Can't win them all..

.. no interview for me, alas.

Removals men coming to quote on Friday as well as my buyers' surveyor.

Michael sent me this .. maybe a little far outside Camberley, but beautiful?

Windlesham, cont'd

I'm still keen on this one - spacious, family-friendly & affordable, but it's in a nasty chain.  So we might just look at not so pretty - but still in Windlesham.

Meanwhile, work is hell, and it's hard to believe I'll be leaving there in a month.  Multiple staff absences, imminent exam season, potential Ofsted visit..

Hopefully, an interview in Windsor next Tues for job in Education & Training for the council.  Less money, who knows...  maybe less stress??

Surveyor booked in for my place this Friday.

Tiger has taken to howling at the moon.

Spacious of Windlesham

.. plenty of walking paths, near the school, it's at the very end of a cul de sac, with a short short cut to the village with essential shops & PO.  Sufficiently within budget that we'd be able to shop at Waitrose in Sunningdale, and I could relax and enjoy a 4 day week [assuming someone will kindly give me a job].  If they won't, I could take over the recently closed Dr's/physiotherapy premises in Windlesham and go broke running a yoga centre [not really].

Here's the link - Windlesham again?

Must have seen 4? 5? others.  We'd all blown a gasket by the very end...  Tiny access roads, building sites on main roads, very friendly owners who won't leave you alone to look.. and (yet) another overpriced waterside dream.  Well, waterside dreams are out for now, unless they are (a) finished &; (b) a total bargain.  Give me space and comfort.

Finished & uploaded job app last night..

3 properties tomorrow..

Lovely waterfront, Wraysbury

Sensibly priced but floodable, Wraysbury

The builders haven't finished yet, Windlesham

Time for an application form & dinner.

A break

Still at one remove in the New Forest, which is a wonderful, welcome thing.

Someone else has put an offer in on the fantasy Edwardian pile, so perhaps that step-too-far has been taken out of our hands, and perhaps no bad thing, sad as I am to see it go.  It would have worked with a family of elves to do all the hard work*, of which there was a lifetime's worth.

Meanwhile the reasonably priced waterside property is far more vulnerable to flooding, but we'll have a look all the same.  Time for me to do more inland research and locate a bit of Berkshire with a sense of community that isn't on a motorway, nor next to a theme park or a race course.  We'll get there.

Today, job app to finish and Guildford to get to without flattening the Sat Nav battery.

* which in my case I have not got, to paraphrase Henry Reed, here he is if you have the time..

http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/namingofparts.html

How about?

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/27992380?tmad=c&tmcampid=35&utm_campaign=buy-alert&utm_content=contact-type-listing&utm_medium=email&utm_source=alert

A lot less space, but a lot less money, decorating and heating, still on the water at Wraysbury?

A little strategic googling found a potential job in Ed & Training for Windsor Council, a pay cut, and the job app has to be in by the end of Friday, but I've spoken to someone there who said I had a chance..

Nice afternoon being marched around the New Forest by a very happy child.

Still looking..

Well, no instant job alas, but a useful chat with a possible employer, who sounded spookily like my current employer, working with identical challenges.  What was that self-help book called again?  "Wherever you go, there you are".  So:  even if they do restructure & happen to create a job I could do - do I want it?  Ho hum.  And the only instant work available, and way to get to know the place & let them get to know me would be hourly paid teaching work, of a type and salary so junior, I've never done it in my whole working life.  Oh boy.

Away with M&C in the New Forest now.  Got here thanks to Satnav finally stuck firmly to the right bit of windscreen, the right way up, and remarkably useful.   I'm well fed, well slept, and the decidedly unattractive looking haemorrhage in my right eye has finally melted away [optician said that's what you get for coughing too dramatically].  A welcome break indeed.

So, today I feel inclined to living somewhere smaller, cheaper and much, much easier to maintain.  Even though (M especially &) I've invested substantial volumes of time and energy in that Edwardian fantasy, complete with memorising 80 page local conservation report - I can tell you where to find the nearest bat, hedgehog and birds galore....

Nobody needs this much info.  Time for my breaksfast.  xx me

 .

Moving along..

Phone interview set for tomorrow, just have to get the satnav working and find the New Forest for a short half-term break first.

'Wreck It Ralph' with Catherine today, plus some Easter card making in a hobby shop and [I'm clearly a total pushover] McDonald's.

Sale of my place moving along - it finally has printed property details, not that it needs them now it's been bought, "lovingly maintained", I like that phrase.

