ruby dixie in the press...

bust

elle girl

new magazine

pink

elle girl

the road to location location location part 2...

so... where was i? i was about 5 or 6 months pregnant and we were just about to buy our house. we had paid out money for all the searches etc... paid solicitors fees and signed on the dotted line. we were just waiting for the seller to sign the contract. then... the seller fell off the face of the planet. the estate agent couldn't get him on the phone. he didn't answer emails and for a couple of weeks, he almost just ceased to exist. finally, the estate agent reached him, and couldn't really get much out of him apart from there was some kind of family issues or personal problems he was going through. it was all very vague and very confusing.

i have to say here, that we were just beside ourselves, not really knowing where we stood with any of it and the estate agent wasn't much help. it was definitely no skin off his nose either way. in america, real estate is a totally different game. i guess because there is a lot of commission to be made on the sales by the agents. it's pretty much like the scene in the film "american beauty". there's a lot of personal investment. you get open houses with food and drinks laid on for you and the estate agents can't accommodate you enough throughout the process. but, here,  i was kind of shocked by how little any of the agents we dealt with in the whole searching/buying process seemed interested or helpful in finding or selling us a house, or getting to the bottom of what was happening with our sale.

so not knowing what else to do, i asked the estate agent, as the property was just around the corner from us, whether maybe i should pop a note through the door to let him know that we were sympathetic to whatever he was going through but we still wanted to buy the house, and if he needed some time, that was ok etc... he said, " hey... why not... let me know what happens." so i wrote a note and scott and i headed off to put it through his door.

just after i put the note through the mail slot, as we headed into town, scott ran into a guy he knew. he was this total slacker who i'd never seen before. they were talking away and he starting telling us about how he'd been 'totally high on liquid acid for days' and 'really partying hard' and just laughing away.  as i stood there wondering how scott knew him, he said, " you should come over for a cuppa some day." scott said, "which number are you?" i just knew, at that moment, what number he would say. i waited for it. he said it. and there i was, stood face to face with the person who had been putting us through hell for weeks. the guy who had been avoiding us. the reason we were down over 1000 precious pounds spent on searches and legal fees. the one who 15 minutes before i had so much concern and compassion for, and now i just wanted to fucking murder.

i just stared at him in disbelief and said  " um... we're the people buying your house." his face quickly  went to an expression of absolute shock and he started saying " aww... man... oh no... oh... uh...we really need to talk man... oh... er... i uh... "i'll call you man... i'll call you. " scott and i turned away from him and started the walk into town not really knowing what to say or feel.

it turned out scott really didn't know him. he was a friend of an acquaintance that he had chatted to only a week earlier at a pub. it was weird that when they talked at that time, the subject so easily could have come up. scott said he then remembered that the guy had said at the time they spoke that he was "keeping a low profile" and "avoiding some people". he never called us and the acquaintance heard about what was going on and told him he needed to. that what he was doing was really not very cool. so he did. he just decided to bail out. for no reason really. that was that.

so, we began looking for houses again. but now, we were a bit further down the road and hastings was being touted here and there as "up and coming" and prices were on the rise. there was nothing in our budget. and we were really getting depressed and convinced we had missed our chance to get something we loved with what we could afford. now we were a bit desperate! stay tuned....

location location location...

a few people have emailed me to ask if scott and i were the couple featured on the tv programme "location location location", and...we were...so i thought that i would write about the experience!

scott and i were living in london, or as they said on the show, "living the london high life" (that always made me laugh!) and loving it. both being self-employed, we had great lives with a lot of flexibility and made the most out of that! but we were each living in studio flats and were paying crazy money for what we had in reality. then we started to hear tales of greener pastures.

a few of scott's illustrator friends had moved to hastings from london and it seemed like it was starting to become a nice little community of interesting and creative people. when one of his friends got married, we came to hastings for the wedding and we were completely amazed at how much bang you got for your buck! in london, to rent my studio flat, 2 rooms and a shared bathroom that was down the hall, cost £585 a month. in hastings, that got you a 3 bed house with a garden! and it wasn't that far to london on the train. but best of all, it was by the sea. after a night of total hedonistic bliss at the reception, the view on walk over the west hill was breathtaking and in an instant, we were both sold. so we packed up and headed for hastings.

view from the west hill

we rented a lovely little house on the west hill and were keeping an eye out for a property to buy. i had my heart set on a victorian house with a lot of light and space for working, but it became apparent that there were a lot of people looking for the same type to property to buy within our price range and they were either getting snapped up or they were in need of a lot of tlc, which was beyond our budget. then, i found out i was pregnant and as we were slightly cramped in our little house, each needing a studio space for our work, it became a bit more desperate to find a place.

i was getting really discouraged. my life became totally immersed in the world of estate agents and property websites. i spent months trawling day after day hoping something would magically appear within our budget. prospects were really grim when all of a sudden, we found the place that made our hearts sing. it had that feeling, that warmth we were both looking for. and it was on the next street over from where we already were. we immediately put in an offer and began the buying process. but then... here's the cliff hanger...it all went to hell... stay tuned for part 2!

ruby dixie in grazia magazine march 17th issue!

the ruby dixie
 "portrait of a lady" bracelet is in this week's grazia magazine! sweeeet!

new treasure!

here are a few of the latest additions on the ruby dixie website...

and for the music lovers...

scottie's klutz book

YAY! the book that scott illustrated on `'how to draw" for the children's book company KLUTZ has finally hit the shelves in america! it even has a little video. check it out at: www.klutz.com/Mix-Match-Drawing?merch_location=New From Klutz Listing

and the winner is....