On the trials of buying a house

So over the Christmas holidays Mark and I decided; right Glasgow - we love this city, we're not going anywhere in medium-term future, let's buy somewhere to live. To be honest, the thought wouldn't have crossed my mind, but my husband is an accountant - nuff said.

So we decided that since we had a long holiday that extended a bit into January, on our return to Glasgow, we would blitz this buying a flat and nail it in a couple of weeks max.  We did manage to wade through a sea of mortgage providers and all that melarkey pretty successfully in that time period - Mark made a ton of spreadsheets, as he does, so that did the job quite nicely. We manage to view a good few flats in that time. But as for finding the flat, well it's mid Feb and considering the fact we still haven't found one we're happy with yet, we may have just been a little optimistic... See it turns out a nice flat in our budget is more than likely to have any of a whole range of problems.

Let me present to you three flats that we have seriously considered to illustrate:

Numero Un: Let's call it Knotweed flat - Great flat, convenient area for everything, good amount of space, has a converted attic (!!), very cheap!

Read the home report and... Japanese Knotweed in the back garden, asbestos in the roof, falling apart chimney (bear in mind this is a top floor flat) to name but a few "3" (the worst rating it could possibly get) level serious issues.

Do we take the risk or do we not?! A dilemma that we have yet to make up our minds conclusively about...

Numero Deux: aka Flat of Bling. This flat was in pretty much the same location as the first, had almost as much space minus the converted attic. Neighbours were nice (we even knew one of them!) Home report looked pretty good, the deco was in their words "better than average". Not sure if "better than average" meant tasteful; think silver sparkly toilet seat and multi-coloured lights embedded into the dining room floor.

Now you may think, what's the problem here, decoration is easy enough to change. But it's hard to consider changing it, when the less than likeable rather irritating owner gives a running commentary as she takes you round a tour of the flat on how much everything cost (a lot!), how she put her heart and soul into making it hers. As horrible as I found some of it, I didn't really feel I had the heart to buy it off her and then tear out all of her heart-felt blingy work.

Matter has been taken out of our hands at any case, because our solicitor thinks it's too expensive for what it is, and is currently trying to barter down the price. Secretly felt rather relieved about that.

Numero 3: "The house in a tower block" ticked all the boxes and it wasn't too far from where we lived now. The owners were really nice; that always sways me more than I think it should! But it seemed I was more attached to the area we had been aiming for because we thought we could afford it more than I thought, and the thought of moving further away from the beloved area where I work just now or some of my fantastic esol students who have recently also moved into that general direction was surprisingly less than appealing. We've had to change one of those tick boxes.

That's just a small number of the flats we've seen, and there have been some other possibilities on the horizon so it's not like this is all there is! But it most definitely has become more confusing and complicated than we thought it would become.

Here's some advice, if you ever fancy buying a place yourself and have never done it before.

- Have an idea of what you're looking for before you go looking for it - it saves time.
- Read the home report before you go view it. You get better at that the more you do it. I have become a master in home report skimming, I just keep my eyes out for those buzz words for example having a pitched roof is apparently pretty important, my dad convinced me on that one!
- An important question to consider, especially if it has any structural issues: is there a factor, and if there's no factor, are the neighbours nice and approachable?
- Turns out finding and buying a house/flat in 2 weeks is a little unrealistic, allow for a bit more time than that if you're gonna do it.
- Get a good solicitor you can trust, that helps a LOT!

Have to say, I'm enjoying the adventure of not knowing and having to let God lead us inch by inch.

Just watch this space.

being grateful

The last few days have been pretty wet and dreary here in Glasgow (though perhaps a good op to capture some good rain photos - see previous blog post) and I have been racked with tiredness, but my days have been pretty full and I'm lifting my eyes up and remembering the beauty and the goodness I have experienced over the last wee while.

I got one of those once in a lifetime chances to play in the band in a minority languages competition described rather favourably here. It's a long time since I've seen such incredible views on a flight and every single one of our four flights had them, one breath-taking sunrise, plains-worth of clouds from a top-down view, two lots of spectacular mountains! Udine itself was a medium-sized, quirky, Italian town nearer to Slovenia than Venice, friendly (sometimes too friendly) locals, delicious hams and wines, some pretty architecture - and we had a lot of fun there!

