Contracts exchanged

 I really hate to admit it, but I'm buying a house. In fact, I've bought a house. As of tomorrow, I'm a homeowner.

I really do feel that this is a violation of all my deeply-held principles, but I go wherever fate prods me, and it happened to prod me into buying the house I currently live in, when the owner put it up for sale and asked me if I wanted it. I said no, but thanks very much for asking, someone else bought it, but the sale fell through for some mysterious reason "higher up the chain", and so I, being entirely unchained, bought it at a slight discount. When an offer comes along, and you've already got a bank account piled high with money that hasn't been spent on travelling around the world for a year and a half, what can you do but agree to it? Fate prods.

I do get some satisfaction from knowing that the big list of things I've just received from the lawyer, detailing all the things you need to do when you move into a new house, doesn't apply to me at all because I've been living here for three years already. The only real change is that instead of paying rent every month, I'm paying a very slightly smaller amount in mortgage repayments, for the next 25 years. I should live so long. And we'll just pretend that aforesaid big pile of money never existed, because let's face it, saving money isn't my thing at all.

Imre, incidentally, was delighted at the weekend because he'd just finished paying off a 25-year mortgage. It seemed to me that he'd not know what to do with himself now, and I suggested he should take over my brand new shiny mortgage instead, but he didn't seem to think that would be a good idea.

Still, this is rather a cool house to own. It's a grade 2 listed building, you know, so if someone comes round and tries to hard-sell me an extension or a conservatory I can say that I'm literally not allowed to build one!