If you ever come to Scotland, please, do me a favour and come in summer. Yes, it might be raining. In fact, it probably will be. But if you’ve ever visited the Scottish countryside on a warm summer day, you’ll hear people make the same observation on repeat: “If we just got the weather,” they say, “no one would ever leave!” Well, I’m not sure that’s quite true, but one thing I AM sure of is that when we DO get the weather, it’s beautiful.  And in future, if anyone ever asks me why I hate autumn and winter so much, I will simply point them to this wonderful summer field, with the bright blue sky shining above it, and I will tell them they can keep their Fall-Is-My-Favourite-Season, and their OMGSNOW, and just leave me the summer, as long as it looks like this.

These photos were actually taken last Sunday, but because of all of the stress with The House Purchase That Never Was last week, I didn’t have time to get them off the camera. I barely had time over the weekend either, because as soon as we knew for sure that we weren’t getting The One (sob! Still not over it!) we plunged straight into a frenzy of house hunting, which basically involved us looking at aaaaaaalllll  the houses ever made, on the basis that one of them might be The Other One. And of course, no, they weren’t. Well, actually SOME of them very well could have been: we spent yesterday looking at a bunch of showhomes in the area, and OMG, some of those houses were just beyond amazing. They were also beyond our budget, though, so it’s back to the drawing board for us, and after yet more issues with the dog-care thing over the weekend, I can’t help but feel that we HAVE to be in line for some good luck soon, so hopefully when we get back from Miami, The Even Better One will be sitting there waiting for us.

In the meantime, some more of that sunshine would go down well around about now…

Transport, motorways and tramlines / Starting and then stopping /Taking off and landing / The emptiest of feelings /Disappointed people clinging on to bottles / And when it comes it’s so so disappointing… [Radiohead, 'Let Down']

Last Wednesday we got an offer on our house.

It wasn’t a great offer, to be honest, but we did the maths and worked out that it was possibly enough to allow us to offer on the house we’d set our hearts on, so we crossed all of our fingers, toes and paws, and Terry called the seller to make a verbal offer.

Well, we waited, and we waited, and finally we got The Call. The seller would accept our offer, he said: all we had to do was put it in writing the next day, and he would instruct his lawyers to accept. We were overjoyed, except… not really. Really, we were dubious. We LOVED the house – we’d loved it from the first moment we saw it – but there were a few things about the deal which made us suspect things might not run smoothly, so we kept the champagne chilling in the fridge and tried not to get too excited.

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[Skirt: ASOS (2012) | Cardigan: Zara | Cherry brooch: River Island | Shoes: Vivienne Westwood for Melissa | Sunglasses: eBay]

I’ve not been doing a great job of keeping the ol’ blog updated recently. I say this, not by way of apology, because I very much doubt you’re all sitting there hitting the “refresh” button over and over again while muttering, “How long do I have to wait before I see another photo of Amber in a 50s-style skirt?” but mostly to prepare you all for the fact that this is going to be YET ANOTHER post about my attempt to sell my house. GOD.

The House Thing, as I think of it, is the main reason I haven’t been blogging here so much recently. It’s not the only reason, of course: there’s also my complete lack of inspiration when it comes to deciding what to wear (No, it didn’t escape my notice that this outfit is exactly the same as this one, just with different colours…), and my upcoming holiday, which is currently requiring me to write almost a month’s worth of blog posts in advance. Let’s be honest, though: it’s mostly The House Thing. And on that subject…

WHY WON’T SOMEONE BUY MY HOUSE ALREADY?!

Since the last time I wrote about this (so, a few days, then…) we’ve actually had quite a lot of interest in the house. We’ve had more viewings in the past couple of weeks than we had in the first month combined, and, even more encouragingly, the people who’ve been coming to see the house have seemed to really like it. Some of them came back for second viewings. Some of them came back for thirds. (THIRDS!) Some of them ticked the box on the feedback form which says, “Yes, I would totally be interested in buying this house! Where do I sign?” They were even liking the shoe shelves, which made for a pleasant change.

Despite all of this, we weren’t getting our hopes up. After what happened last month, we learned that … well, we learned that The Others are every bit as inexplicable in the realm of property as they are in everything else they do. Possibly more so. And honestly, it’s a good thing we learned that, because otherwise we’d have really gotten excited about those second and third (THIRD!) viewings, and those encouraging noises everyone was making. We’d have spent hours and hours (and hours, and hours…) wondering if they were going to make an offer, and when they would make it, and how much it would be, and then we’d have felt totally crushed when it all came to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Which is, of course, exactly what happened. Every time.

