Feuds, furniture and dangerous drivers.

Part five and fifteen sixteenths (yes it really is progressing that slowly).

Time rolls on. Having received nothing from the surveyor after a week I gave up and texted him (again). Apparently it had been sent, but not received. I have this problem myself. I prepare a mail, attachments and all, and then totally forget to hit ‘send’. Anyway,  incipient senility aside, I finally got not one, but two copies of the survey, which I have to admit I just skimmed through before forwarding it to my solicitor. After all, it’s what he’s not getting paid for (another long story). In the meantime, I checked the house every day. Much to my astonishment (?) it remains for sale. I am a little disgruntled by this, after all, I have made my gesture of goodwill (and it wasn’t free).

Mercifully, the lovely Geraldine has returned from her holiday and it is now possible to communicate with my solicitor now and again (I’m not expecting EVERY phone call and mail to be responded to, but one in five or six would be nice….). When I do get to speak to him the conversation tends to last a remarkably long time (I wonder if he’s remembered that he isn’t getting paid by the minute? Perhaps it’s just habit?). I have noticed this with solicitors in general, they tend towards the garrulous. So do I, so it can get expensive. So… in the course of my discussion we established that the access right of way could be a problem, and the further West you go, the bigger the problem. We also established that it is customary to list the property as ‘sale agreed’ once a deposit has been paid. Can you tell that I’m getting a little tetchy about this? We discussed a few other things and my solicitor said he would get straight back to me. That was last week and I’ve forgotten what those things were.

I did mail the agent and pointedly mentioned that the listing remained unchanged. He responded that the IT department (in the form of his son) would be dealing with it the following day. That was also a week ago. Guess what….

To recap. I have chased every estate agent in a twenty mile radius, made an offer on a dream cottage, had it accepted, been gazumped, run into a wide variety of the weird and the wonderful, viewed everything from the unlikely and unsuitable to the frankly improbable, chased backwards and forwards, agonised over the options, been offered some very strange things before being offered the current prospect. Had the offer accepted, made a deposit, and….. Ummmmm….

In the meantime I have purchased two slightly odiferous sofas (£1 the pair) and a prolapsed chaise (a bit more expensive) but failed to win the antique French bed, which is probably just as well as I didn’t fancy the drive to Swindon with a trailer.

I feel as if I am stuck in Limbo, neither coming nor going. The date when I am hoping Hans will do the necessary is about a month away, but at this rate it might as well be next week or next year! Combined with this I have promised to make a delivery trip out that way, date to be confirmed. Himself is in possession of a turbo charged (?!?) full suspension mobility scooter, and my mate fancies herself as the rallying type (dog walkers, small children and elderly ladies beware!!!). I have offered to deliver said scooter. Now it would be just perfect if I could tie that in with exchanging and doing all that other stuff. That would be way to easy though, wouldn’t it? It’s all complicated by assorted commitments, like the bloody donkey, who is taking up more and more of my time (between cloudbursts, it’s still raining) and the fact that Himself and myself have agreed to spend a week sailing up the Dutch coast on a delivery trip. Now I don’t want to go telling tales, but everything I have heard about the skipper suggests that he’s a raging dipso and a complete maniac who does alcohol fuelled handbrake turns in close proximity to German warships (or something like that). How he will get on with Himself, who takes the term ‘measured approach’ to a new level remains to be seen.

As if that wasn’t enough to negotiate, I have to ensure that one daughter gets on a plane to Kenya without the other daughter trying to kill her (yet another long story) while also anticipating the imminent arrival of first grandchild (which hopefully will not be provoked by younger daughter’s behaviour), suddenly I feel like I’m tap

dancing on quicksand!

I’m still casting a desultory eye over the property websites, although I’m not really sure why. To be honest, if this one falls through I will give up, invest the capital and drink the proceeds! Ruin Man has been in touch again, I didn’t dismiss him out of hand….

Oh, you remember that cottage/cowshed on the island listed at a knockdown price? I think someone made a whoopsie… It’s gone UP by 10K (in two instalments). Perhaps falling off table man lost control of his fingers?