It's a buyer's market all right!

The perils of selling a house. Why oh why did we ever embark on it?

The move to Canada with it's high rental rates made us decide to sell our little house back in Beeston, and buy one here.... easier said than done, so it seems!

Anyhow, the saga continues.... we had an offer on the house before we left for Canada. We'd put it on the market 2 weeks after we'd returned home for the summer. We'd upset our tenants who thought they would have at least 2 years in our house, we had to show the house the in it's best light and set about trying to clean it as best we could, with tenant's in situ and also to dress it. This was met with huge objections by our tenants. Initially, I thought, why are you upset? Someone's cleaning up for you. He kept saying, we pay you rent and so this is our house, you cannot do as you please.. this upset me as I have an attachment to the house, we lived in it for 9 years, my children grew up in it, I know I was selling it on, but wanted to show prospective buyers what a little gem it was. And it seemed that I wasn't allowed to do this. In the end we gave the tenants notice to vacate, a 2 month period. I could understand that their privacy was being invaded and we tried to minimise this. I guess they were stressed out as we were chucking them out and they had yet to find their next home.

I will add here that we always asked for the tenants' permission before we did anything, they agreed, we did what we had to do, then they complained. The last straw came when he wrote us a stiff letter stating his rights and blah blah blah and if you blah blah blah then we will blah blah blah. I was so upset that I never went in the house again, whilst they were there. The 2 faced gits!!!

The house was valued and we reduced the valuation price hoping for a quick sale, this was so we had funds to buy a place to live in Toronto. We had quite a few viewings in the first few weeks, but nobody put in an offer. The feedback was, house needs a bit of TLC, needed a lot of work, and blah blah blah. OK OK, it wasn't perfect, we had not done massive amounts of beautifying as we did not have the money, money was prioritised for the kids various extra curricular activities. The house was stable, it had been painted in and out in 2009, had a new bathroom suite, new double oven, fairly new washing machine and dishwasher.... fully double glazed etc etc, loft was insulated and a brand new condensing boiler... the colour scheme was neutral kinda beigey magnolia shades and white in hallway...

Along came Ms A, a so called cash buyer. Had the money, wanted a quick sale as was in rented accommodation at the moment. Had a young 3 month old baby. She was very keen, came to look twice. Then she made us an offer, 11K less than the asking price. We uhmmed and ahhed and in the end accepted this offer as she was a cash buyer wanting a quick buy. We said yes.

Things have gone sooooo slooooowly since then. We had to wait for the tenants to leave 26th September and were hoping to exchange and complete not too long after. This date came and went, no news? By this time, we had already left for Canada, and had been here for nearly a month. What on earth was happening. Several calls to the agents later, we discover that Ms A the cash buyer, had gone and got herself a small mortgage. Why? Thought she was a cash buyer, oh well, guess she's entitled. Meanwhile, we're still waiting, house is empty and we've lost rent on it. A few more weeks pass, still nothing, we're now in October, more calls to the UK. Oh, her arse of a solicitor says my solicitors are incompetent and have not sent him the contract. WELLLLLL! My solicitors sent him 3 copies, and he finally admitted to receiving the 3rd copy.

We're now in November, my quick 6-8 week sale has now dragged to 12 weeks and no sign of an exchange in the horizon.... Ms A has had several surveys done, she says the reports have recommended some work be done and she wants another 10K off!! She had sent the agents the list of works which was forwarded to me, damp proofing, vents in roof, new lead flashings, new en suite, vents for kitchen and bathroom, surface drain, new bath for bathroom and shower, redecorating of whole house, carpeting for hallway, stairs and bedrooms upstairs, to the total of 21K. So, she got 11K of the asking price already, now we have to make up for the shortfall???

I am not letting her have money off so she can redecorate the whole house!!! NO WAY.

I guess my tone is one of anger, but I am writing this quite calmly. Ms A has done us a favour. Our circumstances have changed, we no longer want to buy but will continue to rent here. We are living in Richmond Hill, and the residential properties in the school catchment area are really expensive and so, we could not afford to buy anything decent or big enough for all of us. The kids are fairly settled in school and love it here, so for the time being we are going to rent.

So, no need to sell in the UK, continue to rent my little house out if Ms A decides she doesn't want it.

