red mum

ABOUT a week ago I was offered a place on the Dublin City Council Affordable Housing Scheme and to be honest while there was certainly a part of me that was excited at this, another part was thinking mmmhhh.

To my unexperienced property mind this is probably not the best time in the world to be offered a place on the scheme, which is I suppose a little strange considering I would have given my eye teeth for a place before now. I have just had the feeling for a while that the way the market is going that I would probably be better off trying to save for a deposit somehow and trying my hand in the open housing market outside of the Affordable Housing Scheme.

Affordable is a bit of a misnomer for someone buying by themselves because the price isn’t affordable on one salary and neither are the repayments. I am generally a positive person but have just never felt this scheme would get us our home. I’d still prefer to be in with a chance and be in the draw than out obviously.

So the place I have been offered is in a perfect area for us, even though she only has two years left of secondary education I still want somewhere near her school. The online brochure for the apartment complex looks wonderful. The apartments are snazzy and we took a run by them over the weekend and one immediate downside was apparent to me, the outside living part ie the balcony is tiny.

This is where I get frustrated because apparently being on the scheme means you have to be grateful for anything you are presented with and I am to some degree; after all this scheme is getting me closer to having a foot on the housing rung. But if I am going to commit to spending more than a quarter of a million on my first property I want it to be because I love it and can see us living there happily. Having no outside space is a deal-breaker for me.

I understand perfectly that Dublin has grown hugely over the last number of years and any housing is about density and we cannot expect houses or gardens, blah, blah, blah. While I would love a big garden, that is not going to happen sometime soon; as I said I understand that. However, I also feel whether rightly or wrongly that having lived for 14-odd years with no access to outside that I have done my time of no outside living. If there are any Gods of Justice surely they back me in my quest for a small measure of outside living, private outside living where you do not have to sit on the side of a busy main road with people gawking at you from passing buses to enjoy an evening.

But there is a notion of ‘what can you expect’ being on the Affordable Housing Scheme, take what you are given and be happy. Not that this is coming from the local authority, this is something I feel when I talk about it to other people. Often people with homes and gardens. But at the end of the day, this is the biggest investment I will have made to date and if I look at a balcony and say ‘no’ that is fine. As lovely as it would be I am not expecting a palatial penthouse spread around the side of the building balcony, just somewhere I can continue in the vein I have started here. Not that the next point is a consideration, it isn’t, but what on earth would I do with all my pots? The balcony of the place we were offered would barely hold our two chairs and even then it would be a case of two people touching knees or probably the more likely scenario of actually being on each other’s laps trying to sit out and enjoy an evening.

It was tiny, there is no way I could enjoy the planting I have this year at all. And is it bad for that to be a consideration? I don’t think so at all. I want a little bit of outside life.

So when I went for mortgage approval and haven’t been given the amount I need I wasn’t disappointed. Course it gave me a lot to think about with pointers on what I need to do to finally get on the property ladder. Firstly I need to clear the loan I took out two years ago; that took a considerable amount off what the bank would give me, considerable and considering I have another three years to pay it off, that is a little scary. I think it is time to upt the photography as an extra means of income.

Another mad point for me is the fact that for some of the calculations made by the bank I pay the equivalent of the mortgage repayments in rent, this is nothing new, I have been doing that and more for years. When I moved into the last place some 14 years ago I was paying more in rent than an average mortgage at the time, a mortgage no one would have given me. But this doesn’t count and as I said I understand a mortgage is worked out, among other reasons, on your ability to pay, but considering my rent is already up there, it doesn’t count.

Maybe it makes sense to just me but if I am turned down for a mortgage on the bank or underwriter’s belief in my ability to pay back I still have to pay rent irregardless. So I can be turned down for a mortgage with repayments nearly akin to my mortgage and I will continue to pay the rent that I have to because I have to. That part doesn’t make sense to me, there has to be some consideration for that but there isn’t.

And now economically things have taken a nose-dive, God knows what is going to happen. I am hoping it will all sort itself out in the wash and house prices will continue to drop enabling me to finally buy a home before the Young Wan leaves home.

Failing that I hope at the very least the Affordable Housing look at the way single parents fit or not in the scheme. Having my daughter means I have a dependent which is more black marks against me according to the bank and I am still somewhat bitter to have been excluded from the Social and Affordable Scheme because my overtime made me just over the income threshold for that year with no regard at all for my expenses relating to my daughter. The income was assessed for the year she started secondary school and the fact that cost me more than a grand meant nothing at all. So someone single with no kids who earned a few hundred less than me in the year (which amounts to about €400 in my hand spread over the year) and didn’t fork out €1200 for back to school were considered while I wasn’t. But thems the rules but it is something that I intent to write to the council about.

So for now all I can do is sit back and wait and hope.

ONLY Neil beat me to it in the comments of the last post, *shakes fist at Neil* I was about to tell you all that I’m staying put in the press office. I’m delighted and was told earlier in the week that the job was there but wanted to wait until it was more official to spread the news.

I have to say thanks a million for all the wonderful comments, job suggestions, emails, phonecalls and to those who blogged about it. The response was seriously overwhelming in a wonderful way, not to mention giving me loads of leads to follow up. There are a few people who are owed a pint from me and someday soon I’ll be delighted to do so.

