Got the confirmation today that draft contract has been issued for the bungalow - our solicitor issued draft contract to our buyer so we're on track.

Went out to the bungalow last friday with simon, our builder. He confirmed that there isn't any felt under the roofing tiles, which is going to be a major repair job, however he believes that there is an alternative option to stripping the all roof tiles off. There are some repairs to do - re pointing two of the three stacks, cleaning (moss) some of the tiles and replacing some (ridge) that are damaged, some of the ceilings may have to be replaced too - they're all softboard instead of plaster board, so we should really replace them all but...... Anyway, once this has all be done and we've rewired the place, we can arrange for insulation to be put in and there is now supposed to be a spray foam that can be sprayed onto the INSIDE of the tiles and seals them in the same way that roofing felt would, but we obvioulsy can't do this until all the external repairs have been done, as any tiles removed afterwards would break the seal.

He checked all the signs of 'damp' and it all seem to be 'old' - all dried out. There are some condensation marks on walls etc that will need to be cleaned, however there is going to be a MAJOR cleaning job in the kitchen. Some of the appliances have obviously leaked and have heavily stained the floor. We've asked if this can be resolved before we exchange. Havn't had confirmation yet.

Today the surveyors report finally arrived, and was pretty much as we expected. However there does seem to be a significant amount of damp, but subject to what our friendly buikder has to say, should cause us any problems.. Most of the other stuff will be covered by any refurbishment that we intend to do.

He's valued it at 10k under the price that it was offered for sale, which must be his 'thing' as he did exactly the same with the first bungalow that we looked at.

Things are moving along at a reasonably good pace.

We've now had the sales particulars for our buyer, and as of yesterday we've had confirmation that things are now moving on the bungalow. The previous occupant was apparently the aunt of someone who lives and works in scotland. He's signed of all the probate papers and is having the bungalow cleared 2moro so we may not be able to get the chairs that we wanted as he had ALL the contents valued for the house clearance so may not be able to pull them out of the deal.

Our surveyor went last weekend, but as yet we haven't had his report.

We've completed and signed all the papers for the sale of the flat, Rodney had only incurred costs of £234 on the abortive purchase of the other bungalow so he still has a bit of THAT deposit left, we've just had to give him the deposit for our sale and a bit more for the new purchase.

David's condition is NOT improving and some evenings he's virtually incapable of walking at all, although he still insists on trying but will always end up on the floor where he then gets really frustrated because he doesn't have the strength to get up again, what's more frustrating for me is that HE WON'T ask for help, he'll just sit on the floor until I end up searching him out, but I can't physically help, although I will usually show him how he should be trying, which he's always ignored although I've lost count of the times I've told him and he does it automatically anyway with out prompting when it suits him :( and when he thinks I'm not looking ;)

Where has the time been going :(

Just after last post found that the surveyor's engagement papers had gone missing(the survey had been done on 12th, but hadn't received anything by 22nd so chased it up), then they hand delivered copies of the papers to the wrong flat but because they'd gone on holiday just afterwards it took another week to find out :(

When we finally got the report at the beginning of november, there was quite a bit of work that we hadn't expected - all fairly minor, but quite a lot of individual jobs which when you 'tot up' the costs came to quite a lot more that we wanted to spend.

The surveyor had given a lower valuation so we asked around for approx costings, initially to back up any request to bring the price down to the surveyors valuation, but we were working to a deadline imposed by the agent for the property at the top of the chain and time was running out. Finally our agent came back with some offers for our flat that were way down on what we needed, so we reluctantly chose to pull out of the purchase of the bungalow.. This was last Thursday. We managed to get hold of Rodney, our solicitor on Friday and discussed it with him, but GOM's health is paramount and as all this is having a detrimental affect, he agreed that we should cancel the purchase.

I'd done some more research last week when it looked like we might lose the bungalow and ironically had been to look at another bungalow on thursday afternoon before we found out about the offers for our flat (gom was supposed to be coming too but he wasn't well enough), so got back to the agent and have arranged another viewing for gom when he should be well enough on Monday.

We'd had a run down to look at the outside last sunday (13th) so knew it was accessible. When I went on Thursday, I had the wheelchair and it got in very easily. The garden path is well maintained AND there is rear access.

The bathroom and kitchen will need to be replaced, and only the two bay windows (lounge and Master Bedroom) have been double glazed. There are french doors from the dining room to the garden that will need to be replace, plus a large and small window in the kitchen, the bathroom window and the other bedroom. Also the kitchen door and the front door, which rather surprisingly is a single glazed glass door - a security risk, so will have to go asap..... if we get it
;().

Then because it's only a 2 Bedroom whereas the other had three, we will probably have a conservatory built from the dining room to create the extra room or extend into the roof,..... or even both :().

Went back for another look today to sort out where the rear access led to and sorted that out, and we went to find out where two other bungalow's were, but in the event, neither were suitable. Apart from being on a busy main road, gom didn't feel safe using the pavements that we would be using to get into town. Although fairly well maintained, quite a few of the driveways dipped, so it was like riding a switchback, which gom hated.

Better get off to see if I can catch up on the sleep I've been losing :(

Prospective buyers still aren't prepared to make an offer because of the kitchen -we knew it would be probably be an issue but thought they may still make an offer under the asking price - but no, the kitchen is putting them off completely.

