Sometimes, when Mr B is away and I'm feeling lonely, or when I need a little fantasy, I guiltily go to the website that's guaranteed to start me dreaming of the exotic, get me a little excited as I imagine another, more decadent, lifestyle. It offers photo after photo to admire, and tempting descriptions of what's on offer at prices I could never afford.
I do love Rightmove.
What did you think I was talking about?
I tell myself I'm tracking the house prices and gauging which local buyers might be most desperate to sell at the point we want to buy. And that is true - I'm ever practical. But we won't be moving any time soon, what with me being shakily self-employed and all. So what is it that's so compelling in particular about looking at house particulars?
Isn't it obvious? Well, let's choose two things.
Aspiration
This one near me has a floorplan that would cover most of my street, slightly incongruous decor, 1.4 acres and, apparently, a horse thrown into the deal. This one has (count 'em) 11 bedrooms, 7 acres and an indoor swimming pool. You can do any random search in any town and come up with examples of beautiful houses in stunning settings that one day, maybe, if you obey the capitalist imperative or win the lottery, might be yours. It's a dream, at least until you visit someone new (as I did last week) whose utility room is the size of my kitchen and their kitchen is the size of my ground floor. And next door's too. And then you wonder why you don't have that. And you conveniently forget that you haven't spent two years, as they did, living in a caravan while a barn was painstakingly converted around them. But the final result is something to aspire to. One day, you say, it will all be mine.
Descriptions
Some estate agents are straight-down-the-line - pure descriptions with no frills (although unnecessarily updating their content every couple of days - well, unnecessary if you take optimising search results out of the equation). But there are only so many ways you can describe a fitted bathroom so others let their poetic side come to the fore. Take this description of an unexceptional overpriced bungalow: "A beech tree stands sentry to welcome you in to this house in the country, a new life can begin. The land folds around you so fertile and rich, to grow your own food and enjoy this fine pitch. Standing though centuries, built between wars, High Trees is just ready and waiting to be yours." I would do a little editing on the contradictory prose if I didn't suspect it's tongue-in-cheek. This is clearly targeting the "up from London" market of vulnerable, redundant and repetent bankers taking their payouts to fund a rural idyll for a couple of years until they can't bear the Starbucks withdrawal symptoms and go back to Highgate. One estate agent in a town I know well takes the personal touch a little too far by always including an "Our view " paragraph in its descriptions. Of course, this is always a gushing view, never a "over-decorated, damp problem" view, while still not avoiding thorny questions likely to be asked by discerning buyers. Choice (unedited) examples: "It doesn't have a swimming pool or tennis court ... nothing like that... but it has got something much more important than all those things...Location". Also try: "Describing this magnificent property as simply four bedroom detached is belittling it beyond measure." It's unsophisticated stuff but it easy to warm to the enthusiasm of the writer - I'm not one for passion but I can see why she stands out from the crowd. Marketing copywriters have a lot to learn from estate agents.
Having said all that, I actually go straight for the floorplan and the photos, which I suppose is odd for a words person. But houses, like relationships, are an emotional investment, selected and rejected on the smallest whim. We saw 22 houses before seeing the one we bought. Almost all were bigger, newer, didn't back onto a car park - but we saw it and we loved it and we bought it. Of course, we're paying the price now - both literally as its value has dropped back down to what we bought it for, despite years of renovation, and metaphorically as it gets smaller every day. I am currently typing at a tiny uncomfortable desk beside Mr B's in our bedroom, wishing for a study. See what I mean about aspiration? I don't really want an 11 bedroom house - too much cleaning - but I'd settle for an extra room.
And a kitchen the size of a sports hall.
Tuesday 23 August 2011
Monday 15 August 2011
Getting down with da kids
Monkeyrina was three last week. Bex kindly wished me a happy third labour day and indeed it seems that, as with the actual birth, children's birthdays cost mothers all the stress and expense, with only the reward of a happy little girl with a chocolatey mouth. And that, it cannot be denied, is a fine reward.
