A busy but unsatisfactory day, as Lois and I simultaneously try to do two things: firstly to pack for our upcoming week at our daughter Alison's house in Headley, Hampshire, when we'll be pet-sitting the family's 2 cats and the fish in their fish tank; and, secondly, to prepare for another day's house-hunting in the Malvern area.
May I introduce the two cats etc that we'll be feeding in Headley? Thanks!
May I introduce Otto, the family's English cat...
...and Dumbledore, the family's Danish ex-alley cat, that they
brought back at the end of their 6 years in Copenhagen
There! Now you all know each other, which is nice!
Our next bout of house-hunting is going to be an arduous day, and even when it's over we'll only have seen another 3 houses that we haven't seen before. One viewing is at 9:30 am, the second at 11:30 am and the third at 3 pm. What a relative waste of 6 hours, with lots of empty "longueurs" between viewings, especially the one at lunchtime.
So I spend some time researching 3 nearby pubs where Lois and I could have lunch: the Bluebell Inn, the Green Dragon, and the Three Horseshoes. The house we're going to view is quite near the Bluebell, which, out of the 3 pubs, is my personal favourite as a potential lunch venue, judging by the menu, but we'll see.
The Bluebell Inn, Malvern - and see: it's got a
lovely pub garden at the back, which will be nice, and less
dangerous from a COVID point of view
In my view it's a bit of a pity that the so-called "Malvern Sewage Works" is so near this particular property, but at least it's to the south, and the prevailing wind in the UK is from the south-west, so we may not be aware of the smell of the sewage for a lot of the time.
Another puzzle, which I see from the map, is the mysterious "Property Repossessions, Spain" at the far right of the map - is this the headquarters of a Spanish cloak-and-dagger operation aiming at the recovery of Gibraltar, I wonder? Well, I think we should be told! If it's true, however, I think they could have chosen a more discreet and less obvious name - what madness !!!!!
The other problem with a long day out and about house-hunting - excuse me mentioning it! - is, where to go to the loo, especially for a couple of old codgers like us. Garden centres are usually a good bet, but that only works for certain if the garden centre has a café. If it doesn't have a café, then quite frankly it's a bit hit-and-miss as to whether they've got loos or not.
What madness (again) !!!!
map of garden centres in the Malvern area.
20:00 We settle down on the sofa and try to switch on our nearly 40-year-old gas fire, but we find that the ignition has broken, and we see little bits of it on the carpet. Damn! After serving us faithfully for the 36 years we've been in this house, and just now, when we're selling the house, and when I have just written, on the estate agent's and the solicitor's forms, that the appliance was "old but serviceable" .
Just our luck! Our don't rate too highly our chances of having it repaired - oh dear!
Anyway, not much we can do about it now. We fetch the portable electric blow-heater from the dining-room and settle down to watch TV, an episode from the 1980's political sitcom, "Yes, Prime Minister", starring Paul Eddington as Prime Minister Jim Hacker, Nigel Hawthorne as senior civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby, and Derek Fowlds as Hacker's principal private secretary Bernard Woolley.
And Bernard is on fine form again tonight, correcting the Prime Minister's English, which is nice.
Jim is deploring the standards of British education, but lamenting the fact that he can't do anything about it, because it's all in local hands, administered by counties, cities etc. So Sir Humphrey suggests that he take it away from local authorities and put it under the authority of the Department of Education.
Luckily at this point Bernard is on hand to correct the Prime Minister's use of language.
Tremendous fun !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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