Positive news?

I am by nature a positive person - I must be otherwise I wouldn't be self employed!

I was reading the news this morning and found this titbit :-

"Looking forward, 29 percent more surveyors thought prices would fall in the next three months than rise, down from 41 percent in November.
Heavy snowfall in December kept transaction volumes subdued but surveyors were hopeful turnover would pick up in the spring. Eight percent more surveyors expected sales to increase over the coming three months than decrease, up from six percent in November.
"Surveyor sentiment does appear more positive for the coming months," said RICS spokesman Jeremy Leaf."

Now that to me is fantastic - surveyors are feeling more positive and thinking that the turnover will pick up in the spring. January has always been a quiet time but if we see increases in Feb, March and April the optimisim and movement within the market will encourage more vendors to put their properties on the market and hopefully work can pick up for everyone.

But the most negative part of it is summed up nicely with this comment :-

"The key issue now is mortgage finance. However, with commentators suggesting lending constraints are unlikely to be eased, it is hard to envisage a meaningful increase in sales levels in the near term."

We desperately need lending constraints to be eased up to start the market flowing again.
Its alot of ifs but and hopefullys but what have you got if you haven't got hope!

To snow or not to snow?

So The bad weather started early last week and since then I have been glued to the weather reports and the websites such as the met office. It finally started snowing here overnight Friday and we woke up to 5cm or so of snow lying on top of the dreaded ice - the council gritters were no where in sight despite all the warnings of snow and the side roads were like an ice rink but I had appointments booked for Saturday morning so of to work I went.

I managed to do all my appointments and only fell over once or twice - injuring my pride rather than anything else!

We all went sledging in the afternoon and the kids loved it, it was the first time the boys (age 3 and 20 months) had been and they really did enjoy it.

But now we are in limbo - you get up every morning and rush to see if there is enough snow to shut the schools and if there is that much snow you then have to wait for the official announcement via the local radio that "yes the school is shut" or you risk life and limb by chucking all 3 kids in the car for a trip to school via the local skating rink (the roads closest to the school - the school is on a bus route but the gritters still don't go down there) and hope that a few of the teachers have arrived and the school is open. Depending on which website you go on we are in for lots of snow overnight and all day tomorrow or a little bit of snow tonight and none tomorrow - complete and utter limbo, definitely a wait and see situation.

I do miss the snow from my childhood (that makes me sound old - although it is my 33rd birthday in just over 10 days) when there was enough to literally stop the country for a couple of days rather than just enough to make it awkward and difficult for 2 weeks.

So while awaiting the news from Cancun I will be watching out my window for the snow........

Nothing of interest

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20101122/tsc-uk-climate-costs-011ccfa.html - worth reading. Its interesting to know that it will cost money if we don't work together to save energy and money!

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Work is picking up quiet a bit at the minute (fingers crossed and touch wood) so hopefully it will continue for a while. The evil creatures I live with (my children) have finally been sleeping through the night so I have been playing catch up on my sleep while I can.

Am eagerly awaiting the Cancun fortnight and whatever (hopefully lots) of decisions are made during that time, I haven't been writing as much lately as I think you will all get very bored with me during that fortnight as I get on my soapbox and rant about whatever is released in the press.

I am sad to say that there seems to be still alot of problems for some DEAs getting their money out of an EPC company - it is a shame and there are always two sides to every story but at the end of the day if you have done the work you deserve to be paid and in this current climate it is essential that you are paid and paid on time! There was another story about it today - follow this link http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/News/Story/?storyid=3738&type=news_features

a little more personal

I have been reading up on what you are supposed to put on a blog, how to encourage comments on your writing etc and have got to admit I am confused so I am just going to carry on regardless and hope that people like it. I would love to see comments and I would love to have "followers" but I am new at this and if some of the energy advice/news I put up on here and then comment about helps someone then thats enough for me. For this post I thought I would put up something alittle more personal than energy related issues.

Its very quiet work wise at the moment, too quiet for me with Christmas looming it is an expensive time of year and I'd love some more work in so that I can have a really nice Christmas with my family. There are several reasons why Christmas is very important to me this year - all 3 of the children now understand what presents are and it is going to be incredible watching them open them, my husband is due to be at home on leave so we will get to spend some real family time together and to hopefully make it a better Christmas than we had last year.

In November of 2009 my mother in law was diagnosed with cancer. A week later she had the full diagnosis - it was small cell lung cancer with secondarys to the brain and liver. She was living alone in a bungalow at this time and wanted to come home from the hospital so that visitors could come to see her with ease. The following weeks with trying to organise care for her in her home and ending up doing alot of the caring myself, and watching a very strong, independant woman waste away were horrific. She died on the 27th of December, 4 weeks after getting her full diagnosis and a day after her birthday. I can only hope that where ever she is now that she is happy and that is pleased that we followed her wishes to the letter.

So after the Christmas we had last year we want to make some happier memories this year.