Frosty The Groanman - Thursday

‘Are you going to need to defrost the car this morning?’ Asks my wife as she arrives in her dressing gown. The kitchen lights are blazing, it’s still dark outside and I can’t really blame her for still being in nightwear. I’m just pissed off I’m in a suit, with trousers a little snugger than I remember, with a cold day ahead of me - and that’s before I try and speak to that frosty solicitor in the chain of seven, I’ve been chasing.

‘Already on it.’ I tell my wife, looking in the cupboard and wondering where she’s hidden all the sugary cereal options? She’s noticed the waistband issue too and the only Frosties now to be found seem to be hanging off my car door mirrors.

‘Do you mean you’ve been out on the drive in your pyjamas again?’ She quizzes. ‘’No, that was only once,’ I reply sniffily. ‘And nobody saw me.’

‘Just as well, or the house values would plummet faster than the temperature.’ 

Great, everybody is a property expert - except, curiously, the ones you'd hope would be. But enough about on-line call-centres masquerading as the real thing.

‘So you’ve left the car running, outside?’ Continues my wife, as I vainly shift three boxes of morning repast, herbivore food. Still nothing with any more processing than a hippy shovelling bran droppings and nuts into an eco-friendly box a four year old could have constructed, with leftover packaging from an Amazon delivery..

‘I’m hoping someone might steal it.’ I reply, giving up on the dusty scraping from a stable floor and heading to the bread bin.

‘Wasn’t there a memo about that, warning it would be a disciplinary offence?’ She asks. Nothing much gets past her.

‘It’s the only way I’ll get a new company car before this one is a collector’s item.’ I grumble, as I realise there’s no white bread in sight, just a seedy, uncut offering, that will probably shatter another filling if I munch down on it.

My rival manager, the vertically challenged H, is awaiting another new German car after hitting his year end target with three months to spare. I’m stuck with the poorly bolted together effort from what remains of Britain’s car industry. It seems even opportunist thieves round my way can’t be arsed to steal a base model Vauxhall with less extras than a sixth-former’s film project. Either that, or they are still in bed on such a chilly morning.

‘I’m not sure it’s good for the environment.’ Says my wife as I pick at the toasted granary off-cut I’ve opted for. Needless to say it’s burnt down one side and still cold on the other. I can’t cut a slice of bread straight to safe my life and my toaster purchases run in to double figures, yet I’ve still to find one that is fit for purpose. I’ve a good mind to write to James Dyson, or perhaps take a couple of slices to the local motorway services and thrust them in one of those air-blade machines - although pubic hairs on your breakfast isn’t too appetising either…

‘Not sure no longer warming my car up on the drive, so I can see where I’m going is going to, will make much difference to the ozone layer while China’s factories pour out unchecked emissions.’ I respond prissily.

‘That’s not a good attitude.’ She tells me officiously, stabbing at her smartphone to see if either of our sons wants to talk to her. I could point out the irony here - her hand-held communication device was almost certainly soldered together by a small, dark-haired,oval-eyed individual, with a persistent cough and a lung complaint.

Her words ringing in my ears, the exact words I heard when I spoke to the bean counter boss last and moaned about our unachievable office targets,I slip-slide on to the drive. The car screen has cleared and the exhaust plume isn’t quite so voluminous. 

‘Lucky nobody stole that.’ Says the anally-retentive car washer next door, as he pulls his pristine motor from a garage that can actually accommodate a car.

I give him the cold shoulder.

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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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Sound Of Breaking Glass - Sunday

Not sure how long this eco-friendly surge will last as I rather despise the worthy, beardy, touchy-feely, all animals should be cherished and not eaten brigade. But I’m off to recycle again. I’m going before the sun has barely risen, as I woke in the small hours once more, fretting about contracts and month end sales figure, plus I’d like to get to the recycling point before too many people can see me.

Company car loaded, a faint smell of alcohol permeating into the cabin space, I set off in the half-light only to see that obsessive car cleaning neighbour is already out on his drive, caressing his vehicle again. He’s wearing bright yellow rubber gloves and has his jet-washer plugged in and ready to go. I’m trying to stop planet pollution and this tool is about to subject the neighbourhood to early morning noise pollution. If I ever want to sell, he’s the type of twat that solicitors will be asking about in pre-contract enquiries, so I dare not put any complaint in writing. Don’t ever leave an audit trail - unless you are fending off the trading standards people.

The man looks up as I drive past and gives a cursory nod. He knows what I do and, like many, doesn’t like it. But then he’s some sort of number-cruncher – akin to my bean-counter boss - so the feeling is mutual. I just have the grubbier car.

To my dismay, the recycling point is already busy as I pull up and brake a little too sharply. I’m rewarded with a muted rattling and at least one shattering sound from the back of the car. Terrific.

I can see an old boy looking at me, even as I start unloading my considerable cargo. I seem to attract nutters like flies to a turd. Nothing in my body language says engage with me please - I do enough of that during working hours - but he’s clearly desperate to catch my eye and begin a conversation.

‘Morning.’ Announces the pensioner cheerily, as I struggle to lift far too many sagging and slightly soggy cardboard bottle carriers.

I give him the sort of nod the compulsive car cleaner gave me earlier, but I know that won’t shake him. He watches as I begin the laborious task of posting spent beer and wine bottles into the metal containers. To a cacophony of clanking, I deposit an embarrassing number of glass vessels, a vague recollection of the time and place of consumption flickering through my mind as each crash and smash echoes accusingly back at me. He’s still looking.

‘Good party was it?’ Asks the man brightly. God, surely there’s a 24 hour help-line for these people? They shouldn’t have to hang around Tesco Express car parks. Do I tell him it wasn’t a party? Mention I’m an estate agent and I don’t have that many parties- or friends - but need to drink heavily after six days a week of wearing engagement with members of the public, people like him? Probably not.

‘I just haven’t been here for some time.’ I tell the stalker neutrally and not entirely truthfully

‘I’m off the sauce.’ Announces the man explaining why he has that slightly wired look and has started the engagement I didn’t want. He clearly hasn’t tried to move house for a while, I think, sourly. But I’m wrong.

‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ The persistent pest questions, as I return for my third trip to the car, cardboard containers replaced by those supermarket carrier bags. The ones they are reluctant to give you now and only hand out if you surreptitiously ask for them like some pervert requesting top-shelf material involving farm animals and Wellington boots.

‘Possibly.’ I say neutrally, shoving two bottles of dusty convenience store sourced merlot from a particularly bleak night when my wife was at fat club and my day had involved slim-pickings and two sales falling through, into the bin

‘It’ll come to me.’ Insists the man, as a trickle of stale red wine runs down my arm as if I’ve slashed my wrists.

‘I’m the estate agent.’ I tell him curtly.

Conversation over.

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