He was right

Let this be a lesson for you all in couples who think your partner is being crazy and superstitious.

He or she is probably right. Always trust your gut.

(That's him, above, telling me not to take his photograph in Barcelona – he hates when I take his photo on the sly).

Anyway, remember my last post when I told you I was sick of not talking about the house and that I was going to blog about it despite The Irishman's objections?

Well the next day we got our search results back. Yippeee! It only took 8 weeks despite Hackney Council promising them in 1 week. Except that we didn't expect our search results to include problems.

I don't want to go into too much detail here, but basically the house we're buying has a loft conversion. And that loft conversion, based on the type of house and area, needed to have planning permission before it was completed. And the seller didn't, to our knowledge or the Council's knowledge, have that permission.

This could be a major dealbreaker. Or it could be a simple hurdle to overcome. We simply don't know what will happen, so we are playing The Waiting Game again.

I have to tell you, this is a really depressing process. We've stopped everything in its tracks. We aren't buying a bed anymore (because if we don't buy this house, we won't need a king-sized bed - we won't have anywhere to put it!). We have a stack of packing boxes in the corner of the bedroom that we were going to start filling last weekend, but they've been forgotten about for the time being. All of the moving procedures we started to think about have been shelved – no talk of giving notice, or forwarding mail, or anything. My spreadsheets are all saved in Google Docs for one day, hopefully soon.

I feel like the weather is also compounding my disappointment; because of the house-buying process, we haven't had a vacation at all this year save for those we've been able to tack on to business trips or wedding visits. We can't plan one, either, because again, who knows – we might move in August, we might not! All of our money is being fed into a down payment fund, and we can't risk saying fuck it lets escape the rain and head to a sunny beach when we might have to buy paint and pay for a locksmith and homeowners insurance and and and and... My only consolation is that because of this weather, I'm not too angry about missing out on the evenings The Irishman and I could have spent in the back patio of The House this summer, drinking rosé. They would have been rained out anyway.

So we are headed to Ireland in two weeks to see The Irishman's family and I will cherish this trip as my summer vacation. My expectations for our 7 days away have been downgraded; I don't hope for a secret heatwave in southwest Ireland but I would love a sunny afternoon or two while I'm there. To be honest, I actually just want to get away from everything: from rainy London, from lawyers who don't call back, from real estate, from the economy, from my job, from my life at a standstill. Going to the green rolling hills and rocky Irish coast feels not quite relaxing but maybe soothing. I'll take soothing.

Also, I am suitably chastized enough to revert to my promise to The Irishman that I will not blog about The House until we exchange – which might be tomorrow, or might be never. So don't hold your breath for house-buying posts but please keep us in your thoughts as we navigate the murky waters of the London property market.