Art and Life

Yesterday the final news came through regarding the house. Someone else had a huge offer 22% over the asking price accepted! Well, better to know now than wait for months and then lose out anyway. A mental line is drawn under that property. Let it never be spoken of again!

Today I was going to go for a run - but it’s far too windy. The 60ft trees beside the house are bending like sunflowers and we’ve already had at least one power cut. Let’s hope there aren’t any more - that level of boredom might KILL ME.

So, instead I hightailed it 20miles to Hexham (voted prettiest country town 2006 by Country Living - their standards are not that high, it kind of sucks whilst having some pretty bits). Its main attraction for me was the arts centre. Jehsus! Arts Centre - I don’t think that one room with 4 bits of modern tat (and I’m a BIG fan of modern art) makes for a “gallery”. However, the place was saved by also being the public library. Free fast internet connection was mine, all mine *rubs hands with glee*. After checking my email I decided to get on with the business of house hunting. I spent ovar an hour searching all the usual sites (11 property agents and 3 more collective sites) and found one house, a pretty great house too. I emailed TheO, we discussed it, she called the private seller and discovered it had been sold - LAST JUNE. I was not impressed; my desire to not ‘waste’ a morning had just resulted in even more frustration and it was also the only possible house out there at the moment. How utterly fucking pointless.

Ah well - moving on to lunch; a real highlight of my day when having so little to do. I decided to be relatively circumspect and ordered the Caesar Salad. I am in the North of England, I ordered a salad; past experience should have told me to beware. It was lovely chicken, lovely ham (!), crispy bacon, good dressing, cucumber, tomato, giant croutons and all covered in dried packet parmesan. I’m not a complete food snob, I’ll eat all sorts of crap with joy in my heart, but DRIED PACKET PARMESAN - seriously! Luckily it was still edible. Also, do you notice th elack of salad? - it wasn't really edible salad more the sort of thing that just lined the bowl. There was also some potato salad which honestly tasted as if it has been made by whipping butter until it was runny then adding a tiny amount of mayo. All in all, not the healthy option I’d been looking for.

A pottering drive home sees me here, with an old episode of Grand Designs wittering away in the background and the trees rumbling in the wind .

Tomorrow I must run…