God my Danman is a geek!

Ten days have passed..

..since we last wrote a blog entry, and quite a lot has happened in that time:

Hope for Haiti

As we all know, an earthquake hit Haiti on 12 January 2010. The most famous names on the planet gathered from 1.00am on Saturday morning to operate a telethon to raise aid money. A variety of singers, including Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Jay Z and Chris Martin performed emotional songs whilst celebrities including Reese Whetherspoon answered telephone calls from members of the public making pledges.

The songs performed on the night were recorded and are included in the album Hope for Haiti Now which is available to download from iTunes.

The Flat

Juan and I made another commitment to one another. We've signed up to 25 years of life and critical illness insurance. It's a policy with AXA insurance company. Being entirely honest, we're not sure if it's something we really need, is value for money or is going to end up costing more money in the long-term when we move up the property ladder. John was slightly (read: very) offended that the Financial Adviser noted his imminent 26th birthday and recommended that we sign up before he becomes ancient to make avoid the cost of his policy increasing.

We also finally had our face to face meeting with our solicitor. As we expected, he's a great guy with our best interests at heart. We talked through our concerns about the survey and he explained that none of the issues raised are worth negotiating on the price. The current leaseholder has also agreed to serve notice on the freeholder so that the lease will be extended by 90 years under that piece of legislation (that we don't really know about). Our solicitor is confident that we can exchange before we go to Oz, so once again, we are waiting.

The house has been taken down from the Andrews Online website, which we're taking as a good sign that things will work out.

John has packed up his first round of possessions from 13b which have now been transported via Bottle to the ghetto land that is Ruislip/Eastcote. We are also likely to finally get the bedframe our friend has kindly offered us for free on Friday!

Australia and New Zealand 2010

To coincide with Australia Day, Juan and I planned more of our big holiday. We now have a hostel for our first stay in Sydney. We've also done a first plan of our tour around the South Island of New Zealand. It turns out that we really won't have much time to visit everything we want to see, so we're going to focus on seeing Queenstown, Wanaka, Franz Josef, my family, Kaikoura and Hanmer Springs. It's starting to feel more real for us now.

My good friend Spanner from work has gone to Oz today. Calming her down before her journey and running through mental checklists with her has helped me think about the planning we need to do before our holiday.

It's now 20 days until we go!

Music news:

• The wonderful and fabulous Leona Lewis performed in the Live Lounge. She sang an amazing rendition of her next single I Got You and her emotional cover of Stop Crying Your Heart Out.
• Alexandra Burke is going to release The Silence as her next single (after March). It's one of my favourites from the album, but John thinks it's a bit 'Eurovision' (which shouldn't be a criticism as he loves Eurovision?).
• Little Joe McElderry sang another flawless performance of the Journey and Glee classic Don't Stop Believing at the National Television Awards. We were so proud to see him and thinks he is looking more and more handsome as he grows up.
• Speaking of Glee's version of Don't Stop Believing, it's stayed within the top three in the singles chart.
• A song from Christina Aguilera's new album called Spotlight leaked online. It's an upbeat stomper that's going to go down a treat in the clubs. We can't wait for the rest of the album.

Desperate Housewives

The ladies of Wisteria Lane have returned to our screens. As with most first episodes of this classic show, a suspicious family has moved into the street. It looks like it's going to be another classic series which we can't wait to watch unfold.

We'll try not to leave it too long until the next post! Time to snuggle down for another night.

Keep reading!

DanMan

Having a Glee-ful life, even if that makes us Gleeks

Now, Juan is much better than me at this blogging malarkey (it was my idea to start it, I thought I could use my maths skills to understand HTML, which I've not yet started, but John is very clever and picks things up quickly, he also perseveres more than I do). I wanted to add a post to explain how much we love Glee with videos but I'm not to sure how to achieve this. Anyways, the songs, the colours, the easy-to-identify-with characters (I too was a loser at school) all add up to a hit TV series and something to look forward to each week. When I first met John, I stubbornly refused to understand the point of musicals, why sing when you can speak much faster? After a crash course in the TV series 'I'd Do Anything', and a deeper appreciation of High School Musical, I must admit that I melted and can be frequently found 'accidentally' putting on another song from Wicked, Hairspray or now, Glee.

If you too like Glee, that makes you a Gleek (a play on Glee and Geek - geddit?!). Make sure you check out the songs online.

Speaking of Glee and feeling Glee-ful, as I recently posted, I've recently found the range of online tools my family in New Zealand are using to blog about their lives (blogs, Twitter, YouTube channel, Flickr etc.). I had a Skype chat with them last night (their Sunday morning) and saw my only cousins in the world for the first time in two years: they've grown up so much. I can't wait to see them in 6 weeks and to be able to stay in touch with them into the future. Reading their blog has given me lots of ideas for our holiday to Oz/NZ.

Getting back to the main focus of this blog, as I previously posted, Juan organised for a builder to provide us with a quote for the concerns we have following the survey on the flat. The builder went yesterday with John and it sounds like the flat is in livable condition, but does need a few bits sorted. We'll see where this takes us in terms of negotiation of the price, more advice will be needed from the solicitor. As an aside, John took his other flatmate to view the flat and he too liked it which I'm really pleased about.

Now, to fill my day with Ruislip based activities...

Dx

And then a Hero comes along..

After months of dithering over whether the iPhone was over hyped and unnecessary, I finally walked away from the option of owning one and ordered an HTC Hero. At first, I struggled to get to grips with the different functionality - I was used to the iPhone interface from playing with Juan's and using my iTouch. But after a few days, I'm starting to get there. I particularly like how integrated all the contact information is and how connected I can be to everyone.

Speaking of being connected, I only found out today that my Aunt who emigrated to New Zealand with my Uncle and two cousins (including my God daughter) now has a Flickr account, Twitter, YouTube channel, personal blog, work blog and is on Skype. I think she's taking over the internet, but I'm so pleased I can keep in touch with their life. It seems like they're always outdoors enjoying their surroundings, whereas in the UK, we're constantly desperate to be inside to avoid the frozen elements.

Some news on the home front: we've found a builder to come give us quotes on the work that might be needed to the flat. He's due to take a viewing on Saturday. The agent was typically 'difficult' with John on the phone again, but I appreciate he's trying to protect his interests. ALWAYS stand up for yourself and don't let them push you!

So it's almost the weekend, I hope you all have great plans!

DanMan

x

Photo's of 71B - Take a look at the pics.

So we went to take a look at 71B today to go through the results of the survey.

Some work defiantly needs doing to the exterior walls so we're going to need to get quotes!

We forgot all about it when watching AVATAR! Brilliant.

39 days until OZ!

Juan

xx

Deep in concentration

SO MANY WORDS!

It's a good thing he works for Ofcom as he likes reading boring things!

We're calming down now we've read the survey with the lease. Fingers crossed it'll all be OK!

Juan

xx

Survey

SCARY STUFF!

So we've just downloaded the survey. All I can see is lots of number 3's which means 'urgent action needed'. Could be bad times :(

Going to digest with Danman tonight along with the MASSIVE solicitor pack that was also sent today.

Juan

xx

More solicitor's emails

So today we found out that our solicitor has received the contract from the vendor - *fingers crossed* we'll complete by mid-March! More reading to do on definitions of ambiguous legal terms...

Oh, and we also have to write our own wills. Now who wants my TopDan clothes and collection of London Underground memorabilia...?

It's currently snowing outside, and hopefully will continue to do so all night.

DanMan

p.s. 6 weeks tomorrow we'll be flying to Australia...

Second day of Jan

So we're trying to sort out the solicitor's questions! COMPLICATED and another £500. Woop!

45 days still Oz and 14lb to loose.

Juan
x

Happy New Ear!

Happy New Year to all our followers!

2010 has gotten off to a productive start! Jigsaw puzzles and TV!

46 days until Oz!

xx