The jumping–off–a–cliff style of househunting

It was untypical of life, but typical of the times around me right now. It was scary but brilliant. Delightfully surprising.

I love Glossop, my nearest town, for its friendliness, its sensible shops, the fact that you can leave the greengrocers owing them 20p and they know you’ll be back to pay it, and that there are three bookshops, an incredibly cheap furniture place in old warehouse, great healthfood shop, a good library (not yet massacred and I have a feeling it will stay), the embroidery guild group, coffee shops, two delis, lovely indian, thai & chinese restaurants and chippies etc, a theatre even, an indoor and outdoor market, and once a month a farmer’s market, a Next, Wickes, Aldi, Co–op, Halfords, all that stuff, hardware and plumbing shops, cheap shops, a post office open on Saturday afternoon, fishmonger and brilliant butcher, and the fact that drivers on the main road stop to let you out of the side street even though they don’t have to. All the time. It’s catching, that one. I do it too. It’s expected of me. And a 24 hour Tesco just in case. There was such a defensible case at half past eleven the other night.

So I’m househunting in the town, saving money where I can. For someone so pathologically unable to cope with too many humans in too small a space, this is a bit weird. But it’s going to work out. I’ve decided. It will be so. It will be fine. Mantra mantra mantra often enough it will turn out that way. 

So on the first day of looking I arrange to meet the agent (my own, actually, Paul) down the town at 11 o'clock and we look at a couple of terraces. First is damp and poky and dirty and the couple who own it have just split up. I can feel the hate and the sneering arguments still ringing in the empty rooms. I think nothing less than a full exorcism would improve it. There’s not even anywhere to sit outside with a coffee. North facing ginnel only.

Second one I do quite like – there’s even a catflap in the kitchen door! "It's a Sign!" says Paul helpfully.  A quiet street. A bit of lawn, and clues that the owners are people I would like, but kitchen and second bedroom are very small, and the gas boiler’s in that bedroom, where I'd be sleeping. That would keep this insomniac awake and it takes up one precious corner.  Dangerous, anyway? And damned if I want another heating system I can’t sleep through, having just got this one fixed. Derelict industrial shed at the end of the road twenty yards away with planning permission for building new houses. I'm not in any hurry. I have appointments through the week with other agents. Including a small house among fields outside the town.

Is there anything else? I ask Paul. Osborne Place? No, that’s gone. (It was still on their website last night – as were 8 possibles with another agent, 5 of which had gone when I phoned this morning.) Hadfield? No, gone. Talbot Lodge? Gone. They are going so fast, he says. There’s only T St, he adds, but it’s a 3 bedroom, £100 more than this one we’re standing in. He agrees to meet me there in the afternoon. It wasn’t on the website yet so I hadn’t known. It’s at the absolute extremity of my new budget.

I turn up at 2.20 just as the previous viewers are leaving. It's a terraced house built of local stone. “Did they like it?” I ask him. “Yes, but they’re up from Dorset and it’s between this and one other. Going to make up their minds and get back to me this afternoon.”

Living room – wide built–in original cupboards with old fashioned drawers below, either side of huge recessed stone–hearth fireplace. No fire there but could get a fake electric woodburning stove like my friend has. Or turn it into bookshelves. Or just put a row of fat candles in there. Room plenty big enough for the baby grand and my single armchair and stuff.

Kitchen – masses of cupboard space, all new, pale beech sort of thing, and the tongue & groove unit up on wall seems to be the original top half of a welsh dresser.  Hidden walk–in understairs area. That's the litter tray sorted. It's a big kitchen – will easily take my 7 foot table.

The yard is quite long, concrete flag, south facing, plenty of space for all my plants in pots and my wooden table bench thing. A few bits of flower bed I can use. A brick shed next to kitchen with a loo next to that! Very handy for visiting mothers and people like me who drink too much coffee.  Nice wooden doors. A trellis up the side just crying out for sweet peas. Or climbing nasturtiums. Or climbing anything.

Back inside, stairs and upstairs all carpeted immaculately in mid grey – quite liveable with. Bathroom going to be retiled next week. One large bedroom then one medium. “This room would make a nice workshop,” I say. South facing, overlooking the yard. Paul interrupts “But you haven’t seen upstairs yet!” Now bear in mind this is the same agent who does a three–monthly inspection of my current premises, and he knows exactly how much stuff I’ve got, and he knows what I mean by workshop. For that very reason he also thinks it’s a scream, my downsizing. My friends have been rolling around on the floor legs in the air, helpless laughing.

Up to the attic floor, still carpeted.

Oh. My. God. The idiom was invented just so I could use it today, for this very room.

There‘s even space for the twenty foot pine board shelves. From front to back of house with a big velux skylight both sides, views of the hills in both directions, and that’s that. 

My heart is still in a fog but my head is saying If You Don’t Take This Right Now You Are STUPID. 

As a girl who lets her intuition be heard, cos it’s usually correct, I’m wondering why I’m not fainting on the spot and scrabbling around for my cheque book. Is it disbelief? Is it the fact that the yard is overlooked by half a dozen upstairs windows? Will I get used to that? Will I care, even? Is it that although I usually know immediately whether something’s right or wrong for me, I'm conscious that this househunting exercise may require serious compromises and this is £100 more a month than I planned? Big decision, the thing you ought to give some thought to? Happening too fast? Or not used to being sensible, for a change?

The clock is ticking. Somewhere in Glossop are two people who might phone back any second and tell Paul they want this one. Think. Quick, think hard.

Recap.

The fronts have little gardens. You’re set back on a quiet road. There are old trees around. There’s a church and a primary school on the road. Civilised and all that. Wonder if you can listen to the bells on a Sunday morning? That would be nice. A park with a brook round the corner. I walked in through that front door and said Oooh this is nice! I saw the kitchen and said this is great! I liked the yard. Sun all day long. (NO MIDGES on summer evenings!) Quite a distance between my back and the backs of the houses opposite, over their gardens. The upstairs, and the big loft room with 7 foot head height for most of it.. So my feelings were instinctive. Happy words fell out of my mouth without premeditation. FOR FUCK’S SAKE GIRL WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Paul went off to do another viewing. I went to the agents and parked round the corner. Took out my mobile. Phoned them. Was astonished to hear my voice saying “T St…  I’ll take it, please.” Was in their office ten seconds later, collecting the forms to fill in. Got the forms back to them the following morning together with a fees cheque. Spoke to Paul and it's really real....

I’ve been and gone and done it.

Still can’t believe it. Am in mild state of shock.

After spending all last weekend and some more evenings trawling websites and printing out details, listing salient points, google earthing and everything, it happened in four hours, start to finish.

I’ll even be within walking distance of a hot sausage roll….

Haven't told the hens yet. 

I need a lie down.

But I’m too excited.