A Silver Lining.

We've been back to Borth, this time the SatNav was working and took us over the Severn Bridge and along much better roads cutting the travel time to under 5 hours. Since the disappointment of last week I'd been checking the property sites, partly to see if the bungalow would show up at a higher price. On Monday morning a new bungalow around the corner from the 'lost' bungalow appeared. It was at the top of our budget but the location was amazing. The bungalow and its sloping garden looked straight out over the cliff  with views of Cardigan Bay from the sitting room and the dining area. I didn't really care about the sad state of the building, for that view I'd live in a tent!

We got in touch with the estate agent straight away but he was insistent that we actually view the property, not just look at the advert  and walk around the street with Google street view.  

So we, or rather Peter, drove up to Borth on Thursday, met the agent and viewed the property. It was still full of belongings which were being cleared out and although the front half was reasonable the back was a warren of rooms and lean-to's built upon lean-to's, all with flat roofs which had leaked and damaged the rooms below. Flat roofs are always a problem and we would have changed them to pitched roofs anyway. Around the back is an enclosed garden completely filled with 2 glasshouses and several sheds. I suspect that cleared this could make a courtyard suntrap.

Having had a look around and gone through the paperwork with the estate agent we walked to the end of the road to the coast path and then down to Lower Borth (prone to flooding). 

Earlier we'd called in at the pub where we got a friendly welcome and picked up more information about the area. The houses which sit next to the beach have been bought to be used as holiday homes and sell for ridiculous amounts of money. Only one in ten are occupied full-time and the others remain empty for a lot of the summer. When we went to a pub in Tal-Y-Bont there were a few people at the bar and as soon as we walked in one of them began speaking in Welsh, how unfriendly. He had to switch back to English because I don't think the other people with him were comfortable speaking Welsh.

We'd booked to stay at a B&B in Tal-Y-Bont a few miles away. The hosts were so friendly and will be happy to advise us on builders as they have a number of properties. We were given a great choice of breakfasts, Peter had the Welsh breakfast with black pudding and laver (seaweed) as well as the usual sausage, bacon etc while I opted for scrambled eggs with an enormous slice of smoked salmon and some oat cakes (the biscuit kind not Stoke oat cakes). 

The journey home was a little more stressful when the SatNav took us over a new road instead of on to the main road and didn't give the right number of exits on some of the roundabouts. When we got back I found that the cat feeders hadn't worked and poor Patch hadn't had any thing to eat since we left. Either I didn't programme them correctly or the tinned cat food was too heavy. Speedy got one of his meals but I'm going to set the feeders up again and check if they're working. Peter was very tired when we got home so didn't come and sing at the choir concert tonight. I went and though I was tired after little sleep the night before I enjoyed singing to a big audience with all my friends.
We didn't get a final confirmation from the estate agent until we were driving home which was a relief. The surveyor is going to do his survey on Wednesday and providing he doesn't find any serious problems we should be going ahead with the purchase.