I'm Not Actually Moving House but...

I’ve been busy.
We’re moving house.
Strange phrase that. Because we’re not, obviously, moving the house. It’s staying where it’s been for the past 100 years or so. We’re actually moving to a new house. But you knew that.
We’re moving house if we can sell the one we’re in.
And that’s the problem.
Because to sell the one we’re in, we have to a) hire an estate agent and b) let complete strangers wander about our home.
Of course, the place has to be clean and tidy. Clean’s not a problem. It’s always clean.

Tidy, well, you see there are two children in the house, Charlotte aged 1 5/6th and me aged 54 1/2.
And there’s the dog, Eric.
Estate agents have favourite words, they would probably call them ‘key’ words, but they use them all the time, so they’re ‘favourite’ words as far as I’m concerned.
Top of the list is ‘de-clutter.’
De-cluttering means putting in inaccessible places things you normally like to have at hand.
This includes things you never use, haven’t seen in an age and/or thought you had put in that skip last year.
De-cluttering has resulted in the beams of our attic being put under enormous strain.
Because in addition to several hundred (it felt like that) pairs of shoes, mostly mine I’m ashamed to say, Christmas and Hallowe’en decorations, parts of a wardrobe, clothes, DIY stuff (not mine), gardening stuff and the like, we had to accommodate the baby’s toys.
Easier said than done.
Because every day, Charlotte has a new favourite.
I lie.
Every ten minutes, Charlotte has a new favourite.
And so putting in the attic, as we did, the green dinosaur rocking, er, dinosaur, the big purply thing, the noisy organ yoke (there are upsides) and lots more, is risky.
Eric is a bit put out. That’s not true either. He’s completely put out. Because put out is exactly what happens to him when we’re cleaning.
And he likes being inside.
Dogs, as you are aware, aren’t toilet trained.
And they grey slabs which make up the bulk of our tiny garden, are stained with Eric’s efforts over the years.
So, for the first time in my life, I had to wash the garden.
Yes indeed, it is possible to wash a garden.
When all is done and dusted (and polished) we then wait for the estate agent to arrive, unable to sit on a couch for fear of disturbing the cushions, unable to make a cup of tea for fear of leaving a ring-stain on the counter, unable to use the toilet for fear of… Well. Just for fear.
And then in traipse people who will undoubtedly criticise our home, say it’s over priced, say they don’t like it and move on to do the same to someone else’s.
I mean, how many of the people who view ‘for sale’ houses, are actually in the market, do you think?
Personally, I believe the vast bulk to be nosey parkers.
It’s tiring. And I’m tired.
I would really love to just pack a case and go off to the sun for a holiday.
Strange phrase that.
Because I don’t actually want to go the the sun… But you knew that.
Isn’t that more or less where you came in?

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To Move Or Not To Move

❍Charlotte and the dog, Eric. Would they prefer a garden to the city?

I AM currently making a list.
In the very near future, we may move house.
If we do, it will be out of the city, up the country as they say.
If we go, we’re going to the seaside.
So I’m writing my list of pros and cons.
Living in the country has enormous advantages.
In the village in which we’re proposing to live, there is an organic butcher (good), a restaurant (good), a church (good), a primary school (good) a stream - it runs through the garden of the house we’re looking at (good), a beach (good) and a pub (excellent.)

But then, the house is close to the sea, and the sea isn’t getting any lower (bad), the stream in the garden has been known to flood (bad), there’s no railway station (bad), there are no concert venues - well, you don’t get them in villages with populations under 2,000 (bad), there is only one pub, so if you don’t like it, you’ve got to go to the next one which is miles away (very bad), and there are no shops to speak of (very bad indeed.)
Mind you, where we now live, we have a back garden the size of a postage stamp which has to be shared by Charlotte and the dog.
It’s becoming impossible to park on our street.
They’re planning to build six storey apartment blocks along the road that runs through our area.
There are no plans to upgrade public transport.
And Dublin is expensive.
None of the pubs near us is what you might call good.
It takes an hour to drive a couple of miles to work.
We would really need to spend on the house to get it the way we like.
And we live only half a mile from Mount Argus, where the recently canonised St Charles is buried, which is a nice thing.
But then, if we have a garden, someone will have to cut the grass, tend the flower beds and plant things.
The stream might turn out to be more of a worry than anything else.
Not only are they not going to upgrade public transport in the village we’re looking at, there isn’t any.
What do to?
Mind you, I was sitting at home today, when something dropped through the letterbox.
It was, naturally enough, a letter.
It was from a man from the northside of Dublin who had read what I wrote in the Sunday World last weekend.
I suggested that our Minister for Justice had been wrong to deport a Nigerian boy who suffers from autism.
I pointed out that millions of Irish left this country to seek a better life abroad and were accepted, maybe not always willingly, but they were accepted.
Had they not been, Ireland would now be an overpopulated, impoverished country.
This man disagreed with me, suggesting that a) the boy’s mother had enough money and was a sponger b) sure weren’t the Irish mistreated abroad too and c) we’re not a charity.
This guy drove from the northside to personally put the letter through my letterbox.
Scary or what?
Don’t reckon he’d drive 30 miles to do that.
Well, hope not.
Which is probably the best reason of all for going.

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