"It's good to plan but also to throw away the plan"

It's been a funny old week - a few highs and a few lows. A last minute spanner was thrown in the loan process. We now need life insurance. This information is not detailed anywhere in the NBD mortgage criteria but someone has decided we need it so the paperwork is on its way for this and the loan, by DHL - "we keep your promises", glad they will. I have to complete it all, notarize it and return it. Slight hitch may come as Belgium likes documents notarized with Flemish/French translations. So that's a bridge or mountain to cross next week. The second thing I have been working on is our monthly cost of living budget. I have finally cracked it - thank you Celia for keeping me sane by your last line (and this post's heading).

Yesterday the landlord visited, we can only give calendar notice (p.23, line 16, subsection b - and lots of finger jabbing at the contract) and it must be 3 months so at the moment that takes us into September when we are actually booked to go the first week of July. Also, the damp on the bedroom wall that came through from the shower next door is because we don't open the bathroom window enough and that it must be 'an English thing'. I then got a lecture on all the things I'd be charged for including the trees having grown too much in 3.5 years. I reminded him our garage automatic door had broken yesterday for about the 6th time and he said a new part would take a while. This is from someone whose company letterhead proudly proclaims 'suppliers of quality automatic doors and gates', say no more.