Tidy, Tidy, Clean, Clean, Wash, Wash....

We have a couple of estate agents booked to come and give us valuations today- one in half an hour and one at lunchtime- and I've been faffing around putting things away in cupboards and cleaning the hob and doing last night's washing up and all that sort of thing. Tidiness is not something I'm noted for...

Our delivery from Tesco arrived in the middle of all this mildly frenetic activity. As we were putting our purchases away Ailz discovered a rotten potato in the potato sack. It was richly scenting the air. I took it outside, nobly ignoring the slime, and tossed it like a grenade...

Quick, light another joss stick....

Dealing With Estate Agents

First estate agent was solicitous, wanted to see everything, measure everything, walk round the fields. He talked a lot. When it came to giving us a ballpark valuation he pitched it low.

Second estate agent was almost casual. He gave the property a cursory once over and said, in effect, that the house didn't really matter and what counted was the location and the land. It would be an easy sell and he named a price that seemed too good to be true.

The first estate agent rang back in the afternoon, wanting to find out how things stood. We were frank with him, told him about the other guy's valuation and said we were confused. He hummed and hawed a bit and then the line went dead. Unless he comes back with an apology I'm going to assume that he'd slammed down the phone.

The discrepancy between the two valuations- both in style and outcome- have left us wanting a third opinion- so we've got another company coming to look us over on Wednesday.