0900 Phone call from a real estate lady - Caroline needs to make an offer on a house she looked at yesterday as another offer has been made - erm, this is in direct opposition to the fact she is sleeping in this morning...a quick chat through a bedroom door has her up and getting ready in a panic....it is a very nice house afterall.
0920 Phone call from employment agency - Company very interested in me and need a few more questions answered about my experience - erm, this does not sit well with my lack of sleep due to being up until 0300 completing Caroline's birthday card (what do you mean last minute?). Here it is in case you are interested....
Double click on it if you want to see a larger version, but for the non-psychaitrists amongst you, this is from a Hogarth sketch of Bedlam, and represents a repressed fantasy of Caroline's.0930 I decide to get up - mmm, no rest for the unemployed I guess ;) - but I have already made an appointment with a local artist whose work Caroline is a fan of, and a last week I bought a painting from her which Caroline wanted. However the artist, Sue Lund, has completed several examples of this painting so was kind enough to let Caroline view and swap the one I bought her if she wanted.
1030 Viewing the house again...mmm 2nd thoughts on it as there is no garage and creating one would require blasting out solid rock - plus the kitchen is small and at the back of the house - OK so the views are fantastic but this just means she knows where to look now.
1100 Explaining to the agent that the original offer needs to be pulled. The house buying system is very different here to the UK. There seems to be a number of ways to go about selling your house, this one was being sold for a period of time (similar to the UK), having failed to reach the required level at tender just before Christmas (closed bidding thing I think). So now it stays on the market waiting for offers, and once one is made the clock starts ticking on when other offers can be made (literally hours) to be presented to the buyer at the same time. Offers can range from cash way over the RV (Rateable value as set by the government), or finance linked offers with attached clauses about building condition or works. If the former is presented then the seller normally accepts and a deal is done, the later attracts another 3 days to ensure conditions can be met.
Sorry - now it is too late at night here to add much more - I will finish in the morning as Charlotte is wanting to sleep now...bye for now....