I don't have great aspirations in life, I am easily pleased but I did have a couple of items on my Italian wish list that have been granted this visit.
Firstly I've always wanted to drive around in a little Fiat 500, a cinquecento, and when we picked up our hire car at the airport there was a practically new white one waiting for us. It is absolutely adorable, it has a glass roof and is surprisingly spacious for two though probably quite uncomfortable for four. Granted it has a bit of difficulty getting up and down the mountain to our house but it's so worth it. Just as well Mr FF is banned from work here, he'd never get a sack of cement either in the boot or up the hill.
Secondly whenever we've watched the cycling, Giro or Tour de France, I've wanted one of the competitors to throw me his water bottle, they usually ditch them during a descent or before a sprint to save weight. So yesterday we went up to Altipiani to watch a local stage. We walked from the village towards the mountain climb, not quite reaching the summit before the circus of cars with spares, motor bikes and police arrived. We had a great view of the front breakaway and then the peloton, I was so close to the leader in his pink jersey I was delighted. Then bumph a bottle landed at my feet, actually it hit my legs and bounced away but Mr FF quickly retrieved it for me. Joy of joys, it is from team Lotto Belisol who I will now support with passion, there is still some liquid in it, which Mr FF says I must not drink as it may be drugged, and as I pointed out there is the saliva of a champion on it, which I may never wash away. I couldn't stop smiling all day yesterday and during the 2 mile walk back down to the village I held my bottle close in case it was snatched. Apart from the team name and the usual advertising on my bottle there is the slogan Live your Dream, so far this visit I've done so twice and they say good things come in threes.
Saturday, 17 May 2014
Thursday, 8 May 2014
This and that
Nothing much to report here and I'm feeling a bit wan (great word). We haven't had any viewings for the house apart from the drive or walk by kind, a few cars lingering in the road and the odd pedestrian having a look from the back road. Meanwhile after our big pre photo shoot tidy up we are searching high and low for items pushed into cupboards, if the house takes years to sell it's going to be hard to keep it in a viewable condition and live any sort of life. The weather has been good, I've already had a flip flop day and look what I found in Marks and Spencers at 99p a bottle. Perfect for exposed toes.
I've been busy knitting for my ex colleague Joanne who gave birth to a little boy last month, I haven't met him yet but apparently he's tiny. The jumper is an old Rowan pattern, I've completed another pair of socks and I have one more item to knit for Rory.
Post surgery Mr FF is doing great, he had the ten metal staples taken out on Wednesday, said it was painless, but he is still wearing the long white dvt socks, which is a worry as we are planning to fly to Italy fairly soon and shorts with long socks is not a good look.
I just realised that this is post 500 on my blog, pity it has to be so dull and I have no strength for celebration, but its only a number and the next 500 might all be more interesting than this.
I just realised that this is post 500 on my blog, pity it has to be so dull and I have no strength for celebration, but its only a number and the next 500 might all be more interesting than this.
Sunday, 27 April 2014
Home
In both senses of the word. Firstly Mr FF and I are just back from the hospital, he reported in at 7.30 this morning and was discharged just before 3 this afternoon. A long day for us both, him having his general surgery and me trying to pass the time waiting at shops that didn't open till 10. Anyway we both survived, Mr FF looks a bit worse for wear and is now spark out in front of the tv, or listening to the football as he calls it. I am pleased to be home and just had a restorative walk round the garden.
And the house details are all correct now and ready for your perusal, do have a look at the video. There has been a resounding lack of response, I know property out in the country where we are takes a long time to sell but we'd happily have some time wasters just to get some practise doing viewings. My niece, an estate agent in York, did comment on the huge amount of information available, big brochure, photographs, video etc and with google earth people hardly need to come out to look at all. I take her point but it seems the way things are now. The marketing for the last house we sold was one A4 sheet with a small black and white photo of the front of the property and room sizes typed out below, that was a while ago.
OK we are both planning to zonk out in front of the telly after some dinner, Mr FF is encouraged to walk as much as he can as part of his recovery, but not today. He can't drive for 10 days, which means we won't be going out much as I didn't appreciate all his criticism of my driving on the way home, not in too much pain for that was he.
And the house details are all correct now and ready for your perusal, do have a look at the video. There has been a resounding lack of response, I know property out in the country where we are takes a long time to sell but we'd happily have some time wasters just to get some practise doing viewings. My niece, an estate agent in York, did comment on the huge amount of information available, big brochure, photographs, video etc and with google earth people hardly need to come out to look at all. I take her point but it seems the way things are now. The marketing for the last house we sold was one A4 sheet with a small black and white photo of the front of the property and room sizes typed out below, that was a while ago.
