After 3 sleepless nights and erratic eating habits (toast at 11pm because we’d forgotten to have an evening meal) ,  the phone rang this morning and it was our Estate Agent responding to our emails.
It would appear that ANOTHER issue with our buyers was that they have a holiday booked for 21st June, already rescheduled twice, which was why they could not give us the three weeks we were hoping for.

Anyway, a compromise has been reached AND WE HAVE SOLD!!

As the old 1960s kiddies (3-90  years of age) TV show used to say:
THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

Fanfare, drum roll, whatever.
Anything can happen in the next half hour!

The first thing we did was get in the car and take our contracts up for witnessed signature ready for exchange today or first thing tomorrow if our buyer can’t get to his solicitor by 5.30 to do the same.
On the way, we did the second thing which was to ring the Estate Agents dealing with our Prime Target for purchase, and put in a silly offer to test the water. When they’d finished laughing, we upped it (twice) but it is still not enough so we’ve told them we’ll think about it and call them tomorrow (all part of our Master Plan) .The third thing was to get back in time for the charity wagon collecting our unwanted furniture for midday ( we had been advised of a time frame of between 12 and 3.30 depending on other collections) . We pulled up on our drive at 11.59, and they arrived just after 12.20.
If someone were to break into our house now they would feel so sorry for us, they’d leave us things!Next was to sort out some storage.
Enquiries had already been made and a firm selected. A phone call today confirmed they have suitable storage available which will take my car and all our possessions, well within our budget.
Even better was that they offered us the private hire of a man and trailer to help us move, simply because they appeared to like us!
Tomorrow, after exchange has been confirmed and a deposit secured (our safeguard to ensure no 11th hour withdrawal without penalty) , I will be on the phone to our utility companies to advise them of our completion date, and also filling out the paperwork to have our mail redirected to a trusted friend.

All in all, it has been a pretty good day.