According to what I’ve been reading, we’re not the only ones in this position. Not only does the market just absolutely SUCK right now, the first time buyers (who are the people most likely to be interested in buying our place) are being super-cautious, and super-picky. They basically have so much choice that its seems to have paralysed them, and rather than  picking the house they like most and buying it, they’re so terrified of making the wrong choice  that they’re just circling endlessly around and around the same properties, doing second, third and sometimes more viewings, and never actually coming to a decision. There always seems to be one more house to see, then another, then another, and by the time they’re done, they’ve forgotten what the first set of houses were like, so they book second viewings with those, and the whole process starts again.

I have some amount of sympathy for this, obviously. I mean, I’m pretty indecisive myself. It sometimes takes me weeks of deliberating just to choose between two dresses, for God’s sake, and after all of that I’ll probably end up buying both, which you can’t really do with houses can you? So I get it. And I also get that it’s a huge decision, the most money you’ll ever spend on something, your happiness depends on it, blah, blah, blah. But even although on the outside I’m saying I understand, what I’m REALLY thinking  here is, OH MY GOD, JUST MAKE A DECISION ALREADY. And also: BUY MY HOUSE. Because, seriously: as a buyer, I know that it’s a huge, huge decision, and not something to be taken lightly. But as a seller, there’s only so many times you can show the same set of people around the same house (We’re doing the viewings ourselves now, after someone turned up unexpectedly, and Terry managed to tap into a side of himself that has secretly always wanted to be a salesman, apparently…) before you start to wonder if they’re going to ask to move in next, “just to get a proper feel for the place”.

Just to add to the fun, that house we wanted? It’s still on the market. The seller let us know that the rental can be cancelled as long as he gives the tenants enough notice, so he’s still actively marketing it. This is good news for us, of course, but also bad news, because this week he started to market it even MORE actively than he’s been doing, which makes us worry that someone will come along and snap it up, while we’re still showing the same people around for the 15th time, only to have them decide that actually, they were never really that interested in the house after all.

Still: there are cherry shoes and there are gingham circle skirts. There’s also sunshine. Sunshine makes EVERYTHING seem better…

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We didn’t get it.

The buyer decided to go with the other property she was considering (That makes it sound simpler than it actually was… Needless to say, there’s a whole story connected to this, and the internet is not the appropriate place for it, but the upshot is that this girl could never actually have afforded our house – as in, it was way, WAY out of her budget –  but decided to string us along for three weeks anyway, pretending that she could. There’s a reason I refer to some people as The Others, and it’s because they’re NOT LIKE US.), which means the house we wanted went to someone else (albeit only as a rental, so there’s still the chance of it coming back on the market at some point), leaving us in the awkward position of having a house for sale which we don’t actually WANT to sell, because there’s no longer a property we’re interested in buying*. Which is… yeah.

Of course, the housing market is slow right now, so there isn’t really an issue with just leaving things as they are and seeing what happens.  If and when we DO get an offer on our place, well, we’ll have a difficult decision to make, but for now I guess we can at least take comfort in the fact that the uncertainty we’ve been living with for the past few weeks is (temporarily, at least) at an end. I’m honestly not joking when I say I haven’t slept properly since this potential buyer came along (I REALLY wish we’d known she couldn’t actually afford it: it would have saved a lot of people a lot of time and energy), and ever since our house went on the market basically every waking second has been consumed with thoughts of if we would sell, and when we would sell, and what we would buy if we did. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for the past few weeks, and only now can I finally exhale.

It’s a sad kind of exhale, though. We really had our hearts set on this house, and we came SO CLOSE to getting it that losing it now is even harder to deal with than it might otherwise have been. And we know there will be other houses. There will (hopefully) be other buyers. One day it’ll happen, and we’ll finally get our house.

It’s just… we would’ve really liked it to have been this one.

* Clarification: I didn’t mean this to imply that we’re taking the house off the market, just that we’re no longer in a hurry to sell, because we don’t have anywhere to buy: we’re definitely not taking it off the market, though!

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[Dress: ASOS | Shoes: Giuseppe Zanotti* | Belt: Primark - all bought last year]

This is what I was wearing the day we started negotiations on the sale of our house.*

Yes, folks, we got an offer. Yay!

But it wasn’t nearly high enough to allow us to move. Boo!

