Next steps...

How difficult is it to describe your home of 20 years to an estate agent? After weeks of spending pretty much any time I've not been at work going back to my 'old' house to paint, clear, garden and tidy, today was finally D-day. The 'property listing manager' (estate agent, surely??!) came with his clipboard and camera and inspected the home we made and brought our boys up in with the necessary detached charm that I guess has to go with the job. Next week, we are officially up for sale.

I felt compelled to take my own photos, just for my memory's sake and to try to capture some of the memories walking round with a stranger evoked. It was difficult to be enthusiastic about the 'lovely farmland views' or the 'double aspect kitchen' - I wanted to say, never mind that! This is the place that the boys learned to ride bikes and where noisy birthday parties happened!

It's nothing special in terms of bricks and mortar...

Ex-local authority, extended before we moved here, but with 'ample parking' - enough to accommodate New Years Eve parties and family get togethers.

The kitchen has been the hub of the home - where the boys spent hours with playdoh and learnt to cook for real...

Where homework was pored over and as many as could be squeezed round the table for Christmas and birthday meals...

And in the lounge, we've played games and opened presents and snuggled on the sofa...

This isn't a 'sun lounge'... it's the room that was once painted a shade of turquoise to look like summer sea, with sea creatures I spent days painting all round the walls and a blackboard that saw much creative activity. It was a room filled with noise and lego and train sets. Where boxes became cars and houses and shops. Where the boys and their cousins entertained us with 'shows'. Before much later evolving into a teen den, with a pool table and a guitar, a secondhand playstation attached to a battered old TV with room for singing and dancing. 

This is the room my youngest son was born in, 20 years ago almost to the day...

And where all 5 of us have sat amidst a pile of wrapping paper and stockings to see what Father Christmas had brought.

How do you distill all these things into the number of power points and the size of the rooms? 

But I think it is time for this house to be filled with other children and happy sounds. We do need to take that next step and move on with the rest of our lives. So I'm trying not to feel sad and reminding myself this is a positive step forward. The memories are in my head and my heart and if I've learnt anything over the last couple of years its that wherever you happen to be living, and whatever material things are around you, you don't have to dig too deep to retrieve precious moments. 

I'm just hoping the promised boost to the housing market works in our favour. I'm not sure how long I want to be cleaning and gardening from afar to keep things looking tidy for people to look round. A quick sale would be best all round.

Its just a house, after all...

summer madness...?

I think its possible I'm going a bit bonkers. On Saturday I went into the city for some essential bits of shopping...only to find I'd left my purse at home... (yep, realised at the till...)

And then today, in the midst of painting, cleaning windows and ordering this...

(how depressing is it to spend silly amounts of money on vinyl flooring for a house you aren't living in?! One of those jobs that never got done, but the pending appearance of estate agent & viewers means the 25yr old flooring has to go! I'm sure the chap in the shop thought I was mad when I said I didn't really care which one, whichever worked out cheapest!)

Anyway, in the midst of all that...I got an urge too get the preserving pan out! Because what we really needed today, was homemade tomato ketchup!

I think it was something to do with having done precious little in the way of preserves this year - marmalade early on, but no jam, no pickles and no chutney. And there is something very satisfying about making those things. And I'd seen a recipe for ketchup and have never made it before (other sauces, yes, but not tomato ketchup).

And the tomatoes were local and just so delicious looking...

Never mind that (as Tom helpfully pointed out!) we don't eat much ketchup, and there seems to be enough here for a small army...

Never mind that this took about 3 1/2 hrs of chopping, stirring, sieving and bottling...

Never mind that the entire house now smells of sticky, spicy vinegar...

Those lovely juicy tomatoes were transformed...

Inevitably, I didn't have enough bottles - in any case, its something of a habit to not quite sterilise enough jars/bottles for whatever I'm doing...!

But eventually... industrial quantities of Norfolk Tomato Ketchup!

I hope it tastes nice, otherwise it will have been an awful waste of those lovely fresh tomatoes! And I will be hunting out 'things to do with ketchup' recipes...

I am feeling slightly as though I've had a meltdown moment, this hadn't even made it on to the to do list! But there is something incredibly therapeutic about making and potting things into lovely bottles that you just knew would come in useful one day! (Oh lordy, beginning to think like my mother...!)

Off to try to sleep now and refocus on the important jobs! No more faffing allowed tomorrow!

S x

brightening my life...

Life feels a little like a long haul of work, painting, gardening and clearing at the moment in an effort to make things ready to get my home of 20 years on the market and dismantle my old life. In some ways it feels like essential 'life laundry' stuff, but it's heartbreaking at each step of the way and fraught with difficulties. And exhausting. Hence my inability to sum up the energy to post anything on here of late. But there are always things that brighten up the days and just occasionally I remember to take a few photos!

Literally brightening in the case of the post-Lord Mayor's Procession fireworks! The procession is an annual event in Norwich that sees a long procession of music, dancers and floats (some very wacky!) wind its way through the streets and culminates in a spectacular display from the castle...

Little things...like this rose hedge bordering a city house front garden which I thought was just lovely...

Hollyhocks in my 'old' garden, have always loved these towering traditional flowers...

I haven't managed much crochet or knitting but did finish this project in time for my sister's birthday...

The dark colours look terribly dark on here, but actually navy and purple and (don't tell anyone!) the lining was made from cotton tea-towels! In the absence of finding anything else suitable and balking at the price of the flimsy cottons that didn't really look up to the job... In my defence, they were new ones and a much better weight for the purpose...

This friendly neighbourhood moggie that just came and plonked itself down on my feet in the garden yesterday, no idea who it belongs to but it made me smile...

I'm not a big fan of hydrangeas and my tiny rented garden is a bit over-run with the monsters, in my opinion, but up close in the sunshine yesterday I was quite taken with the intricacy of the flowerheads...

And finally, though I don't often post pics of them, these two lovely boys definitely brighten my days and keep me going, way more than they can possibly know...

Here's to bright spots in all our days...

S x