Hels and I have, jointly and independently, been on the receiving end of some moaning and complaining lately, as well as not a little pressure. This pressure concerns people who have not been invited to our wedding or to the stag and hen events.
Firstly, to deal with the stag and hen events. These events were both only ever intended to be low-key events for closest friends – an opportunity to get together for some food and drink, followed by some silly dancing in a cheesy club (both the hen and the stag are following a similar formula). We never wanted to have a huge event with gazillions of alcohol-fuelled people, some of which we don’t know well. I’m happy that what we’ve got planned will be just right, not just a riot.
In the case of the wedding, the event is already considerably bigger than we had originally planned. We will have over one hundred guests in attendance, far more than we would really like. Besides, we are picking up a large chunk of the bill ourselves, and our resources are limited – the budget currently exceeds the original estimate by more than thirty percent. So we have had to draw the line, which means that some friends and not a few family members will not be in attendance.
Please don’t think that we do not want these people to be there. It has just got to the stage where it is as much as we can cope with. We are both tired and run down with the planning for the wedding, combined with the house moving and everything else (such as the other everyday things we have to do, like holding down busy and sometimes stressful jobs) – this is something that we almost resent, as this should be the happiest time of our lives (though we are more happy than you could possibly imagine, trust me!).
But please accept that it is our wedding. Our day. And we would like it to be something along the lines that we would like. We think we’re achieving that (thanks to help and support from many people), and we’re both looking forward to it.
Slices of brain
A few weeks ago, I went with Hels to our local private hospital so that she could have a brain scan. She had been referred for the scan as she has a hearing problem, and the doctor wanted to check that there was nothing untoward going on inside her skull. Yesterday, we went back to get the results.
The interesting part is that you get to look at a big sheet of acetate showing about three dozen "slices" through the head, a bit like looking at slices through an enormous ham. Each slice is a fraction of a millimetre thick, and each sheet of acetate shows the ham being sliced at a different angle. It provides a unique opportunity to look at something you would never otherwise see – the inside of your own head (or, for me, the inside of my fiancée’s head). It is something that you can not reach with any of your senses, yet it is there and has been carried around by Hels for all her life.
The most shocking thing to discover, though, was that in spite of Hels agreeing to marry me, her brain is "normal".
Long rambling post
Today, I’m spending rather a lot of my day on trains. Tunbridge Wells to Charing Cross; Charing Cross to Euston; Euston to Birmingham International – and then the same journey in reverse. The purpose of my trip is to visit GLEE, a huge trade show for the garden and leisure industries, held at the NEC. Ironically, after what has generally been a difficult season in horticulture as a result of bad weather, a weak economy and chronic overproduction in some sectors, I suspect that the last thing that most participants will be is gleeful.
So, in order to look like I’m working on the train, and to provide some light relief in the absence of my paperback (left at home in order to conserve weight in my bag), today I’ll be providing one of those fascinating "blogging-whilst-travelling" posts that I know you love. And there’ll be trouble if anyone attempts to steal my format.
Observations – some people really could use plastic surgery. There is a woman sitting opposite me with the most grotesque nose. I have to say that it isn’t helped by the sour expression on her face, as she has clearly got onto the train in a bad mood, but even so, a nose job wouldn’t do any harm. Also opposite me is another woman who really needs to eat some pies. When will young women learn that having the physique of a broom handle is about as attractive as a …errmmm.. broom handle?
Wow – lovely huge drifts of Michaelmas Daisies growing on the railway embankment between Orpington and Chislehurst – great soft clouds of mauve.
Anyway – a weekend catch-up. I spent Saturday doing not much at all, taking the opportunity whilst Hels visited friends to have an extended kip on the sofa, having ploughed my way through a thick wad of paperwork sent to us by our solicitor. I also drifted by the bookstore to get some new paperbacks (I must update the current reading and current listening entries in the sidebar). In the evening, feeling in need of a moderate level of adventure, we headed out to Masala, a reasonably new Indian restaurant in the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells. It certainly wins out over our usual preferred home of curry, the Kirthon, in terms of atmosphere – the Masala seems more lively and trendy than the Kirthon, and just a little more refined. But whilst the food was generally good, and the naan was the best we’ve ever eaten, the menu was generally lacklustre and staid. The Kirthon definitely offers a far more adventurous (and possibly authentic, although I’m no expert) selection of dishes, and their rice and sauces are of far higher quality. So, we know where we’ll be going in future.
