Crazy Town

At the beginning of this year, my husband and I booked our tickets to Singapore and Brunei with no thought of real estate, packing boxes, solicitors and a fuck-load of paperwork. Three weeks ago we started looking around at real estate thinking we were just getting thoughts and ideas. Over the course of two days we looked at six places. I got really giddy thinking about one of them because it is a two bedroom town house with a goregous shelving nook for my books beneath the stairs. Alan's first thought when he first saw it was less than enthusiastic. "Uh, the highway is like...right there." He had a good point. Three years ago construction began on extending the high way in the area we were looking in, two years ago when I stayed over at Sumi's place of a weekend you could hear the sounds of persistent drilling. Two years on the high way is still being built but construction has been moved on a bit further. "But you can't hear it from the inside." I protested as we courteously took off our shoes. "Right." Alan said sceptically. He liked the town house enough to put an application in. I loved it because the idea of being able to walk to work was thrilling. So we made an offer which did not get accepted. Then it was back to the drawing board. "We can apply for the other place." Alan conceded when he saw how sad I was. I was emotionally invested in the property before I had ever stepped foot in it. After two years of a one and a half hour commute to work and back, I am finding it harder and harder to get out of bed when my alarm goes off. The MUST HAVE on top of my real estate check-list for finding our dream home was that I would only have to take one bus to work, or ideally, none at all. So when Alan said we could put an offer in on the other place, I started turning the wheels to make it happen. I called up the real estate, asked if the property was still available and when she said yes - would I like to make an offer? Of course I fucking did. The next day on a sleepy Saturday morning, I submitted an offer on the house which was accepted that very afternoon. And that when when Alan's and my two weeks of Crazy Town started. Alan and I have done Crazy Town before, our last move had me ugly crying as I packed. The past two weeks we have been racing towards two time lines that eclipse on the same day. Tomorrow we meet with our solicitor to sign the mortgage documents - and we are leaving for our Singapore/ Brunei holiday that very afternoon. Signing the mortgage documents is the last hurdle before we become home owners for the first time. It is a goregous town house, tucked away in a cosy nook on a quiet street. I love the high ceilings, the little court yard and the pretty blooms growing there and that is going to be where I do most of my writing. My bathroom is flooded with natural light, the ideal location for some devil's ivy to inch its way up a pole towards the high ceiling. Alan and I have started the process of packing, our humble living room looks like we have lost a round of Jumangi followed by a life-size game of Jenga. Everything is in chaos. I consider the fact that I can still find the day to day essentials, plus packing tape and scissors incredibly lucky! The night before last Alan proudly produced concert tickets to an event we are attending the very next day after our big move. I expressed the appropriate excitement and unthinkingly put them on the coffee table. Last night Alan and I had to go and see a JP - it was a marathon of such proportions that our hearts were still racing afterwards! Picture this: I miraculously got out of work fifteen minutes before I was due to finish, then I ordered an UBER from one side of town to the other - all the while I was praying that we would make it in plenty of time. The UBER driver drops me off a five minute walk from my destination (UBER GPS'S suck) and I sprinted all the way to the library after asking directions. It had been ages since I have had to do run anywhere and by the time I reached the library I was out of breath, clutching my side. I did not waste any time finding the JP session because Alan had been having a panic party for one ever since I hopped in the UBER and he told me the library shut at exactly ten minutes to six. It was an anxious, ten minute wait while we waited for the lady in front of us. And when our turn came at twenty to six, Alan and I were hoping that the documents we had brought with us were enough points of identification. We were incredibly lucky. At exactly ten minutes to six Alan and I stood up with our signed documents, said thank you to the JP and hurried off to the city to scan and send the documents to our finance broker. "Jesus Christ! This week has been crazy!" I exclaimed to Alan as we crossed the street to the bus stop. "Yeah, it's been really stressful." He acknowledged. "Hopefully all our efforts will pay off in the long run." "Yeah." Still running on stress and adrenaline, we rode the bus straight into the city and after we ran our errand - we started to feel the day catching up with us. We stopped for sushi in the city and got the bus home. Although we were home, there was still work to be done. Cleaning, tidying and finishing packing for the trip, writing up an invoice for a bookstore who had ordered twelve books. This week has been emotionally and physically challenging and I am pretty sure our solicitor is sick of hearing from us - that's why we are going to order her flowers. And our finance broker gets his favourite beer. Even with the strain Alan and I have both been under these past couple of weeks - this week particuarly - I have seen God's hand in the clear traffic, the serendiptious timing of my arriving at the library and I reckon Alan's and my guardian angels are looking forward to coming on holidays with us tomorrow! I said to Alan last night, "Whatever happens tomorrow or Friday, whether we get the townhouse or not, one thing is for absolute certain - I am going to be doing Singapore shots Friday night at fifty-five thousand feet."