Well, things are really getting up – not!

We’re currently awaiting exchange of contracts, a legal term and for for those who don’t know, it’s the point at which you’re totally committed to the sale/purchase and must go ahead or it could be costly. The last stage is ‘completion’ which is when all the monies change hands, and an odd thing happens, a deposit is paid. It’s not an actual deposit, it’s paid at the same time as the whole purchase price, so I don’t get that. Be that as it may, completion is when keys are exchanged, houses are emptied and taken to the new one.

It’s a sort of in-between time, you know you’re committed, you’ve started to pack up and declutter and are waiting for the legal matters to sort themselves out. It’s also quite tense, since any one of the, in our case, five families in the chain could suddenly and unexplainably pull out by not signing the contract. The people buying our house are trying to save an extra 3.3% Stamp Duty so unless they get cold feet, they won’t want the sale to fail.

It’s at this stage that you realise that yes it’s going ahead, your leaving your lovely home after all these years and it’s going to be a wrench. Well, sort of. Yes it’s going to be an emotional end to half a life spent in the same house, but strangely I’m now at the stage where I just want to it to be over, and we’re in the new place. New house, new challenges, new neighbours, new area to investigate. The biggest wrench will be leaving our lovely neighbours, who we have lived next door but one and next door but two now for over 30 years. We meet once a month for a ‘Toby’ at a nearby hostelry where we catch up and have a lovely lunch (special offer £5.99 for a full roast). That’s not going to stop of course; we’re only 12 miles away. We’ve shared their lives, their families lives and been to each other’s houses on many occasions for a ‘drink or two’. In the future we’ll have to drive home instead of staggering a few yards, but hey ho, I drink less these days anyway. There aren’t many other people locally who I’ll miss or will probably even notice we’ve gone. Our daughter who lives a mile away is looking to move nearer to our new place, so that will be nice. Life moves on as they say, and now I’ve passed the milestone OAP age, I’m definitely into the quarter of it. That’s not to say I’m slowing down; far from it. There’s a lot to do at the new place, and there’s exciting and new challenges to be passed, so as far I’m concerned it’s onwards and upwards!

Watch this space for the next exciting installment!