The whole time that the house has been on the market, there’s been only one property we were seriously interested in buying. It’s been pretty nerve-wracking, to be honest. We knew the house we wanted could be sold at any time, but after weeks and weeks of non-stop searching, we hadn’t found  anything else in our price range that we were even vaguely interested in buying: not even one. Basically, we needed an offer on our house ASAP, and it needed to be high enough to allow us to make an offer on the new one. If the house we wanted was sold BEFORE we got the offer we needed… we wouldn’t be able to sell at all. (Or we’d have to sell without having anywhere to move to, which isn’t really an option for us for lots of boring reasons I won’t get into, because,  boring.) Just to make things even more complicated than they were already, the owner of the house we want to buy was also marketing it for rental, which meant that not only was there a chance that someone would come along and buy it while we were waiting to sell ours, someone could also come along and rent it. Which would suck.

We started negotiations with a potential buyer on Tuesday.

The seller of the house we’re interested in agreed to rent it to someone the same day.

If any of this is sounding familiar to you, then yes, you’re right: it’s familiar because this is JUST OUR LUCK. In fact, you may remember this exact set of circumstances from such scenarios as “the first house we found was sold on the same day ours went on the market” or “Nigel waited  years so he could try to sell his house at exactly the same time as us“. Honestly, I’m not in the least bit surprised by it, because it seems that there’s just no other way for things to happen for us. I’ve been predicting all along that we wouldn’t get an offer on our house until the one we wanted to buy was off the market, and oh hey, look, I WAS RIGHT! Again. I may not have much luck with property, but damn, I’m ON FIRE over here with the predictions, seriously!

All is not quite lost, though. Or not yet, anyway. The seller of Potential House #2 has told us he’d much rather sell it than rent it: it’s still possible for him to pull out of the rental, and he’s given us until Friday to get back to him, after which the rental will go ahead, and we’ll lose the house. OUR potential buyer, meanwhile, is trying to decide between our house and another one, and has also said that she’ll give us her decision by Friday, now known in our house as D-Day. Or, actually, let’s call it OMG-Day, yes?

Basically, then, we have 24 hours to sell this house. If we don’t get the offer we need tomorrow (and honestly, I’m not hopeful), we lose the possibility of the only house we were interested in, and will basically be unable to sell ours at all until we find something else.

So, no pressure then. I mean, it’s not like absolutely everything depends on what happens in the next 24 hours, and we’ll lie awake all night talking endlessly over all of the “what ifs”, and getting up early to sit and stare at the phone, waiting for it to ring. Oh no, wait: that IS what’s happening. And we’re already spending most of our time staring at the phone, willing it to ring, and then feeling sick to our stomachs with nerves/excitement any time it does.

Basically, it’s a bit like being in an episode of 24, only with, you know, houses instead of terrorists. And us instead of Keifer Sutherland. If you could all just imagine the sound of a ticking clock at this point, then a 4-way split screen with Terry and I in one box, the potential buyer in another, our seller in the third and, I dunno, let’s put Rubin in the 4th, just for the hell of it. That’s my life right now. I  think we can all be grateful that my Twitter account is still hacked at this point, because I can’t even begin to imagine the hysteria I’d be subjecting everyone to over there.

Any good vibes you have going spare would be really welcome around about now…

(*We took the photos BEFORE the negotiating started, obviously. I mean, I didn’t go, “Oh, we have an offer on the house? Quick, let’s run out and document my outfit!”)

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Well, as you can probably tell from the lack of hysterical blog posts and tweets, Wednesday’s cleaning-fest and raised hopes all turned out to be for nothing. OK, not QUITE for nothing: the house got a REALLY thorough cleaning, and Rubin got a nice walk while we were waiting for the viewing to be over. Oh, and Terry now has a great dinner-party story to tell, about that time he was forced to hide behind the bins in his own back garden when the prospective buyers turned up early, and he wasn’t sure what to do other than to dive outside and hide.  (I had already vacated the house with Rubin by that point, having anticipated just such an event, but Terry wanted to have a quick word with the estate agent before the showing, so he’d stayed behind. I watched from behind a tree as The Others drove up to the house and Terry sneaked out. I actually have no idea why it’s so important to me that they DO NOT SEE ME, EVER but somehow it is…)

So we have a clean house, a happy dog, and I also got a good laugh at the expression on Terry’s face as he made his escape. What we don’t have, though, is an offer on the house, and that’s kind of a bummer, because obviously we can walk the dog and hide in the back garden any time we like, but we can’t move house until someone decides to take this one off our hands first. We also can’t seem to think or talk about anything else, as you’ve probably realised. We spent the entire day yesterday waiting by the phone, jumping every time it rang, feeling crushed every time it turned out be just another recorded message telling us we’d won an all-expenses paid trip to the Bahamas…it wasn’t much fun, in other words, especially when things had been looking so hopeful.

