2026 Quick Daily Posts

[fccs]

Sorry to hear your MIL is not improving. That has to be tough on you and Tracy.

Daughter’s house sounds like a good buy. What an exciting time for her.

[richardandtracy]

The house my daughter is buying is horrifically expensive compared to house prices when I bought my first house - think nearly 5x as expensive. The house is a little bigger and in better condition, but that wouldn't have added more than 5% to the value. Despite the way the world is, her mortgage cost is less as a proportion of her income than my first house was of my income in 1988, so that's good. Within a year of me moving in, interest rates got up to 14% and absorbed 65% of my net income while Orianna has an interest rate fixed at 4.5% for 5 years, so she knows how much it's going to cost her for the next 5 years. Much more stable conditions for her.

Yep, I think she'll make a go of it.

Regards,

Richard

[Serinde]

Some good news! Hope it all goes through without a hitch.

We bought the house we still live in in Feb of 1988, at the height of that particular bubble (no choice; home from Germany to a new job). Elder son was born in the April. Interest rates over the next 18 months were... interesting; particularly as we had an endowment mortgage (FIL sold them). Never paid out, of course. I feel as if the story of our financial life has been the sound of door slamming closed just behind us. Luckily, we've always contrived to be on the correct side.

[richardandtracy]

My first house was bought on an endowment too. As a savings plan, it wasn't bad. As a way of paying off the mortgage, it proved to be hopeless.

We kept the endowment going after selling the house and paying off the mortgage. Fortunately there was no negative equity, and the place went from £46.5k to £72k during the time I had it. The endowment eventually matured at 75% of the mortgage, or double what we paid in - so we didn't lose out. I got the endowment deliberately (no mis-selling here) assuming inflation like that seen in the 1970's and 1980's was going to continue, and it would have paid off in spades if that had happened. But, contrary to my expectations, governments finally got control of inflation.

As for completion on Orianna's house, it's looking like end-April to mid-May. She's panicking a bit as the implications sink in.

Regards,

Richard

[Serinde]

Big responsibility, owning your own house.

[richardandtracy]

Think she's going to be a bit broke for a few years. House prices round here are silly, so even with help her mortgage is big.

Regards,

Richard

[richardandtracy]

Cats!

Just cats!

Well, a kitten really.
On Maundy Thursday, while Tracy was taking a service, kitten Toby came back home with a bunny in his mouth. It was alive, but scared. It's the first catch we know Toby has had so we wanted to praise him to the rafters, BUT, there's a problem. The warren is on the other side of the road and 100 yards on. And Kitten Floyd was killed crossing the road 12 years ago. So we wanted to discourage him.

On Good Friday (Tracy took the 3pm service) I spent virtually all day finding holes in our garden boundaries and putting netting over them to stop a kitten getting out onto the road, and adding 2ft of netting height to the top of the 6ft fence. A job that took me through to Easter Monday lunchtime (with a break or two to cook the Easter Lunch & sleep). I hope Toby's prevented from going to pick up a rabbit now. Couldn't bear the same thing happening to him.

It appears Ozzie had found at least one of the holes in our boundaries before we stopped it up, because he came back with his tail fan and britches FULL of burdock burrs. He was so stuffed with burdock that he acted like velcro when sitting on a clean sock and took it away with him when he walked away. We cut out the burrs from his fur, getting three double handfuls out before he was largely burr free (and very grumpy).

As I said - cats!

Regards,

Richard

[Serinde]

[Mabel Figworthy]

What she said
I hope Tracy's services went well and that the unexpected Bunny didn't spoil your Easter!

[richardandtracy]

The bunny left us frightened for Toby, to be honest. He's a very dear, gentle cat normally and we desperately want him to be kept safe.

A week on, and the netting seems to have worked so far, and we've not seen the intruder cat in the garden, either. We have seen him trotting along the road, but he's not been in our garden, which is a good thing for both our cats.

Regards,

Richard

[richardandtracy]

Last Sunday we had scrufflings in the loft from something big. Rat type scrufflings.
We put a heap of poison down (never had success with traps) on Monday night. That night ratty was very busy, sounded as if all the poison was being re-located to a nest somewhere. Tuesday night we heard less, and Wednesday night, very little.

Today, there was an incredibly lethargic big rat near our back door. Fast enough to be safe from humans, big enough to be safe from the cats. It was there for quite a few hours. It may be the one that had been in the loft. Really not sure. Anyway, we kept the cats in to avoid any chance of them catching and eating a poisoned rat.

Regards,

Richard

[Roland]

Anyone know what this is? I bought a surprise bag at a bead store. There was a bag of these, with holes for stringing.

[Mabel Figworthy]

That is a very mysterious item. What sort of size is it?

[Roland]

That is a very mysterious item. What sort of size is it?

Small enough for a necklace for a preteen.

I think it looks like a symbol from another language. Doesn’t look Greek, but maybe Hebrew or Muslim. But google doesn’t recognize it.

[Serinde]

Are they all the same? Looks to me like teeth -- early societies made necklaces out of the teeth of their ferocious competitors (like lions) to show they took on the lion's strength. Some cultures still have these rights of passage. (Scottish clans had a thing for eagle feathers, boar tusks and stag antlers.)

Could be totally off beam, of course! It is early, and I've not finished my first tea yet.

[Mabel Figworthy]

I just happened to look at a file on my computer dating back to 2010, which seems to imply that a skein of DMC was 35p Ah, those were the days....

[Serinde]

Truly.

[richardandtracy]

I can remember paying £0.42p per skein when I started, and thought the price was horrendous. The cheapest locally seems to be £1.50p with some outlets over £2/skein.

Regards,

Richard.

[richardandtracy]

This morning was spent exhausting ourselves on MIL's garden.

Tracy fought through to MIL's garden shed with secateurs and a lot of determination, and I attempted to remove what had been a small, slow growing conifer and the remains of a Silver Birch with a chainsaw. In addition to the plants I expected, there was a pressure treated support post with a wire up it (not good for the chain), a plastic kitchen hand brush (no dust pan), seventeen plastic bread bags, a 9" length of garden hosepipe, the rose off a watering can and a takeaway aluminium foil food dish. Not to mention several hundred dead snail shells and the tightest woven Ivy I've come across supporting a huge amount of detritus. FIL seems to have been loosing his grip for years before his dementia became obvious.

This afternoon, we're exhausted.. Expecting thunderstorms if Blitzortung.org is right.

Regards

Richard.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Sounds like you've been blitzing your way through that jungle very effectively!