Sunday 30 November 2014

Shopping shenanigans

Unless you've been hidden under a rock the last few days, you'll have witnessed the ridiculous craziness that was the UK fully embracing Black Friday.

Typically Black Friday has been the kick off to Christmas shopping around Thanksgiving in the US where retailers offer big discounts.

This year the UK has really gone for it. As well as online sites offering shoppers deals, people could this time go visit shops in person. 

Wow.

People went insane, there were so many videos of people pulling things off shelves, fighting, barging each other to get to the deal first.

Absolute carnage, it looked like we were in the middle of a world disaster and people would never be able to get these items ever again!

Even the websites were crashing/creating queues for visitors due to the super high demand. 

I love a bargain, but even I'd rather miss out than face such a nightmare! 

However, this weekend I actually did need to hit the shops. 

Thankfully, I didn't have to venture into the Black Friday hellhole as I was at work. And after work I was busy enjoying cocktails thank you very much.

Yesterday and today I needed to visit the high street and stock up on various homeware. There was no way out of it.

Now, lying on my sofa exhausted, I'm pleased with myself as I managed to get many items. With only a few weeks until Christmas you can imagine how busy the shops were.

I've been stressing out how behind I am with festive preps. Everything has been about getting the house stocked with items so we can entertain guests (and in particular I can host Christmas Day in our new home). 

Today I finally completed my checklist of items needed (well, for now). AND I've made a tiny bit of progress on Christmas shopping. Hooray! 

I've bought all my cards (yes alright smug people who got yours in September and have already got them piled up to post). There are even a few Christmas presents purchased. 

As always my inner control freak,that has been causing me non stop panic the last few weeks, is finally feeling a tad more settled after this weekend.

I probably cant say the same when it comes to my credit card and bank balance! 

Here's hoping our deliveries go to plan over the next week and maybe just maybe I'll be able to relax on my days off! 
 

Thursday 27 November 2014

Sometimes wonders



She sometimes wonders 

Why life is never simple
Why every year brings a new drama

What she's done wrong 
How other people seem to have the life they want

Why even the basics seem so hard

What she should do differently 
If things will ever be normal

Why life 'as a grown up' isn't at all like you think it is when young 

When compromise is going to stop and be the odd occurrence not common everyday 
How quickly life seems to pass by 

Is she just being dramatic

Why there's always ups and downs

Should she take control and change

Is she the one who needs to make it different  

Whether she just needs to reset on it all

She sometimes wonders...

More and more everyday 

Thursday 20 November 2014

Disgust on the District Line

I’ve blogged before about manners and where have they disappeared to in the UK?

However, something happened on Monday to get my week off to a cracking start!

Since moving I now have to travel a different way into work. Those of you from the London area will have heard of the 2 routes I’ll refer to, for those of you who don’t I’ll try paint a picture.

In a previous company I had to travel on the district line, part of the London underground, I’d then change and get another underground train. When I moved to my current company over three years ago I could travel in using National Rail – an overground train which has set scheduled train times.

Typically the District line is cramped, full of rude people and always seems to smell or have some sort of unpleasant experience happen on it. The rail train tended to seem more pleasant, although I soon found you got your fair share of rude people on there too (think arrogant businessman barging into everyone or whiny chav talking super loud about their private life).

When I moved I realised my routine of getting the overground train was going to change and I was going to be back to the good old District Line, I won’t lie I was dreading it. It always has delays and always makes me feel sweaty and dirty on disembarking.

However, for most of the journeys in the last few weeks (bar this week) it has actually not been quite as bad as I remembered and in fact I quite liked the slightly longer time on the train as it gives me time to read my book for longer and catch up on work emails on my way in at times before we go into tunnels.

On Monday though, my experience was not so good. In fact it was probably one of if not the worst time I’ve had on my commute in. And to be fair to TfL for once it was nothing to do with them.

It was a passenger.

Thankfully we were only a few stops from where I need to get off.

I was sitting minding my own business reading my Kindle when I heard an odd noise – it sounded like a child. Then I noticed people looking in the direction of the noise (the carriage was pretty packed as usual) and they looked a bit uncomfortable to put it politely.

Eventually I turn my head to look through the gap in the crowds and I see what this unpleasant sight is…

A Mum with her little boy and girl. The little boy had clearly been taken ill as they’d stepped on the train. He was being sick. Obviously he can’t help that.

