Getting on the road to happiness whilst side stepping a viper

Friday 20 February 2015

Drizzly with short sunny periods
8 degrees

Why did I tell OH I would go with him to the perishing rental units for the mornings during the weeks to come - well to get things finished more quickly.  Put dog in the shed as he had been very naughty during the night and made a terrible mess on the kitchen floor.  I had awoken extremely early, excited about a website project, and had had to battle with a recalcitrant plastic top on the bleach bottle for a good five minutes.  By 9 am I felt very tired but non the less, we got to town and I went for some bread and cake.  There was a guy lurking by the fountain, and he looked strangely familiar.  

'Heuy' he intoned, nasally.  Oh God, it was last year's buyer of my nightmares, who has still to sign on his property, and there he was, large as life, and twice as viperous.  He shook my hand limply and his wife whimpered 'everywhere is closed - where can we get coffee?'.  I sent them off to the Betting Shop at the far end of town.  That will be an eye opener for them.  The guy has a habit of looking over your shoulder when you are talking to him, and slithering his eyes sideways to focus on you for a moment, before sliding off in another direction.  He claimed to be the young estate agent of the year in his native country.  I wouldn't buy a dog from him.

Somewhat shaken, I report back to OH, who is only actually interested in the cake.  Spend morning scraping paint off badly painted windows and doors and then go and have a look at OH's tiling activity in the upstairs bathroom.   He has spread around the grout with liberal abandon, and then not wiped any of it off.  It looks like a two year old has done it.  He has also left a huge amount of mess in the bath, the bidet, the sink and the kitchen.  I am in a very bad mood by the time I finish.  Back home with stony silence for lunch.

Walk dog and think about Abundance - inspired and taken from The Abundance Project

Number One: Make Up Your Mind

Decide what you want out of life and then plan to take charge of your life. Not just the big things, but the seemingly unimportant things too. Really take the time to analyze your circumstances and decide what you want. There may be small things you do because you feel like you have to; you don’t. Decide what you do want and make those things happen. Everything you decide you want in your life may not happen right away, but if you’ve truly made up your mind, they will happen in time.

Number Two: Let the Loudest Voice be Your Own

There are so many people around us all the time that think they should speak up about our lives. Well-meaning friends and family tell us every day what they think we should do and how you should take charge of your life. Sure, they may have some good advice, but they are not you! They don’t know what your dreams are and they can’t possibly know exactly what you’re feeling. Although receiving advice can be helpful, there is no voice that should be louder than your own. Put everyone else’s voice on mute and listen to your inner gut. Do what you feel is right for you!

Number Three: Speak Positively in Your Own Mind

In order to take charge of your life, your inner voice must be positive. If you are running the show, you better be confident. Whenever fear creeps in or negative thoughts start to overrule, acknowledge that they are there and move on! As quickly as you can, get back to a place where you know you can succeed. Soon, you will train your mind to think positively and to be confident in your own capabilities. Use the power of your thoughts to propel you forward through your life.

Number Four: Get Up and Get Busy

Instead of letting life rule you, you’ve decided that now you’re in charge! What an amazing change, right? Right, but in order to be in charge of your own life you have to get up and get busy! Nothing you want to experience in life is going to just happen, you have to go out into the world and create your own experiences. If you’ve always wanted to fall in love, you have to start dating. In order to start dating you have to meet people and socialize. You will never socialize if you’re sitting at home, but you might if you get up and get yourself out with friends! Along the same lines, if you’ve always wanted to be fluent in French, you have to sign up for a class and study; you have to get busy!

Number Five: Re-think the “Why”

We’ve already discussed in number 1 that it is important to make up your mind about what you want to do. However, another important component of taking charge of your life is to analyze why you want what you want. Make sure you are doing things for you; it is your life after all. Make sure that you’re not doing what your parents want you to do or what your friends are all busy doing. What you should be doing every day is what you really want to do or taking the steps to get to what you really want. Life truly is too short to waste time pursuing things you’re not interested in. Strive for your goals and spend time doing things that make YOU happy.

Number Six: Stop Procrastinating

Ask yourself this, if you died tomorrow what would be your greatest regret? Is there anything in life you’ve always wanted to do but you just keep putting it off? Take charge of your life by putting an end to procrastination. Start doing those things that you’ve always wanted to do and start becoming the person you want to be today.

