h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"A flat is now a 'maisonette'. eh? I thought the posh word for 'flat' was 'apartment', but there we go."

A maisonette is a property on two storeys, in a block of, er, flats/maisonettes. Often seen in three storey 'houses' are one flat and one maisonette. Although I'd hesitate to call them middle class knowing the local council maisonettes as I sadly do.

Bugger, I wasn't ignoring you- I somehow managed to totally miss this message

Right, so a flat is only one floor, eh? Well you learn something new every day.

I wondered if I'd overstepped an invisible mark somewhere, but was happy to act as if nothing had happened.

I knew about maisonettes when a friend of mine moved into one when I was about 18 - the bottom floor was a flat, and she got the top two stories. I'd never heard of one before.

My brother now lives in a block of them, and a mutual friend of mine and Blues Shark's also lived in one for a long time. I guess the name of the type of dwelling came up.

I hope, now that one of my exs has decamped further up north the dream of it being posh will come to pass. He was a lazy bloody sod (unless he changed drastically).

I've still got my ideas of moving up to Grantham, and it's looking like my camper will be ready to use (if not quite finished) over the next week or so - I just have to decide if I want to decorate the dining room so that I can think about selling, or if I want to visit Grantham to think about buying.

On the other hand a friend of mine told me that two bed houses are selling in Clacton on Sea for £20k. I spent a lot of my childhood there, as we had family there. I'm not sure I believe those prices, but it's worth a look.

It's a weird bug in the Plain skin since the latest changes- I don't get the -1 posts thing that's been widely reported, but instead conversations just don't show up if I've made 1 or no postings. Once I've posted twice to a conversation the conversation list acts as normal, but otherwise no go. Which means that postings to my message space don't appear in the list, and I don't usually look at the message space itself.

Oh dear, I've got a terrible so possibly the above doesn't make sense

£20K? That can't be right, surely- that wouldn't even buy a terraced house in Burton!

Camper vans- oddly enough him and me are looking at acquiring one. Found a converted Post Office van for £500 (could get him down off that, I think), and it's very tempting. Camping in tents is such a bloody fuss, and we can't leave mutly in a tent. Been using the works van (LWB Sprinter) for kipping in, but it's hardly ideal.

I still think Gratham's a dull place, but one man's meat is another's poison, I guess.

Brentwood's pretty dull itself. That's why I was hanging around car parks in my early 20s and then roleplaying clubs in my late 20s. Since I turned 30 I've socialised much more in London than my local town.

20k is *def* not right - I had a look and couldn't find anything bigger than a holiday chalet for less than £100k. So where she got that mad idea I don't know.

The camper is ideal for us - it's small so if I can't afford to run two vehicles I could give my car up and use the camper to go to sainsburys if I really needed to. And as you say, it's better for

20k for a beach-hut, perhaps?

Dogs are not flavour of the month around here-

I am bloody *knackered*. A fence panel blew out last night and the mutt went cat chasing. Me and half the street spent three hours looking for him, and he finally turned up at the cop-shop. Except I couldn't have him back at 0300, I had to wait until 0800 this morning. Which means a) I had sod-all sleep and b) I was late for work.

So what are you going to hang around in Grantham, role-playing car parks?

Excuse me for butting in here. I used to work in Grantham. It's a small town, but far from unpleasant. It has excellent schools and some nice parks to walk dogs. It's close to the A1 and the electrified train line means you can get to London in about an hour. In short, it's unassuming but it has a lot going for it. Nottingham is also about 45 minutes down the A52 as well. Which means we could all meet for a drink. Or five.

I had a similar problem Kerr - the idiot property developer at the bottom of my garden removed all the crap at the bottom of his garden so my dogs could get through all the time. Buster didn't bother, but Beauty did. He then and built a proper fence - at least 2 feet away from his border which left a gap between his garden and his neighbour's, so the dogs could get straight from my garden, through the new 'alleyway' and out into the neighbour's which was an end of terrace and she didn't shut her front gate.

We finally had to block it ourselves as he was being a shit about it all. Still, Beauty did use his garden as a toilet for a while, and it was *before* she went onto the sensitive food so it was more like a cowpat. That made me feel better...

As for moving, I want to live either here - http://www.hockerton.demon.co.uk/ or here - http://www.sherwoodenergyvillage.co.uk/. I was worried about moving as I've got a really energy efficient house and I'd have to start all over again with a new one. This house has been built taking advantage of the direction it faces (I don't know if that was accidental knowing the period it was built) and it could well be impossible finding a house I like that faces the right way. I was planning to move up that way anyway, so I might as well get the sort of house I want.

I'm going to contact the developments and ask if there's anyway I can get 'on the list' or something.

was high on my reasons for moving, obviously.