CupTeaLuv?

is really fun but is also hard work!!
Yesterday I went out with our estate agent to look at some houses in the area. I picked two that Andy and I will hopefully go back to this evening so he can see them.
It’s difficult because I see houses, then I decide what I liked and didn’t like about each one — comparing it to what we have talked about wanting in a house — which seems to change with each house!! I keep thinking we want “fillintheblank” feature in our house because “fillinthecoolreasonwhy” but then I see a house with that feature and suddenly it’s not so desirable or not so essential. Does this make sense to anyone? I sure hope so. I sure hope that house-hunting isn’t going to be the big thing that makes everyone here realize how crazy I am!

which old house….
the Kingsley HOUSE!!!!!!!
Yes, if you haven’t already read on Andy’s blog, it is finally official — the money is in the bank!!!!!!!!!
and if you can’t tell….. I’m just a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee bit excited about that fact!
okay, I’ll fess up…. I’m over the moon about it — what a major relief to be done with that whole palaver of an experience!!!!!!
“So now what?” You may ask?
We’re house hunting!!!

Well, the good news is that last weekend we had an offer on the house.
The bad news is that it was (as the estate agent put it) “complicated” — basically it was from a developer who wanted to get his mortgage for 10,000 more pounds than he was going to pay us for the house, so he could use that money as his deposit for the mortgage and therefore get a better interest rate etc. Well.
When we heard the offer’s conditions, my first reaction was… is that legal? So Andy had to tell the estate agent we’d have to get ahold of the solicitor before deciding on the offer. He phoned the solicitor on Monday and then had to have the agents phone the solicitor and then when we spoke to him he said it isn’t fraud necessarily…. but nearly!!
so alas, we had a very nice offer in on the house, but unfortunately had to turn it down.

we’re here!!!!!!!!
If you want a nice longer drawn out version of our arrival and first day or so — see Andy’s Blog because he’s put most of what I’d have said anyhow!
I do miss my friends now — it’s started to sink in that I’m here and they’re there…

was fantastic!
All morning we frantically worked at getting the Inventory (for Pickfords) as far as we could, and in the afternoon Andy had an appointment with the solicitor to sign all the power of attorney paperwork. So between the appointment and heading out for the evening (which included a stop-off at Andy’s work to drop off a million and five computer bits to Laurence and to turn his car in! And also to stop at the Longs house for a birthday party for their 1 year old daughter Ruth).
Andy loaded up his car with all the computer bits and I got into my car — I needed to get petrol, so Andy carried on to his work. I finally got to fill up, the queues were 3 cars deep at each pump and the attendant was sooooo slow!
Just up the road from the petrol garage, I realised that we may not have put the TV/VCR into the car (the whole reason for stopping at the Longs!) — so I pulled into a layby and tried to ring Andy. His phone was off. In one sense I don’t blame him, because of not wanting to have anyone from work ring, but he could have left it on and only answered it if it were my mobile ringing him!!! Argh. Anyhow, I never got through and then when I got to his work, I had to sit outside and wait for him to come out. When he finally did and I told him, he was dumbfounded. Turns out we also forgot Katie Jo’s present! (Joint First birthday party at the Longs for Katie Jo and Ruth — born on the same day!)
So we remembered 1 out of 3 items…. so embarrassing. We turned up anyhow and it was a great time of madness with multiple children running around having a good time. The babies were cute — a bit tired, but very cute!! Their tiredness made them cute and cuddly and clingy like lil Koalas!
About 20 past 7, we drove over to the Chinese Restaurant in Nantwich — Chopstix — BRILLIANT PLACE TO EAT!!! We had a nice big table in the corner with most of us sitting on a comfy bench that sits in the corner in an L shape. All but one person ordered the set meal — soo yummy! Their crispy duck is amazing.
It was great to see them all, and they surprised Andy with some really fantastic pressies!! One was a balloon which says good luck, another was a giant poster card with all these photos of Andy out geocaching in a mosaic with photos of the folks from work and dominoes and funny things — it was soo neat! The other surprise was a new wallet (Andy was a bit confused about why they’d give him a wallet), but it soon became clear when he opened the card and there was a chunk of American money in there! The other cool thing was the cake they got him — from ASDA — a “Picture This” cake. They’d taken in a photo of him (another geocaching one — Sue downloaded all the photos from his geocaching profile page) and ASDA bakery scan it, then print it off onto a very thin sheet of icing, then they carefully lay that over a cake jam sponge cake that has a thick sheet of icing on it… the end result was so cool!!
Hopefully they’ll send us photos — we forgot our camera in the car!
The meal was just great fun, a real laugh — Brenda, Sue, Laz, Tracey, Nigel and Geoff were all there.

Okay — I know they’re not really Goodbyes, because I will see a lot of these people again when we come across to visit England in years to come, and I will see them eventually in Heaven… but it doesn’t make it any less difficult to say Farewell or Goodbye.
We’re down to the point where we only have a week and a few days left in England before we’re off to America– which means that there are a lot of “last time we’ll see/do”…
I shall really miss friends from church and work. It’s going to be really strange to go.
Shameless plug/reminder to any and all who are reading this blog and who live in the UK (and who know us and have our US phone number!) — don’t forget to sign up on www.1899.com to be able to call us for 3p per call (not per minute, per entire call — no matter how long it lasts!!)…

is such a pain in the tukus!!
You get your hopes up so high when you find out you have viewers (my parents think it’s hilarious that English people call them viewers– only place you get viewers in America is to a funeral wake!!!)… and then the estate agent rings you up and either changes the appointment time (after you’ve texted all your friends to ask them to keep you in their prayers… or cancels it altogether!
Then there’s the worst experience… the no-show. You do all the tidying, get everything looking swish, get yourself all excited to show the people around and wait for them to turn up…
and then they don’t. And they don’t ring (because they don’t have your phone number)… so you don’t know if they’re just lost, or late, or just can’t be bothered to come because they weren’t ever interested in the first place!!!
Anyhow, we thought we were going to have our third no-show in a row (with an added cancellation in between as well!) but they did finally turn up. I was so glad to see them I didn’t even care that they were an hour or so late.
So I showed them around and they seemed to really like it. So we’ll see what happens — they also viewed the house on Fern Crescent that is up for sale with Timothy A. Brown.
I know that ultimately God has a plan for all of this, and that the right people will come along sooner or later, but it’s still a horrible feeling when people don’t turn up… depressing and frustrating all at the same time.

is really frustrating… you get your hopes all up when you are due to have someone come to view the house…
and then they come crashing down when the people don’t turn up!!!
This is the second time this has happened in 2 weeks.

The viewer really liked the house apparently, but has found one of a similar size in Macclesfield for a cheaper price. So no offer…

We had a viewer (and his partner) today at the house! They came, escorted by one of the agents from our estate agent, at 12 noon to view our house.
Andy was out all day at a regional geocaching meet-up event, and I was out all day working at Congleton Lib, so neither of us were around — I had to leave a note to ask them not to let the cats out.
I spoke to the estate agent secretary this afternoon and she said they usually ring the next day for feedback, but as it is Sunday tomorrow, she won’t ring until Monday — and I’m at work all day Monday, so I asked her to ring me on Tuesday.
I know I’m not supposed to get my hopes up, and my heart feels like it’s breaking because I’m so sure they aren’t interested.
Ugh.
and all the questions tomorrow because word will have gotten around that we had a viewer… I don’t know if I can cope.