Yesterday was the official end date of my tenancy at my previous flat. Therefore, today is the first day in just over ten years during which I am not renting any kind of living space.

For the last year or two I've been feeling almost oppressed by the knowledge that a sizable chunk of my monthly income was being effectively poured down the drain, or at least contributing to someone else's capital assets rather than my own. It's been a constant feeling of guilt and discomfort, pressing down on the back of my neck. In response to that feeling (and a number of other factors too, of course, but that feeling of oppression was a major one) I have spent nearly a year working towards this day. So I had expected to feel at least slightly triumphant, or relieved, or at the very least marginally less oppressed.

But, unfortunately, I still just feel as if I've got a pages-long list of things to do in the new house. In twenty-five years I will have a capital asset which I otherwise wouldn't have had, but right now I've just exchanged one lot of oppressive guilt for another. Ah well.