So - my house sale must be as simple as it possibly comes.
I'm looking for a quick sale - have no chain - have left country and am desperate to sell. There's no holdups , no structural problems, no nothing.
My buyers also have no chain, they're first time buyers with money in the bank renting a house down the road.
We've both been ready to do the deal since about mid May - and yet its now nearly the end of July. This week we resorted to phoning the solicitors and the estate agents at least once a day, just trying to find out what the fuck everyone was doing, and what the possible delay could be.
It seemed to eventually turn out that basically both solicitors were just completely lazy and useless and the only reason they haven't exchanged is that they just couldn't be arsed. Frankly I'm unimpressed, but they kinda half me by the balls I guess. To change at this point in time would be pointless and they're now assuring us that they're gonna exchange this week, but by god its been painful. I hate to think how it would have been had either of us had somewhere else in the chain....
Its continues to stupify me how difficult a relatively simple process can be made. I suppose I could bang on here now about how easy it is to do such a deal in Sweden, but that'd just be pointless eh? I guess we should have just spent alot more time alot earlier in the process ringing them every day trying to make it happen, but frankly I'm paying them so why would I want to do their f'ing job for them...it's like "Have you phoned the other solicitor" - "well no" - " well do you think that maybe you should"...god its frustrating. Why they think its going to magically happen without them actualyl doing any work is beyond me....
I think that it would also be far fairer to note that Sarah has done all of this, and showed extreme patience in the process. i think I would have just called everyone a complete fuckwit by this point in time, and alienated any hope of the solicitors every getting off their fat arses to earn their money.
respect to sarah...
bollocks to solicitors....
Anyway - roll on us being given a huge sum of money - we're nearly there....
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Sunday, June 25, 2006
pictures of the new house
uploaded to flickr at long last - see previous post - I'm sitting on that terrace now, as I write this.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
First full day in Stockholm
So here we are, waking up to our first full day in Stockholm.
I feel very very strange indeed. The last days have been pretty dan freaky frankly. James & Prima's wedding was totally great at the weekend, both nights were amazing fun. Sunday night then we went out with Tom, Karen, Steve and Jon and had some tapas and beers and a few laughs together. It was a fine was to spend my last night. Since then I've been a huge mix of really string emotions ranging from excitement, fear, trepidation, sadness, and some which I don;t really have the vocabulary for which could only be described as "come on then - I'm mad for it" - and "we're here - we've done it".
Monday during the day was spent packing and we saw all our parents at various points during the day, which was nice, but difficult as we hadn't alot of time to devote to them at that point as we were just running around packing madly.
In the morning Airpets came and took the cats away, and that was pretty damn tough. Sarah was in tears and I was quite choked. I know they'll be cool - but we're just a bit soppy about them, it'l be good when they arrive here. But that'll be a few weeks yet I expect.
Up until that point I'd fairly held it all together, with saying goodbye to everyone and all the organisation. I was just treating it like a project of things to do I guess and some of the size of it all hadn't really hit me. That night my last task before going out to grab some food down the road for dinner, was to take the compost up to the top of the garden. Now the top of the garden is probably my favourite place of all within that house and I just lost it completely and was in floods of tears, standing looking out across the park and the downs, the sun was setting, the sky was orange and beatifully lit, the birds were singing a dusk chorus and frankly it was a stunning evening and seemed to encompass everything that was good about living there. For about 30 minutes I was just absolutely gone, couldn't talk, couldn't communicate, just sobbing incessantly (as I am now a bit writing this!). This just kinda brought out everything else for me, and I was wailing at Sarah and well, it was both good and bad. Good to get it out I think. I thought alot at that point about all the people I was leaving behind. The thing is however much I know I'll see the people the question, I will miss them terribly and i will miss being able to just give them a call and meet up that same day or whatever. That's a tough thing to let go. When you're feeling like that everything seems a bit intense eh.
anyway.....
So last night, having arrived and sorted out the car hire etc. We checked into our apartment hotel. Its right next to work and it's just like a normal hotel really, apart from only part time reception and no restaurant. Obviously the benefits above that are that we have a small kitchenette and a fridge / freezer etc, with various pots and pans. Basically most cooking is possible apart from there is no oven.
