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I said I'd bring you the results of the sealed bid shoot-out. Our offer was accepted in a call at 18.20 from the estate agent. We had to pay a little more than we had hoped but the house is truely a gem. And the people we are buying from are an exceptionally lovely people. 
It's 13.45. I'm in London and Deborah is in Ilkley.I have just spent an hour talking to Deborah on the phone trying do decide how much we are going to offer for the house in Ilkley. There are a number of people all offering around the asking price and so the deal is that we all submit our best offers in sealed envelopes by 5pm this evening. The vendor will then make a choice. We have done some property price searches and established that we are offering a little over the odds for the house, but let's see. Compared to London prices you get so much more.
I'll let you know at 5.30 or so whether we are successful, and if so post a picture.
Here's a neat little web site. If you need to convert one file type to another - video, audio, stills, docs - and don't have any fancy conversion software this could be useful. http://zamzar.com/
Empty Room
Originally uploaded by markwaddington.
The blogging has not been very evident in the last week or so. It's always when interesting things are happening that I stop blogging which suggests that people who blog a lot may have sad lives.
In this last week I have both resigned from my job and sold our house, (which must score quite high on the things to give up for lent). The emotional and physical aspects of the last two weeks have been exhilarating - packing up posessions and wondering what the future holds have been exhausting. We decided to go with our instincts and take a risk on re-shaping our future.
We decided to move just before Christmas and in fact my son started his new school at Illkley Grammar School in Yorkshire on January 4th. Since then we have been going through the process of selling the house and settling Deborah and Joshua into rented accommodation up North. After an energetic week of packing up, we handed over the keys of our house last Friday.
It is remarkable that once you make a commitment to do something things really begin to happen. We've been impressed with the speed at which finding a school, selling the house and receiving tentative offers of work have all happened.
On Saturday we identified a house in Ilkley which we really love - a delightful Victorian place currently owned by a delightful artist couple. We have put in an offer of the asking price but it has received a huge amount of interest and so the process is going to 'sealed bids' to be submitted to the estate agent by 5pm on Wednesday (the day after tomorrow!) We are presently deciding how much we can afford and will let you know whether we are successful on Wednesday evening.
Ben Cohen, the talented and very witty audio producer, now has a web site. So for any of your podcasting needs, Ben is now available for crafting soundtracks which will, "grab them by the ears".
