Nothing's happening...

... still! 

It's been 3 months since we moved out of our flat in London (and a lot longer since our last post!) And still we have no house! We've fallen off the ladder! 

Don't get me wrong, living with the in-laws is great... it really is, I'm very lucky, but as a married couple we need our own house!

The magic 'probate' word still hasn't happened, and we've been wondering if it ever will. We've been to see what we could have had, but none of the alternatives even touch the sides! So we definitely want the house... is there any way to encourage accountants that doesn't involve waving money in their face?

Wish us luck and watch this space... we've been watching it for a while!

A round 50... and we're on our way

Sorry for the radio silence folks! We have been waiting for some news to share before writing.

We're finally moving to Sussex! Some kind chap has offered us pretty much what we wanted for our flat and we've had an offer accepted on a house.

In total we ended up seeing 50 houses as we had a final blitz a couple of weekends ago! I know, it's crazy, but seeing so many has helped us find the house we wanted (no. 45) - when we saw it online the day it came on the market, we instantly liked it and knew it would meet our massive list of demands so we arranged a viewing for that weekend. It was the second house we saw on the Saturday. We ended up comparing all the other houses we saw that day with that one, which convinced us it was the right one. Stan (its on Stanford close) is a 4 bed house in Hassocks with potential to put our stamp on it and its a 4 minute walk from the station, so it really is perfect for us. It probably has more space than we need, but I'm sure we'll find things to fill it with! 

But it wasn't the first place we had put an offer in on - the first was on a chalet bungalow which needed a lot of work, but had loads of potential - which got me scared when I thought about how much the work was going to cost, so we quickly pulled out of that one! It had an interesting ensuite which was basically just a cupboard without a door and because it was effectively in the roof of the bungalow, not even Fiz could stand up in the shower.

We had also been back to the house called Wilma - another chalet bungalow in hassocks, on account that Fiz liked the name and I liked the massive bit of land out the back. 

Alas, neither compared to Stan - for one thing, I can stand up straight in the bedrooms!

We also went back to a favourite of ours in Haywards Heath and had one of those awkward moments where the estate agent left the owner to show us round. She said that she'd leave us to look around but then kept appearing to do the sales pitch and to tell us all about how she used the house and various bits of storage. She then randomly showed us some switches on the wall that she had no idea what they did and she hadn't bothered to find out in 10 years!

We'd also been to a house that stank of dogs, as soon as you walked in the smell was overpowering - the owner lived there with 4 canine friends, and it was pretty obvious. That house also had a peculiar ensuite bathroom - the first we'd seen where you walk through the wardrobe to get to it - all very Narnia-esque! Whilst it was a nice house we were both quite keen to leave, fearing that we'd never be able to clean the place and that the smell would linger on our clothes.

It also wasn't the first offer we had on our flat - a couple of first time buyers had put in a low offer but were not willing to budge. It turns out that since having their offer rejected by us, they'd put in an offer on another place and then come back to our flat when that didn't work out. They sounded like a bit of a nightmare to deal with so we were actually glad that they weren't the ones buying.

Since all this has happened it has got us thinking about our London bucket list - our weeks living here are numbered so we're going to make the most. True to form, Fiz has booked up every weekend between now and end of June when we hope to move. And the sun's been out this last couple of weeks which has made us appreciate just how nice the flat is in the Summer. 

Having said that we're ready to leave, we're tired of living in London, and are looking forward to living village life! No doubt things are going to change quite a lot over the next couple of years.

Beware of the dog!

The hunt for the 'big house' continues... this last week we took a couple of days off work to continue our quest for the perfect home. And honestly we're both exhausted from it! Mind you, I'm not surprised, you would be if you'd also seen 25 houses in a day and a half.

We've seen a huge variety, from bungalows to semis, to new houses to 100 year old houses and thankfully we've seen things we like. But we've also seen things we really didn't like, some of which was not the fault of the house itself!

In one of the bungalows we saw the estate agent wasn't there to show us round so the owner, who later recognised me from 6 years previous as one of his customers (he was a hairdresser), was doing his best salesman role. Unfortunately, the elderly resident in-laws had left their mark, or more accurately their smell, so we only got to see their room briefly from the door. Shame!

