Waste of time

Hi folks,
Having spent best part of Saturday finishing of the ex pond landscaping we ended up with the garden looking like this, not bad if I say so myself.

 I'm quite please with the result but hope the patchiness of the new turf will eventually blend in with the rest.

We worked hard all morning to get the garden done for viewing and the couple turned up for their second viewing just as I laid the last turf.  They spent a good while nosing around and then left.

Two days later I got a call from our estate agent with an offer 60K below the asking price.  You can imagine I was pretty miffed at being played the fool and naturally refused the offer with some terse words to the agent never to waste my time with ridiculous offers like that again.  The couple were obvoiously time wasters and I can only assume they were trying it on to see if we would be gullable enough to accept, grrrrr I was so annoyed.

I wonder if those of you on the cut that sold their homes to buy your boats had the same problems?  We know the price is right as we are getting the viewings but I do wonder if we are going to sell at all.  We've been told by several estate agents our price is right so who knows, we still have hope.  Did you struggle to sell?  What did you do to get that sale we all want?

Fingers Crossed

Hi all,
   We have been looking back at the feedback from our house viewers wondering why we have only had one offer (and that was a joke).  Many are complementary and none negative so I could not help wondering what was putting them off.

I rang the estate agent the other day and put to him our Koi pond might be the reason.  Many viewers had young family in tow and I'm guessing the pond was putting them of.  The agent agreed this might be the cause as many had commented on the pond.  So, with heavy heart and mind made up, last weekend we went from this

with the help of Jo's boyfriend Tim and our friend from Essex, Derek (back for another weekend stay) to this 24hrs later

 Have no fear the Koi are now housed in an 8foot by 4foot by 4foot tank we built round the side of the house and the hole left by the pond is slowly being filled in.  On Friday a ton of top soil and 5 square meters of turf are due to arrive to landscape whats left.  The area to the right of the Blue line being made a flower bed and the left side turfed.  I loved sitting for hours by the pond watching the Koi and now I miss it and fret about my water puppies in that tank.  They will be fine though I worry something may leak or the air pump fail so I'm keeping a close eye on it, but, if it helps to get a sale.....


Today whilst at work I got a call from the estate agent to say one of our viewers has sold their property and now want a second viewing on our house.  As you can guess we're pretty excited as this is the first time anyone has asked for a second viewing. They are coming on Saturday so I'd better get my skates on and get that garden sorted!  I recall them being very complementary but worried about the pond so we have our fingers crossed they put in an offer now the pond is out of the equation.  I'm not getting my hopes up to high as they too may put in a ridiculous offer.  We have to hope that is not the case.

Crick, Orm and Monty

Hi Friends,
  Well we have had yet another busy couple of weeks starting with the weekend at Crick.  What a great event!  We thoroughly enjoyed wondering around the boats and had the honour of meeting James and Doug on nbChance who made us more than welcome showing us around her. I have to say the photo's on their blog do not do Chance justice.  She looks much better when you go on board and she is a beautiful boat. We would like to say congratulations to them for coming runners up in the best boat in show competition (between you and me though I reckon they should have won).

You can just make out Doug showing an interested member of the public the info sheet for MGM boats

There was so much to see and do but the highlight for us was meeting up with those we have blogged with, James and Doug. Lisa who is having her boat built by Fernwood and also seeing Fernwood's latest creation. As usual the craftmanship was second to none and interest in the boat was frenetic with appointments booked out by midday Saturday, so for those not lucky enough to go aboard here is a peek

 Whilst we enjoyed our stay at Crick our friends Derek and Vicki came up for a weeks stay and were house sitting for us when we got home.  With lovely weather all week Derek helped me with some DIY jobs that needed an extra pair of hands and in between we took days out on the Welshpool Railway

The Earl preparing to take us through some lovely countryside

and a great day out on the sumit of the Great Orm at Llandudno.  If you ever find the time a trip up the Great Orm makes for a great day out if the weather is favourable.  The views from the summit are absolutely fabulous and you can see for miles.

Derek and Vicky prepare to launch

Yours truly enjoying the view from the cable car to the summit

While Chris enjoys the sunshine

On the way home we stopped alongside the Montgomery canal  to have a look though if anyone could tell us what part of the canal this is we would be grateful

Finally before calling it a day we decided to stop off at Bunbury locks as Derek and Vicky wanted to see locks in action and good job we did.  We came across these two hire boats in the locks.

Whilst descending the locks they had correctly drained the bottom chamber but had not shut the lower paddles and had started to drain the top chamber.  Fortunately Chris spotted this and we rushed to close the lower paddles for them to grateful thanks from the crew.  Could have been a bit embarrassing for them had we not been there.  Would have been interested to see how much of the cut they drained before realising their mistake.

Hope everyone else made good use of the lovely sunshine over the last few days, shame it had to end today.