The Tribune piece on Sunday was a bit of a shock. I got a call from a pal saying ‘I saw in the Trib you are job-hunting, hows it going? I’d gotten the paper but just hadn’t read it completely yet and there it was. So thanks as well to the Tribune who seriously upped my Sunday visitor figures. Nanny and the Young Wan were well impressed which was great because the poor Young Wan started her holiday seriously worried and no amount of me telling her that it wasn’t her job to worry, she still did.

There was one stage last week where I thought ”ah Jaysus guys come on’, that was just after the landlord told me he is seriously thinking of selling the place, the sign will go up any day.

But thankfully I don’t have to move with my job prospects somewhat unclear. I will write about that again because flat/house hunting is a nightmare and the rents are akin to the mortgages no one will give me. I am loath to pay that amount of money without it being mine. How and ever thats the way it is.

On the up side, it would be nice to get somewhere bigger and more suitable for us now It really would. Course I would need to hide the doggie…

“My name is Red Mum and I am addicted to America’s Next Top Model.” There I have admitted it for all to see.

The Young Wan is also addicted, she was practically clapping her hands with glee when it came on this evening, for the last time in this current series. By the way is it terrible to bring herself down with me in my admission? Ah who cares, one down, all down. Hey sure even Nanny loves it and as she is visiting friends tonight I had to record it for her.

The fact that it is repeated continuously on Living TV which broadcasts the show, wasn’t enough, Nanny wanted it recorded. So we have.

We all love it. For me, I love the photo shoots, I LOVE seeing the images from the photo shoots. I love looking at the lighting, working out the lighting, it is just addictive. The added nastiness and craic is just plain icing on the cake.

The fact that a pal from Flickr has had photographs featured on the show, something I learned a while after I met, was pure excitement. Do check out her/Mymsie’s pics on Flickr, they are amazing and tell her I said hello. She also has a website too.

Can you imagine me watching the programme and squealing with excitement telling my pal Mar (who was watching the show under duress) ‘that’s Mymsie’s pics‘. It was more than cool to see pics I know from Flickr on a show I also love. Here’s some more.

And now the current series being shown here is over and Cari-Dee won (yippeeee from our household – we didn’t want Melrose to win – I know I know I am sad).

What are they going to show next week, it better be the next season. Seriously it better be. I have had enough mourning over the end of Life on Mars.

Though I loved the ending, what is so wrong with Happy Endings. One of the worst endings in the world was for Thelma and Louise.

And yes I know I should love it, two women deciding their own destiny, but they died. They died…

I wanted a deus ex machina to sort it out, was that too much to ask? That’s what I loved about Life on Mars, aside from the lovely Simms, it had the fantastical wonderful happy ending, perfect. That’s me happy.

Now could someone go back and sort out a happy ending to Thelma and Louise, and also bring back the next series of America’s Next Top Model? Please.

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TO SAY it has been busy over the last week would be a massive understatement. The weekend before last was spent getting the flat ready for not only Nanny but also a glut of visitors who were coming the weekend before last. Well not exactly a glut but more than enough to spur house-keeping action on a wide range of all sorts of things in the flat.

But that is a post for another day, last weekend alone will be blogged but I am still so tired and so worn out by all the shenanigans that I haven’t been able to start. Thinking about it alone leaves me wanting to get out the foot spa.

As per usual I am digressing, what I was posting about was the fact that at one point this evening my Mum/Nanny began to defrost the literal icebox that is my freezer.

It turned bad about six weeks to two months ago and I haven’t had the energy, inclination, willpower anything to sort it out. I did it two months ago and it started to freeze over practically straight away.

I have already decided that in the January sales I am buying a new fridge freezer, this one is too much work.

And back to what I had originally started posted about which is Nanny tackling the freezer.

Thank God for that.

Nanny’s comments were funny so I started to jot them down. This is a rendition of the list she realmed off as she hauled things out of the freezer with my explanations where necessary in brackets.

• Potato bread
• Sausages
• Steak
• More potato bread – (I’m not even a mad fan of potato bread, it is soda bread all the way which probably explains why there is so many)
• Some kind of tomato sauce – (my own home made stuff)
• Pepper Sauce – (in an iced over jar, I made too much)
• Donegal Catch – (half a packet)
• Meatballs – (my own home made ones)
• Lamb chops
• Mince steak
• Half a loaf – oh its ciabatta!
• Don’t know what that is – (in relation to something wrapped in tinfoil)
• Croquette potatoes
• More potato bread – (as I said I prefer soda bread)
• Breadcrumbs
• Burger baps
• beef burgers
• Something wrapped in tinfoil – (which turned out to be stuffing from when I made too much one Sunday)
• Pancetta ham
• Coffee
• More mince steak
• Sausage meat – (for homemade stuffing)
• More burger baps

At this stage the Young Wan came in and saw me writing what Nanny was saying and was wondering what on earth I was doing.

‘Is this for the blog,’ she said.

Nanny replied: ‘I’m not doing it for the blog. I’m just trying to clean the freezer’. Nuff said and back to the contents.

• Tuna steaks
• Mince steak
• Smoked salmon
• Rosemary
• Soup Vegetables
• More coffee
• More soup vegetables
• Packet of puff pastry
• What’s this? Oh a square of puff pastry
• Tortillas
• Don’t know what this is, I think it’s some kind of chicken – (you know the kind, the chickeny sort)
• What’s this? – (I couldn’t shed any light on this package at all)
• More soup vegetables
• Yet more mince steak

Considering the size of my small freezer it is mad to think I have been able to put all this into it. So we will be having some strange dinners I reckon over the next week or two in a bid to clear out the freezer ready to start again.

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