.... random rants and rambles. no agenda. yet.

Warning: v v long blog post coming up!

It would be something of an understatement to say that our lives have been shaken up in the last few hours! In fact, I feel really weird and excited and shaky and unsure what will happen next... here's why:

To cut a long story short, for a while, C and I have been planning to move from Preston to the Hebden Bridge area. There are several reasons for this - nothing sinister - including how, now that we have mouse, we can work from home and live anywhere we want to. And what we want to do really is live in the middle of nowhere with lots of nice fields and green things and PEACE and CALM all around us. The Hebden Bridge area is cool too, so we are aiming to live there next.

Down the road from HB, one mile to be precise, is a lovely, but rather unfortunately-named village called Mytholmroyd. Yes, I know it is probably a bad idea to move somewhere so hard to spell, particularly when having to fingerspell, let alone pronounce. In fact, it took me 2 months to learn how to spell it, but now I can!

So that is why we have been doing up our bathroom and garden [apart from the fact that it's fun] and porch and generally behaving mysteriously recently. We are moving somewhere that is hard to spell. Gulp.

After extensive G00gling and trawling of the net, on Saturday, we looked around 4 houses in the area (two were too small, one was too wrecked, and the other had potential) and last night we were due to view 2 more. As Preston is about an hour away, it is understandable that we were rather annoyed to get a call from the estate agent just after we arrived, to tell us we could only see one house because, for some godforsaken reason, they didn't have the key for the other one, which was the more interesting one, of course.

So anyway, as we were there, we let a 20 year old estate agent (who was wearing a flashy suit with a pink tie, and kept calling us "guys", thus making us feel about 80) show us around the house they DID have a key for. It was, er, how should I put it? Large, but rather unfortunate. It had just been repossessed, so it looked like someone had done a runner - I will refrain from detailing my more personal theories here because they are irrelevant - and they had left a rather bad doggy smell and a kind of sad aura behind.

Me = no.
C (who is rather more optimistic) = maybe.

Sooooooooo anywayyyyyyyy, after bidding Suit Boy and the house goodbye, we decided to drive a different way back, thus passing another house we have lined up for this Saturday, amongst others. But we didn't get that far!

Driving up the hill, we saw a new 'For Sale' sign, which had obviously been handmade by the owner of the house, and had a mobile number on it. As it backed out to the surrounding hills, I said to C, why don't we phone the number? And the conversation went something like this:

C: Hello, we are calling about your house. May we look around?

Man: Err, yes. When were you thinking of?

C: Well, we're outside your house now, so if it's convenient...?

Man: What, now?!

C: If you wouldn't mind?

Man: Oh, I was just watching the footy. Erm, er. My wife hasn't tidied up yet... oh, go on then!

So we got out of the car and waved at a rather confused looking man who had just emerged from the house and was looking up and down the street to see where his new-found stalkers were.

After establishing that we were perfectly sane and wanted to buy a house in the area, The Man explained to us that he had sold his house at around Christmas, but it had fallen through because his buyer's buyer's buyer (or something) had pulled out, so the whole chain had collapsed. He was really upset, because he wants to move to Spain with his wife and 2 kids, and they were all packed up and everything. So, he though "sod the estate agent" and on Tuesday night, he made a 'For Sale' sign and stuck it in the garden in the dark. I don't know why it was dark at the time(!) but he hoped someone would pass by on their way to see another house that was for sale in his street (there are a few), like we were... under 24 hours later!

Anyway we liked the look of the gardens, especially as the back one backs into a hill with many, many fields and green things attached to it, and were very excited to see a footpath right next to it. Trying to keep a poker face was very difficult because when we went inside we could see it was even better, with a big new kitchen, fantastic views and everything else we wanted.

OH MY GOD, WE FOUND OUR PERFECT HOUSE! DON'T SCREAM. BE COOL. NNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG. GRIN INSANELY AND NOD. BREATHE.

The Man wants to sell his house ASAP. That is not a problem, because we both want to live there, like tomorrow. Preferably without The Man, obviously.

So after we had calmed down slightly this morning, we phoned The Man and told him we want to buy his house. He said "oh OK."...!! Now we are trying to sell our house and sort out money things and tidy up ready for viewings and get the conveyancer to do the legal things and try and stay calm and see more houses so that we have a Plan B if it doesn't work and ohmygodineverthoughtiwouldwantahousesomuchbutido.

You cannot buy views like that. Space! Agh!

So if anyone wants to buy a really nice 2-bed house in Preston near the Docks with a garage and a lovely garden, please do let me know ;o)

*Breatheeeeeeees*