Dublin

As I was walking past the GPO, I heard an Australian say to a woman who was posting a letter, “Do you by any chance know what the Easter Rising is?”

That is all. Maybe you had to be there.

I am pulling together a pub quiz team. My friend R and his wife have said they will come though he has warned me “our knowledge is more likely to be largely congruent rather than complementary.” I am keen to get a sporting expert for our team. R asked could he bring his [adult] children? By all means, bring offspring, said I, particularly if sound on Gaelic games.

His reply: “Believe it or not, S played on the Hanoi team at a South-East Asia Gaelic football tournament in Saigon. I don’t think I would have regarded this as a likely prospect when I was reading about Viet Nam in Time Magazine every week in 1968.”

We have to transfer the electricity in the new house from the vendors to us. The task of ringing customer service in the electricity company fell to me.

Them: Ring, ring, ring. Thank you for calling Airtricity customer service. Please input your account number. Please dial 1 etc etc. Eventually a human being comes on the line.
Me: Hello I’m ringing about moving an electricity account.
Him: You must be Anne.
Me: Sorry.
Him: Aren’t you Anne?
Me: Yes.
Him: I was talking to [the vendor] this morning and she said that you would be calling.
Me [faintly]: Oh right.
Him: Do you want it in your name or Mr. Waffle’s?
Me: How do you know my husband’s name?
Him: Did I get it wrong?
Me: No, no, you’re right, I’m just a bit surprised. Eh, my name please.
Him: Do you want to pay by direct debit?
Me: Yup.
Him: Give me your bank account and sort code details there.
Me [Give numbers]: But don’t you need me to sign something?
Him: No that’s grand. You’re all set up now from December 18th. That’s the day you closed, isn’t it?
Me [by now unsurprised]: Yup that’s right.
Him: I have the readings from the vendor; do you want to double check them or are you happy enough?
Me: That’s fine. I really hope that they are recording this conversation for quality purposes.
Him: Ah you’re very good Anne.

Utterly painless: Airtricity, I salute you. Although, if I ever acquire a stalker you will be the first people I will put on my list of suspects.

I finally saw inside our new house on December 20. There was a charming card from the vendors, a bottle of wine and some chocolate polar bears. It is a lovely, lovely house.

We decided not to tell the children until after Christmas because I knew Michael would be upset. On St. Stephen’s Day we took them to see it. The Princess was pleased; Daniel was indifferent; and Michael was distraught. He spent the duration of the visit sitting in a fetal ball crying. When we got back to our own house, he threw himself on the stairs and said, “Goodbye stairs”, then he turned to the wall and said, “Goodbye wall.” “Sweetheart,” I said “we won’t be able to take the walls and the stairs to the new house but we will be able to take all your things.” “Will I be able to take my pear tree?” he asked.

Over Christmas, however, Michael became resigned to his fate and even began to run around the new house as though he might be able to contemplate living there. He has a couple of months to get used to the idea because we won’t be moving in until we get central heating.

The vendors have left a book of old postcards in the house with cards dating back to the 30s sent to this address. The house hasn’t changed hands much since it was built in 1890 [I find the title deeds fascinating in a way I never did when I had to deal with them professionally – I’m going to get copies and read the title] and I really hope that we will be there for a long time too.

Wish us luck.

On November 12 the estate agent confirms that his clients are still interested. There may be a pre-Christmas closing date. An old friend of mine from college is doing our conveyancing. We sign documents with her on November 23. I have no idea what is needed. I am in a position to definitively confirm that any slight acquaintance with conveyancing I may have had 20 years ago is utterly gone.

That very evening I have the following conversation with Michael:

Michael: Daniel is always throwing his socks down on me from his bunk.
Me: Oh dear, would you like to have your own bedroom where Daniel couldn’t throw socks on you?
Michael [mournfully]: Yes. [Short pause]. But that does not mean I will ever move house, so don’t even think about it.

I gaze lovingly at photos of the house on my phone. Mr. Waffle points out that it won’t be half as nice when we move in as it will only have our beaten up IKEA furniture. I say this to a friend of my mother’s who says, “Nonsense, your mother will be so delighted that one of her children finally has a house with room for some of her furniture that she will give you lots.” I sincerely hope this is true.

In advance of closing, we go to the house with our architect. The estate agent, annoying to the last, meets us there with the wrong set of keys. When the architect gets in he is very positive. Is it wrong to feel optimistic?

That evening there is a knock on the door. Mr. Waffle answers it. “Do you know who that was?” he asks. “It was the vendor who grew up in the house – apparently our post has started arriving there [Ulster Bank being perhaps a little over prompt]. He said that they had been very happy there and he hoped that we would be too. We start to hear things about the vendors [the children of the deceased]. He is a magician. When she was young, she was so pretty that she would stop traffic on the road. She was the envy of the local girls.

Finally, finally we close on Tuesday, December 18. With a certain inevitability, our title deeds are briefly mislaid by the courier. Never mind. It’s ours. We’ll spend next Christmas in our new house.

On June 20, we see a house that is perfect. We both love it. I am very depressed as I feel we will be outbid and doomed. By June 29 there are no other offers. The estate agent says our offer is too meagre, however, the family of the deceased is considering it. Yet again, I am filled with unwise hope.

On July 3 there is another bidder. We bid in increments up to our limit. We are outbid. On July 10 we said goodbye. I nearly cried. “Right,” I said to Mr. Waffle, “I am ringing the birthday house people and putting in an offer.” “Give it a week,” he says. On July 11, the estate agent for the perfect house is back on. The other bidder had some objection. I hand over to Mr. Waffle as I can no longer stand the trauma of the negotiations. I begin listing to myself the disadvantages of the perfect house so that I am not too depressed should it all fall through: planning permission extant for flats behind the laneway; no central heating; no side passage; east as opposed to west or south facing back garden. I am clutching at straws here.

On July 12 we are sale agreed! Mr. Waffle is a tower of strength. We agree not to tell the children as there might yet be a slip twixt cup and lip. I feel great excitement and also a vague sense of anti-climax. I feel that my greatest ambition of the past 18 months is achieved. Really? This is it, this is all that I wanted in life, a larger house? Oh for heaven’s sake. I am all shallows and no depth.

On July 23 we are on holidays. Michael is desperate to get home to Dublin. He lies in bed weeping at the prospect of waiting until the following day. Herself comments darkly, “This is just a taster of what you can expect, if we ever move house.” The guilt.

Our holidays in France in August are mildly blighted by an estate agent shaped cloud as he keeps ringing to know where we are at in getting the survey and so on. On our return to Dublin, we sign contracts subject to finance. Given our great age, our life insurance involves a physical exam from a nurse. Apparently we are fine. We pay our deposit.

We are on holidays in Kerry in August, the surveyor rings us to say that he has given his survey to the bank. Since the bank wanted it before releasing funds we are happy. He then says casually that he has valued the house at considerably less than our offer. The bank refuses to release more than 90% of the valuer’s estimate. We are in despair and have no idea how to make up the shortfall. We are also furious with the idiot valuer. House prices in Ireland are a bit “make up your own figure”. We know that a house up the road sold at the height of the boom for twice what we are proposing to pay. We offer a number of potential solutions to the bank all of which they reject but in the waiting time, I filled with hope. The vendors’ estate agent is incandescent with rage. The only good thing is that we put him in touch with the surveyor and they had a free and frank exchange of views. Someone comments, accurately but unhelpfully, that if we were to get the house we would be in negative equity before we started.

The estate agent suggests that we go to a mortgage broker. We are not optimistic. When the bank with whom we have banked all our lives refuses to give us credit [thank you Bank of Ireland] we think it unlikely, what with one thing and another, that any other bank is likely to give us credit. The mortgage broker is more optimistic. We do after all have another survey [also from a surveyor on the bank’s approved list valuing the house at what we want to pay for it – in fact, he tells Mr. Waffle that it’s a great buy- kind, good surveyor]. In early October we sign forms with Ulster Bank. The Bank manager is full of bonhomie. On no, wretched optimism again. A fortnight later there is still no news. We drive past the perfect house. I sigh. “Schrödinger’s house” says Mr. Waffle.

On October 16, the vendors put the perfect house back on the market. On October 18 we sign more forms for Ulster Bank. They want a statement of our mortgage payments from Bank of Ireland. This is not available online. It is impossible to get through by phone. I resort to ringing customer complaints. I go through two menus and finally reach a human being. They can only send me a hard copy of the mortgage statement. As this is lunch time on Friday, it will be printed this evening and posted the following Monday. No chance of an electronic copy? No. Can I call in, perhaps? No it is not sent from here. Slightly sarcastically, I asked, from where then, a secret location? Yes, that’s correct. By the following Wednesday there is still no sign of the statement. I ring the bank. Allow 3-5 working days, they say.

On October 31 in the early evening we get news that Ulster Bank have approved our loan. Who would have thought? On November 9, to our amazement, confirmation of the loan offer arrives by fax. Ulster, atypically, says yes. Shortly rivers will begin to run uphill.

Concluding scenes in this stirring drama will follow shortly.