Moving On Up

We recently celebrated my son’s twenty-fifth birthday.  February is usually the month where I scratch my head and say, ‘What would you like for a prezzie?’ and Rob scratches his head back and says, ‘I don’t know.’  I stopped buying clothes for the men in my family a long time ago.  Their ideas of style are oceans apart from mine (indeed, they would say I don’t have any!).  My son’s taste is ‘muscle fit’ which always looks to me as if he’s wearing too-small t-shirts.  My husband’s style is anything providing it’s black, so he looks like he has only one outfit.  Anyway, I digress.  This birthday, my son had a list.
          ‘I’d like a toaster, Mum.  Ooh, and a kettle.  And if anybody wants to buy me an ironing board and an iron, that would be good too.  And I mustn’t forget cutlery.’
          Up until now my son has lived in various digs where most things are provided, although the crockery so far has consisted of mismatched utensils, chipped cups and cracked plates.  But now, after intense saving, he’s about to buy an apartment.  That said, I can’t help thinking how flipping hard it is for today’s young adults to take this step.
          When I was twenty-five, I was living in a two-up-two-down house.  The mortgage had been obtained on the strength of three payslips and a letter from my employer.  These days, a lender asks so many questions they almost want to know what you had for dinner and a mortgage isn’t lightly granted.  My son was all set to buy a new build at nearby Ebbsfleet Village when the lender, at the last minute, said, ‘Sorry, there was a cock-up with the paperwork our end, and your 10% deposit is no longer enough.  They want the deposit to be a third of the property price.’ So Rob had to walk away. The little house I bought all those years ago cost £27,000.  These days the same property is £270,000, which is crazy.  What will property prices be in another thirty years?  It makes my brain spin like the washing machines we’re pricing up on-line.  Which reminds me.
          Did you hear about the man who completed a PhD in washing machines?  He’s now a spin doctor…