Remember the property chain? How if one link in the chain of buyers and sellers breaks, then the whole chain of transactions falls apart?

Well, the fourth and final link in our chain is looking horribly iffy. Our solicitor (and oh how I hate his anxious, shifty demeanour, and the way he fidgets from foot to foot and won't meet my eye, and his horrible grating whiny voice) tells us that there is some issue with access rights to this property. It's a new home, and the builders haven't made sure that all the legal requirements are met. Until that is sorted out - and he can't say how long that will take, or even if it will happen - we can't exchange contracts, and we can't complete the deal. I must admit that I went a bit shrill at him when he told me this - I mean, why does he wait till now to let us know this, when he's known for a couple of days already? And why didn't he know beforehand, for that matter?

However, I was impressed at the way that Bobby managed to remain calm, polite and unemotional during all this. I wish I stayed so reasonable in moments of stress

Ugh. It particularly irks me that we just paid all this money into the solicitor's account, because he said that the exchange would happen this week - but now, since the exchange hasn't happened, and won't be happening any time soon, the interest we'd have been earning on our savings is accruing to the solicitors instead of to us.

Time to go clean the bathrooms. That should improve my mood. I need to do it now, though, because I want the house to be tidy when my folks arrive on Sunday (they'll be spending a few days with us) and I won't have a chance to do anything tomorrow as we'll be out all day - driving to Exeter, about five hours away, to attend a wedding, and then driving home again. It may be a rather grim journey because it's a long weekend here and they're predicting traffic jams on some of the roads we need to travel. At least we have books to listen to.