Fancy a country life?

As always in my life, when things happen they all happen at the same time!
Hubby and I have desired to move to bigger premises and to a more countrified area. Well, if things go according to plan then there is a good chance of that happening sooner than later.
I am the sort of person who cannot sit still when I’ve made a decision to change things around me. Since we started this discussion about moving house, I scoured every property page in East Devon. I even surfed the internet for properties around the county. There was one though that stood out—mainly it was within our price range and it had the minimum four bedrooms). It was also located near Colyton where my in laws live. The house is situated within a small village (one pub, one post office, one shop, one petrol station, one tiny church and a primary school). We requested for the property’s fact sheet and upon seeing it decided to go for a viewing.

Hubby has not been as driven as I am about house hunting because we haven’t even had our house on the market yet. But I am the impatient kind and I hate procrastinating. Anyway, we explained our situation with the estate agent and we were surprised to hear that the vendor agreed to a viewing! We went on Saturday, all the time hubby telling me not to get excited and all that. I was really relaxed by that time because when I show any form of excitement I am always reminded not to get my hopes too high. That takes the excitement out of me. I think it is an English thing…not showing any emotion, not getting too “het” up about things, be calm and collected (sigh).

The vendor was quite pleasant. They are moving because they want to move into a bungalow, they’re into their 70s. I was prepared to walk out in about 10 minutes and forget about the property. However, while he was showing us around I noticed hubby getting quite interested. The house has all the mod cons of daily life. It is just five years old…it has a downstairs toilet (we call it cloakroom here), a good sized utility room with proper sink and table top, stacks of storage space, open fire in the lounge room, the kitchen and dinning are in one big room and they look out to uninterrupted view of the Devon countryside. The back garden backs onto an open field. No neighbours there!

Upstairs there were three good sized rooms, an ensuite in the master bedroom, a family bathroom and stacks of storage space again. Then comes the best part. The stairs lead up to a huge attic. It is now used as a study and additional bedroom. It could be divided into two rooms actually but it is brilliant as one big room. By this time I knew hubby was seeing himself in that room (he later referred to it as the “den”). Well, it was indeed a wonderful house in a very quiet country village, very rural indeed, a far cry from what we were used to. It is also on an elevated position, top of the hill and has a separate garage.

We stayed talking to the vendor for over an hour. They talked about golf, rugby and sports—men talk. We then went to my in laws’ house and discussed it with them. On Sunday, hubby called the vendor and put in an offer on the house. The following day I discussed our plans with our mortgage company. If things work out right, we’ll be paying 10% down payment on the house to seal in the sale and would pay the rest upon sale of our house.

Why are we getting a mortgage when we have none? Well for the simple reason that the house we hope to buy is more expensive (for obvious reasons) than the house we have now. We need extra cash to buy the property and a lot of that would also go into (guess what) taxes, solicitors fees, estate agents fees and stamp duty!!!! Welcome to the UK!

We are keeping our fingers crossed that everything will go according to plan. But as the English would say, don’t get too excited about it. I am keeping real calm about it but it is almost a dream come true—perfect location, fantastic views (rolling hills in front, unending fields at the back) and very quiet. This could be the first time in my life that I will not be living within a city or town. I wonder how it is going to affect me. I’ve always wanted this and now I can almost touch it. I cannot get excited. It is against the rules (hahahaha). I will update you on this later. Watch this space.

Socialised medicine

I took hubby to hospital for his surgery on Tuesday. The surgeons decided to do two skin grafts instead of one and they took skin from his inner thigh. I took him home yesterday as well but last night was a bit messy especially when he started to bleed all over the place. He called me at work this morning informing me that he had to go to our local medical centre to have his wounds seen to. He also said he had to wash the bedsheets as they were covered in blood. He’s in pain but he’s very strong and healthy—he’ll manage this. Actually, I am grateful that Hubby comes from a robust stock. He’s hardly sick and aside from these skin cancers he’s in top shape for his age.

One thing I like about socialised medicine is, for instance, yesterday’s procedure was free c/o the NHS. We checked in for Hubby’s appointment, they led us to a proper ward (beds and all), a nurse explained the procedure in detailed to him, a couple of surgeons explained further, they took him to theatre (operating room) and brought him back to the ward where I was waiting. It was all straightforward. There was even some nice relaxing music in the ward! I also like our hospital here in Devon, which fortunately is one of the top 10 in the country. We’re very lucky here in Devon. When Hubby felt he was ready to go home we just walked out. All his future appointments made for him by the head nurse. Now I understand why lots of illegal migrants would like to live here in the UK and take advantage of the health system.