Friday 12th of January 2007 – Baby Adam & House Search
You are about to have a baby brother, in just over a month.
Adam will be his name. Jo has been in lots of pain (because she had an operation before and the internal stitches were getting pulled apart) and there was talk of taking Adam out a month earlier, on the 17th of January. Jo can’t take really strong pain killers, because of the pregnancy, but she has a high pain threshold as she is used to experiencing a lot of pain, from having Chron’s disease and an operation to fix it.
You picked a little army waistcoat and matching trousers to give him as his first presents, and you also chose some of your best old books to give to him. While you went to Manchester for Christmas, we had a look at Jo, R. and Adam’s new house, at that point it had been gutted, plastered, rewired, new heating put on, new attic, new bathroom, but there was still a lot to be done, including carpeting, painting wall, fitting new kitchen, tiling bathroom. Basically they gutted the whole house, built a whole new floor and rebuilt it from the start. Being that Jo’s dad is a builder and R.’s friend, Garrad is a painter & decorator, it all worked out rather affordable. To do something similar in London would have cost around £50,000 – and I reckon it can’t have cost them more than £10K for the work they did!
We’re still searching for our 3 bed house, it’s been very quiet with it being New Year and January, but in the last week things have picked up. We’re seeing 2 houses tonight. Last week we saw 3 houses but none were suitable. One of them needed complete gutting. I’d love to take on a project like that but J isn’t too keen. This house had an 80 ft garden, absolutely massive!!!! The houses we are seeing tonight are on Franciscan Rd, SW17 (perfect location that one!) and 155, Gassiot Rd. Both are selling for £365, which is £15k above our budget and being that houses are selling within a day at the full asking price we have a very slim chance of getting either. But what else can we do? There’s nothing else around at the moment. J’s been away for work in North Carolina all week and I’ve been the one taking care of making apts. and keeping an eye on the houses. At first I was a bit overwhelmed, kept getting confused with all the different agents and houses, now I’ve got a system (writing down things straight away, simple hey?) and I’m really enjoying the whole thing.
Also, we’ve been told we won’t be moving to the South Bank office until end of April at the earliest so that buys us an extra 2 months, which is good news. If we don’t move end of April then the move won’t happen till August, which is ever better!
Spent the whole week dealing with the car, ended up spending £265 to get our Nissan Micra through the MOT! I’m keeping it for this year then getting a new car at the end of the year, probably another Micra because I like my car so much and it’s reliable and it’s lasted since 2000 and now it’s getting old and rusty but it’s a good little car to have in London.
On Monday I dropped the car for the MOT test and it failed, the reasons:
1) A small rust hole on the under the nearside (passenger side) needed patching.
2) The screen wiper on the nearside needed changing.
3) The emissions were dodgy and failed, but the guy who did the test reckoned if I had my car serviced it should pass…
I got recommended a mechanic on 43, St. John’s Grove (off St. John’s Hill, near Clapham Junction) and left the car there on Wednesday morning, for a full service, patching and wiper changing, all for £190, which is not bad, I guess. This mechanic was such a lovely guy, he must have been about 60 years old, very chatty and friendly. I love it when people are like that! So, he sorted the car out for us, he even lifted the car and showed me a problem with the wheel shaft rubber protectors on the two front wheels (they had split) and he was rather suprised they hadn’t spotted it on the MOT. I guess that because them being split is not dangerous maybe they don’t test for it anymore? Anyway, he said that if they failed me again because of that I should argue that they should have spotted it in the first place; and to bring the car back and he’d fix it for me should I need that to pass the MOT.
I left the car at the MOT testing station again, yesterday, and this time it passed. Still it cost me £75 just for the testing. Until last year if your car failed the MOT you’d only get charged once if you brought it back within a few days (a week or something), Now they’ve changed it and you get charged a ‘retest’ fee, so the full fee is £50, and the retest fee is half price…
You’ve been wanting to be a mechanic lately, so this has been interesting for you. When we were at the garage and the mechanic lifted the car up for us (he also said not many small garages have that lifting mechanism anymore, very cool, wish I had my camera that day) we were both fascinated! It was great fun, but the mechanic said you should be an accountant rather than a mechanic. I don’t know about that, I bet it’s more fun and you get a bigger job satisfaction from being a mechanic… Well, I guess it depends what you’re into, hey? Personally, I’d rather be a mechanic!
More surrealy, last Saturday (your first day back from Manchester) we both went out in the rain, wellies on and wrapped up, in Hampstead Heath. It wasn’t that cold and I hadn’t been in a park for a few weeks (neither had you I don’t think, unless you did while you were in Manchester). Anyway, we’re running around, having an adventure with the metal detector you got for Christmas (from your nana, although it doesn’t seem to detect coins!). We’d just been racing down the hill that goes from Primrose Hill to the racing track when suddenly we see an alien walking right next to us. Jesus wept, I nearly had a heart attack and started to wonder if I was dreaming. How incredibly mad it was! You couldn’t believe your eyes either. I only had my mobile on me and you were desperate to take photos (to show your friends in school) so you took some and here they are:
The towel was to protect it from the rain. We stayed there for ages, watching them film it (a Science programme, they said), and a couple of people stopped by and watched too. We got soaked in the end and went to see you nana Cesca (it’s her birthday today coincidentally, 61 years old!) for a bit. What a great day that was!!!!! J went to see some friends of his but I really didn’t fancy it, which upset him a bit, but just imagine, if we had gone with him we wouldn’t have seen the alien! Also J doesn’t like walking in the rain with wellies on, and we do, so…