Friday 3 July 2015
Stinking hot and very humid 33 degrees
Wake at 4.30 am and am covered in mosquito bites and they itch like mad so have to get an anti histamine tablet and apply creme and anti itch spray. Three hours later, I crawl out of bed and do the watering that I didn't do yesterday evening. I am beginning to lose the battle with blight on the potato leaves. We really need a good soaking of rain. Last night it was overcast and I hoped for rain but there were only a few spits and spots. The tomatoes are happy and starting to form small green fruits. Must tie them onto the supports. They are currently languishing like tired pole dancers. There are vast numbers of baby caterpillars on the cabbage so have to blast them all off with the spray. The peppers and pimentos are forming and the haricot bean plants have started to give crops although the plants look very small and weedy, I keep finding beans on them. The phone keeps ringing. It is very annoying. Finally go in and see who it is and it is my colleague and she has a visit on a large country property for next week and can I do the previsit with her and her colleague. It is the one where the man has been trepanned in the past and has a pink plug in his head. I tell you, it is a real distraction. Sometimes I warn the client and sometimes I don't. Selon le gré de mon humeur.
Finish up and do some tidying up and then down town to meet a guy who works with my colleague. He is sitting in the bar, squinting at his iPad and he orders me and himself a coffee and starts rattling on. I don't know how he ever sells houses; he doesn't listen to anything. It is quite illuminating as it transpires that my agency is sending him lots of leads and they are doing lots of visits. About 50% my agency and 50% theirs. Much more than I am getting. They are bringing on big properties with lots of land and all over the place. They are not, however, selling anything. He says that, at the end of the day, people will buy what they will buy. My view on the matter is that you keep them with you until they find something they are desperate to buy. We have another coffee and he talks about previous sales and he knows the father of my furious seller and says he is happy that they are having a miserable time because the father is a complete git and I finally manage to extract him from the bar and to the house I am showing him on a previsit.
The house is in a wonderful location with wide open views, huge plot of land and over 250m2. It is ugly and the wallpaper is something else. Huge orange flowers on brown background and alternating with huge pink flowers on pinky brown background. And that is just in the living room. He is rather perplexed by the whole thing. Unfortunately, so are most clients. Shame my colleague isn't doing the visit. She has a much better handle on what to do with it, to make it work as a house. I drop him off and get some bread and back home where the kitchen is in chaos. Quick lunch and then down town to meet the buyers for our big rental unit.
They are half an hour late and in the words of Bruce Springsteen, the sun is beating down on the black top, and there is a shimmering heat haze over the Place. At least the tarmac isn't melting, which is a real pain, as it fills up the tread on the car wheels and they have no grip. It does drop out when the road cools but your tires are ruined. They arrive and still love the flat and they leave for the town where we will sign and I go and get OH and we arrive in the notaries. It is deliciously cool and the air con is thundering like a train and we are received by the notary's clerk. She is a nervous girl with auburn hair, a careless speckling of freckles over her creamy shoulders and a cold sore. She has the compromis on screen and it takes a while to go through and sign but, two hours later, we are done and our buyers leave and I ask her a number of questions about the US lady and the furious seller.
1. If the US lady doesn't sign the release document, is everything blocked - yes
2. Is the furious seller obliged to give her 15 days to pay up or shut up - yes. He cannot withdraw.
3. Does the future ex husband have to agree to the investor being substituted. In her opinion, yes.
Now, the future ex husband I believe is completely unaware that there is the existence of this investor and he thinks things are now at an end. The simplest thing would be for the release document to be signed, the monies paid out and then the US lady can buy whatever she likes with whatever other person she likes. She will not be buying the property she currently wants because, once released, the furious seller will never want to hear her name again... She says her visa only runs with this one property but I now don't trust her and don't know if this is the truth. I later discover that her notary has gone on holiday until July 15th. I am going to have to pick up the baton again.
We leave the notaries and the blast of wet air is like a just boiled flannel in the face. The car is roasting. I insist on having a McFlurry with daim chocolate and nappage caramel and it is utterly divine. Back home and OH goes to 'do some Spanish' (he does this in a darkened room and lying down so progress is slow) and I watch the most thrilling match between Serena Williams and Heather Watson and Heather almost wins before Serena gets her act together and starts sending back stinging returns. Best match of the week so far.
The evening is incredibly close and we sit and drip on the sofa and I have yet another shower. Mercifully, a stiff breeze blows up and sifts through the shutters and cools the room and keeps the mozzies at bay and I sleep.
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