Greener Grass

Well, I guess you’ve picked up that the April A-Z has fallen by the wayside! This time it really isn’t my fault. Honest.

We’ve been looking to move house for a while and during the Easter holidays we saw a house, fell in love with it and decided to go for it. The problem is, there’s not really any hanging around with a rented property. When you buy a house (I’ve heard) you have to wait for contracts and surveys and solicitors and whatever else. With a rented house, the estate agent/landlord decide if you’d be a good tenant and that’s it, you’re good to go as soon as you arrange a date to pay your bond and first month’s rent. The estate agent here has a policy that once you apply for the house it’s off the market for four weeks then it goes back on and is fair game for anyone.

So we had four weeks to pay our bond and rent.

But we can’t pay rent for the house we’re living in and the one we’re going to live in.

So we have to move in four weeks.

But we had to wait a week to get approval from the estate agent.

So we have three weeks to move!

Yikes.

Three weeks to move a family of four, five years of accumulated STUFF (we’re all hoarders), baby STUFF, working-from-home STUFF. And the books. Lord help us, the books. We sold 6 boxes of books, we took another 10 boxes to Oxfam and we still have at least 7 boxes of books. That’s not including the babies’ books. Of which there are many.

Basically, I’m meeting myself coming backwards. So all writing, blogging, even twitter has gone out of the window. And I miss it – I miss tweeting my friends and writing the blog and writing full stop. Thankfully I know my friends will still be there when things have calmed down, as will my blog and my works in progress. I’m addicted to pinterest still, and being visual it’s easy to switch off from the house for twenty minutes and browse mindlessly. Plus there are cool ideas that I’m going to implement in the new house. But everything else has been put on the back boiler.

It’ll be worth it though. The new house has a garden – imagine the change from being in a first floor flat! There’s a bedroom each for the children and a converted garage where Andrew will have his office. It’s close to a small village school so Daniel will be near his new friends and it’s about ten minutes drive away from our parents.

I know it could be a case of the grass being greener on the other side. There will be downsides, such as getting used to having neighbours again. That’ll be nice but it will be hard having to watch our noise and putting up with other people’s. Umm…yeah, I’m sure there will be other things that crop up that take some getting used to. I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, my sudden enthusiasm for housekeeping and homemaking and getting organised has happened at just the right time! I’ve developed on from my last post on getting organised and I now use a filofax and a home management file – more another time – and I’m about as organised as I can be at the minute. Tomorrow we go to visit the two possible schools and at the weekend we’ll have a packing marathon. It’s all going swimmingly…so far. Wish us luck!

10 thoughts on “Greener Grass”

  1. I’ve moved house lots of times and have found that the more time I have to pack everything, the more time I waste. (But don’t forget that I’m the person who needs a deadline for anything and then still leaves it until the last minute)
    You’ll get it all done, the new place sounds great. There are pros and cons to everything but I’m sure it’ll be worth it. It’s a great time to move, before the children get too settled in school etc, they make friends so easily at that age. And you’ll be able to hang washing out! Hmm, I’m sounding like my mum ( I have a peg bag).

    Good luck with everything. Remember, if you haven’t worn it in a year, it goes in the bin. Ha! I’m so glad you can’t see my bedroom right now, I soooo don’t practice what I preach.

    Lots of love xx

  2. I hope the move goes well for you, it sounds like it will be a wonderful new house for you. I hope the packing up isn’t too traumatic though. x

  3. Becca – I couldn’t be more pleased for you. It’s an exciting time. We’ve moved 7 times in the 21 years we’ve been together. This house is the longest I’ve stayed anywhere since I was a kid and the thought of having to pack it all up again fills me with horror. But you know what? You get it done. A few things might slip, but they won’t be the things that matter. It’s stressful for everyone but just think: in 4 weeks time everything will be unpacked (?!) and you’ll be settled into a lovely new home and you can b.r.e.a.t.h.e and relax.
    You all deserve it.

  4. Moving can be very stressful so I hope that you get things settled soon. Sounds like you are making a good choice and one that will be toward what you want. To Nettie’s point, you do as much as you can do and somehow it all works out. The important things have a way of getting done. And the more knit-picky things may fall by the wayside but if they do, they weren’t that important to begin with. You may enjoy reading my blog, when things settle down, at http://www.dianeweidenbenner.com Happy blogging!

  5. Sounds much more important than blogging. Good luck! I’m trying to visit all the A-Z Challenge Blogs this month. My alphabet is at myqualityday.blogspot.com

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