8 Months Later

Today marks 8 months since we moved from our first home.

I actually started this blog back before I had any idea that we’d be moving, but seeing as the opportunity arose & was far too incredible to turn down, we decided to sell lovely Beswick Avenue to buy Baylyn House.

To see a full tour including our journey from reposession to when it was sold, see here.

I was incredibly attached to Beswick Avenue. It was literally ‘The Home That Made Me’ hence the blog title. Those walls watched me turn from an 18 year old university student in to a married mother of 2 (or 3 if you include my big baby of a husband) with all that came in-between including heart break, ever lasting friendships, blossoming romance, new jobs & even Elsa’s birth in the loo (read her birth story here).

If I’m perfectly honest, although I was so excited to be moving & who wouldn’t be looking at our new house… I was also very nervous due to the attachment I felt. Would I regret leaving the house that held so many memories? Would the new house be able to compare? Would it ever feel like home? 

Saying goodbye when we completed on the house sale/purchase was awful. I cried for hours despite an Ikea trip which normally leaves me ecstatic. I think it was mainly the idea of never being allowed back in to somewhere that i’d spent all that time & was my home. Somewhere I felt safe & at peace was being ripped from underneath my feet.

We went back to Beswick Avenue that morning as a family to have one final walk around. I took a few minutes quietly by myself in each room whilst Elsa ran around the empty rooms to reflect on everything that had happened within those walls. I silently said goodbye to each of them.

Just when I thought I was composing myself, Joe told me he’d written something for me & passed me this poem –

I first met this house over 4 years ago on the 11th December,
It was a night neither of us would remember,
Not only was it the night I found the love of my life,
But the night that I met the home for my daughter & my wife.

This house has seen my journey from boy to almost a man,
It was the birth place of my daughter, which did not go to plan,
It is the only place I have ever known you,
The girl who continues to make my every wish come true.

If the walls could talk, what would they say?
They’d talk about the love shared within them every single day.
Would they talk about all the blood, the sweat & the tears?
Or would they talk about the many beautiful & happy years?

This house has seen our daughter, our love & the animals too,
All grow, cherish, develop & seen Elsa born in the loo.
It has been your project, your burden but your place to call home,
And more than anyone it has seen the way that you have grown.

The heartache, the pain, the sorrow & the glee,
And that was just since the day you met me!
It is weird to be attached to walls and a door,
Will our new house be the same? You can never be sure.

All you can do is take a leap of faith & see,
If these new walls and doors will one day mean as much to me.
They say that home is where the heart is & we have cemented it here,
But now it is time to move onwards & upwards as the final goodbye is near.

Take a second to think of the memories & the joy you have had,
As after today we can only look back & be so glad.
We have stepped outside for the last time.
It will be strange never to go back but now we have to say goodbye.

We are moving into the house of our dreams,
Where our children will grow & find out what home really means.
Thank you 54 Beswick Avenue you have served us very well,
And for now it is is goodbye 
From Charlotte, Joe & Smell.

Oh God. 

Heart.

Breaking.

It’s safe to say I cried like a baby.

This is the blog I wrote upon handing over the keys – here

But, now 8 months on, I can honestly say that home is where the heart is. The memories have stayed with us even if we cannot set foot within the walls they were made. As sad as it is, & as loved as that address once was, I haven’t missed it anywhere near as much as I thought I would.

Occasionally something will hit me that will spark a memory & bring me right back in to the lounge of Beswick Avenue. Last week I had the heating on & 64 Zoo Lane came on CBeebies. This was a favourite of Elsa’s when she was teeny tiny & used to come on just as Joe would walk in through the door in the middle of winter. We used to sit on the rug singing the theme tune to her ‘There’s one with a hump, & one that can jump, & one that is…well a little bit rounnnnddddd’. It was like I was sat back there at that very moment & I smiled thinking what a lovely memory it was.

The new owners have apparently had the worst luck including the chimney falling down when they tried to open it up, leaks, a burglary (eeeeek!) & my beloved front door has been replaced with none other than a dungeon lookalike door. We didn’t have a single problem in the 6 years we lived there so I do wonder whether the house just didn’t ‘like’ them, which may sound a bit silly to some.

I’m 100% settled in Baylyn House & every single day I look around me & feel so incredibly blessed to be living somewhere so absolutely beautiful. The work we’ve done here, although not quite as extreme as Beswick Avenue, has helped me bond & despite the house belonging to my mum previously, it feels like it’s always been my home.

Love, Charlotte x