The Alleged House Purchase

So, we've gone and done it. Ange claims that we have 'allegedly' bought a house. The conveyancing of a house from one party to another is very similar to the better-known criminal system of innocent until proven guilty.

All we have done is make an offer, confirm a mortgage, establish a solicitor, and hire a surveyor. All sorts of annecdotal evidence suggest that we will be the future owners of 32 Crowmell Street, Caversham. Nevertheless, we remain strangely detatched. By all accounts, it could go horribly wrong tomorrow when someone 3 houses down the chain pulls out because they've developed an allergy to berber carpets and had a change of heart on the agreed price of their deal. The chain collapses, everyone sighs in frustration (apart from various lawyers and surveyors who have collected fees) and we are back at square one. Still, we push on. Determined for the full British experience, it seems only suitable that we must endure this stress for us to fully appreciate the culture in which we live. I am sure this will lend to vaguely humorous remarks, knowing nods and rolled eyes at some party with strangers down the road.

Today my dad and brother Sam were in town. My dad was working (and had taken Sam along with him) in nearby Guildford and zipped across to see us. 'Zipped,' of course, a euphamism for crawling through an hour of traffic to cover 20 miles. We walked over to see 32 Cromwell. I slightly feared my dad seeing the place. I feared that he would see something so blatantly problematic that only a daft idiot who had blindly rushed into an offer would miss. Blindly rushing in would aptly describe our course of action, so it was really a odds-game as to whether I could be labelled an idiot for doing so.

As we walked up the slight hill from the bottom of our street, my dad commented that, "it certainly won't flood being up a hill." It hadn't occured to me, but the logic was irrefutable. One check for our alleged house: unlikely to flood.

Happily, dad was taken with the property. He was firmly against the ivy that grows over the side of the house. "It will have to come down immediately," he commented. Desptie quite liking the ivy, I noted to myself that my first job was to somehow get 20 years of ivy growth off the side of the house ASAP. And then my dad said something that was truly beautiful to hear. He summed up the house after walking front and back by saying, "It's good. I like it. A good solid house."

"Solid." Is there a better adjective to describe your biggest ever investment? I think not. Years from now, "lucrative" would be nice. But, in the meantime, I will settle happily on "solid."

We then had a wee moment where "solid" came into question.

"Isn't the chimney badly crooked?" Dad asked.
"Damn it. It is," my heart sank. I looked for an out. The chimney was clearly crooked. The lean was definitely a couple of degrees off. We were standing on a slope. Could that be our problem? Had we mistakenly miscalclulated our frame of reference because of the incline where we stood? Sadly not. And then? Relief. We were looking at our neighbour's chimney. Too bad for him. Unless, of course, it falls on our house. But there is surely insurance for that sort of thing.

We then discussed the ivy some more. Conversation followed about solid brick walls and their relative insulation properties. Slate roofs were discussed. Our substantial cinder-block guest house (yep, we have another guest house!) was admired for its solidness and the quality of its roof. We spotted a hole that had been drilled in the brickwork and the types of cement that ought to be used to fill it. As we trudged back to our current place, the house started to grow on dad. By the time we got back to our terrace (a mere 3 minutes away), he was entirely sold. Hooray!

Anna continues to be the most lovely little girl. I often call her "Anna Banana." I can't help myself. She's so cute. What was funny was the other day when I positioned her in front of the mirror whilst she sat in my arms.

"Who's that?" I asked
"Anna!" She cried.
"That's right!" I excaimed affirmatively.
"Anna Manana" she said again.

Yes. Anna Manana. So cute.

More Housing Stuff

Our good friend Erin is renting our house in Calgary. I've just spoken with her and she is short of a roommate. Erin is absolutely lovely and one of our bestest friends. She's a professional (teacher), quiet and clean. The house itslelf is also quite nice. It is in central Calgary, near Marda Loop, in an area called Garrison Woods. Most of you know the details. In fact, most of you have probably been there.

Does anyone know of a nice, quiet-ish professional friend who would like to live in Garrison Woods for entirely reasonable rent? If so, please get in touch and I will pass you along to Erin.