Yesterday (Sunday), we met up with my family to go around the house that we are purchasing, enjoying a mug of tea with the couple that are selling to us. It was only the second time that we had viewed it, but it confirmed our initial feelings that it is exactly the right home for us, and that was endorsed by the family. The views are still great, the road is still very quiet and the pub is still just over the back fence. We took the opportunity to walk around the village, surveying the village hall, tiny post office (open two afternoons each week only), beautiful church with Italianate ceiling (no, really!) and, most importantly, the pub. Ticks against every item.
OK – I need to conserve laptop battery as I might need this thing at GLEE.
[later…]
Hurrah for Virgin Trains with sockets under the tables. Pity the northbound train was old stock, pre-laptop.
Well, the big news is that my first hour at GLEE was filled with phone calls to and from our solicitor and the mortgage people. Our mortgage has been approved, subject to a favourable valuation survey. We’ve also been told that we don’t need the bells and whistles survey unless the basic survey shows any cause for concern. And the solicitor has ironed out a few other creases in things – it looks like everything is beginning to slot into place, although I’m holding my breath on celebrating, as there are still a few potential pitfalls yet. However, I’m pretty confdent that we won’t fall down at any of these small hurdles. I might allow myself a small port and lemon to mark the occasion.
In other news, one of my clients contacted me today with a tip-off for a potentially very exciting new breeder client for PFE in the Czech Republic. Which seems like a perfectly good excuse for a flying visit to Prague at some point. Furthermore, in spite of being able to cover the entire plant hall at the GLEE event in 2.5 hours, including coffee break and diversionary chat with Paul C at his stand in the neighbouring hall, I think I’ve picked up a small number of potential new grower clients for my charges and, more importantly, a crackingly good new breeder client in Worcestershire. Droitwich is probably not as exciting as Prague, but money is money wherever it comes from.
The bonus with finishing at GLEE early is that I’ve been able to get an earlier train, which means that I’ll be home shortly after 7 and able to relax a little this evening. The tube across London and the train from London Bridge will both, inevitably, be miserably packed, but home for dinner has to be a fair pay-off for that. And for now I can get on with some work, with an archived edition of GHC to listen to.
In general, GLEE failed totally to live up to its name. Growers there were in two camps – the "not bad considering" camp and the "sorry, we can’t hide the dismal prospects for our business as our faces are so long" camp. Thankfully, most of my clients fall into the former camp and not the latter, and tough times seem to be forcing companies to look at ways of innovating in order to differentiate their offerings from those of their competitors – which is good news for an agent representing new products such as myself. It was also good to see Paul C looking very upbeat indeed – his company had paid considerably more for the stand this year so that they could have a prime position, and it seems to be paying off, with the promise of meetings with some very large potential clients as well as substantial interest and orders from smaller customers. Paul works really hard for his business, probably much harder than I do for PFE, and it looks like he is getting the rewards he deserves.
[later still…]
Note to self – the online timetables do not always tell you the whole story. If I believed everything that I was told, I’d currently be trying to fold myself into an already-packed train at London Bridge. As it is, I’ve got a table and air at Charing Cross. No doubt it will become hellish later, but for now I can feel like a smug, hardened commuter.
Having said that, I’d hate to do this every day – the blank, staring and empty faces of so many commuters, idling in brain-neutral as they grapple with the journey home, is enough to deter anyone from this way of life – and that’s just the ones who are awake. I’m glad that my work calls only for very occasional forays into The Smoke, and more time spent in the countryside – and, soon, lots of time at our lovely new home, with fields and woods all around.