In Udine and in other places there has been much good music, both getting to play, getting to listen to and getting to dance to enjoyed. Genres to dance to have included some crazy drums at a jungle-stylee worship night, and Austrian Croat reggaerockrap.

After about 6 weeks without it, thanks to a belated visit to the doctor's, I have finally regained my sense of smell. I am soooo appreciating this right now. I had been drinking mostly hot ribena because tea smelt of nothing and tasted bland (heart-breaking when you have a large and eclectic tea collection) I hadn't realised how much the lack of smell was affecting my taste-buds (there's a thought in that!), I've been bowled over by just about everything I've been eating - and I'd like to keep that level of appreciation up!

I also am very grateful for the variety of good times spent with good friends. I love every moment I get to spend my with my Chinese mums esol class:- I always come out of there with a massive smile on my face! I am feeling very appreciative of my roomie right now having spent most of the last 2 weeks without him.

I am also especially grateful to have a God who doesn't give up on me and who is always always always faithful and loving - flipping amaaaazing!

beautiful things

Ever seen the first sequence in the film Amelie? I think it's one of my favourite parts of the film. I love the way they describe the characters by their little quirks and favourite past-times. Recently (by doing them) I've remembered how good doing some of my favourite things are incredibly refreshing. I was quite good at incorporating them into life as a student: it involved a lot of spontaneity and creativity and having people round as often as possible and appreciating beautiful things and going to the park a lot!
This working thing and trying to balance a timetable with an uber-busy husband makes it a bit more difficult. But I think it's just a mentality thing, I think I'd just forgotten that life wasn't all about being busy. I made myself a list of things (mostly creative) that I want to do on a regular basis/over the next few months. It includes going to a gig (not just one I'm playing at) at least once a month, perfecting a beautiful piece of classical music on both cello and piano as well as having fun with the band, having people round a lot, painting, learning to sew better, taking pictures on the theme of "rain" (thought it might be help me to appreciate Glasgow rain better, finish putting together our wedding photo albums (yes a year and a half later and we still haven't finished it!) So far I've managed to sew a book cover (a big achievement for me!) and take some rain photos.
Making beautiful things helps me to better appreciate the God-made beauty around me, in the things that he made directly like the rain, but also the beauty that flows out of the creativity he put in people.  (plus it will help me to watch less iplayer). I want to live life fully with wide-open eyes and an open heart.

On the subject of "Beautiful Things", here's a beautiful version of a song with that very name.

pure dead brilliant

I have to admit, I am very easily influenced when it comes to accents and slang. My accent changes a lot depending on who I'm talking to. But I have found that a year and a half of working in Maryhill is more than enough time for the teenage lingo there to infiltrate my every day vocab and not just when I'm at work.

I have been inadvertently using: 

- The classic adverbs "pure" and "dead", as illustrated below in Prestwick Airport's slogan "Pure dead Brilliant".

- "actual" used instead of "really" e.g. instead of "Are you really!?" in Maryhill you will hear "Areyeakchul?!"

- "stay" where the vowel is /aɪ/ as in the vowel in "bye"

I have yet to pick up such beauties as:
- the past tense of jump "jamp"

- "am ar" = I am

You've gotta love the peculiarities that sprout from the English language!

financial security pffft!

Friday last week was quite a momentous day in the life of the Spybeys. Mark got his exam results; the verdict of which would have had ramifications on his job, our financial security, our lives, (also its the last day of my current job-share partner. I've only ever shared the job with her so twill be really very different without her - but that's an aside).

The last couple of months, pretty much since Mark told me a couple of weeks before his resit that he thought he would probably pass it 3rd time round (this was just before his second attempt!) I decided that I could live without the old financial security. I think in theory I could always say that but faced with prospect of insecurity I realised it was true. It was quite free-ing really. I realise I had absolutely no worries about having enough money because God has provided for me time and time again.

Like when my dad lost his job of 24 years when I was 16, when I spent summers unemployed until I got to the last few pounds and then got a temp job just when I needed it the most, getting a job in the tearoom when Mark and I got married and the two of us surviving on his earnings was going to be a stretch. I wasn't desperately in need any of those times. (when are we ever in our comfortable western society?) But still God was gracious enough to provide for us nonetheless.

Is this what it means to know the secret of being content...?

