Minty Bit Stronger

Guillaume and I have begun the first tentative and uncertain steps into the big world of home ownership. A long time ago I learned the the word 'mortgage' was in fact Latin for 'Death-grip'. Lovely huh? Now we are looking into a part ownership death grip of our very own in nearby Deptford. The two bedroom flat we have in our sights is a luxury sized new build with some hippy drippy Eco heating system. Located three floors up and a hop-skip-and-a-jump from the station, it is ticking all the boxes. It would be around this early stage when any normal couple would be spending their time thinking about life insurance, bank applications, a joint account, home insurance, contents insurance, filling it paperwork etc... Not us... We're spending every minute decorating a flat we have yet to own, let alone live in. A sofa has been selected as have dining chairs from the fancy pants Xavier Pauchard collection. We debated with some passion what sort of tv unit we should buy ...

My mood has been as black as it comes today with wave after wave of bad news grinding me down. One of my grievances is a battered pound coin has ironically managed to cause £135 worth of damage. My house manager, a gruesome Italian man who looks slightly like The Penguin, has been waddling in and out of my flat for days trying to establish why the washing machine is Kaput! Finally an engineer was called who discovered the errant coinage and issued a bill of biblical proportions for his heroic work. In addition to this excessive billing he scrawled some advice on the invoice suggesting we don’t overload the socket in the washer room… Oh thanks – is that how the pound coin got stuck? We overloaded the socket! Thanks, Einstein! Practically, invaluable advice aside I’m still utterly hung up on the fact that as soon as I have the vague sniff of some extra money in one nostril I have an epic cash nosebleed out the other. Maybe I’m over reacting and maybe I should just junk up on some leve...