Number Seven: Take Responsibility of Your Life

Stop blaming your life circumstances on anyone or anything. You are in charge so start taking full responsibility of your life. When there’s no one to blame but you, you might just find that you start doing something to improve your circumstances. Once your thought process changes and you take responsibility for your own life, you will realize that what happens to you is entirely up to you!

Number Eight: Prepare Yourself

Seneca, the Roman philosopher, said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Prepare yourself for whatever you aspire to. Maybe it’s something small like learning to paint or going on a morning run 3 times a week or maybe it’s something big like being a better Father or landing the perfect job. Whatever it may be, prepare yourself mentally and physically and you just might “get lucky”.

Number Nine: Do Not Complain

Last but not least, don’t complain; ever. Complaining does absolutely no good, period. Whenever you feel like complaining take action. Start to analyze your complaints and decide whether there is anything that can be done to fix them. There is almost always something to be done: do it and stop whining. You’re in control now.

Number Ten: Start Now

Take charge of your life by making a list of all the qualities that you want to be possess. Once you have your list, don’t waste any more time, start being that person! Do as many of those things as you can every day. If you’ve always thought that one day you would wake up early enough every day to watch the news and read the paper before work, then start doing it today. As Bob Dylan wisely said, “Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you’d like to act.”

http://www.theabundanceproject.com/

Bug tussling and blown tyres

Wednesday 18 February 2015

Cloudy 10 degrees with drizzle

Conversation with OH this morning - OH 'I had to get up in the middle of the night'  Me 'that was quarter to eight'.  He is not good in the mornings and was in a complete fog when I woke him up with a cup of tea.  Said he was out fishing with Ed Milliband and Ed was a completely rubbish fisherman.  Think lack of fishing activity is getting to him.

He dropped me off at the supermarket to get some oil for the heater and went to get a birthday card. He was absolutely ages.  Finally he turned up and parked at the far end of the car park and started gesticulating.  I had to drag over the heavy fuel oil to the car only to find out that we had yet another puncture.  Fortunately all of the stuff to change the wheel was still in the car so it didn't take too long.  

Back home for lunch then to garage to declare unhappiness with tyre.  Had to go alone as OH went back on painting duty.  The garage man said the tyre had been driven on whilst flat and was completely knackered so I had to have another one.  OH was not pleased. Monthly budget, like the tyre,  well and truly blown.  Walked the dog and mulled over whether I should go and do a Show in the North where I could have free stand plus accommodation. Need to get the website up and running first.  Had felt excited about the prospect at first but then remembered Shows are very hard work and you don't necessarily get as many clients from them as you would wish.  Also clashes with Blues Festival, unbelievably.  I would have to create an Association, which means having to share control with two other people and I don't want to do that either.  Unusually for me, felt indecisive.

Happily, no football on the telly tonight.  Watched recording of the Beverly Hill Billies again. Granny mentions that she wants to get away from all them city folks and back to good old Bugtussle.  Amazingly, there is actually a town by the name of Bugtussle

Bugtussle, Oklahoma is an unincorporated community^[1] located off Bucklucksy Ln. on the shores of Eufaula Lake, adjacent to Robbers Cave State Park, in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, USA,^[2] with a population of "a few hundred". The community began in 1903 with the construction by a Mr. Ran Woods and others, of a two room log schoolhouse on the site. The schoolhouse is still standing, and was once attended by former speaker of the US House, Carl Albert. The settlement was allegedly named by Mr. Woods who felt that the bugs at the site were so numerous, that they were a never ending "tussle" for him to deal with.^[3] The name "Bugtussle" was also the name of the town where the fictitious Beverly Hillbillies of TV series fame, had once lived before moving to California (according to some episodes, although other episodes alluded to other possible places of origin).

Bugtussle is about 6 miles (9.7 km) northeast of McAlester. The town was renamed Flowery Mound about 1907, but the original name persisted.^[4]

The lovely Graham Norton ...

Sunday 15 January 2015

Lots of rain - 4 degrees warming to 13

OH took dog out for constitutional and I baked lemon meringue pie and mince pies. Listened to Graham Norton.  He is the only 'celebrity' I would actually invite to a party.  He is on the Radio and does a particularly amusing agony aunt feature, accompanied by a lady presenter.  They have quite different opinions of the issues and then the public chips in.  I used to greatly enjoy reading his agony aunt column in the Saturday Telegraph.  He has a lot of compassion, our Graham, and much empathy.