So, now we’re back to waiting, and hoping someone else will come and take a look at it. On that subject, I was just out of the shower on Wednesday, when there was a knock on the door, and Rubin instantly exploded into frenzied barking. Terry was on the phone to a client at the time, and I couldn’t just let Rubin bark his head off while I answered the door, so I scooped him up (Rubin, I mean, not Terry. If I’d been carrying TERRY, that would definitely have made what was about to transpire a little bit stranger, but honestly, not much…) and rushed downstairs, still in my dressing gown and towel turban, and with Rubin doing his utmost to escape my clutches. I tucked him under one arm, and used the other hand to throw open the door, only to be met with…

…two little girls. Like, less than ten years old, probably.

“Er, excuse me?” one of them said. “I just wondered how much your house is?”

I was a little taken aback by this, to say the least. In all of the scenarios I’ve imagined in which prospective buyers turn up on the doorstep unannounced, I have to say, I’ve never imagined them wearing school uniform. So I stood and stared at these Junior Others, uncomfortably aware that Rubin’s legs were frantically clawing at my dressing gown, which was about to open any second, at which point I would go from simply being The Mad Woman on the street to being The Mad Woman Who Flashes Children. Which would definitely be a downgrade.

“Wow,” I thought, “Either I’m getting REALLY old, or buyers are, like SUPER YOUNG these days!” Then I said the first thing that popped into my head, which just so happened to be the question, “Why, are you interested in buying it?”

Well, the child gave me a really strange look, and honestly, I can’t say I blame her, because there I stood, all wild-eyed and partly-dressed, with a towel on my head and a small, hysterical dog under my arm, asking her if, by any chance, she was thinking of investing in property.

“Actually,” she said, “It’s my mum who’s interested in it, not me. Because I’m ten?”

(She didn’t actually say the last bit. I could tell she thought it, though.)

At that point, thankfully, Terry finished his phonecall and came to my rescue. He took my place at the door, and I slunk off upstairs with Rubin, to spend a few bitter moments wondering if I could possibly have handled the situation any worse than I had. (Conclusion: probably not, but you never know with me…)

I’m guessing that this probably won’t turn out to be the hottest lead on the house, because seriously, who sends their 10-year-old child to negotiate the purchase of their next home, WHO? (Answer: THE OTHERS do, obviously.) Is that a thing now? It is, however, the only lead we have right now, so I’m just going to put it out there that if any other pre-teens are interested in getting their foot on the property ladder, we would be more than happy to show them around.

I promise I will try to wear real clothes this time.

(I also promise that sentence sounded much less creepy in my head…)

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[Jeans c/o 7 for All Mankind // Blazer: Zara // Breton top: Zara kids // Clutch: Dune // Shoes: Primark // Sunglasses: Gucci]

I don’t often wear jeans here on the blog, but I DO actually wear them fairly often in “real life”: in fact, a few years ago, before I got brave enough to start wearing dresses all the time, I wore jeans CONSTANTLY, and it’s really only the fact that I find it so difficult to find pairs I like  that stops me still doing it. Now I come to think of it, if my beloved Dorothy Perkins skinnies hadn’t died, this blog probably wouldn’t exist in its current form, so you can either thank jeans for that fact or curse them for it, depending on how you feel.

These particular jeans were sent to me by 7 for all Mankind, and they’re the ‘Cristen’ skinnies: I picked them mostly because of the mid-rise, which means the waist fits perfectly, unlike low-rise jeans which, without exception, will either give me muffin-top, or will stick out at the back creating a charming “builder’s butt” scenario when I sit down. Man, I hate low-rise jeans. I also liked the fact that the legs are skinny without being legging-like, and although the 32″ inseam means they will obviously have to be hemmed (I’ve just tucked them under for now, because I was impatient to wear them!), that’s par for the course for my short legs, so I’d have been more surprised if it wasn’t the case. These are my second pair of 7s, and once again I was completely enamoured with the soft, stretchy denim, which kind of holds everything in, without making you FEEL like everything’s being held in, if you know what I mean?

