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.

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.

highway code

I had a few moments of pure panic yesterday, as Mark and I compared notes on the next few months and all the stuff that we knew was coming up/commitments and stuff we both did, and realised that the next 4 months are going to be more than a little bit hectic for both of us! I've said this before: I have no issues with the present, but do sometimes struggle to look the future full in the face without a squirmy "ahhowamIgoingtohandlethis" feeling in my stomach. So I wrote this:

See that distance,

That hypothetical, distant, not so distant

horizon of days, months, seconds, hours.

Minutes merge into one colossal cloud,

Potential struggles, breaks, ups, downs, probable mistakes;

looming over, crawling skin, twisting heart strings…

Stop.

Catch your breath.

Cast fear aside. That’s it.

Breathe.

And take another look.

See the hands that hold, adventure ahead.

Listen to love.

Walk today.

I didn't know whether to cheer really loudly or cry (ok admittedly I burst into tears) when I watched a tutsi woman at 46:33 during this documentary - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012lttt/Roger_Genocide_Baby/ - say that God helped her to forgive the people who murdered all 12 members of her family, and see how her and the perpetrators live side by side, even look after each others' children! Sounds like a weird thing to celebrate, but I was so moved by it - forgiveness is so powerful, so free-ing, full reconciliation even more so. And it was Jesus' sacrifice that made it so! Yesss for forgiveness! Hooooooray for God!!

A good walk to do.

The Fife Coastal Path - who would have thought. The East Coast, tamer than the West but rather pretty. We started at my parents, conveniently located a couple of miles away from the start from the path.

It's signposted by this.

(nice colourful logo don't you think?)

The route from North Queensferry to Aberdour, starts in some nice woods. There were lots of dog walkers and I mean LOTS of dog walkers. Beware of over-enthusiastic wet dogs. We got clambered over twice.

Do this bit in the spring.

Then you hit the weirdest part of the route. As the woods open out and you can see the coast curve inwards, you pass a quarry on your left and a rubbish dump on your right. (Yes we are weird enough to have photographed it!)

Then you pass through the town of Dalkeith and as you come out and hit the coastline again, there are some rocks (if you're quiet enough you may come across an unsuspecting merman), and an industrial relic/musical instrument.

Then some more woods, beautiful views...

...blossoms, followed by a walk around a "dangerous" radioactive part of the firth, then finally long straight roman-road-esque paths lined with daffodils and more dogs of course (I banned Mark from the camera at this point as I was despairing that we would actually finish the walk what with the amount of times we stopped to take photos).

And finally Aberdour...

A good walk all in all.

A pretty place to visit

If you'd like to visit the Isle of Mull, some advice for you:

- Mull is an island but it's still quite big. Booking one B&B on the south west of the island and another on the north when you're on bikes and not super-strong cyclists, is not a good idea. (thank goodness for googlemaps, it saved us just in time!)

- Mull is pretty but very hilly. Therefore, cycling long distances having not cycled for a while can be very painful especially when cycling against the wind.

- Don't trust the weather forecast. Fortunately we had it the right way round. Tis always nice when the weather forecast says nothing but "thundery showers" the day before you leave and you are pleasantly surprised whenever there's a patch of blue sky and even more delighted when there's nearly a whole day and a bit of sunshine (not to dissimilar to daily life in Glasgow really!)

- Try the cheese. It's yuuum!

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 :)

paranoia

Being married to a man who loves to talk about future plans, dreams and loves idea-ising, I have quickly discovered that I am very much a woman of the present. I can barely face thinking about tomorrow without feeling my stomach churning, let alone next year, let alone 5 years down the line. In one sense, this living in the present thing seems to work well for me. Not only can I justify it with bible verses pretty well but I certainly live a pretty full busy mostly happy life.

But you have to talk about the future sometimes. And my fear of this has at times bordered on the ridiculous. To the point of not wanting to talk about a coming year when Mark needed to book holidays in advance. I am getting better at this kind of thing.

But the deep-rooted fear is still there and it's fear of failure. I'm afraid of making "the wrong plans", afraid of messing up. My head can barely cope with the idea of me being older and doing "scarier" things that "older" people (and people my own age) do! Mainly because I'm convinced that the me I know now, wouldn't be able to cope in those situations.

Why am I bringing this up today of all days...? What has this got to do with Easter Sunday?

"Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know he holds the future.
And life is worth the living.
Just because He lives."

I've had those old hymn lyrics in my head all day.