"Remember that sleeping with friends is lazy and selfish: we don't cook our pets just because we're hungry and they're sitting right by the oven."  —Graham on troublesome relationships

 

"Dogs and DIY are where relationships end up, not where they start." —Graham on looking for love

 

"Stay on the moral high ground—it's much easier to swing a baseball bat from there."  —Graham on forgiving betrayal

 

I also love his sometimes waspish tone and how he is not afraid to reprimand.

From Wikipedia :  Upon joining Equity, he chose Norton as his stage name, which is his great-grandmother's maiden name. In 1992 his stand-up comedy drag act in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a tea-towel clad Mother Teresa of Calcutta made the press when Scottish Television's religious affairs department mistakenly thought he represented the real Mother Teresa.

Someone at work has gone on a sudden sabbatical.  Have they jumped or were they pushed? Need to find out.

The good ship Leaving Normal is treading water this month, so far.   Oh yes, a tricky sale seems to have sorted itself out, without my having to get involved - the parties have come to an agreement between themselves.  However, another sale is kicking off again with the vendor being asked to pay for a survey, for which he has no legal obligation, and he has said if the buyer wants it, they can pay for it.  Alternatively, he has suggested I can pay half out of my 'generous fees'.  My generous fees are diminished by the introducer, VAT and social charges and resemble a Maasdam cheese, ravaged by very hungry rats suffering from a cheese deprivation regime, by the time they have finished taking their bites.  The buyer has also greatly benefited from the change in the dollar rate so they can put up or shut up, basically, is the notary's opinion.

Ripped up old, dead matter off the garden during the brief sunny period.  One of the long borders is now completely clear.  Many tiny tufts of Nigella poking through.

Oh fate, you are a stony hearted bitch!

Saturday 14 February 2015
Valentines Day
Absolutely persisted it down all day - 8 degrees

Informed OH that we would win 13000000 euros in the Friday 13th Lotto draw.  Looked at my numbers this morning.  If I had chosen my normal numbers, which I hadn't and instead had gone for a lucky dip (ha ha not), I would have won 13 euros.  Oh fate, what a sense of humour you have!!!

Went for a drive out to a big city a couple of hours away.  Spray on the motorway was dreadful, lots of road works and OH was squeezing past waving lorries and perilously near to the barriers.  Aquaplaned twice.  Arrived a nervous wreck.

Had a coffee and nibble and discovered a material shop.  Managed to get in before they closed.  The owners were dressed as goblins.  I didn't like to ask why.  Didn't find anything I liked but noted the name and address for next time. Noticed some people in furry onesies strolling past the large front window.   Curious...

Wandered round the shops and it started raining in earnest so we went into another bar and were served by Snow White's evil stepmother who was shouting orders at a team of hot looking elves.  Small girls dressed as Snow White and Cinderella in princess mode ran around, shod in perfect small red tap shoes.  A group of 70's hippies came in and a transvestite in a bright pink wig.  We were starting to feel seriously drab and under dressed. I decided it would be a good idea if in future I dressed as a 70's chick.  Clothing was so much more vibrant back then.  Must go to charity store and find something jolly to revamp, à la Sewing Bee.

Apparently it was just a Carnival and anyone could dress up how they felt inclined.  Very amusing group of cackling nuns in the main square.  In a side street, discovered a group of Spanish 'Russians' dancing to Abba.  Only in Spain....

Walked along the lake front and the waves and spray were huge.  People were battling with their windsurfing boards which were being tossed around like flotsam.  

Back home and felt duly refreshed.  Took dog for quick walk and I could see my breath.  OH made cod cheeks in butter, pimientos with sea salt, skate wings and we followed up with cheese and biscuits.

So tired, managed to sleep through both the rugby and football and at 10.30 OH woke me up and insisted I went to bed, where I slept surprisingly well.

Visits in the sunshine!

Friday 23 January 2014

Cold and misty 0 degrees

Alarm sounded at dreadfully early o'clock.  I didn't move here to get up when it is dark and cold.  My body was creaking more than the floorboards.  Piled bedding, towels, laptop, mop, bucket and kettle into the car and was down at the rental unit for 7.45 am.  Birds were still in bed and had to put on the car lights on dip so see through the drifting walls of mist.  

