UK Bound - 2009 December

Welcome to the December 2009 edition of UKBound.

Hiya.

I can't believe it -- it's Dec 20, 2009. Last 11 days in the decade. I still can't believe that the summer is over, never mind the start of a new year. This year started well, at half-term in February we went to Tunisia in North Africa, and we were all geared up to go to Turkey in the summer. I knew that it was winter, when on Dec1, I went outside to be greeted with frost on my car, and I had to find the scraper. Over the past weeks since then, we've had snow -- yes, yesterday we had probably about 1000 snowflakes invade our backyard. Just enough to (in total) fill a coffee mug.

We read somewhere that the markets were crashing and there was a credit crunch, so we started looking at houses. We were renting a 2 bed flat in a 2-up-2-down building, with a small back yard - the hunt for something bigger began. After looking at a couple places, we put in an offer on a 2 bedroom end-terrace with a huge (in Bmth standards) backyard, very close to Seth's school, and across the street was a woodland type area. Unfortunately the realestate agent didn't accept our bid, as even though we had a couple mortgages in principle, we didn't have the mortgage offer signed. So, we lost that one. We looked at dozens of other places (as you do when you are house hunting), and we put in an offer in March for this house. Our offer was accepted, and we remortgage on our Glasgow place to the hilt, and using the equity, we came up with a decent down payment. You'd think that would be easy -- borrow from one place to buy another. But, no. Since interest rates have dropped, the banks need a creative way to allow their MD's to buy nice shiny Bently's. Don't get me started on mortgage/banking fees. After all the fees were paid, we still had a decent amount for reno's (renovations to those in the UK). Our original plan was to get the keys around the start of May, have the builders in, and we'd be in our new place for June 1, allowing us to have our birthday party in our new place. The backing and forthing between "solicitors" (not using the word I'd like to call them) cost us about 5 months in total and we finally received our keys on Aug 17. About a month ago, Kim and I took a couple chairs outside, and had a drink on our patio. We haven't been able to do that in a long long time, as we just couldn't in our flat. This upcoming summer will be a lot better than last.

If any of you have sent me email, sorry for not quickly responding. It was on Saturday (Dec 19) that I setup the computer. We finally had our desk delivered, and it is now setup.

Seth is in Year 2, and has just finished a couple Christmas concerts. We were fortunate to see one of his Christmas concerts - we both snuck out of work (as they only have concerts during the day) and watched his school perform a 30 minute show. A couple nights later, the school had Christmas carols in the back of the school. Totally brilliant. Really puts you into the Christmas spirit.
Seth is first in his class for his maths, and is doing well in his reading and writing. He comes home and tells us something that he's learned, like all about carbohydrates and proteins. Kim and I are always amazed with his schooling, as when we were his age, we had just mastered reciting the alphabet. I remember at his age, making a second skin with glue, and then putting pins thru my new skin (yes, at school). Man, how times have changed.

Christmas is here. Seth has been asking for the Xbox 360 (we have an Xbox now) and I'm wondering -- which is better? Xbox 360 or PS3? We have an Xbox now, so that would allow us to play those games. PS3 is more expensive, and has less games. PS3 has a BlueRay player (but I'm still using an old non-HD telly). Anyone have any advice? In the theme of Harry Hill --- FIGHT!!! That'll make no sense to people in NA.

We all have a couple weeks off now (except Kim has to work Dec 31st) and we don't have our passports (let them expire when we were doing all the house moving) so a quick holiday to the continent isn't an option. We were originally thinking about Gran Canaria, but prices are trebble what they normally are, so we had to give that a miss. We've decided to go up to Scotland for a very quick visit (quick heads up to those in Glasgow if you're free on SunDec27/Mon28). I think it'll be good to see everyone there, even if it's just for a quick lunch.

For work, we've both been doing extra time. In November, I did over 70hrs of OT, and Kim 40+ as well. I'm in the number 1 position (by a long way) for doing weekend work, and Kim works 6 days a week. It really makes it hard to do anything on the weekends, as that's normally our "catch-up" day. Either cleaning, or shopping or whatever.

For the website, I can't believe that nobody has said that it was down. It was a total shock to me as well, as I'd just finishing uploading some pics, then a couple days later, it was down, then up, then permanently down. I contacted the guy that did my (free) hosting, and he said that his mate had let the site's contract laps without telling anyone and that was the end of my site. I may have securred another site, so check in a couple weeks. I've added our trip to Sweeden, a bunch of old (scary) pictures, and some pics of Bournemouth (under construction - I'll aim for the end of the year) for that page.

I have included 3 pics with this edition, attached below.

Anyway, that's enough about us. Let us know what you've been up to.

All the best for Christmas, New Years and the upcoming year. Hope the naughties were good for you.

Brian, Kim and (ever so taller and smarter) Seth.

The first picture is of Seth displaying his room door at our flat. This door took 2 years to fill, and has a lot award stickers (like Headteacher awards) as well as fun stickers like Ben 10. The main reason we moved, is so that Seth could have a new door to fill.

The second picture is Seth's school picture for the 2009 school year.

The third picture was taken today (Dec 21, 2009) as we visited Santa. Seth asked for an XBox 360. Shame Santa didn't have one on him. Would have saved me the trip to the shop ;-)