OK we are both planning to zonk out in front of the telly after some dinner, Mr FF is encouraged to walk as much as he can as part of his recovery, but not today. He can't drive for 10 days, which means we won't be going out much as I didn't appreciate all his criticism of my driving on the way home, not in too much pain for that was he.
Saturday, 19 April 2014
At the worst of times there's always wool
We managed to get our house on the market though I have been trying all week to get the agents to correct a number of minor mistakes on the on line sales blurb. In my day if a client had to point out (twice in writing) some typing errors I'd have been in serious trouble if I hadn't corrected them straight away. Second time we told the agents we received an email to say they will be amended, surely as quick to actually do that as to send an email, it reflects badly on the agents every time someone reads the information.
We had such a stressful time last week, not just the house but Mr FF was expecting to be going into hospital as a day patient for a minor hernia operation last Sunday. He was due to report at 7.30 am not knowing whether he was having a local or general anesthetic or what time his op might be. I'd already packed a bag for myself so I could wait to drive him home, book, knitting, chocolate and a map to the shops. Less than 24 hours before his appointment it was cancelled and he's just been offered another date. Again a total lack of information, report at 7.30 am and don't eat after certain times depending on whether its a morning or afternoon op with of course no time given for the op. Fingers crossed it happens next week, in a way the delay is a relief as he's been busy doing some work on the garden wall and pavings, jobs that he won't be able to tackle for a while as he recovers.
So what's a girl to do to relax as she collapses exhausted of an evening after working all day in the garden. Knit of course. I've been using up some lovely Farm Yarn 100% British alpaca that I've had for a while, I'm not even sure if it's still produced. Always a pleasure to work with alpaca, I've made a couple of lacy scarves.
This is the candle flame scarf, a free pattern on ravelry that meets my requirement for no wrong side, as rather badly displayed in the top photograph
And below is Travelling Vine from my Scarf Style book, I didn't knit the scalloped leaves edges just a few rows of garter stitch to start and finish. I even blocked a bit for you to see how it looks.
I was thinking about keeping one for myself until I remembered I made a lovely cream cable alpaca scarf not so long ago. So these can go into the presents bag, lets call them Christmas knitting.
Of course there have been socks, cable ones for Mr FF, from Jane Brocket's Gentle Art of Knitting. I love cable so much, I must knit myself a pair of these particularly as I also have some cream yarn in this Regia Tweed.
So once the on line information for the house is corrected I'll give you the link, there's even a video so you can have a good look round, just don't hold your breath.
We had such a stressful time last week, not just the house but Mr FF was expecting to be going into hospital as a day patient for a minor hernia operation last Sunday. He was due to report at 7.30 am not knowing whether he was having a local or general anesthetic or what time his op might be. I'd already packed a bag for myself so I could wait to drive him home, book, knitting, chocolate and a map to the shops. Less than 24 hours before his appointment it was cancelled and he's just been offered another date. Again a total lack of information, report at 7.30 am and don't eat after certain times depending on whether its a morning or afternoon op with of course no time given for the op. Fingers crossed it happens next week, in a way the delay is a relief as he's been busy doing some work on the garden wall and pavings, jobs that he won't be able to tackle for a while as he recovers.
So what's a girl to do to relax as she collapses exhausted of an evening after working all day in the garden. Knit of course. I've been using up some lovely Farm Yarn 100% British alpaca that I've had for a while, I'm not even sure if it's still produced. Always a pleasure to work with alpaca, I've made a couple of lacy scarves.
So once the on line information for the house is corrected I'll give you the link, there's even a video so you can have a good look round, just don't hold your breath.
Friday, 11 April 2014
Words fail me - almost
Its impossible to tell you how stressful putting our house on the market has been, or how expensive, and we aren't there yet.
Firstly in Scotland we are required by law to have a home report prepared before we can offer the house for sale, this gives a condition report, an energy report and a valuation. None of this is worth the paper it is written on, full of get out clauses and based on a walk round the property without proper investigation, the energy performance section is supported by companies who want to sell you condensing boilers, solar panels etc, which are recommended to improve the rating.
