Thursday, November 24, 2011

House Hunting

I am looking for a house.  The one I live in now is sold.  If all goes to plan, I am supposed to be moving out in three weeks time.  I won't go into the financial contortions that have brought me to this point.  Suffice to say that the immediacy of the move dawned on me with force today, now that The Deadline is over for another month.

Yes, I agree, it's quite astonishing I've barely mentioned my imminent move in (quick fanfare) twenty-three straight days of blogging.

The house that I'm looking for will be up for rent.  The house I live in I own.  Well, I jointly own this house with the Bim.  I won't be owning the house I'm looking for, it's to do with the aforementioned contortions.  No, I'll be renting that one.

I did go to see two houses for rent about a week ago.  I fell in love with the first one.  I suspected I was going to when the property details described it as a 'one-off'.  You know something's up with a house when they describe it as a one-off.  A 'house with character', they said.  A one-off house with character: someone like me (who wouldn't mind being similarly labelled) is going to fall in love with that, now aren't they?

It was the quirkiest house I have ever seen.

It's an odd shape, isn't it, I said to the painter putting the finishing touches to the triangular sitting-room.

Ah, he said knowledgeably, that's because it's a wedge.


Trust me to fall in love with a wedge.   He was right, though: the house had been wedged in between two others, like a slice of pizza.  Most of the rooms were triangular-shaped, or some other shape whose name I should have learned in Geometry.  It would have been useful, living there, for helping with Anna-m's homework.  ('Mum, is this an isoceles or a scalene triangle?'  'I don't know, darling, go and have a look at the bathroom').

So anyway, I said yes I'd like to live in this wedge but the landlord cast his vote some other way: probably something to do with the financial contortions and not being able to prove that it has been me, not the Bim, paying the mortgage on our house for years.

The lettings agent, a fierce young man whose untruths I recognised because of my stirling practise with the Bim, took me to see another house as balm for not winning the first one.  I was so disappointed that I wasn't going to have to grapple with wedge-shape problems like how I was going to fit my rectangular furniture into the triangular sitting-room, that I couldn't appreciate the second house he showed me.  I walked around it, yes, and everything about it suggested that life would be easier there than living in the wedge, but I was heartbroken to have to settle for a conventional second best, and said no, I don't want to live here, thank you.

Today something made me drive to the second house again.  I got out and peered through the window and thought Perhaps I could live here.  When I got home I called the fierce young man and made an appointment to take Anna-mouse to see it on Saturday.

I'm looking for a house.

4 comments:

Heidi said...

Can I just say that you are my hero for posting for twenty-three straight days? As someone who is also a perfectionist and loathe to put writing out to be read that I haven't agonized over beyond all practicality, you are my hero. And they are such a beautiful series of posts, proof that it's possible to spend a reasonable amount of time, every day, to just do it...and still have a beautiful end result.

I enjoy your writing very much. I'm so glad to have had so much of it to read this month.

Livvy U. said...

Ah Heidi how lovely of you to leave this comment, it means alot. It is quite something, this month of blogging. It's going by in a blur, but I know it is changing things. But thank you, thank you x

Just Jane said...

"A one-off house with character"

That is the best decription of a house and person ever! I think I'd like living in a wedge too.

richactor said...

There's a small triangle house in the old town of Hastings called "The Piece of Cheese". It's a very small piece.