How do you value your home?

Our House circa 1880

You can put a value on a house, in fact you can put a value on most things but putting a value on your home is a little more difficult.
Having had the Estate Agent round finally on Monday I now know an awful lot more about my house and indeed my home than I knew before.
For example my house is a lot larger than I thought - by about 2,000 sq ft. That's twice the size of my flat in London and that was considered a large two bedroom apartment. In fact 2,000 sq ft is a modest sized house in most people's language and I didn't even realise!
We've sort of seeped into filling the place up. It wasn't deliberate, because when we first moved in we only lived in the middle bit; a walk-in kitchen, two downstairs rooms and a bedroom and a bathroom upstairs. Gradually over the years, as we reinstated the house from wreck to habitable living space, we opened more and more of it up and spread. We bought chairs and tables, beds and cupboards as we needed so we never actually noticed how much we accumulated but looking at it through the eyes of the Estate Agent it was brought home with a rather sickening thought - how the heck am I ever going to be able to downsize?
The enormity of just that thought almost paralysed me as I tripped down the stairs while showing the Estate Agent round. I hope he didn't see the fear in my eyes or noticed how I gabbled.
To relax myself I started to listen to what he had to say - he was frightfully upbeat and optimistic and when at the end we sat down and got to the nitty gritty I was pleasantly surprised. The estimated value was more than I feared though not as much as I had hoped.
Selling the house will be a matter of semantics as the valuation is not quite enough to make the decision easy though not as bad as to make a move an impossibility.
But selling the home is a far more difficult problem.

Our House 2003 when work had just started!

As I showed off the place I told the agent all about the history of the house, the things that we had found and found out,  the stories behind the baby's skeleton in wall, the crude letters etched on the window in my office, poor pussy the mummified cat, the pram in the attic, the WAG who built the vast and garish 'modern' extension around the time Henry VIII was having a fling with Anne Boleyn,  how a Barley Baron farmer decided he needed to keep up with the Joneses in 1800s and Georginified the lot only to go bankrupt and have to sell.
And all the time I was telling the stories and making jokes and pointing out the carvings and the wall painting and other silly little things that we discovered int eh last decade as we brought this place back to life I saw how we had become part of the tapestry of the history of the house - a small part.
I'd like to think a crucial part.

Our House 2009

I looked out the window and I saw my eldest as a baby sitting on the seat of the big bright yellow decrepit dumper truck we acquired to do all the work that needed to be done. I saw him pretending to drive with his too large baseball cap on his head,laughing uproariously and banging excitedly on the horn.
I saw the men and boys who all worked so hard to bring this place back from wreck to home like ghosts laughing and chatting in my minds eye. All those memories crowding, demanding attention. Begging me not to forget.
And I know that my head should rule my heart but this house is too much a part of who my family is for any decision to be easy.
We LIVE here.
I suspect we will become history here too.

Well that’s it I am going home to Mother!

Well that’s it I am going home to Mother!

With a slam of the door and a flick of my hair I get in the car and am off. The only problem I have with this scenario which I know is played out across the nation, nay the world is, I actually haven’t had an argument with my husband and so there is no need for me to go home to Mother.

But I am sick and tired of being ill so that is my excuse, a poor one I know but an excuse anyway. Unfortunately I do not think this excuse will warrant much affection for my aforementioned mother. In fact I think she’ll look upon the whole interlude with dread, like any mother who has got used to the freedom of NOT being a mother and all that that entails.

But Mother Dear it is now far too late for any excuses yours, mine or the dog’s, for I am on my way and will see you later.

Oh the joy you must be feeling knowing your erstwhile eldest is on her way. The excitement that you will be in charge again, having to administer to every need and whim, mopping the fevered brow while entertaining two grandsons and trying hard to keep them quiet so that your eldest can rest.

Having to organise food to tempt jaded palettes, wash up and dry up and make the beds. Having to settle arguments, dole out comfort and all the time being on your best behaviour.

Not for you the time to lounge about in bed or to wander your home clad in just your nightie till elevenses should you so wish. No you will have been invaded and the emotional locusts will leave you only when you are parched dry…such joy having the family to stay.

But Mommy Dearest it won’t be for long, as I am sure you will encourage us to fly the nest again by turning the heating down, producing only the most revolting food which you know we do not like, ensuring that there is little else for us to do and making sure Grandpa hogs the TV. Not for nothing have you been through all this before….

Going home...

Sounds basically bonkers but I'm going home tonight. In a few minutes I will be getting into my car with two bopisterous and overly excited boys in the back, Tattie the whippet in front 'cos she likes to see where she is going and so she knows when to duck for all the bridges. The boot will be fit to bursting and Abba will be playing very loudly all the way up the A1. I think at about Grantham I'll be able to change discs without too much upset, a little bit of Robbie, some Jamie and a nice littlwe bit of Pixie and some Snow Patrol will suffice to get me there if not exactly harrassed at least in one piece.
As I drive closer to home the landmarks will become as familiar  to me as the songs I listen to and just as sweet. Thye sky will open up and I will be able to breathe again the familiar scents of my childhood and the endless toing and froing I have done from south to north and north to south over the last 35 years. I'll pass the Rainton Service Station where I once stopped dramatically when my windscreeen collapsed and I was convinced someone had shot at me. I'll wonder fo teh umpteenth time what breakfast is like there and know I'll probably never find out now as I believe the powers that be are going to knock it down to widen that stretch of the A1.
I'll take the next exit and drive down the A61 looking over at Sutton Bank trying to make out the white horse in the day or else at kniogth see if I can spot the hosues that I know. I'll shoot past the cross roads known as Wards Corner where old man Ward used to have his veggie plot long before we came to live here. Then onto the Baldersbu Garden Corner where I did some spectacularl 180 degree turns in the ice at 4  in the morning - not on purpose honest!
And then turning down into the village in the quiet of the night, round the corner at the end and there is home, the light on in my attic room.
Home at last.