We then went off to see 2 houses. The first was nice but they wouldn't take cats (mistake by the estate agent there) so we left fairly quickly. The second was really nice in a fantastic location overlooking a big lake with loads of great woodland and lakeside walking right outside. the owners were the most friednly people ever and we ended up staying for 90 minutes having loads of tea , cake and ice cream with them, and they then took us on a walking tour of the local area!! It was quite strange at first because of not being used to the hospitality of that type, but once you get over that, then it was fine. The only thing was that we didn't really want their house, as its not available until the end of June earliest, and I don;t want to live in a hotel until then. But hey, it was a great evening, we chatted alot and asked them questions about life and stuff, it was useful, and they got to chat to us about England as well because their son was going to university there in October.
So then we came home, grabbed a couple of snacks, because we'd stayed too long in that house viewing and all the supermarkets were shut, and had an early night. It had been a long and strange and quite emotional day, but surprisingly I slept quite well.
Categories: stockholmlife, moving
I feel very very strange indeed. The last days have been pretty dan freaky frankly. James & Prima's wedding was totally great at the weekend, both nights were amazing fun. Sunday night then we went out with Tom, Karen, Steve and Jon and had some tapas and beers and a few laughs together. It was a fine was to spend my last night. Since then I've been a huge mix of really string emotions ranging from excitement, fear, trepidation, sadness, and some which I don;t really have the vocabulary for which could only be described as "come on then - I'm mad for it" - and "we're here - we've done it".
Monday during the day was spent packing and we saw all our parents at various points during the day, which was nice, but difficult as we hadn't alot of time to devote to them at that point as we were just running around packing madly.
In the morning Airpets came and took the cats away, and that was pretty damn tough. Sarah was in tears and I was quite choked. I know they'll be cool - but we're just a bit soppy about them, it'l be good when they arrive here. But that'll be a few weeks yet I expect.
Up until that point I'd fairly held it all together, with saying goodbye to everyone and all the organisation. I was just treating it like a project of things to do I guess and some of the size of it all hadn't really hit me. That night my last task before going out to grab some food down the road for dinner, was to take the compost up to the top of the garden. Now the top of the garden is probably my favourite place of all within that house and I just lost it completely and was in floods of tears, standing looking out across the park and the downs, the sun was setting, the sky was orange and beatifully lit, the birds were singing a dusk chorus and frankly it was a stunning evening and seemed to encompass everything that was good about living there. For about 30 minutes I was just absolutely gone, couldn't talk, couldn't communicate, just sobbing incessantly (as I am now a bit writing this!). This just kinda brought out everything else for me, and I was wailing at Sarah and well, it was both good and bad. Good to get it out I think. I thought alot at that point about all the people I was leaving behind. The thing is however much I know I'll see the people the question, I will miss them terribly and i will miss being able to just give them a call and meet up that same day or whatever. That's a tough thing to let go. When you're feeling like that everything seems a bit intense eh.
anyway.....
So last night, having arrived and sorted out the car hire etc. We checked into our apartment hotel. Its right next to work and it's just like a normal hotel really, apart from only part time reception and no restaurant. Obviously the benefits above that are that we have a small kitchenette and a fridge / freezer etc, with various pots and pans. Basically most cooking is possible apart from there is no oven.
We then went off to see 2 houses. The first was nice but they wouldn't take cats (mistake by the estate agent there) so we left fairly quickly. The second was really nice in a fantastic location overlooking a big lake with loads of great woodland and lakeside walking right outside. the owners were the most friednly people ever and we ended up staying for 90 minutes having loads of tea , cake and ice cream with them, and they then took us on a walking tour of the local area!! It was quite strange at first because of not being used to the hospitality of that type, but once you get over that, then it was fine. The only thing was that we didn't really want their house, as its not available until the end of June earliest, and I don;t want to live in a hotel until then. But hey, it was a great evening, we chatted alot and asked them questions about life and stuff, it was useful, and they got to chat to us about England as well because their son was going to university there in October.
So then we came home, grabbed a couple of snacks, because we'd stayed too long in that house viewing and all the supermarkets were shut, and had an early night. It had been a long and strange and quite emotional day, but surprisingly I slept quite well.
Categories: stockholmlife, moving
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
House Hunting in Stockholm
Here's a picture of Sigtuna, which is the oldest recorded settlement in Sweden. Its about 25 minutes north of central Stockholm and is currently our favourite town that we'd like to try and get a house in next month. This picture is taken from a walking / skating track which has been cut into the frozen lake next to the town. We were out walking on Sunday afternoon with all the locals, who were out taking a stroll.
