FURLOUGH FINALE

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the workplace, a late summer heatwave arrives! After 3 months of boredom, baking and browsing, the furlough finishing line is now in sight again with a return to the office pencilled in for the end of this week. 

Part of me wants to whoop with joy and part of me feels like a lemming rushing towards a cliff edge – is it really safe to go back to work? I guess I won’t know until I get there. I’ve dusted down the hazmat suit, matched it with a contrasting colourful facemask, some chunky easily sanitisable jewellery and leopard print killer heels. I might look like Gucci’s most fashionable mortuary technician but this is power dressing in the new normal, baby. 

According to my Purple Bricks dashboard it’s now been 103 days since our house went on the market and we’re still here waiting for the new offer bus to pass by. It’s depressing. 

Surely someone somewhere has seen our advert and thought ‘what a lovely home, I’ll take it.’ Comes with free neighbourhood cats and that’s got to be a selling point, right? Maybe I should have added some kitty photos to my Rightmove advert to increase kerbside appeal. 

Purple Kitties - the property selling web site featuring cats

South facing garden purrfect for cat naps

Pet friendly - ours and everyone else's

Lucky black cat outdoor feature for superstitious buyers

Come on. All I want for Christmas is a property buyer, is that too much to ask for?

CATS FOR COVID

Punters have been queuing outside restaurants trying to make the most of the Chancellor’s ‘Eat Out Britain’ scheme and our own McMoggies dining emporium has been doing a roaring trade in feline fast food orders.  There are now at least 4 regular furry customers, three of whom seem to think we have a bottomless box of Go Cat in our kitchen and are open all hours. 

What time does this restaurant open?

Excuse me but do you have a reservation?

See they're letting in riff raff these days

Socially distanced dining

Special meal arrangements for gingers

My belly may now be the size of a large watermelon but I’ve done my bit in chowing down to help the economy.  (If I was having a baby I’d be calling it Toby).  I only hope the Chancellor has a Slimming World voucher giveaway after this scheme finishes so that we can all regain our waistlines.  

A minute on the lips, a lifetime of tax increases.  The cynic in me can’t help thinking about the hidden cost to the taxpayer of the Government’s ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ Scheme.  My £14 pound meal for two at the Toby Carvery is nothing compared to the Chancellor’s 500M bill.  I’d definitely want more than a wafer thin mint with that invoice!

Make the most of it my furry friends as Go Cat may be in short supply when income tax goes up.

These moggies have such appalling table manners

Maybe I'll give dinner a miss ....

DISAPPOINTMENT

Bad news, like buses, always seems to come in threes and it looks like the     3.55 pm to Shiteville has stopped outside our door.  Last week’s bad news-bus timetable went something like this:

First bus – Single to Rejection.  This one way ticket takes you to the go to destination for people like me that failed to cross the new job threshold. 

Second bus – Day rider to Homelessness. This ticket is usually purchased by unscrupulous landlords using the pandemic to evict tenants for no good reason and has recently been given to my son who is soon to be taking up residence under Boscombe Pier. 

Third bus – Return to No Sale.  This ticket covers a surprise journey back to the point you started from, a journey which has taken the longest time possible, is a complete waste of money and confirms the unreliability of other passengers on board.

In our game of property poker, the third bus has now dropped us back to Square One as after 8 weeks of conveyancing, our buyers have failed to successfully secure a mortgage.

It’s no fault of theirs and in truth, I feel more than sorry for them as victims of the economic crisis that is leaving a deeper scar in most lives than a touch of Covid.  With the end of the furlough scheme approaching, financial institutions are pulling up the credit drawbridge over mounting fears of mass unemployment and borrower ability to repay back loans.  Mortgage deals are in a continual state of flux, terms changing almost daily with banks/building societies executing more U turns on funding agreements than the Government.   

For first time buyers this truly must be their worst nightmare.  The average loan to value ratio has crept up to almost 15-20%, a hefty chunk of money for any prospective purchaser to find as a deposit on their own.  Credit from the Bank of Mum and Dad won’t wash either it seems as lenders now feel that this does not help borrowers adequately demonstrate their credit repayment capabilities.

So if borrowers are unable to get mortgages, what I can’t understand is how the media can be reporting an upsurge in the housing market?  Who is buying up all these houses and what with, magic beans?

Disappointment, anger, tears, blasphemy; I’ve ridden a rollercoaster of emotions since speaking to our buyer and listening to their latest tale of mortgage offer refusal.  Life sucks!  And no matter how much everyone tries to put a positive spin on things, this year is turning into one of the biggest catalogues of calamity in history.  

But when life knocks you down and believe me it does more times than you would ever think possible, it’s always a case of stiff upper lip and soldier on.  It’s back to the For Sale board for us and fingers crossed that all that tabloid reported pent up housing demand quickly produces a new (minted) buyer for our house.

THE 'C' WORD

And so it begins.  The dreaded ‘C’ word has been mentioned at work.  I’m not referring to Covid which does start with the letter ‘C’ or for those of you out there with gutter minds, this ‘C’ word is not associated with one of countless lewd-phemisms used to describe female private parts.  Fun as it might be to try and list these it would take up far too much time and blog space.  No, the ‘C’ word in question is ‘Consultation’, the process at work which usually precedes the appearance of an empty cardboard box on your desk containing your marching orders.

Page 44 - The Times newspaper 20 August 2020

An article printed on page 44 of yesterday’s copy of The Times only confirmed what I guessed would be inevitable especially for anyone working in the charitable sector.  With no physical fundraising taking place and legacy income falling like Newton’s apple, continued employment for charity staff will be nothing more than a mirage at the soon-to-dry-up Furlough Oasis.  If you still have a job at Christmas, it will be the greatest gift of all.

Talking of jobs, let me tell you that bagging one in these post-apocalyptic times is not as easy as waltzing into your local McDonalds to order a double cheeseburger with fries which you can now do at a discount under the Government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme every Monday to Wednesday.  My recent interview encounter although a positive experience has made me realise that once you are nudging 60, your employment ‘currency’ devalues faster than the Vietnamese Dong. 

Prospective employers will give you all that guff about large numbers of applicants, others having skills that better match the role or that they were specifically looking for someone with experience of trimming elephant toenails (which of course you don’t have) when what they’d really like to say is that you’re far too old.  Yep, one look at your liver spots, wrinkles or pseudo-badger hairdo and in their book you’re on the employment scrapheap. 

Never mind that my organisational skills could plan a Napoleonic campaign or that my financial wizardry rivals that of Bernie Madoff.  Nope, as far as their pre-prejudiced notions go, a person of my maturity is bound to work slowly, spend all their time off sick or is just biding their time to retirement.  True?  Or is jaded cynicism clouding my judgement at being rejected for the job?  If I’m honest, it’s probably the latter. 

Oh well, their loss not mine.  I guess I’m lucky to still have a job (for now) and as I’m currently being paid 80% of my wages to do nothing then I’m in a better position than a lot of other people out there.  More time to blog.  Now where do I sign up for an elephant toenail trimming course?