Thursday, January 04, 2007

House

So we went to look at this place. I was in that sort of adrenal high you get sometimes after a bad night where you feel like you’re positively buzzing, but actually nothing is working properly. Inhibition, for example.

Moved three times but I’ve never dealt with an Estate Agent before. Bless the poor chap, he was very nice and friendly, but he did live up to the stereotype. Convertible Beamer, immaculate dress and hair, insisted on calling me Debbie even when [...] gave me the rather over-familiar introduction of Debs and came out with some smashing lines, such as
“The decoration isn’t in bad nick, but it is rather… striking.”

“Of course, the colours look less vivid when the curtains are shut.”

“If the landlady would only go through and paint it beige, she could put the rent up by two hundred pounds and get some Americans in here.”
I’m afraid he was perfectly serious and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Fortunately, we redeemed ourselves by agreeing to rent it. The room with blood red walls and navy blue carpet was the most extreme, but there was nothing you’d actually need sunglasses for. And in fairness, the colours did look less vivid when the curtains were shut.

But crucially the chap implied, if it wasn’t in a bit of a mess, it would be well beyond budget. It is a detached bungalow, with central heating, good sized rooms, space to park and a bit of a garden. That is pretty damn luxurious for us. It is in a very quiet area, it is close to my folks without being within within walking distance. And despite the wrenching loss of the moors, we’ll be just inside Norfolk, between the Fens and Thetford Forest. So the countryside is very pretty, if somewhat lacking in breath-taking rugged beauty and seagulls.

This is, of course, complete madness. In the space of two weeks, we have decided to move two hundred and fifty miles down the country - something which needs to be achieved by the beginning of February. We don't have our own car just now, we'll need one very soon. We haven't told our Whitby friends we were even thinking of moving. The water tastes horrid down South. Stark raving bonkers.

However, despite being actually quite frightened about all this, I don't have any doubt that this is the right thing to do and that we'll be able to do it all right, somehow.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woo :-). How exciting - it will all be fine. Rides in the forest and so forth. Are you allowed to paint it yourselves?!

BTW - word ident quite appropriate: bjoyxk which I see as a sort of cross between joy and b*ll*cks (for scary side, of course).

Sally said...

Fantastic, absolutely fan-bloody-tastic. And a garden !

Now a suggestion; get the carpets cleaned, before you move in if at all possible, so that a) your immune system does not have to cope with you absorbing other peoples' crud and b) so that the cleaning chemicals disperse before you take up residence. This is, I admit, a difficult to achieve ideal.

Brilliant news !

Mary said...

Woo! Sounds fantastic!

I agree with Sally, if possible it'll be a good idea to arrange to have the place deep-cleaned before moving in. A friend of mine tries to have a month's overlap between the end of the old lease and the start of the new one, just to make sure he's got plenty of time to sort out the new place(cleaning thoroughly, painting if necessary, and any other problems), then move his stuff making several trips over several days if necessary, and then clean up the old place to try and make sure he gets his deposit back.

Attila the Mom said...

You could always get some red velvet couches and decorate in early bordello! LOL

Sounds like a promising move. Can't wait to hear more!

Anonymous said...

How exciting!! Hope you have a few people to give you a hand with all the stuff. I have been moving six times over the last twenty years and I always find it amazing how many things show up in the end waiting to be carried into their new home. Estate Agents seem to be the same all over the world. I loved AJ's remarks! Good luck with everything and keep us updated if you have some time left.

Anonymous said...

Good luck with the move, and take it steady both of you. Moving is stressful, as well as physically exhausting!

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year!

About cleaning in the new home - when I moved in here, I disinfected every last inch of it - just because I didn't feel it was completely mine otherwise. I mentioned it to someone else and he behaved as though I was touched - I thought "hmm, must just be me who does that..."