Pleased to find that the flat was neat and tidy.  Less pleased to find that I had read the wrong part of the meter and that the right part of the meter was spinning round crazily, meaning that they had probably used up the rental price in electricity.  Don't ever let in Winter normally.  Oh bugger, bugger.  Charged them a nominal amount and they went. Lady still highly made up and wearing strange earrings which looked like pupae.

Spent hour and a half cleaning and tidying up and getting ready for midday's people.  Lovely and cosy and warm in the flat, even though I had turned off the radiators the minute the last clients had gone down the stairs!

Down to the car park and the next clients were running late so went for a coffee in the nearby hotel and bumped into a resident Brit enjoying his 10 am carafe of rosé.  He told me about various goings on in town including the good news that the local council has decided to knock down the jerry built eyesore which was started six years ago and never finished. Ours is a beautiful traditional town and the huge breeze block monstrosity blighted its street. Hopefully some more parking, since the local council also decided to restrict it to half an hour maximum in the town centre.

Eventually the clients arrived and the lady was upset because her daughter had just run to say their dog had died.  They followed me to the first appointment which is a house I have just brought onto market.  It is beautiful and has great flow and a fabby swimming pool.  I don't know whether it is the dog loss or their normal nature, but I don't get much feed back from them physically or verbally.

We head off next to our house.  OH has lit the Aga for the occasion and also the wood burner and turned on all the radiators.  There is a strange, unfamiliar wave of heat as I open the back door.  The clients seem to warm up physically and emotionally and we have a cup of tea.  They go back to the rental unit and I feel rather tired and eat bananas.  OH turns up with dog and we have quick resumé.

Pick them up again at 1.45 and show them a farmhouse with former light aircraft hangar. The owner has two large, enthusiastic, black dogs.  One of them is scooting a very large stone around the courtyard with his nose.  We have to keep leaping out of the way.  The sun comes out and the Pyrenees pop up from the cloud base.  We then go down to a house where they don't even want to go through the door.  The key holder is not pleased as he has come out of work specially.  He closes up grumpily.  

We then head down to a very special manor house with 4 acres of parkland and huge outbuildings.  When you arrive in front of the large solid infilled gates, you have no concept of what lies behind.  The 4 acre park holds centenary American redwoods of huge girth and height (9 metres and 38 metres according to the owner) and used to belong to local aristocrats.  We go around the house which is rather eccentrically decorated, especially in the bedrooms.  The lady of the house is obviously wilder than her demure appearance would suggest.  'its not me who decorates - its the boss!' says the husband.  The clients appear somewhat stunned.  The lady owner serves tea and biscuits in the conservatory and her husband regales us of tales of his time in the Army when he was a pilot and later when he became a Colonel.  He came to the realisation that he had worked all of his life and had nothing to show for it, so he bought this house and many bee hives and spent the next 15 years producing ten tonnes a year of honey and pollen.

He has a pink plug in what is obviously a hole in his head following brain tumour surgery.  I can see the lady client's eyes keep sliding over to it.  She says later that she wondered what would happen if the plug came out.  Very unlikely that he would deflate, he is quite some character and one of the joys of this job is meeting fascinating people from all walks of life and also seeing beautiful furniture and pictures.

Take them back into our town and they jump in the car to go and have a drive around the area.

Back home.  Feel rather fatigued but have to catch up on calls and emails.  OH cooks the most delicious thresher shark which absolutely melts in our mouths.  We have white French Jurancon wine to accompany.  He found them on a French special in the local big supermarket and is feeling optimistic that I might actually manage to shift some property this month.  This is the sort of wild optimism to which I am normally prone.

Hightailing around, hootenannies and shuffling off this mortal coil

Wednesday 21 January 2015

6 degrees, misty with sun later

Insisted yesterday that we start at 9.45 and on time.  Relieved to see them ready to roll when I arrived.  We headed off into a village 15 kms away to a property owned by an English couple.  I have had this house for sale for a number of years and the main reason it hasn't sold is the village in which it finds itself.  There are no shops there, not even a bread shop, and it is an equidistant 15 kms from the two nearby towns.  Having said that, it is a charming property with large open lounge, US style kitchen and good sized bedrooms.  The garden is a particular feature and is set to lawns and beautiful flowering shrubs and trees. The lady decides this is now her favourite - she isn't having financial input and it is the man and his business partner who will decide.  The best option if they want to let out periodically is the town house with swimming pool and parking where you can walk into town.  Apart from mistaking a free standing wardrobe for a toilet 'Jesus, my brain has gone' and thinking that the gypsies leaning out of their windows and smoking fags were traders (they probably are but not in anything she or I would wish to buy), nothing untoward was said.