Categories: stockholmlife
Categories: stockholmlife
Sunday, February 26, 2006
So much to do, so little time
So, I spoke to Microsoft this week and booked our flight to Sweden for 11th April. This is D-Day. Between then and now we've got a few things to sort out, and of course there's a whole load of stuff going down in our friends' lives as well! Over the next 3 weeks, purely in travel terms I've got to:
fly to Luxembourg for work on tuesday
fly to sweden to go househunting early next month
fly to spain for James' 2nd stag night
generally go to work most days and look interested
go to the swedish embassy to get some permits
beyond that, there'a a huge range of random and not so random things to do at home. Sarah is packing and decorating like mad before the house goes up for sale on Wednesday. I'm sorting out finances and all sorts of other administrative crap, but so far so good - its all going to (a fairly rushed) plan.
The last week here in the UK should be pretty mad, cos for a start there's 2 days of James & Prima's wedding to go to, but of course 72 hours after that finished, we'll be off to Stockholm.
I don't even know at the moment whether they'll be any time for a leaving party....
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
fly to Luxembourg for work on tuesday
fly to sweden to go househunting early next month
fly to spain for James' 2nd stag night
generally go to work most days and look interested
go to the swedish embassy to get some permits
beyond that, there'a a huge range of random and not so random things to do at home. Sarah is packing and decorating like mad before the house goes up for sale on Wednesday. I'm sorting out finances and all sorts of other administrative crap, but so far so good - its all going to (a fairly rushed) plan.
The last week here in the UK should be pretty mad, cos for a start there's 2 days of James & Prima's wedding to go to, but of course 72 hours after that finished, we'll be off to Stockholm.
I don't even know at the moment whether they'll be any time for a leaving party....
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Dirty Volvos in Sweden
Now that we're moving to Stockholm, maybe we'll buy our own Volvo, and see if we can get it as dirty as this one we hired in Ostersund last year.
Monday, February 06, 2006
BLIMEY....we're off to Sweden
So I resigned today...it went quite well all in all, in fact it went damn well, everyone seemed to be happy for me, which is always a good sign. So no longer the Bank of New York in London, instead me and Sarah are selling up and we're off to Stockholm, and not only that, but I've managed to get a job with Microsoft in Sweden. How cool is that? Well basically very cool indeed - on many levels:
1. It means that I'll be able to support us when we arrive
2. Microsoft will no doubt help me with a few points of integration
3. I'm gonna work for Microsoft in a cool techie role.
4. Change is always rewarding, and quitting your job and country of residence in the space of 2 months is some pretty hefty change.
5. see point 3....
I'm gonna miss working with several of current colleagues (Dom, Frances, Sam, Howard, Tim and others) and my current boss John has taught me a whole load about the bigger (non techie) picture, but its time to move on.
More to the point I'm sure I'll miss all my London friends and family as well, its bound to be a bit tough, and god, let's not forget relocating the cats as well, cos that's bound to be quite stressful, but these are all details, and at the end of the day, its just logistics (or that's what I keep telling myself!) If I tried to write the full list here of things to do...well you can imagine, its quite long....
The past 2 weeks have been fairly mad, what with 2 telephone interviews with Microsoft, flying to Stockholm for a very very intense day long interview, including some very challenging technical tests, my wedding anniversary and general thoughts and planning on how the hell I'm gonna close down all my London connections in such a short space of time. But hey - it'll be fine. All I can in summary is that I feel alive and shockingly excited, so let's see what life brings...
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
1. It means that I'll be able to support us when we arrive
2. Microsoft will no doubt help me with a few points of integration
3. I'm gonna work for Microsoft in a cool techie role.
4. Change is always rewarding, and quitting your job and country of residence in the space of 2 months is some pretty hefty change.
5. see point 3....
I'm gonna miss working with several of current colleagues (Dom, Frances, Sam, Howard, Tim and others) and my current boss John has taught me a whole load about the bigger (non techie) picture, but its time to move on.
More to the point I'm sure I'll miss all my London friends and family as well, its bound to be a bit tough, and god, let's not forget relocating the cats as well, cos that's bound to be quite stressful, but these are all details, and at the end of the day, its just logistics (or that's what I keep telling myself!) If I tried to write the full list here of things to do...well you can imagine, its quite long....
The past 2 weeks have been fairly mad, what with 2 telephone interviews with Microsoft, flying to Stockholm for a very very intense day long interview, including some very challenging technical tests, my wedding anniversary and general thoughts and planning on how the hell I'm gonna close down all my London connections in such a short space of time. But hey - it'll be fine. All I can in summary is that I feel alive and shockingly excited, so let's see what life brings...
