AN OPENING SMILE.
HOME.
Back to Wootton Bridge.
Yep, another new start, and none the easier when you're that much
older. Essentially, we must thank daughter Roz and her partner, Nick,
for the hard graft and dogged determination they have put into
transforming a sadly run-down branch surgery into a pleasant and
ultimately, we anticipate, rather desirable private residence. They
did it all in their spare time (both have jobs), so we count our
blessings.
We are also indebted to daughter-in-law Pauline and
son, Neil, for their kind hospitality during the final stages of the
work; for a while we were homeless and only travelled to Wootton to
feed the cat Shadow (unhappily imprisoned in one of the two upstairs
bedrooms for close on a fortnight).
When we finally moved in and
freed him he let us know - loudly for two days and nights - just what
he thought of the entire bloody exercise.
He is now sound asleep in
his current daytime chair. His distress, compounded by spasmodic pain
in one of his back legs, was short-lived. The arthritis/ bruise/
strain/ subsided, the paws adapted to the stony car park behind the
house, the overgrown garden didn't seem quite so enormous anymore
and...sorry, Rosie...there turns out to be a pretty little
tortoiseshell female cat living next door.
Taking stock.
I am taking
somewhat longer to come to terms with it all. In the current property
climate (only in London and the south east can it be called a
market), the ideal prospective purchaser is finding it almost
impossible to get a mortgage. The bankers who buggered up banking and
had to be bailed out, are now approaching minor money lending with
all the confidence of ice skating gazelles. This means that estate
agents (many of whom couldn't sell salt to pygmies at the best of
times) are once again spending long hours examining their
fingernails; in this buying crisis their only positive clients are
would-be landlords eager to buy properties to rent out at the top
rental prices in Europe.
During the last war these profiteers were called spivs or drones: in the Thatcher years they were
unsurprisingly lauded as opportunists and entrepreneurs: now they
have gained ersatz respectability and are described as property
developers. They front television programmes and talk about their
'portfolios.' In common with their predecessors they are chancers
who appear whenever there is a crisis. As people with whom to have
dealings they are slightly less desirable than dog shit on your shoe.
So from whence came the only offer our estate agent conjured up in
the year we were on the market? No need to ask. But, all things
considered, the consensus was that we needed to move. So we did. Mine
was the lone dissenting voice and I said little.
Caveat emptor!
In
the unlikely event that I am alive to experience another move, however, mine
will be the voice that instantly responds to punters who say they
have “done their homework” and follow it up with what Phil and
Kirstie chirpily refer to as “a cheeky offer.” I shall gently
enquire which banana boat they thought I came in on and follow that
up by telling them to fuck off.
I am no dealer, but I am wryly
familiar with the maxim Those who can...do: those who can't...set up
a blog and whine about it.
Ergo: this topic is now closed.
READING.
Finished Terry Pratchett's A Slip of the Keyboard and learned a
little about what made him a world famous writer. 400 words a day,
365 days a year for one thing! I'll pass.
(Have just started his
Maskerade. The incomparable witches are at the opera. More next time.)
Also finished Ben Macintyre's A Spy Among Friends. Silly sods the lot
of them.
A CLOSING SMILE.
Holiday time.
Our grandson and his
family dog.
Who cares about the weather?
Cheers!
