Thirteenth

We've been having some problems recently. If you look back a couple of entries, you'll see I mention that my girlfriend recently left her full-time job and started a college course part time, and took on a part time job.

Of course, we talked this over several times before she went ahead with it, we have a great relationship and are very supportive of each other's hobbies, passions and ambitions, and this was one of hers, to learn how to make Jewellery. She's also an amateur photographer, and she has a very 'visual' mind, if that makes sense. She sees shapes and colours and ideas where I simply see trees and clouds and fields. Although I have a romantic soul and a writer's mind, and I can easily appreciate the beauty of the natural world, she sees something else there, something more that I do, and indeed, something more than most people do. So, the main talking point was not whether or not she should do it, but whether or not she could do it, financially.

Like so many other people here in the UK and probably the US and any other 'civilised' country you care to mention, we are up to our eyeballs in debt. Mortgage, credit cards, loans (one of which was taken out to consolidate said credit cards some time ago), have all mounted up to the point where we were walking a financial tight rope. Still, we were managing to keep our heads above water, just, and we felt that my girlfriend would be able to secure a well-paid part time job.

Foremost in our minds however, was the thought that my girlfriend had been working at a variety of PA and Secretary jobs for several years, and while she enjoyed it at first, over time things changed, and she was simply miserable now. That much had been obvious from the impact it had had on our relationship at that point - when the only thing that one partner can talk about for the first two hours after work each night, then things start to get a little strained.

So. We discussed the situation, and decided to take the plunge, for the good of our relationship, and for the good of my girlfriend's mental health. But not only that, we didn't want to end up looking back in ten or fifteen years time, thinking 'what if'.
Unfortunately, between a combination of us not doing our sums properly, and my girlfriend not being able to earn as much money as we had hoped, we have found ourselves in a rather dire situation. And when I say 'dire' I mean 'possibly losing our house'. However, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. For those of you in Scotland, I suggest having a look around for information on Protected Trust Deeds. For those of you in England and Wales the equivalent is an IVA, or Individual Voluntary Arrangement. I suggest you look them up. For those of you not in the UK, I suggest you look them up anyway, then look up possible equivalents in your own country.

Things are not set in stone yet, and we're not foolish enough to think that this is a magic pill that, although bitter, will cure our financial ills. There is still a chance that we will not be able to attempt to enter into a PTD, and even if we can, our creditors will still be able to post objection to it, and if a certain proportion of them do so, then it will be refused, and we'll be in even deeper trouble than we are now.

Well, that hopefully goes some way to explaining my extended break between entries, I'll try to keep my hand in – I like writing.


P.S. There are still some things that have kept me smiling lately, see link below (I tried to embed the video, but I couldn't figure it out, and it's too late here for me to want to spend serious time trying.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1Eg9gg5KYA[/youtube]