Hey guys, how you doing!? I feel I owe a little explanation as to my absence on here for the past couple of months. Nothing dramatic – simply life taking over.

Ok, it’s not quite that simple but it all started off last June with our search for a family home. After moving three times in the past six years with two crazy small kids in tow we were ready to kill each other put roots down and commence our home purchase.

The cowboy and I both hate the British winter and the cold that creeps into your bones for the best part of four months a year, paired with low light and heavy, grey, cloudy skies, our desire to get out of here was pretty intense. But as is often the case with best laid plans… they change and as much as we’d love to be milling round the Med we kinda need to get on with work and look after the two little gremlins we produced.

So we started looking for properties in London’s commuter belt wanting our share of ‘the good life’, chirping birds and rolling hills on our doorstep but never too far from the Big Smoke. Easy, right!? For those of you who know the UK property scene you can stop smirking now and rest assured we almost choked on the large slice of humble pie we had to eat. Train fares (shock!), travel times (what!?) but mostly how pricey those properties within easy reach of a train station and nice countryside actually are. WTF!?

Back to square one we looked closer at the not so nice London suburbs and found a property in zone 4, with nice parks and good schools. Tick, tick, tick! Sadly, the property fell through as we met with uncommunicative vendors who weren’t committed to selling and the original estate agents from hell. I have to say this really disheartened me and it was not until we secured a new purchase a good six weeks later that I perked up again.

Everything went smoothly in the beginning with vendors and agents doing their best until we got radio silence again. The purchase was verbally agreed to complete before Christmas but as the weeks rolled by and more and more excuses were coming in, it became apparent that the vendors were not going to comply despite having given us assurances on numerous occasions. I know, I know… more fool us for believing that people actually stick to their word. Pfff… when it comes to home sale or purchase clearly everyone is out for themselves. In the end we moved at the beginning of January in a hectic and exhausting 16hr marathon session. Keys were only handed over at 5pm on the day of completion and to our horror we discovered that the promised ‘making good’ of various DIY jobs had been done in haste and to appalling standards with nails sticking out and huge gaps in the flooring.

I felt insult was added to injury and in the following days I kept on waiting for the waves of euphoria… nothing! No pride, no relief, just exhaustion and a bitter taste that during the whole process the majority of people involved (vendors, agents, surveyors, lawyers) were unmotivated, unresponsive, telling half truths and ‘white’ lies and only doing their job when we started to kick up a fuss.

I thought long and hard about whether to share this tale as I don’t often talk about my personal life but I’m hoping that it’ll have some sort of cathartic effect on me to help put this horrible experience behind me once and for all.

Please let me point out that I’m well aware that these are first world problems and that we are very, very lucky to be able to purchase a home when so many of the younger generation are struggling to get on the housing ladder. If you’ve had similar experiences I hope that reading this might make you feel better and I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below.

Now, where were we!? Ah, new home… yes. Well, you can’t keep a good girl down for too long and I’m going to share the first glimpses of renovations at no 57 soon.

Here’s to a happy ending!

 
PS: You may be forgiven for thinking the girl in the photo is me. We do look very alike, especially the flat tummy, though the colour of our eyes is different. 😉

 
PHOTOGRAPHY | via Pinterest
 
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