and so it begins

Ah - much better.

The bank owns my house!

 Well.

It all went very smoothly, really, in the end.

Terry, our multi-talented musician/builder friend came over for coffee and breakfast and before we had finished the call came through that everything had completed and we could pick up the keys.

It was a strange feeling - walking into a house that is suddenly yours that you have spent all of maybe half an hour in. Based on this objective and thoughtful appraisal (!) you have spent your life savings and hocked yourself to the hilt in order to obtain it and now - for better or for worse - this is your house.

First impressions are that it is not as bad as I remembered it. This initial relief is quickly dispelled. It's just bad in different ways. But it is also good. The rooms have high ceilings and - for a small house - decent proportions. Only one room - the cellar - is seriously damp, and a lot of that may just be from being closed up for 7 months. It needs a lot of love. The kitchen is - well - the kitchen has to go. Even if we have to cook on a camp stove for 6 months. The drawers that have already fallen off prove to be plastic with cardboard bases held together with packing tape. We wonder if those are rat droppings and tell each other they can't be - what would they eat? Someone changes the subject quickly.

But Terry is buoyant. He bounces into the lounge where Neal and I are standing very still, staring at each other in a quiet-but-rising anxious panic. "Ahh," he says, "nothing here to worry about". He takes in our faces - "No really. It's fine." He launches into a detailed analysis of what needs to be done and what all of the options are and how long it will take and - literally all I know is that I need to take next week off, and Terry and I are going to work our socks off and it will all be OK.

Today we opened the back door and found it would not close again as it had warped so badly the door frame was pulling out and our friend James had to come and plane off about 3 mm so it would close again. But it does now, and it will all be OK.

We don't have to be out of the oast until the first week of September so there's time to work it out and - 

 - it will all be OK.

So close....

Last Monday, exactly 4 months to the day after first viewing the house we finally exchanged contracts! 

!!!!

We complete on Wednesday - but no one knows when on Wednesday. Of course they don't. God forbid you should feel some control in this process. 

But it is great news and we are oh - so - close - and I am like a squirming bag of cats. Nervous cats. Queasy nervous cats.

We still have to give notice on the oast and that may come with its own issues - impossible to predict. Best case scenario they say "oh ok great here's your damage deposit have a nice life". Let's assume that will happen :)

It appears that we may have actually pulled this off. 

!!!!!!

Guess what's happening with the house purchase?

HA HA HA HA HA

NOTHING!

sigh

Apparently this is normal. Our seller's solicitors are slow slow slow. Everyone is chasing them. They remain unmoved. As do we.

As far as we, our solicitors, the seller, and the estate agents are aware, nothing is wrong, so that's good, I guess. And I know - I really know - this is a lovely problem to have, really. 

But I am a planner and I am not a patient woman and I am finding this tedious in the extreme. How is this a system? If everyone hates it so much why do we still do it like this? Why is England England? I am channelling Canute, raging against the tide, with just as much effect. I seem to have enough self awareness to realise this but not enough to do anything about it. As in adjust my expectations, take advantage of the lull, and just enjoy myself. 

I will try, I promise.

In other, nicer and more interesting news, Neal got photobombed by a fox yesterday on our afternoon walk - how lovely is that? Neither of us saw him at all but he certainly saw us :)

Wedding cake

It was about this time, near midnight, exactly 11 years ago, that my friend Heather set down her drink and yelled over the music: "We need to make cakes". 

"Nah," I yelled back, "It's too late. We don't really need cakes. Nobody really needs cakes. It will be fine. Have some more wine."

"NO", she yelled. "Every wedding needs a cake. C'mon. We can do it."

And so we did. Two very squiffy women headed into the kitchen and proceeded, in the early hours of the morning, to turn out two truly fantastic lemon coconut layer cakes without injury or burning down the house. It was a miracle. We were really quite drunk. There was lots to celebrate, getting married and all.

Neal and I got married in a registry office with just us and our witnesses, then went for a bang up lunch with some of our closest people. More friends arrived throughout the day culminating in an adhoc gathering in the evening, and a wedding party the next day.

We only got married for the paperwork, and a bit of me still resents it - I don't see why it is any business of the state whom I choose to live with. There are other ways to regulate property and taxation. Never mind the issues around who and who can't "get married". In the end we figured if we had to go through with the motions we might as well get a party out of it.

Despite my almost complete ambivalence about it all - when I look back, I remember the laughter - ordering two of every dessert on the menu and everyone eating a bite and passing them around in a giant round robin of pudding. I remember the sunbeams shining on Neal and his Uncle Laurie at the table. I remember the beautiful buffet James and Heather made the next day, and our dog, Humphrey, nearly snagging an entire wheel of brie before we realised he'd been let out. 

But most of all, tonight, I remember the drunk baking. You can get through life all right with friends like that. 

And so we wait

We are closer. The mortgage was approved.

(I mean, I write that like it's nothing - like that's just what happens - like that isn't something that I always thought was out of reach. Like we're normal people doing normal things like buying a house.)

