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