Progress on the home front.

If you've been reading this blog over the last month or so, you'll know that these have been difficult times.

The move from house to static caravan is still going to go ahead, but it's not such a bleak near future. For one thing, my work is starting to really pick up. Go to google and search for driving lessons wallasey, or driving instructor wallasey, and you'll see me there on page one. The phone has been ringing, and I've had  quite a few new pupils since Christmas already. Things are happening the way they should for once. One guy called because he liked the car. Another liked the January deal I am offering. A third liked the bit about helping nervous learners. The point is though that they're actually seeing this stuff. When I did it all myself, I was buried somewhere down on page 19. From this point onwards, as long as I continue to update it reasonably often, it's going to stay up there. So I add news items every few days. I'm blogging on my driving school website, and there's nothing there I haven't done before a thousand times.

Secondly, our perception of events has changed. I asked Bren if my work picks up so much tha we can comfortably afford to continue living here, would she still want to move to the caravan? She scarcely needed to give the question a though. Yes, she said.

You see, we've always been towards the bohemian end of things. It's a word that's sort of got naff connotations these days, but it's a good word to describe the lives we've lived. We're going to live in a caravan next to a beach in a semi rural part of Wirral. We're close enough to civilisation to have all the benefits within easy reach, but we will have dark skies, no traffic noise, a wild and windy open-ness just a stones throw to the north. We will have the money to buy stuff we want. Our overheads will be much lower than they are now. If the roof springs a leak, we can just climb up and fix the damn thing without having to hire a roofer and scaffolding.

Finally, a huge weight has been lifted from us by my eldest Stepson, Alex.

As well as being the oldest of Bren's children, Alex has long been the most mature, steady, and high achieving. He has two degrees under his belt, works as a quantity surveyor. He climbs cliffs, rides bikes very fast down mountainsides. He's a go-getter, and is a sweet, helpful all round good guy to boot. As soon as he heard our news, he offered to get a mortgage and buy the house. We initially refused because we didn't want him to drag himself down with us. Yet we all gave the matter some thought and came up with some conclusions that made it seem possible. Alex, if he bought the house for the amount we needed to sell it for, would still be getting it for well under market value. Possibly a good way for him to get his foot on the property ladder. If he had the money to then make the necessary repairs, he could rent space, sell it for a profit, etc.

Alex went to the bank and took advice, and it looks like the repayments on the mortgage will be less than the rent he's paying on the flat he lives in now. Because it's all being kept in the family, there is no chain, lower legal costs, no estate agent fees. Probably no surveyor as long as we don't set the value of the house too high. It also means less urgency to sell/chuck stuff, or for us to actually move out for that matter. We can decorate the caravan before we actually move in once it's paid for.

So it looks like that's how it's going to happen. If it does, it should take about 8 weeks for the money to come through. In the meantime, it looks like I will be earning enough to keep the wolf from the door until that happens.