Finally, we have signed to sell our house. [see] We move out next week.
After four years of trying, we are finally able to look forward to moving house.
Home for 11 years
Selling wasn’t an easy decision; we love where we live and have been here for almost eleven years, but as I get closer to retirement age, we simply cannot afford to stay. We are leaving our large and increasingly unmanageable garden at its very best: the rhododendrons are in full pink and lilac bloom, both laburnums are dripping shiny bright yellow flowers and the flouncy, crimson peonys are about to bloom; now just a couple of days away from opening. It all looks gorgeous.
Yet the house we have found to move to has no garden.
Who knew what compromises we would make when the time came? We each had a mental list of what we could and couldn’t do without as we moved down the housing ladder, but ‘no garden’ wasn’t on either list. Yet, on the plus side of the move is the fact that our new home will be right in the centre of Slaithwaite, our local village and with that location comes easy shopping, easy transport and easy walking/cycling.
Golcar church
Where we live now, there are no roadside footpaths and each of the bigger villages is one and half miles away. Buses come (on average) every 90 minutes (one per hour during the day but not 8.30am or 3.30pm – every two hours after 6.00pm and every two hours on a Sunday): so having trains and buses close by should improve our mobility.
Our new (to us) house has three good-sized bedrooms, two of which have stripped-back-to-brick chimney breasts, there’s a WC with bath and separate shower and a fair sized attic storage area. The living room also has a stripped-back feature chimney breast, into which we hope to fit a multi-fuel stove. The south-facing kitchen is huge; full width of the house. It is fitted with colourful Ikea (we think) units and has French Windows opening onto a Juliet Balcony, which overlooks the village itself, and the slightly more distant hills.
The house is one of three (six really) formed from what was once a British Legion club. Each of the main three houses has a separately owned one-bedroom under-dwelling, utilising what would once have been the cellar area.
So there we are – moving house. Scary but exciting times.
Saturday Walks 