We arranged for an appropriate surveyor to come round to do this and will eventually fork out £840 for the pleasure. Mr FF had ready the house plans, specification, even delivery notes for materials to explain how things worked and how well insulated the property is. Bad start, the surveyor, lets call him Mr Clipboard, wasn't interested, said he'd prefer to wander round on his own and that he could only rate the house according to the building standards at the time it was built, pretty low. We greatly exceeded these standards when we built, but apart from shoving Mr Clipboard's head into the loft or down a hatch to inspect the underfloor there was nothing we could do to get him to believe us. We felt that was unfair, he said he was only the messenger and I suggested he take a message back that the system is rubbish. Anyway to cut things short, he produced a survey that contained 19 errors, making various assumptions, though we were available to ask, like that we might not have planning permission for the 'alterations' to glaze the roof of our hallway. We obtained planning permission for this when we built the house, it was never an alteration. He asked if our heating was zoned, ie could parts be turned off, and Mr FF showed him the switch in the hall that turns off the heating to the bedrooms during the day so that only the living areas are heated. Because it was a manual switch, like turning on and off a light, Mr Clipboard wasn't able to accept it, he said it had to be automatic. I thought Mr FF might launch into his regular rant about the chair being the killer and that people should get off their bottoms more often, perhaps he was stunned by the stupidity of it all.
The energy report was dire, we know our house has a low carbon footprint and is cosy and warm at little expense, but Mr Clipboard had no box to enter information on our link up stove and oil boiler system, computer says no. However, he hadn't anticipated our Yorkshire determination, Mr FF spoke to various bodies including the software manufacturers and after 3 weeks we eventually got a decent (average) rating. However Mr Clipboard had the last laugh because once we said the report was OK he took himself off for 2 weeks holiday, we have no idea if he has issued details to the estate agents, we hardly care.
Then we had the photographer and the man who comes to draw up the plan, again the latter was not interested in the fact we already had plans, we appreciated he needed to check dimensions but he could have saved himself some time and possible got the room names right. The photographer was pleasant and easy to have around, but again we didn't receive the photographs for several days, by which time they had been inserted into a draft brochure. I had walked round with the photographer, pointing things out but felt that he knew what he was doing and left him to get on, wrong. Dreadful pictures, completely distorted by fancy lenses, presumably to make the rooms look more spacious. Who needs to see that there is a bed in the spare room and a window, no indication of fitted wardrobes or garden views. Our lovely morning room that looks onto the balcony, across the garden and to the hills, shows a red sofa and a bookcase, no outlook or double patio doors in sight.
We were so disappointed, again we have forked out over £900 for the marketing, this morning I went out and took our own photographs for the brochure, we re-wrote the blurb that describes our small village, no shops or services, as a town and dare I mention the 2 W.C.'s - I would happily go round and give them a lesson on use of the apostrophe, I'd do it for free. The sales negotiator was pressing us to approve the brochure, she sent it through at 4.00 pm yesterday and was on the phone at 9 am to ask if it was OK, no pressure there then.
I honestly feel that we have barely been consulted in this process, we have spent almost £1,800 and ended up doing most of the work ourselves. The arrogance of people who are selling their services is outrageous, I am sure we are already marked down as the clients from hell, so be it at least we might eventually get something like what we are paying for.
Firstly in Scotland we are required by law to have a home report prepared before we can offer the house for sale, this gives a condition report, an energy report and a valuation. None of this is worth the paper it is written on, full of get out clauses and based on a walk round the property without proper investigation, the energy performance section is supported by companies who want to sell you condensing boilers, solar panels etc, which are recommended to improve the rating.
We arranged for an appropriate surveyor to come round to do this and will eventually fork out £840 for the pleasure. Mr FF had ready the house plans, specification, even delivery notes for materials to explain how things worked and how well insulated the property is. Bad start, the surveyor, lets call him Mr Clipboard, wasn't interested, said he'd prefer to wander round on his own and that he could only rate the house according to the building standards at the time it was built, pretty low. We greatly exceeded these standards when we built, but apart from shoving Mr Clipboard's head into the loft or down a hatch to inspect the underfloor there was nothing we could do to get him to believe us. We felt that was unfair, he said he was only the messenger and I suggested he take a message back that the system is rubbish. Anyway to cut things short, he produced a survey that contained 19 errors, making various assumptions, though we were available to ask, like that we might not have planning permission for the 'alterations' to glaze the roof of our hallway. We obtained planning permission for this when we built the house, it was never an alteration. He asked if our heating was zoned, ie could parts be turned off, and Mr FF showed him the switch in the hall that turns off the heating to the bedrooms during the day so that only the living areas are heated. Because it was a manual switch, like turning on and off a light, Mr Clipboard wasn't able to accept it, he said it had to be automatic. I thought Mr FF might launch into his regular rant about the chair being the killer and that people should get off their bottoms more often, perhaps he was stunned by the stupidity of it all.