(Also, there is NOTHING normal about buying a house in England, just for the record. The whole system is BANANAS.)

And now - it is in the hands of the solicitors. If that doesn't strike the fear of god into you, nothing will. 

So we go on with our lives, not knowing if and when everything is going to change. Could be a few weeks, could be a few months, could be never. I am beginning to understand why they say moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do. I suspect that they don't mean moving, they mean all the crazy stuff and mysterious uncontrollable timelines that come before moving. I expect, at this rate, moving will be sweet relief. And we have it easy! There's no chain - we're not selling and no one needs to move out of our (hopefully) new house. Crazy town.

Yet - I'm glad to have this time in the oast - our old friend. And to try to get my head around what's coming. 

And it's spring - there's lambs, and wild garlic. The asparagus is coming up in Pauline's garden. Every day another tree has fresh lime green leaves. Today it rained and it smelled so good. 

And so we wait...

Send all your mojo! Cross EVERYTHING!!!!

 We found a house in Faversham. We made an offer, it's been accepted.

!!!!!!!!!

Now only 2 million things can go wrong instead of the 3 trillion or so we were facing before. The mortgage application went in on Friday, and it could take a few weeks to get a definitive answer. In the UK, nothing is binding until you exchange, so it is too early to get too excited - 1 in 4 sales fall through - and so much can go wrong - but - but - but - 

just look at it - 

Is it damp? Yes, of course, this is England. Everything is damp. Is it a fixer-upper? Without a doubt. Is it small? Well, yes. Does it have what we said we wanted in a house? Er, not exactly. Are we head over heels delighted and madly in love? Oh yes. 

Have we lost our minds? Quite possibly.

existential gardening

Last summer, one night at knit night, we were talking about gardening and I mentioned how much I'd like to learn , and that I wished I could just go help out somewhere where someone told me what to do. Later that week my friend got in touch. One of her friends has a small holding that they struggled to keep up with, and they'd be delighted with some ad hoc gardening labour. Thus began what has become a real highlight of my week. On Sunday mornings I pull on my muddy jeans and wellies, hop on my bike, and cycle out about a mile and a half to their place on the outskirts of Faversham. 

First, because this is England, we have a cup of tea. I sit down and am immediately covered in dogs - Murphy and Luna, Chinese Crested dogs; and Floyd - the soppiest spaniel you ever did meet. I drink my tea and we head out. 

The first time I went it was in the heat of summer and I picked 10 kilos of gooseberries and took them home to make wine. I looked like I'd been in a cat fight from all the scratches. Today it was overcast and mizzling and we dug out the weeds in two beds and covered them in cardboard, under the watchful eye of the robin. I have good gloves now. 

I've grown to love these Sunday mornings - it's like a sort of therapy. I show up, I drink tea, I work - none of which requires any thought from me whatsoever. I don't have to make any decisions, I have no responsibility, and I can see progress. It's really quite lovely. My friend's friend is becoming my friend, and she is delighted that I want to help. She is a good teacher. I am delighted that I get to play outside for several hours each week. It's win-win.

This morning was especially needed as I woke up with an existential hangover - the sort where you feel ok in body but quite miserably dreadful in spirit. I was worried about work, and house-hunting, and it all felt a bit much. Digging over vegetable beds didn't help exactly, but for an hour and a half I just thought about weeds and worms and compost and now, back home, life seems much less grim.

Floyd kisses didn't go amiss either.

No such word

 

An afternoon of house-hunting in Ramsgate, made much better by meeting up with friends who moved there a few years ago. 

Ramsgate was posh as, back a hundred years or so, and you can tell by the architecture which is grandiose, sweeping, heart-stoppingly beautiful. And the beach. Oh lord. There are worse places to wash up. It is a little rough around the whiskers though.

More houses to see in Folkestone tomorrow. 

Trying very hard to consider this whole house business a Yay and not an Ugh. Not yet succeeding.

Winter morning

 It's 7:15 am and I have just got back from a kettlebell class. 

I know.

See? You were right to worry about me - I have clearly lost my mind!

The classes are 3x a week and the Thursday class starts at 6:15. In the morning. I thought it was a misprint at first, but no, it really isn't. Yet, for several weeks now, I have set my alarm, got up, and gone to the class. The first morning, I stood in the bathroom for some time, wondering why everything looked so blurry, before I woke up enough to realise my glasses were still on my nightstand. 

The classes are tough, but good. My friend recommended them, as we were in the pub bemoaning the fact that we can't run anymore (the planter fasciitis has never properly gone away for me and running now leaves me limping with pain the next day. Even if I feel young, my heels know the truth.) In the pub, many things seem plausible. 

But you know? It's good. Even the early start. It's enough to keep even me out of the wine the night before, and I am feeling stronger. 

This morning, as I walked back home across the rec, the sun was coming up and the sky was alight - the stark winter trees resplendent against the orange sky, the frost on the grass glowing pink in the reflection. I stopped in my tracks - just stood for a bit, knowing that for a minute, right now, everything is OK - and truly believing, somehow, that it will continue to be so.