The final outcome will be decided in Thursday. We have told the buyer that she can have a further 2K off the price and all the white goods and furniture she has asked for from the house. She is going back to the house on Thursday with the agent to have another look at what she's getting... at this stage?? Really??? Gosh, what motherhood does for one's brain! Anyhow, she will be pressed to make a decision then.... watch this space, and keep breathing....

19 years together and still friends

Last weekend saw the celebration of our 19th year together. It wasn't the anniversary of our wedding, but of the day that we first met in the BRI swimming pool... time sure flies when you're having fun. In my island life in the windies blog, you can read all about how we met, his chat up line , our shaky beginnings to building strong foundations based on openness and honesty.

We decided to have a meal at the CN Tower 360 degrees restaurant. It was my idea and since you get a free ride up the tower if you dine at the restaurant, it would be killing 2 birds with one stone. Dave agreed and the kids were excited too. A win win situation if ever I saw one.

Here's a link to the website if you want to read more about the tower.

www.cntower.ca/index.aspx

Before going to the Tower, we had a few errands to run, so a table was booked for 4.30 pm, late lunch, early dinner?? Lunner? Luncher? Linner? lol

We had bought a used Lexus from our local Toyota dealer, we were going to get a Rav 4 but it worked out way above budget considering car insurance was going to be something like CAD4-5K. So, opted for an older Lexus, which I knew Dave would love the minute he test drove it. Its so old in fact, that is has a cassette player in it! Who still has cassettes at home? Hands up.. we have none, as we threw or donated them away last year before our big move to Trini. Luckily it also has a 6 CD player, but guess what?? We left all our CDs at home after ripping them on to iTunes , so, the radio it is for the time being till we burn some discs.

We had told the kids we were getting a Yaris, just like their grandad's as that was all we could afford.. moans from them.. saying they hated that car.. hehehe. So, it was a very nice surprise for them when Sam, the car salesman played along with our scam and showed them the Yaris, an orange one, then said actually, this shiny dark blue Lexus is your car. The kids were so happy, they are definitely Dave's offspring!

Off we drove to town, parked near the Tower. We were about an hour early, so, went to look at the old steam train display at the Roundhouse, which had turned into a furniture warehouse! We found some Malaysian made bed side tables there, they call them night stands here, and purchased them. 3 birds killed with the same stone.. yippeee.

We went up the Tower to our table, had a lovely delicious meal. It was a revolving restaurant. We had been to one in Malaysia before, at KL Tower,but I do not think the kids were born then, wow, that must have been 12 years ago then. Or maybe we had Mitch but not Jasmine.... nope, we went way before we had kids. It was a great experience for us all. We missed the sunset as we had not revolved quite enough to catch the sun going down. It was a great way to slow down our eating as we kept looking out, forgetting to eat, haha, usually food gets gobbled down, but we actually were eating for more than an hour, must be a record for us.

After dinner, we went to the observation deck and glass floor levels, our ride did not include the tower pod. There was a long queue to get down, took about 45 minutes, and that was the only slight blip to our day that day.... it was only a slight blip and did not spoil our day at all.

19 years, almost half my lifetime, with the same person. I hope we'll be together for another 19 and more but who's to say? After seeing one of our closest relatives split up after 35 years and another good friend after more than 25 years together, nothing can be taken for granted. Relationships have to be worked at... hopefully not all the time, but you have to sow to reap.

Keeping alive the flame of love and passion may seem such a cliche, but it's an important one.....knowing when to give, when to receive and when to shut up is all very important. I still have a way to go, but am working towards it and hope that my love for Dave will grow stronger with each day that passes as it has done over the last 19 years... it's so strange that even after 19 years, there are still things that I am learning about him and our relationship... we are growing together, with the same objective.... and if ever the time comes when we find we are drifting apart, I hope we can be honest and tell each other.... honesty is still the best policy, come what may.....que sera sera what will be, will be...

