So I'm not well right now, I've bored you all with that for a couple of weeks so I'm not going to say anymore about it except that it's meant that I've spent a much longer time than normal in my house.

I want to move.

Not leave the village particularly, 'cause it's pretty here and the beach is right there *points* and the hills are over there *points in a slightly different direction* and my sister and her kids live just over there *points in another direction* but I don't like my house anymore.

It's a two-bedroom bungalow, my mum bought it to retire in which she did, and when her health started to really go downhill I moved home and after she died it just made sense for me to stay here at the time. I have a mortgage on half of the house which I took out to buy my sister's share. Because of the way the land was split up I have a huge oddly shaped garden (there is enough room to put another house in there if the Council weren't being sticklers about planning permission) which is too big for me to take care of and since for the past three years all the guys I've hired as gardners have given up after two weeks, it's not in the best of conditions.

The house is an okay size for me I guess, I use the second bedroom as a study these days and given that it's designed as a double bedroom it may be a little on the large side for that, but other than that it's okay. I just... don't want to be in this house anymore.

I'm thinking, what with property prices having gone up as much as they have lately, I could sell the house, pay off the half-mortgage I have and be able to buy a flat outright. I've checked flat prices in the village and with the money I could make on the sale of this house I could do that. So I'd have no mortgage and the only monthly bills I'd have are the basic ones.

And I'd have equity to get a business loan to fund the bookshop.

The house isn't in selling condition yet - there's minor repairs to be done (if anyone can tell me a good, cheap, and reliable way to get rid of bad Artex on ceilings I'd be eternally grateful) and the decoration is purely my taste (apart from the artex) (my living room walls are a really rich dark blue with the chimney breast in gold - I love it, but it's too dark for most people) so that would need to be done I guess, but I really think I want to sell now.

That's really a huge step for me I guess, the day my mum died my sister asked me when I was going to put the house on the market and I told her I was never going to. It's not that my mum loved the house or anything, she only lived here for three years and it's miles from where she was raised. It's just... I dunno. From when I was 17 I moved around so much that there was a time I didn't know whether I'd have the same address the next month. When mum moved here it felt like the last time that would happen. It was for her, and I guess I've been kinda clinging to that a little. Stability.

But I don't want to grow old in this house. It's not really my home. It's just the place where I live.

I think I need to move.