Another cold cloudless night followed by cold sunny morning, with the prevailing wind coming from the north east now bringing clouds and light showers later in the day. Last week, Rhiannon finally passed her driving test, and now she has acquired her first car, a little SEAT Mii town runabout, with the same engine as our VW Polo but quicker, as it's lighter. It's the equivalent of a VW Up!. Same engineering, equally silly names. Kath sent us a photo of Rhiannon smiling, standing proudly next to it.
I managed to leave the house in time to shop for food bank offerings on the way to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist. I had an interesting chat after the service with the mother and baby who came last week. Her husband is Greek, and they're off to visit family in Athens and Naxos next week. She's interested in the history of the early Christian era and is exploring Eastern Orthodox culture and religion, so we had things in common, including several islands we've visited. I then collected this week's veggie bag from Chapter Arts on my way home. Clare was cooking a prawn stir fry with rice for lunch.
After we'd eaten I did the weekly grocery shopping at the Coop. When Clare returned with the Beanfreaks groceries, we discussed where to go for a week's holiday in October. A trip to Tenby to stay in a holiday self catering apartment is what we're think of. Now we must book it. Kath has been hunting for a self catering house to rent in a nice location for our Christmas gathering. She's identified a couple of places in the vicinity of Abergavenny accommodating seven. This is a change for us as we've alternated between Cardiff and Kenilworth ever since we returned to the UK.
I went for a walk in the park before supper and bumped into our Spanish neighbour Miriam, whom I haven't seen since before I went to Nerja. We chatted for so long that I had to curtail my walk in order to be back home in time. I spent the evening recording the rest of next week's Morning Prayer with my new microphone, making the video slide show, then uploading it to YouTube. Then I went out again and completed my step quota for the day before bed.
A house near us in Llanfair road that was in a delapidated condition when its owner died, has undergone a complete renovation with new floors, roof tiles windows and doors, plus redecoration over the past six months. On Monday a few items of furnigure and a large vase containing an artificial flower were visible in the front room - no blinds or curtains added. Yesterday a For Sale notice went up. A quick search revealed an asking price of £600,000 for a four bedroom dwelling with loft conversion. That's a hundred thousand more than the renovated house next door to us, which went on the market for £500,000.
It's a crazy amount of money to ask for a turn of the 20th century gentrified terraced house. It's no wonder that first time buyers on moderate incomes cannot afford to buy homes in the sort of neighbourhood they grew up in. I wonder how long it will take to sell? Our street now has several houses to let. Last week a letting sign went up on one, and within a handful of people were loitering outside, waiting for a letting agent to turn up. Speculative property developers are still intent on building high rise student apartments in and around the city centre, even though the lucrative overseas student intake is shrinking and these new properties are out of the price range of UK students. Why on earth aren't developers investing in family homes when there's such a scarcity?
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