Almal wil 'n huisie by die see he

The Afrikaans song 'Almal wil 'n huisie by die see he' has been playing over and over in my head for the last two months.

Shaun and I have been house-hunting for the last five years. Yes, you heard correctly - 5 years! Five years of getting our hopes up and having them shattered by dishonest estate agents. Five years of getting our friends and families excited, and having to bear the horrible news that the deal fell through - AGAIN! Five years of feeling like a failure, because I couldn't make this happen...

It was absolutely awful. I do not understand why we place so much pressure on ourselves to live up to the expectations that we THINK society places on us. Nobody was disappointed in me because I didn't own a house. Nobody felt that I was less of a man because of it. Yet I carried that burden that I had placed on myself. A HEAVY burden. I would continue with this thought, and I will in another blog post soon, but not today. For today, A HEAVY BURDEN will suffice. But that is not what I want to talk about today...

So my story starts some time in mid-March of this year. After many late nights of looking for property online, Shaun and I decided we would have to widen our choice of suburbs in our search for the perfect property for our family of four (Jeremy, Shaun, Kitsy and Einstein). We called a few agents, and set up about 4 viewings for potential properties.

The first property we viewed was a lot more expensive than what we could afford, but we viewed it anyway. It was a lovely home with unlimited potential in a great area. We had our reservations about the place, and knew it was too expensive. It offered more than we needed, so we decided to move on.

We then set up 3 appointments with 3 different agents 3 days in a row - all in the same area. Each of these agents gave us trouble with our appointments. They struggled to set up viewings, and then kept moving our times. We did not realise at the time that all three properties were in the same security complex, and that security was so tight in the complex that estate agents had a difficult time arranging viewings. After our horrible experiences in the past, we were scared. There was one agent who stood out though: a smooth-talking guy named Meredith who I dealt with. For some reason Meredith earned my trust, but not Shaun's. I called him once on the car's speaker phone while Shaun was with me. Shaun listened to Meredith apologise for cancelling another appointment, while working his charm and making promises. When he hung up, Shaun said he was lying. He went on to say he sounded just like all the others. I listened, waited a few moments and told Shaun I trust him. Shaun told me he didn't want me to get my hopes up and get hurt yet again.

Meredith came through, and on the 28th March he showed us a duplex on the beachfront in Capricorn (Muizenberg). The condition of the place was not good. There had been tenants in the duplex for YEARS. It looked horrible. I walked through the house with Shaun. The back doors could not open. There was no key. The garage door could not open for the same reason. The bathroom window could not close. The light fittings were rusty and had 8 years of accumulated dirt on them. The curtain rails were rusty. The walls were drilled full of holes. The stove was rusted. There were holes in the melamine counter. The kitchen cupboards had water damage. The roof had leaked at some stage and the cornice had never been repaired...

We walked through the mess in silence, both of us afraid to like it in case the other didn't. Equally afraid to make the agent feel too confident about a sale. We pointed out the faults to each other and the agent, and commented continually about how small the house was. We thanked the agent and walked back to the car, each of us searching the other's face for a hint of his thoughts. Once we had driven around the corner, we both smiled. Despite the mess, it was home for us both immediately. No reservations whatsoever. Fear that we would not have the resources to fix it up, but an utter certainty that this was set out for our family.

Shaun was right. I had given up on finding a property 9 months earlier. I told him I was finished, that we would rent forever, that I could not cope with the disappointment of this process anymore. He reminded me that everything happens for a reason, and that we would find our home when the time was right. I told him we was wrong. Shaun was right.

We moved in on 24th June. A friend from church, 2 work colleagues, another guy, 2 bakkies, a trailer, an old Mercedes-Benz and I trekked down the M5....twice.... Shaun had to MARK! We got everything into the garage.

About 20 minutes after we had gotten everything in, Auntie Yvonne, Lynne and Celeste arrived with supper. They visited for a few hours. It was awesome. We unpacked, tried to settle the cats unsuccessfully, and went to sleep. The following morning, we woke up to this:

Yes mense, that's the view from our balcony. We are truly blessed.