The energy report was dire, we know our house has a low carbon footprint and is cosy and warm at little expense, but Mr Clipboard had no box to enter information on our link up stove and oil boiler system, computer says no. However, he hadn't anticipated our Yorkshire determination, Mr FF spoke to various bodies including the software manufacturers and after 3 weeks we eventually got a decent (average) rating. However Mr Clipboard had the last laugh because once we said the report was OK he took himself off for 2 weeks holiday, we have no idea if he has issued details to the estate agents, we hardly care.
Then we had the photographer and the man who comes to draw up the plan, again the latter was not interested in the fact we already had plans, we appreciated he needed to check dimensions but he could have saved himself some time and possible got the room names right. The photographer was pleasant and easy to have around, but again we didn't receive the photographs for several days, by which time they had been inserted into a draft brochure. I had walked round with the photographer, pointing things out but felt that he knew what he was doing and left him to get on, wrong. Dreadful pictures, completely distorted by fancy lenses, presumably to make the rooms look more spacious. Who needs to see that there is a bed in the spare room and a window, no indication of fitted wardrobes or garden views. Our lovely morning room that looks onto the balcony, across the garden and to the hills, shows a red sofa and a bookcase, no outlook or double patio doors in sight.
We were so disappointed, again we have forked out over £900 for the marketing, this morning I went out and took our own photographs for the brochure, we re-wrote the blurb that describes our small village, no shops or services, as a town and dare I mention the 2 W.C.'s - I would happily go round and give them a lesson on use of the apostrophe, I'd do it for free. The sales negotiator was pressing us to approve the brochure, she sent it through at 4.00 pm yesterday and was on the phone at 9 am to ask if it was OK, no pressure there then.
I honestly feel that we have barely been consulted in this process, we have spent almost £1,800 and ended up doing most of the work ourselves. The arrogance of people who are selling their services is outrageous, I am sure we are already marked down as the clients from hell, so be it at least we might eventually get something like what we are paying for.
Saturday, 5 April 2014
The upside of down sizing
I don't drink much, usually no more than one glass of white wine but I have discovered a benefit of downsizing, it may be down to Liz's comments about the empties but I realised we have a large stock of unusual drinks in the cupboard so I've been getting rid of then - mostly down my neck to save any removal costs.
I enjoyed finishing off the Drambuie with a tot after dinner but things have gone downhill since then, the dregs of Cointreau were horrible. I must admit some of the bottles are really really old, we think we might have bought the Sambuca the first time we went to Italy, I'm not admitting when that was but we were practically children. So the contents of three of the bottles in the photograph below have gone down the sink but Mr FF thinks he might fancy a Pernod later tonight, then we can start on the strange and various cocktail ingredients, Pisco Sour anyone?
Post blog note - the Pernod went down the sink too, obviously stock control is not a strong point here.
Thursday, 27 March 2014
I'm afraid it was inevitable
Amidst the stress and misery of decluttering, contemplating downsizing and having a home report prepared (big rant on the latter to follow), it was to be expected that a trip to town and lunch with Helen would be the downfall of my good intentions not to acquire more material goods.
Firstly one of those charming ladies on a John Lewis beauty counter collared me, dabbed a bit of product round my eyes, sprayed me with one of their new perfumes and relieved me of £25. In my defence, Touch Eclat is currently one of the best selling beauty products so I really should have my own.
In Debenhams there was a 10% off event and I've been wanting some of this eau de cologne for ages, the sales lady filled my bag with extra samples, 6 in all I gave one to Helen.
I know this is a masculine product, but I love, as the blurb says, the sensual blend of fresh citrus top notes and intense base notes of neroli, leather, benzoin and ginger. I don't know what benzoin is but ginger gets my vote every time and what girl doesn't want waft around with a hint of leather about her.
Finally after lunch we ventured into Beinspired, the lovely local yarn shop in Marchmont and I was seduced by two balls of beautiful alpaca, one jade one mushroom. Even if I never get round to using this 100 g of softness they are a real non-fattening comfort, better than Cadbury's Dairy Milk which could be my next major purchase.
Finally after lunch we ventured into Beinspired, the lovely local yarn shop in Marchmont and I was seduced by two balls of beautiful alpaca, one jade one mushroom. Even if I never get round to using this 100 g of softness they are a real non-fattening comfort, better than Cadbury's Dairy Milk which could be my next major purchase.
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