So, you have no credit history in Canada

Life is an adventure, interesting and challenging.... this is so true for the Jordan family and has been since we decided to leave Beeston, Nottingham for sunnier climes in Trinidad. Since then, we've settled to life in Vic Gardens, made a lot of lovely friends and networks, got used to a different way of life etc etc. I got used to being a lady of leisure which I thought would be difficult, but which I will admit I enjoyed. All in all Trinidad was a positive experience for us apart from Jasmine who found in very difficult to settle at school and hated the hot weather and sunk into a minor depression. She has since revealed that she was deeply unhappy in Trinidad.

After about 9 months there, we were told that the job in Trini was becoming redundant and so we were offered the chance of working and living in Canada. We were shocked but at the same time thought it was going to be a good move. Jasmine would be out of a place she found difficult to live in, we would be more secure as the job was for 3 years this time, more opportunities for the kids, I would be granted a work permit and could work if I wanted and it was in our future plans to move on to the company in Toronto, so, it was all looking positive.

We were told about some difficulties we may face on arrival, especially the fact we have no credit history in Canada, may affect our ability to get financing or credit cards. Also, that our driving insurance would be sky high as we have no history driving here. We were forewarned but there was no way of preparing ourselves for the reality of what that means.

I suppose we could have prepared ourselves by having ready a big pot of money so we would not have to rely on having to borrow for buying a car or getting a mortgage. Unfortunately for us, we did not have much savings and that was that! We had to get some credit to start building on our credit history....first we tried getting a credit card with the bank we banked with. We had opened an account when we came initially in June. We were denied a normal no bond credit card, so had to open a separate savings account with X amount in, which was our credit card limit, and that money was not to be touched. Yippeee, now to build that credit. I too had to do this, but at the moment, have not got a card from the bank as we need access to our money for purchasing a car and other essentials.

Next, we tried to purchase a car. Dave told the car salesperson how much we could afford and if it was more we would have to have financing. Oh, no problem..... we told him our circumstances and he was still positive. A car was chosen, all sorts discussed and financing sought. Well, we have no credit history, we were not landed immigrants, we were here on a work permit and only for 3 years, we had only been here just over a month and so on and so forth....financing wasn't granted, even from our own bank!!! We had been advised by Agnes who was dealing with the financing to quickly build our credit history. We say how??? No one will give us credit to build it with...... I was going round and round with no hope of ever escaping.

Canada is not interested that we have a mortgage in the UK for the last 18 years,and we have credit and store cards in the UK for years, that we always pay on time, that we have no claims bonuses for our house and driving insurance. This all happened outside Canada, and therefore do not count! No man is an island, but Canada is behaving like it is one!

We were buying this car at a Toyota dealer and finally Toyota agreed to let us have finance but only for 3 years, which is ok, but we now need a cheaper car as we are looking to the future and may be buying a house and needing a mortgage.... fat chance!

I have not mentioned my work permit yet, have I? Well, it finally arrived, my visitors' status changed. It held some restrictions though, this work permit, I would not be able to work with children, or in schools, I was allowed to work in health care either, I was not allowed to study in any Canadian institutions on this status. Why these restrictions?? Because I have come from another country and would be a public health threat to the vulnerable, eg children, the ill. Perhaps I am a bit harsh, they do not state I am a threat, I think the correct wording is

Canada Immigration places restrictions on the issuance of certain types of work permits, specifically those relating to child care, primary or secondary school teaching, health services field occupations and agricultural occupations, as these are fields where the protection of public health is essential. If aforeign worker intends to work in one of these fields, they must first pass an immigration medical examination. Once the immigration medical examination has been passed and the results of the examination are ok, then an application can be submitted to Canada Immigration for the removal of this condition from the work permit.

Tomorrow I am going to see a Canada Immigration Designated Medical Practitioner, have my medical, which includes a chest XRay ( I had one done last year in Trini, but this will not do, Island mentality prevails!), have no symptoms of TB, been vaccinated to the eyeballs with BCG since birth, but will still receive my dose of radiation tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Steve Wright in the Afternoon

After a Ashtanga yoga class yesterday, swimming on Sunday my shoulders and arms feel like they've worked hard... so, I gave hot yoga a miss today. The vinyasas have done me in! Any excuse, huh? In any case, I had 4 large suitcases to unpack, we had just got them back from Mike and Claire's who have been kindly keeping them for us in their garage. Where to put all our things? Plus I have a about 30 boxes arriving from the UK and Trinidad soon. The UK boxes are here, awaiting clearance at customs. The boxes from Trini minus one that has mysteriously disappeared, maybe it's just as well will be here in a few weeks! Where shall I put all that stuff??? Not going to think about that, till it all arrives.

