I left you last time with us walking through the door of the new house, in true cliffhanger fashion. I was a bit nervous that I’d built it up to be more than it actually was. Although the sale went through from initial offer to moving day in bang on six weeks, we had only viewed the property once, I’d been a bit thunderstruck by the beauty of the house and garden, having not expected to like it, and I was wondering whether our desperation to find a house to buy (or even rent) had blinkered us a bit.
Tag: house
Out with the old
Before I start with the new, I thought I’d sign off with the old house. It’s been so long since we put it up for sale, and then accepted an offer, that I think I’d lost all feeling I’d ever had for it. Of course, I’ve said before, it was the house that we brought Scarlett back to (and Jude, for a mere six days), but it’s been too long.
Contracts and contractions
I’m running a little behind on the news here… I have lots to share with you, and little time to type it out. I have many snaps on my phone already, but am struggling to type up words to go with them. In short, we had a baby.
Little by little
Not much to report on the house front, although our buyers have now paid their deposit to their solicitor, a mere three months later. Exchange and completion dates still to be determined.
We’re in a dilemma now, whether to move before or after the baby’s born, as we’re swiftly approaching the danger zone. Just hanging fire to see if we get any info from our bank this week about the mortgage.
On edge
Still no news on the exchange date for our own house, but remember that house I was telling you about last week? We got it!
Bit of a strange situation – we offered slightly under asking price to begin with, and then revised it to full asking when we were told the vendors wanted full asking… and it still wasn’t confirmed that we’d got it. They had another viewing. We definitely weren’t going over asking price, and we made it clear to the estate agent that we wouldn’t be entering into sealed bids again (we lost out on one that way a few weeks earlier), and even made arrangements to carry on viewing other houses. Whatever tipped the balance, they decided to accept our offer, and we’re now on with the financial side.
Wishlists and compromises
We accepted an offer on our house in late February, and hoped this meant we would have moved well ahead of the baby’s due date, which is late June. We don’t have an exchange date yet. We’re still waiting. And waiting…
A loooong year
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may remember that we put our house up for sale a year ago. Just over a year ago, actually. I looked up the date.
The Bake Off Final
We’ve had the Bake Off challenge final… I came… drumroll please… third. Of five. A distinctly average performance among my peers, but I definitely had some highlights.
Double chocolate and raspberry tart
I’ve been hanging round third place on our GBBO leaderboard, and it’s sadly too late to change that now. But, I’m determined to go out fighting!
Here’s my double chocolate and raspberry tart. I got lucky with these raspberries – look at them, they’re neon! – as they’re almost out of season, but these were really tasty.
Apple and caramel cream horns
Hands up if you’ve ever made a cream horn. I’m guessing nobody, other than the five of us taking part in this challenge (and the Bake Off participants themselves, of course). And with good reason.
They’re a pain in the arse. They require a lot of different processes and techniques, and on a personal note, a week later, I still haven’t got feeling back in one of my fingertips after touching a hot toffee-coated spoon.