separating the wanted from the unwanted
It’s a good job this edge isn’t sharp, or else I’d cut myself.
Hels has had a good cash offer on her flat. Yipes! I really do need to speed up the decorating now!
She plans to hold out for a little more money – it’s slightly below the asking price, and we both reckon that, given that an offer has come so quickly, that she can ask for a little more and play hard to get. As it were.
So, since I’m travelling to France tomorrow evening (immediately after doing a local speaking gig) and will not be home until 7am on Saturday, I’ve scheduled in the weekend for a decorating extravaganza. Hopefully, that will then put me in a position to put the flat on to the market sooner rather than later – the target date is March 15th, but I reckon we can get there sooner than that, particularly if Dad gives me a hand.
So, like I said – anyone want to buy a flat?
Ooo blimey – Hels has had one person look at her flat already who is "very very interested" and has another person coming to view it tonight. And it’s only been on the market since the end of last week.
Which means that yours truly is going to have to get his butt into gear with getting his own abode ready for sale and onto the market. Yipes.
Not much to report here: the weekend was spent with family and, when not with family, doing very pleasant, relaxed and low-key Valentine’s Day type things.
<politics>Anyone smell a gimmick here?</politics>
Been to a trade show in Dorset today. Not very exciting.
Tired. Will put my feet up tonight, I think.
Thanks to everyone who contributed advice on the work problems I mentioned below. The outlook now seems a little more positive, largely because we now think that by strengthening the team and making plans and decisions for the future, we should be able to work things out to a positive conclusion. But that depends on everyone, including the boss, doing everything as we hope. I’m not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, we’ve had a full-value weekend, featuring dinner out on Friday, lunch with my parents yesterday, a visit to Kearn’s nursery, lunch with Bren and Greg today and a couple of long lie-ins. Also, we’ve made a start on blitzing my flat. Following advice from my estate agent, I’ve been working to reduce the amount of clutter in the flat, with the aim of simplifying the upcoming redecorating task (a lick of paint to make it look bright and fresh, plus replacement cheap carpet and finally hanging the new curtains that I’ve had for ages) and also to make the flat seem bigger than it really is – or, perhaps, less small, depending how you look at it. So far, the shelves in the living room have been dismantled, which means that my CD collection has mostly gone into storage – reduced from 550 CDs to just 70. Hundreds of books have been boxed up, as well as my archive of Wallpaper magazines. Additionally, I’ve had a blitz of my wardrobe, leading to several sacks of old shirts and tatty jeans being taken to the textiles recycling bin at the tip. My desktop PC is currently sitting on the floor, awaiting transportation to the nursery for storage until we get to our new home.
All this does make the flat seem larger, but it also creates a strange sensation – I’m beginning to dismantle the place that has been home for the last five years, the first home that I have owned and paid for with my own money. Along with the upcoming planning application for new windows (at last), I will soon be ready to put the house on the market and then throw my lot in with Hels (who is also going through the same thing). Life will never be the same again.
As an aside:
The property is only two minutes walk from the main shopping streets of Chichester, which offer a wide variety of big name stores as well as small boutiques and specialists. It is close to the historic centre of the city, with its historic buildings, cathedral and elegant parks, and is also only a few minutes from the mainline railway station (London Victoria 100 minutes).
O.I.R.O. £149,500
Interested? Email me, and let’s both save some estate agency fees.
The last few days in bullet points:
You can tell it is the thirteenth today – it’s not even a Friday, yet everything seems to be going wrong or to be full of stress. Missing staples, miscreant property management companies, short-tempered people, time-poor people and a distinct lack of chocolate are making for a mildly stressed and tetchy Graybo.
But the only solution to these problems is to seek a logical way to move forward. So my problematic email server is being solved by a DNS transfer to 34sp.com, who have been making a very good job of looking after grayblog for the last three months or so. The missing staples problem is solved by looking where they should not be. Property management companies are less easy to fix, but some research involving a trade catalogue for cast iron drain parts has proved to be enlightening, and some sensible financial management ideas pour oil on troubled waters. And whilst I still have no chocolate, a Polo acts as a good temporary substitute.
