We sold our house in Blackpool last month. After deciding to get rid of it at Easter we finally handed the keys over a few weeks ago. We revelled in the trashiness of Blackpool for a few years but decided that its classy neighbour Lytham St Anne's was where we would really like to live. So what if the average age in Lytham is 55 and the newspaper of choice is The Daily Telegraph, at least there are little deli's, chi-chi shops, big wide avenues lined with pristine gardens, a beautiful beach and a victorian pier. And, when one fancies a bit of rough , Blackpool is a 15 minute drive. So we started shopping for some property.

One month after easter we put our London house on the market and sold it after 3 days. Good eh? Today, and 3 flippin' months later, we finally exchanged contracts with the buyer and the associated stress has made me grey and addicted to ibuprofen. Anyway, after 20 years in London I'm leaving with my tail between my legs. London has chewed me up and shat me out but I'm wiser, richer and fatter than when I arrived. We want to fall in love with London again and that's not going to happen if we continue living here (they even sell 'London Is Shit' t-shirts in Brick Lane now). Future visits will last two days and involve west-end hotels, theatre, boutiques and supper at the Ivy cos that's the real London.

We've bought a detached bungalow in Lytham St Anne's.



We bypassed semi-detached and went straight from terraced to detached (I know you're not supposed to do that but fuck it). Darrens job is mobile and his boss is ok with him moving to the north-west and so, this Friday, we will enter a new era. No mortgage either! Woo hoo!!!
So far in 2007 I've seen in the New Year with Celine Dion in Las Vegas, chosen redundancy at a 20 year old job, trained as plumber, trained as a tiler, bought a van, watched a lot of daytime telly and gained two stone.
The men with the lorry will be here in 48 hours and there's still loads to do so I better go. As my next post will not be from London maybe the name of this blog should change.

I preferred it when it was raining and barely warm. Bloody summer. London is a shit city when it's baking hot. Roads to the seaside all clogged and the parks and stupid lido's all filled to the brim with morons. We went walking in Epping Forest on Saturday which was quite nice but a bit too hot for tramping about amongst the trees. Here's one which impressed us:


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Later that afternoon was much more fun as we lingered amongst the chilled cheeses in Sainsbury's. Apart from our Epping Forest mini-trek the weekend was mainly spent on the sofa with a pile of DVDs from Blockbuster and several pints of Haagen Dazs/several bags of popcorn. 'Outlaw' was one of films but I can't remember the other 5 (naturally I remembered the Danny Dyer film because just that morning I'd scolded him for smoking in our bedroom).


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Edward had a fight with two greyhounds on Friday morning and received a nasty wound on his back which I tended to over the weekend while wearing a nurses outfit I shoplifted from Anne Summers. By last night he was wincing and snapping at me when I touched his back and at 1am he was whimpering in his bed and making strange noises. Drama queen that I am I thought he was dying so I made Darren drive us to the emergency animal hospital near our home. The vet kept him at the hospital last night and operated this morning on a large abscess caused by the bite he received in his scrap. £500 later and he's now on his bed at home recovering from the anaesthetic and trying to work out how to avoid his chums in the park until his fur grows back (they do seem to have shaved him extensively).

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Day 7 (today) on the tiling course saw me get top marks for my bath splash-back (setting-out, tiling and grouting all up to professional quality).

Chicken bhuna today.

Day 4. Herringbone. V difficult.



These 3 diamonds are ever so slightly raised ('proud' is the tiling term). Apparently it breaks up a large tiled wall and creates 'interest'. I disagree and think it just looks 'fussy' and too ornate.


Chicken tikka masala today.

Day three. Seven to go. Easier than plumbing and quite theraputic. Best thing so far - lunch at the local Indian restaurant is included in the course price!