There must be a simple mathematical formula associated with living in a house for any length of time, expressed as a relationship between the number of years occupancy relative to the amount of accumulated 'stuff' stored therein. No amount of careful hoarding-avoidance changes this. It is an inescapable fact of life itself, part of the human condition that remains hidden from view until moving day arrives when everything you own has to be packed into boxes.
Boxes, boxes and more boxes. We have more on order and cannot wait for them to arrive so we can start filling them.
The whole process of moving house, selling one place and buying another, has its own timetable, one that runs at different speeds from one end to the other. Here in Scotland an up front Home Report is the seller's responsibility so the sale starts slowly, visits by the estate agent then a surveyor. These are busy people, so they always insist. After they have seen all they need to see, asked those important questions and taken those carefully stage-managed photos time slows down as you wait for their efforts to manifest themselves; your approval of their expert preparatory work is needed before the process can continue. Finally our house is out there, pictured in glorious colour, online for all to see - the modern way - and displayed in a high street window - the old fashioned way. The next day we get a call for our first viewing, as if someone was just sitting there waiting. This is soon followed by another. I check to see if there is a queue outside.
House purchase is somewhat different. Estate agents are tripping over themselves to get you a viewing of your chosen house then can't wait for your views. Once an offer is made and accepted though, time grinds to a halt and no amount of nudging makes any difference. The legal process has its own pace and we just have to live with it. We wait and wait for something called a 'date of entry', something that must coincide with the seller leaving the property, leaving behind an empty house.
These changes of pace are hard to understand and put pressure on us as participants in what is already one of the most stressful of life's events. We need a distraction, hence the boxes and the packing, which we continue with on the assumption that the two separate processes, the sale and the purchase, will deliver at roughly the same time. Our spare bedroom gradually fills with boxes until we can hardly close the door but it all seems strangely unreal. Our attic is now an empty space, its contents divided between the spare bedroom, the Wheely bin, the charity shop and the local tip in roughly equal proportions. We try to think positively by reminding ourselves of the effort our family will avoid by us doing this now instead of leaving the sorting and the boxing to them at some future date when we pass on. I'm sure their gratitude will be unmeasurable.
There are many checklists associated with moving house and many different outside parties to be notified. But no matter how much time and effort we put into researching the contract or arrangement with each one we keep coming across surprises. It seems there are unforeseen consequences to moving house. A year ago we signed up for a fixed price deal with our electric supplier. It still has 18 months to run but it appears we cannot carry this with us to a new house. Any new contract will be at a higher price....of course.
Then there's the broadband, another fixed term contract. This time there's either a cancellation or a moving charge even if we want to install the same equipment in the new place...which we don't.
Conclusion - you cannot win!
Moving house is not, of course, something you do alone. Normally you become part of a chain of house moves all of which have to synchronise at more or less the same time or else nobody gets to move. It's rather like a line of swimmers along the edge of a pool, all holding hands and leaping into the water together. It doesn't work unless you all jump simultaneously. If just one holds back then it breaks the chain and when it comes to houses, if the chain breaks then someone is left homeless. For both swimmers and houses there is, of course, always a beginning and an end to the chain, a first time buyer at one end and an already empty house at the other perhaps, but generally the longer the chain, the longer it takes and the greater the pain. Thankfully our chain is short but we do have other delays, not least of which is what happens when one of the solicitors involved catches Covid and drops out of action for a week or so.
Then finally we have a date, at last. Six or eight weeks was what the estate agent predicted but he was wrong. It was seven. This is what it has taken, from end to end. Actually we have two dates, one to move in and then seven days later, one to move out. This gives us the chance to clean and polish our old house leaving it ready for those moving in then bid farewell to the neighbours and to the village that has been our home for the last eleven years. Removers are arranged, now it is simply a matter of going through the multiple checklists we have prepared to make sure nothing is forgotten. Oh, and more packing. Boxes, boxes, boxes.