The Mum? She was just standing there letting him being sick on the floor. Then she started to just hold a tissue out.

You can imagine the scene and the mess. It was horrible.

The best bit of this tale? The Mum proceeded to dump the dirty tissues straight on the carriage floor around people.

Then when we arrived at the next stop? She just got off, took her children with her and left the rest of us in the carriage to the mess. Nice.

An older gentlemen then found some old newspaper and just covered things up.

Now, I know the child can’t help being ill. I am not one of these people that sneers at children on the train (well not unless I’m in a real grumpy mood!)

However, as the adult in the situation I couldn’t believe how the woman was not more aware of what was happening, other people, the germs, not to mention her little boy standing there openly vomiting on to the floor.

My tummy flipped over quite a few times and I did start to wonder if I’d be next. You’ll be pleased to know I wasn’t.

It just got me thinking again though about thinking of others and common courtesy. The way the mother behaved and also the passengers at that end of the carriage, I realised nobody offered the little boy their seat whilst he was unwell either.

Are we just becoming a society now of everyone for themselves and looking out for number one? I sincerely hope not.

Still, we’re approaching Christmas now so perhaps all these festive ads everyone harps on about will help warm people’s hearts and get them thinking of people around them and not just themselves…

Friday 14 November 2014

Busy doing nothing



I’m writing this blog as I want to know if I’m the only one who faces diary dilemmas.

Lately I’ve been tied up sorting our house out and if I’m not at work I’m doing something or planning something for our home.

This then led me to get quite grumpy this week and feel a tad like I’m in the middle of Groundhog Day syndrome and doing the same thing over and over, whilst not enjoying life itself and socialising.

Cue me then desperately reaching out to people to make some plans.

Of course the time I leave it to arrange things now most people are busy and tied up already. This then leaves me to get a bit mopey and complain I have no social life and am getting boring.

I’ve now made a couple of plans so hopefully I won’t feel like I’m ‘wasting’ the weekend, and in all honesty after all we’re spending on homeware my purse could probably do with a break from socialising.

However, as the festive season approaches I’m pretty sure we’ll start to get booked up as we always do. I’m already stressing over the fact we’ve had one set of friends over to the new house socially and have loads more to see and invite round. Our poor family have only come for very brief visits too – or to help us set things up!

I’ve just chased our furniture company in fact to see if there is any update, I just want our big corner sofa and dining set in so I can buy new crockery/placemats etc and have people round! I am getting very impatient now.

The one problem with all this?

Picture this – a diary full of plans most days of the weekend and in the weeks ahead. How will I react to this scenario?
Do you know what, I’ll have the hump I’ve got too much on and just long for a quiet night in!

Never happy!

So, do other people get like this? When you’re busy and going out do you want to stay in and relax? Then when you’ve got quiet nights in do you wish to go out and party?

Or am I the only one and just never happy?

Let me know and if you’ve got any tips to get the perfect balance even better!

Thursday 13 November 2014

Customer dis-Service

Working with customers for most my working life I always feel very passionate when it comes to good customer service.

Lately (see Workman Woes post) I've really been feeling at the raw end of the deal end of the scale where good service is concerned.  

I often joke with my team how our role makes us worse and we perhaps have an unreasonable level of support we expect in our personal lives when we become 'the client'. 

This was clear when I had an almighty bang back to earth and reality when dealing with solicitors and estate agents.

What's bugging me is this is starting to become the norm.

We ordered some fitted wardrobes not long after we moved in (it's clear now we WON'T be using them again) and every step (since signing that is) has felt like a saga. 

The different elements of the business are so segregated and clearly don't speak to each other. 

And now even post installation I'm chasing them for answers and actions.

One example today, a replacement panel got delivered to the house whilst I was at work and my fiancé was asleep in bed. Nobody had booked that in with us. In fact we hadn't even confirmed we definitely wanted said replacement.

I call today to speak to our 'dedicated' installation manager and get told he's not in until 1130 today. This is the same guy who text me to say he's on hand for anything and the next day left work early and didn't respond to anyone (myself and his staff included). 

I leave a message and by around 2 I've had enough - having been told he'd call me as soon as he was in. No apology. He didn't get in until 1245 actually and he's about to go into a meeting?! 

Without going into the details I then push him to call me once out said meeting ASAP. It's now nearly 630 and I'm on my way home. No call.

