Whitby 2

At long last we have completed our Whitby flat purchase and started to move in. To recap we mortgaged our house and bought a flat at Whitby with the intention that it should be partly occupied by us and partly a holiday let.

Seems simple but it turned into a long running saga; not least because we changed horses midstream and have actually purchased a different flat from our first intention. In January Martin and Lindsey saw a flat they thought would suit us. We visited immediately and submitted a bid. In subsequent bidding we were outbid. Although very disappointed we eventually decided to buy the flat immediately below our first choice. We started the legal process which was initially very slow as the vendor had only recently bought the house containing the flats and simply seemed to take a long time to get things organised, not least because he wanted to set up a legal entity to manage all 6 flats which would involve just the flat owners.

We were proceeding normally until June when the original flat came back on the market. The purchasers seemed to have sensible reasons to withdraw and knowing our interest it was offered to us as an alternative to the flat we were buying. After not much agonising we decided to move back to the original from our second choice  and at a marked lower price than we had offered back in February. In the end completion was done on this in rather a rush before our intended date.

We arrived to some chaos. The basement flat owner is doing major alterations and terracing the steep garden. Some work such as fireproofing the electricity meters meant workmen on site.. One of the host of practical problems was locating our gas meter. We were faced with a row of 6 fairly identical ones which no clear markings. Hopefully after contacting the gas supplier this is being sorted.

Martin, Lindsey, Alex and Ellen live about 5 miles away. They have been very helpful with some of the many details. At present we don’t have furniture other than some donated by Steve, Alisons ex, who is moving in with a new partner. We also have 3 beds, two singles and a double which we have bought to start furnishing the place, the double delivered today.

As the delivery was early we also went with Lindsey and the kids to Egton Show. This was an old fashioned agricultural show held in the dales. In a way it wasn’t too dissimilar to Canwell Show, the only surviving local Midlands show but with fewer commercial stands and vastly more animals. There was a packed big show tent of rabbits, geese, pigeons and all sorts of small traditional country live stock. As might be expected there were many sheep of many different breeds with  Swaledale much in evidence. There was much of a farming area ambience on a very hot day.

Our new flat is in a house on a ridge standing hundreds of feet above the Esk river. The flat is on the first floor in a listed Georgian building and is approached by a lovely sweeping wide staircase. Effectively because the ground drops away steeply it is equivalent to the second floor. This gives a wonderful view over Whitby town to the surrounding moors. It does have a snag I hadn’t bargained with. Leaving is splendid, downhill all the way. Returning we have the equivalent climb which I’m finding quite exhausting. It reminds me of a house in our local village christened Spion Kop ( a notorious hill in the Boer War ). It was named by Edwin Ashmore who found climbing its hill an effort in his elder years.

The dismal science

Maybe because we were poor when I was young I’ve always had a keen interest in economics. Not long after I started writing a blog a reader gave the curt comment that it contained too much economics. I’m an amateur in the subject and the nearest I came to formal study was an evening course at Vaughan College, the Adult Education part of Leicester University. I did this in my industrial year in Leicester.

I was working during the day and frankly by evenings I wasn’t at my best. In fact I remember during some rather boring lectures struggling to keep my eyes open. If nothing else the whole experience gave me a lot of respect for those who studied anything in evening courses. I did all my professional study full time and I’m very glad about that.

One of the first things on the course was a definition of economics. It was defined to us as “the science of the allocation of scarce resources”. I think I would put the definition rather broader but this rather grim definition has led to economics being called the dismal science. I would say the reason for my interest is that I see economics as tackling wealth creation; the reason why some countries, companies or other entities make wealth and some don’t.

Economics doesn’t show the way to a “magic bullet”; a sure fire way to make money. However there as some general guidelines. Firstly as Bernie Cornfield at the height of Investor Overseas Services would put it ” do you sincerely want to be rich”. I’m rather amazed that many people simply appear not to want wealth. I suspect mainly they do but they have absolutely no idea what makes for wealth creation.

 All the anti this and anti that brigade just don’t understand that their actions have consequences. For example there is ( just about ) an argument against fracking but the economic benefits of fracking are vastly greater. The ridiculous argument that the anti’s put forward against the idea of awarding folk in fracking areas a proportion of the taxes raised is to say it’s bribery. Of course it is: the whole point of the wealth creation of any kind is to accept the ( often small ) negatives for the large positives.

There are some fairly well known things which help wealth creation which have rather low costs. Peace, a strong civil society, good education, the rule of law, no corruption, good infrastructure. I suppose one could argue that education is hardly low cost while peace demands good defence forces but most of the rest is rather cheap. One could add some other rather more nebulous attributes such as inequality but not too much. Enough inequality to ensure aspiration but not enough to arouse too much jealousy and resentment.

To return to subject of wanting wealth I suspect that many who voted leave in the EU referendum partly did so because they didn’t want wealth or perhaps more precisely they didn’t see any connection between the source of societies wealth and their own personal wealth. While it is early days we can already see the costs will be large. However the personal perspective is that the cost is small. The impact of disregarding the budget deficit lies many years hence, while the effects of the plunging pound haven’t yet made much effect. It has been fortunate that oil prices have dropped so the weak pound hasn’t had much impact on the forecourt. I suppose it is the overseas holiday maker who feels the pain of the weak pound the most at present..

Cleaning up

A surprising amount of my professional life was spent on cleaning products. I started my practical career after Information work in what Unilever called Hard Surface Cleaning. This was mainly concerned with hand dishwashing. Although I never worked on this myself in a lab with this as its main focus I picked up a lot of know how. So my dishwashing tips

Dishwashing. Immediately after finishing using a utensil or plate put it to soak in water. Cold tap water is fine, hot if you have it. Wash in hand hot water, as hot as comfortably possible. Use the recommended dose of dishwashing liquid, overdosing offers no benefit. After washing rinse under the tap and stack to air dry. Don’t use a tea towel they are crammed with bacteria. Drying with a tea towel is worse than just leaving to air dry covered by a dry tea towel.

If you have a dishwasher that is far better because it can use higher temperatures and a more alkaline solution so the bug count is far less than hand dishwashing. I worked on machine dishwashing for a while and I was impressed by how much better than hand dishwashing it was.

Rather later in my career working on industrial cleaning I had quite a bit to do with vehicle cleaning. I had to be shown the best method. Apply the cleaning product either as supplied or more usually pre-diluted to up to 10:1. Apply with a low pressure spray from the bottom of the vehicle moving up.  Pre spray running down can result in marks which are difficult to remove To reduce any risk wet the surface first. The Sunday morning car wash using hand wash products is often diluted in a bucket. Don’t judge by the amount of foam produced. The best products produce little foam. All a high foam does is make you rinse more.

Then rinse off using a water spray, a hose connected to a tap is fine. In commercial practice water is applied using a pressure washer. The washer jet is normally about 45 degrees to the surface and about six inches from it. Any closer and you run the risk of scraping the nozzle on the paintwork.

Don’t waste your money on the garage forecourt big brush washers. The brushes are almost certainly holding hard particles which will damage the paint. Also don’t waste your money on so called wax rinses. They may give a short term water repellent effect ( like new paint ) but the long term protection is negligible.

There are a few other tips I can think of. In a car screen washer don’t use dishwashing liquid. It will foam too much and not help cleaning much. Use something like a floor cleaner which foams less and cleans better. Specialist anti freeze products are worth it in the winter. The best use an ingredient which prevents washer jet nozzles from freezing up. Before using anything as a summer screen wash try a bit first as some multi purpose cleaners  leave a greasy looking hydrophobic deposit on glass..