To which I replied, "Please let me know by phone or email if and when you would like to come down from Canberra for a quick look at the place. It'll be 'what you see is what you get' because we're through with agents and all their staged inspections by 'pre-qualified' buyers. This is an honest sale at what we believe is an honest price (of course, it would've been a lot cheaper had you bought twenty years ago but that was then :-)"
Well, today is the day after the day before when they rolled up in a car so huge it had the words "Hire Purchase" written all over all. And, as so many times before, they also weren't looking for a family home but for another "get-rich-quick-scheme", thinking that I was some kind of daft country yokel who didn't recognise the potential of the eight separate blocks of land I was sitting on. Rather than abusing them for wasting my time, I quickly disabused them of their notion that they could sell off those eight separate blocks and laugh at me all the way to the bank.
In typical Riverbend fashion, we gave them our usual "coffee and cake" hospitality and ended up talking about everything else except real estate. After all, not only had they put an end to our usual euphoric feelings of having found a possible buyer but also to our conflicting dread of having to pack up the accumulation of thirty years' living and wondering what to do next. Of course, if it had come to a serious deal, I'd probably have felt like the proverbial dog that had caught the bus.
As an afterthought, I've removed all mention of the eight separate blocks from the advertisement which, instead of reading "This truly unique property consists of eight parcels of land, totalling some seven acres on eight separate freehold titles and for sale as one lot. The smallest block is 3313m and the largest 3700m. The blocks are strung out like a necklace along the banks of the Clyde River with over 400 metres of absolute waterfront to highwater mark", now simply states, "This truly unique property, totalling some seven acres, stretches for over 400 metres along the Clyde River". Fewer words, less trouble!
