End of an Era

Final completion on my house sale is set for tomorrow. Although it feels like I've been gradually clearing out the house for ages now, today was the day for gutting the place completely. I totally underestimated the scale of the task. I paid the price for sixteen years of pushing something to the back of a draw or a cupboard rather than making a decision about its usefulness and dispensing with it. I have a big problem with throwing a thing away if it could just possibly still be useful, either for me or for someone else. It always made sense in the moment but there was a major flaw in the logic. When the time came for that thing to be useful I was never able to locate it, or even be able to remember that I had it. I inevitably ended up buying another one!

So today was truly the end of an era. This is my studio, the space I fell in love with when we first saw this house as a family. I've either worked or slept in this room, often both, almost every day throughout the time I've occupied this place. With the exception of holidays, almost every blip of mine has been posted from the desk that sat here. You can see the west facing evening balcony on the right. Out of picture on the left is the morning balcony, protected from the wind and the most wonderful sun trap. I notice the paintwork on the cupboards for the first time in years. It was started in the first few weeks we were in the house but life took over and it never got completed. It was never about the décor though, but simply the space, the landscape and the light. It was a room which brought the outside in. I will miss waking up to a long view over to the Cow and Calf, but the time is right to move on. 

We purchased the house from people who had brought up two sons here. And we brought up two young sons ourselves here. It happens that the new people have two young sons too. I like that continuity. It's a great house for kids, the best house for playing hide and seek because of the vast amount of storage space and the way it rambles up and down. It will be good for this building to be home to some little people again.