For Sale

Life has been a bit strange lately as we have finally put our house on the market. It feels odd to be doing this after living here for nearly 28 years, it is even weirder showing round people who may end up living here instead of us.


This time round we took a bit longer choosing our estate agent, and making sure we got the best commission deal, and the agent most likely to work for us. We eventually plumbed for Reeds Rain, who not only had a deal on fees, but also seemed the most likely to guide us through the various stages since this will be the first time we have ever sold a house (our only other move being an insurance jobbie as our home was subsiding).

So far we are happy with our choice, after only 3 1/2 weeks we have had one couple who liked it, wanted to come for another look but somehow got lost in the ether as they never did come back, a couple who decided it was too small, a couple who thought they would up their budget after a day looking at lots of houses including ours, and a couple who love the place, have made three visits, have bought along both sets of parents, yet have still to make an offer, and last night, a couple in need of a place to move into before May and who made two visits in the same day. Oh and apparently the estate agent herself is also keen but has not managed to sell her home yet so is not in a position to make an offer.

There is not a great deal in the way of bungalows in our price range about, we have been to see a few, and even put in an offer on one we love but its catch 22 as the agent on that one wouldn't take a firm offer until we manage to sell ours!

We await the next installment, next week.

 Martin had a week off the week before half term. The weather wasnt brilliant, cold rainy and mainly overcast plus I ended up doing two days supply and we looked after little Finley for two days but we did finally get to go to Harry Potter Studio Tour!

  The website reckons on it being a three hour walk round and they are not wrong (we have been to other places that boast just as much cost the earth and turn out to be little more than a 5 min walk round a poorly themed room). We took over the three hours and could have happily looked round for longer except neither of us were fit enough to stay on our feet any more than that.

 Its a fab place to go, so much to see, and so much in the way of interesting information, in fact its difficult to take it all in at just the one visit and I can well see us going again in the distant future to refresh our memories and learn more.

 Some things were simply magical like the set for the Weasley's house, some were surprising like the dormitory where Harry slept for the duration of his time at Hogwarts (such a small space but made to look so spacious)

 

 some things were wonderful secrets but nothing on how the magic was made actually took anything away from the films and tended to make us think just how clever everything really had been such as how Hagrids hut was designed to make him look big or the children small,

 some stuff simply took a very long time to think through, design and make which really gave a sense of awe towards all who worked on the films and just how much attention to detail there had been

 and somethings just knocked you off your feet, like the scaled model of Hogwarts castle that filled a whole room and was simply amazing to behold.

 

We even got to sample a pint of butter-beer and although we didn't go much on it, it being much to sweet for our tastes it was still a brilliant experience. All the staff were amazing, and looked after us every step of the way without seeming pushy and all in all I would recommend anyone with any interest in film making or watching (and not just HP films) to take the opportunity to go have a look.