Thursday, August 20, 2015

2 (29) SO WE'VE MOVED.


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! 

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