The perfect house

Staffan took me to see the house on the outside, and we studied the description and pictures on the web. Since we have just sold our house, we are skeptical about both. Our old house never looked as pretty as in the agent's pictures. But the real house looked fine. It was - HUGE! A bungalow (no stairs), and it went on and on. And the garden was just as I didn't even know I wanted. I have seen so many gardens in gardening magazines, gardens that look like a picture that can never be real. But here was my dream garden, right in front of me! After that, I didn't care much about the house. No, that's not true, of course I did. But this house seemed to have all our musts, all might-be-nice-to-haves, and a lot more. It is in a secluded area - as we eventually discovered, on the edge of a little nature reserve; but it is reasonably close to the city. Excellent bike path that leads alongside the river directly to our favourite Green Dragon pub. But there are at least three pubs close by. Large rooms. Fireplace. Plenty of storage. Two-car garage. A private brook (although Staffan says it's a ditch). And at some point I discovered that the weedy patch in the middle of the lawn was in fact a pond!

On January 2, we went to see the house. Inside, it was still larger than on the outside. You could get lost (I still get lost after two months). The sitting room is like nothing I have seen, all angles and irregularities, with this huge fireplace in the middle. The pictures on the web didn't do the house justice. A very un-English house. A completely non-thatched-roof house. Exactly the right house for crazy people like us.

As we were leaving, another couple came. The thought that someone else would buy our house was more than we could bear. We went back and put a bid.