Get out of jail free card

We had the report from the house inspection today. The 'Judge' deems we need to pay 2,600 Euros to our landlord in repairs. Yeah right. I won't bore you with the details suffice to say the first item was to pay 500 Euros for a missing (net) curtain - we actually paid our landlord for the curtains (which are straight off Coronation Street with flying ducks to match) when we moved in. Our appointed Relocation Agent (from Andy's work) has said he will try and get a sensible quote from him otherwise we should just leave and forget it. Fugitives on the run. He said there would be one major problem though with this plan, in that we may not be able to return to Belgium - gosh, that is a dilemma......

Compost / If only

So, the grass/trees/borders etc are all cut down (thanks Derek/Andy) now to keep our landlord happy. Now, the farmer opposite won't take it because we've mixed our grass and our trees - completely forbidden.


So now I've got to get this lot into tiny compost bags for compost collection day or pay the very expensive gardening maintenance company to remove it for me in their little regulation compost disposal truck........ Anyway, I went to Ikea today and bought quite a lot of essentials (scented tea lights are essential actually - power cuts remember? and Celia said so, so it must be true) anyway, there's not much left in the budget now for compost disposal. Now, if only we could burn it without setting light to the garage...........


Yes, he is my designated 'Compost Disposal Truck Driver' actually.

"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.