Travelling On

beanielou

Does NW include value of a house?

Karmacat

beanielou said:

Does NW include value of a house?

It does, beanie, which is why it's a bit nonsensical in some ways - I have to live somewhere!  Though there's equity release and more downsizing, I suppose. Plus there's the French apartment - bricks and mortar is notoriously immobile 🤣.

Checking online: a pleasant one bedroom flat in my town is £190k!  I'd need 2 bedrooms, really - people might need to stay, whether it's a carer or my sister (if I've had a general anaesthetic, it happens).  A pleasant 2 bedder is £215k.  The housing market seems insane.  

Karmacat

I'm off on a day trip to London on Tuesday!  British Museum (Persian/Greek exhibition) is potentially hit by strikes, so we're off to the newly reopened National Portrait Gallery, to see the Paul McCartney exhibition.  And potentially some photos from the 1920s by a distant rellie, who used to have 23 photos exhibited there.  

Exciting times trying to buy a new railcard: I'd forgotten how expensive rail tickets are without a railcard, even though I had a very short rail journey a few weeks ago.  London and back is a different matter.  "Renewing" would waste two months, as my previous card expired in May.  So I bought a "new" one - and very proud of managing to uninstall and reinstall the app, so that it would take the new railcard.  I only bought the one year one, so hopefully I'll get some summer use out of it.

Otherwise, today has been cutting back the grass, which has been edging up to the washing on the line 😮  and lots of seedheads of weeds removed, I hope that was just in time.

beanielou

You are getting very technical 😎

Karmacat

I try 🤣

Technical stuff today too!  Buying the ticket (no concessions for me) and buying a rai ticket, which felt *really* complicated.  I've had to buy a slightly more expensive one than I would have otherwise - my main contactless card doesn't work since I recently put it through the washing machine twice 🤣 and the other one, the pin doesn't seem to work, I'd have to renew it.  Might try that this evening, but no guarantees 😎

I've also done a YG survey - no sign of my £50 Asda voucher yet, I'll query that later this week.  Plus paid a huge maintenance bill in France, biggest I've ever had.  I keep enough money over there, so that's okay.  Mostly, I've been faffing with my genealogy - there was a set of relatives who lived in Jersey pre and post WWII - the ones who rented Agatha Christie's house for a while.  They're quite fun, tracking them down.

themadvix

Hope you're having a lovely day out today!

How lovely that you have relatives who rented Agatha Christie's house - is that Greenways or did she have another on Jersey? She was an odd woman, have you read her biography? It was very interesting.

Would you ever go and stay at your French house?

Karmacat

Today has been amazing - lots of behind the scenes photos, of course, and Paul was very involved with the selection - they came from his storeroom, after all.  Everything was very busy, and I really need to renew my credit card that went through my washing machine, Network Rail found it difficult to read, which was scary 😮

The relatives are great to research - and yes, it was Greenway she rented, when you read about evacuees living there before it was requisitioned by the Canadians, it was my rellie who'd got the evacuees together.  Plus she had her own child and four adopted orphans.  She made her will in 1942 (lived till 1955) and it's written on headed notepaper from Greenway  

As for Agatha - I read her autobiography ages ago, I was very impressed that she worked as a pharmacist in the war - she could have just faffed around, but she got stuck in.

My French place - it's leased out to a holiday rental company, the only way I could stay there is if I pay through them - there's a 10% discount, that's it 😃 It's not as cool as it sounds 🤣

themadvix

That's so cool about them renting Greenway - and your rellie looking after the evacuees. What a lovely story to have in your family! I meant AC was strange in her random disappearance and more so that she just left her child for a year and went off round the world. I know times were different, but even then I think that would have been fairly unusual. Not a maternal type, clearly!

Disappointing that you're not even able to stay at your own place without having to pay! 

Karmacat

themadvix said:

That's so cool about them renting Greenway - and your rellie looking after the evacuees. What a lovely story to have in your family! I meant AC was strange in her random disappearance and more so that she just left her child for a year and went off round the world. I know times were different, but even then I think that would have been fairly unusual. Not a maternal type, clearly!
Indeed not!  I remember a very odd vibe in the autobiography, but I'd forgotten quite how long she left for.  I really want to see the house, I planned it one year, but the chronic fatigue got the better of me.  Maybe this will be the year  

Disappointing that you're not even able to stay at your own place without having to pay! 

Ooh, it's not really a problem!  It's extremely rare that I return to a place for a holiday - and I chose not to be able to stay there, the rental payment to me would have been even lower, I'd have lost even more money.

I appreciate the sentiment though, thank you!

Tired today, I didn't quite realise how much yesterday took it out of me, so I haven't gone to the council's healthy walk, which means I *must* make sure I get there next week.  I have my next driving lesson tomorrow, though, and I want all my resources available to me for that.

So, today: shopping is still sitting in the porch, unwashed 🙄 otherwise, it's carrying on with tidying up this branch of the family history, which goes through a great grandmother of mine.  Gardening is going to be beyond me, I think 🙄

badmemory

I think having a controlling & philandering husband at the time sent AC a little weird for a time.