Still he's in until 8pm tonight so I'm sure he'll call me (*said in extremely sarcastic tone). 

I know what I'll do then I'll check on my sofa, dining table and chairs and sideboard instead with another company. It was ordered 5 weeks ago this Saturday. At the time they said delivery in 5 weeks if not before. No call as yet.

After calling the local store a few times to no answer I used their live chat service online. They can't access order details...

So I ring the group customer service number. They can't access order details...

The lady did offer to email the store and ask them to call me back.

To be fair some time later they did call back. Once at 340pm where they said most of my items are at the warehouse but they need to confirm on the dining set as it comes in a container and needs to be found/properly checked and entered in the system. He'll call me back when the warehouse lady phones him back. He's in until 8pm so he'll call back today.

An hour and 20 minutes later he calls back to say he'll call me tomorrow and pretty much the exact same spiel he gave before. Helpful.

I won't go into all the other experiences that have taken place the last six weeks, but needless to say not many of them have been good. Bar the credit card company who let me know someone had committed fraud against me (thank goodness their approach was good!) 

Again, as I asked re workmen, how do they get away with it and why are they happy to act this way? 

I'm still waiting for a goodwill gesture sum of money from one online appliance company that messed up my initial cashback due to delays. The goodwill money itself to say sorry for delays has now been delayed too.

For the solicitors and estate agents post dealing with me they sent me surveys on my views of the service. I was honest at how poor they were. I've heard nothing.

I'm hoping I'm going through a bad patch and this is not the way B2C customer service in the UK is now going to be.

In the famous words myself, my team (and I'm sure most people in B2B client service) say everytime:

"If I treated my clients like that I wouldn't have a job".

Rant over, now to await my mythical calls back! 

Wednesday 12 November 2014

Fifty shades of grey ...carpet

Another day another post to share my new home stories with you. 

I'm currently on my way home, hopefully heading home to another completed feature wall wallpapered by my lovely future father in law and my fiancé. 

As my fiancé said today you do one thing and another five seem to pop up that need help. 

He's right. My To Do list for the home just keeps on growing. 

We've decided to just get the two main bedrooms done and take delivery of our sofa and dining set and then hopefully we'll be done until the new year.

Although I love kitting out the house and dressing rooms with lovely new furnishings, I do agree with my partner that it would be nice to just enjoy our home together.

I.e. not spend every spare moment decorating, planning or shopping. Although ooh how I am getting skilled at spending on things for our house!

Our change in taste continues to shine through. This came to light on Sunday when we purchased the ornate black mirror and black chandelier style light fitting for our main bedroom. I was beaming. My partner was not too impressed (nor moreso with the duvet set I showed him when he came home from work Saturday night). 

However, after painting and having wardrobes fitted we've pulled up two sets of carpets in the two main bedrooms. So off we went carpet shopping.

I thought we'd agreed a light grey in our black and white bedroom and some shade of cream for our guest room.

Oh dear. Who knew. We proceeded to take near on 30 minutes picking out carpets (and even then still changed our minds last minute when we realised we'd missed the 50% off ranges!)

The crowning moment was standing looking at huge rolls of carpet and flipping through numerous samples and just not being able to agree on the shade of grey.

Yes seriously.

Brings a whole new meaning to 50 Shades of Grey eh?

You'll be pleased to know we eventually got a great deal and compromised to get two carpets we could both live with. Hooray! 

It also begs the question what on earth are we going to do in a few weeks when  hopefully the main things we'd planned are sorted? 

Panic about Christmas that's what!



Tuesday 11 November 2014

Terrible Tuesdays

II hate Tuesdays. 

I don't know what it is, but I always seem to have bad luck on a Tuesday. 

Today is no exception.

There's been one frustrating thing after another today. Which is why I've taken myself out the office and am now sat in Costa with a skinny hot chocolate as a 'treat' to try cheer up.

I won't go into every detail, but there's been lots to push my buttons today. My work email and computer playing up all day so far and making work near on impossible isn't helping.

The main culprit of sadness, anger and annoyance today? 

I've been the victim of credit card fraud.

Fantastic!

I got home last night to a letter from a credit card company kindly letting me know they've been made suspicious. Someone seems to have registered for a credit card pretending to be me.

Great.

My first reaction to be honest was it must be junk mail. I've had a constant flood of spam since moving. And was this some sort of scam?

