there'll be a prize for the best one.

I will remind peeps nearer the time, and give our address. Everyone's welcome. Strictly no vampire costumes, they're boring :)

I am very hung-over. Bleugh.

So I'm at home because our new washing machine is refusing to spin properly and I'm waiting for a repair man.

Sigh.

My temp job (doing criminal record and counter terrorism checks for BAA) is deathly boring simply 'cause there's no work to do, but I should hear back about another job tomorrow. It's also a temp job but is a 4-5 month contract so maybe I can dazzle them with how wonderful I am and they'll give me a permanent job, who knows. I also quite fancy the idea of just temping for a couple of years until our debts are paid off them training to do something I'd enjoy, which would be cool.

We'll see.

We have finished decorating the lounge! We have new curtains and sexy new floating shelves which Sci put up yesterday. We've got the table in the lounge as well and it all looks fab, I'm very pleased with it. Now we just need to paint Nicky's room, get our wardrobe and paint the bathroom (the wee bit hat isn't wood panelled) and we're pretty much done! Although thinking about it, there's actually loads of other little things we need to do but hey, I'll just be glad when all the painting is done!

I'm off to get some cake. Me and Nicky made a French cake yesterday, photos here

Well, it would appear that the washing machine has just died. It is filling up with water but not spinning at all. It has been making funny noises for a week or two, so looks like we'll need to fork out for a new one, or more likely, get one on credit. Luckily they're only about £200, which although is a lot of money, we can afford to repay it in 2/3 months.

The good news is Nicky pretty much has a job! She spoke to a woman at an agency today who she's going to see tomorrow about an office junior role. And she told Nicky that 'if all goes well' she can start on Monday!

So that rocks and takes some of the pressure of me to take the first job that comes along. I don't wanna be out of work for more than a week or two but at least now I shouldn't need to consider temping. I am registering with one agency tomorrow and have appointments with two others on Monday to register with them so I should find something soon.

I've just seen on the bbc that the
No.1 Ladies Detective Agency books are to be serialised starring Jill Scott. I am mightily looking forward to it, I love the books and will be interested to see Jill Scott acting. I love her as a singer but wasn't aware she acted as well.

Nothing much else happening in my world, 3 days at work to go! Still no word on any of the jobs I've applied for but I'm not really worrying til next week when I can go and register with some agencies.

So today I quit my job.

I hadn't been planning on leaving, in fact there was talk last week that was kind of leading me to think that I was gonna be made a supervisor. But some things I just cannot stomach.

Yesterday everyone came into the office expecting a normal day but 11 people were made redundant, illegally with no warning and the same pay-off offered for people who had been there less than a year up to people who had been there for 3 years.

Now I know the financial industry is in a bit of a melt-down and we have been very very quiet the past few months, redundancies were kind of inevitable at some stage (especially as the underwriting dept have always been overstaffed) but it the way they did it that just makes my blood boil.

Firstly, legally you need to give peeps a weeks notice of redundancy for every year they have worked there and secondly, you need to choose the candidates fairly and objectively. They did neither. They basically told everone one by one that they were being made redundant and to clear their desks and go right then and there. Part of the reason you need to give peeps notice is that they have to be able to appeal the redundancy, which of course, now no-one can do. Now this was just the underwriters to start with and after they were done, the rest of us were told that there were going to be more redundancy's throughout the day, from EVERY dept. So they expected us to sit and work, whilst at the same time wondering if we'd still have a job in a couple of hours!!!

Also, they seem to have simply chosen the people who have been there the longest and so are on the highest salaries, and who are the hardest, best workers, who always meet their bonus requirements. Some of the peeps who were cut are the best people they have in their respective depts.

So basically, i really really wanted to leave on point of principle yesterday but thought it best to try stay calm and be practical about it, but when I went in today, my manager was telling us that now we are down 2 staff members (2 from my team were cut) we are all gonna have to work 2 12 hour shifts a week and 2 sundays a month. Plus various other little bits and pices just made me think 'fuck this' and told her I was handing my notice in (Hell, I've been there 10 months and despite asking about 8 times, I still don't have a contract!!). My last day is next Friday (14th). I'm not too worried about getting another job, I'm hoping I can get as many interviews as possible set up for the week starting 31st March and get something from that.

So there you go, thats whats happening in my part of the world.

Anyone need any admin staff? :)

Gotta love self-diagnosis...I'm off to the doctors this afternoon as I've had a stiff, painful shoulder/neck/spine since last Saturday and it just isn't going away. For a laugh I went on the nhs site where you can put in your symptoms and see what you've got. Of course, I'm dying :) Apparently if you have a sore shoulder you should 'seek help immediately - call 999 and ask for an ambulance' So, it's been lovely knowing you all, but I feel my days are numbered.

:D

It's kinda funny :)

Today I have finally bought new glasses after needing to for about 5 years! I got the purple ones. And they only cost £25 whereas the almost identical ones in Boots that I really liked (and tried on so I know the style suits me) were £225!! I'm also getting a trial of the lenses you were24hrs a day for a month so we'll see how they go, they're only about £6 a month more than what I'm paying for my monthly disposables.

