Oh dear!

Petrol 115.9/litre

Oh crumbs, it's all going pear-shaped over here. David's been let go which is why I'm in the office on a Wednesday. Apparently he got the boot on Monday when Tony came in and told him. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised but it's a bit of a shock nonetheless. I think he just joined David Doyle at completely the wrong time. Nothing to do with his performance, just that as the highest earner he was first to go. On that premise I'll be the last one out the door! I feel quite gutted for him. I wonder what he'll do. Think I might give him a call tonight.

Ironically, July had been the best month of the year so far (doing nearly 50% worth of the sales from January) and he seemed quite buoyant about that on Saturday. Obviously others didn't see quite that way! In fairness although it was a good month it didn't really make up for the previous seven!

Apparently they've extended the lease on the office until January time (the lease was up in October originally) which I guess has staid the hour of execution for the time being. Not exactly holding my breath though. The only good thing is that I might get some more work out of it for the time being, and after being turned down for a job at the beginning of the week I could do with it.

Hard times it truly is and I still think this is really just the start of it. What a prophecy of doom I really am. Mr. Pessimistic. But it's very difficult to see past it at the moment. There must be an end but best bets are that we've got a couple of years until things right themselves and possibly nothing will ever be the same. Which actually in the housing market would be no bad thing as it was stupidly over-priced which people got to see as the norm, which it most certainly wasn't. Anyway these things come in cycles so it will bottom out at some point and rebuild itself...... and then fall down all over again in years to come!

So, I'm working today. Alba's out on viewings which is why I'm doing this now. Only three viewings today. God she must get bored during the week. At least at the weekends its only seven hours. Week days are nine hours. Think I might take a bit of a lunch break today.

At least the petrol prices are heading in the right direction at the moment. A barrel of oil fell to it's lowest price for three months today ($118/barrel). This in turn has sent the stock markets up.
ITV have just announced their figures for the first half year and they're down by 28%. Most of that is advertising which is a sure sign that companies are taking a long hard look at their budgets at the moment because advertising is always one of the first things to go.

I'm hopefully that our mortgage lender follows suit with other lenders and cuts its' rates today. that would be a big help in the household! The Abbey and Halifax have done it so far so I'll keep my fingers crossed!