Allotment party

I have to say a huge THANK YOU to Christina, Anne, Simon , Jude, Jeff, David and Anne for giving me a party at the allotment last Tuesday! I'd been rushing around doing my impression of a headless chicken when Christina rang home on her mobile and said I was expected up at the allotment... So I raced up there, expecting a cuppa and possibly a chocolate digestive biscuit to find everyone sitting around plates of delicious homemade tarts with allotment fruits and cream, lovely fresh sponge cakes (why don't mine rise in the same way, I wonder???), Christina's Elderflower cordial and champagne! It was a truly lovely afternoon: a beautiful September day with warmth, sunshine and a view out over the valley, and it was very special to be able to share it.

One of the lovely things about leaving has been to find out that we mean something to other people. I don't think one walks through life consciously quantifying the impact one has on others, but now that we're saying our goodbyes it is humbling to discover how many good friends we have. I hope that the fact that we haven't given it much thought doesn't sound as if we are taking it for granted. Michael and I have had such joy from our friends, and we shall miss you all.

I am going to miss the allotment too... at this time of year I would usually be taking down the sweet peas, digging up the last of the potatoes, pulling up some of the squash plants, cutting back raspberry canes, and digging, mulching and weeding ready for the winter. I'd probably be giving back one of the half plots having discovered, this year, what hard work it is to try and maintain three half plots... I would have been cleaning down the inside of the polytunnel, and planting winter crops. Instead I've let it become an absolute mess, which has made it easier to leave - not because I want the next incumbents to have to take on a mess but because it has made it less personal! I have not been able to make the personal investment in the plots that I would normally have made because I have known I was leaving. But instead I have had a summer of soft fruits, squashes and potatoes, and I've really enjoyed it.

Now I have to think about what sort of gardening I will be able to do in Australia. Not stone fruits and British vegetables such as swede, cabbage and parsnips, that's for sure! There won't be any frosts where we're going, so I won't be able to grow anything that needs the cold. Instead I'll be growing more exotic things such as mangoes and bananas, which doubtless take skills and knowledge that I don't yet have! To begin with, though, it will all be about pots on the veranda, as I don't think our new place has much in the way of a garden. Instead, my outdoor exercise will be obtained by taking the dog for walks and playing on the beach which, let's face it, isn't such a hardship.

Arachnophilia?

Earlier this evening I found myself face-to-palps with a Chilean Rose tarantula with a bald spot where it had got irritated with one of its handlers and fired off some of its abdominal hairs as a threat. I also held piece of wood about 6 inches by 6 inches with a rather large Mexican red-kneed tarantula on it - no bald spot this time, and in fact, compared to its Chilean cousin this spider was rather restrained: no climbing out of its tank and nearly falling on the floor, and no chasing its dinner around in an undignified fashion.

Yes, tonight was the night of my spider phobics' course at Bristol Zoo, and in this age of certification I have a signed piece of paper from one of the zoo educationalists and the visiting hypnotherapist to confirm that I didn't chicken out of attending! I've spent the evening absorbing interesting spider facts, looking at shed spider skins (and cockroach and other invertebrate skins), lying on the floor doing relaxation exercises and receiving hypnotherapy.

What amazed me was that I am by far from being the 'worst' type of phobic on the course. My colleague Steve won't open his windows at all and stuffs towels under his bedroom door every night, before he spends ages checking and re-checking the absence of spiders in his room. This is after he's checked and re-checked whether he put the plugs into the bath and all the sinks in his house just in case a cheeky spider should climb out of the U-bend... Someone else's kind brothers taped plastic spiders all over their room doors in the knowledge that this would deter their sister from ever entering. One woman drove her car into a hedge - deliberately - when she found a spider in the front with her, and another locked her children into their bedroom for an hour when she found a spider on their door and couldn't pass through it until her husband came home and 'dealt' with things.

