Please no not the shorts

I’m still having a bit of difficulty with our estate agent’s concept of truth and reality. He called at 2pm to say he wanted to bring a couple of builders around to examine the boundaries of the property – in 15 minutes. Ohhh-kay, said I, expecting this visit to be an examination and adjustment of a fluorescent orange rope which has been strung around our domain.

Sure enough, 15 minutes later the agent trundles up in an extraordinary pair of shorts, with eight people. Eight. Obviously not builders either, these are property developers, and because they aren’t just turning up randomly for an open home, these are a different class than Sunday’s crowd. They seem more intelligent and less venal. Some of them even apologise for the intrusion. Class!

The agent asks if he can borrow the ladder to show them the view, and then asks if they can walk through the house… please? Well, I’m not about to throw a tanty, am I? I don’t let them into the bedrooms, but I still let them into the property. I think this is a good thing because it impresses on the agent that we’re not unreasonable, but it might backfire, because now he may think he can bring around large groups of people with no notice and we won’t mind. I know that if I hadn’t answered the phone he would’ve brought them around anyway.

I’m not putting our Sexual Innuendo magnetic poetry kit back on the fridge for a while, but I photographed the good ones before I took it down: