Auctions and Fathers' Day

Sunday:

Well we didn't get either of the houses we wanted :( It was a long, exhausting and exciting - if ultimately a bit disappointing - day.

To start with, on the drive to Sydney I suddenly realised we were nearly out of petrol. I noticed it just before the warning light went on. The problem was we were on the highway in the middle of nowhere. We pushed on and made it to the next petrol station, but the needle was pretty low! That was a bit stressful. Then we looked at one new house, didn't appeal to us, then went to the auction for our favourite house.

We still loved it and I think we nearly got it. Tim went one bid over our maximum, just in case, but the other remaining bidder went higher and we just couldn't. Actually the other guy then tried to bid again, not realising he had it, so I guess he had even more to spend. We were disappointed but know there are more houses coming on the market every week and we'll find one.

We had a quick lunch then saw another new house, nope, then the second auction. This house, we weren't so sure about. We looked around for a long time and only decided to bid at the last minute. But it went way over our limit almost straight away. I'm not upset about that one, it was a lovely house but didn't really suit us perfectly like the other one did.

If we don't find a house to buy very soon, then we'll have to rent for a while in Sydney while we look after Tim starts work there. In some ways that won't be a bad thing, it means we can sell this house first and not have to borrow so much money. But it's tricky not knowing which school to send the kids too. And a pain having to move twice. I guess we'd keep most of our stuff in storage. But it would be so convenient being on the spot to go look at houses, instead of having to drive four hours each way.

One funny thing was that every list of auction hints we saw suggested we dress well, so we did. I think it's supposed to intimidate other bidders into thinking you are rich, so they don't bother to bid against you. But at both houses the winner of the bidding was dressed in ratty dirty clothes. I'm sure it makes no difference at all. It depends on how much money you have to spend on the house, not your clothes!

We dropped in for a quick visit to Tim's brother, then the long drive home. Tim was already exhausted from the stress - he did all the bidding - and I collapsed when we got home. Such a big day. We both still felt pretty tired this morning.

Today was Fathers' Day, but we had a lot to do today as we had a skip bin sitting out the front ready for our final load of rubbish, including the old trampoline that we had to dismantle first! We have to concentrate on getting this house ready for sale.We spent hours clearing all the junk we'd collected. Tim took apart the trampoline and I trudged up and down the driveway with the wheelbarrow full of parts, and other junk from the garage and garden shed. How many plastic pots does one person need? Really physically exhausting.

It turns out that the trampoline, and the posts that held up the safety netting, were a spider condo. Nothing deadly, but none of us are keen on spiders. And this is Australia, so some of them were pretty big!

Tim had mentioned at work that he was throwing away a treadmill on the weekend (they are impossible to sell because so many people buy one and never use it and then try to get rid of it, the world is already full of second hand treadmills for sale) and one woman asked if she could have it. Of course he said yes, so she and her husband came to pick it up today. Hmm, he never mentioned to me he had such an attractive co-worker... She gave us a box of chocolates as thanks which was lovely, but also a bit ironic considering it was a swap for a healthy device! Maybe it should have been a bouquet of kale.

It wasn't a very healthy day food-wise. I made French Toast for breakfast, Jasmine cooked burgers for lunch, and we had roast lamb for dinner followed by lemon meringue pie. All delicious Father's Day fare, but I hope I burned off all the calories with the work I did!