Memories of less stressful times

Another stressful day.  Having expected to exchange contracts today we were told this afternoon that a solicitor acting at the bottom of the chain will not do so until he gets what appears to be an unnecessary confirmation from his client's lender.  We are under pressure to pay a large amount to our builder by tomorrow night, having already had a generous two week extension from them, which we are not prepared to do until after exchange.  The pressure to complete the sale before the end of the month had come from the bottom of the chain so having gone ballistic, we have made it clear to all concerned that if we have not exchanged by tomorrow lunchtime we will pull out of the sale and stay put where we are.  Which means our buyer will stay put too, and the whole chain will collapse.  Of course, we will still have the rental property in Norfolk but we will look at that as being a holiday home for a few months; we will need it!

So before all that blew up, we had mostly been emptying cupboards and putting together all the things we want to take over to our rental property, during which we came across this.  A souvenir from a superb holiday; Mabel's is a fairly basic lobster restaurant with pine tables and paper tablecloths but it serves wonderful lobster and if it's good enough for local resident ex-President George W Bush who eats there often, it's good enough for me. We've eaten there a couple of times and I remember the waitress seemed surprised when we ordered a bottle of wine between the two of us and there was nothing left to take away at the end of the meal!