House projects, IT projects, and Zimbabwe

I’m late getting to this blog post today. There’s so much going on here that I haven’t written anything, which is one admission I hate to make.

One of my projects has been rearranging my lounge, washing walls and general spring cleaning, and removing loads of books that were cluttering it up. Unfortunately, many of them are now cluttering up the spare bedroom. They’ll have to stay there for a while but that’s my next sorting job. I’m gradually putting those I can bear to part with for sale on various websites. Had to say goodbye to one yesterday as I sent it off to a buyer who I hope will love it like I did.

Anyway, the house should look a bit better when the next potential home buyers arrive to view on Friday. Fingers crossed they might even want to make an offer. Apparently they do have an offer on the house they are trying to sell but they have to wait for their chain to fall into place. I don’t care though, just receiving an offer is the next step through this obstacle course.

I have friends on the move as well. They had been waiting months to exchange contracts and received a call out of the blue from their solicitor saying it had just happened. At the time they were driving to visit the area they were moving to, so were immediately able to go for a second viewing on a new build with no chain, make an offer subject to survey, and arrange to move in quickly. It’s happening this week, just three weeks from the exchange date.

Another time waster for me has been the emails flying between myself and the support team at Avanquest, who are trying to help me install the latest version of SystemSuite, which I paid for and downloaded. No luck as yet. Normally I swear by SystemSuite, which I’ve been using for several years, but my patience is wearing thin over this issue. It’s just so time consuming when the technical things don’t work properly.

I’m also watching the news from Zimbabwe with bated breath. When Mugabe was first voted in, I was at college with a Zimbabwean friend. She and other students from her country were firm supporters and I helped them celebrate after the election. After we graduated with our Media Studies degrees, she went home and was soon presenting her own TV show in Harare.

She wrote me a few times and once came back to visit the UK and turned up unannounced at my flat. Eventually though, I got no replies to my letters and gave up writing to her. I have often wondered what became of her as things began to go so badly wrong, but I haven’t been able to find any references to her anywhere.

News of the current election seems to be wavering back and forth between hope for change and despair. Personally, I’m praying for change that will bring some respite to the people suffering so much over there.

In the meantime, life goes on, and I hope I’ll be able to achieve at least one more article for Constant Content tomorrow.