Is it? Isn't it?

We have found 'our house.' I am anxious about calling it 'our house' because it might be the kiss of death on the whole malarkey, but then I want to show some faith in the Universe that this house we have found has been put our way because it has been waiting for us.

Enough babble! We are travelling 5 hours at the weekend to go and and see this house. It is down a track and is reachable by four wheel drive only so we shall need to change our car. It has a large garden somewhere beneath the undergrowth that would give a jungle explorer the heebie- jeebies so we would need to get scythes and chainsaws and flamethrowers. It has a pigsty so we would need to get some pigs. It has a cowshed, so we would need to get some cows.

'No cows!' says Andy. He knows I would like a cow, but he is probably right, because this house is also on a hill overlooking a lake and the kind of cow I would get would likely be a dozy sort who would roll down the hill and plop into the lake.

This house has a wood burner and a very old range cooker. A VERY old range cooker. This house is a tip. It needs work doing on it in a renovatory sort of way. It has electricity. It has a private water supply. We shall need several giant skips before we can get anywhere near the nitty gritty renovations.

I can see geese walking through the garden of this house. I can see me and Andy sitting by the front door watching the sun go down over the lake. Of course, we'll be a bit stuffed if the sun goes down at the back of the house, but then we won't be put right on these assumptions until we visit.

I keep telling myself not to get too excited about this house. But I can't help it. Neither can Andy.

Would You Like..?

So, about five minutes after I posted yesterday's blog, the phone rang. It was the estate agent.

'The couple who viewed at lunchtime,' he said, 'absolutely love the house. They would like to make an offer.'

And he told me what the offer was. And it was considerably more than we had anticipated. And certainly more than one agent suggested we would achieve, so what did he know....HA!

'The couple have met with our mortgage advisor,' continued the agent, as I tried not to fall off the top of the stairs where I was perched, so excited was I, 'and all seems good to go. We have to do a few more checks on Monday and obviously the house will stay on the market until everything is finalised, but all is looking good.'

Well!Who'd have thought it!?

Obviously, we can't get too excited because an offer does not constitute an actual completed sale, and we've been stung before with people making an offer and then vanishing at the eleventh hour, just as the solicitors were poised to take their gallon of blood.

But we allowed ourselves a tiny 'WHOOPEE!' and had an indulgent evening eating chips and searching for houses on the internet because we have some sort of figures to work towards now.

We went through our list of twenty or so saved properties and deleted a third of them because they suddenly seemed wrong or were obviously too expensive. We found a couple of extra properties to add to the list. We tried to be restrained and sensible and level headed, which didn't always work but that could have been due to the consumption of a chocolate and courgette cake that Andy made in an attempt to whittle down the hundredweight of courgette we currently have blocking up access to the fridge.

Most of all, Pandora Kitten was very smug with her success at approving a nice family, and intends to set up a new business called 'Select Your House Buyers Via The Media of Kitten,' which I am not sure will take off especially with such a clunky title.

'It's a work in progress,' she said.

How To Sell A House

Firstly, before you all get too excited, I have to say that we haven't actually sold the house yet. We've been on the market for a week, we've had three viewings, we've had no feedback or offers. But that's okay, because it is early days and we aren't in a hurry, although we have accumulated a fairly hefty list of 'potential MMMs Mk 2s' that we are going to view as soon as we have got a buyer.

Anyway, viewing Number 2 was yesterday at 4.30 which meant I had to make a quick exit from work to be here when the potential buyers arrived. And 'tis from this experience that I have constructed the Much Malarkey Manor Guide to Getting Your House Ready For a Viewing.