I dropped them back off in my town and went home to clean as there is a visit upcoming on our house and alas it is still in an unviewable state.  Discovered that the bathroom walls have taken the opportunity to grow some mould.  Bastards.   It did come off quite easily.  I then moved onto the grouting, which was like the 'before' example in bathroom cleaner ads. Unfortunately the tile paint came off too.  We decided to tell the visitors that we were waiting for a man to come and do the bathroom.  We won't tell them that the man is OH...  OH spent hours outside with the Karcher.  Dog enjoyed being squirted too.

A number of notable deaths this week, Anne Kirkbride who played Dierdre Barlow for 44 of her 60 years; Leon Brittan former conservative MP and barrister aged 75 and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia aged 90.

Watched recording of Jules Holland's Hootenanny.   Ruby Turner, Ronnie Specter, Paloma Faith and Paolo Nutini were excellent.  Surprised to find that Boss Scags is not a black guy. OH says I am musical ignoramus.  I challenge him to spell ignoramus.  What a meany I am!

In case you wanted to know more about the origins of the word Hootenanny, and were afraid to ask:

Hootenanny is a Scottish word meaning "celebration" and / or "party", most closely associated with Hogmanay—the Scots New Year celebration which, traditionally, is the biggest celebration on the Scottish calendar.

With the Scots being one of the biggest groups of settlers in the Appalachian region of North America (bringing with them their whisky-making tradition and methods, leading to the area's "moon shining" tradition) it is not surprising that hootenanny became an Appalachian colloquialism, although it became used in early 20th-century America as a placeholder name to refer to things whose names were forgotten or unknown. In this usage it was synonymous with thingamajig or whatchamacallit, as in: "Hand me that hootenanny." Hootenanny was also an old country word for "party". Nowadays the word most commonly refers to a folk music party with an open mike at which different performers are welcome to get up and play in front of an audience.

"Hootenanny" was also used by the leadership of early firefighting battalions to describe a "meeting of the minds" of higher ups or various department heads. The term has trickled down to working companies and is now used, with some frequency, at working incidents and other circumstances that require a focused discussion between key individuals. Most recently it was adopted for use during the annual Fire Department Instructors Conference.  Logistics professionals for the conference employ the word to call together the required personnel needed to accomplish the prodigious assignments placed on them.   Thank you Wikipedia

Market day, treats and progress

Thursday 15 January 2015 or 15 01 20 15  pleasing balance to the numbers

6 degrees rising to 14 degrees
Very windy later on in the day

OH (other half in case you were wondering) is 56 today.  He is in remarkably good condition - fine teeth, still quite a lot of hair and youthful skin.  Has does have bad feet and legs but I won't be shooting him just yet.  The Armagnac and chocolates are very well received and we have lazy breakfast before going down town to the market.   The sunny weather has brought out a lot of people and the stalls are bursting with good things.  As we walk around, gorgeous smells waft on the air - from the Indian stall, the dense aroma of onion bahjis and chickpea curry, the sharp spice of olives from the Provence stall, the sickly sweetness of fried batter balls from the Algerian stall.   

I am drawn to the coffee shop and we have café gourmand with a selection of tiny treats, surrounding a foaming mug of coffee - chocolate mousse, beaten to a sharp peak, a piquant apple crumble, a pale pink macarron, a white chocolate square.  Totally delicious.  We are joined by one of my sellers called TT and a lady whose house we rented when we first came over here.  She is a tiny lady and in her late 60's and her favourite word is fuck.   Her house has been for sale for five years now.  For five years I have been telling them that they need to put in a fabby kitchen instead of the small cupboard that they have at the moment. Again, it falls on deaf ears.  'I should never have let T (her husband) buy that effing house. We have spent an effing fortune on it.  We had some effing people over to view last week and they bought a small modern house near effing Orthez'.  (TT's house is over 200 years old with a massive plot of land)  Alas, I know who these people are and it transpires that the offer they made was 100k under the asking price.  Did that not give them a clue that the area is unsellable?

TT is with another lady who says that she is looking to rent over the summer so I take the pair of them and show them the rental units - all of them - just in case they express a sudden and irresistible urge to buy one of them.  TT's friend says she will have a word with her husband.  About renting.

