Property tycoons

So Lucy and I are about to become property tycoons, after I made an offer on this place in Wilson St, Newtown. No, we won't get it that cheap, but I reckon it was a damn good price because it's in one of the desirable inner city spots in Sydney, and it's also quite a nice 2 bedroom unit. Speaking of desirable places, there's always this one. You probably have to be Sydneysider to get this - a tunnel subsided a few weeks ago and this flat was practically on top of it!

Back to the tycoons. The offer was accepted on Wednesday, so the next step is to exchange contracts and pay a deposit. I have left the matter in the hands of my solicitors, Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel. Sorry, I always think of the Marx Bros (and Dickens, for that matter) when legal stuff involving property is concerned.

Once the deposit is paid, there's a 42 day settlement period, then we've got to cough up the rest of the cash. No worries. There's a tenant in there at the moment too, and he can stay until one of us (likely me) moves in there later next year. Get someone else to buy your property for you, that's the ticket. Our country's negative gearing laws help in that regard.

So far, it's taken about 3 weeks from when I started physically looking for places, helped by Lucy's able assistance from afar and Domain.com.au. It's not as hard as I thought it would be, but I wish I'd listened to sagely advice and applied for the loan very early in the piece.

Raced at Sutho last Friday and managed to break even by winning the first prime. It's a matter of attacking just at the time when you think they are going to blow the whistle. Maybe I'm psychic. Actually, I'm probably not, because I chose the wrong side to sprint from in the finale - the surge came on the right and I was on the left. 8th. And a free PowerBar, so I finished ahead for the night.

Tuesday at Heffron was interesting, because we had the whole of the Korean track team there. They were better than expected, because Heffron is usually a specialist track. If you haven't raced there much, you'll often have trouble in a Tuesday night handicap. We ended up with a huge A grade bunch - maybe 25 to 30. I played it safe and sat on, although I did have the urge to do some work. Whenever I tried to move up, there was a Korean or three in the way. We averaged 43.5 and caught B and C on the last lap, so it was a bit chaotic...

On Wednesday I got stung by a bee while riding through the National Park. The bugger hit me in the forehead when I was doing about 60 km/h and by the time I'd stopped, it had well and truly stung me. I made it home OK, but during the afternoon, my face swelled up like a balloon (think Jon Vaughters in the Tour de France that year) and on Thursday morning I could barely open and close my eyes! I went to the doc, and he gave me some prednisone, which has reduced the swelling a bit. He warned me that if I was a professional cyclist, I'd have to declare it, but I'm not, and I can't see myself being tested in the next [arbitrary time period].

Tomorrow, there's the CA Awards, so I hope I'm unswollen by then. I won't be drinking much wine though. Then on Saturday there's Steve and Simone's wedding chez Lane Cove. Coolness! They have been some of the major forces at work in our garden recently, and it has been completely remodeled in the shape of a fish. And this week we found out that sculptor Mick Purdy won the People's Choice Award at Sculpture By The Sea. Good on him. I voted at least three times for him. Damn, I should have voted for Lucy too. Anyway, he did some nice work in our garden too!