I am such a strong believer in gut instinct and I always live by it...

No matter how good something seems if my gut is telling me NO then I have to listen to it and act on it. It has never let me down yet whether it has been an extremely sticky problem or a fairly tame situation I have always gone with my instinct.

When we first moved into our flat we needed a new bed and some bedroom furniture. We went to one of the well known bed furniture stores and looked at what there was, picked out what we liked and then ummed and ahhhed on whether or not to get it on finance. It seemed a lot of money for a bed, two side tables and a wardrobe which put me off, much more than I had wanted to spend so we went away to think about it. A week later my nan called me to tell me that a local family furniture shop was closing down and selling off everything really cheap as they were retiring so needed everything gone.We got a king size bed frame, memory foam mattress and two memory foam pillows for £400 (albeit the pillows were bought a week later from Northweald Market for a tenner each but it still counts in the total!) If we had gone with the finance option it would have been over £2000... we got bedroom furniture a little later on for much much less, I think the overall total would have come to £1000 or under.

This is just one of many occassions when my instinct told me no and I went with it. Funny enough even getting our flat itself was done through gut instinct. We veiwed it after having viewed many more before it and loved it straight away. A relatively new built flat , two bedroom, in a nice area very near the shops, restaurants and pubs. Twenty minutes walk from the seafront or if you went in the other other direction, twenty minutes walk to the trendy Broadway where there are nice shops, eateries and pubs. Nice sized kitchen and rooms and most of all...DOORS! No kitchen / lounge living area....Our flat is like a little bungalow with great storage space for a flat too. We loved it! We again ummed and ahhed and my mum wasn't too convinced as we were moving a bit further away than planned, the cost seemed a bit higher than we planned, etc. etc. (being a typical protective mum which is expected) but it felt right. We had decided we werent going to have it and went to work in such a bad mood but we felt maybe my Mum was right. The estate agent called me up to check our decision because other people were due to go and view it in an hour. Despite having discussed with Patrick that we werent going to do it I said yes! and that was it. It had felt right and that flat felt like our new home so I couldnt let it get away.... the rest is history!

My question now is; what do you do when your gut won't help you out?? When it is staying neutral on a decision almost as if it is saying 'I don't mind it is up to you, you decide.' Mr brain is far too sensible to act on impulse and impulse is all the heart acts on! The gut is your go between who looks at both points of view and makes an informed decision. If he isn't playing ball then you're screwed!!

I know one thing annoying about me in situations like this is I am very sentimental. I do let emotion get in the way of decisions sometimes... If I like something or somwhere too much I don't want it to change. I let my heart probably over rule my head if my gut feelings don't get involved.

So, I will do what I always do in these kind of confusing situations - make a sensible list of pro's and con's! no heart involved, just the brain being practical. That is what your meant to be after all isn't it when you're a grown up? practical?

Well.... only a little bit of the time.