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Dear Friends,
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Top. 1
Introduction. 1
Thinking about moving house in 2004. 1
Why move in 2003. 1
Putting an Offer on a house. 1
Mad rush to pack. 2
The Move. 2
The New House. 2
The Lads. 2
Silver Wedding. 2
To Holiday or Not To Holiday. 3
Jobs. 3
This Christmas. 3
The End. 3
Introduction
We have had a very intense year, which has added a few extra grey hairs to John?s white head and a few more worry lines to Antonietta?s brow!
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Thinking about moving house in 2004
We started the year by deciding to prepare to put our house in order, so that we could sell it in 2004 and increase our mortgage, helping us save for retirement.
Phil and Ellie (our friends) were brilliant and Phil was the driving force behind us packing boxes of things not needed and also do a ?life laundry as in BBC Life Laundry? so as to reduce the problem for the move in a year (We have problems with throwing away books etc.).
What would we do without you shouting at us Phil (Thanks for being a pain!)
We had double glazed the Windows the previous year and needed to decorate the house tidy the garden and lay a new patio etc. but before we started a year of hard work and hell, in February, to gage how much our house was worth and what DIY to do or not, we got estate agents in to give valuations and also asked an estate agent friend of Phil?s to advise us what was the minimum we needed to do to sell the property and what each DIY project we had planned would be worth to the final value.
Well his advise was that it wasn?t worth doing too much as it would not get the value back only help to sell quicker.
So we sat down and planned where we wanted to move to, based on the Boys travelling criteria and both John and Antonietta?s jobs.
We went to the Building society and found out how much we could borrow and then we went have a first look to see what sort of places we might buy in a year.
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Why move in 2003
We thought long and hard about waiting until 2004 but we realised that the gap between the value of our house and the area we wanted to buy was increasing, the possibility of a long-term mortgage was reducing because of our ages, so we made the mammoth decision to move earlier rather than waiting for Paul to go to University. Was it a good decision only time and hindsight will tell, but at that moment it was the best solution based on the information we had.
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Putting an Offer on a house
We liked the look of this new house and, although there were 3 other couples interested in it before us, they couldn?t sell their own homes because the Iraq war had started by this time so houses had stopped selling. Because there was such a difference in price between our old and this house, we managed to persuade the builders to offer Part Exchange on our old house (At a reasonable price!). By March we had put down a deposit on the new house and bartered some extras in the new house.
So we had gone from maybe moving next year 2004 to 95% chance of moving in the first part of 2003. (Impetuous, MAD or what)!
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Mad rush to pack
So from a leisurely ?life laundry as in BBC Life Laundry? we went to a mad panic to pack in time to move. Again Phil was a workhorse (What would we do without him), you will see from the photos the amount of boxes he helped us pack, and we don?t know where we had managed to store so much in the old house (Probably due to all the DIY Phil and John have done over the past 6 years meant that an average house was actually a Dr WHO TARDIS for storage (for those abroad (Italy)? BBC Doctor WHO was a UK Science Fiction TV series 40 years ago and the TARDIS was a police telephone box but inside it was a massive space ship< Beginners Guide to the TARDIS >) We were still packing on the day of the move and only just managed to get the keys to the estate agent in time!
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The Move
As we were not moving far, we decided to move ourselves, (that is the Matthews with the Jones help), rather than have removers. The money transferred well in time but the Site Representative would not give us the keys because the final inspection and clean had not been done (Eventually at 13:00 we got in).
So from a well planned exercise we went to a shambles because the plan was that the first lorry load would go straight into the house and the second lorry load was destined for the double garage. Unfortunately due to the lack of keys we negotiated to put all into the double garage, so we could go back and empty the old house. Then for days we had to play that children?s game of move one square into a space to move the other squares but we did it with boxes so a set of boxes got moved into a space then move another out etc. (It was hell and we still have boxes unopened after 6 months) See pictures of the garage after a large amount had been moved! We then had lots of plumbing problems and the floor was not flat so the wood flooring bounced (see photo of level). We expected some problems having had a few new houses but we found this one a little bigger.
