Funky DIY

It was a DIY day. It went something like this, B&Q…DIY…B&Q…DIY…ad nauseum. At least I was looking funky for it all though!!

Nice Gloves!

A.

Bootful of Bushes

This afternoon our friend Ali kindly offered to help me get rid of the remains of all the trees and bushes I’d cut down in the back garden a couple of weeks ago. At first glance we thought that it would all fit comfortably into the back of his people-carrier, but in the end it was a really tight squeeze as you can see……

Ali gets to grips with some foliage

At one point, Ali and I lifted up a small platform that sat in the middle of the garden to reveal a massive hole in the ground. The hole is about 4 foot deep and 2 feet in diameter! What’s the deal there? We can only imagine that it was for the fake stream the previous owners had installed (nice!) and which I haven’t properly removed. Madness though - you don’t really expect to find that sort of thing kicking about your garden. Catherine says it reminds her of a rubbish horror film we watched recently:

Andy

P.S. I saved this today:

I’ve named her Catherine; cute in a strange way, but really, really slow

(I’m going to pay for that!)

Secrets

Last night I couldn’t get to sleep for ages. I think it had something to do with the rain lashing against the window, the late night coffee I had consumed, and the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about our attic! We’ve only ever poked our heads up there once, but it was dark and we didn’t have a torch, so although we could make out the shapes of objects lying around we’ve never really known what was up there.

Today I decided it was about time that we knew. We still don’t have a torch, but I had decided to solve that problem by using the camera flash! After opening the attic door I also discovered that there is a little window up there, so it wasn’t actually dark at all. I still didn’t fancy going right to the top of the ladder though so I just held the camera above my head and took a couple of snaps which I was then able to check the content of once I was safely back on the ground, and able to run away if necessary! Here are just some of the secrets that our attic holds ….

A remote control car and a purple carrier bag containing I-don’t-know-what.

The box for a karaoke machine and some other cardboard boxes. Do they have anything inside? Who knows!

I have to warn you … I was quite shocked to see this next photograph, and the pair of eyes staring back at me:

I was relieved to realise that the eyes simply belonged to a large (but freaky looking) teddy bear.

Other treasures included some polystyrene blocks, and a trophy from an Inverkeithing Junior Bowls championship!

Ah well, hopefully I’ll be able to sleep better tonight.

Catherine

D. I. Why?!

Having decided to stay put for the time being, we spent some time on Saturday at good old B&Q purchasing wallpaper and such like so that we could start decorating the house in the way that we have always wanted to. When I came home from work today, Andy (who had the day off) had been busy putting up 6 beautiful book shelves in the living room:

By the time dinner was ready, those beautiful shelves looked a little more like this:

As I write, Andy is at IKEA buying a book case. We will use the shelves for lighter items in another room!

Catherine

Home Sweet Home

It’s official. Our house is off the market! Not because we have sold it … but because we have decided not to sell it anymore. At least, not for the time being.

The only feedback we’ve had from viewers so far this year has been ‘We love the house, we’re just not sure about the area’ And yes - we sold it 3 times last year but what’s the point in selling it if the people then can’t get a mortgage? And did you know we have had 68 people wanting to come and view the house?! A large number of these people have not actually turned up but that’s still 68 times we have tidied up and sat waiting for someone to arrive. (Just so you know, it was the Estate Agent and not us who were counting).

Last week we spoke to the Estate Agent and they suggested that it might be a good idea to take it off the market for a while. And considering the fact that we are actually quite happy with this house, and have never had any problem with the area, we have! And it’s great not having to deal with any viewers (whether they turn up or not!)

Catherine

A Day of Views and Viewers

The Forth Road Bridge from South Queensferry

It was my day off today and since it was nice outside, I decided to head over to South Queensferry and take a few photos. I managed to get a couple of shots of the town centre and the bridges. I really like South Queensferry, the old buildings on the High Street are amazing - maybe we can find someone there who wants to house swap with us, maybe on a permanent basis.

I went into Edinburgh in the afternoon and had a walk about. I stopped in my usual haunts (Café Jaques, Coda and the Free Church bookshop) and took some more photos. We’ve had the camera for a few months now, but I’m still trying to get to grips with it, it’s too complicated for my little brain to deal with.

Advocate’s Close

After sitting for ages drinking too much coffee and reading my book (Schaeffer - yeah, still reading it!), I picked up Catherine from work and we headed back to South Queensferry and to the Railbridge restaurant for tea. We justified this expense by telling ourselves that since we had people coming to view our house later on, that we didn’t have time to cook and clean up and that we didn’t want our house smelling of food for our visitors. For some reason, we had it in our minds that the restaurant was quite an inexpensive place, so we got a surprise when we opened our menus to find that this wasn’t the case at all, and that a chicken burger was going to cost more than a tenner. In the end, I settled for haggis and chicken and Catherine chose some mussels. Neither dishes were great, but the views from the resaurant over the Forth are (almost) worth the visit.