I have been listening to several BBC radio stations on line, mainly Radio 4 for The Archers. Just a Minute and Friday Night Comedy. Radio 2 mainly for Steve Wright in The Afternoon. Not listened to his Love songs on Sunday as yet. Radio 5 Live is good too, as is Radio 6 and 7, just depending on my mood.

Jeremy Vine is doing poetry week and today's theme was war poems. A few were red out. I am not a fan of poetry but some of them were rather poignant and thought provoking..a listener had come on to share her favourite, a Siegfried Sasoon(1886-1967). I cannot remember what it was called but have since had a look and here's one that I like.

Survivors

No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they're 'longing to go out again,' -
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.
They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,-
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride...
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

Craiglockhart. October, 1917.

She encouraged us all to read more poetry, especially children as it was easier to read than a book and may make us think more, cheer us up, stoke our emotions... I may give it a go...

Another that was read out was one by Rudyard Kipling, written after his son had perished in the First World War, wish I could remember what it was called so I could share it....

Here's a poem about LOVE

Love Comes to Stay
You broke into my house while I was out
and lodged and laughed and cooked and disarranged things.
I find it very hard to tolerate
intruders with the energy to change things.

You cluttered up my home with friends and noise;
stole my entire routine and broke and spoiled it,
wrecked my attempts at dignity and poise,
dismantled old machinery and oiled it.

You heard the song I knew by heart, and learned it,
explored each corner of my home and filled it;
and snatched my dearest prejudice and burned it,
and caught what terrified me most, and killed it.

You hold opinions I don't wish to hear,
make jokes about me which I don't quite get,
break rules, support the cause I least approve,
and fail to see that I'm in charge, as yet.
You barge in without any invitation,
slam doors which I prefer to keep ajar
you go and smash my blessed, slow stagnation.

But, since you’re here, we’ll leave things as they are

Lucy Berry

Steve Wright in the Afternoon came on after Jeremy, and this is one show that cheers me up no end, with it's factoids and music of yesteryear, more my kind of thing. Isn't technology wonderful, it enables me to listen to the show live, we're 5 hours behind here in Canada, so was listening in from 9am..I had to unpack these bags, organise the storage that we have and the show kept me going, in between several breaks to play bejewelled on facebook... wish I wasn't so attached to that game! I am crazy, but then we already knew that.

Steve was playing some familiar tunes and some not so familiar, as I am rubbish with music, minimal exposure when I was young and am not a person that needs to listen to something all the time. Anyhow, he said to email him as he loves hearing from his listeners so I did. Telling him where I was listening from and what I was doing this morning, and being all on my own with just his show to keep me company.... and .... my email was read out just after 4pm UK time! Whooooooooo Wheeeeeee.... Can't tell you the excitement I felt..... what a buzz, made my morning, for sure.... I know, easily pleased, me.

Will end here with some factoids from the show!

1. bigshowfactoids
   The average person flexes their fingers 24 millions times in their lifetime

bigshowfactoids

Some people have more bones in their feet than others

bigshowfactoids

The oldest rainforest in the world is not the Amazon, but the Daintree rainforest in Queensland, Australia

bigshowfactoids

A beer has been launched in Japan that is made from barley grown in a lab in space

bigshowfactoids

Iceland consumes more coca cola per capita than any other country on the planet

bigshowfactoids

Ostriches live for about 75 years and can reproduce for 50 of them

Digest that!

Balancing eggs on the balcony

We were at the Nuit Blanche event in Toronto City on Saturday the 2/10/2010. It was a free all night event downtown with 3 separate zones. I chose to take the family to Dundas as I was familiar with that area having met Barbara in town last Thursday.

Dundas Square is a bit like Times Square in NYC, with the neon billboards going up the sides of tall buildings, though there were no skyscrapers in Toronto. There were several street performers as well as the art exhibits that were officially on the billing. Arghhh, the words are not flowing as well as I would like them to.....

