2014 - A Year In Review

A weekend in Prague

I guess it's that time of year where you start thinking about what you have achieved in 2014, and maybe plan for things to do next year. I think 2014 has definitely been the year of travel. I get a bit exhausted just thinking about it. In 2014 I managed to get to both the US and Australia twice. That's a lot of loooong flights in one year. I've also visited Japan, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain. Inside the UK we've been to Cardiff, Cotswolds, the Lake District, Isle of Skye, Cambridge many times and the Brecon Beacons. That's also a good number of train miles.

My favourite trips out of all that lot has to be the one to Japan (skiing there was a revelation), plus the trips to the US (one because it was business class and the other because I visited the Grand Canyon). I also really liked the Isle of Skye and the Pyreneean adventures. I definitely want to do more things like that in 2015.

A week in New York

One of the other very exciting things is that we are in the process of buying a house!!! It's even got a backyard. But this is still early days, I am learning a lot about the strange English process of house-buying. It all seems very inefficient to me. You get all these surveys done, which I guess is common everywhere, one of which was a Radon report. Apparently Radon concentrations are quite high in England, though to be honest, London looks like it has the lowest concentrations of anywhere in the UK, you would not want to be living in Cornwall! I have to say it was a bit weird to be given this report from the lawyer, I honestly had not thought how radioactive gases would affect me if I bought a place.

Dominating Skye

Overall it seems that the process is very different from Australia, not that I've ever bought a place there. Here you get into these long chains, where we want to buy a house off someone who needs to buy a house off someone who needs to buy a house and so on, until you reach the point where either someone has died or is leaving the country. So as you can imagine they can be quite long. Luckily ours is only 4 people long, which we've been told is quite short, sounds pretty long to me though! It does mean though that once you've put an offer in and it's been accepted, you have to wait whilst all the other people along the chain put in offers that have been accepted. Bear in mind that no money has changed hands yet. Once the chain is finished you then get your lawyer and start getting all your surveys done.

Bagging Helvellyn

That's when we got the radon report, and a flooding report and a home buyers report. They even do a check on chancel liability. This is a good one. Turns out you can be liable for any repairs to the church in your parish, even if you don't go to church. Aaaah state religion, what is it good for? This all blew up kind of recently when a couple got a bill for tens of thousands of pounds to repair some church, took the church to court and at the end of everything they ended up liable and with a £100,000 bill. That panicked everyone and so to calm down the rabid lawyers the government told the churches they had to tell everyone whether they could be liable for a chancel repair bill by 2013. Up until this date nobody knew whether they were about to be hit with a £10,000 bill for some random church. After that date the only time the church can add liability to a house is between the exchange and completion period. You can get insurance to cover this risk. It's just completely insane.

Norway in Scotland

Family days in Cambridge

All everyone wants to do is just get a little bit of money from you. Oh you want to check for damp, that'll cost you, you want to make sure the roof isn't falling down, that'll cost you, you want to check if the church is going to whack you with a liability, that'll cost you. And all the while nothing is legally binding, it could all fall apart tomorrow. It's not until you actually exchange that you are sure that the sellers won't just change their minds. The joys of house buying. And don't even get me started on stamp duty!

Anyway I think the new house is going to be our main achievement for this coming year, if we ever make it to completion. Fingers crossed for a move in date in early Spring!

What else for this year? Hmmm maybe some more travel (though probably less than 2014), I'm hopeful for another trip to the US, maybe Yellowstone this time, another good 7 days out in the back-country with a few wolf, bear and moose sightings would be perfect, but no close encounters thank you. There was also thoughts of a week walking in Scotland and another week walking in the Canary Islands (that's for December to try and get us through another winter). I think that means no new countries visited this year. Hmmm maybe have to try and fit in some city breaks somewhere. I think I'd like to visit more of London, I feel like it was a bit neglected in 2014, so I'll have to try and make up for that. I guess we are trying to save a little money where possible to start paying off the house, so London visiting will be cheap. Aaah crushing debt, nothing like it to curtail holiday plans. Anyway I think this is going to be another great year, looking forward to it!

Tree on fire in the Lakes