Lesser known facts #1; when a house is truly cursed, there is no getting rid of it. And the Old House is the gift that keeps giving (stories).

Did I mention that I'd sold the (definitely cursed) house?  Yes?  Yes I did.  I sold it to a property developer.   I sold it to them, and I  moved my stuff out, and I cleaned the place, and I handed over the keys. And the Old House was now the property developer's.
This is such an important fact.

And for the first week or so I woke up every morning, happy that I was finally out of the old house.  It was only when I moved out that I realised just how much I'd hated being there. A massive weight was lifted off my shoulders.  In fact I loved being out of the old house so much, that I developed an irrational fear of being told I had to move back.

So the irrational part of me was already expecting the knock on the door when it came.  Ruth, the woman from the property company, appeared on my doorstep on a Saturday afternoon; Could I accompany her to the old house?  there seems to be some kind of problem, and she doesn't know where the house is.

Lesser people would have claimed amnesia, and muttered that it was so long since they had sold the place, they too had forgotten details... I am not a lesser person.

Let's cut to the chase.  The "problem" was that a tank or a pipe, or something that normally carried (a lot of) water had burst.  For the past week water had been pouring down through the house. Not dripping, not trickling, but full scale pouring from the roof downwards. As we stood at the back door, we could only peer through a sheet of water upwards to the very roof itself, for the  flood had brought down both the bedroom  and kitchen ceilings.  Wires were hanging where the kitchen light used to be, for the light fitting and the rest of the ceiling was on the floor.  Pipes which had previously been under the bedroom floors were now visible, holding up what remained of the bedroom floors.

Ruth and I could get no further than the back door without hard hats, heavy duty raincoats and a squad of emergency plumbers.

..........

It's been two weeks now.... two weeks when I've reminded myself every day that I sold that house, and this is someone else's problem.

I always hated the old house.  What can I say? I bought it in a hurry, because we needed to move from Glasgow to Cheesetown before the (then) Cherub moved to high school. And most of my money was still stuck in Glasgow.

People tried to be nice.  Believe me, a lot of faint praise has been lavished on this place.....

• You get a nice view from here.  Yes things are better if you look out.
• Garden's easy to maintain Yes for it is tiny
• Nice you've got an en-suite.  Yes because the shower in the bathroom doesn't work.  At all. Ever
• So quaint.  Yes because nothing has been done maintenance wise since the last century.

And this house defeated me. The windows and back doors leaked in heavy rain.  And it rains a lot in Scotland.  Half of the upstairs windows were jammed closed.  Conveniently the other half never closed properly, but rattled in the gentlest of breezes.  The double glazing was shot. Even in high summer the place was freezing.  In winter we hugged the radiators (literally) or the dog or both.

And I'd had enough.. There's only so long you can happily remind yourself "At least it's cheap"

The problem was - how could I honestly sell this house in good faith to someone else? How could I fail to mention the strange smell from underneath the garage, and the recent spate of car burnings in the village?  How could I look any buyer in the eye and not mention that the house is on the way from the pub to the housing estate and you get woken up regularly in the wee small hours? I might be a drama queen, but I'm not a good enough actress to smile and mutter about being so sorry to leave this..

And so it was that I found a property developer who would accept my house in part exchange for a new house being built in a new development.  And they only had a huge five bed roomed place left. And I only had.. my house.  And so the deal was done.

And we both thought we'd got the best of the deal....

Which as any fule kno can't be the case...

Yo!! I'm here.. see what I did?  Not there anymore... HERE.  Here in the new house.  That's right, the NEW House.  I did it.  I got out of the old place  The place where my feng shui was definitely fucked.  The place where people and dogs died... or had terminal diseases.  Which is technically the same thing...eventually....

It was down to just me and the kid who can no longer be known as cherub.  We needed out.

So I'm here.  I'm in a house that's brand new and miles away from graveyards - metaphorically or literally. Whichever way you want to put it.  We're not facing the graveyard anymore.  Even better, the wind doesn't come through the windows, and  the plumbing doesn't back up, and the double glazing isn't shot.
We don't look out the back window directly into Bob Next Door's - we look across fields to the Forth.
I've got a double garage. and a huge kitchen, and five bedrooms. Sometimes I walk into the kitchen just to remind myself how fantastic it is.

And it's all taken time.  Between selling the old place, and taking the kid who's no longer cherubic on holiday, and then packing, and then the sale falling through, and then packing again... and then sorting the boxes.  Oh yes and looking into internet dating...  I've been busy.

But there are stories...there will be stories... bear with me...


What can I say meanwhiles?  Merry Christmas of course!!