After being on the phone for ages last night and then again this morning, no it appears not. It is real.

Another thing to add to my neverending to do list it seems. 

To be fair the company have so far been great and the lady I dealt with was very helpful.

It also seems so far to be the only attempt.

Now, however, I have become Little Miss Paranoid and if im honest I feel a bit freaked out.

I'm going to be so anal now over my details and shredding etc I can already tell.

They've pretended to be me. I've obviously left some details stupidly during the moving process and some scumbag has decided to try be me and use my credit.

Thankfully they don't seem to have actually spent anything yet. Who knows maybe it was some random mistake.

For now, I've decided I'm going to try stop moping, sulking and stropping.

I'm going to sip my comforting hot chocolate, relax on my break and then focus on the next few hours before I'll be back at home and can enjoy my evening. 

Let's just hope there aren't any other 'surprises' awaiting me when I get home as this Terrible Tuesday has been more than troublesome enough! 



Monday 10 November 2014

Interior addict

Six weeks ago today we moved into our house, our first home together.

I can safely say at this point I'm becoming obsessed with home improvements and decor. 

No sooner do we work on one element of a room or area, I'm thinking up what I want to change next. 

I'm hoping in a few weeks time I'll have calmed down as all the 'big' items will be sorted.

The rate I'm going though who knows.

My fiancé at this point has had enough and just wants to live in the house. 

Me? I was beaming like a Cheshire Cat yesterday upon purchasing an oversized black ornate mirror for our bedroom.

I ooh and aah over our 'boutique hotel' bedroom, my partner refers to it as 'a tarts boudoir'. 

From the minute I wake up until the moment I go to sleep I'm thinking of wallpaper, carpet, light fittings, bedding and more.

Walking round homeware shops has become my new favourite pastime. 

I can't even describe how proud I felt at the weekend upon getting all my clothes, shoes and bags into our new fitted wardrobes. 

And the relief yesterday at ordering our bedroom carpets was ridiculous. 

Plus Christmas is fast approaching and I've said I'll do Christmas Day at ours. 

Cards, presents, any social plans for Christmas are all still TBC. I am obsessed with getting things right in the house first!

I saw someone share a picture that it's 7 Saturdays left until Christmas. That really stressed me out as I have so many home things to get done before then. How on earth am I going to fit in actual festive preparations themselves? 

Even eating out or watching TV programs I'm getting distracted by decor I notice or things that might tie into our 'themes'.

Someone please tell me this will stop as I don't think my fiancé and moreso my credit card can take much more! 



Friday 7 November 2014

Workman woes

I know a friend who took a week off work to get some DIY done in her flat. She just about got one quote for work, let alone anyone turn up to do it.

My parents tried countless times to get the ceiling around their loft cover repaired.

I know many people who've waited in often to find nobody turns up.

Up until recently I never really had much personal experience with workmen. Now, owning a house, a house which was originally built 44 years ago, I need to deal with such people.

And oh how I wish I didn't need to.

We need to get a loft ladder fitted, that's all. Pretty simple. 

After a couple of weeks in our new home we were armed with a recommended workman to use. So we make arrangements for him to come over.

He didn't turn up. He didn't respond to messages asking where he was. And, we've not heard from him since.

This week we've gone through nearly three days worth of fun with a workman. To be fair he was the best of a bad bunch in the company we were using and by some miracle he turned up relatively on time.

He drank copious amounts of hot drinks and was quite vocal if we dared to forget to offer him one. 

At least he turned up though.

Although his customer facing skills were about as good as those people often complain about tech bods having.

What I don't get through it all is this, how do these people get business?

They turn up when they like, if at all.

If you contact them they don't reply when needed, it's on their terms.

Imagine in any other business, not delivering when you say you will. Not turning up. Not responding to comms.

You'd get the sack.

And if you were self employed you wouldn't get many customers. 

So how do these guys survive and make money?

And why are they like they are? 

Is there some secret circle like magicians? 

If they don't want to do a job how comes they don't just tell you so?

I did use Rated People to get the gas and electrics tested before purchasing our house and to be fair they turned up and seemed legitimate and fair in their approach and costs.

Maybe that's the way forward I thought, but then my parents tried it and had a couple of seemingly dodgy responses and visits.

I thought then you go by word of mouth, but again that option seems to fall flat.

So, if anyone out there has any tips how to find the good guys amongst workmen let me know.

