I have written before about the nightmare we have had trying to move house. To summarise, over the course of three years we had three sales fall through (including one the day before exchange) and two purchases lost. Finally, fourth time lucky, all was going well and exchange was imminent, just when the Covid-19 crisis started to really hit home. Exchange took place, a massive relief after everything we had been through so far, and completion was set a few weeks later, for April 3rd. Then lockdown happened. All of a sudden we had no idea what would happen next – and neither did anyone else. Would completion still be legally allowed to go ahead? How could we use a removal company whilst socially distancing? What if someone in the chain got sick and they had to self isolate?

It was several days before we gained a tiny bit of clarity, which was that we could still move, provided we fit a strict set of criteria, which we did, so we were still planning on moving but right to the point of legal completion, when we had most of our things packed and on vans, I half expected a call to say someone in the chain was ill and we had to postpone everything. The stress was unbelievable, coupled with trying to juggle full time working from home and home schooling the kids. How my body didn’t collapse into a major ‘crash’ I have no idea but somehow it didn’t, and we managed to defeat the odds and finally moved house.

The relief was immense, but of course we then had the physical and mental toll of the actual move. Thankfully we had a removal firm who worked brilliantly to get everything packed up and moved, whilst keeping us all safe (I was reading stories all over the internet of firms cancelling jobs last minute so that was another source of stress as there was no way we could do it ourselves) but having everything we owned in boxes which needed unpacking and a whole new house to get to know, was exhausting in itself.

Finally, though, we were in. The main thing we needed from this new house was more communal living space (our previous house was one relatively small open plan room) and an actual garden (previously we had a small patch of artificial grass). If I am honest I had no idea if I really loved this new house before we moved into it. It fit the spec in terms of space and garden but I felt like it needed alot of work and it might be a while before we felt comfortable here but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Yes, the work needs doing eventually but the space we now have, especially at a time when we can’t really leave the house, has been life changing and I feel like we absolutely made the right decision pushing this forward despite all the surrounding uncertainty.

Eventually, though, all the stress has caught up with me and the inevitable ‘crash’ has happened. I’ve spent the past four days in bed with extreme fatigue and migraines but I’m grateful my body made it this far without deciding to give in for a bit and hopefully it will be days rather than weeks before I can get back to enjoying our new home and surrounding area, rather than just the four walls of our new bedroom.