OK so who said it's fun owning a house?!?!?

We've had a couple of things niggling around the house that needed to get looked at, so today I managed to co-ordinate with the plumber and he came and looked at them.

The first was fairly minor, and a new ballcock thingy in the toilet, and we were all sorted.

The next was not so good. One side of our shower floor seemed to be 'dropping'/soft, so we assumed it was a leak, but he said that's not always the case, it could just be the polystyrene that has softened and 'collapsed', 'like a bean bag' was his comparison. Feeling a bit better about this I asked him what would be done, and he said "you'll need a builder, but I'll have a look." Unfortunately, once he had managed to extricate himself from under our house, he informed me it was not good, in fact it was all bad. It seems that because the 'base' had shrunk away it had made some movement, and every time we stood in the shower, it was causing the water to leak out, in between the shower base, and the floor boards, and there in now a rather large, or should I say a huge piece of rotten floor boards. I have to ring the insurance company, and the builder tomorrow, and see what to do next. Obviously, it has to be fixed, we just hope that the insurance company will come through for some of it.

A couple of weeks ago we also noticed a crack in the base corner of our logfire, and after chatting to a few guys on the Trade Me message boards we figured it was fixable, and one of Jon's mates also said he could fix it, we just had to take it to him. I thought that was a ridiculous idea, how on earth were we supposed to get the log fire out. While the plumber was here I asked his opinion, and he said it didn't appear to be too bad, fixable, and yes, you could in fact take them out, and quite easily, so that will have to get done soon.

This really couldn't have come at a worse time! I've spoken about us going to Aussie for a holiday, which we have put on hold till we know more about Jon's job. Last Thursday he came home, and said, 'let's just go, let's go to Fiji next week'. That was fine, but I still had to renew my passport, so we had a lookie around at some deals and didn't do much else. The next day he comes home, and says he's been talking to his mate, do I want the good news or the bad news. He tells me the house we are looking at buying (5 houses down the road) may be in our range after all, let's put the holiday on hold, and look into that more seriously.

Aaargh, now with these bills coming in we don't know where we stand, so the next couple of months are all up and down!

And because I like photos in my posts, here is the house we want to buy