Good return for your money

We've had an estate agent round tonight to give us an idea of how much the house might be worth - we're looking to change our mortgage and trying to amalgamate it with an unsecured loan as well, so needed a valuation to see how much we could borrow. Let's just say we're getting a pretty good return for our money at the moment (providing the market doesn't nose-dive overnight!!).

Had a fairly good day - very busy though, but at least all my tax returns are in on time!! But the coverage for my new mobile appears to be absolutely RUBBISH!!! How annoying.

I share my birthday with Mozart...

and I've been to Salzburg but there the similarity ends! What a stunning day it's been - for a start it's my birthday, and it's a Friday - a perfect combination.

Had a lovely breakfast prepared by my husband and lots of cards and pressies to open - sadly my mother had posted the card to me but forgotten to sign, nay, write anything in it!

Had a few appointments with clients at work this morning. In the first one I was using one of those lovely ink pens - you know the kind, needs barely any pressure to produce a mark...as I swept my hand up past my face to brush back a bit of stray hair, I felt the nib strike my cheek! Convinced that I had a massive stripe down my face, I spent the rest of the meeting trying to surreptitiously wipe off the mark/turn my face so that the mark was hidden! Sadly all 3 appointments ran immediately one after the other so it wasn't til after the third I got to check my face. Fortunately the mark (and oh yes there is one) was mostly hidden by fringe - but it did remind me of one hideous interview I went to. I had spent the first couple of hours that morning rearranging newspapers at my temp job. Went to the interview which was somewhere extremely posh like Price Waterhouse, and it was only in the lift down AFTER the interview when I noticed in the gleaming mirror walls a gigantic newspaper print smudge across my nose... didn't get the job.

I had to go out to see clients for another appointment and took one of our lovely admin ladies with me as a second witness (will signing) - then had to go back to the office via a shop so she could buy some "ladies' things" for one of her daughters! We got chatting and she asked whether I'd ever sent Leigh out on his own for some - no, haven't managed that yet! I used to be really coy about it all and not even buy them when we were shopping together, but sod that for a game of soldiers now - I can't be doing with the subterfuge! Talking about being coy - what's happened to the quietly discreet "feminine hygiene" signs in Boots? We went in at the weekend to be confronted by possibly the largest sign you've ever seen hanging from the ceiling declaring "TAMPONS" in enormous lettering!!! But I ramble...

This is only the morning! I was supposed to be meeting mum for lunch (and a good opportunity to get her to sign my card...) and although she was coming in on the train, told me she knew how to get to the office and didn't need a lift. 20 minutes after we'd arranged to meet I rang her and discovered that she'd spent an hour wandering around Thetford but not managed to find the office...so she was back at the station! And my mum is not good with mobiles...she has one and had rung my mobile a couple of times, but I'd had it switched off (sorry!). In probably near desperation, she'd rung directory enquiries to get the office number...from a public phone at the station...

Anyway, lunch was great (at a restaurant called The Mulberry in Thetford which I would highly recommend) and made even better by a wonderful reverse park I executed first time in a tight space - courtesy of lovely power steering in my new car! Mum handed over some goodies - including a half-eaten packet of Turkish Delight she'd bought for me but had then needed to keep her strength up during the long stromp round Thetters!

After all that the afternoon went pretty smoothly and I'm back home where I can smell wonderful things coming from the kitchen - oh what joy!

G-string

Orchestra is great - had a really good rehearsal. Poor cellos though... Now I don't know if you know the mysterious ways of the orchestra, but the string section sits in pairs, called "desks," sharing a set of music. Tonight only about half the cellos were there - which half was missing? The half with their desk's set of music sat at home!! 7 cellos huddled round one set of music - it wasn't pretty...

Parson's Pirates

Just got back - brilliant brilliant brilliant! A cast of 6 (yes 6 - the rest of the pirates were "behind a rock" and the maidens "in the house") performing the fastest Pirates you'll probably ever see - a tale of thuggery, muggery and bu--ccaneering - and even with audience participation! Just fantastic.

Add to that me nearly decapitating the chap in front of me with my programme when I fumbled it out of my hands and the last half of Hyperdrive...almost too good for words.

Free-cycling

I'm sure this is something a lot of people have come across, but I'm just getting into freecycling in the Ipswich branch. Basically if you have something you don't want any more then you can offer it up on the freecycle network and if someone wants it they let you know and then come and collect it from you - so no messing about with posting stuff and you can save a whole load of things from going to the landfill. I've managed to get rid of some mobile phone accessories (and nearly a mattress, but they didn't come back to me on that...) and acquired about a forest full of choral and film/musical music! Brilliant! Someone on tere today offering bubble wrap and a jiffy bag and just before Christmas there were bundles of sticks on offer - so really anything goes!

Off to see Parson' Pirates tonight - it's performed by Opera Della Luna whom we've seen before a few times and are ace - it's a play on The Pirates of Pensanze - not sure how close to the original it'll be but we've not been disappointed yet!!

Online learning

I've just attended an online lecture on setting up and running nil-rate band discretionary trusts in wills! These online lecture things are pretty good - get to sit at home, listening to someone fill me with learning from afar and I can even ask questions! We're in a new classroom now, but the first one had lots of buttons to click to show you agreed or disagreed with something and also a little smily happy face to show laughter .... hmmmm yes, Leigh was most annoying with that the first time I had one of these lectures - kept popping in the room just to click that for me. The others must have though I was mad.

Have car, will travel...

Hurrah! I have my new car! It's brilliant - and has the required CD player and air con! It also runs very smoothly and quietly - that is it doesn't sound as though it needs to go up another gear when you reach 60 in 5th, or like it's going to fall apart if you're doing more than 70....

Sad to see my old car go though as it was my first - I meant to take a photo, but forgot, so the only "concrete" memories are the many, many invoices for work being done to it. Poor love - it did me proud for 4 years, but it's time to move on. Marvellous!

Afternoon siesta

I think it's about time I tried this blogging lark again - as I have a bit of free time on my hands! Interesting day really - had a morning-long meeting at work, then this afternoon had been booked out to a meeting at the local Probate Registry to talk about changes, advice, things like that. Meeting was in Ipswich which was brilliant - home early I thought...and the meeting lasted less than an hour so I'm home even earlier!!!

So I am at home, daydreaming about my new car which I'm hopefully collecting at the weekend. My top priorities were a CD player and air conditioning... but should also be getting power steering, electric windows, central locking, air bags...and only 6,000 miles on the clock. During the 4 years I've had the present car, I've put over 100,000 miles on it, and that's basically just going to work and back...ooooooooooooops!