And now, moving out.

After 3 years, in 2 different houses, we’re moving out of the street. I’ve liked it here, it has a good middle-of-town feel to it and we’ve been particularly happy in this house, which is a lovely one. I can hardly believe we’ve been here over 2 years, the longest of any of our rents. It has felt like home, for us and for the children, and it has been a house where i’ve enjoyed having lots of friends to stay. I’ll leave with some very positive memories. I think i turned into a woman in this house and left behind the girl and although i did it late and although i did it in some ways i never imagined or expected, that feels like a positive change.

But it is good to move on. My business is growing and needs space, my children are growing and need space. We’ve got into some ruts recently, educationally speaking and it will be good to have a fresh start in that way too. It will be good to move to a house with no ongoing worries about Maddy and good to leave behind nursery type days too. I’m looking forward to a house i can be bothered to be proud of.

So – we’re moving on, not without relief to be honest as the final month of living here was very difficult and we dealt with stuff we thought we had been lucky enough to escape without ever experiencing. We’re somewhat wiser now, though i’m not sure it has made us better people. But i do know that we are leaving this street as a very different couple to the still rather young and learning to be married people who arrived here 3 years ago. I remember after we had Amelie, and both of us had a year of being ill at various times, how hard and unforgiving we were of one another. I’ve been enormously proud of our ability to talk, listen, comfort and care for one another in the last few weeks. For all we’ve just been through another set of grim times, it has been almost, if not quite, worth it to discover how utterly committed we are to our marriage, our family and our future.