Posts

Showing posts from March, 2005

Whoever Said..

..it doesn't rain in Chicago, apparently no-one. It seems I may have made that up..I can say this much, it does rain in Chicago, and then some! When we arrived at Heathrow, we checked the luggage against the allowances, and had to rejig various cases to get them under the limits. Even going as far as leaving some stuff with Jan and Madeleine, to make sure the hand luggage was under the limit. The flight was uneventful, and the movies were pretty crappy. We arrived on Tuesday afternoon, picked up our rental car, and checked into our new home for at least the next month. It's a nice apartment, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, lounge/diner/kitchen arrangement, and a nice balcony. Unfortunately it's a little close to the train line, where the Metra runs by day and Lorraine tells me, freight trains, a gazillion miles long, pass at 3am. I of course, never hear them. The apartment complex is next door to a golf course and has several tennis courts, and my clubs and our rackets are st

Our New Pad!

Image

And Now, The End Is Near....

Old Frankie just keeps popping up, although he was a bit of a tart for major American cities I think. He sang songs about New York, San Francisco, and of course Chicago, amongst many others. I have returned now from skiing, it was great fun, and it is now my last week of work in the UK, and only 8 days till I get on the plane. I came back to a new tenant, my very nice South African lady teacher. Unfortunately I also came back to a hefty repair bill, courtesy of a failed gas inspection. So my very nice lady is having to use fan heaters and the immersion heater for hot water. I had a boiler company out yesterday, and have a nasty feeling it is going to cost the best part of £2K ($3600, bet I could get a new furnace cheaper than that!). Lorraine and I spent Sunday getting her place ready for the removal men yesterday. It already feels like we have never been away. We did have a great time skiing though, and the weather was fantastic, if a little on the warm side..hotter than Tenerife don&
Image
It's A Hard Life!
Image
Ziggy & Caroline
Image
The Gang
Image
Lorraine's Favourite Snow Pastime
Image
Lorraine Actually Enjoys Skiing!
Image
Lessons From The Master!
Image
It's Not Even 7pm Yet
Image
Come And Get Me Ladies
Image
Caroline & Tim
Image
Blimey Tim, Easy Fella!
Image
Another Horrible Day In Paradise
Image
Ziggy's Favourite Pastime
Image
Anita Showing Off!

Time marches on inexorably

Only 4 more UK working days to go. I move out of the flat tomorrow, and hopefully my new tenant will move in the weekend that I come back from skiing. She is a very nice South African maths teacher, who is currently staying with her two grown up daughters. So assuming it all goes through, I will have a good reliable professional lady in residence! As I mentioned above, we will be skiing in Alp D'Huez, 12th thru 19th March, very bad timing, but it was booked and paid for at Christmas, so not really any way out. It will give us a bit of a rest from the stress too, and a good chance to take a load of our excess alcohol to be consumed! I know, let's play a drinking game where only the lager boys get drunk (a skiing reference from last year's trip, for those who weren't there!) Last year's trip was great fun, fantastic weather, lots of drinking and games, oh and we skied some too..Of course I met Lorraine there, so it was a pretty eventful trip. I am hoping for more of t

The Oscar for "Best Rip Off" goes to......

Another week gone and it was time for some major decisions. The votes were in, the envelopes sealed, and the speeches prepared. There can be only one winner for the Best Rip Off Oscar. This week I have chosen a removal company, a letting agent for my flat, a maintenance company for the boiler, plumbing, etc, and readdressed a bunch of accounts. Quotes for removals have varied from $3052 - $8500, and quotes for letting from 10% - 17.5% of the monthly rental (£650/$1200 for my one bedroom flat). The good news is that the nice UK taxman (I bet they don't hear that very often) tells me I can pretty much deduct anything related to the rental of the flat, so hopefully I should not have to pay any tax at all. Which is just as well, as after the mortgage, building insurance, content insurance, rental indemnity insurance, agency fees, arrangement fees, maintenance fees, ground rent and I am sure other bills that I have not even thought about yet, I will be left with about 10p from the month