Growing up

Today I think we may have found it, that elusive place, the dream home. But of course, it comes with two big drawbacks, possibly too big to ignore.

We were shown around the house, and we love its quirkiness, the beams, the little corners which were niches in rooms above the huge inglenook fireplace. We loved the formal side (added later) and the warm grey stone. We loved the roses growing up the walls, and the nods at its history and past owners. The garden was what I have had in my mind's eye for many years. We wandered past fading roses, some setting huge hips. The owner named them all, dozens of them. Some I had never heard of, they were so rare. Butterflies danced ahead of us as we walked through the orchard. The owner, knowing a kindred spirit when she met one, showed me every inch of the garden. My jaw dropped open when I saw the size of the fruit cage. We brushed past countless more nodding roses, tangles of clematis, a view of distant dreaming hills through a gap in a wall.

But we must be sensible. It is too far out really, for us who have been saying we want to have a social life again and be closer to friends. To be closer to jobs and nights out whilst G and D are still at home with us. And, it would be cheek by jowl with the previous owners, and we are used to total privacy . . .