Just like clockwork the exchange happened at midday on Friday. The little men had cleared out the flat in the poshest bit of Bristol which the Mrs had lived in since her postgraduate days and we set off to a rather less fashionable neighbourhood, where the sale proceeds have been re-invested in a lovely Edwardian house.
Okay, we are living out of packing boxes right now. But the space is enormous. The kitchen here is almost the size of the old flat. We have a garden with a vine which produces grapes which make wine – the former owners have left us one bottle from the 2012 harvest warning that it tastes appalling.
I managed to find the place alright driving back by car on my own at 1 AM this morning bringing with me the first six boxes of my books. The rest of my stuff will arrive in ten days time and then two households will be formally merged.
There are frustrations like having no Internet and thus also no TV for another ten days. And so I missed the X-factor last night and also Foyle. And I shall be forced to head off to “Grounded” later to spend the day working on-line drinking lattes (er... Rioja). There are, I suppose, greater hardships in life. For now I tap away producing the content that I shall upload in a splurge later.
The neighbours seem to be a solid enough bunch. It is what is described as an up and coming area. That means that more than half of the houses are now owned by new middle class incomers. The remainder are owned by the old white working classes of Bristol - the sort of folks who delight in displaying an array of flashing lights and the odd masturbating Santa Claus outside their house at this time of year.
But one senses that as each year goes by there will be a touch fewer masturbating Santas and a few more folks who have organic food delivered to their doors.
As I wonder up the street clutching a laptop and lead but wearing a West Ham hoodie I wonder how they view my arrival in terms of the social demographic?