As it happens he did pass (!! - that was a total miracle just so you know, since he thought that exam had gone worse than his first attempt), but I'm not going to let the secret of being content slip through my fingers. Knowing Jesus, being loved by him, living life with him and all the adventures that throws up:- that's good enough for me!

I was tidying our room the other day and I found these (two of four, I don't know what happened to the other two) ...

In case you were wondering, yes both these cards are for me, and no I am neither a nephew nor a gran.

From some of my Chinese elt students of very low-level English. I love them :)

An urban afternoon out

Trawling the old blog posts which I wrote and never posted I found this - written in draft back in October. Sadly Mark didn't pass that exam, so we will have to repeat the trip after he sits it again (in May)!

Picture the scene. It's the day after Mark has his last accountancy exam. He's off work. I'm off work. We have planned for a wee trip to a beautiful loch, or some nice hill somewhere for some fresh air, a good climb, purty scenery. Instead we unintentionally catch up on some much needed zzzzs, surfacing around midday. We still wanted to go somewhere new but didn't really have time to go far as I was meant to be playing a gig that night. So we hop on a train for 10 minutes and arrive at the other end of town - the East End (dumdumDUM)!

It's not somewhere either of us have spent a lot of time. Although at one point I was going through to Parkhead roughly once a week to visit, get fed by and tutor an asylum seeker friend in everything from languages to computer programming. But it turns out the East End is a pretty interesting place, completely different vibe to the west end for sure, but also the south side or in the north where I work. We didn't quite follow this walk but we were inspired by it. Although I have to say, labelling Belgrove (allegedly one of the most unpleasant hostels you could end up in, in Glasgow) as "fabulous" and "Art Deco" did in my mind take it a little too far.

So we wandered about, saw the interesting clock tower and some of the derelict factories, noticed hidden studios and other gems, passed Celtic Park, had a nice wee chat with a lady in a burger van, had a couple of rolls and sausage, Mark had some Irn Bru. Well, when I say "had" I mean, walked down the street swigging his can with great show and pride (I tell you, the boy is just desperate to be Scottish!) Talking of Irn Bru, I have never in my life seen so many deals on Irn Bru cans in shop windows. Even the local fruit and veg shop brandished a hand-written sign - "4 Irn Bru cans for £1.10"! Had a very cheap tea in a huge mug. There are few things that irritate me more than food made to look "exquisite" which leaves your stomach making noises like an aggravated elephant, this includes tiny teacups of tea. Wandered through the Forge Shopping Centre - big place, easy to get lost - and caught the bus home just before it started to chuck it down with rain.

So yes - East End of Glasgow - great place. Despite the rep, it's still well worth a visit!

patter at the concert halls

I don't like working evenings or weekends, it may be a hassle to work around my daily routine, I occasionally enjoy the music and sometimes have to deal with some lunatic drunks but I kept my concert halls job on for one good reason - I love the variety of people I meet and get to work with.

The other day (while Mark was away in Dumfries and I was missing him a lot) I was very humbled when I chatted to a girl whose cohabiting boyfriend had moved away for a job as he wasn't able to find work locally when he graduated. They'd had to move out of their flat which they had furnished themselves and had to put all their furniture into storage because she couldn't afford to pay the rent herself. And I thought I had it hard!

This evening I learnt that Polish hairdressers who work in the East End often end up changing their names so people will actually let them cut their hair otherwise they think they won't understand them. Fact. From an East End man who knows a lot of Polish hairdresser students.

Love the people and love their patter :)

Glasgow rain

We are a nation of moaners, of that I am absolutely certain. And whether I like it or not, if I'm completely honest I definitely succumb more often than not - either it's the weather, public transport being late, having the cold for the nth time, Mark's work sending him away on an occasional basis, or something a bit more serious - it's so easy to grumble. Opposite of moaning - being grateful I think. IT says in the bible - give thanks in all circumstances - now that's pretty hard! Easy when it's glowing sun and golden halo-ed trees all around me but when I'm walking down the street with ice cold rain and wind battering my face (like I will be in about 5 minutes time) it's another matter. Totally dampens my mood. But why does my mood have to be subject to the weather. And then the reverse can also the case, hard to be grateful when I'm uber comfortable, things are going easy and well... how do we get the balance?! I think give thanks in all circumstances means finding beauty in the ice cold rain, not ignoring the bad but seeing the good alongside it.

