As a general rule of thumb I tend to avoid blogging when I’m angry, sad, p*****d or generally fed up and if I was following these rules, I certainly shouldn’t be posting today because I’m feeling really FED UP. Don’t suppose it helps that I’m tired because I was downstairs sitting at my laptop with a cup of tea sometime before 4am. I tell you, if it’s not Phil waking up for a pee in the early hours, then it’s me. I did go back to bed around five’ish, managing to wake up Phil. We had a brief exchange of words but then I fell back into a deeply unsettled sleep only to wake up a couple of hours later feeling very groggy and grumpy. I bit Harriet’s head off because she brought down an empty cereal bowl and then promptly got another clean one out of the dishwasher. Poor girl, she shot out of the door and must have been at work very early morning.
The weather isn’t helping me much either; despite wishing for rain to replace the sunny & humid spells last week I am not liking the grey lifeless skies and relentless down pours. The forecast said we were going to have sprinkles but heavy showers would have been more accurate.
This credit crunch is not helping my mood either. I know its affecting everyone but you just can’t escape the doom and gloom, it’s the hot topic for daytime TV. And today on GMTV they were counting down the number of days before Christmas! I don’t know if I mentioned it on the blog but we had an electric bill for the Jan to April quarter for over 800 quid. I am convinced it is wrong but despite spending hours on the phone to our supplier, they are saying it is correct. Phil has been monitoring the meter and all seems to be in order. The bill for the second quarter of the year came in at £400 which I think, it still a lot of money. We have been trying to cutback and because we are on Economy 7 I am trying to put on the washing, drying and dishwasher before 5.30am. I remembered to put on the dishwasher this morning but mostly I have overslept and missed the deadline. I am trying to cut back on the number of washing and Phil is helping by wearing his shirt, for what seems, the whole week. However this is counteracted by Harriet who throws clothes in the wash even though she’s had only had them on for half an hour.
Phil has been out and replaced all our bulbs with energy saving bulbs and we are trying to remember to turn off lights when we’re not in the room. Phil takes this to extreme and I am practically sitting here typing in the dark! The gas bill was low compared to the electric and this may have been because in the first quarter we ran the under-floor heating 24/7 and all the heating has been off for the second quarter. I’ve even taken to showering at David Lloyd to save our electric and hot water. We’ve downsized our membership at the gym to bronze which means that we can now only go from 10am to 4pm week days and anytime after 2pm at the weekends. This has inconvenienced me more that I thought it would but I am sure I will adjust when I get into the routine. Anything is better than going back to work but if needs must, then so be it.
The other thing that is worrying me is the property market. We have only had one viewing on the TMA studio flat. Everyone knows that it is a buyers market at the moment and I think that perspective purchasers any hanging on for the market to really hit rock bottom. You can’t blame them but it is certainly not helping our situation. We have a tenant at the Cranfield flat that hasn’t paid his rent for months. He originally wrote to say that somebody had got hold of his bank details and emptied his account. Phil was very sympathetic but 3 months down the line his patience is wearing thin. I put in a call to Betty the next-door nosey neighbour who tells me our tenant has had a lady visiting him several times a week. Betty thinks that she is a prostitute and it certainly would explain the lack of payment. Unless we have payment by tomorrow, we will re-possess our flat at the weekend and I can tell you, we won’t be following the legal process.
If that wasn’t annoying enough, we had several voice messages on Sunday morning from the
tenant at the CCF (city centre flat) to say that water was pouring through the light fittings and had fused all the electrics. This is the fifth leak we’ve had from the upstairs flat and 3 of these have been in the last 2 months. I won’t go into all the nitty gritty details because they are boring even to me, but not surprisingly, the tenant who cannot use the bathroom and has no electrics because they have deemed unsafe, has decided to end his contract prematurely and is moving out tonight. Phil will have to pay him back the August rent and we are then left with a leaking flat with no electrics that we can’t let out. All part of the joys of being a landlord I guess.
It hasn’t been all bad. On Friday lunch I picked up Jan B from the OU and we went to lunch at The Old Swan, in Woughton. The service was really, really slow as there was only one barmaid serving which is crazy for Friday lunchtime in a busy pub. But the grub was good and we had a good old natter. I can’t remember what became of Saturday, it came and went and obviously wasn’t that exciting. Steve Pem came over midday on Sunday and him and Phil settled themselves in front of the plasma to watch the grand prix in Hungary. As hostess with the mostest or so I’d like to think, I provided scuby snacks and topped up their glasses and they seemed happy enough despite Hamilton not getting on the podium. Afterwards Phil cooked chickens on the spittle on the bbq which we had with new spuds and salad, washed down with wine of course! We finished up opening the bottle of port which seemed like a good idea at the time. Most of yesterday was spent at the council satelight office in Netherfield trying to work out what caused the leak at the CCF and trying to ascertain whether the cause of the leak to our flat had been fixed. And so it goes on. Let’s just hope the sun comes out tomorrow otherwise it may as well rain until September.
