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Where there's a will...
May. 9th, 2026 10:20 amRejoice with me! I'm getting my inheritance after all. The clever solicitor found a clause which enables my sisters simply to give me the money and shut down the trust fund, and last night I was able to confirm that this is, indeed, what is happening. (There was a very small amount of doubt because they were making noises about getting the best return on the money, so I had to explain that I am not remotely interested in getting the best return on the money because there is enough. More than enough, in fact. I am not planning to go wild. I am planning to buy a modest house back up north, finish my degree, and live in my customary fashion on the rest until my pension comes through on my 67th birthday... by which time, if I am still alive, there will be a very good chunk of it remaining as back-up, because my regular lifestyle is not expensive, though I never feel I'm stinting myself. I don't need a whole slew of complicated investments. I'll probably bung a bit of it in an ISA or similar, and the rest in a savings account of some sort.)
So. Things continue as normal for a little under a year (there has to be a gap due to probate; I'm fine with that, as I originally thought it was going to be a much longer gap), with the exception that I now know I can definitely sign up for my next course module without having to muck about trying to get hold of other sources of funding to continue after that. I have enough in the bank at the moment to cover that and still have a decent enough cushion to tide me over till the inheritance comes through (I doubt I'll even need that, but if the washing machine bricks itself or something like that, it's nice not to have to wonder how to replace it). And then, next spring, I become a moderately rich mongoose, I buy my little house (though, I hope, somewhat bigger than this flat - that is not a high bar to meet!), I move into it, I carry on studying... and I never have to suffer another East Anglian summer again. It's pretty nearly always a few degrees cooler up there than here, which is fine by me at any time of year, but in the summer it's an absolute godsend.
Of course, travelling back and forth to look at houses is beyond awkward, so what I'm going to do is draw up a list of specifications and ask my sister (who, of course, lives locally) to go and look at places for me and report back. To be honest, I can not only trust her to do that but to spot little details I might miss; I've spent so much of my life renting that I don't really know what to look for in something like a boiler, because most of my experience of boilers is "the landlord sends someone to look at that every so often". She, however, has to know about that kind of thing because she owns her own home, so she'll pick up on potentially dodgy boilers or anything of that nature.
And, you know, at some point I may very well get a new washing machine anyway. This one came with the flat (it was installed by mistake, so it came as a gift because I was the first tenant), and it's a washer-dryer. I am not fond of it. I very rarely use the dryer facility, and on the theoretical wool wash (I don't have any wool, but I do have a lot of viscose, which goes in there) it has a nasty habit of leaving white powder all over my laundry. I'm pretty certain that is the water softener, because I don't use anything else powdery (I use soap nuts rather than detergent, as a matter of fact, and I can heartily recommend them). But it means I need to have at my leggings and my viscose T-shirts with a clothes brush once they're dry, before I can put them away; and I'd sooner not. It's true that, where I plan to move, the water is beautifully soft and I'll be able to ditch the water softener altogether; but even so, I don't love that machine.
Maybe I'll leave it as a gift for the next tenant.
So. Things continue as normal for a little under a year (there has to be a gap due to probate; I'm fine with that, as I originally thought it was going to be a much longer gap), with the exception that I now know I can definitely sign up for my next course module without having to muck about trying to get hold of other sources of funding to continue after that. I have enough in the bank at the moment to cover that and still have a decent enough cushion to tide me over till the inheritance comes through (I doubt I'll even need that, but if the washing machine bricks itself or something like that, it's nice not to have to wonder how to replace it). And then, next spring, I become a moderately rich mongoose, I buy my little house (though, I hope, somewhat bigger than this flat - that is not a high bar to meet!), I move into it, I carry on studying... and I never have to suffer another East Anglian summer again. It's pretty nearly always a few degrees cooler up there than here, which is fine by me at any time of year, but in the summer it's an absolute godsend.
Of course, travelling back and forth to look at houses is beyond awkward, so what I'm going to do is draw up a list of specifications and ask my sister (who, of course, lives locally) to go and look at places for me and report back. To be honest, I can not only trust her to do that but to spot little details I might miss; I've spent so much of my life renting that I don't really know what to look for in something like a boiler, because most of my experience of boilers is "the landlord sends someone to look at that every so often". She, however, has to know about that kind of thing because she owns her own home, so she'll pick up on potentially dodgy boilers or anything of that nature.
And, you know, at some point I may very well get a new washing machine anyway. This one came with the flat (it was installed by mistake, so it came as a gift because I was the first tenant), and it's a washer-dryer. I am not fond of it. I very rarely use the dryer facility, and on the theoretical wool wash (I don't have any wool, but I do have a lot of viscose, which goes in there) it has a nasty habit of leaving white powder all over my laundry. I'm pretty certain that is the water softener, because I don't use anything else powdery (I use soap nuts rather than detergent, as a matter of fact, and I can heartily recommend them). But it means I need to have at my leggings and my viscose T-shirts with a clothes brush once they're dry, before I can put them away; and I'd sooner not. It's true that, where I plan to move, the water is beautifully soft and I'll be able to ditch the water softener altogether; but even so, I don't love that machine.
Maybe I'll leave it as a gift for the next tenant.