1) Arise at 5.45 on the morning of the viewing to incorporate a preliminary tidy-up before going to work. This to include the clearing up and putting away of all breakfast accoutrements, sweeping the kitchen and hallway, tidying up newspapers and magazines, doing the ironing and changing the litter in the cats' litter trays.
2) Go to work.
3) Undergo severe mental strain as 90 + small children cross your classroom threshold during the day and make unnecessary amounts of noise associated with 'Start-Of -New-School-Year-itis.'
4) Plan to leave work dead on 3.30 to drive home and give time for secondary tidy-up in case gremlins had a party whilst you were at work/ you overlooked some glaring obvious in-need-of-tidy-up zone that you missed this morning because it was 5.45 and you were still half asleep/ you were burgled during the day.
5) Get caught up by colleagues making stupid requests, so don't leave work until 3.45.
6) The usual 15 minute drive home takes 30 minutes because the stupid town in which you live is being dug up by the stupid gas board and all stupid road capacities have been reduced by 50%, and the stupid traffic is heavier than usual because it is Friday afternoon and everyone is leaving work to start their stupid weekends early.
7) Arrive home at 4.15. Check kitchen floor and all carpets for random acts of cat sick.
8) Open all windows because it is 80 degrees and more, and the place is doing a passable impersonation of a high-efficiency sauna.
9) 4.29 - Clear up poo deposited by Pandora Kitten in litter tray. Spray area liberally with air freshener. Waft back door open and shut to increase fresh air flow.
10) 4.31  - Clear up poo deposited by Tybalt in litter tray because when one cat poops, another is sure to follow. Spray area liberally with air freshener. Hope viewers might be a bit late.
11) Threaten Phoebe with withdrawal of sustenance if she decides to join in the obviously deliberate act of cat-poo sabotage. Phoebe responds with, 'Wot? I'm 83, you know...'
12) 4.35 - Notice kitchen window is in dire need of cleaning. This wouldn't normally be obvious except for the stupid sun shining through it and highlighting the stupid accumulation of dust, cobwebs and dead spiders.
13) Wonder if there is time to clean aforesaid window - wondering is halted by knock on door.
14) Show viewers around. Answer questions about parking, age of house and building work, schools, traffic etc etc.
15) Try to avoid showing irritation that viewers have extended conversations with each other in a foreign language, which I think is just rude.
16) Try to avoid showing annoyance that youngest child of viewers is teasing Pandora Kitten who has flattened her ears, has a wild look in her eyes and is giving the appearance of a cat that is going to launch herself at him any minute NOW and rip his face off if he keeps irritating her. Think, little sod deserves it if she does. Thinks, perhaps HRT might be appropriate, at least whilst the house is waiting to be sold.
17) Say 'thank you' and 'goodbye' to viewers, shut the door and make cup of tea.
18) Think, 'not bothered if they don't make an offer because if Pandora doesn't like them they are clearly the wrong people for our house.'

Whereas today...

'I liked that family who came to visit at lunch time,' says Pandora Kitten, who schmoozed them all and got schmoozed back.
'I know,' I say. 'So did I. I think they would suit this house. I would feel happy leaving this house in their guardianship.'

Which I know is the wrong way of looking at the process, because it is sentimental and not practical and it is, after all, just a house.

But it's the way I feel now, and Pandora Kitten agrees.

Like Buses

Three house viewings booked in over the next four days - one tomorrow; a couple who have already sold their house and are travelling from Sussex to view. I want to shriek, 'Why are you leaving Sussex to move to Kent? Don't you know it'll be a concrete jungle within two years?' But I won't because they are viewingwhen I am at work and Andy will be showing them around and he is far more tactful than I.

The second is a gentleman who is a cash buyer and he is viewing on Friday. A cash buyer? I suspect that if he makes an offer it will be a silly offer. Like £12.75.

The third is a couple, mortgage agreed, viewing on Saturday. No more clues than that.

Cor...it's all happening.

Tomorrow I am delivering a training session at school on how to structure an outstanding Ofsted lesson using interactive activities and continual assessment. The vice principal asked me to run it because he thinks I am fabulous. I am thinking if it goes well I could start a new career as an educational advisor and earn great wodges of cash for doing very little other than prancing around telling other teachers how to suck eggs.

 13 people have signed up to the session, which means I have the biggest audience to deliver to out of all the training sessions on offer.
'Well,' said Neil, a signed up attendee, 'at least you'll be entertaining.'

No pressure then.

