After years of longing to move from our old home, this year has finally seen Rob and I leave for pastures new.... albeit only about 3 miles down the road. It may be quite close in distance but our new place is a world away in ambience and life-style!

It all began in April... it's a long story so I'll keep it as short as I can because you're probably a LOT more interested in taking a peek at the photos!

After four years of scouring the local paper for bungalows that didn't require one to win the lottery as a pre-requisite and failing miserably, I persuaded Rob, one Sunday morning, to call in at the local estate agents to put our name down on their list - to be notified if anything interesting came up.

At the 2nd one we called at the agent told us about a bungalow that had only just come on the market that weekend. As we were only about 3/4 mile away, we decided to go and look at it from the outside. From the minute we saw it, we knew that this was the one for us. We went straight back to the estate agents and arranged to view it on the Tuesday.

At this point we hadn't actually put our house on the market as we were due to go away for a holiday the following week. However, we were told that should we put an offer in for the bungalow, it wouldn't be taken very seriously if our house wasn't yet on the market. So on the Tuesday morning we arranged to put our old place on a 'low profile' sale, not really expecting anyone to come and see it until we returned from our holiday. An hour later, the estate agent called to say someone wanted to come and see the house that lunchtime for their daughter!

The viewing took place and the people seemed genuinely interested, so we went to view the bungalow in the afternoon feeling we really were able to say that our house was on the market! The moment we walked into the bungalow, our initial feelings were confirmed. It was an instant love affair. Rob especially fell in love with the lift.... yep... you heard right... a lift in a bungalow! A small, simple, one-man platform that takes you into the roof maybe - but to Rob it was something from the Ritz!

Within an hour we had put an offer in for the bungalow. The following morning it was accepted, subject to our 'being in a position to proceed'......i.e. we needed to sell our house - and quicklyl! We called the estate agent to ask if the people who had viewed were genuinely interested... and she called back to say yes - and they wanted to bring their daughter to see our house on the Friday. Friday duly came long, the viewing took place and the same day an offer was put in for our house, which we accepted! So we went on holiday, on the following Tuesday, to all intents and purposes having sold our house and bought another in 4 days!

Everything went smoothly for 5 weeks and our contracts were even signed by mid-May... but then, of course, the fun started...

Throw in a visit from a Mortgage Assessor for our buyers who looked as if his sense of humour and joie de vivre had been surgically removed; a mortgage company who decided to sell their business including unfinished contracts without informing their clients and delayed everyone in the 'chain' for two weeks before anyone actually found out it had happened; solicitors and 'financial advisors' who didn't even read the conditions being imposed until the clients were there ready to sign the papers (none of which, I hasten to add, were anything to do with us personally - we actually found a solicitor who did everything well, quickly and efficiently.... yes, they DO exist....), estate agents who told us we were probably going to be able to complete the sale the following week when in fact there was NO hope of that for months and you have just some of the problems which caused us to tear our hair out as the weeks dragged by slowly..... and ever MORE slowly....

Finally, in early July everyone in the chain was ready to move at the end of July.... well, everyone that is except one person, a solicitor, halfway up the 'chain' who announced that he was going on holiday for three weeks and wanted three weeks when he came back, on top of that, before he was prepared to move. The fact that he was holding up the move for seven other families - some of us having been waiting for months already to move - didn't matter to him one bit. Why DO people arrange to go to weddings, go on holiday or make other arrangements which mean that everyone else has to fit around them when they are selling their houses? We had put weddings on hold, cancelled our holidays - other people had rushed back from courses they were on just to sign documents - our sellers came back from France at more expense to keep the whole process moving and our buyers paid a HUGE sum to get their mortgage back into the hands of the original company who had sold out from under them..... all to keep the house moving going for everyone. But not this guy. He was going on holiday and we could all wait for him and be damned. Selfishness personified. He did finally agree to only 10 days (ONLY?) when he returned from the sun but that still left everyone with nearly five weeks to wait after the date everyone else wanted to move on. I will not tell you what I wish for this man - but it is not a kindly Fate... and involves small spherical objects being removed with rusty nailfiles..... Who ever conceived of the idea of allowing 'house chains'? Why on EARTH have we not adopted the Scottish system of house-purchase? When one selfish git can hold everyone else to ransom that way there is definitely something wrong with the system. There should be a law that says that when the majority of the people involved are ready to move - everyone else MUST forego any other arrangement - unless it is life-threatening! If people can't behave like decent human beings off their own bat, then something should be done to force them to be.... Anyway.....

August 15th - the excellent Abbey Removal Company (strongly recommended!) came to put everything into boxes (2 wardrobe, 40 packing and 45 book boxes.... we like our books...) and we had spent the whole evening wandering around a cardboard box maze, trying to find those things that shouldn't have been packed but were. We still haven't found all of them!....

Eventually 16th August arrived.... Dog was taken to groomers to be bathed, groomed and more importantly kept out of the way while our house was loaded into the van - but not before our superking-size bed gave us a major headache in that no-one had a spanner of the right size to take it apart. In desperation I even drove round to the place that made the frame only to find that they had gone out of business the year before when the owner retired.... for a while the move seemed jinxed... A neighbour came to our rescue and we were off.... Everyone said we would feel strange and more than a little sad, leaving our old house of 33 years for pastures new. You have got to be joking!...... Not us! We couldn't WAIT to get out and get to the new one.... we didn't even look back.

So here we are.... in our new little bungalow at last. There's still a lot to be done, but what the heck... I really do feel that we have finally found the home that was meant for us. It's taken long enough - I'm 61 - but I am passionately fond of this house already.

Click on the sign below and let me give you a short guided tour of...