I’m Still Here!

I apologise that it’s taken me a while to write this. Life has been crazy over the last several months and, let’s say things haven’t quite gone according to plan! Let me explain….

So, we were in our lovely flat in Plymouth just living life quite happily when our landlady decided to sell it (as mentioned in one of my previous posts). We were a bit upset as we loved the flat, liked living in Plymouth and were quite settled generally. But these things happen, so we started looking for somewhere else.

They had given us plenty of notice about the sale and the fact that the new owner would most likely want vacant possession but, at the time rental properties were in high demand in the South West and opportunities seemed scarce – we were phoning estate agents about properties that had just been advertised and they had already been fully booked for viewings. This went on for a good month, maybe more.

Eventually, I got the chance to view a 2-bedroom flat in Torquay (the setting for the 1970s BBC comedy Fawlty Towers). The flat wasn’t, to put it mildly, in the best condition but it seemed like it was mostly cosmetic stuff that we could fix ourselves with a few coats of paint and some cleaning supplies.

Luckily (or not, as it turned out) I was the first one to view the flat and as the moving out deadline was looming and nothing else seemed to be in the offing, we decided to take it.

We moved in, decorated and made it our own. It still wasn’t perfect but it was home, and it was a 15–20-minute walk from the sea and Torquay harbour – it turns out that that alone balances out a lot more negatives than you might think!

Anyway, to cut a long story short everything was fine and dandy until about November when the clement, almost Mediterranean micro-climate of Torquay migrated south for the winter and the gentle, warm weather gave way to rain – and lots of it!

We hadn’t been into the second bedroom (our home office) for a few days as my partner had been off work with a  bad back. On the day he was back to work, we entered the office to find an entire corner of the room from the ceiling downwards was wet. Our new magnolia paintwork was soaked and dark. On further inspection, water was dripping from the ceiling corner and had worked its way down the entire wall and along the bottom s of the two adjoining walls. We still don’t quite know how long this had been going on, but all the furniture along the affected walls was growing nasty stuff on the back.

Again, cutting a long story slightly shorter we had to leave. We had lost most of our furniture – it wasn’t just the office that was affected but all the rooms apart from the kitchen and bathroom seemed to suffer from terminal damp, every piece of furniture had mould on the back or underneath.

Having only been in Torquay for 3 months, we couldn’t afford the expense of another move, and another deposit and were left with no option but to start begging family for favours. And so, here we are back in Basingstoke living with family until we can get back on our feet and save up a mortgage deposit. It’s hard to go from having your own space to living like a teenager again but at least we are in a safe, warm and dry house and our little Luna is safe too (one of the worst bits of the whole affair was checking all the furniture when we first discovered mould, and finding mould on the bottom of the wooden ottoman that Luna slept on!).

So, why am I telling you all this? Well, anyone who visits regularly or has stumbled across Dizzy Delights when searching for something delicious may have noticed that nothing has been posted since October or so, and so I just wanted to let the world know that I’m still here!

Although (apart from a few recipes I had in hand ready to publish) I can’t really put out recipes at the moment as I don’t have my own kitchen to monopolise for hours and make a mess in, I am working on some things; a (hopefully) entertaining post series, an ingredient index for the site and a couple of other bits, as well as an absolute ton of recipe ideas for when I can get back in the kitchen and get cooking again! I absolutely can’t wait – every day I’m not testing and refining recipes or working on the post to go with a new recipe is absolute torture, but hopefully, it won’t be too long now before the wooden spoon is back in my hand and there are pots and pans bubbling and boiling away on my own stove!

Stick with me and look out for the odd recipe I’ll be releasing from my stash, and also my post series on world foods and cuisines that should start appearing very soon. Thanks for your patience!