Thursday 5 June 2025 post begun 0850hrs BST

 

If you're sensible, as you age you compromise on what constitutes a 'deal breaker'. You recognise no matter how you work at staying fit (no mean feat when lumbered with multiple-but-well-controlled heart conditions) you're not going to EVER be able to do the sports you did without thinking too much about consequences like pulled muscles. You realise the garden and other maintenance tasks are inching (leaping and bounding) out of your strength and energy levels. 

 

You look around at your current home and think 'Really?!'. 

 

The problem is getting your other half to come to the same realisation you have - that the kitchen and bathroom are not conducive to graceful and comfortable ageing-in-place, and that lovely lawn and shrubs and border plants including daffies and King Solomon Seal are too much work 'at your age'. You realise the living room is 'wrong', the entry hall is 'wrong' and the patio is so much bloody wrong neither of you have actually gone out there in YEARS. 

 

I've come to the conclusion I'm going to have to dare threatening him - either we move or we divorce. I am reasonably confident he'll bluster and argue strenuously and then choose not to call my bluff - he likes my cooking. I want to be moved by August at the very latest. 

 

I am a champion list maker - I make lists and stick with the contents. I make 'pro-con' lists on topics I'm trying to take a decision on (if time allows for lengthy consideration before a decision must be taken and acted on). 

 

My current list is titled 'What I like/dislike about...' a terrace property I looked at last year and thought 'Nope, won't work' because the only bathroom is on the first floor, but have recently come back to (yeah, it's still on the market, now £10K less - I want to know why it hasn't sold). I came back to considering the terraced property after my 'Could We Live In A 1st Floor Flat' list developed a rather serious reason to shift the list to the 'Probably Not' folder - the ground floor properties and the potential hassles of being a good neighbour to the folks on the ground floor. 

 

Oh OK, and the lack of ANY outdoor space - the more I thought about not having so much as a balcony to get a breath of fresh air, the more I realised we both need at least some wee bit of outdoor contiguous to our living space.

 

So now I'm working on finding more 'dislikes' than 'likes' on this quite nice terraced property in a rather nice neighbourhood - however the only dislikes I can come up with are the only bathroom (actually a shower room) is on the 1st floor with no scope for adding a WC (aka 'half-bath' to American readers) on the ground floor, and the room Paul would use as his study has the combi-boiler in the cupboard so he wouldn't be able to sleep in there. 

 

The problem is he hogs the blankets - we went with what is called a 'sleep divorce' (separate sleeping quarters) years ago. To be fair, I am a restless bed hog. So separate works for us:)

 

The second bedroom is big enough for two double beds. He does snore but not badly and only during hay fever season so we could conceivably share the bedroom for sleeping as long as we were sharing via separate beds.

 

The property interior is 'turn-key' with great carpet and paint through-out. The kitchen is well laid out, has a dishwasher, space for a side-by-side larder fridge-freezer AND a dining table and chairs - and it is beautifully open-plan to the sitting room. The 

 

The stair up to the first floor (shower room and two bedrooms) is wide enough for a stair lift. 

 

It has a top quality recently fitted combi-boiler and the entire property was re-wired when the new boiler went in late 2023.

 

This terraced property in a nice neighbourhood has no ground floor neighbours. It also has the added bonus of an elevated position giving a rather lovely 'upper terrace garden area' with paving and decking rather than lawn (I have ideas...), AND a lower off-street parking and bin storage space. It's not overlooked by next door neighbours on either side or across the street. 

 

I've been working on the like/dislike list for two weeks. So far the dislikes are far and away outnumbered by the likes.

 

Published 5 June 0945hrs BST