That level of fear is absolutely paralysing and I'm glad to say that I experience much milder symptoms, but even so, I have my moments of terror. By the end of this evening not only was I able to hold the wood with a tarantula on it, but I had also picked up transparent boxes containing live(ly) wood and house spiders - the type that I encounter as a matter of routine. I guess the comparison in size made the British spiders seem much smaller and less significant, and I came away feeling that perhaps I would be able to do the cup-and-paper routine effectively next time. What I found very interesting was that my fear seems to stem from disgust: I find the hairy abdomens and spindly legs and eight eyes disgusting and frightening. I don't seem to fear spiders in the sense that they're coming after me and want to harm me - I really don't like the look or feel of them. This came out most when I tried to encounter their shed skins, and those of other invertebrates such as stick-insects and cockroaches: I almost couldn't bear to be near the boxes of skins, even though they were inanimate! So it seems to be something about touch - I fear them touching me, and as long as they aren't touching me I'm more or less OK. My worst moment was deciding that I should be able to touch a tarantula's cast-off skin and really, really not wanting to do it. I managed it, and afterwards the challenge of touching the real live tarantula was somehow less difficult. I'm not sure why it is their skins that frighten me - it seems an obscure aspect of arachnophobia, but there it is.

As the hypnotherapist said, this evening's course was not designedd to eradicate the phobia but to help make it manageable. Now I have to practice thinking differently about spiders: finding interesting things about them and what they are doing, sharing that curiosity with Ella and not frightening her, and recognising that they mostly want to run away from me and not nest in my hair... it's as much about changing the habits in my thinking as it is about managing not to panic! Wish me luck.

Oi mate, wanna buy a used motor?

Oh dear, now that we've exchanged contracts we need to sell lots of stuff... There's a lovely Saab 3.0 litre TiD Arc estate (5 doors), midnight blue, one careful lady owner, less than 25,000 miles, taxed until the end of November and MOT'd until the middle of next year! Leather seats, air conditioning, park assist, CD player... if you're interested, let me know!!!

The Eagle has Landed

Well, we have finally exchanged contracts for the sale of our house. Phrases such as, 'About bloody time' and 'I'd like to punch their solicitor' are rolling round my head but I suppose I ought now to calm down a bit! Michael rang our solicitor this morning, who rang their solicitor, who - knowing damned well that the deadline is lunchtime today - said something like, 'Oh yes, I suppose I'd better sort that out, hadn't I?' Hence temptation to punch him. But apparently we have had confirmation that exchange has actually taken place. So although their deposit is a measly 5%, they are now contractually tied to the sale and Michael and I can heave a huge sigh of relief.

Sadly of course I now have to inform our friends that the possibility of them buying the house is now over, but having agonised about it for the last couple of weeks I think that it is perhaps the best thing. Although I appreciate how difficult it has been for them to find somewhere to suit them all, this house does come with attached problems: the students next door, noisy roads in the area, and likely future problems with damp etc. As they haven't previously looked at houses in this price bracket, I wonder if they might find somewhere similar if they look at similar houses in the area - houses with fewer problems than this one might throw up? I really hope so, as I know that they will be incredibly disappointed.

Rental Property

Well we had one piece of good news this morning: Michael got an email from the real estate agent he's been talking to in Coffs Harbour to say that our application to rent a property on their books has been accepted (dog, children and all!) with the tenancy to start on October 3rd. While this is a good three weeks earlier than we will actually be able to move in, it means we will actually have an address - hooray!

Here's a link to our new home, although I can't guarantee how long the link will be valid for. The pictures come from a sales advert for the property which was then bought as a rental investment. I presume that at some point the link will be removed from the real estate agent's website as it has been sold to our new landlords...

The property has five bedrooms (three upstairs and two downstairs), three en-suite bathrooms and two other bathrooms so plenty of room for you to come and stay! I reckon we'll end up using at least one downstairs bedroom as an office or my studio. Meanwhile, outside there's only a small 'back yard' but enough room for Ella to play on her bouncy castle which is hidden downstairs as she doesn't know about it yet! We thought we'd buy her something fun to play on which is relatively portable. Eventually we'd like to sort out a climbing frame and swing for her but they will have to wait until we have our own place.

I forgot to mention...