Also, I've just booked our hotel for Paris at Christmas which was also £25, which is cool as I had budgeted £50 for it.

Might see if I can get any Xmas pressies online just now...

I made massive cookies! Thanks for the recipe mum.

I have gotten in to the habit of baking every now and then and taking my creations in to work for people to munch. So far, it has only been sponge cakes, but as Si is away in Dublin til Tuesday, I will be getting the train in instead of the car, so decided to make cookies instead as they are much easier to transport.

I made cookies! Look, massive cookie goodness!

I do need to increase my baking stocks though, I really only have the bare essentials, hence cookies and sponge cake are about as exotic as it gets at the moment.

Must. Not. Eat. All. Cookies.

Which one's Simon? No-one really knows.....

Well, that's the electrician been and gone. And it's been interesting...

Our hall lights and outside light have never worked and the kitchen lights used to but don't anymore so we got the electrician to come take a look at them, fearing that it was simply because of the really old wiring in the flat whihc our survey told us was as old as the house itself (about 90 years old). Well the good news is that it isn't because of the old wiring, no, in fact the kitchen adn hall have both been rewired in the last couple of years. By a complete fuck monnkey. The hall lights do work but only if you treat them right. Basically they are supposed to work on a double switch with one at one end of the hall and one at the other end, fairly standard so far, but they have been wired by someone who just doesn't have a clue so in order for them to work at all, one of the switches HAS to be on. The other switch only works if the other one is one. So I guess it's not so bad, we just need to try and remember the special combination that makes them work and eventually get them rewired. The outside light just doesn't work...because it's wire comes inside the wall and is just dangling free, not connected to anything. He couldn't even wire it in to it's switch because of how the hall lights are wired. The kitchen is a simple case of the transformer going, not so bad it's fairly cheap and simple to replace. Except the transformer is in the ceiling, and there's no access. So we'll have to cut out a chunk of it, replace the transformer and plaster it up again. Or, hopefully get some sort of hatch put in so we have access in the future.

So basically, the 90 year old wiring that we have been worried about is absolutely fine, in perfect working order, and the 2 year old stuff is a bunch of bollocks.

I'm off to paint the bedroom some more.

Well, as Si is away in Birmingham for the weekend, I thought it'd be a good idea to start the decorating. So far I've finished the feature wall in the bedroom behind the bed (well, the first coat anyway) and it's looking fab. I used Crown Fireside although it doesn't really look a lot like that picture, it's much redder, not so pinky. I've also chosen one of the colours for the lounge which is gorgeous and looks like chocolate, well it is called choc chip. They don't have a picture of it on the webste which sucks but it's a lovely warm chocolatey brown which is gonna go on the wall behind the sofa, with a lighter beigey/brown on the opposite wall with the tv and the two others walls kept cream.

I love my red paint!

Only one major disaster so far when I only realised after two steps on the carpet that I had stepped on the paint tin lid just before. Oops. But it's not too bad....nothing a rug won't fix.

I thought I'd get it done alot quicker though, it's taken me about 2 hours just to do the little bit in the bedroom! It's gonna be weeks before the two rooms are done!

Work is going okay, I just had a few days off for our wedding anniversary when we went for lunch at The Baby Grand in the west end which was really nice and as it was a late lunch we had the place completely to ourselves which was kinda cool. We then went for a very brief visit to Kelvingrove Museum which is stunning but we only had an hour to look round before it closed so definitely need to go back another day.

We have an electrician coming round on wed so hopefully we'll have lights in the hall soon. Not much else to report really. We're hoping to get to France for Xmas but the flights are getting more expensive every week so we'll need to book them soon, and we should also be going over at the start of Feb for Seonaid's birthday.

I'm starting to realise that housework really is a never-ending task. I've been keeping the flat clean and tidy unlike everywhere else we've ever lived and it's an absolute nightmare! When you only have two days off a week it just doesn't seem fair that one of them is totally consumed with housework!

We finally have internet at home, woohoo!!!

Full update later, off to buy cake ingredients.

So.. we move into the flat on Friday, woohoo!! We're going to go see it again tongiht with the current owner who is trying to sell us her furniture ( not going to happen, but it lets us see the flat again). But the big question now is...should we get another kitten? Obviously not for a month or so until Dog and Electron are fully settled in. but I think Sci really wants a new kitten, and of course I wouldn't mind either. But would it be better to get one or two? I think 4 cats would be a bit crazy personally. But what if we get one and Dog and Electron hate it? Is it just a bad idea in general to introduce a new kitten to 2 older cats? Most importantly, what would we call it/them?

Work is going pretty well, I've done loads of overtime this month so will be getting an extra £400 or so in my Aug paycheck, which will come in handy considering we need a bed and a sofa and fridge, freezer and washing machine!

Can't wait to get into the flat!!

Sorry if I'm boring anyone with all this flat stuff, it's mainly to keep mum and dad up to date.

