The day started with our own version of "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face". I rang the solicitor first to establish that there is not any legal regulation which prevents one from continuing to market a property after having accepted an offer for it, but before contracts are exchanged. Then, armed with this, I rang the agents. Much back-pedalling and explanations that it is in internal 'company regulation' not to do so. When I drew attention to the 'small print' of their letter, the girl said "Well, we are obliged to point out to you that you can legally do it, if you insist" but she would get the 'head honcho' to ring us back. This took place moments after I had gone in the shower but I had heard the phone ring and quickly donned my bathrobe. Yvonne dealt with it superbly! Head Honcho said that the company regulation was to prevent 'gazumping'. My quick-witted wife pointed out that 'gazumping' was accepting a higher offer, after agreeing a sale at the full asking price! Not what we were doing at all. Head Honcho quickly changed the subject and said that continuing to market the property would probably result in our losing the present buyers. "Good" said Yvonne and "I didn't like them anyway". Where would we be without feminine logic?After all this excitement we decided to have a coffee and then go down Nottingham for a mooch around. Yvonne needed to go to Bromley House and I just had to go to Waterstones for a Firefox book. I'm getting on fine with the programme but there is lots to learn. It definitely deals with my Blog differently, but quite OK. And as everyone who uses it seems to aver, there are many, many advantages over IE6. We also decided to have a light lunch in St. Peter's Church Hall again and found to our delight that one of the retiree-helpers was a fellow member of Bromley House; so that led to a pleasant chat. Just outside, down at the bottom of St. Peter's Gate there was a small crowd (first picture) surrounding this very lively 'street-theatre' guy. His act involved lying on a bed of nails and having someone stand on his midriff (second picture) and then jumping through a hoop lined with inward pointing knives. And they were real knives, one of our local 'Doubting Thomases' checked. After that we made our way back to the tram. The right-hand picture is of a plaited-bronze statue which graces the little square just outside the Theatre Royal. She welcomes you when you get off the tram. The tram just happened to be passing - honest!
We arrived back home shortly after 2pm and felt we had had a busy but rewarding day. Warm and sunny but with a slight breeze. Proper seaside weather. I tied up some roses and Yvonne started pulling up forget-me-nots. But she didn't feel inclined this year to go round scattering seed for next year. We will collect some for our new garden though. And tomorrow I really must water tubs and things because I don't like to see plants in distress any more than animals.
I have quite a lot of emails to deal with and haven't really managed more than a glance at WUforums today. But now I'm too tired. I shall prolly wake refreshed at 3am and then will be the time.
I have no doubt that estate agents, as a body, with a few notable exceptions, deserve their good name and high esteem. A pity you didn’t get one of the rare ones. It is fortunate that they exist, however, because second-hand car dealers would otherwise feel very lonely. What would we do without stereotypes?
ReplyDeleteI think I may be losing enthusiasm for the idea of setting up a Blog of my own. I didn’t realise that one had to make choices. I liked it when you bought gas from the Gas & Coke Company, electricity from the Electricity Board, rented a phone from the Royal Mail and the only baked beans were Heinz with little cubes of pork fat in among. I thought a Blog was a Blog. I am fed up with having to choose and chop-and-change. Aah, the good old days, hey? But a credit card does come in useful even though I cannot see how anyone has time to watch more than four TV Channels – even with that limitation, I’m still three months behind catching up with my video recordings.
I like 2 of the pics (the other one doesn’t really tell me much). The ‘Figure in a Townscape’ looks good, and nicely composed, against the (fortuitous) tram background. However, I cannot help feeling that the foolish fakir photo suggests a likelihood of back problems in later life.
Your somewhat Prince Charles sympathy for plant life slightly surprises me. My tomatoes apart, I can watch them wilt without worrying unduly, whereas I always try to water the birds (no, not with a sprinkler).
Don't be put off from setting up The BungusBlog. The medium would suit you, and you would enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteThe choice is not that wide and, in my opipion Blogger wins hands down (and it's free). Sure there are 'teething problems' but the problem is very helpful and one is encouraged to take a simple approach. Like keeping one's digi-camera on 'auto'. The results people get by being complicated don't seem to justify the 'faff'.