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
Friday, February 03, 2006
I've been rather busy the past 2 weeks
Because of this, I haven't really had the chance to post. I have a list of technical entries that I need to document, and more importantly some interesting stuff to write about my visit to Stockholm last week. For various reasons which will appear in the next post, I can't really document what happened there until the matter is offically closed, but hopefully it'll close later today.
In addition to this it was my 1st wedding anniversary last weekend. Me and Sarah went to town for the (extended) weekend, with me taking a quick 24 hours in stockholm on the Friday.
On Thursday night we ate in Levantine, the small lebanese restaurant just opposite Paddington Station (London Street). I've been many times before and its a personal favourite of mine. Despite knowing the menu well, as ever I was suitably impressed with the food. We had the meat based mezze menu, which was utterly utterly fantastic, containing all the normal lebanese classics. As ever after this they served us the most massive plate of mixed fresh fruit - more of a platter than a plate in fact - along with a 5 tiered tower of lebanese nutty honeyed sweets. It doesn;t get much better than that.
Following that we checked into the Hilton hotel over the road, since I had to be at Heathrow at 5.30am the next morning, and I couldn;t be buggered to travel from home. The hotel was built when Paddington was, and resides above the concourse. Its a true design classic and in my opinion both inside and out, and has recently been refurbished inside. Our room although small (there seemed no point getting a bigger one as we were only there for 7 hours in total) was beautifully finished in lots of walnut veneer (I think) and a lovely marbled bathroom. In addition to that its the type of place where when you walk into the foyer you take a breath as its rather stunning. My other recommendation would be to always use the stairs rather than the life, as the staircase itself is rather beautiful, especially when it sweeps down into the foyer.
On Friday night I just chilled at home, but then I'd been on the go in Stockholm all day and was utterly mentally exhausted (more info to follow).....
Saturday afternoon we went to see a cock and bull story in the curzon soho, which was good fun, and an enjoyable film. Then we checked into the Holiday Inn in Mayfair had a few drinks and went off for an evening of fish eating.
First off we champagne and oysters at Bentleys in Mayfair, which was dead good, and then jumped in a cab to Islington for dinner at The Fish Shop. Again its an old favourite of ours, but always good fun and great food. I have a roasted cod with broad beans, celery, peas and lardons (amongst other things).
Following a nice long and relaxing breakfast the next morning (the HI Mayfair dining room has some very comfortable chairs compared to some I've been to), we strolled through Green Park and St. James Park before catching the train home. Nice
Categories: londonlife
In addition to this it was my 1st wedding anniversary last weekend. Me and Sarah went to town for the (extended) weekend, with me taking a quick 24 hours in stockholm on the Friday.
On Thursday night we ate in Levantine, the small lebanese restaurant just opposite Paddington Station (London Street). I've been many times before and its a personal favourite of mine. Despite knowing the menu well, as ever I was suitably impressed with the food. We had the meat based mezze menu, which was utterly utterly fantastic, containing all the normal lebanese classics. As ever after this they served us the most massive plate of mixed fresh fruit - more of a platter than a plate in fact - along with a 5 tiered tower of lebanese nutty honeyed sweets. It doesn;t get much better than that.
Following that we checked into the Hilton hotel over the road, since I had to be at Heathrow at 5.30am the next morning, and I couldn;t be buggered to travel from home. The hotel was built when Paddington was, and resides above the concourse. Its a true design classic and in my opinion both inside and out, and has recently been refurbished inside. Our room although small (there seemed no point getting a bigger one as we were only there for 7 hours in total) was beautifully finished in lots of walnut veneer (I think) and a lovely marbled bathroom. In addition to that its the type of place where when you walk into the foyer you take a breath as its rather stunning. My other recommendation would be to always use the stairs rather than the life, as the staircase itself is rather beautiful, especially when it sweeps down into the foyer.
On Friday night I just chilled at home, but then I'd been on the go in Stockholm all day and was utterly mentally exhausted (more info to follow).....
Saturday afternoon we went to see a cock and bull story in the curzon soho, which was good fun, and an enjoyable film. Then we checked into the Holiday Inn in Mayfair had a few drinks and went off for an evening of fish eating.
First off we champagne and oysters at Bentleys in Mayfair, which was dead good, and then jumped in a cab to Islington for dinner at The Fish Shop. Again its an old favourite of ours, but always good fun and great food. I have a roasted cod with broad beans, celery, peas and lardons (amongst other things).
Following a nice long and relaxing breakfast the next morning (the HI Mayfair dining room has some very comfortable chairs compared to some I've been to), we strolled through Green Park and St. James Park before catching the train home. Nice
Categories: londonlife
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