The Plague House and Other Dismal Dwellings

It's February. Traditionally not a month I look forward to, relish much or want to dwell upon for any reason and this year it's arrived, like road-kill, in the bloody jaws of an already pretty miserable January. I succumbed to germ warfare 10 days ago and am only now crawling from under the flu-stone leaving poor Stephen dragging himself through the same hellish mire behind me. It's exhausting. Likewise weighing our collective spirits down is the heavy cloak of disappointment that has wrapped itself around us since yet another purchaser of the Minehead house declared himself 'fed up of waiting' and brought the whole chain crashing. As if we too were not entirely drained by treading water! If ever anyone deserved for this process to reach a positive conclusion it's Stephen who has worked tirelessly nudging, chasing, confirming and reconfirming. In addition we've debated, speculated, juggled, scheduled, hired, packed, loaded, unloaded, repacked, tried not to get excited, got excited, and then paid the price for getting excited - and this, the 4th time around. One has to believe such an elegant house will eventually find love again in the arms of someone who will restore her to her Edwardian glory, in a way we would (we promise) had not our future now presented a tantalisingly different, more spontaneous path down which we plan to walk. 

And so from one house suffering under the weight of tissues and cough drops and through whose door no visitors can be invited until we are freed from the shackles of 'the grand malaise' to another pining for a new adventure, may February hustle on by swiftly and blow the cobwebs firmly on their way. Amen.