Ice Ice Baby - Wednesday

I pull slowly into the council car park, the only one I can still use without punitive charges that chase local businesses out of town, even as clueless councillors wonder why there are so many charity shops in the high street?

My wheels spin on the un-gritted surface. For a moment I think the company car is going to slide  rather gracefully into one of the disabled spaces that are always annoyingly free, while I circle endlessly for a space, post appointment. The doctor on call sign doesn’t fool the Nazi wardens who patrol here with zestful malice, as long as it’s not raining, so I might have to lift one of those Blue Disabled parking badges if we get to another deceased estate property before the distant relatives have stripped it.

‘Morning.’ Calls a familiar voice as I step gingerly onto the glistening tarmac, having found a free bay and placed the legitimate taxable-benefit permit in the window. I look up to see the disillusioned banker with the dodgy hips, parked opposite me. Great, now I’ll have to talk to him all the way across the park and on to the office. His job title is only one letter swap away from the truth….

‘Slippery.’ Says the banker as he shuffles towards me and I hope for some black ice and a tumble. The new implant can’t be that well bedded in yet, so a dislocation and a trip to A & E can only be a misplaced foot away.

‘Don’t know why they can’t put salt on the surface.’ I say to the banker, as we slip-slide in some ghastly approximation of Dancing On Ice, towards the exit.

‘Cutbacks.’ He answers, spreading his hands for balance like a cheap tightrope-walker. ‘Same at the bank nowadays, bean counters looking to cut corners, irrespective of the consequences.’

He has a point, my boss is a figure-fiddler par-excellence and to think we used to pinch the sandwiches from that geeky kid who excelled at maths, each school lunchtime. Last I heard he was running some multinational outfit who specialise in buy-ins and turnarounds. Shorthand for asset-stripping, a shed load of redundancies and a pension pot deficit. 

Our musings on middle-aged underachievement are cut short by a pitiful scream and a dull thud. We spin in unison and I make an unseemly grab at the banker's sleeve as my inappropriate brogues, with the leather soles, momentarily betray me. We steady each other like a pair of over-sized fawns on a frozen lake, to see another old person has taken a tumble.

We get several fallers a year outside the office and I always give out cups of tea and the meagre dressing our impoverished First Aid box will allow us to stock, now the health and safety bitches from head office have removed all the drugs and the scissors. I look at it as more of an investment than compassion that might alter the public perception of estate agents. If they croak in the ambulance, the family might find my business card in a handbag and give me the probate sale.

‘Are you alright?’ Asks the banker pointlessly, as we approach the old lady whose head is already bleeding alarmingly. She has a crimson stain spreading through her blue rinse and we can see her thermal underwear, with her legs at such an an ungainly angle. I’m no paramedic, but I’m guessing not.

‘I don’t want to get old.’ Says the banker wistfully, once the ambulance has gone and we resume our journey. It’s the same comment I get several times a week from ancient people contemplating selling the family home for something more manageable, with emergency pull cords in the bathroom. Pointing out the alternative is much less palatable, is always futile.

The park is as treacherous as the car park and I wonder why the council can’t supply those children’s Penguins, you see on ice rinks for stability, as people slide towards work. Probably spent the budget on a drop in centre for trans-gender giraffes with height issues.

‘You’re late.’ Taunts assistant manager T, at the office before me for once.

I let it slide.

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Barn Dance - Sunday

‘Wow what’s this worth?’ Asks my wife’s friend in stunned admiration. We’re on a long weekend break with the friend and her husband, plus another couple, all of whom know I’m an estate agent but have still agreed to share a vast barn conversion with us.

You either love or hate barn conversions, there’s no middle ground. I’m staring at the soaring trussed roof, two vast original beams spanning the width, one with the original builder’s name burnt into the wood, date of construction in the mid nineteenth century. It’s a fair bet the more recent timber-framed homes, built for humans not livestock, won’t last as long as this sturdy structure - although you could probably fit a dozen starter homes in the space.

‘Well ?’Asks my wife’s friend again, as I realise everyone has dropped their bags and are looking at me expectantly. Not many people want to holiday with an estate agent, but everyone wants to know property values from you. I can only imagine doctors are quizzed on fellow travellers’ bodily growths, and how best to remove a vacuum cleaner nozzle from a penis without visiting A & E, in the same way. I can only imagine…

‘It’s not an easy one to value.’ I begin to a chorus of scorn.

‘You would say that wouldn’t you?’ Scoffs one of the men. ‘Probably want to knock it out cheap to a contact and pocket half the difference.’ It’s only the fact that he’s half-smiling and we’ve paid up-front for three nights, that stops me from grabbing a farming implement from the wall and knocking him into the stalls.

The fact is, one-off homes, are hard to value. It’s why you see guide prices, or offers in the region of, in agents’ advertising. Sometimes the only way to find a property’s value is to test the market, with maximum exposure. A trick those snobs who think they’ve kept some mysterious allure about their home by shifting it ‘off-market’ to some cash-in-hand oligarch with a red-trouser-wearing buying agent in tow, miss completely. They probably deserve each other.

Reluctantly I give the two couples my guesstimate. Predictably, one set think much higher, the other way lower - pretty much a mirror image of every seller and buyer. Then the home-proud owner arrives to demonstrate how everything works.

‘We’ve designed it all to be eco-friendly and energy efficient.’ Gushes the woman excitedly. Paid over the odds for untried technology then, I think, as I spot the colour- coded waste bins that mean I’ll be expected to sort through and separate tea leaves from leftover animal parts later in the weekend – or not. 

The specification is impressive and the vast open plan living area with galleried landing is fantastic for three day parties like this is planed to be, but actually living there 24/7, trying to get away from cooking smells or noisy children, would pose a few logistical problems.

‘Wouldn’t you love to live somewhere like this?’ Asks my wife, as I kneel in supplication before the wood burning stove that has refused to light, despite me shoving in almost a box full of distinctly un-eco firelighters I smuggled in as contraband. I’m not getting any more splinters from chopping kindling again. Axes just make me mad.

‘It’s an illusion, ‘ I tell my wife bluntly, as someone else’s Daily Mail goes up in flames. A pleasing accelerator for the suspiciously green looking logs.

‘These place are just not that practical and it’s a thirty minute drive through cow shit to find a Tesco Express.’

‘Mr Grumpy.’ She says spinning.

Mr Practical I think, turning to see the newspaper sputtering to ash with no sign of the wood taking.

‘There are no radiators.’ Proclaims my wife, shivering and looking at the unlit log burner accusingly. That will be under-floor heating. It’s environmentally friendly but f***ing freezing. 

‘How does the hot water work?’ Asks someone else’s wife later, appearing in a dressing gown as I open the second bottle before the sun has reached the pig sheds.

‘It’s solar powered.’ I tell her trying not to look at the towelling-free gap at thigh level. ‘You might need to wait for it to heat up.’

‘How long?’

I’m guessing about May.  

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