It's not just because "He lives", it's that he died and rose again - that's a big deal! But what does Jesus rising from the dead have to do with my future and life in this world? At least some people probably know that generally Christians say that they don't have to fear death because they know that by dying on the cross, Jesus simultaneously defeated death and took the punishment meant for us so that we can have eternal life - life beyond physical death (heaven and all that). But it's more than just that.

Jesus died and rose and because of this: I am completely set free from sin and guilty and shame - that doesn't mean past sin is forgiven. It includes present and future. And it means that he's gradually changing my default setting which had once been set to messing up to living a life of grace and hope and joy and love (I like this new life very much!).

And... I get to be in relationship with GOD. I can talk to him, hear him, know that He is always with me. This is BIG! He has enormous love and grace and patience for my weaknesses AND he knows and "holds the future" AND he helps me through it; leads me by the hand through thick and thin. (AND AND AND...)

I can trust him absolutely. I have trusted him thus far, and yes bad things have happened, tough things that at the time I haven't been able to understand, some of which I still don't understand. But even when I've felt I couldn't cope, I have got through because he's helped me. I look back now and think, min a few years ago I never would have imagined being capable of doing all the things I do day to day now.

Jesus died and rose again. YAAAAASSSSSSSS!!

a spot of creative insanity

Did a lot of praying last week with our church. 24 hours for 7 days = 168 hours. The concept, championed by these people, involves a bunch of people who love Jesus and believe he hears and answers us, getting a room and filling it with lots of creative things to help pray, and fill up every hour of however many days of time speaking to and listening to God. "Why do it?!" you may ask, which is a reasonable question. It does sound rather insane, and it is a little insane, especially when you're getting up to go to the prayer room at 2am. But it's because we care and because (even more so) we believe that God cares. He cares enough to hear, he cares enough to answer, he cares enough to fix broken hearts and lives... The challenge then is not to stop crying out to him in hope and love and faith once the week is over.

And... I love it! I love the combination of the creative and crazy determination. I love the sense of togetherness it induces. Passing on the proverbial baton from person to person, filling up all the hours together as a church, seeing the hearts and passionate prayers painted and post-it-noted up all over the walls. It's about fighting a battle together. And it's beautiful!

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..

Lost and Found

I was so excited about this I had to blog about it!

This ring had been lost for over 3 months

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Thought it was lost in the flat, raked the place and couldn't find it. We'd almost given up hope that we'd ever find it, thinking it might have slipped through our big creaky old floorboards, which our landlady probably wouldn't let us pull apart to look underneath.

But last week, in Dumfries of all places, it has been FOUND!

It had been in Mark's work bag - he'd been unassumingly carting it about with him the whole time!

Made me want to have a "Found the ring party" which reminded me of this wee story. A person is definitely more exciting than a ring and God loves people a loooot more than I love my husband's wedding ring - woooft!

Also on the subject of lost and found:

The result of a three week long Christmas holiday beard growing experiment.

Where is yonder missing patch of beard?!

Narnia - a third post for a third film.

On special request from this lad : a post about the new Narnia film. Apparently since I blogged on all the other ones, I have to blog about this one too.

I have to say, I did enjoy it. Not aaas much as the other two. Unlike with some other book-films e.g. Harry Potter, I have been considerably more forgiving about the fact that they haven't exactly stuck to the book. Though... green mist!? To be fair, Voyage of the Dawn-Treader would be quite random if they hadn't tied it together with the green mist, get those swords on the stone table before it's too late thing.

And of bloggable material - I loved the way they portrayed the friendship between Reepicheep and Eustace. I loved how though Eustace dislikes Reepicheep from the start and Reep knows it, he's patient from the outset. And then when Eustace becomes a dragon, Reep's the only one that really gives Eustace time and makes much of an effort with him. I guess "grace" sums up the way he is with Eustace. I think that is what helps to transform Eustace's character. Apart from the fact that he's a dragon of course. Reepicheep is modelling (oh dear esol teacher speak!) what a real friendship is. It's probably the first Eustace ever has. Reep is with Eustace the way God is with us and the way I want to be with people I find difficult or who dislike me. Now that's loving your enemies. Now that's a slice of the beauty of life :)

Light not just for Christmas

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned.

JESUS - "I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness."

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.

Grace - the beauty of love as it was made to be.

I love this song, especially the final building up bridge bit, everything about it, musically and lyrically strikes chords in my heart.

Love that will not betray you,

dismay or enslave you,

It will set you free

Be more like the man

you were made to be.

There is a design,

An alignment to cry,

At my heart you see,

The beauty of love

as it was made to be.

Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons

Been losing sight of that recently - "the beauty of love as it was made to be":- undeserved, always forgiving, forever persevering, bearing with me in all things *, not giving up on me, giving up all for me *, giving abundantly, nurturing and changing me *. And this in spite of the state of my heart. I can't earn it, I can't buy it, I can't strive for it, because I already have it. Absolutely Mental.

And true!

Hmmm... blogging is definitely good for my soul, I should do this more often!

On death, life and lifestyle changes

Life is moving too fast for me! A matter of days now and I have a great deal of moving and a little bit of wedding planning, a cello to get fixed, English lesson materials to photocopy, work shifts to do, relatives to see... And in amongst delighted excitement I've been feeling a little scared of the upcoming enormous lifestyle change - that's what they call it in Mark's work. He's allowed to change some his work benefits package this month because this counts as a "lifestyle change". I'm scared of being a rubbish wife, with all my stubborn silly tendencies. I want to be able to love selflessly, like Jesus does, to see others like he does. Easier said than done. That includes my husband-to-be (probably the toughest challenge of them all), people I know and love around me - my family, friends, students, work colleagues, acquaintances, strangers. It's a daunting task when I start to think about it.

Yet at the same, I'm feeling at peace. I've been trying to re-comprehend both in my head and my heart that I really am a new creation, born again, made again. That means I am able to do impossible things, I have Christ living in me! It's insane - and sometimes it blows me away. But it's been a hard thing to remember of late. I feel the old nature rearing up in me all too often. I know the key is dying to my old self - Sounds like quite an extreme thing to do I know! It's not as though I lose what was inherently "me" and because a strange do-gooding robot. If anything I have the opportunities to become more inherently "me" than I ever was before, when I was trapped by my nature and desire. More "me" as I was made to be.

Though dying can be a painful process. I guess on the one hand, Jesus died on the cross - once and for all, and now I am his. But dying to all that stuff i.e. those selfish desires and whims and pride that is contrary to my new nature which I have in Jesus, and yet has become so inherently part of me, habit almost - that's something I need to do everyday.

But following that death, there is always life!! His Spirit to fill the gaps those things leave behind. Easter always reminds me how amazing it is that Jesus rose from the dead. What would be the point in "dying to your old self" if there was no new birth, no new life, no hope. A life that is living in my true identity - a phoenix rising from the ashes. Now that's a lifestyle change!

One thing I have been feeling really grateful for of late, is for all our friends and family who have been so generous and kind in helping us out and being there for us! Really makes things so much easier and more enjoyable, so thankyou!

shed the blinkers

It’s easy to walk around with blinkers on,
with shutters down,
Tunnelling through life.
Seeing no more, no less, than what’s in direct line-sight.
But the human visual field spans 180 degrees!

It’s as though I can’t open my eyes
It’s as though I were totally blind

But the price was paid a long time ago.
My blindness exchanged for brilliant light.
I should see the etch-marks about in bold type.
The sorrow and the beauty
At least in theory...

I forget how to open my eyes.
I forget that I’m no longer blind.

It doesn’t really take much to render things clear
A chat with a friend about something that’s real,
words from the Word awakening, fresh.
A pocket of quiet, a myriad-shade sky...
It doesn’t take much

But it always takes something.

I’m beginning to realise
that with every new morning as I wake up
I need to open my eyes.

In snapshots

(thought I'd fill in the gaps since my blogging has been so infrequent this last year)


2009 began in the quiet English countryside near Worcester

I spent the best part of the first 3 months working on my maxi project

And celebrated in a sunny beer garden with Flat Stanley and others when I finished

I also came off commitee in February



Enjoyed the company of international students....

Finals were in April and May, and then I became a fiancée!

And then graduated in June!

The rest of the summer was spent attending balls, trying my hand at street charity fundraising, a trip to Jersey, applying for jobs, enjoying Glasgow in sunshine, attending several weddings, enjoying little second cousins

Leadered for the 4th time at SU Music Camp in July

Endured unemployment in August though this was made more bearable by the aid of a lovely temporary flatmate

Exchanged my female flatmates for a couple of boys, acquired a job, co-organised an international welcome team, started most of my volunteer work, moved church in September. Finished esol training, played with the band by the shores of Loch Ness in October

My mum was diagnosed with gall-bladder and secondary liver cancer (though the latter diagnosis was later revoked) in January and was completely recovered, cancer all gone and all, by November!

Party, party, snow, snow, work, work, celloing, conducting, seeing family, meeting the first of another generation in December

2009 ended in the quiet Worcester countryside with a rather terrifying (for me anyway) icy climb up the hills watching many fireworks down below

A crazy year with much in the way of happenings - and so much to be thankful for!r)

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!