Elevated stress levels

I stupidly decided to ring our solicitor yesterday to check on selling-the-house progress and it has bumped up my blood pressure a bit. Medically speaking, since my blood pressure is usually so low I could be mistaken for a reptile, this may be a good thing but it doesn't feel good in my head. In fact I've had a headache virtually ever since I made the call, and I rarely get headaches...

Our purchasers' solicitor is tying him/herself in knots over the fact that we cannot provide any documentation about there being planning or building consents to use our basement as a self-contained flat. We have never hidden the fact, and indeed we verbally told the purchasers when they came round to view the property the first time, and again the second time. They want us to buy insurance indemnifying them against the consequences of using the flat as a separate property and coming a cropper with the local Council for doing so. Unfortunately, the indemnity insurance we could buy would be worthless as it would presuppose that we were using the flat as a separate property. As we never intended to do so when we bought the building we have in fact integrated the basement 'flat' into the rest of the house so there is no continuance of use. We would be trying to insure ourselves against a risk that hadn't happened instead of a risk that currently exists, which is what the insurance is designed to protect against. So apparently this makes it worthless. All we have to do now is to pursuade our purchasers that they can get planning and building consents fairly easily if they want to since the basement clearly was used as a flat before we bought it and there is a precedent in terms of building usage in this road.

My paranoid self is thinking, 'Oh god, only six weeks to go and we haven't exchanged yet so we can't buy our plane tickets or make any other plans and if we don't sell the house to these people then we won't have any money.... HELP!'

My slightly-more-rational self is saying, 'This is just their solicitor earning their keep. Our purchasers need to buy the house because their tenancy agreement ends on October 2nd because their landlord is selling the flat AND they really want to buy it, so once their solicitor has calmed down there won't be any problems'.

Want to lay a bet on which side wins??

It's in the book!

We went to bed early on Sunday night, feeling completely knackered, only to realise that Michael had train tickets booked to go to London first thing on Monday morning and we'd completely forgotten about it! Cue the both of us getting up and sorting out the paperwork for Ella's Australian passport application, booking a taxi and printing out Ella's photograph. Predictably we had problems printing out a photo of the right size and adequate realisation - not surprising when you consider we were doing it bleary eyed at 1am.

Anyway, off Michael went to London and not only did he initiate Ella's passport application (you have to do it in person at Australia House) but he was also able to get my visa put into my passport and bring home all of our documentation. So while we were all very tired yesterday evening, we were both happy. All I have to do now is to renew Ella's UK passport which expires in February 2007 - it would be a good idea to have that sorted out before we leave the UK! And at least it means she'll have two passports with a recent photograph of her in them rather than the existing picture in her UK passport which shows her aged two weeks old...

One less thing to worry about

I've got my visa!!!

I was in Marks and Spencer up at Cribbs Causeway when Michael rang to say that the Australian Immigration Service had emailed him (my usual contact is on holiday and the stand-in couldn't get hold of me by email because my new email address wasn't on my record).

I've been granted Permanent Residence rather than Temporary Residence, which is fantastic. Although 'permanent' in this context actually means a five year visa rather than a two year visa, I can apply for dual citizenship and an Australian passport after two years... Meanwhile I can also work and I can travel in and out of the country without restriction. Hooray!

Thank you, Mr A J Kaye

Thank you, Mr Kaye, for taking care of our dog Toby for almost five years! Mr Kaye's veterinary practice is situated in a not very smart building on St Paul's Road in Clifton, and I can thoroughly recommend it. We've taken Toby there since he was a tiny puppy and Mr Kaye has dealt with annual shots, micro-chipping, castration, removal of deformed dew-claws, a nasty case of fox mange and the odd infection. Toby barks his head off as soon as we pull into the driveway, but I don't care because I know he's in good hands.

I took Toby there for possibly the last time this evening, to get his annual shots (including vaccination for Kennel Cough, even though we all know it's a waste of time and money AND his annual booster minus the vaccination against Leptospirosis because the AQIS in Australia will do blood work to check that he hasn't got antibodies to it, on the assumption that antibodies = infection at some point in the past rather than vaccination, I suppose) prior to export, to check his microchip hasn't wandered off, and to remove a particularly stubborn tick.

You know, I felt quite sad when I left! Mr Kaye and his assistant Michelle are lovely people, and have successfully made me feel like a caring dog owner instead of an ignoramus, and I've really appreciated it. Long may the practice continue...

Stupid Question Time

And today, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have Round One in the ding-dong correspondance battle between competing solicitors! On my left we have the solicitors for the purchasers; on my right we have our own solicitor! The solicitor on my right is a lovely fellow: reliable, intelligent, quick on the up-take, not prone to frivolous verbal excess either in person or by letter. The solicitors on my left can't read what is sent to them... Oh pardon me, I seem to be expressing a preference here - and actually while all this is going on I'm apparently supposed to maintain poise, dignity and temper.