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The New House
The new house has five bedrooms and a Study so we assumed we would have no problems storing all our stuff in the new house (Big Mistake). The new house although it is a TARDIS for rooms (It looks normal outside but is large number inside) it is not brilliant for Storage space. There is little space in the Attic, the Garage roof is open not boarded, We did not have a shed for 3 months, only the master bedroom has a fitted wardrobe, whereas previously we had wardrobes in most rooms and we had the Garage that we had converted into a massive computer room (The Bunker) and three sheds. Down the side of the new house was a long thin piece of garden, which we had a Shed made to measure to fit, and then Phil and John partitioned the shed into three internal sheds to allow all the books, tools and garden stuff to be stored. It was hard work but is excellent, it became the talk of the neighbourhood, so much so that we got next door neighbour to cut the ribbon and declare it open (See Photo). We had to go to IKEA in Birmingham a number of times and managed to blow our credit limit (How embarrassing). The Lads furnished one of the Bedrooms as their own Lounge/Games room we installed a Wireless network and Broadband so they can get onto the Internet. Phil & John designed some lighting for the outside of the house and so now we are the envy of the neighbourhood for outside lighting so much so that Smiler (nickname for our neighbour) says that the national grid have had to put a extra PowerStation in to cope with the usage (Funny that because our lights use less wattage than his)!
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The Lads
Paul is continuing with his education and wants to go to university to study Software Engineering (Mad Fool), but we will see how well he does with the results in Summer 2004 because he is still enjoying too much social life with millions of birthday parties and gigs!
Mark is progressing along a career in being a helper in Primary schools; he really enjoys helping the young ones, We have never seen him so happy, he is studying at college one day a week to get NVQ qualifications in child care.
Mark & Paul still ride their mopeds which makes them mostly independent except when they want to go to a party and drink and then ?Dad?s & Mom?s Taxis? are called in to assist, so much so that a couple of weeks ago John had someone tap his window because they thought he was a Taxi they were waiting for at a party.
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Silver Wedding
John & Antonietta celebrated their silver weeding anniversary this year and so re-affirmed their weeding vows at the church they were married in 25 years ago. The area is being demolished and new buildings being put up so it was a strange feeling going back. The Priest was brilliant and they obtained a Papal blessing/certificate. The celebration was a small family affair and they went off to the Lake District for a short break to remember the Honeymoon in the Lakes and Scotland. Again nearly all the hotels are no more or too far to go for the weekend.
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To Holiday or Not To Holiday
Because we had spent so much time and money on moving house we nearly could not go on a holiday this, but through Antonietta?s work we managed to hire a little Cottage in Brittany (France) for a Week, so we went with Phil and Ellie and daughter Sammie for a weeks holiday in September. John and Antonietta had a relaxing time just sitting on the bench and going for walks, the Jones? went out visiting the sites.
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Jobs
John?s company has gone through a merger and now the IT department is going through an outsourcing contract, currently John is staying within the original company as they need to retain good Project Managers but until the contract is signed there may be horse-trading of people going on so nothing is certain until Jan 2004.
Antonietta has recently been made redundant due to financial problems with the company she was working and is currently looking for a job, which is difficult around Christmas.
All of which is putting the squeeze on our finances having stretched ourselves to buy the new house. We are both currently still positive but we may have a different story in next year?s epistle. Mark & Paul were very concerned about the future and the effects it could have on the family, but as John said ?The worst that could happen is that we have to sell the new house, after all its only money?. Lets hope Lady Luck turns up something for the forthcoming year!
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This Christmas
We will probably be spending it at home with Family and Friends!
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The End
That?s all for now. Please let us know your news and again lets hope that next year will be somewhat less eventful.
Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
From Antonietta, John, Mark & Paul
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