We’re slumped on the sofa. In our house. We like our little house. We’ve just come back from a 10.5 km walk. It was meant to be 9 km but we’re hard as fuck, so we extended it. As the weeks go on we have decided to embark on ever lengthening walks to keep us in something like semi tip-top condition. There were a few other people out but I didn’t sense much warmth from many of them. As far as I can tell people are just as happy to be rude from a safe distance. As we walked, in what must be the perfect temperature, we passed an estate agents sign and it brought to mind Jenny, Joe and James Hilton from yesterdays post. The name of the estate agents was North Estates and they are run by…………wait for it………….Nick and Nicky North.
First of all you must believe me because it’s absolutely true and I can prove it because when we bought our house, the nice little one where I’m sitting right now, it was advertised and dealt with by North Estates. Still not sure? Look it up. You can go to the North Estates website and you can see for yourselves, right there. Nick and Nicky North. Husband and wife estate agents. Or Nicky and Nick North. Wife and husband estate agents. Sometimes we’d call them and it would go to answerphone and the message had been recorded by Nicky North (from Nick and Nicky North at North Estates) and she would say something like – “Hi there, you’ve reached the office of Nick and Nicky North at North Estates. We’re out right now but please leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible”.
And they always did. They were really rather good if my memory serves me well enough. I mean, they were still estate agents, but they were the nicest we met during the whole process; definitely better that the slick little shysters that finally managed to sell my flat and a lot sharper than the rather slow young chap that we started out with and who would probably have struggled to sell shit to a dung beetle. It was Nicky North, from Nick and Nicky North at North Estates, who first showed us round this house. She was smiley and pleasant and professional, certainly as professional as her profile on the North Estates website suggests. We tended to deal with her unless it was a big moment at which point Nick North, from Nick and Nicky North at North Estates, would step in with his years of experience (see website) and sort it all out. I’m sure Nicky North would have done just as well but by this point Nick North had already had 16 years experience as an estate agent, and I think you’ll agree that 16 is quite a big, manly number.
To be fair Nick North was much more of the estate agent type than Nicky North. For instance I noticed that when he turned up to give us the key to the kingdom and drop off a bottle of champagne (do all estate agents do that, because Nick and Nicky North at North Estates do) that he was wearing shiny, sharp shoes with buckles rather than laces. I quite liked Nick North, from Nick and Nicky North at North Estates, but I did not approve of his choice of shoe and as we walked passed the North Estates sign this morning that was the first thing that I thought about – Nick North from North Estates and his buckled shoes. And then I heard his jolly wife saying something like “you’re through to Nick and Nicky North at North Estates, please leave a message” and I smiled. They got the job done, Nick and Nicky. Mr and Mrs North, partners in estate agency. They got it done and we owe them a great debt of gratitude because, as I said, we like our little house and in a funny way there will always be a tiny corner of it that forever belongs to Nick and Nicky North. You know, from North Estates.
G B Hewitt. 10.04.2020
If they did have children I hope they chose their names wisely.
On stupidity......and other causes for concern. 