My decision for this afternoon - find beauty in the rain and insane wind on my way to college..

On the subject of food....

Humnomnom - my new over-used word.

Most memorable 5 foods/meals consumed in the last 5 months:

- In Portugal: bread made by housekeeper of the cottage we stayed in, and salad with avocado - mmmm with wine from the neighbouring vineyard - yummmm

- Tip top 4 course dinner with fantastic company: smmmashing crazy kebab with bread, rosemary, apricot jam, bacon, goats cheese starter, followed by full-on roast, followed by three desserts (trust Jamie to make 3 desserts including the infamous "gulrotkake" - look it up in a norwegian dictionary)

- Montellimar nougat - a gift from two lovely french lasses I met last week = impossible to stop munching.

- Flipping amazing "spicy canteloupe salad" - straight out of the recipe book made by these people which was a birthday gift from a lovely friend :)

- Hog roast at a yorkshire wedding, accompanied by the scrummiest salads, followed by a varied selection of yuuummm mini desserts, in a huge tent, on a beautiful summer's day, and there were open fires... need I say more.

Why do I feel so inspired to talk about food? Because I just took out a tray of brownies out of the oven and am trying very hard not to eat any :)

a few small discoveries

This week I learnt/re-learnt that

- With 4 weeks of training it seems my husband is able to jump from barely scraping half an hour runs without near exhaustion-induced collapse to being able to run a half marathon in an hour and 58 minutes (proud wife moment).

- Meeting and making new friends is amazingly fun!

- But really really good friends are hard to part with.

- Nougat from Montelimar is far too good to just eat a small chunk of, humnumnum

- To my surprise (though it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise) my old flatmate with almost non-existent French and new French friends with very little English have proven that with a little bit of effort and one or two common interests, language barriers don't stand up for long.

- And even more mysteriously, mediocre Scottish fiddle music can sooth the souls of pensioners inclined to bouts of grumpiness.

Back when the weather was good...

There were barbecues....

Lots and lots of barbecues.

Bowls in the park. Outdoor busking.

Freeeeesbeeeee

We celebrated our recent nupitals with a couple of scrummy cupcakes (courtesy of the McCullochs) out in the sun.

We celebrated the graduations of me ol flatmates at the art school degree show party with some boogying in the warm night air...

Oh how I miss the sun!

As brief a summary as I can give...

My life is so random at the moment and I never blog about it... I thought I'd at least try to briefly sum up some of what I'm doing now I'm not a student. I think anecdotes will make more sense that way. So here's what I'm doing, bullet-pointed roughly in order of the number of hours they occupy each week.

- Working part-time as a front of house dude for 2 of the big concert halls in Glasgow. Not exactly what you'd call an exciting job and I'm not exactly use my degree but I like the fact that I have a licence to smile at strangers and that 95% of them smile back. I also like that I work with a really down-to-earth hotch-potch of people.

- Wedding planning has risen in the list. It would have been close to the bottom just before Christmas... but trying to get invites finished has turned out to be a job and a half. 3 months though :)

- Teaching and tutoring. I'd been helping a friend understand his HNC computing coursework because his English isn't good enough to cope with the programming module. I'd get lunch usually with lots of fresh chilli in it, mmmmm, and sometimes an arabic lesson in exchange. He's just back in Glasgow after a stint in Oxford so hopefully we'll be doing that again soon! I also spend a morning a week teaching English at a fairly basic level to 2 students of a class of 10. I also love this! The girls I teach, a Nepalese and Ugandan, are becoming more and more comfortable with me and with each other. And comfort seems to have a fairly linear relationship with laughter! Plus they love learning! Opportunities are popping up so hopefully will be getting to do more of that in the future...

- A day a week working here. I love it! I love the feeling of community, washing dishes, working for one of my best friends, meeting new people every week, the free soup :)

- Hanging out with international students. Can't get away from it even though I'm not one anymore. Currently in the middle of kinda co-leading a welcome team from the CU, out to love a new set of internationals arriving in Glasgow for a new semester.

- Cello-teaching once a fortnight. I've currently got 2 pupils on the books, but only one I regularly see. I also really enjoy this - especially as she actually practises!

