We have finally found a buyer for my late mother’s Suffolk house, but I’ve fallen into something of a trap. After the money’s divided and the bills are paid, I shall have a lump sum but nowhere near enough to buy a home. I’m 54 next month, not much more than a decade off official retirement age. Having taken a year off to do up the house for sale, I have little salary to show any mortgage-lender that won’t make them call security or simply giggle. Completion date is in February, and I have nowhere concrete (quite literally) to go to. I spent 2022, having grabbed my two cats and fled from a Russian suddenly-at-war, staying at a series of dirt cheap, pet-friendly hotels in the Caucasus and Southern Italy (where I have a daughter). My rucksack, which once held a litter-tray, a disassembled scratching post and a kilo of Purina catfood, is now grinning at me expectantly from the corner.
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