Girl in need of Kirsty and Phil....

Paul HATES Location Location Location.  Me, I love it.  Especially when Kirsty is pregnant cos she holds no prisoners when her hormones are a-raging.  We could really do with them now, although that plan is somewhat scuppered by Paul's visceral reaction.   I can imagine their insightful comments on our relationship as I stamp my feet and sulk when I don't get my own way, as Paul tries patiently to remind me that we can't afford the £500K barn conversion with a turret and a roll top bath.

As you may have guessed, we put the house on the market this week.  The guy came round Tues and took some photos, it was in the paper and on the website on Thurs and Sat morning we had a call that we had a viewing in the afternoon. 

Project Panic. 

Out went the chilled out plans of relaxing, shopping and a little lying on the sofa, and in came plans of scrubbing, shifting and generally hiding things in the loft.  It took most of the day but by god the house looks nice.  Why haven't we kept it like this for the past 3 years?  The cats were completely freaked out by the rare introduction of the hoover to the carpet, and we hid most of our OTT DVD collection in the loft (retaining key ones such as the Goonies for emergency viewing).  The final trick was moving a load of stuff to mum and dad's garage (serves them right for being in Vietnam!)

So after 2 viewings we were optimistic (in Paul's case - terrified) that there may actually be some movement in the housing market and therefore had to re-plan our Sunday to include checking out some houses for ourselves.  Cue me dragging Paul round Cheltenham and outskirts checking out the exteriors of houses to try and establish what does and doesn't get us excited in house terms.  Exhausting, but worthwhile.

One of the viewers came back this afternoon for a second look, strangely keen on establishing the number of socket points in each room.  Its a classic case of mummy and daddy buying a house for their 20ish year old "youth" son, who, whilst not completely conforming to the ASBO stereotype, had difficulty showing  a great deal of enthusiasm for the whole process.  Possibly based on the fact that his parents live about 2 streets away so he would be expecting to return home for tea and washing anyway.  I struggle to feel comfortable to sell my house to this kind of cliche, but frankly my morals can be twisted when it comes to cold hard cash.  Still, as Paul is frequently reminding me, the fat lady ain't yet sung, and even if we get an offer it's bound to be a cheeky low one.  Then comes the hard decisions, bargaining and panic that we need to make our own decisions on where we live.

Looks like the days of weekends watching back-to-back episodes of House may be put on hold for a while, as I deal with the other House-related challenges.