First off, you know when I said hopefully it'd wouldn't be six months before I wrote again? Yeah, oops. Sorry about that. Secondly, you remember how I said that Adam and I probably wouldn't buy a house. Yeah, we did. I've been regretting that decision fairly regularly over the last couple of months we've lived here, but I do still love it. I feel almost adult-like for owning a home.
Part of why I haven't posted for so long--beyond the laziness, of course--is because we were without a regular internet connection from the day we fully moved (28th of August; we took possession August 15th) until October 1st. I'm still so unbelievably angry about the multitude of fuck-ups that caused that to happen that I don't want to write about it, but we were supposed to be connected on September 4th. The only good thing to come out of it is that we've got 5 free months from the company.
Beyond the laziness and lack of internet there's been the dealing with the house. Turns out the previous owner was a lying son of a bitch, which, while not uncommon, is frustrating and has cost us (and by us, I mean the awesome relatives who have bought us housewarming presents) nearly £1500 so far. And it's not done yet. Our solicitor (who happens to be a co-worker's mother, a mistake I will not make again), so far as I can tell, did not even do the most basic aspects of the job for which we paid her. So far as we can tell, the damp that was found by the inspector in the new house (a key reason why we wanted to move out of the Lewisham Road flat) won't be covered by the damp-proofing guarantee because that wall was not treated. Of course we chose to purchase the house knowing about this, because we were told there was a guarantee, and we asked our solicitor to send us a copy of that so that we could confirm that we could have it repaired under the guarantee (i.e. not out of our pocket). But instead of sending us the full details at that time, we just got the page of the guarantee. Not, you know, a copy of the work that was done, which we received about 3 weeks after we moved in. Awesome. Now I have to ask an ombudsman if we have some kind of case against our solicitor, and might possibly be suing our solicitor for gross incompetence. She also couldn't tell us who owns the plot of land next to us. Adam and I found that information, along with the date of sale, in the same pile of paperwork that included the specifics of the damp-proofing. Did I mention it's my co-worker's mother?
There are pictures of the house, many, MANY pictures, but I have to get them off the tablet to share them. Since we still have large quantities of boxes in the house, that's easier said than done since I can't find the SD card adaptor, but I just managed to guilt-trip myself into finding an alternate (and in fact easier) way to get them onto my computer, so I'll post those separately.
As for the regrets of buying, it's not the costs of replacing all the shit that lying Simon said worked (the dishwasher, the cooker, basically any kitchen appliance), or even the incompetence of our solicitor, but, once again, our neighbours. Always the neighbours. Woo. We live in a back-to-back end-terrace, which for my British friends, probably makes sense, but is rather incomprensible to those who live in a society where duplexes aren't that common. Row, or terraced, housing means a string of homes that are all part of one building. Generally, they go all the way through the property, so you have both front and back walls of the house, but your side walls are shared with a neighbour. Like a duplex or a triplex, but usually quite a few more than that. End-terraced homes are more expensive, because they only share one wall. But because ours is a back-to-back, we actually don't go all the way through, and we have two shared walls (it's a very bizarre row). We also have no garden/yard, which is fine, but will make it more difficult when we get a dog (for we WILL get a dog. Or two.).
The neighbour on the side seems to be a single mother with a 4-5 year old. Her preferred method of parenting is to scream at her child. Constantly. Also, she tries to reason with the child, as in she tries to use logic to win arguments. With a 4-5 year old. Because that'll work even better than screaming. The kid is probably a little shithead, but anyone would be if they're constantly screamed at by their mother. It's some of the worst parenting I can imagine short of physically harming a child.
The neighbours on the back side are big on shouting as well, but that's mostly because their music is turned up so loudly that they have to shout to be heard. This applies also when the music isn't on, since it's clearly made them deaf. Also, they listen to club music. That's it. Bad dance music, never anything else. And they watch Family Guy quite loudly in what we think is their bedroom (anyway, it's next to our bedroom, and since the homes should be roughly mirrored, it would make sense). Also, they seem to think it's ok to blast music and have stupidly loud--and just stupid--and drunk people around until well after 2am. Yes, it may be the weekend, but some of us have to be in to work by 7am some weekends. Touch wood, that seems to have lessened a bit, but we'll see.
The good news is that the neighbours on the other side of screamy mum are pretty cool. Will and Rachel (I might be making their names up a bit) are very nice, come into work all the time because they like the Bakery, and Will is a brewer (complete with awesome red beard). He actually brews for a living, when he's not setting up new breweries or organizing some of the awesome local-ish beer festivals (including the fairly major Indy Man, and he also helped start up Port Street Beer House in Manchester, which Adam and I love). He told us about one that he just set up in Leeds, and Adam and I went to it and had a blast. So Will's ok, and Rachel seems lovely (she doesn't come in as often; I think she has a real job), and their dog is quietly cute. Good people. We hope to get to know them better, and hope they like board games!
I should go shower. I am dusty from working in a bakery, and tired from making 14 cakes and a double batch of sablé dough today. As a sidenote, that's not a cake record for me. Also, that's not as much as it sounds, since I only made 5 types. I've done more and more variety, but I'm not feeling well today, so I'm rather impressed I got that many. Though if a pan hadn't gone missing, I would have made 15 cakes, 3 each of 5 varieties. As it stands, I made 3 Apple and Olive Oil, 3 Tunisian Orange and Almond, 3 Chocolate Guinness, 3 Kladdakaka (gooey Swedish chocolate torte), and 2 ginger loaves (don't know where the third pan went). Over the course of the week, at least 2 more cakes will be made (baked Polish cheesecake, which I hate making), and probably another batch of ginger cakes. Lemon cake may also be made, and I might suck it up and try to harvest a bit more rhubarb for another couple of Rhubarb Polenta cakes. In theory, all those cakes should be cut into 10, and yes, we sell all of those cakes in a week. Pretty cool, really.
Photos tomorrow, I hope. It's late.