The Railbridge Restaurant

Five minutes after getting home and an hour and forty minutes before they were supposed to arrive, our first viewers showed up. This unexpected visit, as you can imagine, caused quite a lot of panic. The viewers had come through from Glasgow and the drive hadn’t taken as long as they had thought (how can you arrive an hour and a half early from Glasgow?) so they just thought they would get the visit over and done with. We did ask them to give us five minutes so that we could tidy up, but they weren’t having any of it and we had to go along with the viewing. Catherine showed them downstairs, while I ran around the upstairs frantically trying to tidy up as best I could. Ten minutes later, while they were still inspecting the downstairs, another knock at the door added to Catherine’s already inflated blood pressure - it was the next lot of viewers, this time only half an hour early! To cut a long and tedious story short, both sets of people liked the house, but weren’t exactly enthusiastic. I’m not holding my breath. The move to South Queensferry will just have to remain on hold for a little longer

more photos

Andy

When are we moving?

We were supposed to be moving on Friday, but this is looking increasingly unlikely. I’m not kidding when I say that Jay Jay jumps in and out of that box every 10 minutes of the day in the hope that it’s time to go. Well, perhaps that’s not why he does it but he does do it that often …

It’s 2 years ago today that we got Dylan and Jay Jay. Not much has changed! Jay Jay loved boxes even then. Below is a photo of him buried inside one that Christmas. (When we move we will make sure he has just as much padding in order to prevent him from rattling around too much.)*

Catherine

* That was a joke. Let me assure any animal lovers out there who might stumble across our blog that the cats will be going to the cattery so they can avoid all of the stress of moving.

Violated

I feel violated.

I spent the morning driving around Edinburgh trying to find somewhere that I could get some cardboard boxes so we can start packing up the house. Supermarkets and shops seem to have stopped giving out any, so this proved more difficult than you might imagine. Catherine suggested a shop on Morningside Road that sells all sorts of packaging stuff, so I headed up there. When I got there, I went in and asked the guy behind the counter for ten medium sized boxes. The bloke replied in broken English that this would be £6.50, which I thought was quite reasonable. I went outside to pop the boxes into the car and told him I’d be back in a second to pay up. When I came back and handed over my card, the guy informed me that the transaction came to 65 quid! It had been £6.50 PER BOX! SIX POUNDS FIFTY FOR A CARDBOARD BOX! I had to pay since a traffic warden was paying close attention to my illegally parked car, and a ticket would have been the cherry on top. I am still struggling to believe that boxes cost that much.

Please don’t tell my wife!

Andy

A Double Celebration

As mentioned in the post below it was my birthday yesterday. I am now 26 years old. Ouch.

It was a good day in more ways than one. I met my cousin Jeni for lunch and later, Andy and I went out for dinner and to the cinema. We also sold our house - again! This is the 3rd time we have sold it, and hopefully it will be the last. The estate agent was much more confident about this offer than the previous one so we felt it was safe to go and take another look at the house we hope to buy in Kirkcaldy. We’re just waiting now to find out if we’ve got it …

Anyway, back to my birthday! Andy bought me one of the recently relaunched iPod nanos. It’s AMAZING! One of the best things about it is that it has the capability to play video so when we do finally move to Kirkcaldy, I can watch TV on the train! Well, not actual TV - but I can download episodes of Lost (and various other programmes) to keep me amused on the commute. Another great thing about it is the fact that it is so tiny and cute. It’s pretty much the same size as a credit card:

So, last night we went to a restaurant in Ocean Terminal called Sky. As Andy noted in the previous post, the pudding I chose was not the greatest. I had ordered ‘Double chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce’ expecting freshly baked (or at least warmed) gooey cookies with smooth, creamy, white vanilla ice cream (the kind that most restaurants serve) finished off nicely with a drizzle of puréed raspberries. Clearly I was expecting too much! What I actually got was yellow Walls ice cream (which had obviously melted and been frozen again so it was crunchy), three Maryland cookies and a dollop of Treat sauce. Minging - I couldn’t even finish it! My stomach mourned how good it could have been all the way through The Brave One which we went to see afterwards.

Fortunately, pudding-wise the day was not a complete loss. I have to admit to devouring a slice of birthday cake prior to dinner! After viewing the house in Kirkcaldy we called into the MacMillans where candles were produced and a professional candle extinguisher was provided. Below is a photo of Douglas in action!

Catherine

House and Harbour

Today our house went back on the market for the second time. We had accepted an offer from someone last week but no one has heard from the guy since! Not even his own solicitors can get hold of him. There is a chance that he is on holiday but we were advised not to sit around waiting for him to resurface.

So, we were all set for viewings again this evening. Andy had spent the afternoon tidying up in preperation … only for the viewing to be cancelled at the last minute! In need of some food (and comfort food at that) we headed to the Amritsar Tandoori Restaurant in Kirkcaldy for an all you can eat Indian buffet. If I had to choose one word to sum up this experience it would be ‘Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm’.

Afterwards we took a wander around Dysart Harbour (to work off the currys!) and now we’re about to sit down in front of a Nicholas Cage DVD in our tidy (but unsold) home.

Catherine