New Home

And so the house move saga comes to an end and a new chapter in the lives of the Bagnalls begins. Yes, Friday 1st November (two weeks after we exchanged contracts) we completed and took possession of our new home, while still retaining possession of our old home.

House moves are very rarely straightforward but this has seen its fair share of twists and turns.

We first saw the house on Monday 13th May 2013 (another 13 to add to the various 13s following us about this year – no triskaidekaphobia here) and fell in love with it. It was the first and only house that we saw that we liked for both the house itself and its location. Although far from perfect (is there such a thing?) it ticked a considerable number of boxes, including the majority of our major boxes but was over budget. We chatted about it and decided to go above our budget and put a cheeky offer in. Not surprisingly the offer was rejected but we were in no position to increase or indeed make any kind of counter-offer for we did not have a buyer for our property, so we sat and waited.

A couple of weeks later, the sellers had not had an offer on the property (and neither had we) and they said that they would be prepared to accept a lower offer than our cheeky offer, if we could start the purchase ball rolling. Unfortunately, we didn’t have an offer on our house so that opportunity passed us by.

Then we had a day of mixed emotions. An offer was made on our house that we accepted but on the same weekend an offer was made on the house that we were buying that blew us out of the water, we simply could not match it. At that moment it looked like we were going to be homeless with our buyers looking for a quick sale (which suited us too) and no house suitable for us to buy.

Then the twists of twists. Two days after accepting the offer on our house BAA submitted a new proposal to the Airports Commission (the Davies Commission) for the expansion of Heathrow Airport. Stanwell Moor is nestled between Staines Moor, the western section of the M25, the King George VI Reservoir and Heathrow Airport and as such has been encroached before by the construction of the reservoir, the construction of the M25 and, more recently, the construction of Heathrow’s Terminal 5. The South West expansion proposal however was the first time that it has been threatened directly. The South West expansion proposal for the third runway at Heathrow airport will see the complete destruction of Stanwell Moor, the village that the Cathralls have called home for the last 50-odd years. Obviously this is only a proposal, one of nearly 50 that affect the South East of England, and there is no reason to believe it will be the one that the Airports Commission give their backing to (indeed that backing will not come for any of the proposals until at least 2015) nevertheless it is a sword of Damocles hanging over the village.

In complete fairness to our buyers they investigated the situation thoroughly including calling council members and the Heathrow commission hotline. However, they decided that it was a risk they were not willing to take (and I can understand that, as they were moving into the area and as such have no emotional ties to Stanwell Moor) and thus pulled out of the purchase.

This now left us with no house to buy and a house that no one was likely to buy.

There was still time for one more twist. The chain for the alternate buyers was looking decidedly dodgy and the sellers were becoming nervous and they asked if we could up our offer and they would then go with us. We still had no buyer for our house and we could not match the other offer but we spoke to a financial adviser to seek the possibility of releasing equity in our current house by turning it into a buy-to-let (or strictly ‘let-to-buy’) and scraped all our investments together and put in a final offer. The sellers spent a couple of days mulling the options over and decided to go with us. The rest, they say, is history! We have the house that we wanted but have become reluctant landlords in order to realise that dream. Assuming we can rent the property out without too many void periods or anything going tragically wrong then we should be fine, at least in the short term. Depending on the Airports Commission decision this may either be a short experiment or a potential pension investment. If we can’t rent it out or the void periods start adding up it could be a money pit that bankrupts us. Life for the Bagnalls is never boring!

So it is goodbye Stanwell Moor, hello Staines-Upon-Thames (yes, this is its official name!).

Peace and Love

Baggie

Stanwell Moor

The Bagnall’s first home

Bagnall manor

This was meant to have been posted before we went on holiday, but life got in the way and so this post is very belated. Apologies, but it will mean that you will possibly have 3 (if life doesn’t get in the way again) updates in the next week or so.

The second and third weeks of October were emotional, pivotal, exciting and to top it all, the week that our oldest child celebrated her fifth birthday. Yes, five years ago we became parents when Éowyn came into our lives. I probably write this every year and will do for years to come, but it does not seem like five minutes ago that I first held her in my arms. So, need I explain the first sentence a little more?

Emotional – obviously with the passing of my Nan at the beginning of the week.

Exciting – My 40th birthday present and the track day in the Ariel Atom.

I have missed one haven’t I?