And if you are a workman or know someone who is please please do let us know what the secret is. 

Until then I'm going to be a nervous wreck having to use workmen and thank goodness my future father in law is so handy! 


Thursday 6 November 2014

Boozing with a bump



There has been a lot of talk in the news the last few days about women who drink when pregnant.
The debate has been sparked after a court case whereby a baby was born disabled, following her mother excessively drinking whilst she was carrying the child. Whilst pregnant at 17 the female drank vodka and beer to extremes and now the judges are being asked to offer the child compensation and overall for women who drink when pregnant to be made illegal.

So what do you think?

I’ve not had a child or been pregnant in my life so far and it has to be said I do enjoy having a good drink – whether a nice wine with dinner or a more heavy night out with friends drinking and dancing.

However, I really do think I would be Little Miss Paranoid if I were ever pregnant and would watch what I ate and moreso drank like a hawk. I would hate to think anything I’d have done would in any way harm that baby.

Never having been pregnant I don’t feel I can really judge, but on my views as they are, I can’t imagine you’d want to drink when expecting or do anything that could be bad for that unborn child. Let alone need a legal system to be put in place to stop you.

Whether women should be arrested that do drink when pregnant is another case in point. After all there are no set rules to parenting, people choose to bring up their children as they feel best – to some this could be seen as wrong, but to others the right way.

I know some Mums-to-be who have had the odd glass of wine or even Guinness (the iron is said to be good apparently). However, I don’t know of any who went out binge drinking!

The same goes for smoking, again why would you risk harming your unborn child?

Looking online at some of the articles talking about how the alcohol can impact a baby’s growth and wellbeing I can’t imagine anyone even considering binge drinking, but then again people smoke despite horrendous images on the packs and similar. People know the risks but choose to ignore it. That said, harming yourself is one thing, an innocent life is entirely different in my view.

I do feel making this a legal issue and arresting those drinking when pregnant seems a tad extreme and it also saddens me that there are people in this country who have behaved in such a way to even cause this debate to come to light.

We don’t want to make it so that everybody’s every move is under constant scrutiny, but I do agree that if a case is found where a child has been born with a condition and it can be proved to be the result of the mother drinking excessively or smoking then some form of action should be taken.

I don’t think it works going up to anyone you see with a bump drinking something alcoholic and arresting them there and then with no context though.

Really it seems to come down to a lifestyle choice – guidance to us for all issues changes constantly – you shouldn’t drink this, you should eat this, you should have more of this but less of that and so forth. Would some argue exercising too vigorously during pregnancy is also a form of neglect and as I’ve heard others ask – where does that leave abortion too? How far do you go?

I’d be interested to see what any expectant Mums think or those who have had children already.

And what about those that drink before realising they are pregnant, when you are not knowingly doing harm to your baby? I know a few people that has happened to, my Mum included and I turned out okay (well I think I did…)


Wednesday 5 November 2014

Living together lessons

I’ve been with my partner for over 9 years.
We’ve been engaged nearly 1 year.
We’ve been living together in a house, our first home together, for 1 month.

Help!

Previously I was living in a one bedroom flat which I bought around a year and a half/two years into our relationship. My fiancé used to stay over quite a lot but we didn’t actually live together.

We’ve been wanting to live together properly for years, but various reasons have meant financially that wasn’t an option.

Our search began in February this year and rather naively it didn’t hit me until literally the week before we moved in that this was it, we were actually going to be living as a proper couple. Still, I didn’t expect much to be different, after all we’ve been together years.

Wow, was I wrong.

It feels so so different. Where my fiancé does shifts we don’t see each other as much as other couples do anyway, but most mornings he gets up and says goodbye to me at the door which is such a lovely feeling. On those days he’s not working it’s lovely to have him here, particularly to come home to after work.

One slight issue, we are so different in character. Clearly this is something we’ve discovered way before now, but certain elements haven’t mattered as the flat before was my home and my property, now we’re in it together.

If I have things to do I like to crack on and just get them done. My fiancé likes to do things within his timeframe.
I like to keep things quite tidy and my fiancé often teases me I am ‘Monica’ from Friends. My fiancé isn’t messy as such, but is much more relaxed about tidying everything up.
I like to get help and guidance from our parents who have more life experience on things than us. My fiancé is keen we do things ourselves and stop involving others.