As our house is the size of most people's garden sheds, we hired the local community centre for a nominal amount and took all our junk over there for the party. When I was three, parties were regimental affairs, with party games at set times whose winners tended to be the kids who my mother felt deserved it the most. These days, kids' parties are at playbarns, where they can climb and swing and slide and scream until the food is served and they continue to climb and swing and slide and scream at the table. Monkeyrina's party was a cross between the two - we had a small bouncy castle (which took an hour to inflate with a lilo pump) and Mr B threw caution to the wind by upgrading to Spotify Premium so that we could play nursery rhymes offline from his laptop (anyone remember CDs?). I filled paper plates with junk food that was eagerly devoured by children and parents alike (even those who claimed to spurn cocktail sausages) and the remains of which now sit temptingly in the kitchen as yet another reason to boot me off to the gym. Anna, my ever-generous sort-of-step-mother-in-law, who told me she sometimes reads this blog (hello!), created her usual artistic triumph of a birthday cake, along with a full set of spectacular cupcakes, and in the end I didn't need all five of the bottles of cider I'd bought to self-medicate with afterwards.
I didn't know much about children before Monkeyrina came along. I still don't know much about children but I do know that people make allowances for your behaviour. Here are some snapshots of things I'd love to do but, for mysterious and disappointing social reasons, could never get away with at 35.
Children learn from us and we learn from them. I hope that, as well as contributing to their educational development and nagging them into submission, they learn that sometimes - given the right circumstances - it's OK to do you really want to do.
As our house is the size of most people's garden sheds, we hired the local community centre for a nominal amount and took all our junk over there for the party. When I was three, parties were regimental affairs, with party games at set times whose winners tended to be the kids who my mother felt deserved it the most. These days, kids' parties are at playbarns, where they can climb and swing and slide and scream until the food is served and they continue to climb and swing and slide and scream at the table. Monkeyrina's party was a cross between the two - we had a small bouncy castle (which took an hour to inflate with a lilo pump) and Mr B threw caution to the wind by upgrading to Spotify Premium so that we could play nursery rhymes offline from his laptop (anyone remember CDs?). I filled paper plates with junk food that was eagerly devoured by children and parents alike (even those who claimed to spurn cocktail sausages) and the remains of which now sit temptingly in the kitchen as yet another reason to boot me off to the gym. Anna, my ever-generous sort-of-step-mother-in-law, who told me she sometimes reads this blog (hello!), created her usual artistic triumph of a birthday cake, along with a full set of spectacular cupcakes, and in the end I didn't need all five of the bottles of cider I'd bought to self-medicate with afterwards.
I didn't know much about children before Monkeyrina came along. I still don't know much about children but I do know that people make allowances for your behaviour. Here are some snapshots of things I'd love to do but, for mysterious and disappointing social reasons, could never get away with at 35.
- Monkeyrina running round and round the long kids' table before the guests arrived, giggling uncontrollably.
- Kids jumping and twisting to catch glimmering bubbles.
- One little boy refusing to sit at the table to eat with the others, because, his mother said, he was afraid of the adults.
- One girl refusing to leave the food table until every cake had been eaten. Um, that was, in fact, my daughter. Family resemblance, anyone?
- Continously turning around and shaking random limbs all about and then wandering off to play with balloons during the Hokey Cokey.
- All the kids locating the duck whistles in their party bags and gravely honking away when their parents tried to take them home.
- Pretending to be tired at the end of the party just to get a hug.
Children learn from us and we learn from them. I hope that, as well as contributing to their educational development and nagging them into submission, they learn that sometimes - given the right circumstances - it's OK to do you really want to do.
Monday 8 August 2011
Relax - don't do it
As I get older, I've come to accept that I'm good at some things and bad at some things and absolutely, hopelessly awful at others. I'm no good at pool, for example - if you tried to lose against me, you would win (and thus lose). My attempt at a Scottish accent is terrible - not a great problem in Norfolk but it would have been useful to sound like a local when I lived in Stirling and the SNP cornered me pre-election. Drawing recognisable pictures of, well, anything, is also beyond me: Monkeyrina leans over the paper, shakes her head sorrowfully and tells me they're "not very good". But the thing I'm worst at of all is relaxing.
I've realised that, while they're lying on the massage couch, other people close their eyes and dream. They don't want to ask their beauty therapists questions about their typical customers or how they can possibly bear to touch strangers' bodies. The last time I had a pamper day, I noticed that my therapist was left-handed and it took all my self-control not to ask her whether she had to learn all the treatments in reverse. (I'm left handed too - it means that guitar playing and crochet are included in the "bad at" category - or really in the "never tried it because it's easier for right handers so why make work for myself when there are books to be read instead?" category).