Pivotal – The most pleasant of the big news stories of the last couple of weeks is that we have exchanged on our new home. The remortgage on our current home is through and so the monies can be transferred and the 10% deposit paid and the contracts can be exchanged. We complete on the 1st November and the 5 months of an emotional rollercoster is easing into the station. Yes, there will be the small matter of making the new place a home, no to mention the packing, moving and unpacking that we are yet to face but positive moves are afoot and we can let ourselves believe that it is actually going to happen! But the gory details of the move will be a subject for another update what have we missed since the last update about the Bagnall household?

As you may recall from the write up entitled Amélie’s Third Birthday Éowyn’s N.C.T. group 5th birthday party was held at Alice Holt but unfortunately due to work commitments I was unable to go. Therefore with an rare Sunday off we decided to head to Alice Holt for a family day out. To make it a little bit more fun we told my university friends Charlie and Mel hoping that their boys and our girls would have someone new to play with. When we woke that Sunday morning the heavens had opened and it was heavily raining. Undaunted we still headed to Alice Holt and so, too, did Charlie and Mel. Thus the two families trudged through the rain and the mud, with wellies and waterproofs, you have to be prepared. We headed to Charlie and Mel’s for coffee and cake before heading back home with two very tired girls. It was good to see Charlie and Mel and hopefully we will have better weather next time we meet up.

Éowyn’s actual birthday was a little subdued. Being a weekday she was at school. Unfortunately we may have set a bit of a precedent with taking cakes and sweets (Éowyn’s insistence) for her classmates. Although I was at work, I managed to get out a little early and headed to Nanny and Granddad’s for a birthday tea with Uncle Michael, Auntie Cristina and Lauren and Maddie in addition to the Bagnalls and Nanny and Granddad. As ever she was spoilt with presents and thoroughly enjoyed her birthday cake that Nanny Fran had sent down with me earlier in the week.

Nanny Fran had planned to surprise Éowyn and come down on her birthday and stop the night. Unfortunately with Nan’s (Great Grandma’s) passing on the Monday before Éowyn’s birthday, Nanny Fran was unable to come down as she had a lot of organising to do and Nan’s affairs to put in order. As Éowyn didn’t know that Nanny Fran was coming down, she was not disappointed but nevertheless Nanny Fran was and so will have to make amends in a couple of weeks.

Éowyn has grown up considerably over the last couple of months and this is obviously due to school. With half-term approaching her love of education is not diminishing. It probably helps that she is one of the oldest children in the year and she is also gregarious and quite clever. She has received a number of stickers for good work and two certificates for being a ‘superstar‘ the first with explaining what a repeating pattern is and the second for reading. Yes, our little girl can now read (one of the first in the class to progress to reading – very proud parents). She also received a certificate for perfect attendance.

This information is not just second hand, we have received it first hand from Éowyn’s teacher when we had our first ‘proper’ parents’ evening. Miss Finbow spoke very highly of Éowyn, she said that not only is Éowyn academically bright but that she brightens the room with her presence. She will organise games with the other children and has learned to share and think about the other children, something she has demonstrated on a number of occasions. Miss Finbow said that there was nothing we needed to be worried about but just to continue the things we do with Éowyn to help develop her reading. We told Miss Finbow that we would be moving shortly and so we are concerned that it may affect Éowyn and she said that she would keep a close eye on Éowyn and report if she thinks that it is having any adverse effects on our eldest. She did say a nice thing in reply to our news though, almost pleading with us not to take Éowyn out of the school as she would miss her.

It is a shame that Amélie isn’t quite as well behaved. She has been a little naughty (although still cute with her naughtiness) of late. It is probably due to the upheaval in her life at the moment. She is no longer the baby of the family, Ezra has taken that accolade. She is going to school but only twice a week while Éowyn goes everyday. Also Éowyn is getting a lot of praise with her school work, she has a birthday and then three weeks later Éowyn has a birthday.

This culminated in Amélie having a poo on the bathroom floor. Not sure why she didn’t go to the toilet, or indeed the potty that was in her room but when we asked her why she had done it, she denied that it was her. Not only did she deny that it was her but blamed an imaginary friend, not her imaginary friend but one of Éowyn’s!

In Amélie’s defence, she has been very well behaved at school (nursery) and is enjoying going which is a great turnaround considering at the beginning of September she was nearly apoplectic with the notion of going. Now, she positively runs up the path eager to spend the day at TinyTots.

Before I leave you for the day a quick update on Ezra. His crawling has gone from Ninja rolling to crawling backwards to zooming around the house getting under your feet. He has also started to pull himself up on the furniture; not quite to his feet but to his knees, somehow I doubt it will not be long before he will progress to standing – then the trouble will begin.

Not the greatest selection of photos below, for which I apologise but rest assured there will be plenty uploaded to Flickr in the next week or so.

Peace and Love

Baggie