I’m not the best at anniversaries, I usually forget them or ignore them, pretty well – however, I do remember the 23rd July, 1986, because it was the day we moved into this house.

I loved the house where we used to live and it was a wrench to leave, yet it was at my suggestion we moved here.  I put others first, dammit.  And there was a fair bit of work to do, my in-laws having taken the perfectly sensible route that it would all see them out.  So we had the house rewired, a new roof, new kitchen and so on.  Fortunately, we were able to stay in our old house while this was being done.

We had sold it to someone we knew, a local antique dealer.  He and his wife had a little girl of about Ro’s age and they used to play together sometimes.  When they heard that we were selling, they asked to come and look, they liked the house, we agreed a price and shook hands – and that was that.  The months went by and Russell and I were a little concerned.  As far as we were concerned, a handshake was a binding commitment, but we’d have thought they’d be in touch.  However, finally they phoned, and it turned out that a handshake was as binding a deal for them as it was for us.

Back here, however things were less committed.  We had agreed to move out a week early, to enable them to start their move and any redecorating etc they wanted to do. And here I have to stop, because I’m so tired that I can’t type.