Kebabs R US

I couldn’t wait to use this blog title, it took exactly a week since we moved in until we finally got to sample the local cuisine from Al Kebabish. It’s not very often these days that I get the chance to eat one. In the old days it was part of my staple diet; many a time Chris Waugh and I would be walking, well staggering, back from the pub and fall into the local Kebab shop. Many a time I have woken up smothered all over in chili sauce but that’s another story. I always used to think that it was the chili sauce that gave you a headache in the morning but was able to eliminate it when I stopped eating them and still woke up with one each morning. Anyway I would only give Al Kebabish 6 out of 10 as far as Kebabs go. I was ok but they used lettuce instead of white cabbage and there was far too little chili sauce. What chili sauce there was wasn’t hot enough. The chicken was like a chicken kebab rather than cooked on skewers but maybe that was my fault in not making our requirements clear when ordering. The lamb doner meat was lovely though.

The Barbers are our immediate neighbor to our left with Al Kebabish next to them and then a short walk across the road to the library. Another neighbor, across the road, is Marks and Spencer’s so we frequently pop over for a ready meal when we are busy. Although our flat is small and we have little room for storage, we are right amongst it and the shops become our store cupboards. The market is only a short walk through the city centre with all their fresh vegetables and no worries about parking.

As you are probably aware, Claire has not been hugely happy with our latest move into the city life style. Amazingly she seemed much happier in the sticks by the canal and park, I don’t think she’s much of a city girl. We had a chat Friday night and Claire feels we should totally redecorate the entire apartment to make it our own. When we first moved in I thought it would only be for a few weeks or a couple of months at the most because we put the property on the market before we moved in. Anyway we haven’t had a sniff of interest and it is priced much lower than I would have thought needed to sell it. This downturn is the worst I have ever seen, you almost have to give properties away to sell them. What we had hoped was that we would move in, do minor improvements while we were here, sell it and bugger off to India for the winter, only returning when we could move back into our lovely house by the canal the second our tenants contract was up. It now seems we are trapped here until the market turns around so we have to rethink and adjust our plans accordingly.

CHANGING ROOMS

First thing Saturday morning we moved the huge red settee into what used to be the apartment blocks entrance hall but is not our personal reception. There is no harm in claiming a bit more space that is not normally used for anything and making it much nicer at the same time. Claire thought it was too big for our small lounge so it has gone out and in came the little black and white sofa bed. This was in the second bedroom but now we have moved everything out of it and the carpet was ripped out shortly afterwards, this room has now became our workshop (well my workshop). Claire has painted the skirting, ceiling and window wall white while I change our bedroom light and blind. We bought some funky wallpaper for the second bedroom as once we had stripped a small part of the existing paper the finish on the walls is not good enough to paint without being re-plastered. So we are leaving most of the existing paper alone and paper over it.

First thing in the mornings, I have a quick walk to Lloyds Court and buy our morning paper from Moors shop. I also had to pop into the Citizen shop to collect the local paper as none have been delivered since we have been here. They explained that the council would not allow them to deliver free papers into the city centre blocks because they were a fire hazard. Well they wouldn’t be a fire hazard if they put one paper through each door just like they do everywhere else would they? They could deliver hundreds of papers in a much shorter time than along conventional streets. Why should they dump a pile of papers in our reception area anyway? The problem is resolved as all we have to do is pick a paper up from the Citizen shop ourselves when they are out. One benefit from living here is that all the walkways are covered so you don’t get wet. It’s only crossing the roads that is uncovered so you just wait for your moment and run for it. Also the library is our close neighbor so books are so easy to loan and we only need to get one at a time. In actual fact, we don’t even need to get a paper anymore; we could just sit in the library and read theirs everyday. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I filled in the Suduko and Claire could read all those women’s magazines she likes so much. And if we had a DVD player we could rent them from the library really cheap.

I had to nip in the “City store” next door to get a box of matches as now we have an electric oven, we have no way of lighting our candles. I decided to splash out on a cheap lighter rather than matches in the end. We have been lighting them so far using my little cheffy Bunsen burner but that has finally run out now so when I buy a re-filler I can refill the lighter at the same time. I noticed the shop next door to the store that used to be the barbers was being refitted again but the new sign said “City store” so I asked them if they were extending. They are, it’s going to be twice its size in two weeks time. They must be the first business ever that has double their premises size in their first month of operation, especially in such troubled times. I look forward to seeing them on the stock market. Another benefit (especially for Claire) is that we have our own rubbish tip next door so Claire never has to drive to the tip again. Immediately next door to our entrance/reception is another huge door where our skip sits behind. Next to this is the extension of City store and next to that is the existing City store, are you getting the picture now? As we only have one key for this rubbish door I tried to get it copied in the city centre but they refused as it was listed as a high security key that they could not copy. They also refused to copy the other 2 keys I took in at the same time because they were also top security keys from Brinnick’s master locksmiths. I sighed, but it was no use arguing and I drove over to Brinnick in Newport Pagnell. We have an account with them as we have all our rental property keys on a suit that they have prepared. They are called the “Multilock system” and I love them, not sure if it’s a man thing but it has made our lives so much simpler since we switched to them. We only need one key for all our properties but each of them has a different key, we have a master key from a suite of a possible 50 different locks. We keep each property with one key, even if it needs a padlock for a shed. We always have 2 locks; one a Yale type lock and one a mortise type but with the same key, even the padlock has the same key. They are also virtually impossible to pick and nobody else can have them copied so they are perfect for landlords. They are not cheap but well worth it. Anyway, Brinnick’s copied their keys for me but they also couldn’t copy our bin cupboard key. They didn’t even have a blank for it. We should feel very safe in the fact that NOBODY can get a key and break into our personal bin cupboard!