I don’t often deviate into a true story, but so many have expressed a kindly interest in my house-hunting that I thought the “story” of getting a successful outcome would be an acceptable off-track thing to do.
We now have a house to go to, but what a saga getting there! It was our third trip away to look at houses, although we’d been looking online for over a year.
Here’s the view as we scamper along the road to the region of New Zealand called Taranaki. See the volcano?
Several weeks ago we found a semi-suitable place online. It was in the shadow of Mt Egmont, one of New Zealand’s many volcanos.
Blow it! said I. We haven’t travelled all this way not to see it. We shall knock on their door and ask. So we did that, but no one was home. The house was unlocked. We went through the garages. We went through the house. I took photographs of everything. There was even a cat on the bed!! They had recently mowed the lawn in preparation for our inspection!
As we returned to our vehicle the phone went. It was the rental agency lady. Where were we? She had waited for an hour. We’re at 422 Ryeish Road.
It’s 422 Ryeley Road, she said.
Oh!
Oh!
It was in fact the next road over. We went there. If the wrong place had been excellent, this next right place was perfection! It couldn’t have been better (although there’s a tree blocking the view of the volcano so I won’t be able to photograph it for you when it explodes).
And that is the story of walking uninvited through some strangers’ house and photographing everything. I might add, they hadn’t made their beds.
