6th February 2010 (Saturday)

First excursion into the wonders of house buying possibilities today. 9:30 sharp for the first one, this was surprisingly reasonable property in Merewether H. (at about 495k, I think) - 21 Flowerdale. As the Pflea put it a little later, this one really puts the 'shack' into 'ramshackle' but it was nevertheless interesting. Made of the 'plywood' type construction that they seem to favour here, with in the currently-in-season accessories of saucer-sized spiders sitting in an utterly overgrown and precipitous drop to the street about 50 feet below. Merewether Heights didn't earn the Heights bit for nothing. The attractive green featured in the kitchen (glimpsed by some of our readers) was nicely reflected in the wall colouring of much of the house, and the bathroom featured an almost indescribable (well one could but it's not worth the space) micro-red-tile style that was embellished by grot, strange layout, tiny bath and a multitude of deterioration-features such as missing wall and gaps. Now, all these things considered, at a very quick estimate it's probable that it could be gutted, re-proportioned, the garden sectioned, terraced and planted, the car-port and whole outside area re-vamped (quite light work comparatively), possibly a double garage put in at the foot of the garden (ends up at the other street so perfectly possible), the rotting balcony replaced and extended and the disgusting space underneath the house bricked up and possibly turned into a wine-store type area for possibly about 100K, and I could subsequently well imagine it selling (currently) for certainly 700k upwards. So potentially as an investment probably not a bad option. Were we actually intent on settling in the area and bothering. Not so sure about these last conditions. However, dubious as it all is, it was desirability itself compared to the next one. This was the "5 bedroom fantastic family home" - total load of bollocks. Actually it's a 3-bed (and small bedrooms at that) that's had a very small proportion of the original living space walled off to create two more of the TINIeST of spaces that you 've ever seen, to glorify them with the names of rooms would be a vast overstatement. No land, no garden to speak of, no style, no structure, in short nothing. At 545k. So we walked off pretty quickly. First two, anyway. We've got a rental place to look at on Monday.

It was dreadfully hot and sticky today. The poor unfortunate overweight estate agent who was showing us around was perspiring fit to burst. Later in the afternoon it dissolved into misty rain, and despite the heat the washing on the line is still quite damp (no, not caught in the rain, just damp). After the trawl of houses and then a trip to the library, and an urgent stop for lunch (it had got quite late by then), we retired for the 'work' sessions - I think the heat was a bit of an impediment to concentration as far as the girls were concerned. The Non was distracted and I was snappy (not a good combo), but we finished up and in the end she did OK. Did quite well with her reading in the end actually, it's always the comprehension that's the stumbling-block, not the sight-reading. We do try and stop to make sure that we re-cap what's happening, and I think she's getting a bit better but the problem is that the site-vocabulary is accelerating far faster than the comprehension, so there's a growing gap between appropriate material content and expressive technique. Perhaps we all read books when we're young that we don't really understand, maybe it doesn't matter all that much - but it's a little bit of a struggle. Still, I guess a nice type of struggle to have - for once.

Beach in the afternoon, of course. Gosh this is boring. I'm almost wearing no pants I've bored myself so much. Lots of love to all, Vxxxxxx