It occurred to me this afternoon, as I cheerfully packed the kids out to play after lunch (their token “fresh air” before resigning myself to an afternoon Wii-ing), that I really love this house.

I love this neighbourhood. I have great neighbours and the boys have good friends nearby. We can all walk to the local primary school. The supermarket, pub, post office (not closed yet, thank goodness) and a great community centre are also all within walking distance.

The house is not big, but it’s not too small either – thanks to the downstairs extension we had done when Li’l Bhaji was a baby. The garden is just big enough for the kids to have a good space to run around in, but not so big that it takes real effort to maintain.

On the flip side, our living room is effectively a corridor, I can twirl round 360 degrees while standing on the landing and see the entire upstairs, the boys’ rooms need regular decluttering so we can find the floor and I’m regularly banging my thigh as I try and navigate the tiny space around our bed but at the same time I’m never too far away from anyone else in the house – it feels safe and cosy.

The house is not particularly clean at the moment (although I did give a quick swipe around of the bathrooms today to show willing), nor is it particularly tidy, but walking through it every single room is pleasant to be in and makes me smile.

Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, the house became a home.

This may seem a bit like a non-post, but it doesn’t feel all that long ago that I was devastated at moving away from Croydon, convinced I’d never like living anywhere else quite as much. Flicking through the property ads in the paper or browsing through rightmove was quite a regular pastime at one point.

A bigger house would be nice at some stage, I suppose. But for the first time this afternoon, I realised that if we never ever moved again… it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.

Long-time readers of Pewari’s Prattle will remember that a couple of months ago, we had an opportunity to buy our dream house and after much deliberation put our own house on the market.

I’ve kept rather quiet about the ups and downs of the last few months, mainly because it was such a roller-coaster it was hard to say exactly what was happening, but also to avoid too much identifying information for the other party (which is hardly fair). However, I can now report that we’re now not moving and have notified the estate agents to take ours off the market.

The decision was mutual between both us and the owners of the dream house. The market seems very slow here at the moment and we weren’t getting much interest, plus the other owners had been very disappointed with the quality and cost of housing in the area they were looking to move to. The reasons they were moving have been resolved to a satisfactory Plan B and we’ve both agreed that the best plan at this point in time is to both stay exactly where we are.

All is not lost, in many ways it’s a relief – financially it’s not really a good time for either of us to be moving. We’ve got to know the owners really well over the last couple of months and have got quite friendly with them; our children all play nicely together and it would be a real shame to split those friendships up. It still may happen in the future as we have both tentatively suggested trying again in a couple of years time and near neighbours with similar style houses are now also aware we would be interested if they chose to move.

I am, of course, a little disappointed – we had great plans. But we are now making new ones and are going to do a blitz on this house – doing all those decorating things you only do if you’re trying to sell, but this time actually doing it for us rather than a prospective buyer. That’ll be a novel experience.

There are also plans afoot for a “Not Moving” street party…

… and we have a month’s grace to get ours on the market and sold. We were fortunate that we asked before they’d signed contracts with the estate agent, making life cheaper and more straight-forward.

By going round it we’ve confirmed that the house is lovely – a few minor niggles (but nothing is ever perfect, is it?) and a lot of huge bonuses. Akra Jr has gone from being really negative about the idea of leaving this house to being excited about the room he has chosen in the new one.

Of course, it still might not come to pass. We might not sell this one in time.

We have an agreement with the owners that if for any reason it doesn’t work out that there’s no hard feelings but have promised to keep communication lines open at all times. We still love the house we’re in, so if the end result is that we’re staying here after all we won’t really feel like we’ve lost out.

Now all we have to do next is run the gauntlet of the estate agents…

We hadn’t planned to move for a while yet. The horrors of the last move are still well remembered. We’d intended to be in this house until Li’l Bhaji was at least school age and finances were a little more fluid.

The only thing is, life is rarely that simple.

There’s a house nearby. One we’ve always gone past and said that if it ever came up on the market, we’d love to live there. We’d have a spare bedroom again. Decent amount of parking space outside (no more scrabbling to find space on the road because the camper is taking up the garage). Lots of scope to do things with later on. We know the neighbours and know we would get on. We know the neighbourhood, the facilities available, what the traffic is like, what it’s like at night.

The time it’s come on the market is now.

Bugger.

We’ve done the sums and phoned around. Mortgage lenders don’t fall about laughing. The increase in monthly payments are possible but it would be very tight for a while.

Are we being foolish even considering it? Probably. Will we regret it if we don’t try? Probably. Do I really want to go through all the hassle of putting this house on the market and keeping it immaculate for months on end? Do I have to answer that?

We’re going for a viewing this weekend.

Urk.

One of the many readjustments you have to make when you move to a new area is that you have to experiment to find the better takeaways all over again! For my birthday treat, I’d decided that we’d all have an indian takeaway meal. Seeing as I didn’t know which ones were the good ones in the area, we went for the usual tried and tested method of choosing whichever had dropped a leaflet through the door most recently. Probably not great for quality control, but it was that or Yellow Pages and I was feeling lazy.