I could go on. Nothing here is horrendous, but as you can imagine we have bickered quite a bit in the last month.

I’ve also been learning a lot about myself (perhaps it’s being an only child), but I am quite selfish at times. I didn’t realise until we started looking at items for our home.

My fiancé describes my taste as ‘Essex’ and some pieces I’ve seen he feels are ‘chavvy’. I on the other hand think what I like is modern and looks good of course!

When we walk round I will see something I like and he’ll tend to not like it but look to compromise and see the good and bad in the item. He suggests something? My response mostly is ‘No’ and walking on. Awful, I know.

Until our wardrobes are fitted and complete my partner still has near enough all his items (clothes etc) at his parent’s house. His parents live really close to his base at work too so he’s still getting food for work from his Mum and picking up his clothes from home (as well as his washing). This also means we’re still not quite experiencing living together properly and it’s making things awkward around meal times and the like.

I really didn’t realise how even after so many years together we’d need to learn each other’s ways like this and need to adapt again and learn to compromise and take on each other’s ways.

Most people I know live with their partners already and have done for years, so I guess they’ve been through the same. I’ve had people at work giving me tips on how to ‘get things done’ by your other half and similar! But how about you guys? How have you found it when moving in with your other half? How long did it take you to get used to each other and settle?

Overall, I’m so pleased to be living together finally and be able to move forward in our relationship after so many years. I must admit though it’s not easy learning things about yourself (and your partner), particularly for someone who’s stubborn and of course ‘always right’ like me!

Tuesday 4 November 2014

Buying blues and selling sagas



It’s been a long time coming, but I’m getting back to my blogging!

This year has been pretty quiet on here. I’m not going to go into a big apology, as it’s getting a bit repetitive now!

The reason for my complete silence in 2014 has pretty much been down to one thing. One thing that I can safely say has taken up my whole year near enough.

I’ve bought a house and moved into my first home with my fiancé.

Wow, congratulations, I hear you say. Hm.

Yes, now we’re in our first home as a couple I can graciously accept any well wishes from people. However, there have been times this year that I seriously doubted if we’d ever get to this point. The amount of times I’ve heard ‘It’ll be worth it’ and ‘What will be will be’.

I’ve heard people say before, buying property is one of, if not the, most stressful thing you can do in life. Anyone else who has been in this position will agree with me, no truer word has been said. I’ve spent this year making myself ill with the whole drama.

We got engaged in December last year and quickly decided we needed to move into a home of our own before any wedding plans were made.

So 2014 was our year to move. Of course I already owned my flat so we needed to factor in selling that too.

I still to this day do not know what is the best way to go about buying and selling property. Should you put your home on the market first and then buy, or should you look around and secure somewhere and then sell? The market really does influence this.

We started this whole process in February this year, 9 whole months ago. I will need to go into detail into separate posts as to each different stage/element as there is too much to tell!

The market was ridiculous – we always seem to have a knack for timing things at the most hectic of times. There was the positive side that things were selling quick and at high prices, great news for selling my flat. However, when we came to view houses we were met with a lot higher asking prices than expected and by the time you saw them online and went to view them they had already been sold!

Dealing with estate agents and solicitors was by far the most horrendous part of the process. I have felt for months I’ve been juggling two jobs – acting as liaison between them all and as PA to my solicitors. My partner and I ended up bickering constantly through the stress and I vowed I would never move again.

It is funny, when I bought my flat, seven years ago, as a first time buyer, I thought that was a bit troublesome and remember at the time thinking the solicitor was so poor. Ah the naivety!

If I could go back and see my younger self I would tell myself how easy it all was and to embrace it and enjoy the fact the whole process took 3 months or less.

When you have something to sell as well it complicates things, when the property you are selling is a flat, it complicates it further. And if you own, but your partner doesn’t? Crank up that complication even more.

I feel like we’ve not had this year. I don’t remember key events or the seasons changing. The fact we’re in November doesn’t even feel real to me if I’m honest.

We’ve now been in our house for a month. The relief when we completed I cannot describe.

However, now of course, is the decorating and DIY.

The house is in relatively good condition so it’s not like we’re going all DIY-SOS. However, it seems once we do one thing I think of somewhere else to do. Plus we just started to feel a bit homely and now we’ve been decorating/having things fitted we are living in complete disarray again!

But of course, I know now, all I need to remember is those wise words ‘It’ll be worth it in the end’!