ArtyMar's blog: buying the dream

[ArtyMar]

Thanks, Saga Louts, when I write I love to think someone out there is actually reading the blog and enjoying it. It's interesting to see the number of hits as they mount up too. btw, you have a great name!

[bewva]

I read every week Arty. Just wish you didn't keep us hanging on each week.  

[gillian handbury]

We are still with you ArtyMar!! Luving it!! Roger & Gill....x

[ArtyMar]

Thanks, Bewva and Gillian! Er, Bewva, keeping you hanging on every week is the general idea   After all, an aggro shared is an aggro halved - even though we're looking back to the past. . .

[Menthol]

I just hear the Eastenders' 'duff duff' at the end of every blog post 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1iMJNYHe1I

[ArtyMar]

ya gottit, Menthol! Love your clever visual/audio responses!

[ArtyMar]

Guess what, fellow witches, OH and I are returning end of September - arriving 27th - departing 7th October!
Menthol, "we'll be coming round the mountain when we come; we'll be coming round the mountain when we come. We'll be riding 6 white horses. . ."

[Menthol]

Ah that is good news!

Lovely time of year too.

See you then, then 

[gillian handbury]

ArtyMar....that's great. We also leave on the 7th October. See you witches in September.

[ArtyMar]

Late April 2010  London

BLOG 27:  Booking

Well, we’ve made the decision to go ahead and book. Come what may, we’re planning on a holiday before the big op in October.  I’m restricted to College term holidays in my job as a college art teacher. The deadline for villa completion is end of June. We book for late July – we want to be back in London, calm and clear for the looming Op Day.

I email L and directors to let them know. Let them know in no uncertain terms – quoting penalty clauses that I’ve had inserted into the new contract. I reason, and do my best to reassure OH that if the villa is not finished, we’ll stay nearby in a comparable villa (at Infinity’s expense), still have a holiday, and watch our villa being built. Of course, I don’t communicate this to Infinity. I try not to countenance the thought that contracts mean little to them.

I finally receive a reply from L. Amazingly, she is following the party line and keeps telling us not to worry – all will be ok.  Ok, in our dreams, I think.  ‘Buying the Dream’ may yet end up as exactly that.

But then I receive an email from L saying that a new builder has been appointed and it’s all systems go . . . again. OH is still leaving things pretty much to me. His mind is on other things. He’s spending a lot of time in his study, “tidying up our personal affairs” which I find unnerving. I tell him he can do that after the op when he’s recovered; please just tidy up the study! (a mess, stacked high with old newspapers, travel mags, old brochures and souvenir magnets stuck to filing cabinet and radiator.)

Another email from L:  Infinity has made an additional staff appointment it seems: a ‘general manager’.  She’s happy. Now this new chap will receive all the irate emails and phone calls from anxious customers, and not her. I’m not going to fall for that one. I politely inform her by email that as far as I’m concerned she remains my channel of communication re the villa as she is the person still taking the photos. Photos are my only evidence that something is literally happening on the ground. 

So far, no reply.

. . .  to be continued  . . .usually posted on Thursday