More on Gone

Gone was on our doorstep at 6.30am today (Polly heard him, thankfully the Vicar and I were still asleep). He rang the doorbell on and off from 6.55am, but was gone by the time we were all downstairs from breakfast at around 8 o’clock. The Queen’s bedroom is just above the front door and she [...]

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Polly and the Baby

Polly and her baby are staying with us. They became homeless the weekend of the Visitors, and moved into council funded emergency accommodation for a week. It was clean but horrible – noisy, rather smelly and insecure (she could open her room by shoving on the door).
I’d known Polly for a while and get on [...]

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Credit Crunch Snapshots 2

The house next door has been sold at auction after it was repossessed. Our neighbour who is on the case with these things found out the price from the auction house. It went for less than half the price that was originally paid.
This is bad news for neighbours who want to rearrange their mortgages after [...]

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The disconnection of Radio 4

This morning I was running a bit late, so I heard ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4. Dr Mona Siddiqui was talking about how the slowdown in the housing market makes people feel frustrated because
“We have taken the buying and selling of property as a costly but essential part of our lifestyle choices.”
This is [...]

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The echoing crunch…

The other week we had the bailiffs round. Not calling for us – the Church of England isn’t in such a bad state yet. Sadly asking about our next door neighbour who disappeared at the end of February after telling us he was going on holiday.
The following morning the bailiffs were here again, breaking in [...]

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It’s the neighbours

Mimi is a smiling mum I know from the school gate and is looking to move house. They want to buy somewhere for the first time. They’ve just had a second child so their two bedroomed house is too small. But mainly they want to move because of the neighbours.
‘Are they noisy then?’ I asked, [...]

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How many bedrooms in your house?

At the toddler group yesterday I was having a nice chat with Mrs Discoman about her new house. She’s still in lots of chaos but so happy to have a spacious new home. Sitting with us was another mum, who has six kids, aged 2 to 16. She mentioned that she’d applied for one of [...]

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Having some work done on your house?

My parents are having some decorating done. My mum found the guy to do the work, who came with excellent references from some friends of hers. He comes in at her convenience and has done a room at a time. He calls if he’s going to be late or isn’t going to be there. She [...]

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It’s the area

So what is it like where I live?
My friend Mrs Discoman has just moved to a brand new housing association property in our parish and I was telling our lollipop man, Mr Goldtooth, about it as we waited to cross the big road on the way to school this morning. He said that the housing [...]

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