Home sweet? Home

Did I mention we were moving house? Picture the scene if you will - we live in a small two bedroomed split level flat. The kind that is perfect for a single girl with a flatmate or a couple with no kids or well - anyone but a family of 3. Sproglet's toys take up half the living room. His new game is to hide things - my Origins lotion to secure a good nights slumber has been missing now for 3 weeks and my huge bags tell the story - and somehow everything is on a low level, just perfect for his grubby wee hands to reach. My biggest bug bear - the kitchen. Oh sweet jesus the kitchen sends me into a rage that would rival Daniel's Oscar winning turn in 'there will be Blood.' There very nearly is blood every time I enter that domain. It is small, cramped, with one cupboard to hold everything under the sun utensil wise and one other food storage cupboard that doesn't open well as the door hits the boiler. In said food cupboard is a balancing display that would put a circus troop to shame - but every time I reach for a spice or some raisins for sproglet the threat of an avalanche of tins and rice showering me from every which way engulfs me. To say it is precarious to take out a mere tin of beans is a gross understatement. I am almost taking my life in my hands.

The floor is old black slate tiles now stained and old and shabby. Cracks abound around the badly put-in sink where rivers of water have begun to flow beneath, creating more cracks in the fake granite surface. Oh I could whinge about this room until next year. You get the drift - I hate it. To compound everything - my view is one of a gorgeous London train track and a newly built council building that is a huge yellow monstrosity packed into a space barely big enough to contain it. The kind council began the excavations for it the very day I brought sprog home from the hospital - so I languished in 37 degree heat, in a small top floor flat, with concrete mixers and drills playing a merry tune all day. It was the closest I have ever come to a Michael Jackson kid out a window moment when I er...hung out a window screaming 'wanker!' to a poor truck driver who beep-beeped his way up and down our tiny cul-de-sac 24/7. No wonder Bob the Builder brings me out in hives...

I have wanted out of the greyness of London and the confinement of my flat for so so long. So finally this year - I took the bull by the horns or the estate agent by the balls - and found a beautiful house in a gorgeous little market town half an hour on the train from London. I fell hook line and sinker for this blissful oasis - the rolling views, the big basement to stuff husband and sproglet and all their junk in, the heated floor tiles in the bathroom - I could go on. And the kitchen!! It has drawers!! A dish washer!! The drawers glide as they close and then silently shut. Honestly it is the closest I have come to an orgasm in a while. So we put in an offer - they put the price up - we haggled - I pretended I didn't want it at all - lied, played the game, danced around and lo and behold - it was ours! We are now steeped in mortgage hell and on tenterhooks that it will all come together.

Hopefully we will exchange in 2 weeks and then move in 4. It cannot come soon enough for me. Except.... There is of course a but. I have no money. I have been living of my flat equity for about oh, 8 months now? Maybe more. So I need to get a job pronto. Or else we cannot pay the mortgage on our dream house. So I have less than 6 weeks to - get a job, pack up the flat,sort mortgages, move house, unpack, get a car, furnish new house,clean both properties, get flat ready to rent out, find tenants for the flat and start new job! Phew. How does this make me feel? Stressed to within an inch of my life I tell you. If I didn't dye my hair blonde I am sure it would be grey. After my meeting with Mr BBC drama big wig the other week I thought at last my plant would bear fruit - but it remains a dried up old shell. I thought an opening - MY opening - the one I have waited a year for, would be coming up this very week -but it appears to have been filled INTERNALLY!!! Arrrrgggggggghhhhhhh.

A few weeks ago I wrote that I was at the end of my tether. I lied. I hadn't even gone half way. NOW I am there. On vacation hopefully. But it feels like I am bedded in. Don't get me started on our little visit to a furniture store yesterday when I tried to pick sofa materials, sproglet ran around changing the price tags on everything (I noticed one couple delighted to see a dining table at a mere £125) and then waddled towards me with his hands covered in bright red paint. Turns out they were painting a wall in store and sproglet had discovered the paint tray and decided kindly to help. Thank god his dunked mitts didn't make contact with any fancy sofa or I would have disowned him there and then. Husband went for every leather option and began a battle over which room he had 'the power of veto' over. By the time we left I didn't know whether I wanted a gin or a divorce.

So buckle up - these next few weeks are going to be an interesting ride. I have no idea where it will all lead - but I wish we could swop places. Now where did I put that tonne of camomile tea?