(Warning: Rant ahead!!)
I am so sick of flat hunting, and it’s not even close to being over yet!
For the past week, while Jan has been in Spain with work, I’ve been replying to adverts for flats. Since Jan is back tonight (or really early hours of tomorrow morning, but whatever) I took the afternoon off work tomorrow and managed to arrange two viewing appointments tomorrow evening. The first person to write to me offered me one at 6:30 pm. I e-mailed Jan to see if that was ok, he told me it was. So I confirmed. Then somebody offered me an appointment at 5:30 pm. I e-mailed Jan again, asking whether he could make it that early… whether he thought an hour would be enough time to view one flat then get to the other. He did not answer. The next moring, I sent an email back to the person with the flat asking whether we could possibly come a little earlier. Within a couple of hourse he replied saying that he couldn’t make it any earlier, but he would be sure to turn up on time. At this point I still did not have an answer from Jan. So I topped up my phone and sent him a message asking him to call me, which he then did. He said he would be able to make it. Hurrah! So I e-mailed the flat guy again and said we would be there at 5:30. Two appointments sorted.
Then yesterday I had a reply from somebody else. He offered me an appointment to view a flat today at 3pm. I sent a reply saying my boyfriend was away with work, so could we please have an appointment next week instead. He offered me one tomorrow, at 4:15 pm. I accepted and sent Jan a text telling him we had a third appointment. I had told him on the phone that I was taking a half day and would be informing people that we could only take appointments before 5 pm on Monday, otherwise it would have to be after 6 on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday (purposely keeping Thursday free so he wouldn’t have to miss choir!!). Half an hour later he called to inform me that he can’t make it that early on tomorrow. After spending an entire week in Spain with work, only getting back at stupid o’clock in the morning, you would think it would be possible to take that afternoon off work. But apparantly not. “Well, that’s ok” Jan said. “You’ll just have to go on your own and tell me afterwards what it’s like”. Oh, ok then. So I’ll turn up there ALONE, having refused an earlier viewing becuase my boyfriend couldn’t make it. Because that’s not going to make me look stupid at all! And besides that, what is the point in me looking at a flat that we are potentially going to live in? Maybe so that I can get the blame if we then take it and Jan decides it’s not good enough after all?
Also – and this is something that Jan will never, ever in a million years understand – I don’t want to go and look at flats on my own. I don’t want to have to be shown around by complete strangers, who are going to notice within the first five seconds of me ringing the doorbell that I’m foreign (if they hadn’t already gathered that from reading my name in the e-mail) without anyone there for moral support. I don’t want to think of all the relevant questions and remember to make a note of what’s important without any help. But apparantly that’s what I’m going to have to do.
I was looking forward to tomorrow… now I’m dreading it.
Just one more thing for me to lay awake worrying about I guess…
Confuzzledom 