Completion day

I went to work as usual for the morning, in a miserly attempt to conserve my stores of leave for the year (which, frankly, are in no need of that level of care). Around half past ten I got the call telling me completion had gone off without a hitch and I could collect the key from the estate agent any time I liked, so at lunchtime I went out and did so.

Went into the house around 3pm; the previous owners and their extended family were still hanging around clearing out the last few bits and bobs, but that was vaguely useful because it let them show me how all the locks worked and where the non-obvious stuff was. Went in, measured a few things I hadn't got round to measuring already, faffed a bit, went home again.

And then I panicked. There was no other word for it, really. Somehow, during that visit, I'd managed to give myself the impression that it was actually an incredibly grotty and unpleasant place and I'd just spent mumble-hundred-and-mmph thousand pounds on a thoroughly disgusting house and it was far too late to back out. I think in retrospect that this was a combination of several factors, notably the fact that I spent a disproportionate amount of my visit in the really nasty bits (mainly the loft, and I imagine lofts are always nasty) and the fact that I felt a bit cramped by the previous owners still being there, plus lots of pent-up stress venting itself from the long purchasing process itself. Whatever the cause, the effect was that I spent an hour sitting at home thinking things like ‘arrgh, what have I done?’; but then when I went back this evening with Mum it was fine. I think it must just have been nerves.

So, tomorrow Dad's coming up to look over the place and (almost certainly) give me reams and reams of assorted advice; some time next week some furniture and stuff will start to arrive; one of the upstairs rooms might actually need preemptive redecoration (or conceivably thermonuclear rehabilitation); and at some point after all that I need to arrange to actually move in.

It's almost beginning to be exciting now.