Bad news, good news and a change of travel plans

The bad news is that the closing date of the cottage my partner and I are buying has been pushed ahead to August 10th. We're both pretty annoyed with this for several reasons. Mainly the vendors have been very slow during the whole process and knew very little about the property. This has been the case because the vendor in question is the son of the owners of the cottage. There are 2 main reasons for the the hold up, one the son and the owners currently live outside of the province, and second the father who took care of everything relating to the cottage is in the late stage of Alzheimer's. Obviously we understand the difficulties of the situation and have been very patient and understanding with them during this whole process. We even went as far as conducting a land survey due to the fact that they were unsure of the property lines and the ownership of the shared well that comes with the property.

Our patience ran out this past Wednesday when we received a phone call for our lawyer asking if we would be willing to change the closing date from today to August 10th. We were both upset, as we had begun the process of renting a vehicle to move furniture, had begun purchasing large items (we live in a condo with very little storage) and had invited friends from various places to come up and visit/help fix the place up. After some prodding we found out the the reason for the delay is that the vendor and his lawyer apparently didn't know that you can't sell someone else's property without their signature or in lieu of that, power of attorney. This shocking revelation led to a frenzied attempt to give the vendor power of attorney. Not surprisingly the process is not as simple as making a phone call.

On to the good news, my partner's dissertation has passed muster and his defense will be scheduled within the next 2 weeks, yea! This leads in the the change of travel plans, we had originally planned to travel down south, but the dissertation has complicated that. He doesn't want to go on a "big" vacation before his defense because he feels he won't be relaxed enough to enjoy it. We won't have time afterwards because he's a professor and can't take vacation during the semester. So instead we are leaving for Newfoundland this Sunday instead. This is the province where I grew up and my family still lives there, so it's in part a honeymoon and part a family visit. So, I'm pretty excited, as is my family. For those of you not in the know, Newfoundland is a island Province in the North Atlantic. Know mainly for it's history of fishing, strange dialect and it's unpredictable weather. Sadly, Newfoundland has recently gained attention and notoriety on the world stage due to the yearly seal hunt. This is obviously a touchy subject for some people and I won't state my opinion now, but I will do so in a later post.

Anyway......