I have decided to teach a lesson on poetry as if the staff were actually year 8 students. Jo, who is also attending my session because she thinks she will be entertained, is planning on role-playing the student who messes around in class.
'No, you blooming' well won't,' said I. 'You'll blooming' well behave yourself.'

Anyway, I have found some rude limericks to use a starter activity. And I shall make sure I have my whistle on hand in case they start running riot.



I'm not having any messing around in my lesson, especially from a bunch of colleagues.

For Certain

If ever I needed reassurance that our Grand Malarkey Manor Adventure Move is the right thing to be doing, I got that reassurance today.

Because today I went back to work. And came home with a headache and the urge to eat at least half of the enormous chocolate cake Andy made yesterday. I didn't but it was a bit of a struggle.

It was all 'Ofsted...blah, blah...exam results....blah...lesson planning...blah di blah...target setting....achievement...blah, blah, blah...energy, focus, blah, blah BLAH!'

And the children don't even come back until Thursday!

And returning home, which means I have to travel across the centre of a town that is in the middle of a year long programme of gas replacement road works, and being on the receiving end of the road rage of an idiot thug in a stupidly big car who kept beeping his horn in order to make me jump traffic lights and sit in yellow box junctions because he was fed up with the non-existent speed of traffic progress, and arriving home to hear three pitiful specimens of humanity sloping up the road effing and blinding and spitting and dropping rubbish in the form of sweet wrappers, well, I have had enough and living in the middle of nowhere has massive appeal now, I don't care what anyone else says.

(I didn't give in to the road rage moron, by the way. In fact, to my shame, I gestured out of the window and shouted  't***er' at him as he roared past and cut up another two lanes of traffic. But that is a symptom of being a teacher, I'm afraid. You spend all your day keeping patience, biting your tongue until it bleeds and tolerating some awful behaviour so tempers tend to boil up and spill out on the way home. Okay during winter when the windows are shut and the stereo is on loud; not so good when it's boiling hot and the traffic is nose to tail.)

Estate agent activity today - zero. We have been internetted, and I am in permanent cleaning frenzy mode - 'Don't walk on that/ sit on that/ touch that; I've just CLEANED it!'

Last night I trawled the entire width and length of Lincolnshire, and found 5 properties for our potentials list. Got very excited about an old coach house. Trying to contain excitement. I think this selling malarkey might be a bit of a long old slog.

Options, Pink Ties and Laura Ashley Malarkey

I like making plans. Making plans makes me feel like I have some control over any given situation. I suppose this means I am a control freak, but anyway, there is nothing as satisfying as sitting down with a pen (special girlie or otherwise) and a clean sheet of paper and saying, 'Right, this is what we are going to do, this is THE PLAN,' and then trying to ignore the sound of God cackling in the distance.

Therefore, Andy and I have decided not to have A PLAN vis a vis the Much Malarkey Move. We have, instead, decided to adopt a series of 'options' which are being listed in our 'option' book because when one starts dealing in 'options' one becomes befuddled and confused, because 'options' have a habit of branching off into many directions, where A PLAN does not.

'Options' are the lemon balm of the herb world, where as PLANS are the bay tree. You pop a tiny plant of lemon balm in your back garden because it looks sweet and manageable and incapable of causing any sort of herbidacious havoc and one year later it has spread like a triffid and you are finding bits of it sprouting in parts of the garden you never knew you had. Whereas you plant a bay tree and it's still where you put it three years later, looking about an inch taller if you're lucky and threatening to shed ALL its leaves at the first hint of a frost.

(Herb Analogy of the Day - tick!)

So, on Day 2 of the Selling of the House Phase, here are the current options for your delight or derision:

1) we sell the house, we decide to stay in Kent in order to assuage feelings of guilt from leaving family and friends behind, we extend the mortgage because to buy a cottage in the middle of nowhere in Kent these days you need a fairly hefty budget. This is because the middles-of-nowhere that used to exist in Kent in proliferation are being built on like building is going out of fashion, and all the hamlets are becoming villages, which are becoming towns which are becoming extensions of London. I blame John Prescott (who, for those Much Malarkey Manor Guests who hail from across the seas, was Tony Blair's Deputy Prime Minister. Looks of a dishevelled bulldog, manners of a fart, brains of a kidney bean.)

