Essaymania

I am on a very tight deadline to finish my essays for this semester. Of course, I have no-one to blame but myself. I’ve managed a LOT of reading so it’s just a question of getting the words down, I guess. Anyway, that’s what I spent half of today (and most of tonight) doing. The first half was quite different…

I had to go to see our lawyers to identify myself. For the flat buying. Now, we have bought and/or sold 10 properties with them over the last 10 years so you’d think they’d know us by now. I sort of like to imagine that when a new instruction comes in from us, they all say “Look! It’s another one from those two crazy, property indecisive Aussies!” If anyone does say that, it makes no difference. Each time, we have to trundle off to Fleet and tell them who we are.

I also had my yearly check up at the doctor. It happens over here when you have asthma. They need to make sure you know how to use the spray you’ve been using since you were 19. Every year they need to make sure. This used to be a right pain when we were at Haslemere because the doctor was miles away but now it’s a whizz. The doctor is down the end of the road. Brilliant.

On top of that, Mirinda was home yesterday (for book club) so I walked her up to the station this morning first. After waving her train bye bye, I then turned around and walked all the way back again, winding up at the doctor. She measured me, weighed me, tested my breathing, asked me the same questions she asked me last year, made sure I knew how to inhale and then let me go. It was then onto my first bus.

When I was working at Woking, getting to Fleet was quite easy. One train. That was it. I could pop over in my lunch hour. It is a bit of a hike from the station but even so, pretty simple and direct. Now, however, it’s not so simple. Or direct. Of course, there’s no bus from Farnham to Fleet. That would be far too easy. I have to get one to Aldershot then change for the Fleet bus. This wasn’t too bad, I only had a ten minute wait. And then a long trek, winding through the countryside, stopping at awful looking estates, until I was deposited outside the lawyer’s office.

I walked in and told the receptionist why I was there. She took my documents, photocopied them, returned the originals and that was it. I could have been anyone. The whole thing took 5 minutes. I then walked back out to the street ready for the trip back to Aldershot.

The Fleet bus only comes every hour so it was with a bit of dismay that I realised I had 50 minutes to wait for the next one. Fortunately a nearby Wetherspoons was open so I sat and nursed a lovely pint, read the paper and waited there.

It was then back to Aldershot in order to switch to another bus for Farnham. I had a 15 minute wait this time. I stayed on the bus into Farnham so I could shop for my lunch and dinner then walked home.

I had left home at 7:20am and returned at 12:45pm. If I was a driver, the whole thing would have taken less than an hour! That’s what you get for doing the right thing and being fiercely independent.