An in-between phase

foxgloves

Many years ago (actually almost 30 years ago to the day), I bought my first house. It was a very small semi-detached old 'Coronation St' house with a modest back garden on the edge of the city in the county where I still live. It cost £35k. 
A couple of months later, my sister & her partner bought a house - small semi-detached, turn of the century.....in fact very similar to mine except for it having a much smaller garden. It cost £165k. The difference? Hers was in London. Obviously I knew from looking at places up here that different areas come with different house prices, but I can remember being really shocked that my sister was having to pay £130k more than me for such a similar house! And now? If we put our current house (offroad parking, large garden & recently refurbished) on the market, the top asking price would be around £240k. My sister is still in the same house, refurbed & extended to modest family size & regularly gets notes pushed through the door asking if they are thinking of selling, would probably get a valuation of pushing 700k. It is an utterly ridiculous, unsustainable situation & completely unfair on locals simply trying to live in their home area. I don't know how the public sector manages to recruit. I could have walked into any number of London jobs in my professional sector as there were always lots of vacancies but I knew I'd never be able to afford to live there.
PiP - Just wanted you to know I feel angry on your behalf. Housing is one of the most dysfunctional sectors in the UK imo.
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Don't forget it's also very small and hasn't even got a balcony or patio let alone tiny garden @watty1 😂😭

Thanks @foxgloves, I appreciate the anger! It's one of the most disappointing bits of the new government's plans for me- stop blimmin building more housing and taking up space for rain absorption and wildlife and cramming us all in even more horribly on top of each other, fighting for basic local services! The working class can't afford anything anyone builds so it's absolutely pointless. There are swathes of London you walk around any time of day or night and it's like a ghost town because all these home building targets have been met (in gloomy, ugly looming monstrosities of glass and metal) and immediately bought up by foreign squillionaires who have no intention of ever going anywhere near them 

EssexHebridean

I jut looked out of idle curiosity and the TINY flats in the turning we lived in in Walthamstow are currently selling for £350k - £385k. I mean we are talking 45sq.m here! Interestingly, although they are 2 bed flats, most folk seem to have adjusted to using them as 1 beds, with additional living/dining space.

And NOW reflect on the fact that just 19 miles away, where we live, our large 3 bed HOUSE cost less than the upper end of asking prices for those flats... Mind/blown! 

PennysIntoPounds

Tidying
Spec work
15 minute walk

Admin
Bits from mums
Few surveys

Shower and hairwash
Comping
Entered some more competitions, today I'm mostly looking forward to winning £500 for the flat pot but I'd be most appreciative of a hamper full of chocolate

40 minute walk with Mr PIP for beer in pub garden since, in shocking news, it's not raining today!

Dinner is a lentil dhal meal from food co-op which we're being very brave about, as it has cabbage in which Mr PIP doesn't like though I think that should be reasonably disguised. However it also has coriander in which tastes like soap to me so I'm hoping it's only an imperceptible trace but I'm also quite looking forward to my substitute dinner sarnie 😁

ladyholly

Before we got maried  just over 50 years ago I lived in Lancashire and Mr LH had moved to Devon so thats where we would be living. A house in the north (2 up and two down but with a bathroom) were selling for about £800 . The cheapest house we could find anywhere near our work in Devon was £4500.

PennysIntoPounds

Woke up early with horrendous period pains.
Had planned a really lovely Friday, going into central London and getting Mr PIPs birthday presents and doing some rare nice (free) things for me.
None of that was able to be done.
Fortunately (ha) I have so much stuff I don't want to do that needs to be done at least I got that time back. Will have to have a less pleasant rush getting the gifts on Monday.
Not best pleased.

Today also marks the umpteenth week Thames haven't got back to us and the end of the two weeks in which we were meant to have heard back from the Ward Councillor, who only got back to us after weeks when Mr PIP contacted the local party branch. It is also nearly seven months since we got planning permission (after years of begging for any word) and several months since we finished submitting (and paying for) all the council consents, with not a single word back from the council throughout.
Not best pleased.

Tidying
Admin
Comping

Little money juggles. Mum said to put the change from gift I ordered from her for Mr PIP to flat pot so that's £3 in

Domestic bits like changing all the towels and watering all the plants

Resisted going back to bed

Bits from mums and wrapped a couple of gifts that had been sent there

20 minute walk dropping off a vinted sale.
Then I dropped a package off in the post office and the man was mean to me and made me go to another counter because there was a queue but it was my turn and he'd served people behind me first and I had to then wait again (in the same area as some nasty woman coughing everywhere and not even covering her mouth).
Then I went to Aldi and queued up and had forgotten my wallet like a complete bloody idiot.
Then I came home and the cat jumped up my back with her claws out and I shouted at her then felt terrible about it and cried.

Found a book that's been accepted for 10p, and one I'm keeping that made me think of you @EssexHebridean The Subterranean Railway by Christian Wolmar

Then I was so annoyed with everything including myself that I marched (well, shuffled) my ouchy uterus and worrying tummy for a 50 minute walk so I could at least feel I'd made some progress on Mr PIP's birthday.
Used the £10 voucher I won a while ago towards a bottle of fizz and a box of chocolates. And got the free paper for the crossword.

And now I am going to sit on the sofa with a beer and look at the crossword and feel proud of the things I got done and having resisted going back to bed or to the pub. The cat has forgiven me btw

badmemory

You need a distraction, well either that or a pillow to scream into.  Have you ever tried the Guardians wordiply.  If you beat them they call you smartypants.

Blackcats

House prices are so variable up and down the country.  Houses round here are selling really quickly at well over £800,000 for an extended semi.  Really tough for my children who are taking on mahoosive mortgages and needing to find more than £80,000 for a deposit and £000's for stamp duty.  My late aunt's 3 bed semi in South Yorkshire sold last year for £130,000.  

Your situation with planning and Thames is scandalous.  

Watty1

Reading in horror your planning story.  Even the Ward Councillor seems a bit hopeless sadly.

PennysIntoPounds

I haven't tried that @badmemory, think all my brain ability gets taken up attempting the free crossword!

It's just ridiculous all round isn't it @Blackcats
We're thinking if nothing occurs by autumn then short of a miracle we'll probably have to give up. We really don't want to as we'll never in our lives be able to get a two/three bed property in a half decent area otherwise, but equally there comes a point where we've wasted so much money on rent and the surveyor fees and various council permissions we just can't afford to build it and be able to afford any roof over our heads