Thursday 8 December 2022

We don't live here anymore.

We have had a challenging year. (A good example of English understatement!) Health concerns made us heed our daughters' wishes that we move near to family and we put our much-loved home - and garden - on the market.
There was a great deal of 'stuff' to pack! How strange the rooms looked when they were stripped of our belongings.
A great many books were taken to the Oxfam shop.
A rainbow appeared over our familiar landscape to wish us on our way. All change from a small hamlet in the countryside to a very busy town. Adapt and survive!

14 comments:

  1. So sorry to hear this but hope the move works out well for you. I wonder whether you will still have a garden. Looking forward to hearing about your new abode. This getting older can be a problem at times.

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    1. Dear Susan, a long delay in replying to your nice comment. We are busy adjusting to a very different life! I now have a small garden with who knows quite what in it, unfamiliar sub-tropical planting, different from anything I've known. No space for veg. growing but my name is on the (long) allotment waiting list.

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  2. Thank you for letting us know about your move and the challenges you have been facing this year. I was wondering where you were.
    As for challenges, my family has been having its worst year ever, with illness and death in a measure we have not had to deal with before (and hopefully won't see again).
    Anyway - I hope your adapting to your new place and lifestyle. If the busy town gets too busy, hopefully your place offers peace and quiet.

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    1. Dear Librarian, I am sorry for your loss and understand the sorrow that you must feel. I still have the desire to chat to my dad, twenty-three years after his death. Whenever we are doing something nice I say to my husband, "Dad would have loved this."
      I'm currently having problems with my sigh but it should be resolved with a second cataract op in the near future. Until then I am being driven around, which is rather good as the roads here are very busy!

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  3. My very best wishes to you. My husband and I made a similar move 8 years ago. It took nearly a year for the new place to seem like home, but home it is now. At this point I miss the land more than the house. And all the northern flowers we can't grow here in Central Florida. Thankfully we have many, many photos of our old perennial beds. Grandchildren make it all worthwhile.

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    1. Dear Colette, your words echo my feelings exactly. How I am missing my previous garden, itching to have my hands in the soil and be planning the year ahead for crop growing. I shall post my new garden and you will see that it is something else entirely. I'm waiting to see what is growing, fighting the desire to dig things up and plant out some of the pots that I brought with me.
      It is a delight to be near to our daughter and our only grandson - I'm the oldest grannie at the infant school playground!

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  4. Moving is hard but being by your daughter will be nice, especially if you have health concerns. I hope in the spring you will be able to garden in pots and enjoy gardening on a smaller scale. I'm sure as I age I will be a patio gardener. Best wishes to you and Merry Christmas!

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    1. Thank you so much for your best wishes, Sonia. Our attention has been mostly inside the house, painting walls and putting up shelves. We've taken a huge amount of garden debris to the tip, not to mention endless leaf sweeping, as we are surrounded by mature trees in the neighbouring gardens. (Our choice of house was because these trees offer a good degree of privacy although I am anxious about the amount of shade they will create when in leaf.) It's all to learn!

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  5. A house removal is said to be as stressful as a death in the family. But that, surely, is while it is happening. Afterwards might it be comparable with - Ahem! How can I put this? - a familiar and regular event that happens in most households, albeit usually under the cover of darkness. And for those who subscribe to a domestic variant of NIMBY when it comes to such events, might there be a religiose parallel - that of being shriven. Purged. Or even cleansed.

    I am immensely impressed by the neatness of those boxes. And, in particular, their mostly modest dimensions. One common fault when it comes to preparing books for The Great Escape, is to fill up large containers which subsequently prove to be unliftable. We sometimes spend the night with friends who live in London. On top of the wardrobe in the room we sleep in is a cardbox box poignantly inscribed Christmas Decorations. Poignant in that it doesn't appear to have been touched for at least half a decade. Harking back, no doubt, to the moment it was first placed where it now is - with an appreciative sigh and a profound conviction: "That, at least, is something we don't have to bother about for ages."

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    1. Dear Mr Robinson, Impressed you may have been by my neat boxes but I have to tell you that the move was shambolic, two days of complete mayhem, with items broken or lost. We are still moving around the house not too sure what is where. We've slapped some colour on walls and hung up pictures so the house is slowly starting to feel like ours.

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  6. Hi, I'm happy to read you, I was so concerned. I wish you happy Christmas days ,health and a good coming-home near your daughter.

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    1. Thank you so much, Jeannine for your kind wishes.

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  7. I was checking your blog in hopes of seeing a post letting us know how you're doing, and was dismayed to see that a comment I left on your last post hadn't shown up. I wanted to let you know that I wish you well in your move, and that I will very much miss your updates and the photos of your beautiful home and garden. Hoping you're settling in nicely. Please let us know how you're getting on.

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  8. Dear Kathy, what a lovely comment you have sent. Thank you, it is much appreciated. We have been busy settling in to a different life and now that we are a little more settled I shall return to posting photos of our new life which I hope you will enjoy.

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