Wednesday 10 June 2026: Thunderstorm!

Yesterday started out really well. I was up on time and didn’t waste any time on housework. I did, however, have a proper reading hour to set me up for the day and to finish the book I was currently reading. And then it was straight to my desk. It should have been straight to packing, but the sooner I get rid of this proofreading job, the more time I can dedicate to packing.

Saying that, the proofreading was not the first job on my list to be done. That was the final week of the making a living with novels workshop. Only the live videos weren’t up yet. That meant I could diverge from the plan and do something else out of order, or I could watch the archived videos. I chose the latter, just so I could tick it off and move on. There was no assignment this week, just a summary of the entire course.

Once that was done, the next job was to start today’s blog post. Then I moved on to the proofreading and was just in the swing of that when an email came in from the solicitor asking if we wanted to exchange contracts yesterday ahead of completion tomorrow. Before I could properly reply, I called the poet just to run it by him. He said he was happy if I was happy, but he did have a couple of questions.

I fired the email back saying that yes, we were happy, and I asked the questions. Not long after that, the solicitor rang me up to reply to the questions. There were only 2 questions, and there was nothing to worry about, we had nothing more to do. Just go and collect the keys on Thursday.

And so we exchanged contracts for the new house, which means we’re both protected now if one side or the other pulls out before then and now.

Back in the old days, we used to exchange first and send a deposit, then complete about a week later. During the property madness of the mid-eighties, exchange and completion began to happen on the same day. I think if we had a house to sell or if we were using a mortgage to buy the new house, we may still have been able to do it all on the same day. But it does take time and could be the difference between a 2pm completion and a 5pm completion, or longer.

So, whoooooo! This time tomorrow we should be home-owners once again! (Depending on when the money lands in the sellers’ account.)

I hate renting, I really do.

I hate not being able to just do whatever I want to do without going through the rigmarole of getting permission to do something, or even being turned down.

I hate that after we move, they can just help themselves to part or all of our deposit, even if the house is spotless and the garden immaculate.

And I absolutely detest the fact that we can only stay in our ‘home’ on the whim of a total stranger. This is the third time we’ve had a house sold from under us and we’ve been given notice, through no fault of ours. Fortunately, we were expecting this one almost a year before it became apparent, thanks to me keeping an eye on interest rates and the law changing around private rentals, and a lot of the leg work had already been done.

Otherwise, we may have been in our 60s and homeless! (Or sleeping in the van!) Because, let’s face it, someone less than 2 years away from retirement is not an attractive prospect for a private landlord.

Renting was useful for me once before when I left my second husband and couldn’t take out a new mortgage while my name was still on a mortgage I had with him. Three months after moving into my little house, I was able to buy it. A mortgage company offered me a second mortgage, but the interest rate was higher than if it was my only mortgage. As soon as the other house was sold and my name released from the first mortgage, I was able to drop the interest rate on the second mortgage. Renting was useful for the few months in between.

This time out, we’ve rented so that the poet could always be flexible about work. He didn’t want to have to turn down a job due to location and we have crossed the county in order for him to be closer to work.

But apart from that…

And yes, I do know we’ve been very lucky to be able to buy a new house, thanks to the savings my mom and dad were able to build up during their lifetimes.

The poet came home and got ready to go out again for one of the last band rehearsals he’ll be having. There will be at least one more next week, and perhaps a second one. But then that’s it. I carried on with the proofreading while a cracking thunderstorm raged overhead. Fortunately, I wasn’t working online and kept everything crossed the power wouldn’t go out while I was still working, saving as I went.

Today, I carry on with the proofreading…