Week 4 ~ The one where lockdown is extended
None of us were surprised when lockdown was extended for another week, but it doesn’t make it any easier. This week things have really started to feel like Groundhog Day.
We are still trying to keep some routine to the day, I had a couple of days where I just couldn’t face a bike ride, so Ian went out on his own but I did some yoga instead. We made another trip to mum with more groceries for her, did a quick jigsaw swap and stood chatting to her from the driveway. I’ve read two books and played the piano.
Sometimes I feel myself thinking of things to do, I’m unable to stop the gnawing worry that I should be doing “something” and other days I just want to stay in bed. Sometimes I get distracted easily and other times I can read for solid hour. Suzanne at Inside Outside and Beyond said she has found herself wanting to go to bed earlier just so you can say another day is done, and I certainly get that feeling.
Having the radio on all day means that I hear the Coronavirus PSA at least 10 times a day. Mark Strong’s voice will forever live on in my memory as the voice of Corona. I hope he gets a good job after all this to help me disassociate him from it.
We had two more lockdown birthdays this week, Ian’s eldest son Charlie on Thursday and my eldest, Jack on Saturday. We had family Zooms on both occasions. Charlie’s flatmates had produced a steak dinner and a cake for him and Jack had received a veritable feast from family members, brownies delivered from his dad and a cake AND a bread and butter pudding from his grandmother. I’m glad I didn’t cycle round with a cake like I had planned to do, I think that would have been too much!
These family Zooms are a double edged sword, every time we do them I’m left feeling a little empty afterwards because I just want to see them all properly. I have a couple of brilliant Zooms with different girlfriends this week too, those have really cheered me up and I think because we don’t see each other so often in normal times they don’t leave me feeling so flat. Both groups have made a pledge to do it more often now. Levels of technical knowledge are varied though so the beginning is always interesting while at least one of us is shouting “I can’t hear you”.
I also got some belated birthday sunflowers from one of my lovely friends.
The biggest blot on the week was to do with the house sale in London. When we accepted the offer on the house, our purchaser told our agents that whilst he had another property to sell, buying ours wasn’t contingent on that. Once we had proof of monies we accepted the offer and said we would take it off the market. Obviously we knew things would be slow moving due to the virus but the only thing that really would stop everything was the fact that no surveys could be done. So when our solicitor checked with theirs to see how things were progressing we were all very surprised to hear that things were “on hold” as discussed, given that we had been party to no such discussion.
On investigating with our agents it turned out that just a few days after we accepted the offer the purchaser told our agents that he had decided he did need to sell the house to buy ours after all. Our agents had neglected to pass this on to us at all, and after we had cancelled future viewings and said we were happy to stop marketing it as we weren’t going to be subject to a chain. It turns out that the purchaser’s house isn’t even under offer. Needless to say Ian had a very “interesting” conversation with our agents and instructed them to re-list the house immediately.
This is so frustrating. We interviewed four agents and told ALL of them that the thing that was most important to us was communication. We have both had trouble with house sales previously and it always comes down to poor communication. I don’t know what it is about the property market that turns (presumably) normally sensible, nice people in to complete lying horrors.
We know that re-listing the house won’t matter immediately because no one can view anything right now, however hopefully people who were interested before will be ready to come and look as soon as things start moving again. All we can do (like the rest of the country) is wait…
At least the sun is still shining. So I’m off to sit in it with my book
Stay safe everyone.
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