The CMS – Child Maintenance Saga

My Child Maintenance story For a while now, I’ve been hoping to write about something that’s simultaneously personal and political, important and contentious. It’s the subject of child maintenance, or child support, as it’s more commonly referred to in the US. This is the story of how I overturned a […]

Continue Reading

Spending At Last!

Spending at last! We set our spending budget to allow ourselves a bit of fun after having bought our house.

Spending at last! For the last few months, we’ve all been pootling along merrily, more or less, with varying degrees of merry depending on how close to Monday it is. By Sunday afternoon all can tell by my ghastly expression that work beckons… but that’s for another time. Our spending […]

Continue Reading

The Hypno-Cat.

A black kitchen tap and a black cat - here's why I've been distracted recently - it's down to diy and pets.

A black kitchen tap… and a black cat. Days go by, weeks go by, all of a sudden I’ve got a shiny new black kitchen tap and a toilet in my living room. A few more weeks go by and I’ve still got a toilet in my living room. It’s pointless […]

Continue Reading

Pipe Dreams.

We've had two plumbing disasters this week, with radiator pipes and a kitchen tap. Click on the picture to read about our DIY misadventures!

DIY disasters. Young(ish) couple buy their first house – a real fixer-upper – and set about doing the work themselves. On a budget. Hilarity ensues. You’ve seen that movie, right? I feel as if I have. Far, far too many times. Maybe it comes from being a child of the 80s, the […]

Continue Reading