Goodbye Durham, Once Again

This page was going though my mind as I saw that the wire transfer from the sale of my house had gone through late Friday afternoon. A considerable sum of money, and all I did for it was to have the luck of buying a house in an area of Durham that hadn’t gentrified completely yet. It’s not quite “selling a house in San Francisco after owning it for 30 years” windfall, but it’s a lot for doing almost nothing.

In a sign of how crazy the Durham market has become, my house never actually even made it to market. My estate agent came by to have a look, and but a few days later contacted me to say that she’d found a private buyer. That meant I could just pack up and leave; no need to do the house up at all.

They’re not going to be pulling it down, which is something; they’ll likely do up the kitchen to make it much fancier, sort out the dropped ceilings and a few more bits here and there. What they will do is build on the separate plot of land to add a new house and sell that. That’ll increase the density of housing on the street…by one. And it’s not like that house will be anything approaching affordable. So, like Mister Six, I’ve become a turncoat. But he did come back to help save the day later on…

In other news, the Ballad of Ian and Bob (the mouse that moved in last week) finally came to an end this Saturday. After a week of Bob eating his way through the bait traps, looking up at me as he did so, and then scampering off downstairs, Tammy decided that the solution was Captain America.

This involved waiting for Bob to go into a trap, blocking off the entrance, placing the whole lot in a sealed jar…and then putting the jar in the freezer for several hours. But probably no Iron Mouse to save him. Or at least I hope not, or I’m in bigger trouble.

Right, as it’s a Bank Holiday Weekend, I’m watching Octopussy. And next week? Well, next week, it’s off to Louisville and all sorts of distilleries…

Morning update: Okay, I lasted about 1 hour and 10 minutes into Octopussy before going to bed. My goodness, it’s dull. And terminally unfunny with a large dash of colonial racism thrown in to boot…