...that we had a bit of an update about the whole 'house' thing this afternoon, and it afforded us some amusement. It seems that our purchaser's solicitor must have been in touch with his clients despite their overseas holidays, for our estate agents received a rather agitated call from him this morning. He was under the happy impression that we had exchanged contracts last Wednesday, so he got a bit of a shock to find that we have issued an ultimatum about exchanging tomorrow. It remains to be seen whether that happens or not - if not, the deal's off.

My last job on Friday evening was to have a rather emotional conversation with our friends who are also interested in buying this house, and who are currently waiting in the wings to step in if our current purchasers miss tomorrow's deadline. I gave them an update, much as you read it here, and afterwards felt very sad because until that conversation I had no idea just how interested they really are, and how important this is to them - and we may be about to disappoint them. The trouble is that we had no idea how strongly they felt: we didn't know that they were interested until after we'd accepted our current purchaser's offer, and they didn't come to see the place until a week or so ago. While they were here we showed them around and then left them to it, but Michael and I sat in the kitchen saying to each other that we didn't they that they were interested because we couldn't see it in their faces... And I just didn't realise that they have been to see lots of houses but that so far this is the only one that has appealed to all three of them. We just didn't know, and I think the reason for that is that a) they didn't want to get their own hopes up and b) they didn't want us to feel pressurised. The net result is that their hopes may have been raised in vain and then dashed - and I feel very sad about that. Of course, the show isn't over until someone signs on the bloody line, so there is still hope, but I suspect it's getting fainter now that our purchasers have begun to realise that their solicitor has been interfering in their absence.

I wonder what will happen? I have to say that I thought it grossly unfair that there was no email from Camelot informing me that I have just won the National Lottery when I switched on my laptop this morning - that could solve a lot of problems right now.

Highly Recommended!

Thank goodness for visitors. At a time when you might think we'd be cursing anyone who came to visit us, we were actually very glad of the distraction over the weekend! Or at least I was, as Michael was celebrating a friend's stag do in... Bournemouth, which is obviously a destination of choice going by the number of stag and hen dos he saw during an insalubrious weekend sampling the delights of a dingy hotel and various 'sports bars'. Not really his thing, which is why he is so jealous of the fact that I took our visitors out to Gifford's Circus, who spent the last day of their summer season camped out at Stratton Meadow near Cirencester.

If you've never heard of Gifford's Circus before, check out their website (although it doesn't do them justice as the photos are a year old and there aren't many pictures anyway) - and book a ticket for next year! The circus is a compelling combination of English eccentricity and good old fashioned showmanship. The tent is small, the benches aren't comfortable (take cushions!) but the entertainment is great. Ella, Oliver and Tilly were entranced by a ringmistress with wild hair, fishnets and a tail coat sewn with pearl buttons, a clown called Tweedy who had an accident with a step ladder fairly early on in the show, a horse-riding opera singer, three Cossack horsemen, Russian acrobats and a Rasta jazz band.

I turned my laptop off (second weekend in succession) on Friday night and didn't turn it on again until this morning, so managed to put away much of the stress that attended the end of last week! This was aided by having the luxury of having friends to stay and Patrick and his girlfriend babysitting. Janie and I went to Juniper, a restaurant in Cotham, about a 15 minute walk away, and had a lovely meal. Smoked salmon brulee with a pomegranite and beetroot salsa followed by roast cod and something yummy - and neither of us could fit in pudding!

For Pity's Sake...

No, we have still not exchanged contracts. Instead I got an update from our solicitor regarding the latest piece of 'stalling' from our purchaser's solicitor. He wants us to send him the architect's plans for the proposed redevelopment of the porch for which we got that 'Certificate of Lawfulness of a Proposed Use or Development' from the Council Planners, plus the architect's plans for the basement stairs. Then there's a series of questions about my studio: was the letter from the Council Planners approving the rebuilding of the garage a 'formal' response or an 'informal' response? Can we please supply planning consents for the use of my studio as a studio? If we can't, can we please either get planning consent or provide indemnity insurance for the use of the studio as a studio?

FOR GOD'S SAKE, WHY???

It's all a total red herring: there's no need for planning consents because no 'business' takes place on the premises (you don't usually need planning permission to have a workshop in your garage, after all), and they won't want to do the porch in the way we wanted to do it, so why do they have to have our plans? It's just petty game-playing, and I believe it's an effort to squeeze us.

So what do we do? I think we wait until we see the copy letter from their solicitors, which should arrive in the post tomorrow. Then we talk to our solicitor and agree a deadline, and then we tell our purchasers that if we don't complete by, say, Wednesday of next week then we will pull out and sell to our friends instead.

It would be SO nice to have all of this sorted out by now! We could and SHOULD have been able to exchange contracts last week - which would have avoided the £2,000 increase in air fares that we've just been stung with. As it is, neither of us feels confident about coughing up for the tickets yet because of just how idiotic people are being. At this rate we'll have to pay for First Class flights to Australia because we won't otherwise be able to get seats - which will be wonderful from a comfort and service point of view and bloody awful financially!

Tired lists

The round trip to Redditch was only an hour and twenty minutes each way so it wasn't hard, but my eyes are tired from driving in the sun. Ever since I had haemorrhages (almost ten years ago) my eyes have been very sensitive to bright light - I don't know why - which makes wearing sunglasses mandatory for driving except in low light, and tires me out. I had a nice lunch: J&Z only got back from Sydney last night and so I was delighted that they put in the effort to see me.

I came back via Cribbs Causeway and a visit to the big branch of John Lewis out there for various items: fuses for the light switches downstairs, underwear for Michael, PE kit for Ella, and a watch battery for me, but although I managed to get everything else, I couldn't sort out my watch...

Tasks for the next few days: putting up more ads in Trade It, Freecycle and some other magazines; cleaning up the rowing machine so that Claire can take it away tomorrow; Michael is going to clear out some of the stuff in the garage by taking things down to the tip before the car is valeted next week (!); I've got to start printing my edition for the Portfolio Exchange project before I start to dis-assemble some of my printmaking kit; and we've got to do a 'trial pack' of the things we want to airfreight over to Australia before I can get a quote on how many arms and legs it will cost us... Then a quiet dinner with Dad for company before another action-packed weekend.

This weekend Michael is off to a stag do in Bournemouth of all places! Which leaves me in the delicious position of having a very good friend of ours and her children to myself for the weekend and - even more delightful - Patrick is babysitting all three children on Saturday night, enabling me and Janie to go out for dinner without distractions - hooray! And on Sunday we're taking the kids off to Gifford's Circus near Cirencester as a treat, complete with picnic. I'm looking forward to that.

It's all a good way for me to forget to think about the fact that it's now LESS THAN 5 WEEKS until we depart these shores...

Tenterhooks

We've been on tenterhooks for while, and it's very uncomfortable... It's possible that we're anxious without reason - or alternatively, everything is about to fall apart!

Towards the end of last week we got quite wound up about the fact that we have still not exchanged contracts. Part of me thinks that it doesn't matter, because our purchasers have to leave their flat on October 2nd so they have to buy a house. But part of me is just worried: worried that the place will fall down around us, that we'll never finish the process, that it will all fall flat. It's silly, really, and I know that it is, not least because if there are any problems we have friends who would be cash buyers who could step in. Why, you may ask, are we not going to sell to our friends? The answer is simply that we didn't know that they were interested until we'd already gone half-way down the road with our existing purchasers, darn it.

But that was the end of last week. Our purchasers have just gone on holiday, so in theory they were at their solicitor's office yesterday signing the contract prior to exchange - or at least, that's the rumour, which means we have very disappointed friends... Hopefully someone will let us know what's going on fairly shortly.

Tomorrow I'm off up to the Midlands to see my mother's cousin before we depart. I've always had a soft spot for J. I had hoped to see my uncle and his wife too, but it looks as if they're still on holiday, visiting their daughter (my cousin) in Sydney. I am told that I may see pictures of my cousin in Sydney airport, but as I wouldn't recognise her if she walked past me, I may not realise it's her!