Skype definitely works, as Oz and Ilene can testify.. you do get me in headphones, though.  I like it.

More property research needed before we commit.

me xx

Skype & other meanderings

Hello team,

Headphones/microphone kit work!  If you'd care to send me your Skype details, we can talk.

Telephone interview postponed to Monday - interviewer similarly indisposed with end-of-term-itis.

Have invested in recognisable brand of satnav, which should recognise where I live.  Shall ebay first one with a 'buyer beware' description.

Love,

me xxx

PS:  Re-visited Edwardian pile today;  reassuringly, it looked smaller.  It smelt mustier.  Tennis court so green with moss I thought it was grassed.  A lifetime of projects, but exciting ones.  Daughter of neighbouring house stuck her head out of a window to say "Have you bought it yet?... Buy that house!"

Visited a perfectly finished, aesthetically pleasing house much nearer school, but no garage, limited space.  All good research.

Only vaguely about property

I have a telephone interview lined up tomorrow for a college really not too far from my next location...

Amazon has delivered the headset that might mean I can finally Skype..though Oz says that won't cure anything.

M&I are having a second look at the dementedly huge Edwardian place this weekend.  Judy, it's like yours with bells on.  Same indestructible carpets and puzzling collection of blinds where there should be curtains.  The carpets are a good thing, because we won't be up for replacing them in this lifetime.

Already having minor spats about whose study has to have a spare bed in it.  I'll concede a folding one.

And on a wholly irrational level, it turns out the last family who lived there for 30 happy years went by the names of Barnett & Iris, surname Levy.  I feel almost duty-bound to reclaim the place.  I've been a little distracted on Google lately..

- I've found a photo of young Barnett, aged 15, in his school Athletics team before he made good and left Tottenham.
- There are records of copper being delivered to the wharf where the house now stands from the 13th century.
- One of the houses on the island opposite is called Toad Hall.
- I will spare you.. I could go on.. but work and a heavy cold have interfered with my enthusiasm.

None of this is even slightly relevant to home buying, is it?

Toodle pip.

Reality check?

Perhaps we need to live somewhere much, much smaller, and much, much cheaper.

M says I worry too much.

Onward.

Wraysbury, Berkshire?

An interesting Saturday afternoon .. Wraysbury is 3.5 miles back to the shops I know in Staines;  1.5 miles to the railway station - 47mins from Waterloo; 20 miles from Judy; 50 miles from Milly; England's 2nd longest village at 7 miles from end to end, with a village hall, Post Office, newsagent, village store, under a mile to the pub .. a drive, but a straightforward one, to school for Catherine.. a stone's throw from Windsor Great Park..and most excitedly - I know how to get there from the M25 without getting lost!!

Alas, a yoga teacher's wages won't pay the upkeep on either of these, so I'll just have to get a half-way sensible job.  Gone are my dreams of baking cakes for the Women's Institute and doing the garden.

(1) Wharf Road:  Edwardian, glorious, with enough space to play hide and seek indoors.  Catherine's already played with two friendly neighbouring girls.. High enough ceilings for chandeliers.  Dreadful photos - it is so, so much better in real life.

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/27385877?search_identifier=c8792dac8a5f06495f8736c84506746c

or

(2) Kingswood Creek: the (very much) smaller, eco-friendly, easy to hoover, suntrap with limited headheight in the bedrooms [rafter conversions]  Yes, Judy, I can hear you from here.

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/17409944?search_identifier=9b7254f7d10f0ac3f82d624a51cd0a3e

Both are away from the main Thames thoroughfare, so M could launch a boat easily enough, but the houses aren't overwhelmed or directly overlooked by passing river traffic.

Both in straightforward non-chains.  Could move into either and tart them up bit by bit.. We were awake at 5am working out who would get which study..

I will report in :)

It's a long way to go..

Choosing a new home is far, far from easy.  It's a "No" to all seen so far.

Nobody should live in Bracknell.

Builders should talk to their wives before chucking money at kitchens.

There was a beautiful garden in the middle of nowhere with 100ft trees, that would have needed vast amounts of time and money chucking at the house, and it was still outside .... Bracknell.

And there was a holiday chalet on the river with a mooring that belonged to its neighbour and no mains water or gas.  Nice river.

Why would anyone live in a really, really nice house right next to a main road?  The seller left a tv on in every room to distract us.  It didn't work.

Well, at least we agreed that none were quite right.  Busy week ahead & more research next weekend.

Must do something about slow puncture, satnav that's still in its box, getting new spectacles, and finding a new job.

Toodlepip.