No place like home

Journal

No place like home

A week ago we moved into a new house in the Churchill area of Helensburgh that we’ll be renting until such a time as we can afford to buy. Fliss had done the hard work down in Liverpool earlier that week, travelling down with Elisha and completing the packing in time for the removal company arriving on Wednesday morning.

Then, on Friday, they delivered to the new house while I was at work, so for me the whole transition was completely painless – I hadn’t even set eyes on the new house until we went up on the Saturday to unpack!

It was kind of weird being back in Churchill again, yet soothingly familiar. My family moved away to Cornwall back in the summer of 1985 after three years there, so lots of childhood memories have come flooding back. It’s changed a bit over time, of course – most recently when select rows of houses were cleared away to leave open grassy areas. So it’s less dense now, which gives the estate a more airy, less claustrophobic feel than it had when I last lived there.

Fliss was convinced I wasn’t going to like the house, but I think it’s excellent. When creaky floor boards are the only thing you can find wrong, you’re on to a good thing in my rental experience. I actually didn’t think Fliss would ever want to live in Churchill, so it was quite a surprise when she called to say the house was great and she wanted to take it.

What is odd is that we’ve taken a the contents of a two bedroom house and filled a three bedroom house, complete with large cupboards and a garage. Not sure how we did that, but it’s probably a sure sign that we have far too much junk.

Admittedly some of the things were either up in the loft or out in the shed in the old house, such as my weight bench which is now in the spare room after spending three and a half years in the shed with nowhere else to go. Now that I’m too broke to go out anywhere, look for a buff new me in 2009! 😉

The space in the new house makes a huge difference, especially after staying in a single room at my mum’s place for the past seven months. Elisha properly has her own room for the first time, too, now that the computer desk has its own room. She seems to be liking it so far, but keeps appearing in our room in the middle of the night telling us there are scarey monsters in her room.

Personally, if someone is going to wake me at 5am with tales of scarey monsters, I’m going to want proof. Doesn’t have to be photographic evidence – at least not until she gets a kid proof camera for her birthday – a tuft of monster fur or a bite mark will do for now. However, to date, Elisha has failed to produce anything to back up her preposterous claims, so I think I’m justified in my lack of sympathy and compassion in the wee small hours.

Aside from the alleged monsters, with the bigger kitchen and main bedroom it would have been hard to find a better house to rent. The only downside is that we are just renting – I’d love to be in the position to buy a new home like this, but until we manage to do something with the house down in Liverpool I think we’re kind of stuck.

Settling in to a new place always takes time, but I already feel quite comfortable there. We still have stuff to unpack and it’ll be a good few weeks before we do have everything where it’s meant to be, but I reckon  it’ll feel like home in time for the festive period kicking in. Which is perfect. Heck, I’m not even minding the 20 minute walk to the station in the morning – it’s almost all downhill. A scooter would bring it closer to the fifteen minute mark!

The only lingering question mark is how long it’ll take to get tennants into the old house. I can cover both the mortgage and rent for maybe a couple of months, but beyond that it’s unsustainable, as economists are wont to say. I should really have better projected the financial impact of relocating before I took the job up here, as it’s going to take ages to recover from the outlay. Ah well, it’s done now, so I’ll just have to deal with it as best I can.

I can always put the feelers out for some freelance work to keep the wolf from the door. That and take a mortgage repayment holiday to be on the safe side. Whatever it takes, I’m sure it’ll all shake out well in the end – we have a knack of landing on our feet, even when the place we eventually land comes out of the blue.

Rob