Spring may be a traditional time to put your house on the market, but suddenly it’s getting out of hand. “For Sale” signs are popping up all over the village. By the time you’re reading this, even the house next door to me will have fallen under the auctioneer’s hammer for the first time in two generations.
Is it time to take down the famous boundary sign at the Monument end of the village that says “Hawkesbury Upton – You’ll Never Leave”? (I’m never sure whether this is a threat or a promise.) Or is it all a grand game of musical chairs? Maybe the sellers are just changing places within the village. In the last few years, three families in my street have moved only a few doors down.
I for one intend never to move house again – and not just because my daughter’s got dibs on the house when I die. (Even the kindest children can be chillingly matter-of-fact about death. She asked Grandma the other day to leave her a particular handtowel in her will.) What really puts me off moving is the thought of having to pack. I’d need to wade through so much paper to decide what to keep and what to chuck – boxes of letters from family and friends, piles of magazines from my journalist years, brochures and newsletters that I wrote in my days as a PR, not to mention the odd half-novel tucked away here and there. Oh well, at least Laura will have plenty of material to light the woodburner with when I’m gone……
(This post originally appeared in the Hawkesbury Parish News, June 2011)
