We found a house!

Over three days we saw more than ten different properties and some we even went to see a second time. Then on Saturday morning we had our last viewing for the week. We already had another two bedroom semi-detached house that we really liked and thought this would be the one we want to live in. Which reminds me I must email the agent and let him know we don't want it anymore. Because the last place we saw on Saturday was just perfect!

Coming here to England I prepared myself for living in a small apartment. We were spoilt in Switzerland by having so much space, but I knew there would be less space here, smaller rooms and not much storage space.

But looking at places in our budget I realised that we would actually be able to get a nice semi-detached house. Not too big, but big enough with a small garden and even a garage if we're lucky. The garage was important to Andre and the garden to me. And also a nice kitchen and a nice bathroom of course. Anyway so here is what was our favourite until just before we saw the last one on Saturday:

It looks really nice. Like a real little home, doesn't it? This one is semi-detached.

The garden was very nice and neat.


Then we saw this one:

I know, it looks a bit odd from the outside, but we fell in love with this place immediately. I will cry if we don't get it.

It also has two bedrooms, a garage, a nicer bathroom, slightly larger rooms, I love the kitchen and the garden is a bit bigger. AND it's a proper detached house. So no sharing walls with the neighbours. Here this is called a bungalow. Not because of the little round part of the house you see in the picture. In South Africa a round hut is a bungalow. People don't generally live in bungalows in SA. You stay in a bungalow when you go on holiday e.g. in a game park on safari. See this is the picture of a bungalow I had in my mind before coming to England:

To me bungalow = holiday, summer, open, in the bush.
Not permanently livable.

But here bungalow means a detached, single story house. Here a house is double story. So we won't be living in a house, but a bungalow. If that made sense.

We dropped off all the forms and documents needed for reference checks last night and paid the deposit. Now we just have to hope that everything will be fine and we will get the house. Ok, I can't really call it a bungalow. I'm going to just be calling it a house because that's what I'm used to.

With the many things we had to submit was also proof of residence dated 3-6 months ago. That would be with our Swiss address on which is fine by them. Now, all our things are still in boxes and not really easily accessible. We would have to unpack the garage here at our friends house where we're staying to get to our things. Luckily I had kept a few documents with us. I managed to find a bill dated 2 months ago and another dated 7 months ago. Not good enough the agent said this morning. Apparently it is very important that it be between 3-6 months. If we were there 7 months ago and still there 2 months ago, surely we were also there between 3 and 6 months ago?

Well, we are unpacking boxes this evening.


We are also still waiting to get our money back from the medical aid in Switzerland. Remember they debited Andre's account for April and then said they realise the mistake they made and will pay the money back into his account? Well they still haven't and have actually just helped themselves to another rather large amount for May. I have emailed them. It seems to take them a while to formulate a reply in English so we'll give them another day or two to reply before Andre will phone them.


Anyway, the house will now only be available 26 June. There are still tenants in there at the moment. They will let us know if we can move in earlier. We did ask. Hold thumbs that that will happen! It would be nice to get started on the unpacking and moving in and gardening. So more inside pictures will follow once we've moved in. Here's another one of the garden we will have: