At one stage during the telephone call, I had to chuckle. We’re moving in with my Mum-in-law for a short period until such time that the legals on our new house have been done and dusted. Dorothy’s house is an old house, built around 1887, and over time, it’s suffered war damage, as well as damp, flooding and fire (an external garage), and understandably, this is seen as a greater insurance risk to house contents whilst we’re living there in transit. ‘Nick’ from the Indian call centre asked me if the house had suffered any “heew”, so I asked him to repeat this…still couldn’t understand what he was asking, and I asked him to repeat it twice more….but I still couldn’t understand what he was asking. And then he spelt it….

H for hotel
E for echo
A for alpha
WE for wictor
E for echo

I asked him if he was saying ‘hee-we’…and he responded by saying it again, and spelling it again, including the ‘we for wictor’. Then the penny dropped. He wanted to know if the house had suffered any movement or ‘heave’ (as in ‘we for wictor’). How Ywonne and I laughed.

This weekend, we’re off to view another 4 houses. Fingers crossed.

Two weeks ago, we returned from a holiday in Centerparcs (sniff…fresh air!) and were absolutely delighted to receive a letter confirming Seán’s acceptance into a primary school in Aughton, West Lancs, starting next September 2010. The following day, we had a vewing and just like any other, we presented the house as best we could, and hoped for further interest. It came 10 days ago with a request for a second viewing – the first second viewing we’d had – and we were both excited and nervous, but trying not to get too excited. It went well, and the following day, we had an offer, which we accepted! Whoop-dee-whoop! The pressure was on…we had to find a house for ourselves.

Last Sunday, we went to view a property that we’d previously viewed in January, and having considered all aspects of the buy, we made an offer and it was accepted – hooray!! It’s amazing what can happen in such a short space of time. Today, we dropped into our estate agent and made all of the final preparations  signatures, etc. and we expect that the whole thing will be through – done and dusted – by mid-May…actually, it may even be a little earlier, who knows.

It’s DAMN EXPENSIVE to move house…£7K in our case, but hey-ho, it’s what we want. I don’t think I realised just how expensive these things really are, and it’s funny when I think back about how we bought our current house – our first house; there were no estate agents involved and we kinda went into it with our eyes half shut. It was almost fun! So here we are with about 6-8 weeks left in our lovely little house, and this morning, I went outside to find that the word ‘SOLD’ had been added to the ‘For Sale’ sign by the pixies during the night – I love those pixies.

I hope that the new owners will be as happy in the house as we’ve been.

Wish us luck.

Leo. x

Last Saturday, Graham ‘The Odyssey’ Hughes surprised us all by magically teleporting himself from Rome, Italy to the bar at FACT, Liverpool! Great surprise! A ‘Skype-ing event had been planned and around 30 of his friends gathered for it, as a live link-up had been arranged. For those of you not in the know, Graham’s currently mid-Odyssey, attempting to visit every country on Earth – by surface – in the shortest time possible. He’d secretly returned to the U.K. so as to attain some visas for the middle-east. Shortly after the event began, we lost sound, followed shortly by faint cries of, “can you hear me…can you hear me?” until eventually, the webcam link went down. Suddenly, and as if by magic, Graham appeared in the bar, shouting, “Can you hear me now?!”. It was great.

On the Sunday, we headed to his folk’s place for a similar event, and a similar surprise for his family, which also worked a treat. On Monday evening, I met up with Graham & friends in a bar in town, and seeing as we had a busy day planned for Tuesday, I got the last train home. Tuesday arrived, and post breakfast, we worked on a little bit of the Odyssey website and some film conversion, before heading to Granada Studios in Manchester for some filming for the news’ Granada Reports. Later on, we headed over to the BBC studios as ‘Auntie’ was also interested in The Odyssey. We headed into the studios of North West Tonight for a live interview with the legend that is, Gordon ‘The Krypton Factor’ Burns. Post interview, we met up with a technician from NWT, who was keen to get involved with the project.

On the Wednesday, Graham headed to London for an interview with ITN for the national lunchtime news, and later that night, I put out a news story on his website indicating that he was home. Thursday arrived and was spent generally catching up on the events of the week, sending & receiving e-mails and news contacts via the website. On Friday night, a meeting was arranged for The Odyssey team, but it fell through, much to my annoyance. Tonight (Saturday 13th Feb), I’m staying in with the wonderful Yvonne, our little angel Katrina, and enjoying the calm that is Seán staying at his Nana’s for the night! Bliss…

Here’s the footage from the ITN news piece on Wednesday.

Bye for now x.

Christmas day was great. A wonderful meal coupled with some good wine and sparkly – thanks Yvonne xx. So, it’s been really, really nice to spend time off with the family, and I expect that on New Year’s Eve, we’ll crack open some more bubbly – hooray! Here are a few shots of our christmas so far:-

It’s a shame that Microsoft couldn’t have put more effort into their launch video – themed as a ‘Windows 7 house party’?! Eh? It really is THE most boring and senseless video I have ever had the displeasure to view (thanks to Stephen Fry for the link).

Sunday 20th update: Well it’s not swine flu – thank goodness – although a week’s course of anti-biotics is on the cards. I was a little fearful for what it might be seeing as the little Katrina sleeps in our bedroom.

She was a lovely woman, always cheery and pleasant, and she always had a positive outlook, even when she became ill. It’s a shame, but then again, that’s life for you – one new life comes into this world, and one departs. She’ll be missed.