Coming Up for Air

Progress is being made and I am starting to feel a little less overwhelmed by my life!! You all know how we like it a little complicated around here but every once in a while I do wonder why? I think it boils down to the fact that I have been on the move most of my life, starting with my dad being in the Royal Air Force, we never stayed anywhere for very long. That has certainly rubbed off on me and I tend to get bored if life becomes too steady and predictable.

As we are on the brink of our latest house sale, I have looked back over all the others, which now total 14 in 33 years of marriage so you can see we like to mix it up regularly, and of course these are just the houses we owned, there have been a fair sprinkling of rentals in there. That's where we are off to next, renting a house for a year before we make the next step to France.

It has been a challenge to find something suitable, in the right spot, that is available ASAP. We have seen some grubby ones, some nice glamourous ones that weren't available until January, or too far from son's high school. The one we have finally settled on is clean and tidy, has a two car driveway, fenced back yard for dog, the right accommodation, just not quite in the nicest street, but maybe that is just me being a bit snobby. Anyway I have convinced myself that it will certainly work for a year, 5 months of which are mostly spent indoors (which I will make beautiful) and the rest of the year will hopefully be spent fairly evenly between here and France.

So now I can take a breath, knowing where I am going in a couple of weeks (eek!) and can start packing in earnest, I couldn't get started properly not knowing where we were moving too. Most rentals would start on 1st of the month but this is vacant and they have said we can start moving stuff in anytime but take possession on the 25th, which means I can be out and the house given a thorough clean through, in order that daughter and son-in-law can take it free and clear of all sitting tenants at the end of the month.

Another development is that the colleague I was covering while she was away on vacation, asked me to team up with her as her assistant. Hopefully this will make things a bit steadier, income a bit more regular. Obviously as an assistant there won't be the big commissions but hopefully my cut will come in on a more regular basis and there won't been the constant worry of where the next deal is going to materialize. This agent has been in the business for eight plus years and has a good referral base, the hardest part of the job, and as I can attest to, is pretty busy.

Strange as it seems, I will do a much better job promoting her, than I ever did promoting myself, it just doesn't come naturally. So fingers crossed for a productive and successful partnership over the coming year. That is another thing, she knows I am not in it for the long haul, not looking to build a huge career in real estate and also that I have another little part-time job, so that takes a lot of the stress off as the brokerage frowned on both those issues.