The Alba blues

Petrol price - 119.9p/litre, crude oil $147/barrel. New record high.

Poor old Alba. It's really starting to get to her now. This whole housing lark is going down the pan and she feels it's only a matter of time before we end up out on the streets I think. Nice start to a Saturday morning!

I've started putting the petrol price at the top of the blog as I think it's a bit more of an indicator to the state of the economy than the weather forecast was(!). It's the price from the Texaco garage at Winkwell. Seems to rise by a penny a week as I pass it every week on my way in to work. The cheapest anywhere around at the moment is 115.9/litre and that's at Asda who can afford to keep it down I guess. Even so it's not exactly cheap. Diesel stands at around 133.9/litre.

Wow, a busy couple of hours there and I've had no lunch (it's 1440). I'm certainly not used to that. Four viewings with a bit of listening to the cricket in between. Not much to write home about for the first three. Distinctly underwhelmed, mainly at the price. I did mention that you are allowed to make an offer on the house but they still weren't interested. People are still waiting and waiting for the market to bottom out. I think I'll be out of a job before that happens! I wonder what happens if all the estate agents go to the wall. I'm sure there'd be plenty of 'how many estate agents does it take to .....' jokes about! But how would you sell your house? Why do I care? I'm becoming too emotionally involved in all this. Lunchtime.

Alba's gone out to sell a house, no really! I can feel it in my waters. Third viewing, third! Still can't make his mind up. What's left to look at? It's an old people's bungalow for Gods sake! It's horrible and needs serious TLC. I'm obviously feeling a bit ranty today and I've no idea why. Must be the weather which continues to be a bit crap for the time of year frankly. I hope it sorts itself out as I'm camping next week and need a bit of sunshine to facilitate happy camping. So no blog entry next weekend coz I'm not here. Woo Hoo!!

So, even though I know nothing about markets, prices, bears, bulls etc. I do know that the U.S. markets are in a fearful state and chief of state is the housing market, which having been on the rise for decades in now falling flat on its' arse. The main culprits as of yesterday being Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. I can't be bothered to go through it here but this link makes for some interesting reading and as the song says 'it's only just begun'. God I'm turning into some sort of soothsayer. FT.com are also doing some interesting in-depth articles on UK house prices. Bet the media love it, there's just too much bad news not to have a good news day!