How it works....and all fine

 I'm feeling a bit fuzzy headed this morning, think I slept a little too well last night - when husband got up at 06.00 (unusual, he's normally up after me, but he had to be up early to take the car to the garage) it woke me up before I was actually ready to get up, if you see what I mean.  We've made a start on defrosting the big freezer, all stuff taken out and put in the spare fridge and our big cool box.  Husband used the hairdryer on the iced up bits for a few minutes, it's now being left with the door open and old towels at the bottom to soak up the water as it defrosts.

A bit more about the L/A lettings process and how it works:  They publish a list of available homes every Wednesday, they stay 'live' on the website until the following Sunday, during this time one can make a bid (express your interest in, in other words) on whichever properties take your fancy, up to 3 properties each week.  Well, that's not strictly true.....you are only able to make bids on properties that the L/A has stipulated you are entitled to, according to your banding and needs (ours being Silver, the 3rd down in rank of the four bandings).  When you bid for a property, not only your banding but also the length of time you've been on the housing register is taken into account by the L/A when deciding on who to offer the property to.  On each property advert, your current position in the bidding ranks is given, should you decide to make a bid.  E.g., this week there are I think 3 suitably-sized bungalows being advertised.....one of them we do like the look of, although we're not keen on the location - in the centre of a very large housing estate, close to amenities but with no nearby dog walking area and only a tiny back garden.  This particular bungalow, should we decide to bid for it (we won't be), gave our ranking yesterday morning as No. 22 - meaning there were 21 others in front of us who had already made bids, who all had better eligibility than us.  That was yesterday morning - this morning, for the same bungalow, our ranking is now 74! (so 73 others in front of us in terms of eligibility!).  So no chance there then.  The property will be offered to No. 1 on the list, if they turn it down then it will go to No. 2, and so on.  However, there are some flats available (we don't want a flat, at all), a couple of which only have, currently, 6 or 7 people placing bids.  One of the other bungalows, in a very rural area (so no different to our home here in terms of area and amenities) only has 13 bids on it currently, so we would possibly stand a much better chance of being offered that one.  But obviously there's no point in us moving to a home in a similar area to here, we'd be no better off in terms of access to amenities (and there's no bus service there either).

I'm actually very happy with the situation now - we are now on the waiting list, but have accepted there'll be quite a wait before we get offered a property.  That's fine, as it gives us loads of time to crack on with the sorting and decluttering and then slowly starting packing, and also to continue to save money towards the moving costs.  If our circumstances change at all.....e.g. if either of our health needs get worse, or our present landlords decide they want to claim back our home, then our banding and thus our eligibility will increase.  But I rather hope neither of those things happens - too stressful!

Right, back to work following our coffee break - husband will continue with the freezer defrost and I have a mushroom lasagne to make for dinner tonight.