Well it’s been an eventful couple of days. I’m working from home in the mornings, which when you start at 7h30 means you still get in six and a half hours before lunch. The afternoons, though, have been my own.

Why?

I’ve just bought a house.

It was all going so smoothly until I tried to pick up the keys. I completed at nineish yesterday morning - the 28th - so went to the agent at lunchtime to collect them, only to be told they’d not been handed over. Despite having my money, the vendor still hadn’t moved out. He suggested I might like to go around there and collect them myself.

Well, I did, and there she was standing around among her furniture and refusing to tell me the code for the alarm.

I came home and called my solicitor, who said that she was legally obliged to have vacated the property before getting her hands on my money. Various solicitor-to-solicitor calls were made, and eventually she was out of there. I was in the right - in the eyes of the law - but that didn’t stop me feeling like I’d evicted some poor (actually now quite rich) old woman from the house in which she’d lived for the last 44 years.

Anyhow, here’s my lounge:

So I went around about 16h to finally take possession, tried to ignore the freezer she’d left on my lawn where it’s still killing off the grass, and the banana and half eaten biscuits she’d left on the kitchen counter, and walked around the first property I’ve ever owned with its own staircase, patios and heating you can switch on and off on a whim, rather than planning for a cold snap at least 24 hours ahead.

Here’s my dining room. The grubby carpet and orange ‘feature fireplace’ will be going. I’ll be fixing the wallpaper, too:

I’m not moving in right away. Instead I want to get some work done, like a new wall in the garden, new felt on the outhouse roof, moving a fireplace, installing a new bathroom, adding a radiator, changing the kitchen light which currently sings a particularly irritating tune the whole time it’s switched on…

So, I wandered around the empty three bedder that I’ll one day live in, noting which floorboards creaked and what jobs needed doing, ready for the builder to come around today. He was very thorough. I expect his quote is going to be slightly frightening.

Here’s my kitchen. Notice the cat flap. I think that’s telling me something:

While the rooms are all good sizes and will be great after a lick of paint, my favourite bit has to be the outhouse. It’s three rooms in an annexe, one of which used to be the outside toilet. There are still two hooks on the back of the door that would once have been where the loo roll hung.

One room will become my laundry room, another will be used for storage, and the room at the end will be a big pantry. If it was inside the house itself you could easily fit in some furniture and use it as a bedroom, but instead I’ll use it for food storage, and as a place in which to make jam and cheese and sloe gin, and pickle things in jars.

Look - here it is:

I really like the old barn doors. I’m less keen on the mice running around outside, but they shouldn’t be a problem, as it’s all sealed so they can’t get in.

Anyhow, I’ll get some humane traps so I can scoop them up and free them down by the river, which I’m sure they’d find much more conducive to the modern rodent lifestyle.

All of which leaves only one question: who chose those curtains, that carpet, and that particular shade of pink paint? And, more to the point, who ever thought they’d work well together?

1. Moving out
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2. The house
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3. The final straight
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