1st day at School for Ian and Carolyn

Friday 28th March 2008
We made sure we got the kids to school early today, after all we couldn’t be late for our first day of listening to the children read. It was relatively harmless, there were only a few words we didn’t know and if we hadn’t been there the teacher wouldn’t have been able to listen to them all on her own so we will be going back next week.
After that we went to the house to do a final Pre-Settlement viewing with the agent, we pointed out all the things that we knew from the surveys needed fixing and found a couple of others that we thought we may get away with. Some of the electrics were not working when we got there and the agent was straight on the phone to an electrician who, luckily for the agent was working close by and came straight over to fix the problem. It was a shame the electrician was so close in a way, it was quite funny watching the agent sweating over the possibility he might have to take a cut in his commission if it didn’t work and we put in a lower offer.
The electrician fixed the bits that were not working and just as we were about to leave the owners turned up and we introduced ourselves, they seemed quite pleasant but we didn’t really get a chance to chat because the agent was desperate to get us out (they obviously don’t approve of buyer and seller talking to each other out here). Outside we spoke to the agent about the bits we weren’t happy with and he tried to fob us off saying I don’t think you can ask for this and I don’t think you can ask for that, so we just stood firm in the knowledge that there is only a week before we are due to settle (exchange) and the small amount that we are asking for is nothing compared to what the cost of us pulling out would be. The agent said he would talk to the owners and see what he could do.
We then went appliance window shopping again and managed to strike up a couple of what we feel are good deals, well it is a darn sight less than we would have paid in the UK. While we were shopping we got a call from the realty agent asking us to pop in and see him so when we had finished we went straight round to his office. He had apparently spoken to the owners who had agreed to get everything that we had listed fixed, the only query was that the cook top that they would be fitting to replace the faulty one may not be exactly what we would want so we might want to do a deal whereby they pay for a cook top and installation and if we want a different top we pay the difference, which sounds good to us as we were going to change it anyway.
We then went to the local showroom to check out the price of cooker tops and bumped into the house owners who were doing the same thing, so we exchanged numbers with them so that we could avoid dealing with agents and said that we would wait for their call and we were sure we could agree a price.
We then went to see the settlement agent and paid our Stamp Duty before a bit of lunch and de-clutter of the emails in the Café. From there we went to an insurance broker to organise house insurance as we are supposed to be signing for the loan on Monday and need the insurance before they will release the funds.
After picking the kids up from school we went to another insurance broker to get a quote before going down to the beach for a swim. Today we went to yet another new beach, this one was recommended to us by the salesman who we are going to buy the Fridge/Freezer/Dishwasher/Washing Machine/Dryer/Iron/Kettle/ Toaster and Vacuum Cleaner from. It is in a small cove called Meelup and it was gorgeous, gently shelving beach, crystal clear water and no Jellyfish (stingers), which we found out today aren’t baby Jellyfish but full size ones which is a result because we weren’t looking forward to meeting the big ones.
We are into Autumn over here now and the nights are starting to draw in, the nights are cooling down and during the day it can go down to 25C degrees so it’s only a matter of time before we put on our sweaters. The clocks go back an hour tomorrow night, we have had an hour daylight saving (summer time) as they call it over here so we will not be able to go down the beach in the evening for much longer although apparently in a couple of weeks time it will start raining for about two months so we probably wouldn’t want to anyway.
We got home at about 8pm after stopping off at a bottle store to buy a box of wine which Carolyn got stuck into whilst watching a load of TV adverts interspersed with the film Love Actually.