Sun and doves

We’re not going to buy the house. It’s just the wrong time for us :0(

Actually I’m OK about it, it does make sense to wait until next summer – after the wedding. And it’s always a mistake to be suckered into the mindset of ‘it’s this or nothing!’ there will be other good deals, and for anyone that knows Cornwall there are so many beautiful places to live it doesn’t really matter where we end up. I was a little bit emotional; this week I came very close to owning my own home and that’s very important to me *sigh*

We went to dinner last night: the Sun and Doves gastropub in Camberwell. The service was fantastic. So friendly; from making the booking on the phone, to ordering the food to saying goodbye at the end of our evening. I had smoked haddock with bubble and squeak and poached egg and my companion (i.e., my partner but food critics always say “my companion”) had butternut squash with goats cheese and sundried tomatoes… very, very tasty, especially mine but not particularly hot. It was like they had been freshly made and then there had been a really lengthy delay before it reached our table. That was a bit of a shame, but I genuinely enjoyed mine and it wasn’t till afterwards that my partner remembered she didn’t really like goat’s cheese and yet she'd enjoyed her meal! We had the tokens from the Indy – £10 for a main and a glass of rioja. I’ve never done the token thing before. I have to say, we really didn’t save anything! My meal was £7.50 and I would imagine a small glass of wine would be about £2.50 so actually the tokens seemed a little pointless and we didn’t feel we gained anything at all, except knowledge of a friendly, attractive (lots of interesting art on the wall) pub. I ordered a banoffee pie afterwards which was heavenly but did make me very full. So with that, an extra glass of wine and a bottle of water we actually spent what we would have spent anyway! I think if we do tokens again, we might try to ensure you get a little extra because I thought that was the point… but that aside, I think if you visit the pub you won’t be disappointed, you may even feel you’ve discovered something of a gem. Just make sure the food is hot!

Eating out and still landed with the washing up!

Last night we decided after being tired all week, we would go out for a meal. My partner choose a local – and highly recommended – Indian restaurant in Honor Oak Park called Babur. It was lovely! The service was excellent, the decor was fantastic and the food was very tasty. A bit more spicey than I’m used to (look, I’m a culinary wimp!) but really flavoursome. We both eshewed starters and I had chicken biriyani with the chicken and rice cooked together keeping everything moist, and a naan bread (In my world where I make the rules, you can’t have a curry without a naan. It’s just wrong.) My partner had a light pancake filled with a variety of vegetables. Apparently it was gorgeous and it was absolutely massive! We also had a side order of asparagus. Afterwards, I had a spicy bread and butter pudding and a coffee and my partner had a peppermint tea. It was just under £50 – we didn’t really have any alcohol except for one bottle of cobra (which was a pint bottle). We’ll definitely go back but we were so full when we got out of the restaurant we thought we might have to take it in turns to be rolled to the car.

We've also been collecting the Independent newspaper tokens - dine in a gastro pub for £10 - which we're hoping to do next week.

When we got in, we started looking online for land to buy. There were some promising leads in Cornwall and Devon so we sent a few enquiry emails. We have a mortgage appointment this Saturday so we should have a much better idea of how much we can borrow and also what the different repayment options are on varying amounts. We’re both quite excited – it means once we have this information we can start looking seriously. Although we would prefer to leave it till after the wedding, I also don’t want to miss out on a bargain just because we weren’t ‘quite’ ready.

Today I had to give in and buy Microsoft office at full price. We were hoping to buy it through work because it’s a lot cheaper and we use the laptop for work – me especially. However, it was taking so long to sort out: with no guarantee that we could purchase it through either of our workplaces, that I went to PC World and spent £99 on Microsoft ’07 this morning. Although for that amount of money I want someone to come round, install the bugger, walk the dog and do the washing up...

I would like to take a break now but the dog is insisting on a walk, the washing up remains stubbornly undone, there’s laundry everywhere and I still have lot of work to do. I may indulge in a cup of tea and put the heating on though – it’s really cold today!