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Mutual exchange

I don’t know how many of you out there have ever gone through a mutual exchange but I can tell you from personal experience that it is not the most pleasant process. We are looking for a bigger property for all my brood and since I haven’t become a multi-millionaire yet :) my options are limited.

For those of you who aren’t aware of what a mutual exchange is, it is where council tennants are allowed to exchange properties with each other providing certain standards are met eg: neither parties are overcrowding or under-crowding. You find a suitable swap through various ways eg: word-of-mouth, ads in shop windows or various online schemes which you join and can search through the properties listed.

Once you find one you like that meets your needs then you can message that person and see if they may be interested in yours. Most do reply either way and then comes the fun part. You decide on a date to view each others properties, I always ask them to come to me first. The last thing I want is to go and view theirs only to fall in love with it and have them view mine and not like it leaving me disappointed.

So you spend ages cleaning and trying to make your house look more appealing for when they come to view it. Then they come round inspecting each room, occasionally commenting on whether it is bigger/smaller than theirs while you have to stand back and watch. Some will tell you there and then whether they are interested while others will say they will let you know, so then you spend the rest of the day biting your nails waiting on their phone call.

I hate it, this is after all my house’s reputation we are talking about. Nothing is worse than being told they are not interested because then that leaves you looking around thinking why the hell not? What’s wrong with my house? It really is an unpleasant process but unfortunately the only option we have at the moment unless I win the lottery :)

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Coffee overload

Having been a dedicated coffee drinker, I’m slowly trying to wean myself back onto tea :) I got to the point where I could quite easily drink up to twenty cups if not more a day, by the end of the day I would be a little shaky. This is not straight coffee, I can’t bare the taste of that I like the sachets of cappuccino and mocha and also the 3 in 1 Kenco or Nescafe sachets. I even got myself a Philips Senseo cappuccino maker but despite this amount of coffee I would still spend the day yawning and lacking in energy. I used to be a tea drinker but went off it completely when I was pregnant with my youngest so I have now decided to go back to it before I end up giving myself a heart attack from coffee overload :)

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What annoys you the most?

I’m going to limit this to three things otherwise this post could go on for quite some time :)

Firstly I get very annoyed when people don’t respect your property. I have on many occasions while parked, seen people pull up their cars beside another. They open their door and let it swing back hitting the car beside them. I actually feel annoyed on the other persons behalf and I don’t even know them! I never let my car door hit a car beside me, even if I have to breathe in and squeeze into/out my seat. I know my car has been hit in this way on several occasions, since scratches and small dents suddenly appear when only half an hour ago there were none. Is there no respect left for other peoples property?

The second thing that annoys me is people hanging up on me. I will even go as far as returning the call to give them an ear- full and then hang up on them. Obviously if you are having a heated argument I guess it’s a good way of ending it, but this only makes me angrier. If you no longer want to talk to me then tell me, I would respect you more for that.

The third thing that really annoys me is complete lack of common sense. Where I live it’s like a little horse shoe shape with a small park in the middle. There is no need to drive around it unless you live there and need to park but other people still do. This in itself doesn’t bother me except when they decide to drive full speed around it causing their tyres to squeal around the bends. There is a park, children are running back and forth and riding their bikes in the road. Common sense tells you to go slow and really, is there any need to speed in the first place?

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Second hand cars

We are looking to buy a bigger car because lets face it with nine of us my little five seater just doesn’t cut it :) Browsing through endless ads on various websites I found some of them quite amusing. One I came across stated that the engine wasn’t that good, every panel had a dent in it and needed a new gear box as well as new brakes. The chassis was rotten and also needed a new steering rack, other than that it is a sound car. They were selling it for £1000, seriously is there really anything sound about it? those are all the main parts lol. The only thing that car is good for is scrapping and how they have the cheek to charge that amount I really don’t know.

The other amusing thing we came across is that we found a car we liked, the ad stated it was in perfect condition. The pictures showed it to be clean inside and out and I couldn’t see any apparent dents in any of the body work so we went to view it. Once we arrived the car didn’t look as clean, the front lights were smashed and upon turning the ignition not all the lights came on. The steering wheel screeched and grinded when turned and that was before setting off! If they are going to invite people to come and view it they should at least make sure the car is actually driveable.

So now I am back to my search, hopefully there are some honest dealers out there somewhere :)

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Why are we so attracted to the beautiful people?

Shouldn’t personality be the first thing we become attracted to? Obviously when you first meet a prospective partner their appearance is the first thing you see before you get to know them. Your ideal partner could be out there somewhere waiting, possibly plain looking and lacking in ripped muscles/or a generous chest with curves in all the right places but may have the ability to fulfill your every desire and yet you will never meet them because you are too busy chasing after the attractive people.

When looking for your significant other maybe you should go on a blind date, where actual blindfolds are used like on those television shows where you could get to know them without appearance getting in the way. You may find afterwards that they are not the most dazzling person in the universe but does that really matter?

I admit that my head has been turned a few times but if anything, before I even met my husband I always found myself intimidated by drop dead gorgeous guys and although they are very nice to look at I would shy away from them. 

I’m pretty sure the animal kingdom don’t decide on their mates by judging how shiny their fur is or how broad/lean their bodies are :) This post was inspired by the cute looking guy that walked passed my car earlier :) :)

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Character inspiration

Most questions asked to an author usually involve ‘how did you come up with your idea? or what inspired your idea for your book?’ My usual response is that the idea for my story line just popped into my head, which is in fact what happened. Originally there was no paranormal aspect involved, just plain old thriller but I really wanted to spice things up a little. Not wanting to use vampires or werewolves (although I did use a few werewolves but they are not the main theme) since they seemed to be the most popular paranormal characters I started thinking what other kind I could use.

Notebook in hand, chewing on my pen my eyes landed on my husbands tattoo. One which I actually told him to get, well it was between a dragon or a panther. The latter being the one he settled on, lucky for me because I think I may have struggled a little trying to fit dragons into my story line. Although that definitely would have been interesting :) Hmm, maybe I will use them in a future project.

So there is my inspiration for my characters, the story line however still remains one that popped into my head out of the blue.