I could use a holiday, but there seems to be no chance of that (other than the honeymoon) much before 2020 (you think I’m overstating the situation?!). So I shall seek other forms of rest and relaxation after work today, probably involving some music and a good book, with the possible addition of a soak in the bath. That will be better than last night, when I finally finished the paperwork I had taken home at around 11pm.
I promised a review of 2003, although reading Gordon‘s, I was tempted to give it up as a bad idea. It’s hard to sum it up in a few words, but I think it is fair to say that 2003 was the best year yet, both professionally and personally.
There have been three major positives in 2003. The first was finally deciding to draw down the shutters on Croftway Nursery in its current incarnation. With my parents finding running the nursery so all-consuming that no room was left in life for the more pleasurable things, and with my brother and I both up to our eyes in our own projects, it was really a simple and natural conclusion to come to. Since that decision was made, all sorts of exciting new plans for the nursery have been made, all of which involve my parents – they certainly won’t be spending the future sitting in front of the fire with the cat, which is exactly how things should be as they are not the sort of people who enjoy sitting around and being idle. I’m looking forward to the future for Croftway, even if my part in that will be much less than my part in its recent past.
The second major positive was the creation and rapid blooming of Plants For Europe Limited. If someone had told me a couple of years ago that I’d be undertaking to set up my own business that would give me the opportunity to travel a bit, meet interesting people and see brand new plant varieties before the rest of the world, I’d have laughed. The fact that PFE has also been so well received by the industry is also extremely encouraging, such that PFE is already exceeding my forecasts (which is also the result of my prudence when it comes to spending money, my additional cash inputs and the support of my backers). The next three years will not be easy for PFE – money will flow outward faster than it flows in, but I’m confident that the tide will begin to turn, and that if all goes well, it should provide a good income for me and my family in the future.
Not only that, but PFE has also been good fun. It has always been important to me to have a job that I enjoy – I rate that above pecuniary reward. PFE is certainly that, and has included some interesting travel too, with two trips to the States (plus some add-on when I went to David and Andi’s wedding), a trip to Germany and three trips to the Netherlands, as well as several trips within England and Wales. 2004 will see still more travel, with visits to Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Ireland, Scotland and possibly more. There’ll be a lot to fit in this year.
Of course, the last but greatest of the three positives of 2003 was meeting and getting engaged to Hels. We’ve got a lot to get through in 2004 – we need to sell our flats, find a new home, arrange a wedding, actually get married and then settle in to our new life together. It’s an exciting and challenging time, but I’m loving every minute, and looking forward to all that it will bring.
grayblog is still here too, nearly halfway through its fourth year of continuous inanity. I’m surprised you stick around to read this drivel, but you do. I still enjoy creating and maintaining what you see here and, as I’ve said before, whilst that remains the case then I shall continue to keep on driveling. I still have plans to improve this site, although finally switching to MT and changing hosts was a great step forward.
So that’s it really. 2003 done with, 2004 to look forward to. I hope yours is as good as mine promises to be.
Apologies for the continuing lack of content. I’ve been monumentally busy lately, as our social diaries seem to be just packed to the gunwhales with events involving friends, family and J Sainsbury.
Anyway, I promised a Christmas report. There isn’t much to say, to be honest, but highlights included dinner with Hels’s sister Lu, her husband Kevin and their friends Fiona and Kevin on Christmas Eve; Christmas Day with Hels’s family; Boxing Day with my family; a walk by Chichester canal; dinner with a friend from Hels’s office and her family; a burger in a bowling alley (don’t ask); drinks and dinner with some more of Hels’s friends.
The edge was partly taken off things as we were both ill, possibly as a result of exceeding the limits of food and drink consumption, and possibly as a result of a bug of some description. I suspect it was a combination of the two.
Tonight we shall be in Chichester for the annual New Year celebration at the Nag’s Head. This, by way of a change, shall involve consuming large quantities of food and drink, with the possible added complication of dancing.
Pity my liver and pass the Rennies please.