Missing you

My house is not the dream house that I envisaged it would be when I imagined my first home. We saw about 30-40 houses before we found the one that eventually became ours and not once did I have warm and fuzzy feelings about any of them, including the house we bought. My feelings ranged from heavy hearted resignation to abject horror that any self-respecting estate agent could POSSIBLY show it to me and expect me to want to live in it.

(Here is where I should tell the tale of the man whose house faced a tower block, and who opened the door with a fag hanging out of his mouth, wearing a dressing gown. He told us to 'have a fucking look, if that's what we fucking wanted', and turned an Anastasia CD on EXTREMELY LOUDLY, his house looked like something out of some shitty programme about really dirty houses, the lightbulbs had burnt through all the shades and if I try to describe the bedroom I will pass out from the memory, I would tell you that tale, but I can't be bothered.)

The house we bought is a little three bedroom terrace with a garden neither of us had any wish for but are now really glad we've got. It's the kind of house that people don't buy because it was filthy and hadn't been lived in for a long time, but we thought we could see something in it so we went for it.

(Here is where I could tell the tale about how Glenn made me promise that I would always wait 24 hours after we had both seen a house before making any offer, a kind of cooling off period if you will, and that we would always offer at least £5000 below the asking price just to try our luck, and then I went to see the house without him and offered them £4000 below the asking price about 15 seconds after opening the front door, I could tell you that tale but I don't have time.)

The house has never felt like home, this is mainly because we have been living in it as a work in progress and I have struggled to ever see the end of it. I still struggle to see the end of it, but now the obstacles on that road are much smaller and come in nice furry packages that I can open slowly, safe in the knowledge that none of them contain a new kitchen or new electrics or new living room walls. I am ignoring the toilet shaped one that keeps appearing.

I'm away now, and I am away after the weekend where we finally turned the corner, in between all the champagne drinking, wedding dress wearing and carpet people seeing we got over the top of the hill.

And suddenly I miss it, I miss the little house with the ugly hedge and living room in need of coving and carpet, I miss the bathroom with its questionable bathroom fittings and weird ivy patterned window. Most of all I miss that man who lives in it and how he always puts his arm around me until I go to sleep, how sometimes he takes his arm away a little bit too early and I'm not quite asleep but that just means that I know he kisses my shoulder as he takes his arm away.

I'd like to take a moment to send a small message to that man, a message that I hope will convey all the love I have -

STEP AWAY FROM THE ELECTRICS, I DO NOT NEED THE OVEN TO BE INSTALLED FOR WHEN I GET HOME THAT BADLY. STOP. TOUCHING. THOSE. WIRES.

I mean please! While I agree that nothing completes a house more than Southern Fried Man on the kitchen floor, I just don't have the energy to bury you under the floor boards so that your mother doesn't find out AND HUNT ME DOWN.

Love you x