Palms
In one month from now, precisely, I will be standing in front of an altar, with palms that will most likely be very sweaty indeed.
Testing
Currently, our patience is being tested by surveyors who suggest that the house we are about to buy is going to fall into a large hole that could open up at any time. This in spite of the fact that all the houses in the street were built at least fifty years ago, and none have yet fallen into any mysteriously appearing holes. In addition, there are no nearby mineworks or quarries.
Furthermore, we may find ourselves being slowly poisoned by terrible toxic waste arising from evil landfill. This in spite of the fact that these very same houses were built on a green field site just after the Second World War, and nobody has been poisoned yet.
Our suggestion that we could bring in our own (local, knowledgeable and experienced) surveyor (and I don’t mean Dad) to provide an impartial view of the situation has had scorn poured upon it by the dear folks at the NatWest, who insist that we must only use one of their registered surveyors. My knowledge of EU competition regulation would suggest that this practice is anti-competitive and therefore illegal, but we are in no position to argue with a bunch of surveyors who are clearly only out to serve their own interests by suggesting that we have surveys done to check against things that exist only in their own imaginings. At our expense, of course. Considerable expense at that.
Later today, we are expecting a response from the NatWest to our full application for our mortgage. They’ve already said that they will give us the mortgage, based on Hels’s income, but it seems clear that they want to check my financial status to ensure that I won’t be reliant on H for financial survival. Which, of course, I am not (*cough*). What’s the betting that the financial statements that I have sent to them will not be satisfactory?
There has to be an easier (and less stressful) way.
Home again, home again
It’s very good to be home again – these days, I find that I come to a point when travelling for work when all I want to do is go home. On this trip, that point came on Friday morning, but we still managed to fit in some useful and enjoyable work stuff, so it wasn’t all that bad. Highlights of this trip:
- dinner with friends of Mike on Sunday evening
- Mike fracturing his elbow whilst playing table tennis (not sure if that qualifies as a highlight!)
- exploring Münster, Bonn and Schwäbisch Gmünd – I particularly love the sound of this last town, which you pronounce as shway-bish ger-munnd
- doing lots of extremely good business
- lovely dinner with good friends, Jakob and Maria
- driving at 160kmh on the autobahn
Since getting home, our attention has turned to exciting mortgage paperwork, exciting bank paperwork and exciting solicitor paperwork. But we took the time yesterday to go for a walk followed by an enormous Sunday lunch, which is how things should be.
Driving pain
I’ve driven nearly 900 miles in the last four days – from Tunbridge Wells to Chichester and back, to Calais and back to procure the vino for the wedding reception (there is plenty and it is good, rest assured) and then to Holmes Chapel in Cheshire and back for the Four Oaks trade show. I trundled up and down the M6 Toll (waving to Brian as I went past his neck of the woods), observing that travelling at 75 or 80 mph consigns you to the slow lane, even though the limit is 70mph. If there were cameras at the same frequency as there are on the M25, the local constabulary could net thousands every day. And judging by the frequency of big rubber stripes on the tarmac, there would be justification for installing them.
I’m sure that there are lots of other utterly fascinating things I could tell you, but I can’t be bothered. But here are a few bullet-point observations:
- aren’t the streetlamps at Cité de l’Europe in Calais cool?
- I’ve had a filthy cold for the last few days. I seem to have given it to Hels.
- I love Jodrell Bank. I like the way that every time you drive past, the telescope is pointing a different direction.
- House sales and purchase seem to be progressing ok, although I’m being buried under requests for papers that I don’t possess. Thankfully, my solicitor seems to be on the case.
- If ever you are looking for a hotel in Cheshire, do not book the Saxon Cross in Sandbach. It’s crap – grubby in the extreme, with pathetic showers and mediocre service. Why do we do cheap hotels so badly in the UK compared to our continental cousins? (Not that I consider £50 PLUS extra for breakfast to be cheap!)
I’m pooped.
News flash
House viewed in the middle of nowhere.
Offer tendered.
