Taking my finger off the self-destruct button

lemonpopcorn

after having a carp day at work, I come home and decide to catch up with your diary, I'm now sitting here with a huge grin on my face and have decided, life is for living not existing so thank you, thank you, thank you, you've woken me up from the sleepy haze that has been my life for the past 10 years.
Everything I put off until tomorrow, well no more, it's about time I followed my real dreams and not the ones I think I should have.

enough about me tho, it's great that you've bought a house after all you do need a roof over your head and by the sounds of it you've got it for a good price.
I've no doubt that if anyone can pull this off it will be you

thank you for coming back I was beginning to wonder if we needed to send out search parties to all the post offices in Ireland ( i would have volunteered to go, after all it's going on my 101 list to visit Ireland)

glad your back and looking forward to hearing about more adventures

Wordsmith

Thank you for your comments and for not giving me the cold shoulder for sinning so dreadfully. Thank you especially to Lula for endorsing such sinning.

Poorbutrich, of course you are invited to the housewarming! In fact, I see I have your name down for organising it.

Loonylamb – what a lovely thing to say! Thank you. We await updates on your progress! It is always worth doing a tour of post offices in Ireland because of the characters you meet. One of our chaps was given some tablets recently because he was having bad headaches, but he said he’s not going to take them any more because they make him see blue flashing lights. He wouldn’t believe that he had slept through two cars crashing into each other outside his house, the ensuing noise and mayhem, the arrival of the police, ambulance and fire brigade, the removal of the drivers to hospital (they were both OK) and the clean-up of the glass etc. – he was convinced that the blue lights were a result of taking the tablets and not the reflection on his ceiling of an actual blue light on top of a garda car. And our lovely Paddy fell out of bed last week as he was trying to put some eardrops in. I thought it best not to ask ...

I haven’t spent much the last couple of days. €108 on three months’ car tax and €246 on ferry tickets. Not much that I didn’t have to, that is. I have been busy proofreading a dire novel (would love to tell you about it, but then you wouldn’t buy it and I’d be out of a job), which I finished in the early hours of this morning. I have come into the office to tidy up (read: hide things) before we set off on our travels. Two sisters (quite a double act – you never see one without the other) are going in every day to feed the cats. The tart has packed her bag (one tennis ball, yep, now I’m ready for the off) and we will be on our way in a couple of hours. Maddeningly, I was phoned this morning to see if I could do an editing job this weekend – took every ounce of my strength to say I was going on holiday and couldn’t work, rather than immediately cancelling holiday plans and waiting with bated breath for email to bring me the Word document. The thought of big sis’s reaction helped somewhat in this decision.

Lovely mortgagee man (never thought I’d use ‘lovely’ and ‘mortgagee’ in the same sentence) rang me this morning to say he’d signed all the bits of paper, so now, fingers crossed, there shouldn’t be anything in the way of the house purchase going ahead. It got stalled a little bit as my solicitor suggested I might end up owning the road outside the house. I don’t want to own a road (although visions of putting a toll gate on it briefly made it seem like a good idea), but thankfully the council said that it was theirs so I am not going to find myself having to tarmac a kilometre of lane.

When we return from our adventuring I have to knuckle down to thinking about getting my garden underway (in tandem with Horace, hopefully, so she can tell me what to do). And getting some hens and geese, and seeing if I can make a big puddle for some ducks. A couple of pigs feature in my daydreams, but favoured friend used to be a pig farmer and is most scathing about pigs as pets. Still, I am barely speaking to him at the moment as I am so mad with him (nothing exciting, not worth writing about – and if I started it would be some time before I stopped) so a couple of pigs in the garden when he next visits sounds well worth arranging.

I’ll be back after the holihols with confessions (then the rest of the year I will, I promise, be so good). I warn you they might involve the odd Cornish cream tea and maybe just one or two Cornish ice-creams.

Wordsmith

Haven't even gone yet, but just popped in to say I have put €80 petrol in my car. _pale_ That would last me three weeks if I wasn't going away. Oh, this is suuuuch a bad idea!

