Pastures New..

Here I am on a beautiful and bright Saturday morning, ready to whizz off to Shoreham, which is not too far up the coast, more or less half way between Brighton and Worthing. I have been looking around the whole area for a few weeks now, and have settled on Shoreham because it is a nice little town with s character of its own, and a feeling of community which is lamentably absent from the "suburbs" of Brighton and Hove. This feeling is most important for me - I've lived in truly urban settings for the last
27 years (15 in Cambridge and now 12 here) and before that I was in the country, or in a village and all of those I loved, but I'm afraid the suburbs give me the creeps. I dread twitching lace curtains (or lace curtains of any kind really) and the kind of secret watchfulness that seems to typify the suburbs, Maybe it comes from having grown up in a very suburban area, and then escaping to London, where I lived and worked very happily in the kind of obscurity that Londoners seem to create effortlessly. It's not that they don't care  about everyone else,  just that they get on with their lives in a kind of bubble and don't concern themselves with the rest of the world unless it makes its presence felt.
   Anyway, off to Shoreham this morning to look at a little house I had first seen last week. It's not perfect, and let's face it what is? But in a nice position and with a sunny, grassy piece of garden in the front. Small - but most places would be after this; I have three bedrooms, three bathrooms, three reception rooms and a kitchen, balcony and garden. Too much really, plus a lot of stairs. And a lot of cleaning. Today I went back to the little house (which needs a lot of work), taking the most negative friend I have, so that I could get all the pros and cons sorted out. And it turns out there are more cons than pros - at least today!! It's so hard to make up my mind, and I expect I'll feel differently again tomorrow.
   At least my house is sold, and to a cash buyer, so I'm hoping it will go through smoothly. Oh it's bound to be a trying and stressful time but I do believe it will all be fine in the end, fingers crossed.