Offer rejected.
New offer tendered.
Offer accepted.
Celebrations.
Now for the hard work. Fingers crossed, eh?
Last night at Schiphol…
[written yesterday at the airport]
There’s something about being in airports, even the more cosmopolitan variants such as Schiphol, that makes you feel like you are suddenly a character in Rocko’s Modern Life. As I fought my way through the aisles of the shop in the departures lounge, surveying the endless rows of over-priced tat in a half-hearted and ultimately futile attempt to find a small gift for H (cow-shaped photo frame, anyone?), a clearly over-enthusiastic floor-sweeper operator patrolled across the store in an excessively frenetic and slightly crazed manner, literally sweeping all (including magazines, postcards, stray luggage and unattended children) before him. Meanwhile, a grotesquely overweight American, complete with shockingly pink navel glaring out through an opening in an over-stretched mid blue nylon shirt, ambles vacantly with an air of the lost (in every sense of the word). On the travelator, a tattooed Dutchman speaks rapidly to a girlfriend via his mobile phone whilst walking at full speed against the direction of the belt – perhaps some bizarre form of exercise for exhibitionists.
At gate D8, waiting for the flight to LGW, all one can hear is the monotonous, rapidly-repeated refrain of "Mind your step", delivered in a delicately accented female voice to travellers reaching the end of the moving walkway. A group of teenagers run for the end of the walkway, hoping to reach some sort of terminal velocity at the point where the walkway folds back under itself and they are catapulted onto the shiny tiled airport floor.
"Mr O’Toole, please report to airport information. Mr O’Toole, please report to airport information." Isn’t that one of those coded announcements, informing staff of a suspect package?
Evening sun is glowing across the aircraft on the apron as incredibly dark clouds loom over distant Amsterdam city centre. It’s been an incredibly foul day, with torrential rain, lots of standing water and slow-moving traffic on the A4. The sky promises a rough flight home. I ponder whether to go and get a copy of Wallpaper* Navigator, the new travel sub-brand of my favourite magazine that I’ve only just noticed (I tend not to browse magazine shelves at home, as the special subscriber edition of Wallpaper* is delivered to my home each month), but I feel that €10.99 is rather a lot for a magazine that costs £3.99 at home.
This has been a useful trip, with considerable amounts of knowledge gained, a few new contacts made and several old contacts refreshed. But I forget just how exhausting trade shows are to attend – an eight hour day yesterday of trudging the aisles, constant talking and vain attempts to absorb all of the information that is being presented to me; today, a 10am meeting (at least a civil hour at which to begin the day) followed by another four hours of aisle trudging, etc.
At the back of my mind are thoughts about our impending house-hunting and move. My travels here have been punctuated by several phone calls (including a very long one from the Gatwick departure lounge) to mortgage people, estate agents and Hels, all on that theme. Somehow, in spite of all the distractions around us, this weekend we must focus our attention on finding the right home in which to begin our married life – possibly the biggest decision we will make during our thirties (aside from the actual decision to marry, of course!). We have three candidate properties to view – two in need of significant refurbishment and one that has been recently refurbished but is in the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere option is the most appealing to us both at the moment – the property details are encouraging, the pictures of the property are encouraging, the location is encouraging and the price is encouraging. We have two properties sold. We have mortgage agreed. The pieces may, finally, be fitting together. But celebrations will be withheld until we have the keys in our hands.
Do Japanese tourists really shout a lot and take photographs of everything, or is it a popular myth? There is a group here that is doing nothing to dispel the untruth, if that is what it is. Oh oh, I’m getting grumpy.
Oh my god. There are dozens of them! Enough to half-fill the aircraft. Gah. AND I’ve run out of Maynards’ Wine Pastilles. This flight could last a lot longer than the scheduled hour. And nothing to read besides an EC Directive, as I arrived sufficiently early to demolish the entire Indy already.
And I’m sure I passed H’s local vicar by the tat shop.
Brinkmanship
Sale agreed, with an additional £1000. Yay!