Our view?

Here's the great thing about shopping normally: you see the price of something you want and, if you have the money available to you, you can buy it. Simple and, in fact, perfect.

On eBay, for example, it's a bit different: you see the thing you want and, perhaps, an idea of what you'll need to pay for it but you can't be confident it's yours right up until the moment the auction ends. So, I guess that's a pretty stressful moment, with a bit of tension leading up to it.*

Worst of all, though, is house buying. I mean, if you're ambivalent about a property, you're unlikely to buy it. But if you love it enough to take out an enormous loan in the form of a mortgage to buy it, then suddenly you're paranoid and resentful about all of the other people looking at it. WILL THEY PUT IN A BETTER OFFER?

And even if you get to the happy point of your offer being accepted and you embark on the whole business of conveyancing and surveys and so forth, there's still the risk of being GAZUMPED!

I mention this because today we went back to a house that we both really like and I can feel that we are on the verge of all of this stress and tension but what else can you do when you find a place that you think you might love? So, anyway, while the Minx and her mum looked around, I peered out of the window and wondered whether one day this would be our view.

*Here's my favourite eBay story concerning me. I saw a listing for a Dirty Three album called 'A Strange Holiday', which I'd never seen before (or, in fact, since). The bidding opened at £2.50, so I cautiously went in at £5. The price didn't move. Well, that made sense; everyone knows that only a rookie bids before the last moment. 

Anyway, over the course of a few hours, I put put my bid up to £10 and then £20, and then £30. And then I thought how I'd feel if someone else got it for £30.01, and, in the end, after much agonising I put my bid up to £50. I can't describe the tension as I repeatedly refreshed the screen over the last sixty seconds.

I won it for £3.50.

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-12.5 kgs
Reading: 'The Testaments' by Margaret Atwood