Advance warning: no pics this week after
all, just a little catch up.
This
week
The week looked pretty
uneventful when I got a notice from a tenant to move out, after 6 months! It
seems one of the 3 had not turned up to pay her share so they needed to
downsize. So much for a 6-month tenancy agreement. Next time I will make it 12
months.
Within 24 hours I was showing people around
and as I write people are still enquiring. You meet some lovely people this
way: the group who may be moving in all work in the day and do stand up comedy
at night. We have a doctor and a policeman in one flat, and a pub owner,
several pubs, in the other. Black, white, Hungarian, New Zealand and
African/British. People complain about having
to be a landlord, but I love it. I really like making sure the tenants are
happy and have everything they need, and the occasional interaction with
them. I like learning the ropes of the
business; how to stay on the right side of the law, for one thing. I wasn’t too pleased about the sudden notice
and even less pleased when I saw how dirty the flat was after such a short
time, with only 2 people living there. I have professional inventory people
check in and check out. The tenants will have to do a very good scrub up if they
don’t want to pay for professional cleaners!
Latest
Update: the flat is rented to the stand up
comedians! Lets hope they are not joking about the flat. They are an
interesting bunch. The one who came by today was at the Edinburgh Festival,
they are all winning awards and they sound as if they are very good at what
they do. Looking forward to seeing them perform.
Opera
for the masses
It was a great week for opera. Our first
time to the Waterloo Imax for a broadcasting of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, from the Met., New York. It was the first of the season and it was
brilliant. They have them every fortnight for the season and the next one is Otello. Fabulous. Then, I learned from my swimming ladies, that
the season has just started for the National Opera Studio.
They put on monthly recitals with carefully
selected young musicians at All Saints Church, Wandsworth High Street (a 10
minute walk for us). They have a programme of training a handful of the very
best, preparing them for the stage. Each performed from an opera- and they blew
me away. I have never experienced full throttle fabulous singing and accompaniment at such close quarters. The church
roof just lifted off, what voices! Our
favourite was the delightfully named bass, Dingle Yandell. First Weds of every
month, if in the country, I SHALL BE THERE.
Makes X Factor look even more rubbishy.
Knee
I hardly mention that these days as it is
getting BETTER. Oh joy, at last. I can go for (shortish) walks and not suffer
too much afterwards. Getting back to normal feels fantastic.
Parents
Time is passing and changes are happening,
though very slowly. On our return from Poland I saw my mother was even thinner
and she is too weak to stand on her own.
It is fairly amazing that she lies in bed all day and night and does not
contract infections, nor does she get bed sores. Good for her. We have had no
outside help apart from cooking etc. from the agency while we were away. Today
the doc came for a routine check, which was very timely. She is sending over
Hospice who will assess and we will get some kind of support, at home. It is
too much for my dad who is having back problems now from bending over all the time.
But he doesn’t want help from me so that is not so easy. He is doing well, but sight is going and he
is increasingly clumsy.
We are planning to go back to Poland for a
month in a couple of weeks. Obviously I have mixed feelings and a guilty
conscience, but what are you going to do? Sit here and wait? Plans remain flexible.
Who knows what the future brings, but
Stefan and I are plotting a winter break in temperate Naples, but it may
instead be Lanzarote. My swimming chums are proving an invaluable source of
info. They go to concerts, events, have picnics on their allotments and they go
on holidays! A group of like-minded lovely
ladies who can give me TIPS. One of them is off next week to L. to see some of
the architecture she didn’t see first time around. She has found a great hotel
etc. so I shall pick her brains.
Honestly, when you look at the news you
don’t know which story is going to bring you down first: Putin, Assad; dead foreign
babies on beaches; corruption; cheating and lying all over the place. None of
this is new, but with our communications so efficient we all know everything,
immediately. Or think we do. And I‘m not holding my breath for that nice Mr
Corbyn.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment