By
wryterra
in the move, 2023
on
A bathroom completely gutted of fixtures and with unfinished floor and walls.
It's been a while since I wrote anything here, huh? Yeah. It's been a lot.
So the headline is we still haven't moved in to the new flat despite owning it for a few months. On the other hand the kitchen is almost entirely re-done. It would be finished but on removing the fibreglass ceiling tiles we discovered the ceiling was... in a state you might expect from a Glasgow tenement building. So the ceiling needs rebuilding.
Also, given the state of the bathroom in the last post, you might not be surprised to learn we deiced to move forward the bathroom renovation to before we moved. We happened to be able to and it's certainly easier than living there without a bathroom. And without a bathroom is certainly where we're at.
That's not the only big news but this headline is basically "no news".
By
wryterra
in personal
on
An AI generated image of a black cat sitting on moving boxes with a clock.(Hey look, I got access to the Adobe Firefly beta)
It's a saying that as far as I know originated in the military but it's applicable all over the place and not least in my life recently.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm getting ready to move house and if things had gone to plan that would be happening tomorrow. But you're a savvy reader and probably already picked up on the past tense usage. Turns out that the people whose flat we're buying have run in to a problem with the property they, in turn, are buying. Specifically the title deed is ambiguous as to exactly what property it describes. This is deeply ironic considering that we've had similar concerns about the deed to their property ourselves. The irony doesn't change the outcome though and that outcome is that our move has been delayed.
The knock-on effect of that is that any plans I have to buy new hardware, furniture, etc, etc are all delayed. Which is frustrating. The more frustrating part is that I have literally nothing to do. See, I was made redundant a couple of months ago and while I found a new job pretty quickly and relatively easily1 I delayed the start date to accomodate the move. Now that the move has been delayed I'll be having to take time off right at the start of the new job which helps neither side and I've been sitting on my ass in the meantime.
The silver lining here is that I've got a new home and a new job to look forward to in the near future and I've had a lot of time to play Timberborn.
For real, though, why did I wait so long to start playing this game?
1: I actually walked out of one of my interviews utterly convinced I'd blown it. It's not the first time I've convinced myself I've failed a technical interview only to subsequantly get the job. I should probably take the hint not to be so hard on myself, huh?
By
wryterra
in personal
on
This is not my cat. This is what an AI thinks a black cat sitting on a moving box in a suburban living room looks like.
I guess this is the first post of this blog and it seems a reasonable place to start. I moved to Scotland with my partner right at the end of 2019. We were selling a flat in London and moved into a rented flat, thinking we'd be here a few months while we settled in to Glasgow and found a place to buy. Then a few things happened.
I mean they happened.
First, legislation came in after the Grenfell Tower fire about cladding on high rise buildings. Eminently sensible legislation, let's be clear, but the problem was without a certificate saying your high rise flat was safe it wasn't mortgageable. My buyer pulled out. So now I was stuck renting a place in Glasgow and paying for a place in London which I couldn't sell.
Well, it's not the worst thing that could happen. We'll get the survey done, get the certificate and sell it again.
Of course it turns out there's only a limited number of people in the country qualified to do that survey and issue that certificate and there's a lot of high rise buildings to cover. It also turns out that when a global pandemic hits and everyone is put on furlough those certificates are not getting issued in a hurry.
I think you can probably see where this is going. We've been in that same rented flat in Glasgow for a lot more than a few months. We did, eventually, sell the flat in London. We then found a nice place we wanted to buy in Glasgow and after some legal tooing and froing were just about ready to buy when... it turns out it's at risk of flooding. We consider the risk and the fact that we both believe climate related events are just going to get more common and... pass. We go back to house hunting.
Then we found another place, looks great for us. Even has a great basement. We could finish that and have even more room down the line... except the basement isn't on the title deed. Huh. Commence more delays and more legal tooing and froing. Well, here we are end of March 2023 and it looks like we're really, really close to moving. Finally. Three years late.
Now what that means is my life is about to get interesting as for various reasons I have a fairly decent bit of money stashed ready for this move so we're going to be doing some renovations, installing some new tech and generally making the place our own. Which will give me a lot to document that I'll probably want to look back on in the future.
Hence, a blog.
It's going to be about, well, stuff that happens to me. It's a personal diary more than anything but if you get something out of reading it then welcome!
