The also-rans

It was a Sunday afternoon in August. The Dreamboat was watching TV and I was in my office, checking out NZ real estate websites, just as I’d been doing most days for the last 18 months. When I clapped eyes on that beautiful snowy image (see previous post), I stopped dead and said, “Oh. My. God.”

The Dreamboat heard me. “What is it?”

“Come and take a look at this.”

He walked in, saw the image on the screen and said, “That is fucking gorgeous.”

It was the most encouraging response he’d made to anything I’d shown him to date. He didn’t like this, for example …

I spent months trying to convince him it was the place for us and yet he stubbornly refused to come around … even though it came with this view:

He had his reasons but I couldn’t help being disappointed. The place ticked every box on my wishlist: interesting architecture, built from native timber, on the West Coast of the South Island, stunning views of the ocean, elevated situation, a bit of land as well as the house, not too expensive …

Unfortunately, the place wasn’t finished. It had only been built to the ‘weatherproof shell’ stage and nothing had been done inside. The Dreamboat had looked at the floor plans on the real estate website and fashioned a deep and abiding loathing of them. So … dream over.

The next place to grab my attention was this:

This place was situated in the middle of the Southern Alps, near a small community called Springs Junction. There was a lot of land going with the property but the Dreamboat was concerned at its remoteness. I’d been planning a trip back to NZ and was intending to check out the place anyway. Until that fateful Sunday afternoon when we both lost our hearts to the idyllic snowy scene, that is …

Exactly two weeks later, we were sitting in a real estate office in NZ, completing the paperwork on the offer we’d just made. The trip, the offer and the surreal events that characterised the entire process deserve a post all of their own. They couldn’t have been scripted better in a movie. Stay tuned for tactics, tears and the tango.

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