Our House

......in the middle of our street ..........(OK ..... so you have to know the song !)


As the last blog was about the flat, I thought this one should be about my home now - because this also has quite a story behind it !


Way, way back in the early 90's, the region on the river side of this area, was being developed -  although most of it had already been built upon - a new cul de sac emerged.


We still lived in the flat with Jess and Gina but regularly used to go house "window shopping". For the majority of the time we knew we could not afford the houses we looked at ... but we could dream ...... and think about the possibilities that may be available in the future.


I think I may have been pregnant with Dan at the time when we looked at the show home down this cul-de-sac. This show home was a 3 bedroomed one that had already been built but the rest of the area was a building site ... so we took away the site plans. 


Mark said something on the lines of - "WOW - look at that corner plot - that house has a great patch of land, and what a view"


Somehow that stuck .......... even while he was still alive, we carried on our weekend hobby - looking at other sites and new homes but none of them seemed to match up to our dream location - backing onto the river, close enough to all amenities and a nice quiet closed road for the kids to play in.


Then he was in the accident.


The house hunting hobby stopped completely. I was stuck in our one bedroomed flat on a weekly Widowed Mother's Allowance ..... with very little hope for moving on my agenda.


Unbeknown to me ...... at the same time, the original building firm that owned the site had gone bankrupt - 16 houses had been built .......... but they left 5 empty plots........... including the right hand corner plot.


I was progressing through the whole legal process - yes there was compensation due - and believe me that took its toll ....... 3 years of trawling through paperwork and tracing people Mark had worked with. Claim and rejection, re-negotiation and heartache.


He died in August 1993. By the spring of 1996 things were looking fairly promising, on the financial front. We had a date for the hearing at the Old Bailey and I was beginning to get a bit desperate to move out ........ the girls were 7 and 5 and Dan was 3, yet they were still sharing the bedroom. PLUS ....... my back was killing me from sleeping on a sofa bed for 3 years !!!!!


So I optimistically began looking at houses again - I had a pretty good idea of the money I may be able to put down and really wanted a new build ....... so looked at the property section of the papers.


To my amazement there was an advert for new houses in the cul-de-sac ..... OMG ......... for the same 3 years as I had been in grief and limbo - the site had been left - there had been a recession - and a new buyer had only just purchased the site .......... to finish the last 5 houses.


I would have enough money ..... when the claim came through ........ I was so happy - that very plot that Mark and I had dreamed about together could actually be mine !!!!!


I visited the nearly finished house ........ and put in an offer with the builder!          
BUT nothing is simple is it !!


The court date was put back ......... and then another couple put in a higher offer ...... I was gutted .......... it felt like the dream home was slipping out of my hands.


Thankfully I had family --------- where would I be without them ---------- 2 members of my family in particular gave more than just moral support and encouraged me to raise my offer and deal with the court delay (and subsequent delay of any payment) in due course. I was supported in an application for an interim payment (which was successful) and supported financially (for until the compensation claim was completed)


The builder took my offer and agreed NOT to accept a higher one (from the other couple) in exchange for a quick sale.  


OUR dream home was actually "ours" !


We moved in, in the August/September of that year ...... the compensation claim was finally completed around the same time and life ......... started another journey.