The weather isn’t helping me much either; despite wishing for rain to replace the sunny & humid spells last week I am not liking the grey lifeless skies and relentless down pours. The forecast said we were going to have sprinkles but heavy showers would have been more accurate.
This credit crunch is not helping my mood either. I know its affecting everyone but you just can’t escape the doom and gloom, it’s the hot topic for daytime TV. And today on GMTV they were counting down the number of days before Christmas! I don’t know if I mentioned it on the blog but we had an electric bill for the Jan to April quarter for over 800 quid. I am convinced it is wrong but despite spending hours on the phone to our supplier, they are saying it is correct. Phil has been monitoring the meter and all seems to be in order. The bill for the second quarter of the year came in at £400 which I think, it still a lot of money. We have been trying to cutback and because we are on Economy 7 I am trying to put on the washing, drying and dishwasher before 5.30am. I remembered to put on the dishwasher this morning but mostly I have overslept and missed the deadline. I am trying to cut back on the number of washing and Phil is helping by wearing his shirt, for what seems, the whole week. However this is counteracted by Harriet who throws clothes in the wash even though she’s had only had them on for half an hour.
Phil has been out and replaced all our bulbs with energy saving bulbs and we are trying to remember to turn off lights when we’re not in the room. Phil takes this to extreme and I am practically sitting here typing in the dark! The gas bill was low compared to the electric and this may have been because in the first quarter we ran the under-floor heating 24/7 and all the heating has been off for the second quarter. I’ve even taken to showering at David Lloyd to save our electric and hot water. We’ve downsized our membership at the gym to bronze which means that we can now only go from 10am to 4pm week days and anytime after 2pm at the weekends. This has inconvenienced me more that I thought it would but I am sure I will adjust when I get into the routine. Anything is better than going back to work but if needs must, then so be it.
The other thing that is worrying me is the property market. We have only had one viewing on the TMA studio flat. Everyone knows that it is a buyers market at the moment and I think that perspective purchasers any hanging on for the market to really hit rock bottom. You can’t blame them but it is certainly not helping our situation. We have a tenant at the Cranfield flat that hasn’t paid his rent for months. He originally wrote to say that somebody had got hold of his bank details and emptied his account. Phil was very sympathetic but 3 months down the line his patience is wearing thin. I put in a call to Betty the next-door nosey neighbour who tells me our tenant has had a lady visiting him several times a week. Betty thinks that she is a prostitute and it certainly would explain the lack of payment. Unless we have payment by tomorrow, we will re-possess our flat at the weekend and I can tell you, we won’t be following the legal process.
If that wasn’t annoying enough, we had several voice messages on Sunday morning from the
tenant at the CCF (city centre flat) to say that water was pouring through the light fittings and had fused all the electrics. This is the fifth leak we’ve had from the upstairs flat and 3 of these have been in the last 2 months. I won’t go into all the nitty gritty details because they are boring even to me, but not surprisingly, the tenant who cannot use the bathroom and has no electrics because they have deemed unsafe, has decided to end his contract prematurely and is moving out tonight. Phil will have to pay him back the August rent and we are then left with a leaking flat with no electrics that we can’t let out. All part of the joys of being a landlord I guess.It hasn’t been all bad. On Friday lunch I picked up Jan B from the OU and we went to lunch at The Old Swan, in Woughton. The service was really, really slow as there was only one barmaid serving which is crazy for Friday lunchtime in a busy pub. But the grub was good and we had a good old natter. I can’t remember what became of Saturday, it came and went and obviously wasn’t that exciting. Steve Pem came over midday on Sunday and him and Phil settled themselves in front of the plasma to watch the grand prix in Hungary. As hostess with the mostest or so I’d like to think, I provided scuby snacks and topped up their glasses and they seemed happy enough despite Hamilton not getting on the podium. Afterwards Phil cooked chickens on the spittle on the bbq which we had with new spuds and salad, washed down with wine of course! We finished up opening the bottle of port which seemed like a good idea at the time. Most of yesterday was spent at the council satelight office in Netherfield trying to work out what caused the leak at the CCF and trying to ascertain whether the cause of the leak to our flat had been fixed. And so it goes on. Let’s just hope the sun comes out tomorrow otherwise it may as well rain until September.
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