I am going now. While I remember, it'll be €1.80 for the toll. (The Limerick tunnel, that is, not the toll that I was thinking of putting on my road, which actually isn't my road.) I have told the tart that if she winges, I'll drop her off in Limerick and pick her up on the way back if she's still there.

Horace

Have a fabby holiday Wordy.

Hopefully by the time you return I shall have news on my own house and garden. This house purchase must be the longest in history because it is a probate sale and the people my parents are buying it from are incredibly stupid and lazy. I was hoping to have moved in by now but I can see that it will be in the next millenium at this rate:mad: I have seen some shrubs in Aldi that I would quite like to buy but dare not buy anything at all because at the moment I have nowhere to put them.

Be mindful of the idiots on the roads too. Have a safe trip:D

beanielou

Have happy holidays

chevalier

Am very jealous on your going to Cornwall. I am now officially homesick! Hope you have a fab time though!

poorbutrich

Wordsmith wrote: »

Thank you for your comments and for not giving me the cold shoulder for sinning so dreadfully. Thank you especially to Lula for endorsing such sinning.

Poorbutrich, of course you are invited to the housewarming! In fact, I see I have your name down for organising it.

Loonylamb – what a lovely thing to say! Thank you. We await updates on your progress! It is always worth doing a tour of post offices in Ireland because of the characters you meet. One of our chaps was given some tablets recently because he was having bad headaches, but he said he’s not going to take them any more because they make him see blue flashing lights. He wouldn’t believe that he had slept through two cars crashing into each other outside his house, the ensuing noise and mayhem, the arrival of the police, ambulance and fire brigade, the removal of the drivers to hospital (they were both OK) and the clean-up of the glass etc. – he was convinced that the blue lights were a result of taking the tablets and not the reflection on his ceiling of an actual blue light on top of a garda car. And our lovely Paddy fell out of bed last week as he was trying to put some eardrops in. I thought it best not to ask ...


I’ll be back after the holihols with confessions (then the rest of the year I will, I promise, be so good). I warn you they might involve the odd Cornish cream tea and maybe just one or two Cornish ice-creams.

Priceless! These are the kinds of stories we missed while you were away!

Have a great holiday and fingers crossed for the house purchase!

lionheartedgirl

SO glad to see you posting again! my little heart leapt out of my chest when I saw you were back. I've been lurking but just logged on today for the first time in ages.

I'm thrilled about the house, although sorry to hear about the circumstances and poor Mama cat.

Can't wait to hear more soon as and when you are up to it - enjoy your holiday :T

chevalier

Hope you have a fab, MSE holiday

Wordsmith

Did I make it back from my hols? Yes, I did. Have I had a moment to myself to update my diary and read other people’s since then? No, I haven’t.

Holidays were lovely, especially after all the panic to actually get away. The tart was impeccably-ish behaved. She barked only twice on the drive over Ireland – once at a woman running in a bright cerise stretchy top, and once at a ratty looking dog – both thoroughly deserved to be barked at so we were still friends by the time we got to the port. She stood up the whole way over Ireland, presumably slept on the crossing, then stood up for the whole four-hour journey in Wales/England. The crossing was good, but I got no sleep so after about 15 hours of travelling I was very tired. I was a bit nervous about the tart meeting my sister’s dog as she (tart, not sister) can be a bit aloof at times. All went well, although within five minutes she had taught her younger cousin how to escape from the garden.:o They got on really well for the whole week and my old girl kept pace pretty well with the youngster – she worked out that if she stood still she could have a little rest while he continued running and she could leap on him when he lapped her. There was just one minor incident – we went into a pub and the tart came face to face with another black and white dog; she barked at the interloper, who barked back, so she had to bark again … causing one of the drinkers to say “Don’t you have mirrors in your house?” All else went swimmingly up until lunchtime of the day we were due to leave, when my cousin came to dinner and brought her dog – for the tart that was just a dog too far and she was a bit impolite about it. The holiday itself was just lovely – fab cottage, stunning scenery, didn’t spend too much (a few pasties, a couple of ice-creams, the odd cream tea … but no fudge), relaxed thoroughly – I didn’t even feel the need to peek at my emails.