But there was no point in spending 000's of pounds on new kitchen units that someone would probably just come in and change anyway, so I went looking for some Fablon. Found some teak wood effect that I've covered the work tops with (the orginal was wood effect) - couldn't find anything in marble effect then went looking for something to cover the doors/drawers. Ended up with more fablon - this time in a cherry wood effect. Also got some matt black fablon to do the exposed cupboard ends with. Only had enough cherry wood to do the lower doors and drawers - there are 6 regular doors and one slightly wider door on upper cupboards to do but only had enough fablon left to do 5 doors so will leave them as white.

We have someone coming 2moro so we'll see if it makes any difference :(

Still haven't managed to find a buyer for our main flat here, and now thanks to the abysmal solicitor who is acting for the buyer of our lavender hill flat, that sale has stalled just as we though we erer going to complete this week %(

We're getting calls from the London agent who is in turn phoning the buyer who is about to go into hospital any day now to have a baby.

Her solicitor is doing ALL THE WRONG THINGs and seems to be trying to shift the blame - she won't accept that she is wrong (the solicitor NOT the buyer), so our solicitor has given up trying to convince her she's doing it all wrong (she won't back down) he's trying to get the information that she wants but as some of it is more than 30 years old it's probably buried in some archives somewhere IF it even exists after all this time :(. Then she's doing other stuff 'back to front' and asking for papers BEFORE exchange that are normally NOT issued until AFTER completion.

She won't agree to pay certain admin fees that are normally liable as a result of producing the paperwork that she is asking for AND insists that they should be paid by us (the vendor) when that are normally paid by the buyer AFTER completion AAGGHH.

Then to put the icing on the cake (HA!!), she sat on the buyer's approved mortgage papers for SIX WEEKS before someone noticed that the names on the papers were wrong, so NOW they've got to be amended

Went back out for a second view of the bungalow this afternoon.

Just wanted a second look at the furniture before we confirm that we want it.

The dining room suite is wonderful - table, 6 chairs, 2 carvers and matching display/cocktail unit that is TEN AND A HALF FEET Long 8)

The lounge suite isn't bad either. Three seater soft leather sofa, two armchairs (which ALL have a reclining mechanism - yes all sections of the sofa too) and matching footstools, it's looks like a dark terracotta colour

There are actually four pieces in the kitchen white goods ' tall' fridge, small freezer, washing machine and dishwasher. Then on a viewing of the garage (more like a barn) he asked if we wanted a large patio set - OK.

Going back for one more visit next week with our architect to look at what modifications we may have to do to the outside to aid accessibility.

Monday viewed bungalow and 'thought I'd died and gone to heaven'. :()
Tuesday agent valued our flat
Wednesday agent took photos of flat, made offer on bungalow which was eventualy agreed.

Today (thursday) I had some time out to go and print our access group's newsletter, but morning was pretty frantic with phone calls.

I managed to sleep a bit better last night now that everything is more settled, but I've had a migraine 'lurking' all day :(

Have some prospective buyers coming round with the agent tomorrow while we're out doing our shopping.

Haven't heard anymore about the completion on Battersea but I still can't get David to contact the utility companies AAGGHH :(

Had to make a detour from my normal route into town yesterday and just happend to glance in agents window. Saw a bungalow that I though had been removed from the market by another agent - the vendor was obviously just changing agents :()

Got the details and have arranged a viewing for Monday.

Once again it's at the top end of our budget and it's also just outside the borough, BUT it's within a mile of our usual haunts so we went out for a trial run this morning after our normal trip to pick up the Sunday newspapers.

It's got all the things that we are looking for - 3 bedrooms, two reception rooms, a south facing rear garden which seem to be mainly laid to lawn at the moment. The front has MASSES of 'off street' parking. It's not on a main road. There is a little corner shop/newsagents on the corner as well as a postbox.

We'll have to build or get portable ramps for the front entrance and from the raised patio to the garden, BUT as we live on a flood plain it's unlikely that we'll get anything that won't need to have ramps - everything's going to be built up.

The vendor is a retired widow who wants to go into a retirement home, so it's also likely to be in a better decorative order that the last one that we looked at where there was a young family with cats. The carpest were a bit threadbear and the windows would have needed to be replaced.

It's not clear yet of this has completely been double glazed, but there are some replacement units - front door and kitchen, so it should need too much work.

GOM had got his initial calculations wrong - he'd missed an addition, so we have more in reserve that he thought, so we may be able get a little bit done, but I still don't want to have to do much decorating. If it's ok in other ways

The first bungalow that we looked at on 28th, looked fine from the front - the drive way was a nice size, but gom's ramp was a little big to fit the doorways so we elected to go round the back to use the french doors.

This was when the 'baloon burst' The concrete path was all broken and patchy, then at the end of the house and the start of the conservatory, the path way became small paving blocks set into gravel, so the wheelchair got stuck :(

Fortunately the promised rain hadn't come so gom waited in the garden while I walked round.

It had it's good points - level floors, wide doorways and hallways, but the carpets were a bit 'threadbare' and some of the roof window frames were in a poor state. We need a place that's in 'good decorative order' as we know we will invariably have to do some modifications outside for ramps etc so don't want anthing that's going to 'eat into that budget'. It was at the top end of our budget anyway, so we're going to have a hefty stamp duty bill to pay ontop.

Trying to get an appointment to view nearer town. It's smaller, and it's NOT a south facing garden, but they must get some sun as they have a pool in the garden %

We shall see

There is another place that we've been offered - which is a little bit OVER budget AND slighty out of our ideal catchment area, it's also a bit to close to a school :(