Katie Butcher

I’ve not been forgetting to blog, in fact I’ve wanted to, it’s just that I’ve not had much to write about. The books I’ve been reading lately have been very uninspiring, and we’ve not really been out very much. Sigh.

I managed to slice my thumb open last Thursday whilst trying to chop a carrot, nothing serious but I had my first (and hopefully last) visit to A&E at the Bradford Royal Infirmary. It’s healed very well and I think the skin has now closed back together sufficiently to now try having my thumb uncovered and get some air to it.

We went to the Comedy Club at the Hilton again on Friday night. It was good – just like last time but with different comedians. The star of the night had to be Tanya Lee Davis. She’s a Canadian who lives in America but regularly tours in the UK, and, well, she’s 3 feet 6 inches tall. She was very good and extremely funny.

At the moment I’m really looking forward to having my Nanny and Grandad to stay for a few days during the week after next. I’m going to have a week off work so we can go places. Watch this space. Must get the house looking reasonably respectable this weekend…

A district nurse has been cleared by a court of indecent exposure after sunbathing naked in her back garden.

Another stupid story. Why did this even get to court? The prosecution said the lady concerned’s nude sunbathing was ‘not normal’ behaviour. Okay, so maybe it isn’t exactly normal, but being so offended that you have to rush off and get a video camera to film your naked neighbour is? She was in her back garden, not parading down the street.

The neighbour who filmed her said ‘I have been extremely shaken by this. It has been very upsetting and worrying’. Methinks if that’s the case, he needs to get a life. Aren’t there rules about ‘invasion of privacy’ any way? If he really does find the human body so offensive he should stop peaking over the fence and learn to look away, not do the opposite and focus his zoom-in lens on her. If anything, I think he was in the wrong!

Last night we went to see ‘The Da Vinci Code’ at the cinema. Although I didn’t like the book, I did think that it could probably make a good film. But no, it was disappointing. I wouldn’t say it was a bad film, it just wasn’t great either. Tom Hanks is a good actor, but his rôle in this didn’t seem totally suited for him. I was expecting the film to be much more fast moving that it was – the book is fast paced, but to me the film was a bit on the slow side and not convincing. Sir Ian McKellan had the best part and the film picked up more after he came into it.

Ultimately, I can think of better ways to spend £6.20 and 2.5 hours and I shan’t be bothered about seeing ‘The Da Vinci Code’ again.

As an aside, I put my copy of the book in the charity bag I left out this morning, but I’ve since thought the bin might have been a better place. Now some poor unfortunate person might buy it from the charity shop and read it.

Well I’ve been impressed so far with how our remortgaging process has been going (I hope I’ve not now jinxed it by saying this). The discounted rate on our current mortgage ends next month, so I’ve been looking around online, and we were planning to contact the broker who arranged our current mortgage to see if he could help us get a better deal. In the end the broker actually beat us to it and contacted us first. He found a good mortgage product that suited us (and I knew it was good from my research), and he filled out most of the application for us and then highlighted the bits that we had to complete. Within a week of posting the application back to the broker, we’d had an offer from the lender and mortgage deed through from the solicitor. Ultimately, for the sake of signing a few bits of paper we’re going to save ourselves around £100 a month (and we’re not increasing the term or anything), which is excellent.

I highly recommend Homesaver Mortgages and Loans. Two years ago when we were just starting out after graduating, we approached them as a last resort because thought we couldn’t possibly get a mortgage, but they found us one, and they’re just as great now we’re better set-up and able to apply for the most competitive mortgages on the market. Their customer service is excellent – they actually call back and post things when they say they will, which in my experience is a rarity these days.

I don’t really understand what’s actually going on between the solicitors, old lenders and new lenders, but uniquely for me I’m not actually worrying too much about that, because they’ve just about given me enough confidence to let them get on with it. I guess the fact that we stand to pay them around £1.87 for every £1 they lend us probably spurs them on a bit to get these things sorted efficiently. Finger’s crossed the transfer goes smoothly…

Well I’m disappointed to say I’ve not really been impressed with the book collections I purchased from the Book People just before Christmas (see post). There were two collections of 10 books, one of memoirs and the other of mixed fiction. Many of the authors are quite renowned, but I’ve read/attempted to read about half of the books and not found any to be particularly great. Any I’ve not given up on, I’ve had to push myself to read. However, the books did work out at only £1 each; I think I know now why they were cheap. So now I really have a craving for a really good book to read, but I suppose I should attempt a few more of the cheapy collection books before I ditch them all.

I should add that I think ‘The Book People’ are great, I was just unfortunate that I purchased a collection of books that have proved not to suit my taste. I plan to buy some more from them soon, but I think I’ll be a bit more choosy.

Oh please, how utterly ridiculous!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/4968092.stm

“A football fan will get damages of £1m if England are knocked out of World Cup early and he suffers trauma… Paul Hucker, from Ipswich, Suffolk, has taken out insurance through a broker based in Braintree, Essex and it has cost him £100 plus £5 tax….If England are knocked out in the first round of the competition the insurer will turn to five sports commentators to judge if their exit is premature…. Mr Hucker will then have to provide medical evidence showing he has suffered severe mental trauma as a result to get his seven-figure payout. ”

I can’t believe insurers would agree to this! How ever could a team losing a football match make you suffer psychological trauma enough to warrant a pay-out of a million? I suppose Mr. Hucker is thinking if they do get knocked out it wouldn’t be hard to find a medic who’d agree he’d suffered ‘severe mental trauma’ – which would result in a better payout than placing a bet. But surely if you’re worried about the affect something is going to have on you, you avoid it. Oh sorry, I forgot, it’s the World Cup, you can’t avoid it.

So anyway, aside from the above mentioned ‘saddo’, I’m very much hoping England do get knocked out as soon as possible so all the idiot ‘fans’ will go back into their little holes and stick OUR national flag that they’ve hijacked up their backsides. I’m patriotic, but definitely not when it comes to football, it does my head in beyond belief. And unbelievably, it’s still weeks away. Give me strength please!