under another sun

The big news of the day was that we were phoned by Kate our solicitor at around lunchtime, who said all the contracts were now swapped. A huge relief! Very happy about this, and assorted texts and calls from estate agents and so on happened. Thank God. Brilliant news, which we shared with everyone. My back however is in a dreadful state, and I am in a lot of pain and can't really walk or bend much. In the morning I went down to my desk for eight to have a meeting, and did a bit of work. And Lorraine went off to see Penny for coffee at Bolney Wine Estates, as befits a retired lady. Lorraine got back in time to deal with a man who was buying one of our beds too, that she had organised.   Then our great news. Sadly the back, not to mention a bit of a hangover, prevented us from partying like mad fools. But we celebrated by looking at the house again online. I had tried not to look at it much, as I didn't want to build my hopes up. Lorraine didn't abide by this of course. But w...

Yippee! Exchanged at last and we take possession of New Kenny Towers on 27th of November. Waves of relief as the legal stars finally align. The soul-shriveling years of dealing with solicitors and estate agents and property managers that began with me moving out of the Twitten, renting my house in the Twitten, selling my house in the Twitten, moving into the Old Church Hall, trying and failing to sell the Old Church Hall last year, selling the Old Church Hall this year, moving to Haywards Heath temporarily... the end of all that is arriving in a week and half. Lorraine and I and Betty are moving into the home in Brighton that Lorraine and I have chosen together and have no intentions of leaving. The full joy of this is yet to sink in. There is naturally lots to be done -- and another move to be rapidly arranged, luckily only cats and skeletons from Haywards Heath, then the other stuff stored in Maureen and Pat's garage, and all the stuff we have in storage in Brighton. But all th...

Day spent waiting for the exchange to happen, phoning solicitors and estate agents and so on.  We're all ready to go, and this afternoon the estate agent told us the vendor is also ready to go. The last lines of Waiting for Godot  are apposite. Vladimir: Well? Shall we go? Estragon: Yes, let's go. They do not move.  I made my final futile call at 5:30 to the solicitor. No exchange made. They do not move.  When I wasn't wandering in this hall of mirrors, I searched for pieces of paper that have the information Andrew needed for my tax return. When I wasn't doing this I was failing to write. All this inbetweenness is rubbish for writing in. So I finished The Fall by Camus which I enjoyed a good deal, in an existentialist kind of way: a bloke in a dark cafe harping on about how terrible life is and what a terrible man he is. In the end it turns out his endless but fascinating monologue has all been addressed to himself, or at least to his double. When Lorraine ret...