Update all round

Where are we now with all the things going on in our lives?

The house up to the road is looking great.  I'll have to take some updated photos.  Mick's done a fabulous job freshening it all up.  There is some large expenditure looming and that might have to wait a while but it's not holding up progress yet.

We still haven't sold our house.  We had a promising prospect that went on and on over quite a few weeks.  There were 3 inspections and lots of phone calls but no offer.  Now their circumstances have changed so they are out of the picture.  Darn!  We have a second inspection lined up for next Friday for a lady who came to look this week so fingers crossed on that one.

Coco keeps getting slower.  Her twice daily walks are get shorter and shorter and a couple of times she hasn't been interested in an afternoon walk.  Unheard of for her!  The vet says it's only a matter of time as the fluid in her lungs isn't draining well any more.  At the moment she's still happy though.

I've been trying to find some local work but the timing isn't good.  I'm hoping it will be easier once Christmas is over.  I still have my day, or so, per week in the city which I enjoy.  Better than nothing.

Today we went and got a small Christmas tree.  We're "real tree" people but we didn't want one crowding our back room and making it look smaller than it is.  We've put in in a different place than usual which means we can't look at it if we sit down to watch tv but it keeps the room open - a sacrifice we decided to make with the house being on the market.

We had a possible tenant for the shed where we are storing our belongings.  There's heaps of empty space and this fellow had to move out of his current rented workshop.  He contacted the guy we own the shed with.  At first it sounded promising so we arranged to meet out there.  We had a talk before we got there about what would and wouldn't be acceptable.  I had a feeling that this guy was going to "live" in his workshop space without telling us - how would we know when we aren't there at night?  He's separated and we just couldn't find out from small town gossip where he lived or planned to live.  We all decided that we didn't want somebody living out there.  During our discussion with the fellow I said straight out that we didn't want someone living in the shed.  He nodded.  Later in the conversation he asked if there was a shower available.  When he saw the three of us look at each other he started saying that he often worked very late (like 2am!) and might just sleep in his workshop.  I repeated that we didn't want someone living there.  Oh no, he said.... just a couple of nights a week.  We talked about parking - his car, his truck, his forklift.  Then he asked where he could park his bus.  What bus?  He's fitting out a bus as a mobile home.  The whole thing was starting to sound very much like living there!!  Along with the 2am finishes (not nice for the neighbours next door when his workshop door would face their house), the fact that he was a smoker and fobbed off our concern about fire hazards in a timber workshop, and the fact that at the previous workshop contents had spread out all over the yard of the place he rented, we decided he wasn't the right tenant for us.  Oh well.