After having a little look and then dinner at the Hard Rock cafe where we sat with some John Lennon and Tina Turner memorabilia, we set off towards City Hall for exhibit no.1-Later that night at the drive-in by Daniel Lanos, a sound and sight exhibition with large concert type screens depicting images of a band playing live, interspersed with ethereal sounding music... very modern but the kids thought the music was scary and wanted to move on. We wandered towards University Avenue and the S African war memorial and Campbell Historic House Museum. We saw a lot of people in the garden and decided to check it out. The exhibit there was Pine cone colony which was an independent project. Gigantic pine cones made of metal, and one that was a brazier.

We carried on walking and just before walking towards Spadina, we saw a some performers balancing objects, the man was balancing different rocks and stones and blocks of concrete and there was a lady balancing eggs. Raw eggs, she also said she was doing some egg cleansing, some healing. It's a mid-american practice and eggs with their porous qualities would absorb negativity within a person being healed in order to allow that empty space to be filled with positive energy. I know, I know, I am sceptical too, but we don't know too much about these things and they are areas where good research would be difficult to be carried out for a variety of reasons.

It's like Nash my yoga teacher saying, crystals have been around a loooong time and they have energy in them.... now, how do we measure this energy? He also talked about positive energy, about how monks meditating around some water that some scientists had placed some cells in. What kind of cells I don't know. They had looked at these cells under the microscope after all the chanting and meditation and these cells were apparently shining like stars and twinkling, moving actively in the water.

Conversely, some water with the same kind of cells was placed in a drinking water bottle at work where people gathered, moaned and whined about work. Once again the cells were examined, and this time, the cells had all burst and were passive in the said water. I don't know where this research is published, but how does one control this kind of research? I am not saying it's not valid, I just think there are too many variables to control. I may be wrong, of course.

Back to the eggs. I didn't realise eggs could be balanced on their ends. To see several balanced on a concrete block was amazing. The lady who was with the eggs came to talk to us and told me about the egg cleansing thing and I asked if the kids could try to balance an egg. She took a fresh egg and said, "See how I do it, you will then believe it can be done and you will be able to do it too."

Prior to this, there was some argy bargy going on with the hot dog stand owner who was getting irate with spectators blocking her stand and she had words with the artists. She wanted the spectators to move from her stand, the artist were calm and said no one was really in the way of her business, but the hot dog woman was a bit hot under the collar. The egg lady who was trying to balance the egg took a while and said, she had been affected by the unpleasantness, that she has been buying hot dogs from the woman for 12 years ,were friends and could not understand why she was so upset. The crowd had retaliated to, shouting at the hot dog woman, saying, "What have you got against art, " and ," It's Nuit Blanche!" All these fell on deaf hot ears LOL.

Anyway, she eventually balanced the egg, Mitch then had a go, managed almost straight away and then Jasmine who took a bit longer, but they both managed to balance an egg. There was a gust of wind and one of the eggs balanced earlier, fell off it's perch and cracked...." Oh!", We exclaimed, the egg was raw. Egg lady said never mind, I said,"Well, it has shown us they are raw!" She turned to me, smiling widely and said, "I think you're the cup is half full kinda person". I have come a loong way....

I had not balanced an egg that night, as we got home about 11.30pm. We had not stayed out all night as the kids were tired, so really only caught a glimpse of Nuit Blanche but it was a good intro, we will definitely do more next year. So, I was determined to try the next morning, and I did it! So did Jas and Mitch again, out on the balcony.

So there we have it, eggs can be balanced on their ends..... anything can balance if you find their point of balance. I could adopt this for my life too, people talk a lot about the work-life balance, about a balanced diet...... Finding this balance may be difficult, but important, as like the egg, finding that balance will make me more grounded, almost like making the impossible possible, if only we have the courage to try... why is that important? It would allow me to forget, ignore the unimportant, forget the fools of this world, try not to let them affect me. See the bigger picture, make love not war. Experience life to the full as we only have one life, grab chances as they come, they may not be repeated and this is why I am in Toronto today. I have always wanted to travel and see the world and thought I would do so through my nursing, but meeting Dave, settling down, having Mitch and Jasmine put that thought on hold..... till that fateful offer of going to Trinidad.... which has lead to greater and better things.......