The search for a new home

Does absence make the heart grow fonder? Well, dear readers, I hope so in your case, because I am back, and I hope you have missed me.

The past six weeks since I had surgery have been a mixture of highs and lows. In my innocence I thought that being at home, with beautiful weather, unadulterated Wimbledon on the television, and nothing much to do would be just wonderful. Er, no! How easily ennui sets in when everything you think you want is handed to you on a plate but you realise that you are severely constricted in what you are actually capable of within that context. No lifting, no long dog walks, no gardening, no driving, light cooking only, and the list goes on, and oh dear, a six week old pile of ironing.

A six week pile of ironing? How mortifying to realise that I can still go to the cupboard and dress myself after six weeks of hot weather, and frequent changes, and there is still no shortage of clothes to wear.

In my defence, over the past two years, I have lost a lot of weight. After the senior daughter and I had a massive clearout of the attics and cupboards earlier this year, I found a lot of clothes that I had put away because I could no longer fit into them. So - lucky old me.

This draws me to my next observation. For the past four months, since my home has been on the market, I have been trawling the internet, and myriad estate agents' lists, looking for a suitable new home. What a thankless task. The money that will be available to me will severely limit the possibilities. Basically, the category into which I will fit is the second home one. This means over-priced, over-decorated bijou cottages, that look wonderful, but are wildly impractical for everyday living.

It is astonishing how this category has sprung up - I assume that money has been freely available, and architects/developers have indulged their flights of fancy. Always tiny bedrooms, absolutely no wardrobe/clothes storage space, bathrooms squeezed in downstairs, huge conservatories, impractical because no furniture fits because there is no wall space, the same with kitchens, no room for a freezer or everyday food storage, they have fireplaces, too many doors, a long walk from the cooker, placed miles away from the sink, no work surfaces, no cupboard space, no proper utility rooms, nowhere for coats and boots, absolutely no storage space anywhere.

They have expensive professionally planted gardens, but nowhere to store mowers, garden furniture in the winter, or store gardening tools, nowhere for log storage, or dustbins. Instead of all the posy nonsense, what happened to the simple solution of just adding an extension, instead of the ridiculous conservatories and garden rooms and odd little pushed-out-a-bit single storey kitchen extensions, leaving huge terraced eating out spaces, with garden furniture with nowhere to go during the winter! I feel a new career beckons for me.