There she goes

[smokingboot]

House sold subject to contract.

Exciting and a little sad.

I don't fall in love with houses really, except for my brother's place, and even then, it wasn't so much the house as the long garden with a grove of trees down the end. He never maintained it and I recall coming home from shifts at the studio, 3, 4, 5 in the morning; I would go out into the garden and walk, feeling the grass above my knees. When the wind blew, it rippled like fur on a beast's back, and the trees would move and sway... it was all a little different, a little unseelie. Security was never great.

Then the attack happened, and for all I loved the place, PTSD kicked into overdrive. Hypervigilance was wiping me out. So we found this place, full of air and light which I appreciated but didn't love because I still cared too much elsewhere. Then over the years we covered the boring garage wall with trellises, the hedge at the front was cut away, the trees are always beautiful, the roses went mad, birdsong filled the garden and when the wind howls it really rocks the hill. I love it. It healed me and makes me smile every single day. But I don't get much work done here, no dynamism touches me. I dither and live softly.

The buyer seems to be in love with it, which matters to me because it deserves love. I hope in our new house I can be stimulated into work, though the story I want to write during my editing break needs a trip to Belgium, which I might have to claim as research expenses.

I can't believe I will ever love a place as much as I do this. But then I didn't believe I could love a place as much as I did my brother's house, and long ago I didn't believe I could ever love anywhere as much as my blue room in Brixton.

I am a serial house-lover, just a very slow one.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Have you completed the move to Edinburgh? Very exciting times! This is a simply terrible analogy, but in some ways, it's like acquiring a new cat. This cat's very nice and all, but I'll never love him the way I loved my sainted [name of favorite companion animal goes here]. But you do. You do.

[smokingboot]

Not completed, the formal legal process now begins, so right now it is subject to contract. She would like to be in for August, our estate agent tells us it is more likely to be September.

It is exciting, and I completely concur with your cat analogy. Thank you for it :-)