Get phone call from partner agent who tells me that the visit today went really well and that his clients want lot more information.  My seller has gone off to sodding exotic island for three months.  Email him and spent three hours pulling weeds out of the stone flags of the patio.  Weather warm with a spirited wind.

The money transferred supposedly to my bank account from this week's sale has not been credited.  The notification that my bank had received it arrived at 12.30.  At 4.30 I ring the bank and the lady tells me that it should be there within 48 hours.  48 hours!!! I squeak (temporarily forgetting to be zen) How on earth can it be 48 hours - it is electronic!  It should be immediate! Where is the money now?  The woman gets rather het up and says I cant expect it immediately because it has to go via three computer systems.  I tell her that is ludicrous.   OH is outside, suppressing molehills, with a venom normally reserved for Billy Connolly or non peripatetic gypsies (he is not keen on peripatetic ones either).  He channels his inner TT and says fuck too.

The bank obviously hangs onto the money and, somewhere, someone will be earning interest on it.   I was once told by a notary that the funds from sales used to be kept by the receiving notaries for up to six months before they were released to the sellers.  The notary would then lend the money out, at huge rates of interest, which they would then keep for themselves.   I was stupefied.  The notary then had to reassure my sellers - whose eyes were at that point bulging out on stalks - that this no longer happened.  How on earth did people accept this practice?  I ask of the notary.  Ah, we were Gods back then, he said ruefully.

Listen to Alan Bennett's play about the lady who came to stay in a caravan in his garden for three months and ended up being there for 15 years.  Lady played, gloriously, by Maggie Smith.  What a treasure she is.  A real treat to listen to.

Ghosts, love and tristesse

Tuesday 13 January 2015

5 degrees  crisp and clear skies

Mail out two new properties which have just come to market - the old church house with the scary cracks and one that has been bubbling under since before Christmas, and the owner has finally got around to signing the permission to sell document.  

The latter house is in a gorgeous village with an excellent restaurant, a chateau which opens its gardens for visitors and a beautiful river.  The owners are a couple who came together after having had children with other partners.  They then had some more children. The living room and kitchen are massive and the bedrooms are like cubicles as they all have been divided up.  The garden has been intensively trampled, mined with small plastic objects, and has seen many parties. Each house has its own resonance. This house resonates love from every stone and beam. 

It is interesting that some houses sell immediately and yet others stick.  They can be similar in size and location and condition.  They can be similar in price.  And yet the properties which stick sell for significantly lower prices and take much longer before someone is ready to take the plunge and go for it.   I used to have for sale the house of a notary.  He had left his wife and moved in with his secretary.  The ex wife and the surly children were left in the house.  It was in great condition and a great location and a reasonable market price.  Did it sell? - not for nearly three years.   The basement had the worst feeling about it - the notary kept his guitars there and I felt that he had spent many hours, strumming sad tunes down there.  People would see the house from the outside and see the garden and get really excited.  This feeling would dissipate within 2 metres of entering the front door. They would come out and look confused.   The French summed it up in one word  'triste'.  This was a sad house.

Other houses are eery in the sense that it looks as if the owners just upped and left.  Their knitting is still in the basket at the side of the fireplace, their clothes are still in the wardrobe and, in the cases of the larger old houses, the beds are still made.  There is a certain kind of lumpy old bedding which creates the look I call 'dead people beds'.  Yellow, stained pillows and staring china dolls complete the look.  These houses are as cold as the grave, doors open with a small scream as they scrape on the mouse droppings, floors creak when no one is standing on them.

My one experience of a spirit is when I was showing a house to an English couple.  The lady and I were upstairs looking at the bedrooms.  The man was downstairs, looking at the boiler. We both heard footsteps on the stairs.  The lady shouted out that we were in the end bedroom.  Silence.  I was looking out of the window and saw her husband in the garden. There was no one in the hallway or the stairs or the landing.  We closed the shutters very quickly and went back downstairs.

I attempted to fill in an application form for WF for an insurance apprenticeship.  Was defeated by the 'describe a memorable customer experience' and 'what is your motivation' parts so emailed them back to WF.  Dog attempted to run off with group of walkers so OH took him out.  I went into town and had coffee in McDonald's and met couple of partner agents and showed them a country house with three acres of land.  It is a lot better on the outside than the inside.   The animals had better housing than the owner but you can always change the inside is what I tell clients.  Glorious day with wind up from Sahara and 19 degrees.  Snowing in UK where I used to live.  It is grim up East.

