New House, New Tree

On 27th August 2014, we finally moved house. After being on the market for nine months and missing out on a number of gorgeous houses because we couldn't find a buyer, we came to a momentous (and life changing, as it turns out) decision: we wouldn't sell at all. Instead, we would become both landlord and tenant, by renting out our mortgaged house, and renting a different house in the area we had been trying to get back to for three quarters of a year.

And it worked out pretty well. Within three days of being on the rental market, we had signed up a new family to live in our home. I hope they have more luck in it than we did. For us, the place represents mistakes and follies that made us miserable and angry. But we can't blame anyone for that; they are our mistakes, our follies, and I just hope that we can make them good now.

Which is where the new house comes in. Located on a country lane just a few miles from where we used to live (and from where we should not, in hindsight, have moved), we found a little cottage that was up for rent. Far older than it appears, with opens fires, a Rayburn in the dining room, and beams galore, this crooked house immediately had us hooked. Stepping through the front door for the first time felt like home, and just an hour later we made an offer. We were accepted. We were moving.

Moving house is not a fun experience, no matter how much one might wish to leave the place they are living, no matter how much one might want to live in the place they are going to, and this move was no different. Done over two days with two crews (thanks to the narrow lane and steep drive), discovering that our furniture wouldn't fit up the stairs (again, so very narrow, and curved), and that we had no fridge, we were a ruined mess of a family by the end of it.

But then we started to live here. And it didn't matter about the mess or the boxes. It hardly mattered about the heating that didn't quite work, and the hot water that did, but took its time to get there. We loved it. We love it. It's like we've always been here.

To celebrate the move, we planted a tree in the (large - we've never had so much lawn) garden. We'd love to stay here to watch it grow.