Because of a multitude of factors (which I will enumerate upon request), we are moving again. It will have only been eight months since our last move, but there you go.
We have found a nice detached house in our price range (which to me seems rare for this small island nation). It's not back in Clevedon, which was one of the things we were trying for, but it is closer to where we work, and in a nice area.
I won't give the address out here because I think a little part of Dad would die if I gave out my address publicly on the interweb. I almost resisted including this first picture of the front of the house, since it would probably be easy enough for someone who lived in the area to work out where it was and then track the blog to see when we're off on holiday and then come and steal all of our stuff, if they really wanted to, but it's the only picture I took that has Mark in it.
It's not perfect, and it isn't a new as the place we're in now, in terms of the insides. It also is probably pretty much as bad as you can get in terms of capturing any of the meager sun we get over here because everything is north-facing. But the amount of space we're getting, the lack of immediate neighbors, having a patio in the back and the garage make it really worth it. And we did a great deal with the agent - and how can you pass up a great deal?
This is the view from the upstairs front bedroom, which we'll probably use as our study, since it's going to be the sunniest room. Though I've just noticed that once that tree across the road is in bloom we're really not going to be getting much sun at all.
I wasn't paying attention when I took the photo, so you can see the reflection of the camera in the shot - that's what is making it look like it's one of those weird windows with the curved effect.
Sheep live across the road, and then there's a cricket pitch beyond that. Our Englishness goes to eleven.
This is the living room, with a door directly out to the back, which has a raised area with a trellis thing, then a couple of steps down to the rest of the backyard area. The back is all paved over with slabs, which is fine for me since all I want is a BBQ grill and lots of potted plants and it would be silly to have to mow a small square of grass throughout the summer. Though I guess the plants I find are going to have to really like cloud and shade so I might be a bit limited in my selection.
These are actually right next to the driveway - I just like how over here you know Spring is coming because first the snow drops come out everywhere and then all the daffodils.
Looking back over the post I kind of sound down on the place, but we really like it and it does everything we want it to do. I'm very excited and I think Mark is getting there. He still doesn't quite have enough excitement left over from his new motorcycle (did I tell you all about that? Why do you think we need a garage all of a sudden? ;) ) to be all that excited about the new place, but I think we'll both be really pleased when we've moved in.
We get the keys in a week's time and we'll start to move small stuff over in stages, and then move all the big stuff on the Thursday before Easter (we're taking the day off because over here Good Friday and Easter Monday are bank holidays) and be completely out of the place then. It's all very exciting!
7 comments:
Wow, that sounds like we're living in the Hall of Permanent Shadows. Still, at least we'll have enough space for the Ugli fruit to have a shadowy corner of its own where it can brood on its shadowy misfortune ... [evil laughter]
CONGRATS!! I'm very excited for you. And I always have enough excitement to cover anyone that is lacking. :)
although i am a little sad that you no longer live in a flat. i liked having a sister and brother in law that lived in a flat. not many people over here can say that. ;)
Oh, and those kitchen cabinets look exactly like the ones you have in your current place.
I think the sheep more than make up for the shadows... Maybe Shawn will drop by to see the Ugli fruit.
Congrats on the new motorcycle, I assume a picture will show up soon?
Are you going to enumerate the reasons for the move in this forum or somewhere else? Because, you know we all want to know.
Jenny, you can still tell people we live in a flat - we won't contradict you...
And yes, the cabinets are like what we have now, though a little bit lighter - and they're the nice kind with the "soft close" doors and drawers. There seems to be a lot more storage space, too, in the new kitchen, which will be welcome.
Here are some of the reasons why we decided to move (in no particular order):
1) Our neighbors are a bit noisy. We're in a big Victorian building that has been converted into flats, and they've done a really good job with the insides and stuff, but they didn't seem to do that great of a job with the soundproofing - especially the floors. We never hear the neighbors to our side, since I think that's one of the original internal walls, but we quite often hear the guy below us. Playing his bass. Plus people going up and down the stairs. Not as bad as Mom and Dad's daily stampede, but it kind of wears on you.
2)A home for the motorcycle. I think this kind of really got me thinking about moving - Mark was not as concerned but this started to coalesce all the other thoughts I was starting to have about moving.
3)Having some outdoor space. I don't want to plant things in the ground because that never seems to work out for me, but I would like to have a place to put some pots outside, a place to repot the plants, and most importantly, a place for a BBQ grill!
4)To be closer to where we work. I still travel all over the place so it doesn't quite matter as much for me, but Mark now goes regularly into Bristol for meetings, often in the mornings, so he has been hitting some of the traffic that's notorious around where we live. And Weston is a bit further away from where we were before, which is ok, but it will be nice to be a bit closer. We contemplated moving back into Bristol but neither of us really wanted to move back into a city.
5) Trying out the countryside. Although it's not a primary reason to move, once we decided to start looking around, I thought it would be interesting to try another type of scenery. We've lived in the city, and on the seaside in a small town, near the seaside in a larger town, and so I wanted to try out a more rural location, since there are lots to choose from over here that are still in commuting distance to Bristol. Mark grew up in the countryside in different villages, so he kind of knows what it's like, but I haven't had the experience, so I wanted to try it out. We're not totally rural where we are, but driving past the place today I got a good whiff of farm smells, so we're definitely close. Plus we've also discovered that not that many broadband providers cover our new place as where we've been before, so that's kind of an offshoot of being rural. But of course we have the option of broadband, so we're not THAT rural - but that's ok with me. Experiments in different living conditions need only go so far.
I think that's it. And the main thing for me is that since we're renting rather than owning, it's easy to move around so we might as well try out different types of places to see what we like best.
What's the layout like (besides living room & kitchen down, a bedroom up)? I think you told me when we talked last week, but...
It looks great! And light has a way of penetrating darkness, so I think you won't be as shadowy as it may seem. Maybe there will be more bright days away from the seacoast...
And tell us about the garage - the most important part of any house!
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