Author: June L

First up, many apologies for my blog absence over the past few weeks. Things have ratcheted up several notches in hecticness since my last blog for reasons which will soon become apparent. Although, for the short term, my blog posts may be sporadic, and happening on days I don’t usually blog (such as today) normal service will be resumed soon.

Our house situation

On my March re-cap, I mentioned that my husband and I were going to be viewing a house in one of my two favourite areas of the city. Well, we did and we kinda fell in love with the house. It is an older property which needs a LOT of work done to it, not only maintenance-wise but also decor-wise (it is currently stuck in the 1970s and so we need to bring it kicking and screaming into the 21st century). We have viewed other properties, but we kept circling back to the first one. After a second viewing, where we sussed out more practical things, and on hearing that several other people had also been viewing this house in the previous week, we submitted an offer for it. After a tense overnight wait, we learned the next morning (funnily enough when I was at the dentist!) that our offer had been accepted! So, we are very, VERY excited although, at times, we are wondering what on earth we are doing taking on an older house which needs some work. [Actually, I make it sound worse than it is – it is very much habitable, but we will need to take out the Baxi back boiler – I had never heard of this before – and get rid of the Anaglypta wallpaper which is e-v-e-r-y-where: on the walls, even on the ceilings! And wood. Wooden ceilings and walls? Not my taste!]. However, I love older houses and their character. Whether or not this will remain the case once we have moved in, is anyone’s guess. Our current house is modern, and so it will make a nice (?) change. Somehow, older houses seem to be built much sturdier…..

So, we have this new house in our clutches but we need to sell our current home in one month in order to secure it. Fast forward the estate agent appearing, a survey being done, and photographs being taken and finally – finally – our house went on the market on Monday. Already we have three viewings booked; 2 for this afternoon and one on Friday morning. It’s a weird feeling though: our little private, safe haven which has seen the making of many memories, is now public property open for strangers to walk in and critically appraise. Thankfully, our estate agent is doing the viewings; I don’t have to hear or see the reactions of those who are viewing! I love our home – I always will – and I know I will be very sad to leave it. At the same time, though, we are excited to return to the city and, for me particularly, to return to my roots (the suburb we are moving to is the one in which I was brought up until the age of 10, so it holds extremely special memories for me). New adventures await, not least those which we will experience as we do the house up. I am certain that we will make our new home look amazing; it will certainly be very well loved. I can only hope that our new neighbours are as tolerant with our two barky dogs as our current ones have been.

PhD progress

Over the last month, this has been woeful. Mainly because my husband and I have been prepping our home for selling. As my husband has a senior position in his workplace, he isn’t able to devote as much time to this as I can, so my writing time has been replaced with tidying/decluttering/clearing out and such like at the detriment of getting my last chapter written. So, I have requested a two month break from my thesis so that we can get our move out of the way without the guilt I have been feeling about not having the time or energy to spend on my work. It’s so frustrating – I am nearly finished – but we can’t wait a further year to move, when I have finished. We need to get nearer to my Dad as soon as we can so that, on my days off (I am part-time), I can spend time with him and help him a bit. I hate asking for more time off, but in this case it seems the most sensible thing to do. Particularly galling is the fact that I went through my Masters degree with no time off, despite receiving cancer treatment at the time. This PhD is a challenge in more ways than one. Maybe it is easier to do when one is in their 20s/ early 30s. However, I plod on…… it will be finished next year!

Reading/ TV/ Music

I have had no time at all to spend reading, nor watching TV/Netflix, nor even listening to music. This has been a really busy and weird month. I haven’t even had time to write scheduled blogs, let alone live ones! Looking forward to things eventually calming down.

Other things

My little English tuition job is drawing to a close for the academic year. Only a few of my students have taken up my offer of continuing with revision sessions up until their exams in a fortnight’s time, but I have – on the whole – enjoyed teaching this past year. It has been remarkable in the fact that this is the year when most students have failed to turn up unannounced for their tutorials – usually this doesn’t happen. However, I am taking a break from this little earner for a year so that I can concentrate on my thesis and get some of the jobs done in our new home. It has been a joy to see my students do so well over the years and I will miss them.

So, that was April, in a nutshell. Everything was focussed on our new house, the marketing of our current one, and lots of stress. Where will we be by the time I write my May Recap blog? I guess we’ll have to wait and see……. Just please keep praying or keeping everything crossed for us that one of our viewers this week will put an offer on our home….