Winter is weird this year.
It's 0 degrees C outside today with 'light drizzle' on December 23rd.
Normally we would be looking at a maximum of about -10 with temps down to minus 20 or lower at night, but this year winter has so far been really kind to us. We have had a couple of nice snow showers, but the snow is only about a cm deep and with the warm weather, the roads and pavements are pretty clear. It's a nice change from last year when we had huge amounts of snow.
It also means that when Spring arrives - in about 2 months, even if we have had a shitty January, it will have been a nice short winter.
I am not going to talk any more about the weather and in the episode I also am not going to mention the kids much. Instead, I will fill you in on the big news we have.....we are moving house!
Just two weeks ago Buffy was scrolling around the local house for sale, as she often does, looking at ideas for things to do in our house, when she came across a house just by Hannahs school, about a 5 minute walk away. Most of the houses in our neighbourhood (Wolseley) are built close to the house next door and most only have a little outdoor space for the kiddos to play in. But this house was different. It was on the corner and had no house right next to it on either side. What probably happened is when it was built the owners bought 2 lots and kept one as their garden. So this is a house on a street corner, with a big garden to one side of it (Remind anyone of 90 Moss Vale Road?)
The house had been flipped by a realtor, over the last few months and is pretty much ready to move into. It's almost the same layout as our house now, but ever so slightly larger, but also with a finished attic - so a huge open space for a great bedroom, office and tv space all combined into one!
We took a look with our favorite realtor Morwenna and knew we had to delve deeper, so a couple of days later we got a house inspection done and when the inspector told us he would let hs daughter live in te house, we knew we had to make an offer - Even though we weren't looking at moving.
So a couple if quick calls to the bank and we had a verbal confirmation that we could get the money if we needed it.
Then a quick play with some scenarios and spreadsheets gave up an idea of what we could afford and just 72 hours after seeing the house online we had put in our offer.
House selling over here works entirely differently than in the UK. Over here a house goes up for sale and has a date, normally less than a week, where buyers put in an offer. All offers are opened a couple of days later and presented to the seller, who then decides which offer to take and there is still a bit of back and forth as offers can be increased if things are looking close. So in the space of 45 minutes, we had a lot of back and forth between us and Morwenna and the selling realtor before we found out our offer was accepted and we had the house! Then we found a lawyer, got the paperwork signed and agreed on a date of Jan 22nd, to get possession! It's all a bit like a crazy roller coaster.
It was really cute when we told the kids because they didn't understand what it meant. They thought they would leave everything behind in the old house. So when Hannah asked if she could take her stuffies and we said yes, she was a bit happier. Then she listed her bed, her clothes, the toys and everything else in the house. After we said yes to them all, that we could take them she was ready to go!!
Anyway, here's a few shots of the new house -
I didn't mention that it's also across the street from a kid's park - in fact one of our kid's favourites parks! So that's good too.
Now all we have to do is work out what to do with our old house. We are lucky enough to not need to sell it, so have been looking to rent it out to help pay the new mortgage. It's been a whirlwind few days but just last night we had some good friends pop around to take a look and to be honest, they absolutely loved our little house - just like we do - and agreed very quickly to move in at the end of January. So apart from the paperwork, it's all sorted out. In just 12 days we have seen, and bought a house and got tenants for our old one! We move between 22 and 26 Jan, they move in on 31 Jan/1 Feb and everyone is a winner.
We will miss our little house here in Westminster and we will definitely miss our fantastic neighbours - especially Mike and Janis on one side and Paula on the other side even more. We have such a good group of friends and neighbours here that we can't move and not stay in touch with them all. Also as we are actually keeping the house there's every chance that in a few years we, or the kids, might actually downsize and move back in! This house is like one of the family now and we are so happy for our new tenants They are at the same stage of life we were at when we moved in 8 years ago and I know they will create so many great memories here!
Buffy and I did allow ourselves an evening out to celebrate everything, so here's a photo of us raising our glasses to the house, to our friends and family and to you.... Take whichever one of these seasons' greetings and make it yours......
'Happy Holidays', 'Merry Christmas', 'May your days be merry and bright' or just 'hello'.
Thanks for reading and see you in the new year!!!
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