2) we sell the house and go into rented accommodation for six months so we can take our time looking for THE RIGHT PLACE and continue in our jobs a while longer to get a little more money behind us for wherever/ whatever we end up doing. Obviously, we shan't want to pay out more rent than our current mortgage because that would be defeating the object. Plus, we need to find somewhere that will allow us to take the cats with us. And it would mean having to move twice in a relatively short space of time. Moving house is supposed to be the third most stressful experience in life after bereavement and divorce; back in 1997/98 I experienced all three of those things in the space of three months and I survived okayish. Went grey, but other than that it was a character building experience. Two house moves in a year? Doddle!

3) we sell the house and buy, outright, one of the four potential barn conversion projects we've found on the interwebbly. We then live in rented accommodation/ mobile home/ caravan/ tent (according to finances and strength of loin/ any work we can fall into) next to the barn and plunge ourselves into the world of renovation and self-build.  Oddly, this is the option we are preferring at the moment, because it would render us mortgage free. And possibly hot water/ toilet/non-leaky roof free. And open to the elements, rats and the lurgy. We think we'd have enough funds to get a renovation started, but we'd have to find work in order to fund the completion of a renovation either bit by bit or by going to see the bank for a short-term loan. "What can we afford to do this month, darling?" "We can fit a front door and a tap to the kitchen sink but only if we live off beans on toast and dandelion leaves."

4) we scour the ENTIRE country and buy a house outright with the proceeds from the sale. The houses are out there. It can be done. Whether we can get jobs in those areas is another matter. Some of them look like education and caring for your animals have yet to emerge from the depths of cave life. Paying the bills thereafter could be a problem.

I think that's it on the option front.

And how did we choose our agent? (Yes, we've decided against the selling-it-ourselves route because I suddenly remembered I'm back to work tomorrow and probably won't have the stamina for teaching AND managing a house sale at the same time. Not without ending up sitting in a corner and banging my head against a wall to relieve the pain by October half-term anyway.)

Well, we saw three agents and narrowed it down to two fairly quickly. Over a walk and lunch in town, we assessed the pros and cons of each remaining agent. Basically they offered the same thing for the same money. So it came down to personality. And the agent who won?

The guy in the lovely pink tie who stepped into the hall and said, 'Ooooh, it's very Laura Ashley, isn't it?'

And any man in his late twenties who knows about Laura Ashley wallpaper, must be able to sell a house.

Surely??

Much Malarkey On The Move

After several weeks of 'shall we, shan't we?' and indecision on a very grand scale, we have done it! For today we put the house up for sale - Much Malarkey Manor is on the Move!

'What do you mean, we are on the move?' says Tybalt.
' We are selling this house and moving somewhere else,' says I.
'Where?' says Tybalt.
'We don't know,' says I, because we don't.

For we have decided that now is the time for a grand Malarkey adventure!

Some might call it craziness. Some might call it mid- life crisis. Some might say, why put your safe little life at risk in pursuit of a crazy, countryside dream?

Well, we would say, if we don't do it now, we will become that couple in twenty years who will be saying to their friends, 'We really wanted an adventure when we were younger, but it's too late now. Ah well.'

And we don't want to do that.

So, we are going to sell the house. And we are going to take the money we have left over and do something with it that will mean we can leave town life  and mortgage behind and live in the countryside, with chickens and peace and quiet, and trees and sheep and a little dog called Colonel Bunty, and open the front door (or tent flap if the house sale doesn't realise as much cash as we envisage) in the morning and hear not much but see much more.

'You are really going to do this?' says Tybalt.
' Yes, we are,' I say.
'But...' says Tybalt.
'No buts,' I say. 'It's our adventure.'
'I am a bit worried about this Colonel Bunty,' said Tybalt.
'Don't be,' I say. 'Because when he comes along, I am sure he will be lovely.'