Dreams of another dimension

2 May 2015

Cloudy and sticky warm
22 degrees

Awoke from dreams that I was in another dimension where time didn't exist.  Alas, in this one it was already late and I had to bundle things into my briefcase and go and see a property.  It was rather further than I had anticipated and in a different area.  Built in the 1980's it had everything a French person would like, and nothing a Brit would.  Single level, double glazing, reversible hot/cold heating and not a scrap of personality.  Outside it has a lovely pool and garden and distant views of our main local town.  240k selling price. Unfortunately, views of the autoroute but at the far side of two large fields which will be filled with maize soon.  Some road noise.  I tend to find that the lower the price, the less sensitive clients are to road noise.

Went into town to buy weed killer as the weeds are the only thing that seems to exist in the garden - why are they so sodding vigorous?  I can't even see the strawberries and raspberries any more.  Queued for an age.  Everyone buying veg plants and shrubs. Perhaps that is where I have gone wrong in the garden.  English love of flowering plants. The French buy things they can eat or hack back into submission.  Had a call from a lady for whom I have sold a number of properties.  She has another one for sale and can I come around Pentecost Friday. I met her originally after putting a business card in the claw of the bronze griffin guarding the entrance to her chateau.  One year later, she rang.

Back home and OH is whizzing around the lawns on the tractor mower.  I had always imagined that this was an easier option but actually it is like being on a bronco.  He looks puce and exhausted so we have lunch and close our eyes for ten minutes which turns out to be 40.

The phone rings and it is my partner agent who did the visit for me last weekend.  The client has made an offer but it is 20% below the asking price.  The owners have had the house for sale for many years and it suffers from the double whammy of being in a village with no shops and also on the route of the local quarry lorries.  I ring and email the owners and ring my partner to say I think it is a mean offer and she agrees.  We discuss whether or not it is so mean that we should not transmit it to the owners and decide, bearing in mind that it is the only offer than they have ever received, to put it forward and test the waters.

I go outside and look at the weeds.  They are everywhere.  I can't even see the strawberries or raspberry plants.  A few brave strawberry flowers are blooming amongst the chaos.  I crack open my new special weeding tool and get stuck in.  Four hours later I have cleared around my modest strawberry patch and removed four wheelbarrow loads of weeds.  I feel one hundred years old.  OH informs me that, as I have been sitting down, I can make the evening meal.  We have kippers and mashed potatoes and fried egg and it is surprisingly good.  My fingers are numb and I can see weeds when I close my eyes.

Watch final episode of Poldark.  Everyone is suffering from putrid throat (diptheria) and Julia Poldark expires.  Putrid throat sounds as if it comes from the very amusing radio series Grim Expectations - a Dickens spoof which started as fairly close to the original but then travelled through the realms of highly unlikely until arriving at the shores of insanity.  There are 12 Poldark books and this series has only covered three of them so lots more to look forward to.