Posts Tagged ‘Chichester’
Gypsies, Tramps, Thieves And Estate Agents
The property market is, once again, difficult for everyone. In recent weeks we have even been asked to have some sympathy for that most despised group of parasites, estate agents – but I have none. Truth is that their “profession” is a necessary evil and in good times as in bad it is only those with some standards and, maybe, a little integrity that are worth dealing with.
In the past twelve months I have had comprehensive experience of the estate agents in and around Emsworth, Portsmouth and Chichester. There have been one or two who have been a pleasure to deal with, who have been professional, efficient and helpful. Others have been uninterested and disinterested, unethical, inefficient and some are little short of crooked.
First, the positive. There is one firm that shines out as example to all others – Henry Adams. I have not bought, sold, rented or let a single property from them but I have viewed many and I can truthfully say that every transaction has been smooth, easy and as it should be. If only I could say the same for the rest.
Borland & Bound of Emsworth, Charlotte and Alison in their lettings department are liars. If you stalk the internet property sites, as I know how to do, you can catch the new properties immediately they come to market. If you’re quick on the draw the truth becomes evident. Agents which pick and choose who they sell or let to and at what price. Whether it is their sister’s best friend’s cousin’s daughter or their next door neighbour’s husband who they share a bottle of cheap white wine with every Wednesday afternoon, there are dishonest people out there that you cannot rely on to deal with you properly. Borland & Bound told me for a week that they just couldn’t get hold of the landlord to arrange a viewing. 
Then I met another prospective tenant outside another property who told me that they’d viewed the Borland & Bound property the day before. Borland & Bound then told me they’d had a “bad” reference on me. I ask, from who, on what authority, when did I give you the information or source from which to take a reference? Is that the best bullshit you can come up with? I wonder what the truth is?
Then there was “Zone” of Chichester. What dreadful 1980s-type “brand” is that and can anyone take a firm with such a name seriously? I had to try to because some unsuspecting property owner who had exactly what I wanted in Bosham had made the mistake of hiring this firm and apparently causing it all sorts of problems. After all, business would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, if it wasn’t for those dreadful people we call customers?
It was so much trouble to arrange a viewing. Five or six telephone calls were never returned and eventually produced the reaction that “we might be able to arrange a viewing in a week or so”. “Please don’t pester us. You’re probably not the sort of tenant we want because you’d be on the phone all the time”.
Eventually a viewing was arranged but when I called to ask for directions I was told “I’m far too busy. Ask someone in the street”. Then surprise, surprise, “the landlord has a prior offer”, “the property is now off the market”.
It must be unpleasant to have to demean yourself, to lie, to cheat, to deceive but perhaps some of these estate agents enjoy their work. I can think of no other explanation.
Mutant Seaweed
An article in Friday’s Times tells of the difficulties facing sailors competing in the Beijing Olympics due to an invasion of mutant seaweed described as “thick as a carpet”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4221527.ece
We are suffering from the same problem in Chichester Harbour and I can personally testify to the deep pile quality of this very unpleasant weed. I consulted the authority on such matters, Sid, the Emsworth harbourmaster. He tells me it is caused by nitrates seeping down into the harbour from farmland. I have seen great swathes of it as far as 10 miles out and around the Isle of Wight. The tide brings it up to the beach and deposits it in layers four to six inches thick. It is difficult and slippery to walk over and is bleached almost bright white and crispy by the sun in the space of a day. Then the tide brings another layer up and massive areas of the foreshore become clogged with it.
Walking The Dog 3
Walking The Dog 3
The fields have been ploughed and scattered this week. My memory tells me that the ploughing should take place in the depths of winter so that the frosts can break up the great clumps of soil but that’s not the way it’s done in Emsworth.
Instead the local farmer brings in contractors who arrive in huge leviathan beasts, each worth a brace of Aston Martins, that devour the stubble fields and transform them into finely graded seedbed.
Think of the effort of lifting one spade of compacted soil. The plough carves down three spades deep and four spades wide with each of six blades. The earth surrenders to its mighty force and is exposed rich red and raw. Then a massive grader, its huge weight hauled at speed across the fields smashes the soil into powder. Only then does the farmer drive out his John Deere, looking puny by comparison and sets it to seeding and raking. In the space of three or four days the work is completed.
The new scenery brings out a burst of fresh exuberance from Capone. He gallops across the fields, his energy enough to lift any mood. His sheer joy at being perfectly expresses the purpose of a dog. He and the intimate experience of a walk with my best friend is the most powerful of therapies requiring no theory or structure, just the doing of it. Perhaps more like a meditation or prayer.
With age the individual senses diminish in power but I find that there is a greater discernment between them. I hear birdsong now like I never used to. The pleasure of the birds, the sea, the sky, the light and the breeze is all so much more intense and the unreserved, joyous companionship of my dog makes it all the more so.
The most extraordinary things happen every day to those of us that indulge in this most universal hobby of walking the dog. Last week, and I kid you not, from behind an isolated cottage, flew a second world war US fighter plane at no more than 200 feet. Breaking every civil aviation rule in the book, it sent Capone and me diving for the nearest slit trench convinced that we were its target.
Regularly the Chinooks fly over Chichester harbour, their massive thumping beat pulverising the air. If you happen to be wading through a large area of eight foot tall bullrushes it is so easy to imagine the rattle of M16s and the threat of napalm descending from above.
But the real dangers that lurk here are of a more rural nature. The most marmalade orange, malevolent cat saunters along the church wall, a half dead rat clamped in its teeth. The nasty fat corgi, its belly dragging on the ground and while Capone ambles by it leaps up and bites him on the back of the neck!
Spring is accelerating towards summer now. The grasses and nettles in the hedgerows are lush. The trees are turning a deeper green and filling out their magnificent silhouettes but the earliest crop in Emsworth is the forest of masts that’s sprouting everywhere you look.
Peter Reynolds 14-05-08
Welcome to my world!
Peter Reynolds is a writer, communications advisor and proud Welshman. He lives in a small town called Emsworth, between Portsmouth and Chichester on the south coast of England. After “dropping out” from life as a hippy musician, Peter experimented with direct sales and the motor trade before training as a copywriter and eventually making it to the top of his profession as a creative director with Saatchi & Saatchi. Along the way he developed special expertise in technology and healthcare working with clients such as IBM, Hewlett Packard, GSK and the Department of Health. He also worked as a freelance journalist writing for just about every PC magazine then on the market and had a weekly column in The Independent based on the simple idea of riding a bike but ranging across subjects such as politics, sport, technology and the media. Since the 1990s he has worked as a consultant to organisations such as Nokia, the British Army and Pinewood Studios. In 2004 he established Leading Edge Personal Technology as “the magazine for technology enthusiasts”. He continues to write on a wide range of subjects.
Peter Reynolds 