Barbie take steps to a reformed life

I posted a while ago about leaving my job.  I took voluntary redundancy from a role that I initially loved but had grown to despise a little over the years. 

I've had a few months off, I've travelled, relaxed and enjoyed myself but now it's time to get back to a little bit of reality so I needed to find a job. 

During this time off I realised that the world of high power executive work, stuck in an office for 8+ (usually 10!) hours a day isn't right for me.  My physical and mental health was suffering and all in the name of bringing home decent money each month...money that I never really got to enjoy because I was too tired from work to do anything else. 

So, in my recent work search I applied for jobs that were a bit different from what I had been doing and the one that excited me the most was the complete opposite to my usual type of role... and that was the one that I got too!

So, next month I will be starting my new job, pounding the streets for up to 6 hours a day delivering mail.  I know that it sounds like hell to most people, but I've never felt better than when I'm getting large amounts of exercise on a regular basis.  No hassles about my personal style, no need to worry about how to fit in regular exercise and I get to come home every afternoon at a decent time and actually have time to myself.  I'm so excited that even writing this is bringing me close to tears!

I know that my first few weeks will be a challenge, my body will ache and I will have to get used to working outside in all weathers - especially the infamous Scottish sideways-falling rain - but I'm still really looking forward to it. 

I'll let you know how I get on! 

Barbie undergoes renovation

So a few years ago I moved.  I'm still in the same place but due to some unbelievable luck it really doesn't look like it.

It started badly, we received notice from our landlord to move out in 6 weeks...that's quite a challenge if you haven't planned but it is do-able, although the housing market in this area moves very fast.  We took it as a good thing as we had problems with our neighbours etc and started the frantic search for somewhere else to live.

A couple of weeks into looking - already after several viewings and lots of disappointment - the 'new owners' of the property had come over...the flat had been sold to a housing association.  They didn't hesitate to offer us the option to stay (or move to  another one of their properties).  I used to work with social housing so I understood that they would never allow us to move to another property of an equivalent size - we are just a couple living in a 3 bed flat after all - so we opted to stay where we were (thank you sitting-tenant rights!) and have the place refurbished around us. 

To give a little background, the building is an old tenement which had been listed a few years ago and was in desperate need of work.  The took it back to the very shell of the building.  Not a single room or part of the flat was left untouched....so. much. dust.  It was a great amount of upheaval and almost a year of workmen coming in every day for different things.  We lived in the bedroom for at least a week!

But is was worth it..


On top of getting an almost entirely new flat they also let us choose the colour of the paint in each room...not sure they expected the front room! (There's not a drop of magnolia in the whole place)

It was Christmas....I'm not allowed to keep the lights up all year :(

Thankfully now the work from the housing association is completed on the inside - we still have some new floors to put down ourselves but that's a work in progress.  The outside of the building is covered in scaffold whilst they fix the roof..Not idea quite how long that will last - one day I will be able to see out the (new) windows properly again!

(and I've been wondering why I haven't had time to post!?!)