So, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? That is pretty much how I have been feeling lately. Also, a bit like a chicken with its head cut off.
I am very tired of having such a huge garden to care for and the cost that goes with it. Not to speak of the constant battle with earths little monsters which will find their way into every plant, nook, and cranny. Take this morning for example, I was given a cup of coffee by my wonderfully patient husband and once I had finished it, there, in the cup was one very coffee stained and very dead worm. How did he get into the coffee cup that had just been washed and was sitting on the sink. It’s not like they’re the fastest movers.
I digress. The garden which I have planted over a fifteen-year period is beyond magnificent. Its beginnings consisted of Blue Gum Trees, grass, and wild bush. So wild that when we bought it, we couldn’t see the actual boundary.
Because of various medical issues I can no longer dig the ground or do any hard work as before and I find it very stressful, in fact, horrific to have to ask,’ pick this’ up, ‘dig there’, ‘cut there’ when I was always more than capable of simply doing it. Of course, if you want it done properly do it yourself.
So, the idea to sell and move on has been part of the reason, no, the whole reason for my headless chicken behaviour. Simply put, I love my home too much to sell, but retirement is calling. The good old ‘we’re going smaller’ thing. Are we all a bit mad then? I ask on occasion. Why work yourself to the stage where you are suffering the consequences only to sell so that someone else can sit under the finally grown trees and enjoy the labours of love.
What has all this to do with a bathroom you might ask.
I asked an estate agent to view the property and neglected to think clearly on ‘home preparation’ prior to his arrival. The shower was bad. We had replaced a broken showerhead and forgotten to patch the huge hole in the wall. Once you focus on a subject it is amazing how many faults you can pick up that you have simply lived with and not noticed. I got a chisel and hammer and began to chase along the raised lines in the paint thinking that this might be the how and where the ants sometimes appear. However, the paint began to lift in sheets from the underneath damp. It is a fortunate thing that we discovered this damp problem as now we have noticed that the problem lies above on a parapet which used to have three water overflows but in time, they were passed by leaving the possibility for a mini dam above our bathroom area. I see the dollar sign rising. It is an open shower which leads to the bath area which has a skylight and this deck above the bath is the problem. So now, a quick and hoped for cheap fix is getting a lot bigger because it has become a ceiling repair as well, which of course naturally leads to painting the walls in the bathroom as well as shower area.
The chicken run quandary is. why am I spending so much money to make this lovely home even more lovely to sell when I really don’t want to sell? I have the answer, raise the price and if by some fluke we get the asking price we should take it and move on allowing others to enjoy the fruits of our labours.
I have heard of washing money! Would a lovely shower do the trick?