Home Buyers Diaries #2: Gazumped & Heart Broken

I've banged on in about half a billion posts (like my last post and my rambling about being a grown up)  how Martin and I are looking for a house. Which is really cool and exciting and it is pretty much all I think about at the moment. So we found our dream home - a little "character cottage" with a huge stone wall, original fireplace and a cute little garden in my favourite village close to my parents home. 

They accepted our offer and we got a good price - yay! The estate agents rung us EVERY SINGLE DAY asking for updates that we gladly gave. Admittedly, we were slow throughout the process but it wasn't entirely our fault. Any other first time buyers (I hope) would agree it's such a stressful, confusing process, unless you're lucky enough to have a "hassle free mortgage" and have an easy time with a mortgage.

We struggled to get a mortgage because life hates us. But we managed it. We got our solicitor. We booked our surveys. We saved the money. We told our letting to start showing our flat again. We had our quotes for contents and building cover. We had made a list of all the furniture we were buying and had even picked the wallpaper. We were fucking ready.

But we had a phone call on Monday morning saying they had decided to start showing the house again, had put it back on the market and accepted another higher offer. This was after calling them from the mortgage advisors office on THURSDAY EVENING and telling them everything was good. That was our last hurdle and we were ready. "That's great" they told us. So we paid for our survey.

How, in the space of 2 days, can it go so downhill? How can they go from constant communication to conveniently not telling us they were accepting other offers. We would have matched the offer. We would have bought our completion date forward. We would have literally done anything they had asked, but the point is they didn't even fucking ask.

They call this gazumping. Which is a stupid name and I don't think it even begins to cover how heart shattering it is. But yeah, our almost first home is no more. Someone else is going to be living in it in a matter of weeks and it makes me feel sick with sadness.

BUT. It's so important to think that everything happens for a reason. Everyone was so nice on Twitter when I tweeted about the experience, and people said the same thing had happened to them before they found their dream house. I truly think everything happens for a reason, and I can only hope that come June/July, Martin and I will be sitting in our perfect house so relieved that this happened.

Since I've Been Gone (and Why I'm Back)

(I can breeeathe for the first tiiiiime)

It felt so unnatural logging into blogger and creating a new entry. Like, what? How is that possible? I went from writing three times a week with my views, followers and engagement at its highest ever to literally nothing. Nada.

I haven't posted since October, have tweeted a handful of times and haven't even read any of my favourite blogs. What happened? I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

I for sure didn't "fall out of love" with blogging because I dropped off the face of the earth during a time I was IN LOVE with it. Everything just seemed to happen at the same time and life just got hectic so blogging (accidentally) took a back seat. So here's everything that happened while I was away and kind of accounts for where the fuck I went:

My laptop broke. With all my pictures and documents and eeeverything. It's still broken now and I hate writing on Martin's. It's ginormous and not at all portable, and all the stock photos I had taken were lost.

 I got a lil' kitten. I'm planning a whole post introducing Mr Puddles and the story of how I got him, which is kind of a not-so-funny story of accidental cat burglary and/or saving a kitties life. (I prefer to think of it as the latter). He's satanic and horrid but also the sweetest little boy and I wub the little floof. 
 

I started a new job. And left that same job. The job was all consuming with12 hour days and always on call. I was a personal credit agent, by the way, which is a job I've done on and off for a few years. That's basically a fancy way of saying "debt collector" minus the stereotype of baseball bats and fear... It took over my life and I'm thinking of writing a new post about "life as a debt collector" if anyone would be interested. It's fucking weird.


We went to Spain. Martin was invited on a "business trip" sort of thing to Almeria and on to Alicante and I went along for shits and giggles. He only ended up doing maybe one days work and we had SO much fun shopping, exploring and eating too much tapas in the sun.

I cut all my hair off. (See above) This doesn't explain why I've been gone because it took at most two hours out of my life BUT it's still worth knowing. I cut a whole foot off my hair to donate it so it's a a pretty short bob at the moment and I love it!

I got a new job. Some of you may have seen on twitter but I'm now the editor of myunibasics.co.uk which is a website startup and I think it's got a really bright future! I work part time doing this at the moment and I'm loving it.

We went to Edinburgh twice. One of the times we drove, too, which takes about 11 years but it was really lovely to go up twice in such close proximity, which we never do, especially for the first visit which was for Martin's brother's wedding in a candlelit cave which was just gorgeous. But that took a big chunk of my time.



House hunting shit got real. I babbled about the trauma and decisions in this post about house hunting but we have found our dream home and we reeeally want it. We had our offer accepted but on my self employed/freelance income, even though it is enough, we are struggling to get a mortgage. So, yeah, majorly stressed right now.

SOOOO as you can see. life has been preeeetty busy. I can't say the last 2 or 3 months have been particularly enjoyable either, and they just sapped all the life and energy out of me, not to mention the creativity and inspiration. I still don't feel particularly inspired and the thought of having to take blog photos especially in winter makes me feel physically sick. If any homies want to help a girl out and be her personal photography holla at me.

I'm back, bitches.