Limbo Land

Everything is still. Waiting. Quiet. Even the opened daffodils - big, loud, yellow trumpets - stand silently in the thin cylindrical glass vase on the kitchen table.

The fruit bowl's contents are over ripe and ageing. A pear has a squashed bottom like it's wearing a sodden nappy. Three bananas are blemished with leopard spots. There are apples - Eden's rejects - beyond temptation, their wrinkly skins predicting dry, unappetising first bites - their cores probably browning with unflappable demise.    

And I'm sat in a kind of limbo - not quite here, not quite there.

In fact we all are - Younger Dad, Little A and I.

I try to ignore the peevish whispers from the bookshelves 'pack me, pack me, pack me.' And I know how they feel - it's time to leave - to move into the new chapter of our lives, a brand new home for our family of three.   

When will the contracts exchange? It's just paper twiddling and signing dotted lines damn it. 

I am not made of patient stuff.

And Little A is both excited and confused, vacillating between 'mummy I'm going to live near my cousants (cousins)' and 'mummy I don't want to leave our flat.' There have been numerous nocturnal awakenings, although I suspect I layer her with too many warm blankets - it's hard keeping track with this mild-cold-mild-freezing weather. Then there is her concept of moving, 'mummy, can I take my toys with me when the big truck comes?' 'Sweet heart,' I reply, 'you can take ALL your toys and ALL your teddies,' reassuring her with dramatic emphasis on ALL. 'Oh sank you (thank you), sank you so much mummy!'

Yesterday, I invited her to join me in a spring sort out of her toys. Save for a few baby board books, a wooden boat, and plastic hammer and nail set, she refused to relinquish anything. Can't say I blame her - it wasn't good timing on my part. At the moment, Little A needs familiarity around her, even if it's the comforting relics she's neither seen nor played with in over two years.  

But I know she's going to be just fine...

'Hello, I'm Little A, what's your name?' She asks a platinum blond forty something woman - maybe I should go that colour? - sat to her left at the only che' che' cafe in Croxley Green.'What are you having for lunch today?' The woman turns to the little person on her right. She smiles warmly, taken aback by Little A's chutzpah, and engages my daughter about the weather and her slice of cake.

Already winning friends and influencing people.

'Mummy - loooook - I'm doing dressing up and drawing,' a shrill voice calls as I'm filling out the registration forms at her new pre-school - only a minute walk from our new home. Those contracts better exchange soon. When I look up, my eyes work hard at locating her. Ahhh there she is. I spot her in a pirates outfit painting yogurt pots alongside the other children.

She's going to enjoy living here....    

'We're seeing three childminders today,' she says to the first childminder we meet, 'can I do some painting now?' Paint brush in hand, Little A makes a colourful mess at a table in a sunlit conservatory. I carry on with the interview - she's very friendly, flexible, loaded with qualifications. Half way through, a little voice pipes up, 'can you read to me now?' The minder chooses a Barbie book - not my preferred choice - and proceeds reading about the size zero doll's morning routine.

She's not backwards in coming forwards.

'Can I have some lunch - can I have cheese on toast too?' Only ten minutes earlier, we'd arrived at the second childminder's home just as she was preparing food. 'Of course you can - settle yourself in a chair,' the minder replies. Little A sits herself at the kitchen table. She's accompanied by a baby in a high chair and the minder's very wilful daughter - same age as Little A - strapped in a booster seat. Little A is presented with beautifully cut melted cheese triangles - an alternating combination of cheddar and red leicester - positioned just so, overlapping, around the edge of the plate. In the middle, there's a delicate arrangement of salad  leaves, tomatoes and cucumber like the air is carrying them. These are toddlers you're feeding. A heated exchange erupts. 'You're strapped in... you're strapped in.... potatoes bobatoes...you're strapped in.' 'No I'm not, I'm sitting in a normal chair,' retorts Little A. 'You're strapped in.... You're strapped in.' 'No I'm not,' Little A dismounts her chair and walks to the other end of the table, 'See, look, I'm not strapped in.' The minder and I are thinking the same thing - this clash can never happen again. Ever.

She can stand up for herself.

--------------

So we have much in place - a preschool, a childminder*, the removal firm - preparing Little A for her new life as a home counties girl. But until we have the keys to our new home, we're inhabiting a sort of a domestic no mans land. Hurry up solicitors, get a blinking move on would you!

In the mean time, I'll water the daffodils and buy some fresh fruit.

*We chose the third childminder - the one with an extra assistant, well selected books and mellow pre-schoolers.

SOLD

Selling our flat has been a rather push-me pull-you undertaking, one that has involved the wrong paint, a brand new rug and dog poo...

The long winding road to SOLD began during the initial weeks and months of 2012; every room, crack and crevice was cleared of clutter - including a rather dusty 1970's coffee percolator - then shipped, and dumped in bungalow-sized containers labelled 'glass', 'plastic', 'cardboard', 'clothes'. The percolator was abandoned on a wobbly trestle table in the rain. I hope it found shelter in an antique shop, made good and over priced for resale, or now proudly displayed in a museum cabinet of note. Sadly, it's probably rubbing shoulders with soiled nappies and rusted spoons in landfill.

Then things went quiet....

June. The porch and path were re-tiled, and a brand new front door fitted and painted - I'd chosen a medium teal but an altogether different colour was mixed, applied, and our street - every other door a blue, red, or black - had to contend with a brilliant lilac entrance. As anyone - potential buyers, the postman - would run a mile from a door that remotely resembled the portal to Justin's House, I requested, nay demanded, that the builders repaint it. This time, it was coated in a-sort-of-teal-but-really-it's-blue colour. Why can't paint shops mix the correct shade?

Then it went quiet again....

October. The boiler stopped working. Once. And. For. All. There was no way a potential buyer would accept the old boy in its current stuttering state. Hands in pockets, a new boiler was grudgingly purchased. But hey, we had a warm home, viewers would be flocking in (or not) from the cold.

A brief pause....

Last week of November. In a freak flurry of spontaneity, we viewed a few properties that needed some work, placing an offer - after a second viewing - on a light, spacious three bedroom home we really felt drawn to. But our flat wasn't yet on the market. So the local estate agent was promptly ushered and hastily instructed.

Now we were rolling....

December. In one week shelves and spots were removed from walls, files and books boxed, carpets cleaned and the lounge, kitchen and Little A's bedroom repainted in neutral colours - not a whiff of lilac in sight. A feature wall of duck egg blue and cream flowers was added to detract from the rigorous amount of caramel brown in our bedroom. I dressed our bed properly with throws and cushions, and purchased a green rug - brightly woven with caterpillars and carrots, and according to Little A, a cabbage girl - for Little A's bedroom floor.

And our home was ready for sale.

No pause.

January. The first three Saturdays in January were spent foraging for a new burrow in Croxley Green and Rickmansworth. Our highest tally, I think, was nine viewings in one day. The offer on the home we had our hearts set on fell through in a very dishonest way. Post major disappointment, and to add injury to insult, the very same agent showed us around another property where I had an accident involving a ladder (said estate agent is now being sued). Back at our place, viewers arrived in all shapes and sizes; couples, single men, retired women, parents hunting for an investment, and the guy who wanted to construct a dubious ramp for his feline friend from Little A's bedroom window...

Then, last weekend, when we thought we'd exhausted our search, we inspected a home that had just come on the market at a great, within budget, price. It was proportioned well enough and had potential for an attic conversion and extension at the back. Younger Dad and I made knowing eye contact - it was the one - and without hesitation, made an offer there and then. No second viewings, we wanted this property. The very same day our estate agent phoned with a decent offer on our flat. On Monday morning we accepted, and that afternoon our offer was accepted too...... sometimes, things really do happen for a reason. (the chain, only small, had better not fall though).

And that was that. SOLD, subject to contract.

And the dog poo? Well don't tell Younger Dad, but after a viewing, I found a nasty brown smear on our hallway carpet. So much for the shoes off policy.... yuk.