Today we had ten 'Questions in advance of Contract' which is - as usual - an exercise in earning your fee rather than asking anything useful. For example, who is the energy supplier for the property? Not an unreasonable question to ask, although our purchasers are more than capable of emailing me to find out. But instead they chose to get their solicitor to do it, entailing one letter from their solicitor to our solicitor, a second letter from our solicitor to us, a third letter (accompanied by much sarcastic comment and groans when the system crashed taking my careful composition with it) from us to our solicitor, a fourth letter from our solicitor to their solicitor, and a fifth letter from their solicitor to them! Hooray - an increase in the Royal Mail's profits and an extra £100 in legal fees for me to tell them that our gas and electricity are both supplied by... EDF Energy!

But my particular favourite was question 9: "blah blah blah - how could a Certificate of Lawful Use have been issued if the work has not been undertaken?" This might have been a reasonable question were it not for the fact that had their solicitor read the title of the document in question properly s/he would have realised that it is called a 'Certificate of Lawfulness for a Proposed Use or Development', which kind of answers the question. Ding! Another £100 down the drain.

Now that we've answered the ten questions and completed the additional questionnaire confirming that there are no fishing rights or any requirement to maintain a harbour, wharf or quay on our property situated on a hill in Redland, one mile from central Bristol, I suspect that the ding-dong correspondence might go away. Or will it? Only the conveyancing solicitors amongst us know!

At last! Proof that I'm not...

... a criminal! My Police Check came back from the National Identification Service Subject Access Office to say that from the personal details supplied in your request there is no information held about you in the Person Record category of the Police National Computer. All of you who had your suspicions about me - you were wrong!

I know I shouldn't have been even vaguely worried about it, but having been married to you-know-who (with all the joyful life-experiences that entailed) I carry around with me a tiny fear that somehow he will have been able to screw things up for me - something he was peculiarly good at. Now is perhaps the time to let go of the fear.

Little Miss Muffet

Anyone out there afraid of spiders? I remember as a child skipping over a particular page in one of those big Readers' Digest natural history coffee table books because there was a LARGE photo of a spider's head with all the eyes in frightening close-up...

I also remember when I was single and living in my flat in Bristol thinking that I would have to get over my spider phobia, because there wasn't a knight in shining armour waiting in the hallway to rescue me. And lo! A bloody big spider marched across my carpet one evening! So I remembered all the things my mother had told me (when she wasn't berating me for being a scaredy-cat!) about putting a glass over the top of the spider, sliding a piece of cardboard under the rim, and carefully tipping the offending arachnid out of the window. Of course, it all went horribly wrong: I caught some of the poor thing's legs between the glass and the card and they came off, which horrified me so much that I had to up-end a bucket over the top of the glass and lie on the sofa in a hysteric fit. Eventually a (scornful) male friend had to deal with the undoubtedly dead spider later on, but I lived with the bucket in the middle of my living room floor (book on top of bucket just in case the wounded creature had enough strength in its remaining legs to escape!) for a week or more. I was racked with guilt about wounding the poor thing, but I just couldn't do anything about it!

Why am I telling you all this? Given that I am going to a country that 'has more things that will kill you than anywhere else' (thank you, Bill Bryson) and just LOTS of bugs I thought it was about time I learned to deal with spiders. Otherwise what kind of example am I setting to Ella? And more to the point, where will I be able to hide..? I don't want to spend my time having panic attacks - I want to enjoy myself!

So anyway, I've booked myself onto a Bristol Zoo spider-phobics' course. Allegedly some relaxation, some mild hypnosis and cuddling a tarantula will do wonders for my confidence. 21st September is the date - wish me luck - gulp...

No News

I am still waiting to hear anything helpful about my visa application. I've heard nothing from the Australian consulate since their email telling me that something in my medical history required a referral to the Australian medical board, and I've still got a week to go before I can even pick up the phone and enquire about my Police Check.

I guess we're all doing lots of waiting: Patrick's waiting for his results, I'm waiting for my visa to come through, we're all waiting to exchange contracts on the sale of our house, Ella's waiting to start school... Aaargh!

As a distraction, though, we've got Phil and Indra and their boys (Sean, Liam and Aidan) coming to stay with us tomorrow and leaving on Sunday, which will be great. I've got to clean the house this evening, and tomorrow morning I've got to give Ella a bath and wash her hair (believe me, this is not a five-minute job. I have to get in the bath with her because her hair is so long!), do the supermarket shop, clean the fridge and visit the Bower Ashton library - before they all arrive.

Today I've been frantically finishing Dad's upholstery - I've been making two window cushions to go in his living room and they look good, if I say so myself. I went round there this afternoon and put them in place (dusting the window seats off before I put my beautiful cushions down!) while he was out and waited to see how long it would take him to notice! In fact, he noticed really quickly because his driving gloves had fallen on the floor in the hallway - although they'd already fallen off the bannister by the time I arrived so they weren't actually a sure-fire way of marking my visit...

