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

I've bought a flat. Of my own. With actual money.

I hope to exchange contracts and complete the deal by the end of the week and move into it on Saturday.

Spent the weekend and the three days that preceded it packing - and going through all my clobber and throwing out a LOT of stuff. A lot of which had some sort of emotional attachment one way or the other, or was stuff I was hoping to get round to, but basically was just cluttering up my life and holding me back.

I feel sort of cleansed now.

Although apprehensive about the move.

This in Taunton then?

Congrats!

Langport. I can't afford Taunton, on what the BBC pay me...

Ooh grats!

Ah to the boglands then

As a West Somerset lad, I have to say I and my kin don't really know that much about the eastern end of the county - all a bit flat and all a bit damp for our liking.

I hope it all goes swimmingly for you, and remember to always have your wellies to hand

Woo-hoo! Housewarming party at Six's drum

This implies some kind of permanency in your situation then? I'm thinking back to a journal thread from late last year about missing the Smoke.

Once London's in your blood it never leaves you. You can learn to love it from a distance though.

I seem to have acquired a girlfriend over the last couple of months - that makes a difference. And work is - I think - looking up. We're going to get an FM frequency in the summer, which means we will be doing sport, and I've been asked to look into how we do the sports news which I'm taking as a good sign.

The phrase 'back to winning ways' will be banned. As will 'unveiling' for the announcement of a new signing unless Yeovil Town really are hiding whoever it is under a large green and white sheet which will be dramatically whipped away by Russell Slade.

Buying a flat was always on the cards as soon as I realised - in about November - that the reason I didn't ever have any money was that I'd underestimated how much my wages would drop and overestimated my ability to pay for this flat I'm renting. It was either rent somewhere cheaper or see if I can afford to buy somewhere.

And the mortgage on the new place is £75 a month cheaper than the rent I'm paying here. Although when you add in the life insurance I've had to take out, and the travelling costs I'll run up, it actually comes out at about the same. But - just before the last interest rate rise - I nipped in and got a four year fixed rate deal.

So my incomings will hopefully go up during that time (if only by a little - there's no way they can get any worse) and my outgoings will stay where they are for 4 years.

Congratulations!

I hope your flat has an appropriate number...

Hello Six Long time no hoot...

Congratulations on the girlfriend as well as on the move

She's not moving in, is she?

B

"Although when you add in the life insurance I've had to take out"

It's a rip off! I haven't got life insurance - I've never bought it. Partly because most places I've worked have included some sort of life cover, even if it's just a year's wages, or the work pension has had enough life cover to pay it off, but mainly because if I die, the house would be sold anyway. J can't live here on his own, and I'm not having his dad move in here thinking it's his lucky day, so it can be sold or rented out to deal the mortgage.

I may rethink that when he's old enough to live on his own.

I'll be sure to pop in to warm the flat when I'm down in Somerset in the spring.

That was very much my thinking on the life insurance front - why do I need it, I'll be dead for heavensake, and being dead is a cheap way to live.

The house would get sold. My Mum would trouser the profit. Bob would get the books and Eddie the record collection. End of.

The Buiding Society were not pleased with my decision and tried repeatedly overa number of years to try to get me to take out all manner of extras for supposed cover



So what's this girl of yours like then, Six? And why have you been keeping the news of it so quiet until now?

I haven't been keeping it particularly quiet, I just haven't been here much... She is a housing officer who lives in Exeter, and seems to have the same kind of slightly warped mind and odd sense of humour as me. She actually works near Exeter City's 'ground', but I prefer to draw a veil over that. A green and white one.

Come to think of it, I did my second full match commentary recently, and I probably kept that quiet too. It went OK considering I had a sore throat. Rob Nothman at Five Live has listened to it for me and given me some good tips, and reckons considering how little experience I've actually got I'm doing pretty well.

I might think about just taking the critical illness cover and kick the life insurance in the head. But I was thinking, it'd be nice to have something to leave to my niece and nephew. Although come to think of it, even if I don't have the insurance, I've put down an £18,000 deposit on this gaff out of what I have left from the proceeds of the one I sold with my last girlfriend and that'd be something anway.

Further thoughts. If all goes to plan, a cat called Monty will probably waiting there for me, it was her flat first and I don't see why she can't stay.

It'll be the second set of bricks and mortar that I've owned, but the first that's been mine and mine alone. Hmm.

Can't say I'll miss living in Taunton to be honest. I've tried very hard not to be stuck-up Londoner about it, and it's not a bad place, but it's a bit white-bread conventional around here. It's a long time since I thought of myself as being particularly cultured or sophisticated.

There *is* a cultured life to be had in Somerset, but as much of it seems to be outside Taunton as in it.

So if I'm to move to the sticks, I'm moving to the sticks properly. And it's somewhere with a river. That's important.

Let us know when you slaughter your first Gloucester oldspot - I'll be over for eggs and bacon directly

"But I was thinking, it'd be nice to have something to leave to my niece and nephew. Although come to think of it, even if I don't have the insurance, I've put down an £18,000 deposit on this gaff out of what I have left from the proceeds of the one I sold with my last girlfriend and that'd be something anway."

That's the idea - the equity becomes your 'life insurance'. With a nice deposit like that, in a few years it would be something more substantial as house prices rise. At the moment I've got more equity than mortgage, so there will be money for all that J needs - more than he needs in fact. The only issue would be paying the mortgage for a few months while things are sorted out - but there would normally be enough in my bank account to pay at least one month, and I've got some savings which will cover a year's mortgage if it has too. I wouldn't want to see J turfed out immediately.

"So if I'm to move to the sticks, I'm moving to the sticks properly."

You've gone and said it now!

There's a lot of people who come down to the southwest, give it a year and go back. They're the ones who say:
"I miss the cosmopolitan-ness" and "I've taken a pay cut" (F106404?thread=3684580#p43146829 and F106404?thread=3684580#p43188190 respectively).

Then there are the ones who realise what it's all about, it gets under their skin. They're the ones who say:
"So if I'm to move to the sticks, I'm moving to the sticks properly."

Back in November you were going down the first route. Glad you've seen the light. _Now_ you're gonna really like it here.

Paff

Hopefully

In the course of doing all the moving address caper, I've just found out that Wessex Water's HQ is in Bath.

Nice!