Moving?

So.* I found us a new house. I spoke to the current tenants and to the landlord, and it looks as though we are likely to move in to it in just over a month. Nothing is signed yet, and there is still plenty which can go wrong, but I am hopeful.

This new house is quite different from our current house. It is quite a bit bigger: it has three bedrooms instead of two; the main bedroom is a decent size; two reception rooms instead of just one (although they are each quite a bit smaller than our current living room) and a large kitchen diner. It has storage cupboards built in (joy of joys!) and the cupboard under the stairs is a real thing instead of just something which could have happened had they made a hole in the wall.

It has a yard instead of a garden (good: no cat poo; bad: no garden), and a small brick outbuilding instead of a garage (not great, but OK), and no loft (where on earth will we put our supply of boxes for when we move next time? Oh, I remember: HWSNBN's mum's garage's attic).

It is in town, but away from the centre. We will be able to walk to the centre to the pub without any problems, and back again even more easily (because alcohol makes walks shorter and less challenging unless one needs a wee), but HWSNBN will not have to cope with the one-way system to get to the motorway to go to work in Next City Down, where he works. We currently live half-way between City and Next City Down, so it will be more of a drive for him, but I don't think that the difference will be too great. Coming home, he may have difficulties getting on to the motorway, as the queues may not be very nice. I shall be able to cycle to work on my new-to-me bike. Hooray! I get to actually use it, and my bright yellow semi-waterproof garment.

Today I am terrified. It seems as though the list of things I must get through is insurmountable. HWSNBN says that I must also get rid of a lot of clothes before we move, too. I reckon I need to get rid of about half of them, which will be traumatic. I am very tempted to buy many, many garments I don't want so that I can get rid of them and it looks better. Of course, that would be stupid. It is tempting, though. There are also other things which are worrying me, but that is probably going to involve the biggest amount of trauma (I prefer my trauma to be soft and velvety, not this crappy pain, illness and dying sort some people have to put up with). I am mostly terrified about teaching maths, big career decisions with approaching deadlines and moving out of our current house.

We are thinking of moving here for about a year. The housing market is due to crash in that time, and we may be able to afford a house at that point. If nothing else, this move will give us (me) the impetus to de-clutter so that the next move will be easier, and we will not have too much crap in our first real home.

It will be very good indeed to be connected, though. I will have friends, pubs and parties within walking distance. I can go cycling along the old cycle track I used to love. Church will be close (although I expect I will still have to drive, as the music is quite heavy and I am knackered after afternoon practice sessions). Serena's house will be just round the back of mine. The kitchen diner will be great for parties.**

I think that it will be good. One last year of connectedness before throwing ourselves into the house search and hopefully finding something that suits us both; in the middle of nowhere with a decent pub less than 10 minutes walk away would probably be great, especially if vegetable-growing facilities could be installed in the back garden.

So now all we have to do right now is wait. It could come to nothing, but I don't think so. Fingers crossed it goes smoothly! I don't quite believe that I had the audacity to get to this stage (HWSNBN was not really on-side, IYSWIM).




*Why do I always seem to want to start my posts with "So"? If you look through the archives you probably won't see it very often, because I mostly make myself delete it.

**I cannot move into a house without at least one party room - that is my main requirement. Part of it is that I need to have one big room. I was brought up in a very large Victorian house and cannot get used to the lack of space in so many houses within my price range. The other part is that I will not live in a house in which I can't have parties - it's just a bit boring, really.