And so the spending begins

Been a day of sorting out stuff for the flat purchase today. Who to get to do the conveyancing? The cheapest (who are in The Wirral and I know nothing about)? The closest (so I can go down and shout at them if it takes too long)? The one who's been recommended (who is a bit on the pricey side)? Well, I went for a bit of a compromise. I went for one who is nearby to the property, been recommended by the estate agent and isn't TOO pricey although not the cheapest either. I'm hoping that the additional £200 or thereabouts gets me a fast and efficient service: hahaha. We are talking about solicitors here, after all...

Oh and I totally forgot about the additional costs on the mortgage - arrangement fee and of course the survey (going for a Homebuyer's) so that's another £660 pounds to find from, oh, I don't know, somewhere. Brilliant. I have to hold true to the thought that it will be worth it in the end.

Then I called the bank and had a heart-stopping moment as they discovered that the last quote I had (the one where I asked them to lend me a laughingly large amount of money and they, to my amazement, said yes) had not been 'put on the system'. This meant they had to go back to the person who decides about whether to lend laughingly large amounts of money to poor midwives and make the decision all over again. After answering a series of increasingly personal questions, they decided that I COULD have the laughingly large amount of money after all, which was very very nice of them indeed, thank you. Phew.

So, large amounts of additional cash to find notwithstanding, it looks like it's all go on the flat front, which is great news.

Birthday wise, I did very well again this year, so thanks to all my friends and family who chose so well. For example, I got a new stethoscope from my sister Toni, which I've been using today and is jolly nice indeed:


Yes! You ARE alive!

From David I got the most gorgeous bracelet (about which I'd dropped some unsubtle hints, like "that's really nice, that would make an ideal birthday present") and a fantastic canvas print from Habitat that I've had my eye on for ages, which will look really lovely on the wall of my new flat I reckon. On the day, we visited St Paul's Cathedral - fantastic, if you've never been, make the effort and go right to the top where it looks like this:


Londinium: 2005

Then we went to the Tate Modern, followed by a lovely meal on the Southbank, where a passing saxophonist was bribed by David to play Happy Birthday to me. Aaahhh.