Downsize Delay

One more Easter in the family house.

Back in September I announced that we were about to downsize.  Our children have largely left, and we are paying a mortgage on rooms for spiders to live in.

We put our house on the market.  It sold quickly.  Three weeks later, we made a successful offer on a house with which we were absurdly pleased. 

Downsizing had been the right thing to do.  Perhaps we would be moved by Christmas.

By Christmas there had been one false start on the part of our vendors, but no actual progress.  We enjoyed one more Yule in the family house, candles, real fires, mulled wine.  The children returned to university.

“Say goodbye to your bedrooms.  When you come home at Easter, we will be in our new house.”

But then we had one more Easter in our family house.  Hanging round in the warm kitchen, some cooking, others browsing the internet at the farmhouse table.  Looking out at a garden blazing with daffodils and blossom.

Then we had booked the removal company for next week, and have now unbooked them again.

Our vendor shillies and shallies. 

Part of me is losing patience, but part of me can completely understand. 

You see, they are downsizing too.  They too have had one more Christmas, one more Easter.  It is hard to leave.