Bad move. I won’t name and shame, but I think it’s safe to say we will not be ordering from them again. Firstly, Akra had to spend about fifteen minutes on the phone because he was paying by Switch and they couldn’t understand why there wasn’t a start date on the card, only an issue number. Then they took over an hour to deliver, by which point the food was only luke warm. Then they forgot to include the creamy mint sauce stuff that goes with the chopped cucumber and onion stuff & popadoms (is there a proper name for that sauce and chopped onion/cucumber mix because I never know what to ask for and I can never find it on the takeaway menus? We always just got given it automatically along with choices of chutney at our local sit-down indian restaurant in Croydon!) I improvised with some cream and mint sauce which I’m sure is probably sacrilege, but did the job. The naan bread was soggy. The meal itself was bland and flavourless; it’s sad to say that a supermarket microwave meal would have been more exciting and better value for money.

Mind you, come to think of it, we’ve never had that much luck with Indian Takeaways. Does indian food just not travel well? Because we’ve had some fantastic sit down meals in restaurants but even when we’ve used their takeaway service the food has only been mediocre.

Oh well, at least we’ve got an excuse to “research” more!!

In a previous entry, I mentioned that I would be writing some more about what makes London so great to live in. Only, I thought I would write it from another angle – what makes moving away from London so difficult.

Disclaimer: obviously, these views are highly biased from someone who moved away from the big city through circumstances rather than choice. The culture shock and change in lifestyle, despite moving to a city, I’ve found quite large. They’re also a reaction to all those people who told me how lucky I was to be moving away from London, and how they wished they could do it.

So, what does Worcester suck at in comparison to Croydon?

• Antisocial behaviour – this is the biggie for me. Surprisingly, as crime is one of the reasons people always state for moving away from London, I have been more aware of personal safety during the day than I ever was in Croydon. In the first few weeks of moving here, I witnessed 3 acts of criminal damage while walking around the neighbourhood with my son. On none of the occasions were the people concerned bothered that someone else was walking by and just carried on with what they were doing.

  I never saw this in Croydon. Oh, it went on of course (otherwise there’d be a lot less graffitti than there is), but obviously either it happened mostly at night or they would scarper as soon as they saw someone coming. I didn’t feel I ought to confront anyone, or had to start considering if it was safe to confront someone. I don’t know if it’s because there’s more CCTV in Croydon, or more bolshy people ready to chase them off. Either way, I now perceive there to be a culture here where people *don’t* intervene. Would someone stop and help if I was attacked?

  Rather unreassuringly, the local paper is full of similar incidents and how residents are complaining to police. The police’s response is to set up a specialised unit that promises to come out within 24 hours of an incident. Somehow, them turning up the next day doesn’t seem to me an effective deterrent.

• Extending on from the last point: amount of litter. This was another shock. I really didn’t think it would be such a problem out here. In terms of volume, it probably is far less than in Croydon. The difference seems to be, that in Croydon there are people employed to go pick it up. It really upsets me to walk into a playground and see overflowing bins, rubbish all over the floor and broken glass from wine and beer bottles by the play equipment – and I used to whinge about cigarette butts in the playground in Croydon… how spoiled I was.
• Intolerance. Every week so far in the paper, there has been a letter from someone saying all the county’s ills are due to either: the repeal of the witchcraft act, homosexuals, or immigration. Sometimes all three. The latter is particularly ironic as farmers depend heavily on immigrants for short-term labourers. If there’s one thing you can say about Croydon, is the population was diverse. Yes, there was still bigotry, but it was easier to avoid it.
• Public transport sucks. To get into town from here, I can ring for a bus at my convenience. Ooo I thought, this looks useful and a good way to do it. That was until I read further. It doesn’t go into town – it just does a circle from the hospital up to the other end of the villages and back again. So I would have to catch the bus, then wait for another bus to take me into town. Also they’re not subsidised out here. Bottom line is I can drive into town in 5 minutes and pay ?1 for 2 hours parking, or I can wait ages, have to change buses, and spend ?3 in bus fares. Um, let me think about that…
• Meeting people is just as hard. I know one of the complaints about London is that no-one talks to each other and it’s hard to make friends. To be honest, though, I haven’t found it particularly easier here. Yes, the neighbours are exceptionally friendly and talkative, but no more so than the ones where we lived before. Whichever area of the country you move to, I suspect that the ways to meet people are still going to be through work, immediate neighbours, and whatever you generally do for a social life (i.e. clubs, etc). The benefits of living in London is that there are a *lot* of different activities you can do which will bring you into contact with new people. Even better, there’s probably public transport to take you there too.
• I want ADSL *cry*. My advice to any Londoner moving out: triple check that your new area has ADSL. Technically our exchange is ADSL enabled. Problem is, although we’re nearby as the crow flies, the distance the wire takes is too long. And there’s no cable companies here. Have I mentioned recently I hate dialup?
• I want a decent radio station. I’m sorry. London just has the best radio stations. ‘Nuff said. Oh, and my reception varies here depending on what part of the room I stand … *sigh*.
• Schools aren’t necessarily better out of London. It’s this big myth I’m sure. So many people said to me that Akra Jr would get a much better education out here in the country… I’m not so sure. Our local catchment area secondary school looks dire. 20% GCSE pass rate, problems mentioned in the Ofsted were: bullying, frequent classroom disruption, truancy. Nice.
• Quality of life isn’t necessarily better. Something else that I was constantly told was that my quality of life would improve. I guess a lot of it depends what you do with your life. If you spend a lot of your time on long country walks, then maybe. For me, there were more children’s activities, better quality parks and playgrounds, ADSL (come on, it’s been whole minutes since I whinged about that), in London. For those wanting to move out expecting miracles, remember that your salary will drop considerably moving out, so unless you own your property and have decent equity, those cheap house prices aren’t going to do you a lot of good. You will be more reliant on your car to get everywhere. There will be less choice in terms of consumer goods and food. Your interests may not be shared with local people, so finding people who have the same hobbies may be a lot harder.