Clearly, I am too tightly wound, or have too strong a sense of self-preservation, to fall asleep in public, and in any case, that would require my mind to be still for a moment. During a recent facial (at the pamper day - I don't want to suggest that my life is one long spa experience), my thoughts went like this:
"She's putting something on my face. It's cold. She's wiping my face with something soft and cold. Is it a dead mouse? Should I shut my eyes? There's a bulb gone in that ceiling light. Eyes open or closed? She might stick her finger in my eye if it's open, so closed. No more broken ceiling lights. What is she wiping on me? Could be anything. It's been years since I've had a facial. Probably Debbie's hen weekend in 1999. My mum was there. What was my mum doing at Debbie's hen weekend? Don't know. Wasn't it in Wales? What was my Mum doing in Wales? That facial had a massage too. I wonder if I'll get one now. Massages are usually good. That one at that hotel that time, with work. Oh no, I had a St Tropez then, not a massage. The therapist said she'd treated someone out of that girl band, what was it, All Saints, and she was the only person she'd ever come across with no cellulite. I always think of that. Whatever happened to All Saints? When were they famous, mid-90s, I was at uni. What were they called? Shaznay was one, Shaznay Lewis. How do I remember that? You don't get many Shaznays. Appleton. Nicole Appleton and her sister, now what was her name? And the other one. Didn't Nicole Appleton marry a Gallagher brother? I expect they're all married to other people now. Oh. Itchy nose. Oooh, itchy nose! Shall I scratch it? No, can't do that. Oooh, itchy itchy! Maybe she'll massage it away. If she does any massage with that dead mouse."
From what other people say, their thoughts in the same situation are more like this:
"Mmm. Nice. Zzzzz."
So what does relax me? Reading a book, surfing the net, chatting to friends... hmm, there's a pattern there. My mind just doesn't like resting - lying on a sun-bright Seychelles beach and snoozing the day away is great in its way (so I imagine - the chances of it actually happening are even more remote than the Seychelles) but isn't very constructive. I have to be realistic about myself: I like to think. I like to reflect. I like to get things done. And then I can... relax.
I've realised that, while they're lying on the massage couch, other people close their eyes and dream. They don't want to ask their beauty therapists questions about their typical customers or how they can possibly bear to touch strangers' bodies. The last time I had a pamper day, I noticed that my therapist was left-handed and it took all my self-control not to ask her whether she had to learn all the treatments in reverse. (I'm left handed too - it means that guitar playing and crochet are included in the "bad at" category - or really in the "never tried it because it's easier for right handers so why make work for myself when there are books to be read instead?" category).
Clearly, I am too tightly wound, or have too strong a sense of self-preservation, to fall asleep in public, and in any case, that would require my mind to be still for a moment. During a recent facial (at the pamper day - I don't want to suggest that my life is one long spa experience), my thoughts went like this:
"She's putting something on my face. It's cold. She's wiping my face with something soft and cold. Is it a dead mouse? Should I shut my eyes? There's a bulb gone in that ceiling light. Eyes open or closed? She might stick her finger in my eye if it's open, so closed. No more broken ceiling lights. What is she wiping on me? Could be anything. It's been years since I've had a facial. Probably Debbie's hen weekend in 1999. My mum was there. What was my mum doing at Debbie's hen weekend? Don't know. Wasn't it in Wales? What was my Mum doing in Wales? That facial had a massage too. I wonder if I'll get one now. Massages are usually good. That one at that hotel that time, with work. Oh no, I had a St Tropez then, not a massage. The therapist said she'd treated someone out of that girl band, what was it, All Saints, and she was the only person she'd ever come across with no cellulite. I always think of that. Whatever happened to All Saints? When were they famous, mid-90s, I was at uni. What were they called? Shaznay was one, Shaznay Lewis. How do I remember that? You don't get many Shaznays. Appleton. Nicole Appleton and her sister, now what was her name? And the other one. Didn't Nicole Appleton marry a Gallagher brother? I expect they're all married to other people now. Oh. Itchy nose. Oooh, itchy nose! Shall I scratch it? No, can't do that. Oooh, itchy itchy! Maybe she'll massage it away. If she does any massage with that dead mouse."
From what other people say, their thoughts in the same situation are more like this:
"Mmm. Nice. Zzzzz."
So what does relax me? Reading a book, surfing the net, chatting to friends... hmm, there's a pattern there. My mind just doesn't like resting - lying on a sun-bright Seychelles beach and snoozing the day away is great in its way (so I imagine - the chances of it actually happening are even more remote than the Seychelles) but isn't very constructive. I have to be realistic about myself: I like to think. I like to reflect. I like to get things done. And then I can... relax.
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