I think that sums up my regular "activites"... I haven't mentioned the more sporadic happenings - there are plenty of those!

There we go... man it feels good to get that into bullet-points!

On the highs and lows of street charity fundraising

So I'd been trying my hand at this melarkey for just over a week... I got good at stopping people on the street, bantering with the ones I didn't stop, talking about the charity but as soon as they hit me with excuses I crumbled.
"Oh I'm really skint right now..."
"We're going through a transitional phase in life right now, we've had to cancel a lot of our standing orders to charities..."
"I'd like to think it through. Do you have a website?"

"Oh that's ok, don't worry about it, I totally understand..." is supposed to be followed up with what is called "objection handling" in charity fundraising which is a form of arm-twisting, or as they call it "allowing people to see things from the charity's point of view" but I could never bring myself to do it! So I've temporarily lost my job. Temporarily because I'm apparently a nice person to work with and good for team morale so they want to give me another bash at it. So when they move onto another campaign I'm going to try my hand at it again if I don't find something else in the mean time. Anyway it definitely wasn't a wasted experience even if I don't go back. I certainly learnt a lot, including such valuable knowledge as...
- How to stop people in the street (you have to stand in front of them and start chatting to them from a distance, not side on or close up or they'll just walk straight past)
- People are very friendly even in Edinburgh! (or at least when it's not raining)!
- I am not in any way, shape or form a salesperson (though I think I kinda knew that already)
- fundraising is a tough job... show some respect for your local street fundraisers!

To do Lists

I loooove to do lists, especially when I have lots of things to do or lots of things to look forward to. My post-exam to-do list was a rather long one including such items as "get hair cut" which I accomplished fairly quickly and easily and others such as "tidy room" which I still haven't quite got round to. The other week, inspired by a throwaway comment about how making a baby giggle was up there in my top 10 favourite things to do in life, I wrote a top 10 things to do in the summer list... which is as follows (in no particular order)

1. blow bubbles outside (and watch them sparkle as they burst)

2. amuse a baby or two to the point that it induces contagious giggling (Random I know - but it was what inspired the list in the first place. Also something that is easily achieved on a long sunny day in the park)
3. enjoy some live music (either some live jazz in somewhere like the 78 or Brel or something that inspires silly dancing like Samba Ya Bamba)

4. eat strawberries, sugar and cream very slowly (mmm mmm)

5. walk on grass in bare feet

6. paddle in the sea

7. eat copious amounts of icecream (in cones and outside)
8. go to something at the West End Festival (so I can accomplish 3. on the list)
9. jam (preferably outside in the park)

10. read at least 3 books (have already read one and a half and it's not even been 2 weeks yet!)

I realise many of these depend on sunshine however I seemed to have done most of them over the last couple of weeks so I guess that would be a good sign!

Another to do list which I had been forming in my head for a while now is one for the ensuing 12 months which sort of answers that terrifying question - "so what are you going to do now you've finished uni?"

The list is as follows...

1. Get married to Mr Mark Spybey - who is pictured below (this is liable to happen sometime in spring next year :D!!)

2. Learn a language (I can't quite make my mind up between Arabic, Mandarin, Polish, Russian and Farsi, though the first is looking to be the most likely option at the moment)
3. Keep hanging out with foreigners in some capacity (doesn't get more specific than that just now I'm afraid!)

I think I like to do lists as much as I like bullet points! :)

the final push

Things that have been getting me through the final push...

- coursemates - I love doing such a socially-conducive course! Studying for French oral exams was naturally a communal thing and certainly made for a less boring day! (I know what you're thinking Potter - they were real exams!!)
- And there's the fact that part of studying for french involves reading newspapers (in french of course) :D
- episodes of Doctor Who on iplayer
- copious amounts of jazz especially the Esbjorn Svensson and Brad Mehldau Trios - can't beat that piano-bass-drums combo!

11 days to go! Not that I'm counting or anything...

