I’ve seen the term ‘Twixmas’ thrown around a lot over the last week. Apparently meaning the period between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve, it has represented a feeling of nothingness – Christmas is over, many are off work (or at least, have had a few days off) and it’s often a time of relaxing and recovering from the festivities before preparing for the start of a new year.

My ‘Twixmas’ usually involves a little bit of work, lots of sleeping, eating snacks and watching movies. This year, however, we’re up to our eyeballs in boxes, packing tape and bubble wrap. 

Because we’re moving house. Next week. 

Great. 

Out of the blue, our landlord (that we hear from once a year when he comes round to do a gas check) made it clear that he planned to sell the property, without actually outright saying so. This was not-so-coincidentally at the same time the property next door sold for an exorbitant price, and he suddenly wanted to make all sorts of improvements to the house that he has ignored for years. I’m assuming he hoped that by not being completely transparent about his intentions we would naively stay and pay rent while dealing with builders and decorators so he could maintain an income before he put it on the market. 

It knocked the ground out from under us. 

After the year we’ve had, the LAST thing we needed was a house move. We’ve been saving up for a house deposit for a while and buying our own house is certainly a possibility in the not-so-distant future, but buying a house takes time, and we realised that time was something we no longer had.

The biggest worry of all was that the competition for housing where we live is insane (properties are let and houses are sold within 24 hours of being put on the market), and we were terrified that we wouldn’t be able to find a property if we were given notice and would be left homeless. The Bloke and I decided there and then that rather than living in fear and uncertainty, we would take control and do things on our terms. We talked about it and realised that while we could have risked it and waited it out, we weren’t prepared to live with the continuous uncertainty of wondering when we would be given notice. Additionally, working from home meant I would have to deal with trying to work with builders and decorators around me – not possible when trying to have client calls and schedule content.

That evening, I looked for rental properties in the area and found one we liked, not far away from where we currently live. The following morning, I rang the estate agents and booked a viewing appointment for that afternoon. The Bloke left work early and we walked up, only to find another couple also waiting for a viewing and a family already in the house having a look round. We went in, we liked it, I filled out the application form on my phone as we walked home, and on Friday morning I got a call to say that our application had been accepted and we got the house. 

Unfortunately, (or perhaps fortunately – I’m undecided as yet), we couldn’t move in until the beginning of January. On a positive, this gave us time to deal with the paperwork and sort out a removal firm, and the Christmas holidays has meant that we have had some time to get on with the packing without having to worry about work. On the negative, neither of us have been able to relax or get any much-needed rest or the chance to decompress. It also hasn’t helped that I got knocked on my ass by covid followed by a kidney infection for a few weeks, and I’m still not fully recovered. Additionally, we are moving from a furnished to an unfurnished house, so we need to purchase multiple items.

However, while I’m frustrated now, I know that once the move is done, all of the details are changed over, the final bills are paid, the deposit is returned and the landlord has his keys, it will all be worth it. The new property is nice and airy, it’s in a quieter area and, while I will really miss my neighbours on one side (we live in a terraced house), I definitely won’t miss the other side, their constantly screaming child and their almost weekly barbecue parties that smokes our house out (who has a barbecue in the freezing cold and rain in December????). Best of all, we can take a little bit of time just for us, and hopefully things can be quiet. And simple.

Because simple is exactly what we need right now.