Sold! (hopefully)

We had an offer on our house last week and we are just waiting for the sale to go through, which should be next week.

In the meantime, we had our second open home today. No-one came, which would have been depressing if we hadn't sold it already. Jonathan, the estate agent said they had been very quiet this weekend and that no-one had come to any of his open homes today.

I have been thinking about Jonathan sitting forlornly in different houses all weekend, waiting for people to arrive who never do. It makes me feel sad.

Scooter Progress

Some ten weeks ago, my scooter broke down on the way home. It has been in the garage ever since. The bike shop has been waiting for a part to arrive from Italy. Last week, the part finally arrived in Wellington. It was the wrong part.

A new one has been ordered.

Open Home

In Kiwiland, when you sell a house, you have an open home. You go out for an hour, and leave the estate agent in the house to show round anyone who turns up. Ours was at three o clock today and needless to say we had to spend the whole of Saturday and half of Sunday doing the cleaning.

We were a bit pessemistic about how it would go. The housing market is very quiet at the moment and it was a horror-show of miserable weather this morning, the kind of heavy rain that sets up residence for several days round here. And next door's rottweiler started howling, which tends to put people off.

But it actually went very well. We had six people round, which is quite good going, as long as they aren't all nosy neighbours. So at the moment we are feeling good about our decision to move.

Faster Disaster

Following yesterday's disaster in slow motion, we had a faster disaster when the TV broke in an instant. We are not sure whether to get it fixed, or to buy a cheap new one, or an expensive new one that might last a bit longer. An urgent decision is required because we don't want to miss the first episode in the new series of Kiwi drama Outrageous Fortune tomorrow night.

A Disaster in Slow Motion

I took Lily and the dogs to Waikawa Beach today. On the way home we lost the beach ball. Lily fell over and dropped it. As I picked her up, the ball rolled slowly towards the river.

I chased it, but couldn't quite catch it in time. It floated slowly away. I took my shoes off, but the water was too deep. "Daddy get it," she howled. I couldn't, it was just out of reach. We watched it disappear towards the centre of the stream and float towards the sea to join the 10,000 square miles of plastic waste floating in the Pacific. Poor Lily was distraught.

There's a happy ending to this story. The ball floated all the way across the river to the other side and a man chased after us to tell us. Phew!

Cheese and Petrol

The price of cheese seems to be fairly stable with most supermarkets having a $10 budget option. But, like the cost of petrol, we live in fear of more increases. Who knows where it will all end?

Petrol has topped $2.00 a litre but I have finally managed to lift-share to work with a colleague who has moved to Waitarere, up the road. That's a great relief as getting the only train of the day from Levin at 6.55 was wearing pretty thin, as was scootering to work.

My bike is still in the garage as they are waiting for parts to arrive from godknowswhere.

House for Sale

We are getting ready to move and the house is now for sale. If interested, you can check it out here:

http://www.realestate.co.nz/821236?show_additional_properties=0

We Are Moving to Christchurch

The Hattams are on the move again.

We are moving to Christchurch. I have a job working for a council down there and we are being allowed the use of a council house. It all looks pretty good.

We Need Trees

I went on a tree planting morning at work yesterday. We planted 200 trees, which fills up a surprisingly small area. As we were finishing, a bloke from Iran turned up. He was cycling around the world planting trees as he went. He'd been doing it for 18 months. He was quite a cool dude really. Hs website is www.weneedtrees.com.