Swimming in Blancmange

Buying a house in Ireland is like swimming through blancmange with a breeze block tied round your waist. Mind you doing anything here that involves reading or writing or use of more than one brain cell seems to be like swimming through blancmange so I dont know why I am supprised. The real estate agent at one point in the house search said it could take up to three months to buy a house here lol in my naievity I thought ochh if I have the cash and they are keen to sell what can take that time.

In the solicitors defence, in the past bits of land were sold on a handshake and a bottle of poutine and the land size must have been estimated, I have two bills of sale one says 6 acres and the other 3 and 3 perches, of course it all needs sorted out before I proceed, so now the land needs to go back for first land registration and well as having retro planning permission as the house was built in a different spot on the land. Thankfully that expence is on the sellers.

It looks like we may get to move into the house on a caretaker agreement which means rent free accomodation, but the house is pretty ordinary and we were going to do work on it before living there, ohh well maybe I shall find out more tomorrow.

woe is me

Bliddy Scotland played well but lost to the Argies, my face is tripping, it was a great game but the wrong team got up I'm afraid. Now even if we beat England we could still be out of the world cup for the first time in the history in the pre knockout rounds and beating England will be a bigger ask than they are up to I fear. Ohh well at least we have haggis no one can take that off us, no one wants to right enough.

If people see me online all the time on skype it is because I invested in a skype phone that doesnt need the pc turned on to make calls over the internet. Cant believe how close that game was sheeeze, ohh well at least we have the island of Harris no one can take that away from us, mind you no one wants to right enough.

I'm helping my pal move house tommorow I should borrow Keiths cattle float as it looks like rain again and it will keep the stuff dry. I might give him a call.

No telephone line

My new house has no telephone line to it and I think the line rental is a bit of a con so rather than have to sign up for a year with Eircom and have an unsightly pole in my garden I am going to try satelite internet and a skype in number. My new number will be 091 442 472 same code as before for Ireland. I have a telephone that is connected wirelessly to a base station that is in turn connected to the broadband modem. This means that there doesnt need to be a pc turned on to recieve skype calls. I pay 50 Euro a year for the number and skype out charges of 1.9cents a min to the likes of Australia and Scotland. If the system works well and the reception is ok I'll invest in a second phone.

It was pouring rain this morning and looked like it was on for the day so I donned my wet weather gear and went paddling with the dogs, I got home and it promptly stopped raining and the sun is out now, typical.

These two dont seem to care as long as they get out.

Small fiery pieces of what was once a climate-monitoring satellite will hurtle towards the Earth's surface this Friday.

The space agency predicts that the debris from the 20-year-old Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) has a 1-in-3,200 chance of hitting a person, a scenario they consider "extremely remote". It is mostly likely the expensive shards will plummet into the sea, NASA said.
Sadly, if you do manage to catch a chunk of satellite, the US government expressly forbids you from selling it on eBay. The smouldering lump will remain the property of the United States and must be turned over to local police. I thought I heard someone after the pub the other night yell out "UARS dont drop your cigarette stub on the ground" it wasnt to me of course.

12 week wait

Well its getting cooler here now and the leaves are turning, wont be long until winter, we had a blast of wind and rain which was the tail end of the huricaine that hit the states earlier in the month and it knocked down a load of trees but this week hasn't been too bad.

Derrykyle has had a survey done on it and I'm awaiting the results but I went round with the surveyor and there was nothing that would put me off buying it I don't think anyway. There was a problem with the position the house is built on, it differs from the plans, so that is in court for retrospective planning approval but because the house was built 30 years ago its just a formality. However it takes 12 weeks for them to get their act together so that has put the sale back. The owners are letting us move in rent free until the court approval so we shall get the keys on the 4th October. Also the loch in the garden is a man made structure so I have to make sure there is no problem with that.

There was a couple on the TV yesterday that were converting their home to have 0% emissions and be self sufficient which would be great if I could go somewhere down that track, so I have been looking at solar panels for water heating and using a back boiler on the wood burning stove to heat central heating as there is heaps of wood at Derrykyle. Also their are grants for making the house more energy efficient with insulation etc. Living in the place for a couple of months before I pay for it will be good too apart from saving rent it will give me a chance to get lots of quotes and see what needs doing most / first.

