For a few blissful days I became ensconced in a room at the Premier Inn, with no fixed abode. I was not a property owner. I had no responsibilities. I was free. This wondrous state of near-vagrancy was only until the purchase of my house in Ireland went through, but I enjoyed it all the same.
I got the better end of the deal, taking the king-sized bed in the budget hotel room while the builder boyfriend slept in his pick-up truck with the dogs, or next to the truck in a pop-up tent. Obviously, I let him come by for a shower in the morning, and some breakfast.
He was so happy to be on his way to Ireland that he declared camping in a friend’s field the most minor inconvenience.
We did interview for some dog-friendly Airbnbs in Surrey but the owners, who all demanded we turn up and introduce ourselves and our dogs first, were so weird and had so many ridiculously unkeepable rules that we decided it was motel or bust.
We were so tired by the time the house was packed up and vacated that we would have slept in the horses’ field shelter.
The contents of our cottage was loaded into a 30ft container lorry, bound for a storage depot in the north of Ireland. Every last square inch was crammed with boxes by the time the lads declared it full. Some stray items from the shed and the cellar had to go in the back of the builder boyfriend’s truck, and be taken to his builder’s yard.
How we ever crammed this much stuff into a three-bedroom Victorian mid-terrace I have no idea. After four hours of loading, the HGV was so full to bursting with possessions – most of which seemed to have come out of the under eaves storage in the loft – that I no longer cared what we left behind.
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