Add a Breton top (of which you can never have too many, and don’t let anyone tell you different) and a pair of heels, and you basically have my standard uniform for any time I’m not wearing a dress. Exciting, huh?

*  *  *

In other news, we have someone coming for a second-look at the house tonight, so as soon as I hit publish on this post, I’m off to throw myself into another cleaning frenzy. This would be exciting anyway (the second-viewing, I mean, not the cleaning frenzy. Although I guess it depends what floats your boat…) because let’s face it, you don’t come back for a second look at a house you DON’T like (Do you? As you know, the behaviour of The Others is a mystery to me…), but it’s even more exciting because the person in question told our agent that she’s “really keen”. GULP.

I’d say we’re not getting our hopes up, but honestly, I would be lying, because the hopes are WAY up here, folks, despite our best attempts to batten them down. It’s hard NOT to feel hopeful when the words “really keen” have entered the conversation, isn’t it? The house we’re interested in is still available (which is a miracle in itself, seriously), so if this person were to make a good-enough offer, it would allow us to make an offer on IT… Obviously there are a lot of “ifs” in this scenario, and also a lot of “buts” and “maybes”, and I’m totally getting ahead of myself, because it may all come to nothing, but… keep your fingers crossed for us? If nothing else, at least it would allow me to replace all of the “OMG I AM SELLING MY HOUSE!” posts with “OMG I AM MOVING HOUSE!” ones instead. A change is as good as a rest, you know…

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Since the house has been on the market (Yes, it’s another one of those “I’m selling my house, and I’m going to talk about it forever” posts. Sorry.) we’ve had three sets of potential buyers come to take a look at it.

Now, this was a part of the process I’d been absolutely dreading. I HATED the thought of having to follow The Others around my house, listening to them list all of the things they hate about it, and repeatedly answering the question “But what do you DO with all the SHOOZ?” (Note to self: remember to make up smart comeback to this, so you don’t keep on having to go, “Er, I wear them? On my feet? Am I doing it wrong?”), so I was really pleased when our estate agent told us we didn’t need to be there when they show people around. This works for me: I don’t have to deal with the awkwardness (I have the ability to make even normal situations awkward, so I really hate to think how badly I could screw up a situation that is inherently awkward anyway…), and the prospective buyers don’t have to pretend they’re going to buy our house, just out of politeness. (Which is what I tend to do when I look at houses and the people are in them at the time. If Terry wasn’t there to stop me, I’d probably make an offer on the spot, and end up buying a house I absolutely hated, just because I couldn’t think of a polite way to end the conversation.)

There’s a good side and a bad side to this, though…

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So, as some of you may know, the initial motivation behind us deciding to move house came last year when, after a 6-year absence, Nigel, the International Man of Mystery Next Door, turned up and announced that he was preparing to put his house up for sale.

We were worried. His house shares a wall with ours, and after years of having no neighbours, we were used to the peace and quiet, and didn’t really fancy having to share “our” space with The Others, who would obviously move in with their thumping baselines and their drum-kits  and make our lives a misery. Even if that didn’t happen, and our new neighbours were model citizens, it was the push we needed  to start thinking about moving, and it was the main catalyst which sent us down the path we’ve been on for the past few weeks, of preparing our house to sell and looking at others.

It was almost exactly a year ago that Nigel re-appeared and told us he’d be putting his house on the market soon. But he didn’t. Oh, he did a ton of work on it, but it didn’t go up for sale and then, last autumn, Nigel abruptly disappeared again: until last week, it had been six months since we’d last seen him. We relaxed a bit. He obviously wasn’t in any hurry to sell, and hopefully by the time he WAS ready to sell, we’d be long gone.

Our ’For Sale’ board went up on Monday.

Nigel’s went up today.

In retrospect, there was really no other possible way this could have panned out. Everyone I’ve told so far has said, “I can’t believe it… but then again, actually I can, because that’s just your luck, isn’t it?”

And yeah, it really is. On the one hand, we guess there’s a good chance that anyone who comes to see his house will decide to take a look at ours too, which will hopefully give us a bit of free advertising. Obviously that works both ways, though, and when there are two identical houses, both listed for exactly the same price, but once is empty and just “dressed” for sale, while the other is full of all our stuff (and, you know, US) I know which one I’d go for. Our house is probably going to be hard to sell anyway, (It’s very much a “first-time buyer” home, and with the economy the way it is, it’s quite difficult for new buyers to get mortgages right now) and given the lack of buyers for houses like ours anyway, we’d really rather not be having to compete with the house next door, and the International Man of Mystery within. (Or without, as the case may be…)

Basically, then, after 6+ years of living peacefully, side-by-side with our international mystery man, the time has come for us to go to war with him instead. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, or, to put it another way: IT’S ON, people. We will fight him on the beaches. We will fight him on the suburban lawns. We will fight him in the driveways, and afterwards he will go and meticulously clear his up, and we’ll probably go and open a bottle of wine, because we’re like that. We are footsoldiers in a suburban war: there can be only one victor, and it kind of has to be us, because God knows, those shoes will have to live SOMEWHERE.

