We recently sold a car on Ebay – well, actually I sold the car on Ebay but it was hubby’s car, so I guess that makes it a joint effort. This car was nearly 10 years old and it was just a car you know *1. It had tax and Mot and no more dents and scratches than the odd supermarket trolley could inflict. It had an average mileage, was an average colour and was fine…nothing to complain about.
I had a slew of e-mails with questions about it…some quite bizarre – does it have (insert famous brand name here) floor mats(!), are the details in the listing correct (well, duh, no, I made it all up!) – all kinds of things and then the phone calls came. People actually requested contact details from Ebay so they could call me. I thought that was a bit off, if I’d wanted them to phone, I’d have put a number!
Anyway, I had two people really interested – one who promised to pay a deposit into my Paypal account within the hour if I only removed the listing and someone else who lived 20 miles away who wanted to come and see it. I waited for my deposit to arrive before removing the listing – it didn’t come – so what was that about? They guy who lived 20 miles away phoned me 6 times telling me when he couldn’t make it before finally telling me that he couldn’t come to see it until after the listing had ended.
I rent my clothes a little and tore some hair out….
Anyway, 7 days went by, the auction ended and I had two bids out of the blue – both for an amount I was happy with. The winning bidder called:
“Can you pick me up from the train station on Monday – I’ll bring cash”.
So, I did and he did and that was that.
I guess the moral of this tale is, if you auction your car, unless the guy is there, with you, waving cash under your nose, then you’d best just sit the auction out as it’ll all come good in the end!
*1It’s a Gag Hulfrunt quote …ish!
So, I sit here at my desk peering at my clock every 20 seconds. I am off again soon and am at that stage of packed and unpacked 3 times..once to check if it would fit in a smaller bag and twice to check everything was in there. All that and I am still not sure...
How does that happen, that's what I want to know. I don't have OCD, I am organised, thoughtful and a great list maker. In fact, I made a list and ticked everything off..twice! I know that this is not uncommon and we all fear that we have left the gas on or not locked the door, but I wish it wasn't true for me for these big trips. (Actually we once went out all day and when we got home discovered hubby had left the front door wide open so it can happen...make sure you check!!!)
On the plus side, I am excited and ready to go. I can't remember being this ready to get on with it - ever! Things haven't always gone to plan this year for me and so you might think that there would be a bit less anticipation and a bit more fear but in fact, all I'm really afraid of is that I haven't packed my knickers.............or have I?
I was reading this blog article (written by a good friend of mine) recently and I was fascinated by his thoughts. In turn, it got me wondering on exactly the same subject…
I guess, because we are both involved with high level sport, we see a lot of people with talent getting to wherever they want to go to with apparent ease. Sometimes you also cast your mind back to when you were in school - there was always the kid good at languages; the guy with the unbelievable talent for mental arithmetic; the person who could draw anything so well (that you were so jealous of); the person who always won the races on school sports day (well that was never going to be me!) and even the person who simply had the talent for looking the prettiest most demure thing who never, ever got into trouble.
In all of these things, I don’t think I showed an ounce of talent. I wasn’t stupid in school but I was never top of the class. I was useless at sports on the whole although I swam pretty well but never to an exceptional standard. In all of life I was competent, adequate and got by.
I look at those naturally gifted people though sometimes and I realise that their talent stops somewhere. They are often the people who have a meteoric rise to success but somehow can’t quite repeat it. They win until something goes just a bit wrong and then it completely derails them – when the going gets tough, they drop out because it’s no longer easy.
I guess this is where the people like me and countless others come into our own – our talent is there all right, it’s just that we don’t recognise it very often. Our talent is for sticking in there, for persevering, for being determined not to give up even when things aren’t perfect. You see, it is in this way that we continue to practice even when times are tough and in this way we are the people who come through in the end - you only have to look at Kelly Holmes to see that.
So, in answer to GOA, we are only limited by ourselves – not by our perceived talent or lack of it, but we only limit ourselves when we dream big but are not prepared to put in the work to get there….
Just that....I was doing some wondering (well, it's what it's all about you know) and decided on the subject for a new poll.
Just in case any of you are interested...I wanted to be an Olympic swimmer! Things didn't go quite according to plan there then...but hey it leads to some interesting conversations...!?!
