Castle Johnson Blog Page

Bay Home Services

My Dad is in the process of setting up his own business. Last week I completed a design for his website and put it live. Please visit www.bayhomeservices.co.uk to see the complete article.

Breaking the ice

After a great Christmas, we've hit the ground running back at work. The workload has been piled on again, in respect to a show that is coming up so it's all go. It's been proving alot harder to get into work more than anything. The ice has been causing major problems on the pavements. Those driving into Lancaster have had difficulty also. Can't complain though after this Christmas period, I've had a great time.

The Christmas break was well needed. Got to catch up with friends Christmas eve in Lancaster. Lots of alcohol was consumed but that's another story! Also had the chance to go up to Scotland to see my Mum. It was so good to see all the family again. My uncle threw his usual Boxing Day party, it wouldn't be Christmas without it now!

With the start of the New Year, I finally arranged to have my brace fitted for my teeth. I will be a fully fledged metal mouth by 11th February. A chap I chat to on Twitter has suggested I do some before and after pics so I will upload the "before" onto here just before my appointment. Will be very nice to see the outcome.

New Home

Tomorrow I finally get the keys to my new home. It's safe to say I'm very excited! Considering my house went up for sale at the end of January I haven't done too badly in comparison to some of the poor souls suffering in the recession.

I managed to profit on my old house by £4,000 and bought the house I'm moving into for a substancial amount cheaper than it was originally advertised. The seller had originally marketed at £115,000, dropping to £105,000 just before I viewed the property. I secured it for £102,000 which is very low in comparison with the neighbouring properties.

So a bit of a mixed bag really, consumed alot of time in selling, but got a bargain in buying. More importantly though, tomorrow the stress is finally gone and I can get on with building my home.

Weight, lifted

Things have certainly died down lately on all fronts - managed to hit all our targets in the office, secured the purchase of my new house and can now reclaim back my hours off for some well-earned relaxation and a few cheeky beers.

Move out of my house on the 16th October, only really need to sort out my change of address and move out on the day so fairly organised. Still no date on the purchase as of yet, hope to find out in the coming days. Not looking good for the purchase to be completed by the 16th but a week or two afterwards is looking good.

Looking like I will be moving in with a mate of mine who has offered to put me up in the meantime, Stuart. All my stuff is gona get dumped in his garage and I'll get his loft room to crash in. We've spoke about redeveloping my uncle's aikido website while I'm there so hopefully will be able to get him a new swish design before I start moving again.

Before my move though I got two big nights out coming. This weekend I'm off to Manchester for my mate Peter's birthday. If I know Peter, it's going to be a heavy one! The week after I'm going to Liverpool to see off my mate Dan, who leaves for Australia on the 22nd. The group of us that are going used to visit Liverpool quite often a few years ago so it will be just like the old days.

Glad to see the back of that stress, things are looking up.

Stress!

Work has been piled on at the moment. Been swamped with jobs for an up and coming event called The World of Learning conference and exhibition. It's a chance for AccessPlanIT showcase all of its features and basically market and sell the product. A number of new features needed to be added before the event which is basically how I've spent the last three weeks INCLUDING weekends!

I'm also in the middle of moving house at the moment in the midst of all this work but I also received news that my purchase had fallen through. If that wasn't enough the buyers were threatening to pull out of the sale of my house. It had taken me 9 months to get to this stage, the hardest part getting the asking price for my sale so there was only one thing to do: give the buyers a completion date and find a house as fast as possible. Cue massive stress! In a little over a week however I'd found a place similar to the house I'd previously secured and also for less money (pictured right). There is also less work involved in getting the place looking good so all in all things seem to be taking a turn for the better... until of course the results of the valuation survey came back and found penetrative damp. The bank now want a timber and damp report carrying out on the house which has been arranged for this week.

The bank are contemplating retention on the mortgage if the damage is extensive. I'm relying on it being minimal and praying that I can get in for 16th October. Otherwise I'm homeless! If I pull this off by the 16th it will be the mother of all saves! Wish me luck!

Castle Johnson goes live

My website has finally gone live. Hope that this will be the start of many websites that I am involved with. The website acts as a single point of access to all my online channels. I have also added a contact page so that it's easy to get in touch.