The current plan is that any time we see people coming to view the house next door, Terry will run outside and invite them to take a look at ours, too. I’ll be waiting with a tray of cupcakes, a basket of kittens, and a handful of hair-raising tales about all the bodies under the patio next door. “It’s said that those who step over the threshold never return!” I will cackle dramatically, in the manner of a wise old crone. “Would you like another cupcake?”

Now, who wants to bet that Nigel has only done this so that he can make an offer on the house we’re interested in? Anyone?

[P.S. To answer the question that always comes up when the subject of The House Next Door arises: no, we can't just buy Nigel's house, knock down the walls and turn it into a walk-in wardrobe. For once thing, it's not nearly large enough to be my closet, but for another, we can't afford to buy ANY house unless we sell this one first. The houses we've been looking at aren't in this area, but even if we did want to stay here, we'd still have to sell this house in order to buy N's, and then we'd be in exactly the same position, only we'd be living next door. So we'll just have to curse him, unfortunately: it's the only way...]

Oh, look! It’s a strangely blurry photo of me in front of my shoe wall, in this month’s Company Magazine! You should all rush out to buy it (Or, you know, download the digital version for iPad, like I did, because I was too lazy to walk to the shop…) and then write letters to the editor demanding to see more from the redhead with all the SHOOZ. Because you know you want to.

This photo was used as part of a feature on fashion bloggers and their closets. As you can see from my (slightly paraphrased) quote, I declined to provide a photo of my ACTUAL closet, because, trust me, you do NOT want to see that mess. In fact, that walk-in wardrobe I mentioned is the main reason I want to move house right now, not even joking. Speaking of which, remember that house we liked? The one we totally weren’t getting our hopes up about, except we actually were, to the extent of driving past it every week and picking out furniture? THAT house?

Yeah, someone bought it.

Hey, remember that three-week long frenzy of activity, in which we frantically called our mortgage company, repainted the house and FINALLY got around to repairing the mess on the ceiling, caused by the Watergate incident (and which I’d always known we’d only fix if we were selling up), all with the aim of selling our house fast enough to hopefully be able to make an offer on The One?

Yeah, someone bought it on the very day we finally completed that process. OF COURSE they did.

We were gutted, naturally. On the plus side, though, at least I got to go around for a while going, “I TOLD you this would happen! I KNEW we wouldn’t get it! And I was right! Say I was right!” And everyone had to say I was right, because I totally WAS right. I’m hardly ever right about anything, so, at least I got something out of the whole thing. Apparently I’m on a bit of a roll right now, so if you have any predictions you want made, hit me with them! Magic Eightball Amber, she say outlook not so good…

Once I’d worn out everyone’s patience with my I WAS RIGHT proclamations, I plunged into a pit of despair from which I would emerge periodically to once again comb through the property listings and declare that it was no use, because we would NEVER find another house we liked even half as much as that one, and that what would likely happen now would be that someone would buy our house, but we would have nowhere to move to, so we would be forced to build a makeshift shelter out of old shoe boxes or something.

This went on for about three days, at the end of which we went to see another house, and…

We loved it. Uh-oh. Instantly I switched mode from “We will sell our house and have nowhere to go,” to “We will NEVER sell our house, and will be forced to  live here forever, with my shoe collection gradually expanding to every room in the house, and my clothes one day exploding out of the closets and going running down the streets shouting, “WHY MUST SHE TREAT US LIKE THIS?”

So that’s where we’re at, basically. If we do sell this house, I guarantee we will do it on the very day the one we like is sold to someone else. And if we don’t manage to sell this house (Which is the most likely scenario according to my imaginary Magic Eightball), that other one will stick around forever. There will be other houses, though. At least that’s one thing we can take from the events of this week. And I have absolutely no doubt that I will obsess over them all, until finally we find the one that’s destined to be ours.  Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I have some photos of walk-in closets to go and pin…