Nakedness and paranoia.

Part Five.

It’s done! I did it! I made an offer! Let’s not get too over excited though, we’ve been here before, and further…. I’m trying not to get too carried away, just in case this is another ruse (although it doesn’t feel like one, mind you, it took a while for the penny to drop last time….).  I finally caught up with my solicitor, after a week of chasing. Timing being everything, Himself had just left, so I took advantage of the peace and quiet and had a nice long shower and a good scrub, deforested the legs and so on. I admit it was an odd time for a shower, but you have to take your opportunities where you find them. The weather here has been bloody awful and it was a bit cold getting out of the bathroom, so I legged it upstairs and jumped under the duvet (only for five minutes you understand). As there’s a phone next to me, I thought I might as well have another go at the solicitor, so off I went. As soon as I got through (and got put on hold, to the tinny strains of ‘fur elise’) there was a hammering on the back door and the dog did a vertical takeoff (she’d settled down too). Clutching my towel and what bits of my modesty I could get hold of in a hurry, I sprinted back down. There was a bloke at the back window, luckily one I know… I made the appropriate ‘let yourself in and sort yourself out’ gestures, (I was still on hold), but Himself had locked it… so back again, undo catch… back upstairs… I yelled ‘put the kettle on’, somewhat to the bemusement of my solicitor, who had just come on the line. It was a short and sweet conversation, somewhat curtailed by the fact that I was hopping round the bedroom trying, one handed, to get my leg into my knickers… The phrase ‘are you completely out of your mind?’ didn’t enter the discourse, which I took to be a positive sign and we agreed to talk further later. Now it’s possible, in the heat of the moment (particularly the moment when I hopped on something sharp!) that I missed something important, but this happens to me a lot and I seem to get by…so, onwards and…

A more composed discussion later in the day (where my solicitor pointed out the obsessive nature of the German psyche, and why it’s often a good idea to buy their houses) brought me to the crucial ‘go for it’ point. To be quite honest, unless the solicitor had said that the current owner was under suspicion for unspeakable crimes, the gardai were about to start digging up the garden in search of bodies and the septic tank was located in the next county, I probably would have made an offer anyway.

I sent one of those slightly (?) anal ‘subject to contract-without prejudice-don’t-hold-me-to-a-single-word-I-say’ emails to the agent suggesting that actually, yes, I would rather like to possibly buy this house if that’s alright with everyone thank you….

Nothing…

Checked my mail obsessively…

Still nothing.

Bloody hell, it’s Friday, he will be off making whatever it is he makes of a weekend and won’t be back in the office till Wednesday (no, sorry, that’s just builders. Ask my mate!). Eventually I caved and phoned (why is it that whenever I am genuinely interested in buying somewhere, the agent and vendor get all standoffish and virginal? I’m really only interested in the bricks and mortar… If I have county size reservations about a property I can’t get the bloody agent off the phone!! Have the house! Have my daughters! (or whatever the equivalent may be..), there’s something seriously wrong with you if you don’t buy this property straightaway…..).

I got another version of sourpuss miseryguts on the phone. She didn’t exactly say ‘whaddyawant???’ but I could tell Friday afternoon wasn’t a good time to be making smalltalk, or any other kind of talk.. I did get transferred to Him on High pretty swiftly. He tells me mails have been sent, but not as yet responded to. I ask you! What happened to German efficiency???

So now I wait….

Is it another ploy????

Is there another buyer and I’m just the pawn????

Not wanting to be left in the lurch once more. I’ve carried on looking at places. I’m now looking at the places that I wouldn’t have given a passing glance to six months, or even three months ago. This is partly because I have developed a taste for voyeurism. I LOVE looking at other people’s interior decorating disasters. I get to feel all smug and superior as I gaze upon acres of vividly patterned polypropylene and orange hued knotty pine. I can sneer at minibars and home cinemas. I can look at a garden which clearly owes everything to ‘Ground Force’ and the lovely Dermot. Many tons of concrete later and we have an abandoned gulag masquerading as a sink estate playpark. The only thing missing is the discarded smack gear and used condoms.

Ok, so someday someone will look at my offering and be just as scathing, but right now I can enjoy taking the piss out of other’s delusions of grandeur, I haven’t had the opportunity to exercise my own!

Of course there is the opposite end of the spectrum, the double page ‘homes and interiors’ spread. The place has obviously been decorated to within an inch of it’s life. EVERYTHING has been chosen by an expensive interior designer, even the toilet paper!!! I have tried to picture myself in one of these emporia. They look and feel like a cross between a shop and a showhome. ‘This too could be you’ ‘Look but don’t touch’ ‘we have loadsamoney and you don’t’…or ‘we had loadsamoney….whoops’.

Sometimes it’s just obvious that the place was bought ‘off plan’, which is to say, someone bigged it up and talked numbers. As the numbers will testify, and so will the photos, square footage is NOT the same thing as enough space to get a bed and a chair into. Well, not if you want to stand up and get dressed at the same time.

There are a few, a very very few, places that make me wonder if I shouldn’t just blow the budget and buy the dream…. Except that I’m NOT retired and I DO need to maintain myself and the house, and the kids (now and then) and the dog, and possibly the horse (don’t ask!).

Ruin Man did suggest that one of the concrete bunkers in pastel might be suitable as a B&B. He didn’t seem at all surprised when I pointed out that I didn’t like people enough to consider inviting them into my home… Now animals…..