Allanton Originally uploaded by Elizmar Thankyou Elizmar for this study of Allanton which seems, from this shot, to have even less houses than Hutton-but like Hutton, has a speed limit. Why show this image? THere is a very nice property for sale in Allanton (The bit with houses in it) which must be sold for specie to allow the owners to buy the Old Manse in Hutton. So hurry up and get your cheque books at the ready. Apparently the property is featured in today's Scotland on Sunday so hopefully the narrow street (s)-well only a street actually, will be crammed with potential buyers from the start of the working week. We can then get our cash, count it and move on to the Small House in Duns.Yes, Yes empatient of Eyemouth, if you go round the cormer you will eventually reach the...
DUNS AHOYOn our way;eventually. Like mid-May. Closing date come and gone and we have a buyer. 'Subject to Survey' Otherwise the first bit of the job has been. Now its up to our buyer to find the specie and possibly then the buyer of their house will have to sell theirs. The modern version of the chain gang. And all as Winter breaks-a traditional time for invading Russia not selling houses.We will miss the walk down to the Whiteadder and a view of the Old Manse from the north on our way back. Or perhaps we won't have to; we can always come back and walk to the river to admire Mr R's 30,000 pheasant chicks, his 5,000 partridge, his 37 Guinea fowl and the crow.But when we walk by next June we can comment sadly:'No longer ours...
Time Gentlemen, please. AlmostJust when we were beginning to enjoy the feeling of not living in a show house or a set from Gracious Living-the Movie we suddenly have a rather belated viewer-all the way from Fife, squeezing in under the bar before the closing date on Thursday. Apparently keen as we are the only property they are looking at in these 'ere parts, -not the two other Manses, Old and Ould and the latest one on the market-The Manse, Hutton,recently vacated by our last incumbent minister. So it is a frenzy of tidying up around the house,kick stuff under the beds and sofas but sod the garden and the outhouses and hope the wind will disperse the last of the leaves into neat looking piles. We may need the Fifers as two of the likely bidders have decided not to. Mr Rutherford's yard...
Last Orders PleaseJust when you think you have tidied up the house for the last time you have another set of viewers-as we did on Sunday. After a bit you get to recognise the time wasters-roar around, don't ask any questions, either about the house or the locals, but admire your rugs, sniff when you mention that some of the furniture Will be left behind and usually have hyperactive children running riot too near the flimsy Broadband connection. And this category go around the garden with the greatest reluctance as their Gucci loafers soak up the heavy dew from the meadow (aka back lawn). The Sunday bunch were of 'it's 1130 it must be Hutton' variety' They had, like the others, run the gamut of Old and Auld Manses and were on their way to admire a Mc Mansion not too far from Fishwick (I...
We may have had the last of our viewers through the Old Manse and we are now at the stage of setting a closing date. It will be an enormous relief not to have to show strangers around-and however much you feel that they are likely to be rubbernecking time wasters there is still the compulsion to have yet another frantic tidy up-knitting behind sofas, ironing board out of the posh dining room, crumbs swept off the kitchen table, wood burning stove de-ashed and laid for lighting, central heating turned on, socks kicked under bed and loo seats in the closed position.We have no bidets so there is no need to clean out the mouse droppings-a favourite place for mices apparently.But we do need to conceal the humane mouse traps in case would be purchasers get the impression that we are swarming...
Interesting viewer around the Old Manse yesterday. She was striking (Not in the Rpyal Mail sense) and somehow familiar: Big Brother? Fantasy Island? Top of the Pops? Crime Watch UK? Antique Road Show? Localish. Based in Eccles or thereabouts. Accompanied by her secretary cum driver? Expensive four wheel drive. Strong southern accent. Spent much of the tour talking on her mobile. (To her agent?) Seemed to like the house but issued no statement on her departure. But did say that 'It was lovely and warm 'An unusual comment-mind you she was wearing a very expensive looking sheep skin designer labelled jacket. Sincerely meant I am sure but she might not have repeated it to day as it was -0.5C when I left for golf at Duns (MPBUI) It was a balmy 0C when I arrived to find the course closed. We...
