Howzit, Bonjour,
So, where to to start? I abandoned the blogging soon into starting the blog. The excuse was we threw a lot of money at a 3 month intensive french course while Janet was booked off of work. Janet at some stage soon will attempt to be certified at a B1 level, the language requirement for citizenship. Not the only requirement alas, us Africans need to be here 12 years before applying. Of course the overachiever will waltz off with distinction, despite her current panic.
My French is a lot better, I went from class 9 to class 26. Janet went from 26-40, I have a way to go.
Talking to a good friend in December, she said to me she gave up reading my whatsapp missives because they were too long. Fair cop. I will be trying more frequent posts, possibly shorter 🙂
Healthwise we are better, a lot better. Both of us take several pills each day. One of the bonuses from the health calamities last year is that we both were shortlisted for the Covid vaccines, and had both doses of Pfizer in February. Quick and efficient, I love living in an age of science. I really cannot understand the people wish to be back in the middle ages.
Janet is back at work. I have yet to win the lotto, so have not stopped the glamorous life of an international money broker.
Paige is still in digs in Neuchatel (Neuch to her, Newcastle to me) Live classes start this week after months of Zoom.
Cleo is itching to finish her apprenticeship, the 4 years end in July, she has done well, getting up at 5.00 a.m. most mornings. The child is not mentally stable, planning now to study law! we will have a dishwasher packer for the next 7 years.
We have bought an apartment, very similar to the one we have been renting for the last 7 years. With help from Cleo (the advantage of making a child doing an apprenticeship save instead of charging board and lodgings), The promise of a loan from my sister in NZ, who was prepared to dip into her bond to help. The commitment from a good friend to fund us while negotiating the Excon and tax brambles of SA to extract Janet’s inheritance and my cashed in insurance policies.
In life Janet’s folks seed the deposit of our first house, saying it was the money they saved by her staying at home while studying instead of funding res fees or digs. Our first house cost R196 000.00 about Sfr 12 250. The garage we have bought with our apartment is Sfr 30 000.00. Our first house was about 300 sq meters, our bond rate was at 20%. We have bought 130 sq meters at 1.10%.
We get the keys on 28 may, and need to be out of the current apartment by the end of June.
We are currently on the third floor of No 8, we have bought the fourth floor of No 10. The lifts battle to hold 3 people, so basically all the big stuff is going down 3 floors and up four flights of stairs. I have hired people to do this, neither of us are young enough to do it all anymore.
Rambling on and on as usual 🙁
The whole purchase still feels surreal, and not expected at all. Janet’s inheritance making up the bulk of the 20% deposit along with our proceeds from the Parkmore and Vaal properties. The 5% fees plus the small renovations funded by borrowings until the cashed in policies are converted in Swiss francs.
Janet received a message at about 3 p.m. on 27 feb that the apartment was on offer. She contacted the agent straight away. She made a big spiel about living in the block for seven years. She was told we could view on the Thursday as the viewing calendar was full until then.
Monday she was told there was a cancellation, we could view at 5 p.m. that day. Cleo joined us, the agent said an early offer was often accepted. Janet tendered an offer at the asking price within an hour. This was done more in hope than expectation.
During Janet’s convalescence she had taken to walking with J. J and her husband JC are proper Swiss, and have been very kind to us over the years, despite ignoring for the first two years. “there are so many expats that pass through here, it was not worth knowing you until we could see you would stay”
After posting our offer J told Janet that she hoped we would be accepted, but that it was unlikely as her cousin who was swiss had also bid at the same price. Another neighbour, my beautiful Ursula whose husband Francois died 2 weeks ago, and was buried on what would have been their 60th anniversary, said that the Swiss preferred to sell to Swiss, and that M. Rytz was a very conservative Swiss man. Her apartment is next to ours – the third floor of No6. She has always been a ray of sunshine to us and the girls, one of the bubbliest people at our aperos, or meeting her when walking to recycle our bottles and peelings.
The agent then called a week later and said we needed to confirm funding, as the seller favoured us despite a receiving a bid 10% higher.
The funding scramble went into overdrive, Sally got on board – Cleo revealed she could help. A chance remark over dinner resulted in a very kind offer from a friend. Hopefully, the way things are going only Cleo will be getting the 2% interest we are paying for the interim funding.
Funding secured the bid was finalised with backing of Janet’s bank. Once we had the 20% in her account, they issued the guarantee.
Sfr 10 000 of Cleo’s money was in cash. I imagined a shopping bag full of notes. Instead it was a mere fold of paper, never have I been more worried about losing paper than the day I need to deposit that money to make the 20%.
Funding secured on my birthday 18 March, the agent called Janet to say we had been successful, and then asked what did we do at the start of Covid. A puzzling question as Janet the girls and Cheryl* all were locked down from March 2020. Janet said she taught her classed by Zoom, teams and stayed at home.
He the asked what we did for the building. At the start of Covid, before Janet’s cancer, and my hypertension fright we viewed ourselves as the youngsters of the block. Not unreasonable given a lot of our neighbours bought off plan in 1970. Wanting a flat with a garden for their kids to play in. Of course estate agents have to put their special BS in, the garden is referred to as a private park. Creating images ofa lord hunting deer and shooting geese, it has a nice braai area.
We put a letter into each letterbox at the start of lockdown offering to do shopping, collect pharmacy orders etc. Not one person ever took us up, several thanked us for the gesture, but we did not have to help anyone. M. Rytz remembered this, and decided we were the people to buy his apartment. We have, and his family have been unbelievably kind about giving us keys to store stuff in the garage, the ability to bring tradesmen in to measure up for the renovations needed. A small gesture has gone a long way, almost as long as my rambling blog.
Love you all