A bloggers holiday

Ella and I are going to have a few weeks break from blogging but fear not we will be returning at the start of July! June is a particularly busy month for the four grown-ups in our house so something had to be sacrificed if the total workload was going to remain manageable.

The theme for this week's blog entry is house-hunting. Now we don't usually buy the local newspaper but by chance somebody had left a copy on a bench in the local shopping centre so I was able to have a free read.

There was the usual mixture of not very exciting local news and sport plus a large pull-out section of houses for sale. Long-time readers might remember that we have been thinking about moving out of the centre of the town to somewhere that is a bit quieter and more pleasant for bringing up the children. We have viewed a handful of houses over the last few years but nothing we looked at seemed much better than where we are now so we haven't made any progress. However there was one house that caught my eye so I phoned up the agent and arranged to go round for a proper viewing. My first thought was that the location wasn't ideal because it was almost too rural - the house is one of a small group of about 8 that are close together but there are no other facilities nearby. No shop, no pub and no public transport.

The house itself is 25 years old but has recently been updated. The family who were living in it have moved to Austria when the husband got a new job so it is currently empty with the owners (presumably?) looking for a quick sale. It has lovely gardens front and back that would be ideal for the little ones to play in both now but also as they grow up. The kitchen is huge, almost too big just for a kitchen but probably just too small to use as a kitchen-diner. Downstairs there is also a small dining room, a large lounge, a medium sized study plus a family bathroom with bath, shower and WC. All the carpets and curtains are included in the price which is a plus.

Upstairs there are three double bedrooms (one en-suite) and a single bedroom. There is another bathroom as well - but this was the only room in the house that needed updating.

If only this house could have been in a better location! The more I thought about it the more I realised that the location was just too big a disadvantage to be counter-balanced by the house itself. So we are back to the start of the process - yet again.