Buy one Video, get a Manse free'Come in' said Huttonian to the young couple at the door. 'What a nice day for it'. I then went into my familiar routine starting as usual with the kitchen -the view from which, as I explain, persuaded the wife (and therefore me) that this was the house for us.It was in the master bedroom (stunning views of Mr Rutherford's yard, moulded ceiling, working shutters,traditional Scottish press, en suite down the passage) that the young lady said' Very nice but we came to collect the video. (I had clean forgotten the ancient but working VCR which I had put up for grabs on Berwickshire Freecycle) Oh dear Elderly Moment #67 but in my defence I was expecting a viewer at about the time they came! They were very understanding and asked if they could finish the tour.The...
Despite the alleged down turn in the property market; despite the run on Northern Rock, potential buyers of 'up-market' pied a terres aka Old Manses seem to be around in some numbers. As I two finger a family 'passing through' Hutton have expressed a wish to look around having 'downloaded the details from the Internet'-or perhaps they are bloggees? And there also seems no shortage of money looking for a home. One young man from Embra, no family, seems keen to have a week end place 'in the country'-and this is about as much in the country as you can get without turfing the cows out from under a tree on Farmer C's pastures. He seemed impressed and can pay out of ready cash. Admittedly he looked a bit askance at Mr Rutherford's yard over the Western (but not Wailing) wall-it was a Saturday...
A bloggee asked if it was not an awful chore to have to post everyday-write something (He carefully omitted to add 'interesting') Does Huttonian lie awake at night fretting about what to write about come the cold grey dreich dawn. Take today. It was a cold, grey, dreich dawn. I could write again about the Pheasants, drab and soaking gazing resentfully into the (comparatively) warm and inviting kitchen. I actually would invite them in to roost by the Raeburn but (a) they are still too timid and (b) they crap a lot. I could go on and on about selling this pile-and I suspect at present rate of progress I will have to go on and on-Blast Northern Rock and his Ditherness, The Gov of the Bank of England. There is also so much, and not much more, one can say about Sir Morrisons.All Human Life is...
Cocky. Your days are numberedHowever early one gets up to make the tea in our **** kitchen Cocky, the mendicant Pheasant, often flanked by his hen bidees-near-the-same-bush-in, will be waiting beaks pressed against the glass. And they will demand feeding by stomping up and down looking fan tailed and eager until their breakfast of organically supervised mixed grain has been flung in their general direction.Today's (rather blurry)image is of Ollie, Cocky's senior consort, strutting off in high dudgeon after Cocky got to the breakfast first and was preventing any of the distaff side getting their share. The wife is worried that the next owner of the Old Manse will neglect bird welfare and is considering getting the brief to write in various 'burdens' into the legal documentation to do with...
TGIF Lets view a HouseHuttonian knew when he woke to a glorious warm windless Autumnal day that scheduled golf at Duns (MPBUI) was doomed. And so it proved. A couple from Embra just had to see the Old Manse. Today. No: Monday nor the weekend would not do. Very pleasant and less than non commital. Seemed to like it. Or perhaps they didn't. Very interested or not at all. Impossible to say. Urgency? Not really explained. They had been looking at possible country houses off and on for several months. But it was a great day for a visit to the countryside.They were sure about that.And by the time that they had gone.So had my game.I was sad about...
Yes It's Still For SaleHuttonian said to the enquiring villager at the Kirk on Sunday. 'But's its been on the market for such a long time' 'Ten days actually'It seems a long time but we have had two couples over the house-one very keen, the other switched off once they realised that JR's Yard was visible from our bedroom window when the Ash trees had shed their leaves. And the distaff one was uneasy, indeed startled, at the prospect of having an old graveyard north of the house as if graveyards near Old Manses could come a such a surprise. 'Such quiet neighbours' did not seem to offer her much comfort. A third couple had to postpone but will be back and as I post people all the way from the deepest south-Peterborough-are hastening north to arrive on the most stunning Autumnal day you can...
Entre Deux Mers(e)So we have a new house in Duns. All ours from 10 October as long as we can get the specie to the right place before the right time. But now the hard bit. The Old Manse is on the market and we are living in a brochure-or rather trying to live up to a brochure. We already have had one prospective buyer poking around and another is coming tomorrow. They will already have Knight Frank's puff http://www.knightfrank.co.uk/webuk/flash/search.aspx )_-either the hard copy brochure or scanned the website from where these images have been taken. Advice on the hard sell rings in our ears:(a) Sun to shine(b) Garden to look neat and tidy(ditto house)(c) Smell of baking bread in Kitchen(d) Fire blazing in sitting room (in the fireplace, ideally)(e) Fresh flowers at strategic places.(f)...
