Apparently the car IS an economic write off (we were expecting that) but they will give me the value of the car as THEY have assessed it less 10% for keeping it. Their valuation of the car is double what I paid for it so I'm not complaining! They've also said as the damage is non structural it's not a problem keeping it on the road. It needs an MOT in August anyway, so fingers crossed will all be good.

I'm not at work at the moment though. Following a chiro recommendation I went back to the GP on Monday and have been signed off for another couple of weeks at least at the moment. We had been planning to go away next week anyway so Anthony's got the week booked off as well. Not sure at the moment whether we actually will go anywhere - we'd been planning to go camping - but it's nice to have the time off anyway.

House sale is progressing - we've done all the initial solicitor bits now and the redemption figure on the mortgage is better than I was expecting so fingers crossed it'll all go smoothly. We're aiming for 6 weeks max - given it's a cash buyer it might actually be realistic! I'll keep you posted.

What a week!

It's been quite a strange week this week, I think it's fair to say. Firstly, on my way home from work on tuesday, some idiot decided it would be fun to not notice that I'd stopped because the person in front of me had also stopped, and went into the back of my car. The short version is that I'm ok - just mild concussion and severe whiplash. Oh and the car I've had for 5 whole weeks is probably going to cost more to repair than it's actually worth. Not entirely sure what the insurance company will let me have as options on that yet - it's all fun though.

The really entertaining bit is that while sitting at the doctors surgery on Wednesday afternoon (having decided I really wasn't feeling that well after all - the concussion apparently) and before being carted off to A&E for a proper check of my neck - I was also bouncing phone calls from the estate agent. The end result being ... drum roll appropriate here ... I'VE SOLD MY HOUSE!!!!!!!

Not only have I sold it - but it's to a cash buyer who wants to move a.s.a.p., and I've settled on a price that's only £2,500 less than I'd decided I would accept. Given the current market and the price he started offering me that's pretty good going really. I can, at least, pay off the mortgage (just!) with that.

Given how I was feeling on Wednesday while all this was going on - it didn't really sink in for a while! Assuming the solicitors get on with it we could realistically be out of here by the end of August! Of course I was utterly prepared to sacrifice all principles to get out of here, but it is sort of nice knowing it's going to a local guy who works for the lifeboat station in St Ives and needed somewhere closer than he's renting at the moment. No more second home owners here thank you! ;-)

That'll do for now - I'm not really supposed to be on the PC or sitting for too long at the moment. Hope all is well with the rest of you.

Sx

Well - I've had to bite the bullet and reduce the house price today. Apparently loads and loads of details are being sent out, but no-one is following them up. I don't mind about the price - I'm certainly not doing this to make money! - it's just now getting towards the territory of negative equity. Hmmm. Current thinking is you don't get your asking price - you get £5 - £10 - £15 thousand below that. Oops. When you consider fees as well, this could be quite an unpleasant exercise. Never mind. We're both going completley insane stuck here though - it's just not what we want out of life. Modern suburbia with it's close neighbours and curtain twitchers, and people who want to do the consumerist lifestyle - it's just not us.

If you've been reading our other blog (must update that as well) - you'll know Anthony's doing loads of wood stuff at the moment - I'm typing this surrounded by boxes, candlesticks, trugs, chopping boards etc etc - well the neighbours have complained about the noise of him using his tools in the garden now. What fun. I guess we're living surrounded by people who won't understand our desire to get away from all this and the fact that we actively hate being here. It's got to the point where we both have a rubbish day at work, come home and feel more stressed because we have to walk through that front door into our suburban box. We're seriously looking into alternatives - I've seen a cheap caravan locally that we could grab and live in for the summer. Just leave this house (looking nice obviously) and escape for a while. We also know someone who has some fields they don't use so we're thinking about asking them to rent a field for a while to put a caravan on, in exchange for doing work round the place for them. We'll see. We'd be so much happier living like that - even if we still have to do the day job - it would just be nice knowing we were coming home to somewhere we actually wanted to be rather than at the moment where we actively hate coming home.

Enough of that. I had a lovely birthday - we went up and sat in a lovely quiet spot on Dartmoor for the day. It was lovely. No people around, just peace and quiet and a lovely home made picnic in a home made picnic basket. Then we came home and had a BBQ in the garden and drank far too much! A perfect day really.