What's Going On In The RD World

I'm starting to view flats so things these days are hectic in a very exciting way, though they're not made easier by dealing with estate agents. The whole property scenario, whether buying, selling, renting or letting would be much more simple and hassle free if estate agents could be cut out of the property chain.

I don't know what it's like over there in Serendib, perhaps your estate agents have a brain. Here in blighty they definitely DO have a brain, the problem is that they share it. In the US you have realtors and I have a vague hope that they might be more professional than their UK equivalents.

Over the years I've built up the opinion that estate agents are second only to recruitment consultants in their somethingness, I can't quite put a name to it. But, what is the point in telling any of them what my criteria are when they go and ignore them anyway? ( I never know if criteria is /are classed as singular or plural when I write of them / it) I have a list of things that are important to me:

1. Price - I shan't tell you what it is because you'll think I'm either skint or loaded. Then you'll just judge me.

2. Area - Within a certain radius of the kids, defined more by time than physical distance.

3. Ground floor or upper floors only if there's a lift, or a sidewalk as the Americans say;) - Because a drummer doesn't want to get back at 2 AM from a gig and have to trudge up flights of stairs with a drumkit. And because I'm a drummer.

4. Off street or at least good parking - see point 3.

5. Lots of light - You see, this will be a place that I really want to be in, that I enjoy hanging in. Let's face it, I spend a lot of time on my own so I'd like to do that in an environment I like. On reflection it's a reality you don't have to face, but I do.

6. At least 2 bedrooms.

That's it. And there is leeway with some of them. Price can move a bit, though I won't telling that to the parasites, particularly with the market being as it is here. Parking can be played around with as long as I can pull up outside and unload easily, but stairs is a no go. Light is subjective and bedrooms could be more but not less. The girls must have a room.

All my how to be a good divorced Dad books say that a classic mistake made by our ilk is to go out and move into a cool and stylish batchelor pad, as the need for a family home fades off into the distance, and have Britney Spears lookalikes around each night. Often the divorced Dad finds himself in a position to go out and buy or rent the type of place he could only dream about before he was married.

Then, post divorce, he does so and forgets that he also has to give his kids the message that he's still their Dad and part of their lives. This means that when they come to stay, they don't have to sleep on a foldout settee or be treated as if they're occasional guests. So my terrors will have a room in my new place, even though it will be used only occasionally.

I've tried to explain all of this to the agents but they continue to try to get me to view places that don't have the essential things I need. It wastes everyone's time, though my feelings for their time are somewhat limited.

I'm also recovering from Wednesday evening's pocket money negotiations with K. Honestly I wish there was a way I could have filmed the scene and stuck it up here for all to see. I don't know how it would have stood with privacy laws and the like, let alone how angry K might well have been with me when she eventually found out, but the thought crossed my mind.

Over the weekend I'll do a much more detailed post to tell you about it. You can get some idea when I tell you that she had prepared a powerpoint presentation with features I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to include, she wore a suit jacket while she presented and the final slide told me how much money I'd save, yes save, by giving her and A the proposed increase.

And I might write that post about the date I went on, the one with me.

As you have heard, the RD world is a nicely busy and buzzing one these days.

I'll leave you with wishes for a grand weekend and also break a leg best wishes things for the cast of Hamlet at Elsie's Bar. I feel like I've been standing in the sidelines watching the build up and would have loved to have seen it.

Next time maybe.