Gazump

So, we're looking at buying property in the old country. It has been an entirely eye-opening experience, leaving both Ange and I with the distinct wonder at how a house transaction ever takes place. It is certainly a case of us not knowing the system and comparing it unfairly to what we know. Nevertheless, as objectively as I can make things out, it is less efficient in the UK than in Canada.

My friend Andrew reminded me that becoming a land-over over here has a history of entitlement. I figure you're owed a certain degree of smugness for navigating the process even if you don't get the throngs of people in servitude, special voting rights, and the ability to collect taxes and hire knights to do your bidding.

Land-ownding status aside, lets take a quick walk through the process. First, do we qualify for a mortgage? It turns out we do. In fact, the banks are eager to lend us proportionally more than the Canadian banks. Not bad for being here 6 months. I suspect that must get loads of people into some real trouble. For us, we were just happy that we had the prospect of not thowing away a fortune each month in rent.

Then you find a house. They have a national website which is very good. So, you put in your maximum amount and away you go, sorting by either ascending or descending price order. I started with the lowest price at the beginning but it quickly became apparent why the lowest priced properties were the lowest prices. Now I just start with the most we can afford. This is because all sorts of things came to light that just don't register when you're searching for a house in Calgary.

In a random order of oddities, we have seen houses with wallpaper that had been painted over many times, houses with clear holes in the roof, houses with air raid shelters (I kind of liked that feature despite its questionable usefulness today), houses with no central heating, houses with 50 year old carpets, houses with no showers (only baths), houses with out-buildings to store your coal (if you don't have coal? It's a very sooty place to store your bicycle), houses with no place to park within 500m, and houses with known structural problems that you could get a 'deal' on.

Then the issue of school catchment came up. What? There is a particularly good school in Caversham and you pay a premium to buy a piece of property in the catchment of that school. One street over, pay less and send your kid to... private school?

As if negotiating all these things as a newbie didn't have its pitfalls, there is nothing binding about either putting in an offer or accepting an offer. So, even though we have made an offer on a house, they can refrain from really feeding anything back. A state of limbo develops and... you put in an offer on another house. The same thing happens. And, before you know it, you have 5 non-binding offers on 5 different houses. Should one of them accept, they might then change their mind. And they might change their mind 3 months down the road. Or, if they're in what is called "an onward chain" and something goes wrong with a sale of a house some five people down the chain... too bad, your deal is off.

This all drags out the process horribly. And because of this process that takes so long, all you have is a non-binding, gentlemanly agreement to spend a not-so-small fortune on a run down 125 year old house while the housing prices go up and up. So, if the seller is cheeky and a bit unethical, he might take an offer from someone else for more money down the road and you're "Gazumped". Its a funny word. But, I think a painful one to experience. I hope never to experience it. If I do, I will call the person gazumping me all sort of nasty things and publish their name on this blog for you to write him/her and do the same.

So, where does this all leave us? I'm not entirely sure to be honest. We might be buying a house tomorrow. We might not. We might see if there is a record for outstanding offers on houses in the Guinness Book and go for that claim-to-fame. We have put a time limit on our little experiment. If we're not moving in by Christmas, we will shake our fists and shout with indignance. And probably complain on this blog. And then continue to pay rent, somewhat comforted by the fact it might actually be harder to sell than to buy over here.

May Day Long Weekend: Again

Many years ago on May Day long weekend in 2000, Ange and I piled into a car with Vince, Andrew and Erika for a weekend in Wales. The sole reason we were going was because I had discovered that we could stay in a hostel that was actually a castle. It turned out to be arguably the best road-trip weekend ever known. All highs and no lows.

So whenever people come to England, I recommend the same itinerary that we took on that weekend. This past May Day bank holiday weekend, we repeated much of the same. With Anna in tow this time, it was bound to be different! Friends from field hockey, the McDougall family and my cousin Claire climbed into a couple of cars and took on an ambitious schedule of 4 castles, 1 abbey, a town of book stores and numerous pubs. The photos tell most of the tale: click here.

Anna held it together for most of the weekend, despite the dose of medieval history being forced on her. She charged around the various castles with few cares, loving the freedom to run. We climbed stairs. We crawled into small spaces. We fell on our face twice. Well, actually just Anna fell on her face. Uneven surfaces proved more problematic than the imposing walls! Largely because the imposing walls could be walked around in all instances where uneven surfaces are the flavour of the day. She is one determined little girl when it comes to cobblestone on a slight incline! Vince, Andrew and Erika will be pleased to note that while Anna has yet to castle hack, she has now put similar energy into having fun at the same location as they did those years ago. Fewer beers than Andrew, but just as many falls!

Anna, the morning after her first night in a castle. Her teeth aren't brushed, she has bruises from falling on her face and most of her breakfast is still on her shirt, but she has places to go... like the nearby Chepstow Castle. On some thought, there is probably little difference from her and King John, who spent time at St. Briavels in the late 1200s (apart from the flowered raincoat, of course)...

Visiting? You'll need directions

Ah, the internet. It'll make you laugh. Even when you might not expect it to. The good folks at Google provide my smile for today (courtesy of Lisa Brake).

So you think you might like to visit us over here? If, like Alison Speck (nee Gauthier... haha, I used nee) you want to consider Google Directions to avoid flying from Calgary International Airport to our street in Caversham, click here. No, really. Do it.

Never mind the I-90 toll road near Boston(direction #37)... nor the toll from E402 from Bologne to Calais (direction #52). Just check out direction #44. I am suspicious that it accounts for a great deal of the 31 days Google allocates for the trip. Once here, I'll buy you a beer.

Coursework

My work has sent me to London for training on how to use our database. I love coming into London on the train. It is such a feeling of purpose, even if the training is completely useless (which it is). We rolled into Paddington station with only minor delays for a signal problem. I lifted the door latch when the train came to a stop by leaning through the open window and using the outside handle. That's how it is done. It is not how it would be done in Canada. One, it would be too cold and you'd get someone who had just sneezed in their hand with it stuck to the door handle; or two, someone would do something stupid and fall out; or three, someone would be unable to comprehend not being able to only open the door from the outside and miss their stop. All would probably result in litigation and wholesale changes to the rail network...

But with hardly any trains, what Canada would do is irrelevant. At Paddington station, the morning sun shone through the windowed roof high above. The diesel exhaust hung in the air from the dozens of trains. It was mostly a business crowd, and most of them were in some variation of a pinstripe suit. Mostly blue, but a number of black. Some could have gone either way. Maybe blue and covered in deisel fumes? Many women were in pinstripe suits too, only without the typically bright ties that so many of the men have over here. Hundreds of people in pinstripe uniform marched off deliberately in every direction. I marched off with a number of them and took the stairs down into the guts of the London Underground to catch my tube on the Bakerloo line.

Training is dull. Dull enough that I am able to be trained and write a blog at the same time. I am sure the lady next to me is unimpressed. The problem is that I've taught myself everything we have gone over in training simply by using the program over the past few month. So unmotivating. I've read all the post-season Flames analysis, followed the acrimony of the Chelsea-Livrepool game last night, read about Britain in Iraq, read about Canada's hockey team captain Doan being berated by Quebec politicians (do we really have so little actual news in Canada that the BQ has nothing else to discuss?) and checked Facebook about a million times. Everyone back home is asleep, so not once has anything new happened on Facebook. Except Adrienne. She was clearly up late on Facebook last night!

So I sit. Looking at the clock and looking forward to my Canadian friends waking up and getting on Facebook. And, of course, wishing I could just go home and see Anna. I've only been in London a half dozen (weekday) times since starting work. Not once have I had a truly problem free trip. Last night was going smoothly until the Reading-bound train found itself without a driver. I truly believe that it could be a 60 minute trip in a 'perfect' world. I'd be happy with a 75 minute trip home to see Anna tonight... or maybe I should just get a head start and duck out of "training" early?