and I know which one of these chaps is the prospective buyer
I am interested in seclusion. I am going overseas for two weeks. Will contact on my return" wrote the latest respondent to my 105-day-old real estate advertisement. As I wrote in a previous post, there was a time when I would've wished him a safe journey but I've now become a hardened real estate salesman and didn't even reply. I think it's called "playing hard to get".
Playing hard to get has or has not worked, depending on your point of view, because, not having had any reply from me, he emailed me again to get my phone number as he wanted to talk to me before he left.
Only a few minutes later the phone rang, and we had quite a long conversation which went from the practical (does he have the money? yes, he is a cash buyer!) to the personal (he does consulting work for people such as the World Bank and is off on another trip to Bangladesh).
Reacting to my usual email footnote "I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the British and European elders past and present and emerging, who introduced civil society and prosperity to my adopted country Australia", he had already penned me this reply: "Agree with your sentiments expressed below. My family dates back to the mining and agriculturalists who developed this country in the 1800s the hard way, and two family members died in the Great War protecting our burgeoning civilisation as a country. It's not the same country I was brought up in and my grandkids seem not to care; it’s a tragedy. Australia was once a fantastic country, our stupid politicians should have realised how unique this country was and should have developed policies to keep it that way; instead they went open field and allowed this country to go to the dogs as has America, UK and most of Europe. Such a pity."
With all that out of the way, it became something of a meeting of the minds as we had done similar work, and he wanted "Riverbend" for the same reasons I had chosen it more than thirty years ago, but, using mixed metaphors, I don't want to count my blessings before they hatch but will burn that bridge when I come to it because I have some mixed feelings as we don't even know where we would go if it came to a sale. To unmix my metaphors, I'd be feeling like the dog that caught the bus.
