We have sold our old house! Once we started looking at doing so everything moved much more quickly than we expected. We thought we'd just list it and see if there was any interest (nice old house, but badly damaged so needed the right sort of buyer). Within 3 days of listing we had an offer, and by the end of the week we had multiple offers - one of which was around the value we had hoped for but weren't sure was realistic. We had a hectic few weeks moving the last bits and pieces out, and the settlement date got moved earlier a couple of times as the new owner tried to work in with contractor work schedules and we worked out that we could get everything done by the requested dates. The new owners now seem to be stuck into the repair work, and had started getting the foundations leveled as soon as they got possession!
(For the record, I am impressed with how well our piano held its tuning after 5 years in a cold, drafty house. It's not perfect, but much, much better than I expected it to be).
In the last few months we have discovered a new set of allergies for Mr 2. We were aware that he reacted badly to sandfly bites, but that just meant a 15mm weal that improved with judicious application of antihistamines. While moving bits and pieces from our old house we also discovered that he has a mosquito allergy. The first weekend we guessed he had probably been bitten by something after his whole hand puffed up, although I wasn't ruling out the possibility of it being a nettle sting. To add to the fun, it was on the Saturday of a long weekend, so we spent a fair amount of the weekend debating taking him to an after-hours doctor. In the end we didn't, and just checked in with his regular doctor on Tuesday (it had started to get better by that point). From the photos, and seeing the few-days-later puffiness he thought it was possibly cellulitis, but couldn't confirm - and as it was getting better at that point he gave a prescription for antibiotics but instructions to only give them if it got worse.
The next weekend Mr 2 said he had an 'ouch' on his foot, and I saw the culprit fly away - a striped mosquito. We kept an eye on it through the day, but didn't have any antihistamine on hand so just gave it to him when we got home. The antihistamine seemed to have as little effect as it had the previous weekend, but this time we could go to the doctor on Monday and he confirmed that it wasn't cellulitis, and appears to 'just' be an allergic reaction - that doesn't respond to antihistamine.
That was the last weekend we spent at the house, and we'd hoped that it wouldn't be an issue again for a while because where we live now is a lot dryer. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago we had a last bout of summer - a week of warm weather with a bit of rain in the middle. That appears to have been enough that he somehow found something to get bitten by at home, and had another 3 days of itching and puffiness on his foot. He likes compression on it, so after the second round we stocked up on small bandages, and he seemed to be a lot less uncomfortable when he had a bandaged foot for a few days. (We've also got some new insect repellent, which we will be testing out when the weather warms up again - unfortunately, it only takes one bite to cause a problem!)