When I got home I took Ella out again, up to the big John Lewis at Cribbs Causeway, where we bought her a replacement baby doll (another child seems to have taken the original one home from nursery and we can't find it...), and the material to make a doll's sheet/pillow/duvet set for Ella's dolls' bed. And then I spent the afternoon sewing pink sheets and rose-bud covered pillow cases and duvets! It was great fun - all stuff I would have loved as a child - and she was very happy. In case you're wondering about my largesse and what she'd done to deserve it, she has actually been very good today AND she was due a 'marble present' so my nostalgia and her sense of deserving a reward were both satisfied!

Countdown

Scarily, we now have tentative dates for departure, as I mentioned before... We're aiming for departure on Thursday 12th October via Fiona and Andy in Frankfurt, and leaving Germany for Australia on Sunday 15th October. That means there are ten short weeks in which to do everything that needs to be done - what a frightening thought. 'October' seems very vague and far away, especially as we're enjoying sunshine, summer and fresh raspberries from the allotment! October will smell of autumn and 'mists and mellow fruitfulness'; the leaves will have started turning and the days will be coming in... it's going to be very weird to fly from early morning chill and autumn leaves into late spring and sunshine!

One difference I won't mind, however, was pointed out to me by Michael last night: for the first time ever Ella's birthday and my birthday will occur in the summer rather than the winter! Usually I count myself lucky if it's not raining and the temperature is above zero degrees C, but wow! It should be sunny and warm! We could EAT OUTSIDE in early February! Ella could actually have a have-the-kids-round, play-in-the-garden birthday party! Sounds amazing - I am looking forward to that.

Weeeeeeee!

Wow - I've finally managed to put up a picture... The view of the back of our house that went into the estate agent's blurb. Hooray! I've been trying to put up pictures for ages, but apart from having to learn about making them smaller .gif files, every time I've tried to do it using the blog software either the upload has crashed or the programme hasn't been available - but never mind, it worked this time. You have been warned: there'll be pictures everywhere, like a rash!

... and then the visit

Actually not too bad a visit from our purchasers. I was very wound up about them coming round: we laid the carpet out for them last time, and then look what happened! Anyway, they behaved themselves, they muttered something about a 'misunderstanding' and 'confusion' at the estate agency, and they promised that they 'will not let [us] down'. So there you go - it's all sorted then!

In theory at least, we're now working towards a completion date in the second week of October, and getting on a plane on October 12th. We're aiming to visit Fiona and Andy in Germany on the way. Michael also wants to stop off in Bangkok en route to Australia, but I'm not sure I can cope! I love Thailand, and I haven't been there for a long time, but I reckon that by that point I'll be desperate to 'arrive' and get the whole process of our physical removal over with.

The concept of the 'to do' list that looms in front of us is daunting me. I've given myself until the beginning of September before I can write any of it down... in the mean time I'm allowed to 'get on with stuff' but I'm definitely not allowed to do my usual 'list from hell' and then beat myself up about not managing to do it all in twenty minutes or less. For those of you in the know, this is (for me) a real achievement!

So I've just been gently getting on with things... such as trying to get £831.66 refunded to us from EDF Energy. This task alone may take me the remaining ten weeks until departure because, let's face it, when was the last time you managed to get any money out of a utilities company???

What I HAVE achieved is that I've finished all the DIY I'm prepared to do on the house! I've let the allotment grow (uncontrolledly - dunno if I could get it back under control now, even if I wanted to!), and I haven't done anything useful in the garden for ages. It's all been about eating the berries and drinking tea. In fact, Grace and I went up to the allotment on Monday and drank tea - in the pouring rain, of course - and reminisced about all the effort that went into it before I realised we would be leaving (and before I recognised that it doesn't HAVE to be such hard work!).

At last, the survey...

As I write, the friendly surveyor is downstairs filling out pages of his pad with information about the house, none of which I can see! It feels slightly nerve-wracking: I anticipate negative comments about the state of the windows at the back of the house, the poor condition of the back door and cracked plaster in the basement... I can also guess that he'll find that there's no damp course in the basement and that there's a patch of penetrating damp appeared on the window wall in the basement bathroom. But are there other things we haven't thought of?

Interestingly, the requested survey is a basic 'Homebuyer's Report' rather than a defects survey. I looked on the website for a local chartered surveyors and the comment was that this kind of report is suitable for a modern house without much need for maintenance but wasn't suitable for an older property! This surveyor, who's nice enough, commented that he just wouldn't buy a Victorian house: he likes right angles, proper corners and steel frames, so our wattle-and-daub ceilings, stone lintels and odd-shaped walls won't appeal! He believes buildings have a 'shelf life' of between 60 and 100 years, after which point they should be knocked down and rebuilt. Not something I've heard from anyone else, and an interesting counterpoint to my own idea that re-occupying an older building is the biggest and best sort of recycling that the average family manages to do in its lifetime!

Anyway, our dear buyers are coming round this evening - there will be slightly more froideur than the occasion of their last visit, owing to the amount of recent mucking around. I don't think we'll be offering them a glass of wine this time. But I'm waiting to see what extra items they would like to make an offer for - the more we can 'get rid of' the better, especially since we may well end up taking Patrick's other bookshelf with us, as well as Dad's single bed frame and mattress (since Ella appears to have almost grown out of the cot bed we thought would last until she's 6...).