My pal Keith has a cattle trailer I shall use to move furniture and I am currently recruiting labour if anyone is interested lol. Right, I was expecting utter silence.

Well I should get a move on here, bed needs changing, washing needs done, hoovering is an option, watching the second half of Italy vs Russia is the other one, and my dogs need their daily constitutionals and there are groceries to be bought and a fixed laptop to return to its owner. Phew whoever said a house husbands work is never done, was right.

Been great games so far

Well the rugby so far is good no longer are teams getting beaten by 40 + points Romania gave Scotland a hurry up, Japan were awesome against France, New Zealand didn't have it easy in the first game either, now its the Argies vs England.

Was out for dinner last night with Angie's Top management team, of which she is one, was a lovely feed which ended at 0100 I had Tiger prawns for a starter, chicken stuffed with goats cheese and McGeoughs air dried ham as a main and then the cheeseboard lol diet out the winda ehh, I drove so wasn't drinking.

Not only is the house on the wrong spot on the site and not parallel to the road, the land size is also under some confusion the initial bill of sale shows a map with same boundaries as now but the bill of sale says 3 acres and 38 perches instead of 6 acers lol only in Ireland. Anyway what will be will be.

Rugby World Cup

Well I'm lucky enough to be able to watch the Rugby World Cup opening ceremony this morning, well I thought I was going to be lucky but, well its not my scene. Over choreographed is the term that pops into my mind, the commentator is saying how last time they hosted the cup it was a group of schoolkids carrying placards with all the countrys playing on them, and he is saying how much better this is, well bring back the schoolkids with maybe some Haka thrown in, for the craic. Australia was really bad for overdoing opening ceremonies too every one was like a competition to see how much money could be spent. I am looking forward to the rugby right enough lol. Ohh Sky tv isnt showing it so I cancelled my subscription to the sports channel so I have to listen to blinkin George Hook commentating, hes like the Irish version of Bert Newton, without the wig.

The house sale has gone back maybe 3 months due to a problem with the house being built on a different spot than the planning permmision shows, because its more than 7 years its just a matter of course for the retrospective planning permission but it still has to go to court which takes up to 3 months. Of course I shant be proceeding until it is settled, unfortunately this will put back renovations into the dreaded Christmas / New Year time frame :(

More photos of Derrykyle

At the bottom of the property there is a wee loch which I hope is full of trout, Gus went and jumped in of course and came out covered in mud.

The O shaped part at the end is clear water with no reeds but the U shaped bit is pretty much all reeds there is about 20 ft of dry between the water and the fence line, which could take grazing animals, they would certainly help chop back the growth.

One of my first jobs will be pressure washing off the patio and getting it looking good as the view from it is excellent, I'll make a firepit out there for sitting round on cold Friday nights when the barbi is on. I have had a barbique every Friday night since arriving here last year regardless of the weather, benifits of having a barbi with a lid.

These guys are just a couple of miles down the road as is the bridge below

7090 views

Wow I have had 7090 views of my blog :) hey wait a min 7085 of them were me, not believing I had written that about the Mufti and Sylvester Stalone and going back to check. Blogger has a new interface that shows you stats of visitors ect, all very cute and part of Google's makeover of their products.

Google earths coverage of Derrykyle is pixelated, obviously not enough heads per acre for them to worry about covering it so I downloaded an ordance survey viewer which shows the house and land  from above http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,498767,727435,7,0 it looks as if I have a bit of water on my land I haven't discovered yet lol I was wondering why they had a 12ft dingy in the garden, thought it was overkill for the lilly pond. Shows how dense the trees are. I'm waiting now for my solicitor to recieve the boundry map and planning documents so I can tee up the surveyor to do his walkthrough then I can find out how for the garden reaches as I really dont know what 6 acres looks like.

Top left is the Costello Fermoyle River, house is among the trees at the right hand side, lilly pond is to the left of the house in the middle of the green area.

Certainly looks like more water to the top left of the grounds ehh. The ordance survey viewer is great I was using it to check out for sandy beaches and in conjunction with the charts for somewhere to anchor for picnics next summer.

I'm starving I thought I would eat early today as Angie is away in England again, but well I'm away doon the road fer a kebab. I've lost 6.5 kg recently so this is a treat.