Well, here I am, finally – a little later than I wanted to start, but time, a weekend long 50% bonus to any and all experience gained (in Rift, of course!) and a lot of mundane grocery shopping sort-of held me up – just a little 🙂
We had a very early start this morning – the first house we looked at (at 10.00 am!) was the one I was telling you about last night – the one with the lift. Now, I thought that the lift looked as though it went from the 2 car garage underneath, to somewhere towards the back of the master bedroom, but I was wrong! The lift, in fact, went from the 2 car garage underneath… to the back of the walk in wardrobe in the master bedroom! Talk about “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” scenarios! The house itself was well maintained, had beautiful big rooms, plenty of storage space, archways every which-where (I just love archways! I think they look so… “different” from your usual ho-hum boring old squared-off door frames – archways are so much more “romantic”!) In all, we would probably have had to strip everything except the supporting walls (and the archways!) out and start over from scratch. This place would have needed nearly three times the amount of work that Flowerdrum would have – in short, much more work than we were really prepared to handle. The deal breaker, though, was the driveway. Remember I told you that one of the houses we went to see the other day was at the bottom of a long, steep driveway at the end of a nice little cul-de-sac? Well, the driveway of the place we saw today almost made that first one look like level ground! It was really steep, up to the garage (where the lift was) and after that, there were two extremely steep sets of steps, leading up to… the stairs to the front porch! Well, the steps were mostly manageable, just, but it was the first set of steps that gave me palpitations – the hand rail didn’t start until half way up the flight of stone steps! So what with my arthritis, the fact that I can’t balance properly in shoes, and there was no hand rail until half way up… well, I was stuck, wasn’t I?! We weren’t allowed to use the lift – the Agents didn’t even know how to operate it (and I think that the garage was locked, anyway!) I couldn’t go back down the drive, it was really too steep for me, so there I was, teetering on the stone step, with nothing to hold onto to help me keep my balance! In the end, I was able to use Julian as fairly wobbly stair rail, and managed to get up, but I tell you, never again! I don’t care how many archways there are – I couldn’t live there! When we left, Julian brought the car up the drive as far as the garage, and even the big, powerful Mercedes station wagon didn’t like it very much! So we won’t need to worry about having High Rise apartments being built all around us, after all! 🙂
We had a bit of a lull before the second place opened, but we went and had a look at the outside of it, then drove around the area, just to see what sort of a neighbourhood it was. Well, I can tell you what sort of a neighbourhood it was in one word! “Hilly”! 🙂 But it was also very nice – “casual” gardens (that is, not manicured to within a blade of grass, and not unkempt and overgrown, OK? 😉 ) houses bordering on the “McMansion” type of architecture, lots of parks and green spaces – in other words, very pleasant. We also went and had a look at the block of land where the two houses that I’m currently so interested in are going to be built. A very similar area to the one I’ve just described, but much flatter! One could even go for a semi-decent walk without having to toil and puff oneself up hills and down dales… The block itself is almost completely flat, but to me, doesn’t really look big enough for two decent sized three bedroom homes… I said to Julian that he was going to have to sit down with me and explain to me the size of the rooms on the plan, compared to the size of rooms here in the apartment. For all the fact that I can judge spaces in a graphic to within one pixel, I have absolutely no idea of how big something is, simply from its measurements. Tell me that something is 180 square meters, and to me, that might mean the size of an egg cup, or it might mean the size of the MCG – or anywhere else in between! I have no point of reference! A measurement to me is just a number. Tell me that something is as big as our lounge room, and I know what you’re talking about. Tell me that something is as high as a desk, and I can immediately picture it – but tell me that it’s “X” meters high, and I’ll look at you blankly. I’m a very visual person – I’m afraid I don’t “do” abstract dimensions even vaguely well…
So anyway, we finally got to see the inside of the second house, the one that Carmen had been waxing so lyrical about. Well, I can certainly see us living there! It really is a beautiful place! There are three bedrooms upstairs, all with en-suites. There’s another bedroom downstairs, also with an en-suite, and a tiny little kitchenette! But one thing we did find very strange – there was no main bathroom! Off the lounge room and dining room there was a very fancy and stylish bar (with a sink, so there’s plumbing there) and behind that was a powder room (read toilet and hand basin) and a laundry – with a shower. If we were lucky enough to be able to afford this place (there were heaps of people – mostly Chinese – going through it this morning, and it is gorgeous – so I don’t really think we have a chance of getting it – as much as I wish we could!) But if we were lucky enough to get this place, I’d enclose the bar (cos we don’t really drink, and we don’t know enough people to do any entertaining) the space between the bar and the laundry/powder room, and the powder room itself, and turn it into a decent size main bathroom, leaving the laundry as it is (but maybe turn the shower into a large cupboard?) The large lounge room is separated from an enormous deck – almost as big as the lounge room itself – by huge sliding (or folding? I didn’t notice – sorry!) doors – when they’re open, the deck forms part of the lounge room, so that you have a giant indoor/outdoor living area. The garden is fairly maintenance free, and not too big, and all in all, it would be ideal. The main problem is the price – and if it does go to auction, I think we can say goodbye to it… (though Carmen seems to think that as the owners are anxious to go back to New Zealand, they may be happy to accept a good offer to get it all over and done with without having to wait for the auction. Time will tell, I guess!)
Weigh-in this morning. Was a bit of a non-event. I stayed the same – 89.5kg. Let’s see if scrambling up and down steep driveways will make a difference – it did last time…
So that’s about it from me for today – after the “house-ing”, we came home, had some lunch (it was my Berry Crunch bar day today – my favourite! 🙂 ) I went on my Stair Walk, we wrote out a huge shopping list, went and did the shopping, and came home tired and cold (well, I was cold, anyway) Then, as I mentioned at the start of the blog, Rift is having a 50% extra experience bonus weekend, so I wanted to try to get Incantessa as far along as possible. This is a new Incantessa (I’ll probably delete the original one) I decided that I didn’t want to wait until the other one was level 15 and so that I could move her – why should I? A girl already had to be moved off Hailol to make room for her, so… why not just move the superfluous girl first, and re-create Incantessa on the right shard to begin with? So I did, and she’s now level 10 🙂 It seems no-one has thought of the name “Incantessa” (such a cool name for a Mage! 🙂 ) as I managed to get it on all of the three shards that I tried it on! 🙂
+————————–+ * Dinner & Television Break * +————————–+
Well, I didn’t really think that I’d get all of this written up before dinner time, and I didn’t. Still, ’tis almost finished now. Tomorrow is Sunday, and it’ll be a full day in Brevane – or Dusken, if we can find any more quests to do, where we’ll take advantage of the 50% extra experience bonus weekend – and who knows? Maybe we’ll even make it up to level 60! 😉 That’d be good… 🙂 And with a lot of luck, crossed fingers, and wishing on stars, maybe my weight will take advantage of the steep driveway that I so precariously managed to stagger and scramble up (probably looking most undignified, too!) and drop a few more points. I think I’d probably be quite satisfied with 98.3kg – let’s see what eventuates – knowing me, it’s more likely to go up! So drop by again tomorrow night and find out all the latest – the house hunting will resume it’s normal chaotic course on Monday morning, and you, gentle readers, will have to suffer it all right along with us, every step of the way to our new abode! 😉 However, until tomorrow night, please try to bee good, remember that sometimes you succeed…. and other times you learn; but above all… please stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 