Met with owner of property I had spied on the Internet the other day.  The much vaunted 360 degrees in the ad were, sadly, marred by a number of close neighbours and an ugly half built garage.  The owner spent an entire hour talking and showing the house before telling me that (a) he had just received an offer of 6 percent below the asking price and he had refused it and (b) he didn't intend putting it back on sale until April.

I told him that first offers were often the best and he dismissed this.  Oh dear.  He may well live to regret that decision.

It was phenomenally hot in the house and I had to keep on taking off layers of clothing.  I could feel my eyes drying out.  Escaped after an hour and a half and went to big shop and had coffee and biscuit stuffed with white chocolate.  OH birthday Thursday - got chocolates and Armagnac for him.  OH not in good mood when I got back as I had been out nearly three hours.  He had made me a very long list of people to ring but had, in effect, shot himself in the foot as he had to make supper.

He made Cajun black stir fry chicken with stir fry potatoes and tomato sauce.  Yum!!  Dog then ran off into the night.  OH set off in the car and came back 20 minutes later to find the dog sitting by the back door.   He is in the dog house (metaphorically speaking).

Huffington Post and happiness

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Misty with promise of sun later
10 degrees

Reading the online Huffington Post, I come across a divorce attorney, Krista Barth's New Years Resolutions - there are six and the last one is the most telling for me6. I will be accountable for my own happiness.

I will try in 2015, to be accountable for my own happiness by remembering to be grateful for the amazing blessings I have and not focusing on what is missing. I will try not to complain about becoming older by remembering it is a privilege denied to too many others. I will try not to complain about work and recognize I am lucky to have a job. I will do what I can to choose happiness, even when it is not the easy choice. I will remember this life is full of more laughter than tears, unlimited beauty to behold and opportunity to love and be loved every day. Perspective is reality, and I will try to make 2015 the year I keep mine squarely in check.

We can choose whether or not to be happy about a situation but Krista has really hit the nail on the head, when she says that being happy is not the easy choice.  I know personally that it is so easy to spend ones time complaining, and plotting, and scheming, and imagining all the clever put downs you will use on a future occasion.  I actually got to the stage last year when I resented hearing and seeing people laughing and looking happy.  This is the year to regain my sense of perspective.

At the doctors yesterday to review the results of the scan.  All clear.  I tell the doctor I am taking a supplement because my hair was falling out.  He said was I tired and I said permanently.  He asked if I was stressed and I said I had been, enormously.  He said I needed to step back - admittedly not easy - and distance myself from the things that were wearing me out.  If that is the only thing that writing this blog will enable me to do, then it will serve its purpose well.  As well of course as enabling me to write the book that I have always wished to write.  Looking at analytics, I see most of my readers are in the US of A so a big 'Hi!' to you all out there.  Dont be shy, drop a comment under this post and introduce yourself

Walk the dog along the old river track.  The sun comes out and because it is midday, no one else is around.  Fields full of sparrows and field fares who accompany us along by flicking in bursts from tree to tree along the way.

Learn, by looking at his emails, that WF has interview today.  His phone has been switched off since last Friday.  He is completely infuriating.  RJ has left SILs house and had intended to go down to see WF but ends up back at the hotel where he works.  He is not pleased and spent an age hanging around in nearby train station waiting for WF to turn on phone or reply by FB.  Hotel not open until 10th so he will just have some R n R and hopefully get down to see WF before it opens again.

Go and take estimation report to house I went to see yesterday.  Discover that another agent has valued it 15% more expensive than me.  High value property so this translates into a lot of euros.  Oh bloody hell.  It is not worth that much and they will jeopordize their chances of an early sale.  Take it on at the elevated price and tell them that we will review the situation monthly.  It is absolutely key to get the property on at a reasonable price in the first place.  The longer the property is on sale, the more invisible it becomes to potential buyers.  They think - why is it not selling - is it too expensive and the owners are inflexible? Is there something seriously wrong with the house or the location?  We will see.  It is a lovely property but not that many euros worth of lovely.

Really must take down the Christmas decorations and record my New Year's speech.News  devoiles shocking news of murder at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo - 9 journalists and 2 police officers.  Criminals escaped.  There will be a muslim backlash I fear. How dreadful.  Around the world, people unite to say WE ARE CHARLIE