Planet Mad

There have been a number of time-consuming developments in the last few days, not least the need to teach. Preparing lessons is also taking longer than I remember - I'm not quite sure what's happened to my lesson-planning-skills but they've gone AWOL. Damn. I've really lost the plot when it comes to school stuff - I hope I find it before too long!

On Saturday I got caught on duty at the sixth-form social, where they put me in charge of the "dining area"... after all, I am an expert in dining, so well-suited to the job. I would rather have been celebrating the youngness of El Senor Johns, but work sort of took over. I WILL make an effort to get free next weekend.

I got in from school on Saturday morning to be greeted by Rob teling me that we had a viewing of the house at lunchtime. It was lovely. The garden had an orchard section (including apple, pear and damson trees) and a brook at the bottom of the garden. The house was nicely done too: Rob was most impressed by the cellar; I liked the idea of a big roof space. We then spent a fraught weekend trying to work out if we could a) get a mortgage and b) afford to pay it. This required much searching on the internet (my department) and making spreadsheets (Rob's department). We ended up staring at the computer screen for hours, trying to work out if we could live on what was left after mortgage, bills, tax, car loans, broadband... One not-quite-so swift phone call to the mortgage company, some detailed pouring over bank statements, and we worked out that, while we would get the mortgage and could probably afford to pay it back, it might be better to wait 12 months and pay off as many of our loans as possible before attempting house purchase. In a way I'm gutted, as it was a lovely house, but with my sensible head on it seems the only way to avoid repossession. Harrumph for being sensible.

In other news, the cats have ventured outside and survived the ordeal. They've coped admirably with jumping in and out of the windows, and they seem to enjoy having some freedom to wander. They're still un-named as yet, other than "my cat" and "your cat", but they seem very happy, so there's no great pressure to name them.