The Money Pit

Remember my holiday in France last year? For those new to this collection of silly musings I'll recap briefly.

3 weeks
South of France
Lovely weather
Great food and drink
Teenage boys discovering Teenager
Teenager discovering boys (other than Mini-Me)
Baby discovering a new pre-teenage world
Me realising both were at the start of changes to their lives and their dependence on me
Shit drive there, race against the clock back to make the ferry with 15 minutes to spare
The purchase of a caravan…mobile home….holiday home in the South of France

Well guess which one is The Money Pit? Yep, not the kids but the caravan…mobile home….holiday home. To be honest me being a lazy, disorganised knobber doesn’t help the situation either. In fact I told GMD this would be my project to test my planning skills acquired in my stultifying, boring and increasingly dull job. Of course this was a mistake because being a member of the GoGB means delaying everything until the last possible moment. It’s genetic, and only blokes can loaf to the degree where we only leave a burning building when our hair starts to sizzle. And even then we probably just saunter out casually. Similarly that’s how I’ve planned this new adventure.

Anyway because of this I had persevered in getting the balance for the caravan…mobile home….holiday home from a new member of The Fucking Bastards Club – my building society. Since late September they have prevaricated around lending us the money. They don’t answer the phones, they don’t reply to letters until 2-3 weeks later, they can’t help on the phone when you do get through and then finally they refuse the loan after 3 months of administrative bollocks because they won’t lend on something that “isn’t a permanent structure”…well thanks to the Birmingham Midshits for fuck all. And I will get my £300 admin fee (which they say is non-refundable) back believe me. Small claims court here I come! So, we have ended going elsewhere to get the balance – my shares from The Company that I’ve been saving for 5 years!, some other shares that I got as a bonus from the company have also gone, and no they didn’t make me a great deal of money because The Company’s share price is on its arse and falling day by day! We’ve managed to get the £3400 site fees together as well and so in the last week I’ve decimated my long term savings, read contracts until blue in the face, signed loan forms in triplicate, signed contracts in quadruplate (if such a thing exists) been emailing Haven Europe constantly trying to get correct figures and other advice from a very pleasant but unbelievably dim “sales counsellor” – a sort of female Tim Nice-but-dim. Email seems almost mysterious to her judging by the apparent delight she shows every time she gets something from me that has an attachment.

I have been the proverbial blue arsed fly all week. In fact I envy the blue arsed fly because I bet it’s stress levels were way below mine. And at least it gets to sit on the shit instead of having it dumped on its head like me.

On Friday alone I had to negotiate an extra £500 overdraft with the bank to get us through to the next payday, ring the share brokers and get stuff sold and transferred, cancel my OU course (heartbreaking) in order to get an extra £500 for The Money Pit purchase, ring the Halifax for my sharesave schemes to be closed, ring the car company for a quote to buy the car before the balloon payment comes up in September and loads more. I had to try and make 10 phone calls in 45 minutes spare I had on Friday at work. I managed 9 in that time, which in the “select option 1, key in your number, key in your i.d “ world of automated phone systems is nothing short of a performance Sir Steve Redgrave would be proud of.

A picture of The Money Pit is shown above – obviously that’s not mine because mine isn’t in place yet, nor have I purchased any decking (a snip at what looks like being around £1000, or the air conditioning unit, no doubt another snip at £300!). I just hope it’s worth it. The picture above certainly makes me think so. At the moment I veer between child like excitement when I look at the stuff we got from the site. When I remember what it was like signing for this under the hot Mediterranean sun, which no doubt helped sell the dream to me. When I read the various reviews on the web it lifts me up and convinces me that this is something I want. But in the dark moments I slip into despair because that’s it for my savings.

All gone.

No more.

And I’ve still got to find £3375 to get my orthodontic teeth treatment.

But what else are your savings for?

And people wonder why I’m a grumpy old bastard?

Later, GrocerJack