Estate agent

We were about to exchange contracts when I got a call from the estate agent to tell me that another list of queries had come in. I took one look at it and decided I had better not read it properly, because I saw the words ‘wind turbines’. In a few decades no conveyancing will be possible and no one willbe able to move house ‘What the hell is this?’ I asked the agent, who was stuttering: ‘Oh dear… calm down…’ ‘Don’t tell a woman to calm down!’ I shouted. And he apologised profusely. I felt sorry for him. It wasn’t his fault. The buyer’s solicitor had gone on holiday and left the file in the hands of a gaggle of millennials, who had managed to unpick ten weeks of negotiations by googling everything – again.

The estate agent flashed a sarcastic smile and said it wasn’t so much that the market was in a bad place, rather that my property got so much ‘negative feedback’. I stared back at her, fuming. I had popped into the offices of this agency to ask for my key back, which I forgot to do last year when I gave up on them being able to sell my house. This summer, I’ve given it to a friend at a smaller agency, hoping he does a better job than the city slickers at this well-known outfit where they all shout ‘Rah-de-blah-de-rah-de-blah!’ no matter what I say to them.