Lots of news on the housing front. The house I wanted to buy – which looked so perfect – turns out not to have been perfect at all. Swamp-like damp, possible rot, a roof that may or may not be slipping off the walls, a chimney about to fall into the communal pathway, jammed windows, blocked drains, asbestos.
None of it particularly evident from a viewing, thanks to some nice new carpets and a new-looking laminated wood floor downstairs. Fortunately it all came out in the survey, but even that wasn’t a cheap bit of research.
Cost of repairs? Unquantifiable, but likely several (tens of) thousands, despite which the vendors are unwilling to either put it all right or budge on the price. So, I’ve withdrawn the offer and walked away.
But there is better news. I exchanged on the flat today, so that should have a happy new owner in two weeks’ time, and I’ve had an offer accepted on a nice three-bed semi, with brick-built out-buildings and a greenhouse, backing onto allotments and a nature reserve. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that this one (60 years old, as opposed to the 100 years of the other house) does much better when it comes to the survey.
Outside of the merry world of house-buying, I’ve been doing some radio bits – notably an interview on the new over-hyped, much-feared but mis-totally understood ‘super database’ the government is supposedly building to store all of our inside leg measurements, IQs, buying preferences and most sensitive information. It’s not building that at all, but it’s been so hyped that everyone seems to think it is – even the interviewer who grilled me about it for the news yesterday afternoon.
And the weekend was an idyllic walk through the Suffolk countryside, from Ipswich to Woodbridge. A few wrong turns made for a much longer walk than it should have been – about 13 miles all in – but as the sun went down over the barren fields it turned the bare spiky twigs of the hedgerows a warm mellow orange. Inside a hat and two layers of coat, it felt for all the world like an early summer’s evening.
It was Sunday, so the trains down the East Suffolk Line were running once every two hours, leaving us 60 minutes to fill in the only place open – the local pub. We didn’t want alcohol, but a mug of hot tea which, from the scowl on her face, the barmaid seemed less than entirely happy about serving. It was still only half four, though, so I don’t know why.
Two young people were perched at the bar. One clearly had dreams of leaving the pretty one-horse town.
‘But what could you possibly do in London that you wouldn’t be able to do in Woodbridge?’ asked his companion.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not much, I suppose,’ he said.
Related posts:
- Suffolk weekend
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