So...all is going well for a change. We got the survey done yesterday and it valued at £95k, exactly what we're paying for it, so that's good. There are a few issues, but nothing serious. We need to find out if they got planning permission for the patio doors and all the wiring is really old so might need re-doing at some point, but it all works fine for now. And the room has asbestos which means are mortgage provider might stipulate that that needs to be redone within the term of the mortg, so, again, no biggie really.

Th current owners are now trying to get us to buy all the furniture that's currently in there as its all new from ikea. I'm inclined to tell them to get to fuck as they've already got £5k over the 'fixed price' from us anyway. And, more to the point, although it's all nice enough, it's not the style I would like to end up with, so why buy it if it's just gonna get replaced in a couple of years anyway?

So, as long as nothing unexpected comes along, we should be in by August 10th :D :D :D

We have however, extended our lease on the current flat to Sep 10th just so we have a little breathing space with the move. It also means we can clean the flat after emptying it, thus hopefully getting back as much deposit as possible. Our bastard landlords have already put it up for rent and we have our first viewing tonight! 24 hours notice, gee, thanks. So last night was a frenzy of cleaning and tidying. The idiots are advertising it as 'available now' tho, which just means a lot of wasted time showing people around who can't wait 2 months for us to move out.

I really really really dislike letting agents and estate agents.

so... it turns out the flat we viewed on Saturday had already had an offer on Friday and had a survey done. When we found that out I was ready to kill someone. However, we were sneaky bastards and phoned up the greedy estate agent and offered £5k over the fixed price and got it accepted!! So.. looks like we got our dream home, but we're feeling royally dicked around by the estate agent. And we still have to wait for the survey (being done tomorrow) and hope that it's valued high enough for our mortg to go through. So I'm not letting myself get happy about it yet, because it's been a complete nightmare. When I have the keys in my hand, I'll get excited :)

Other than that, not much goning on. Work is busy, I'm still enjoying it and the only really annoying girl in the admin team got fired today, so all is good.

So, after the weekend of many viewings (we were supposed to have another one today but Sci just got called in to work as the server is broken or something :( ) which we went into fairly unhopefully after losing 2 properties we really liked, we actually found one that is better than anything else we've seen! AND it's a fixed price, woohoo! Its 2 bedrooms plus a third small room that could stretch to a 3rd bedroom but most likely be used as a dining room/study/games room. The main bedroom is huge and the second one is a fair size as well, especially as 2nd bedrooms seem to always be tiny from what we've seen. It's ground floor and there are patio doors in the lounge out to OUR OWN PRIVATE GARDEN (now we just need a white picket fence, lol) which is fab and means we can let the cats out. It also has a driveway, double glazing and central heating plenty of storage and it is literally a stones throw away from a train station so it's easy to get to and from. The only tiny ickle things wrong are that the kitchen is a bit pokey, but it'll do for the 2 of us, and at least it has a window. Also, no shower!!!! but I can get one of those hose things that you just stick onto the bath taps and apparently it's only about £200 to get an electric shower in so we'd do that at some point anyway. Also, don't know if there'll be much noise from the passing trains, as the train line parallels the whole street, but it is at the back of the houses on the other side of the road so it can't be that bad, and it's just a local line so it's not like we'll have freight trains going past or anything. Ooh, and it's lying empty, so we'd be able to move in as soon as our mortg is finalised, which again is brilliant.

Here it is

So, fingers crossed everyone!

I haven't been reading much lately. But since my last book post I have read:

Gravityby Tess Gerritsen, which was a bit predictable and completely gruesome and yucky. Which was a shame 'cause I loved Vanish by her.

A Mad World My Master by John Simpson which is amazing and everyone should read it.

His Dark Materials trilogyby Philip Pullman which was good 'cause although i've read them before I'd almost completely forgotten anything that actually happens. Although i was a bit disappointed in the third book. It gets awfully rambley in places and took me aaaaaaaages to finish.

There may be more that I can't remember...

Well, we didn't get the really nice flat 'cause someone with more money than sense put in an offer of something over £100k. Good luck to them, morons.

So...moving swiftly on, we have 3 viewings today (or maybe 4, I can't remember) and one tomorrow, and we have a note of interest in on this one and we'll put an offer in on it if all else fails. It was lovely, is only 5 mins from where we are now so we know the area and it had a really nice feel to it. The only reason we're hesitant about it is it doesn't have central heating, in fact I don't think it has gas at all. But it won't go for a stupidly high price, I know we could get it if nothing else comes up.

The problem we're in is that our landlord won't let us renew our lease on a month by month basis, so we either have to have somewhere by 10th September, or renew our lease for another 6 months. We're not allowed to give a months notice that we're moving out within the 6 months unless they find someone to move in, which of course can't be guaranteed. So we either forget about it until the new year :( or find somewhere reeeaaaally quickly.

Aaaaaaargggghhhh!!!

We need help. We have found this flat and we both absolutely love it, its stunnning. (much better in real life than in the photos)

So, it's offers over £75k, how much do we offer????