House

The light burst through the clouds in my last post, opening up a small window to the heavens. There was finally progress found on a dusty path. But now the clouds have closed back in, and to be quite honest with you, it's pissing down again.

The offer was finally agreed on Wednesday last week, and the couple had arranged to come back round on Saturday morning to have a second look.

They were a very strange couple. I don't want to prejudice the reader but they were weird. They were in their fifties, and were the academic types. You know the people that look dirty and woolly, and crumpled, but look very intelligent as well. The types that if they only had a smattering of social technique they could really have been something.

The man was tall, and rangy, like an old marathon runner, and strangely he had earphones in when he arrived at the door, and the woman looked like a librarian.

I think we ruined it when we clobbered her with three superstitions in about twenty seconds. Firstly, Dylan ran around her waving peacock feathers in her face (apparently this is bad luck), then I pushed past her on the stairs to get to the loft ladder, and then finally she walked under the loft ladder to get upstairs.

If there is any truth in these old wives tales then we certainly gave it a thorough test.

So, the clouds came back covering the sun when Monday morning came round.

Strangely, Mr and Mrs Strange made a strange decision by telling a stranger (an estate agent actually) that they still wanted to buy the house but they wanted to drop their offer to that of their original bid. The reason for this was that they would need to replace the kitchen and re-decorate some rooms.

Without getting too house proud, the kitchen is perfectly useable, and anyone that buys any type of dwelling expects to do some sort of re-decoration when they buy just for subjective taste. It is not normal to knock that off the price, not when the price has already been deducted from the asking price anyway.

So we have told them in a Churchill type way to get on their bike, and get out of town. They will either come back today with the original offer and realize how uncivilized they have been, and understand our adherence to principles or they won't. If they don't then we already have another three viewings lined up.

I didn't want to get in to a position of accepting the lower value and then lowering it again in a couple of weeks because they also want to do a loft conversion, and install an aviary in the third bedroom.

Nothing is simple, and in the type of market where you can shake someone's hand and then they can quite happily renege on it, you will always get this type of lily-livered skullduggery.

I'm currently reading Yes Man by Danny Wallace and it is a very positive, inspiring book. It is humorous but a good message I think. It was the one that was made into a film with Jim Carrey. So this is also affecting the way that I'm looking at things at the moment.

Also, I just want to say a public apology to my Nan for forgetting to send her birthday card in time. I've just noticed what date it is and this has made my heart sink. So, to my Nan, "Happy Birthday, I love you and the card will get their soon."

Location:The Ave,Alderley Edge,United Kingdom