Dear Diary

I haven't kept a diary for a long time. I've kept them in the past on and off, expecially when I went travelling, but it must be almost ten years since I last wrote to myself. I've decided to revive the habit for 2011. It's time to leave London. I've never really enjoyed it. I prefer quiet and (a degree of) solitude. As I type this now, although my flatmates are all out, I suspect I'm no more than twenty feet away from about four other people, all of whom are strangers. Also, I share a flat, which means I have to keep the majority of my stuff in one room and it is beginning to groan at the seams...

So, I need to leave and I would like to be able to buy my own little home. I am going to keep a savings diary. Not just a list of what I spent each day, that's dull, this is more a personal rambling about why I'm saving, reminding myself what the little sacrifices are for and yes, a little bit of keeping track of what I spent and what I saved.

I recently bought a new notebook in the Habitat sale (last indulgent splurge for the year) and of late, I will admit to having had 'a bit of a thing' for homeware and lifestyle magazines. Today, the two habits were introduced to eachother, along with a pair of scissors and a Pritt Stick. I now have a nice new notebook interspersed with pictures of roll-top baths, wood-burning stoves, storgage solutions, curtains, rugs, bakeware, crockery, blankets, garden planters, designer teapots.... you get the idea. Hopefully, as I keep writing, I'll come across these little pictures of things I'd like to have in my perfect/ideal home and so stay motivated.

The last time I kept this type of scrapbook-diary, I was 11 and I was saving up for a computer game watch (anyone remember those?). I can still remember the weight of £10.99 in ten- and twenty-pence pieces. Luckily, my mother took me to the Post Office to swap it for a pound note first, or we wouldn't have been very popular at the till in Argos...