A New Home

The Bungalow, the two on the left are the day we moved in in March 1972, on the right a couple of weeks later.

Well it's been a while. A few reasons really. The main one being we are no longer Bungalow bound, we moved to a house! The blog will remain as the Bungalow Blues though, that's it's name and it's used to it now!

I know I've mentioned before that we were intending to extend the Bungalow. We'd got our planning permission, we were very excited, we'd planned for it for at least 8 years and had lived in a compromised way for a long time - "shall we replace that?", "shall we decorate this?"...the answer was always - there's no point we're going to get "the extension"! However, the reality in the end was that "the extension" wasn't feasible and we had to look at alternatives.

The new house lit up at night time

I spotted the new house back in June and we went to see it in secret, as soon as I walked in I knew I was going to live there, but it would be another two hair raising months before we got the bungalow on the market and then an amazing thing happened. The estate agent came on the Saturday, we got a call on Tuesday to arrange a viewing (before we knew it had gone on the internet), they came on Friday put an offer in almost immediately, we accepted, we put our offer in, it was accepted, we waited and about 10 weeks later we moved without any hassle at all....well there was the delivery guys going to the wrong house and not bringing a big enough lorry and the fridge rolling down the garden...but otherwise all OK. Of course we have bought someone else's 40 year old house, so there are lots of things to do and deal with - broken boilers, gas leaks, narrowly averted flood, but now we can just get on and get things sorted. And as for the bungalow..it's in very good hands...and it's getting all the attention it deserves now.

A phase!

First turntable on my 13th birthday

Snowflake, the first pet I was responsible for.

I lived in the bungalow from 1972 when it was built to 1987 during which time I started school, met my best friend - we are still friends now, attended secondary school, went to art college, had my first boyfriend who lived on the street, got my first turntable, the first pet I was responsible for, went through some phases, gained and lost a business. When I moved out, I returned most weekends for laundry purposes and dinners and of course to see my parents! In 2001 we had our wedding reception there and then I returned to make it my family home with my husband and cat (and 2 years later - baby) in 2002, which means it was my home for about 25 years all in all, but I don't feel sad to have left it behind now, I will miss the people, we had wonderful neighbours, but I am so excited that we finally have a house that's not my husbands history, not my history but ours to make our own, to write our own stories.

Cutting the cake in the living room

Getting grown up..

..with grown up stuff!

It's all coming together now, we have been getting some very grown up furniture...I feel in danger of becoming a grown up..I always wondered how it would happen. We've bought our first sofa as a couple after just 23 years together!

Here's hoping that we make as many happy memories in the future as we made in the past.....we're doing our best.....friends and family have already been entertained, we've discovered the local pub and Bob...remember Bob....we found a hole and disappeared into the floorboards last weekend so I don't think stories will be a problem!

Bob, trying to chill out, you can still see the evidence of the cardboard boxes in the background!