The, er, slight pause in blogging has been mainly brought about by moving house. We were without broadband for a week (due to some stunning ineptitude by British Telecom) and even when we were back online the thought of blogging whilst surrounded by endless packing boxes didn’t appeal.
Jane and I both had our own places for quite a few years before we married, and inevitably we both collected a lot of Stuff to fill those places. When Tom was coming along and it came to finally finding a place big enough for all three of us, we snapped up a pretty huge bungalow some way out of town. That place was big enough for both houseloads of Stuff, so we kind of put off the exercise of properly combining our Stuffs and throwing away the Stuff we didn’t need.
We lived there for over a year, it’s the first house that Tom knew (although he’ll never remember it), and it was a great place for him to squiggle about in. But this was an old building with no wall insulation. Also, it was a long way out of town in a village with no facilities whatsoever, we had to run two cars and with only one salary coming in (and Tom demanding luxuries like food and clothing) it was getting hard to live within our means.
So we upped sticks a few weeks ago and moved to a nearly-new house closer to town. I’m now able to bike or walk to work, and we’ll be paying less for most bills. Things should be lot cheaper.
But, this house, like most new properties, is a lot smaller than our ginormous bungalow. We’ve finally had to do some serious Stuff Rationalisation.
To say it’s been stressful would be an understatement. I spent a whole week off working lugging boxes between bungalow and house, and to recycling stations and charity shops. Topping it off with a week-long cold and sinus infection didn’t help.
It’s getting there now, we’ve managed to fit most Stuff in, and there’s only one room in the house now that looks like a storage depot.
I don’t want to move again for a LONG time.
Which is a bit of a bugger because we’re going to have to move again sometime soon.
A bit more background: when Jane and I moved in together we put Jane’s place on the market. Right at the start of the house market crash. Needless to say, it didn’t sell.
And neither did mine, but neither of our places were big enough to bring up a small baby in. So in slight desperation we rented out both our properties and rented the bungalow with the income.
Now we’re renting this new place, and we still have two properties rented out. It’s a bit precarious, and we’re both desperate to have our own home, and end our magnolia-painted rental existence.
Which means biting the bullet and trying the house sale market again. Which means potentially losing the tenants in those houses if then move out before we sell. Which means losing the income we’re getting from renting them out. Which means not having enough money to rent ourselves.
I’m more than a little worried about the whole thing. But we can’t live like this forever.
There are always options, and when we DO sell our places we’ll be in a great position for finally buying a family home. It’s just the getting there that will be tricky.