On voice neurocognitive psychologists and diagrams

On Tuesday, my sort of supervisor showed me what she'd done to my data the other day to put in her own paper. It was this intelligent and beautiful rainbow spectrum of a graph, all blue, red and yellow, and where data overlapped it became purple and orange... it was preeetty! And it was the data that I'd collected! Sadly I won't be using it for my own project cos that would feel too much like cheating. Turned out she wasn't the only working on pretty diagrams. That same morning, one of the other francophones in the lab also showed me his crazy complex multiple graph diagrams that he'd been creating. And then yesterday (after a right cuffufle of forgetting the right usb stick with the version of my project that I'd been intensively working on over the last couple of days) I got some highly useful feedback from my actual supervisor.
At least half of what he said could be condensed into this:-
- "Put in some cool diagrams here and here and here and here"
(it may have been a summary of what he said but I assure you, the word "cool" made an appearance on several occasions). So I had a go at some "cool" diagrams today. I made a reasonable effort I think, but none of them come even close to the rainbow spectrum graph I saw on Tuesday :( siiiigh...

Lessons for the week:
- Programming matlab is a useful skill to learn
- Voice neurocognitive psychologists like "cool" diagrams
- Never put your usb stick in your jeans pocket so you don't lose it. You will inevitably forget to take it out the next day

Man am I becoming geeky... see what final year is doing to me!

flipflop cravings

For the first time ever, or at least for as long as I can remember, today I find myself looking forward to flipflop weather! Maybe it's the sunshine and blue sky today - the first we've seen in Glasgow since last Wednesday? Maybe it's my Sri Lankan genes kicking into action more than ever before, craving 30 degree humid heat and burning sun? Maybe it's just been a long winter? Either way it feels like a dangerous thing to look forward to, there is no certainty here in Scotland (especially in Glasgow) that this weather will ever come, and if it does I'll almost certainly be mid-finals. And to think it's only the middle of Febuary...! siiiiigh...

Saturdays, Change and Jesus!

Hmmm... I love Saturdays... I dunno how many times I've said that on this blog! I didn't get much of a Saturday last week cos I had an exam on the Monday. But am making up for it this weekend... I just love having unpressured, unscheduled time! :) Time for long phone chat with my family, time to book flights, time to supermarket shop, to post laaaate christmas cards, time to cook nice meals, time to tidy my room, time to study, time to finish blog posts that have been sitting in drafts for the last 2 weeks, time just to be...

So on this my 196th post I am stopping to reflect on how much and yet how little I have changed in the last 3 and a bit years since I started blogging. That first blog post was written out of procrastination and... now I think about it, so is this one, ha! I guess the emphasis of this blog has changed over time from being mainly banter in that first year, to a sort of travel log to keep folks updated while I was in France, to more musings than anything else in this last year and a half... maybe a little less n'importe quoi than it once was. Change is a good thing, maybe this blog will keep changing... on ne sait jamais!

I was having a bit o a crisis the other day because I'd been reflecting on the last year and pondering on whether I'd changed much or made any progress and didn't feel like I had made any. It seemed like I had learnt much and applied little. I seem to have such crises on regular occasions, like when I first came back from France or after this summer. Usually the pattern is, I have too much time to look at myself and see that I'm making the same mistakes that I've made time in time out in previous years and instantly get despondent and then usually not long afterwards that actually I have changed and I was just being silly as per usual. This time was no different.

Whether or not I end up feeling despondent for weeks or for years, I'm realising it's just too easy to look at myself too much. And when I do, I usually become discouraged or complacent... one or the other. I don't want to be completely unaware of myself but when I am happiest, when I am most effective, when I learn the most and when I change the most is when I look at him... Jesus. I'm reading the gospel of Mark with some CU folk in prep for the FREE project and have been struck by how real Jesus is and comes across. I've heard these stories over and over my whole life, but not reading them as isolated events in Jesus' life renders it differently somehow. Personality jumping out the pages at me, is the only way I can describe it! His identity and his death and resurrection mean that he is my hope, my light and my author of salvation and through him I can be a part of the family and kingdom of God. But I have rarely been so aware of this fact, and that He is alive and interacts with us today! I want to get to know him better...

la cuisine communale

Ah I do love the community aspect of student life! I wouldn't be able to count the number of times I'd fed or been fed by other folk in the last couple of weeks let alone the last few years! This week I have particularly enjoyed delicious braided bread (courtesy of the Breakeys), white sausages and "gourmet haggis" with cheese and mushrooms and broccoli, both bizarre but delicious, to name but a few.
It's something I don't want to lose when student life ends... just having folk around, here, there, whenever I can, people who I know and don't know, sharing life and love and food with them.