What I am not saying: that everywhere outside London is crap. There are lots of good things about Worcester as well as there being lots of bad things about Croydon. It just isn’t the sunny idyll remote from the evils and decadence of London that can be romanticised. Of course, if you’re tired of the city, then you may want to move out as soon as possible. Just remember, that the way house prices and rents are going, you’re very unlikely to be able to get back as easily if you suddenly decide you’ve made a big mistake.

Today, Akra Jr stood up suddenly in the middle of the lounge and said:

Akra Jr: Go home now!
Me: We are home.
Akra Jr: NO! Go home now!
Me: But this *is* our home now, sweetheart.
Akra Jr: No, this is new *HOUSE*!

Poor love, but out of the mouths of babes and all that…

Am in a better mood with him today – he said “I luv yoo, mummy!” for the first time ever this evening – *melt*.

Exciting purchase of the day: a whirly gig to hang washing out on. See the thrills you get from reading my blog?!

No, really – do you know how many different damn varieties of them there are?! Triangular ones, square ones, ultra light ones, a myriad of different sizes… how are you supposed to choose – I just want to hang my washing out!! Went for the cheapest which is probably a BIG mistake. I’m also the proud owner of 100 clothes pegs which is probably far too much, but I figured Akra Jr would end up nicking them and hiding them, so best to factor in wastage.

Accessing the internet is getting even more precarious at the moment – my laptop has suddenly decided to self-destruct so I’m using Akra’s for the time being. We have sorted the ISP so that it’s no longer pay-per-minute but it’s sooooooo veeeeeeery sloooooooow. Having to treat this as a write-only medium for the time being as there’s only so many cups of tea I can make and drink in an evening while waiting for the next page to load. The good news is that Akra has discovered a company that does broadband via radio waves – it should be in the area in a couple of weeks, so there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

In the meantime, I’ll just have to control the shakes…

Choosing the hottest weekend of the year to go gadding about in a tin metal box (aka car without air-conditioning up and down the nation’s motorway system) probably wasn’t our greatest idea ever. However, I’m glad we did as the barbecue was great fun and Akra Jr had a whale of a time playing with his younger (and not so younger) relatives.

Now though, we are back in Worcester and wondering what to do with our evening. Internet is still on pay-per-minute until we move over the breathe account (it’s based on phone number – and their customer service line seems impossible to get anywhere with), and I’m badly missing broadband, so surfing the net is a painful rather than relaxing experience at the moment. Oh, and I’m still using the laptop as the computer desk won’t be built for at least another week. On the plus side, we’ve just bought bathroom furniture for the main bathroom so the towels will no longer be piled in a puddle on the floor – we are making progress.

Neighbours here seem lovely. We’ve met next-door, next-door-but-one and friends we already knew who live a couple of streets away. I could pretty much start my own florist at this precise moment in time. I do love flowers though – just hope I don’t massacre this lot. It’s strange, give me plants outside and I do a fair job of looking after them. Give me plants in pots that need TLC indoors and they’re doomed.

Plan of action for tomorrow is to get signed up with the local doctor/dentist surgeries and suss out the community centre. There’s a day nursery close by that looks rather good (and we’ve had a recommendation from the previous owners of this house) so I might give them a ring and see if I can have a nose around. Akra is back at work tomorrow so I’m on my own… *gulp*.

At some point I’m going to have to make a sketch of my living room with scale drawings of the furniture that needs to go in there and see if you lot can organise it any better, too.

Had a bit of a “woops” moment tonight. Akra Jr woke up demanding Roly (a Bob the Builder toy) only Roly was nowhere to be found. Suddenly realised that we’d left it at Nana’s house. Inconsolable is an understatement.

Guess who travelled to North London via South Wales this morning?! Was worth it though when he woke up from his car doze and his first word was a joyful cry of “Roly!” at his returned toy. Aw bless.

Loads of traffic on the way – can’t believe how stupid some people are – saw a car with two unrestrained children in the back travelling on the M4. Makes me so angry that people take those sorts of risks with something so important.

Anyway, bit of a fragmented report – am on my Mother-in-Law’s PC and it’s a pay-per-minute deal, so I’d better go. Besides, have wine that needs drinking.