Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Moving House (4)

Finally there is something good to report on the house moving front. With the excessive hours I'm having to work to pay for it, and the horrible experience of having to open my door to people who've come to look around a house I don't want to leave--listening to them discuss what they would do with what I have come to think of as my living room, though I know it isn't--I was starting to think it would be one ghastly event after another, ending who knew where?

Today, though, I went to look at what was described as a flat in the Estate Agent literature--this was in the next village along from me, Earls Barton (I know, it sounds like something out of Robin Hood)--and found myself looking around the first floor of an eighteenth century thatched building with a narrow winding staircase as access, thick oak beams in the ceiling and a view out across the village square to the church, which itself is placed on a hill and looks imposing and beautiful. I knew the minute I walked through the door that I wanted it.

Now I have to fill in some paperwork and wait for a credit and reference check. But that should be okay. After that I have one month to arrange for the move and come up with the £££ to finance it, but I'm not going to worry about that at this minute. Get the house, logic tells me, then think about the details. As I wrote today in an email, internet connections are unreliable in shop doorways.

8 comments:

tom said...

Good news, then, Bruce. Moving is a pain - we moved from the Detroit area to Calumet - (80 miles) and then moved other stuff here to Big Rapids (220 miles from Detroit) My wife isn't sure if she wants to keep this job or if she does to keep this apartment (which has been a trip, between mice and lack of heat in most of it) She might apply for a job in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area -that is near our daughters, but around 700 miles from here and 389 from Calumet. Hope your move turns out well. It sounds like a great place.

Bruce Hodder said...

You have to cover big distances over there, Tom.
I think for me the most difficult part has been that my life was absolutely settled for a long time. Stayed rooted in one place for twenty years. Then circumstances changed and I had to start on this new phase of my life in which I could have to move every six months, at worst, because that's how long most minimum rental leases are for. So it has taken a big shift in my mental attitude to adjust to it. But I'm getting there. I also associate this cottage with an old love because she helped me move in here, away from the awful situation I was caught in prior to that. She was my rescuer, and this place is saturated with memories of our time together. So moving away from the place almost feels like the final metaphorical evidence that our love cannot be rescued; and I had hoped it might be. But such is life!

tom said...

I understand that. One can get attached for many reasons, and yours are strong ones. I looked up Earls Barton on the web, looks like a nice place. Has it been swallowed up by the suburbs? or is there space between it and the next places?

Anonymous said...

Do you think it's mostly women that screw up relationships? Is it men? It may be ridiculous to measure these two concepts against one another, but I do screwy things routinely.

Best wishes on your move. It sounds good to me. Wood is good. Wait. Did that sound rude?

Bruce Hodder said...

Tom,
No, this part of the county is still mercifully unspoiled, though judging by the progress that the towns are making in the other half of the county in their steady consumption of the countryside, Northamptonshire will probably be one giant conurbation in twenty years, with little parks laid down in unobtrusive corners to remind misfits of the green experience...

Bruce Hodder said...

Hey Chick,
Ah, I don't know who messes up relationships. We all do, don't we? Sometimes we invent the other person out of our own imagination, and feel let down when they fail to be the person we invented. I see that one all the time, in men AND women.

Anonymous said...

I have a question, and I'm seriously wanting an answer. In your initial post you make, instead of dollar signs, what I think are pound signs. Aren't they? I guess I'm not positive they actually mean a British pound. If everybody is using euros now, do you need to amend the sign?

Anonymous said...

Oh, and in response to the bit about people making one another up, I agree. It's human nature to hope for the best and believe what one wants to believe, I suppose. Even people who claim to be pessimists do this; in fact, we are some of the worst! We just have a rough time admitting to it. But even if we were all completely cognizant of the persons to whom we were "engaged," the fact is that we don't always get the product marketed, and it may be no fault of our own, don't you agree? People put on window dressing all the time. For the first couple of years, I suppose, my husband and I pretended that neither of us ever had flatulence. I guess it's lucky for me that he didn't trade me in when he found out about the false advertising! =)