it's an (economic) epic, Max.
Wishing you luck.
Doug
On 30-Nov-05, at 3:38 AM, cooee wrote:
> Getting Ready to Move [second fit]
>
> ....Cloudbursts seemed to know where to find me:
> in Clifton Hill, with its upstairs view -
> parkland, Melbourne skyscrapers and a big sky,
> while the flood flowed down the tv and a hundred CDs,
> a ceiling came down. Reason to move.
> In Balwyn North a hundred garments went to the drycleaner,
> the carpet festered and underneath required a new floor.
> Reason to move.
>
> There are books in piles disfiguring the guest room.
> The two cars lack shelter.
> The spa bath, used once (by a guest), holds boxes of tax files.
> Fixing the rotting window-frames and decking is not cheap.
> Adding on rooms, making an upstairs for instance, quite beyond us.
> But moving to the right house, what could be simpler?
> By chance, over Saturday morning's paper,
> the eye falls on a house for sale,
> not in a suburb we fancy, not with a façade we fancy
> except the upstairs balcony (indeed it’s upstairs living),
> not in our price bracket, but why not take a look?
>
> It’s so roomy! Put in some shelves and we’re laughing.
> Shelter for two cars. No back garden whatsoever,
> yet no great loss, because in front is a park with trees,
> two bird sanctuaries, and a lake.
> Living upstairs maximizes the view,
> and the balcony you’d live on most of the year.
> Unaffordable? Let’s fix on our upper limit,
> consult a mortgage broker, and go to the auction.
> Better, get a friend with a cool head to attend the auction.
>
> The day arrives, rain sets in, we park at the end of the street.
> The crowd of bidders and spectators goes in out of the wet and
> upstairs.
> Time passes. Our friend rings.
> It can be ours if we come and negotiate.
> Which we do, and the auctioneer squeezes a little more out of us,
> and persuades the vendor to come down to our level. Done.
> The required deposit is made. Dizziness and hilarity set in.
>
> Ahead: the packing up our lives and chattels, mostly books,
> opening our old house to potential purchasers,
> and on the day fixed for auction, witnessing the fate of house and
> garden,
> possibly bought by a builder - for the land.
> A knock-down job.
> And the shortfall -
> every dollar in the gap between two house prices
> means new debt.
>
> Daily we drive to the suburb we used to scorn,
> scorning it less now, pausing near our future home,
> waving hello to the child on the balcony,
> exercising our dog - our two dogs,
> for a puppy has suddenly joined the family -
> on the grass our new home overlooks.
>
> The walk to the lake is sublime, the walk back steep.
> Roll on December, when, should all go well,
> we unpack, sort, shelve, breathe slowly again,
> and lean on the upstairs balcony
> looking north over the park.
>
> ***************************
>
> November passes, our old house fails to sell.
> Exhausted by money-talk and calculation,
> we borrow - to the hilt and beyond,
> going for broke with the mortgage-broker.
>
> The day to move looms,
> the old house will be emptied, still awaiting a buyer.
> Our lawyer jokes: ‘check the insurance,
> have a last barbecue there, too close to the house,
> whoosh, a Jewish stock-take...’
>
> Max Richards
>
> Balwyn North for a few more days
>
> Wednesday 30 November 2005
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
Shakespeare
Drag yr mouldy old bones
Up these stairs & tell me
What you died of,
I think
I’ve got it
Too.
Sharon Thesen
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