Another of the houses was a superb match for us, though required quite a lot of work. The owner, a lovely elderly woman with a purple rinse greeted us at the door before we'd even knocked and then proceeded to shadow us through the endless number of rooms. She was also 'on-hand' to answer questions about the local area but then as we went upstairs she backed off- when we stepped back in to the kitchen, she pretended to be reading her paper, no doubt keen to hear what we were saying about her place. And it's no surprise, she'd been living there for 30-odd years, so was probably keen to see that her home was going to a... well, good home?!

One place we saw, the estate agent rang the doorbell and proceeded to unlock the front door when he heard a dog start barking. The look on his face was the sort a postie might pull when he hears the growl of a dog hungry for his post! After exclaiming he didn't know there was a dog, he diligently crept through the small gap he'd created, so as to not let the dog out, with his parting words, "let me sort this out". A few moments later he opened the door only for us to see that the dog was a small terrier, whose bark was definitely worse than its bite could ever be.

At another house on a new estate, the estate agent, who couldn't yet have left his teens behind, ushered us in to a home as the owner (a mum) was leaving, new baby in tow. As we were having our usual nose around, the house phone rang - it was the husband - "before you leave the house could you bring the poo bags with you please? I forgot to bring them."

Having had our flat on the market for a couple of weeks, we know how much effort it is to be out of the house and to get the house 'ready', and Fiz is loving that the house is clean all the time. But luckily we don't have to worry about poo bags or babies!

Confident that we could get A house somewhere, we've stopped looking, awaiting news on our flat before moving on. So we took the opportunity of a free Saturday to finally wade through our photos from travelling - all 15,839 (160GB) of them!

Priorities

Apparently we've deprived our avid readers of an exciting, interesting and thought provoking blog in the 2 months since we returned from travelling. Ha! Having now caught up with pretty much everyone our avid readers turned out to be mainly our family and close friends, and random people in the States, Germany and Russia... of all places!

A lot has changed since we've back, this blog is a random cacophony of events that happened next, as they happen...

We've both been back to work, it started snowing within a week of being in 35 degree heat, and we got back with little money at the start of the longest month of the year! But now the disgusted comments about our fading tans are few and far between and we've got lots to occupy our minds and our free time... and to keep us from complaining!

Our first task is to move home...

We've seen a total of 16 houses so far, which is already more than we saw before we bought out current flat.

It's always a funny experience going to view a house, with so many unknowns to contend with; Is the owner going to be in and will they know if its obvious that you're really not interested? Will they follow you around? Will they be the ones to show you round because the estate agent doesn't bother coming along any more? Will it be a dump, pushing the powers of imagination? Is the estate agents name going to be Sam or Steve? Will they drive a Mercedes drop-top or a branded Fiat 500? Will the pins in their pin-stripe suit be wider than the gap in my front teeth?!

In 16 houses we've seen a huge variety, but one thing stands out above anything else... as we're looking for the 'big' house (as it has been dubbed) we're looking at grown-up houses, where actual responsible adults live (most of the time), and somewhere with a lot more space than the flat we currently have. Which is all a bit frightening to be honest.

We've seen an 18th century cottage, which was a peach, but we had to discount on account that I couldn't actually stand up straight in the bathroom!

We've seen houses that have hot air heating systems... instead of radiators it blows hot air through vents in every room, kind of a reverse air conditioning. (Fiz couldn't see the attraction!)

We've seen houses in the middle of the countryside, within spitting distance of a train station. We've seen new-builds with so much space you could swing a Bengal tiger in every room.

Sadly, there have been a couple of houses we've seen where the owners don't want to move but because of deaths in the family they need to downsize or relocate. These are the hardest to see.

And we've seen many others that we've discounted and forgotten because they were just too bland. Did I mention that we have a list of requirements the length of our arms? It'll be a miracle if we find a place we like!

But our fave so far has been this big house that looks like it has grown extra limbs over the years. For its various extensions and dirty white pebble dash, it's pretty ugly. It would need modernising to get it to where we would want it; no doubt it would be a great house with some TLC and a bit of cash in 5-10 years. It sticks in our minds though because it was huge, it had so many different rooms, each of them seemingly occupied by students. One of which answered the knock on the door and as we peered in to see a massive desk, with dual monitors on it and a huge gaming PC on the floor, we noticed that he was standing on a thin half- inflated rubber bed, which was looked like a permanent solution! He clearly had his priorities sorted!

As our hunt continues, I promise to do better with the photos... have you ever tried taking photos of a stranger's house without them knowing?!