Got back, and boomph! Found a book waiting for me in my inbox, lovely boss man went away two days after I got back, so I was doing all his hours as well as my own, and cashing up each day, I had to spend extra hours at the restaurants to catch up on the days I missed, Fin wasn’t well and I had to take him to the vet a couple of times (he’s all well again now), my back got worse so I had to go to the osteophath, I was ill for a week with stomach cramps and generally feeling bleurgh, I had a fair bit of proofreading (a pharmaceutical annual report followed by a tile catalogue – who says I don’t have a glamorous job?- and several chick-lit novels). I’m not complaining, mind (about the work – the stomach cramps and vet and osteopath visits weren't much fun). The vet cost a hundred euros and the osteopath cost 60. Oh, and I had thrush and had to spend €15 on a pessary (TMI I suspect, but €15! €15! Really!).

Apart from the veterinary and medical costs, I’ve been living pretty frugally since I got back. I did buy two magazines; I don’t know what possessed me – I haven’t bought magazines for years. One of them was a smallholder mag, in which there was an article about alpacas, so I convinced myself they were the ideal animal to get in my present situation, until I remembered my present situation was one of overdrafts and credit card bills. I still think they’d be great animals to have, apart from the buying of them, which is hugely-big bucks. Still, there is an alpaca farm near here that I might go and visit – just for academic interest you understand.

I haven’t had any time off since the hols – which actually weren’t that long ago … they just seem it. I was determined to have last Monday off so I could go to Dublin to watch a film that was on only there and in London and only for five days (Barbaric Genius, about John Healy) – I felt it my duty as I’m book monitor at this month’s book club and I chose The Grass Arena by John Healy. Still, it wasn’t to be … but at least I saved a few cents. So, I was determined to have tomorrow’s bank holiday off. So determined in fact that when one of my clients said he wanted me to work tomorrow I immediately rolled over on my back and said yes. Not that rolling over on my back is part of the work, of course. I was speaking metaphorically.

Oh, goddammit! When I said I’d been living fairly frugally, I wasn’t including the table I bought. And yes, I could have got a cheaper table. And, yes, I suppose I could have managed without a table at all. However (you just knew there had to be a however), because space is a bit tight in my little house, I had to get a small table. Now, I didn’t realise how difficult it is to buy a small table that had legs long enough to sit at. Yes, it is. Anyway, I now have a lovely little table to eat at (I haven’t had soup for a while – sitting on a low sofa with a soup bowl and with a cat determined to be noticed makes for rather messy suppers). I’ve also been working on my laptop sitting on the sofa – not good or comfortable and far too easy to fall asleep mid mouse-click (fact).

I am still loving my little house. My stuff from the UK has arrived, but because there is nowhere to unpack it, it is piled up in boxes in my bedroom. That upsets the feng shui somewhat, but I am no longer paying storage charges and it is so good to have all my books and things in the same place I am.

The house is mine properly at last.:j We nearly fell at the last hurdle, when the solicitors couldn’t sign off until the other side had seen an insurance policy noting lovely mortgage-man as an interested party. But since lovely mortgage-man wasn’t on the insurance company’s drop-down menu along with the pesky banks they couldn’t include him. The only way they’d do it is for him an me to have a joint insurance, which is a bit daft. Anyway, the other side decided it wasn’t an issue after all, so everything got completed eventually. I paid my huuuuuge solicitor’s fee (I might have not included that as well in my “living frugally” comment). They even gave me a refund because some of their estimated costs turned out to be less. Watch out bank account, €17.61 is coming your way!

The animals all love living here, and have settled really well. I have discovered that Brian is escorting cars down the lane.:o

On the note of houses, the cottage by the lake I used to rent is no more. It has been flattened. Very, very sad.

Nearly finished! Our lovely Paddy (aged 87) has had to apply for a new provisional driving licence. To do that, though, he has to apply for another test. Note the apply for a test. People don’t have to pass the test, or even turn up for it, but they do have to apply to do one to get another licence. I think Paddy is going to go for it though, as he thinks it will keep him sharp ...

I'm sure I shall think of something else to confess ...