Esquire

No, not the men's fashion magazine. Anyone who's ever met me will know better than to think I'd be interested in men's fashion. Esquire as in landed gentry and all that.

Today, at around about mid-day, the Horse Doctor and I rejoined the property-owning classes.

It was all a bit of an anti-climax, really. We were out when the call came through, so had to content ourselves with a short message from the solicitors saying the sale had completed and we could pick up the keys. They didn't say where we could pick up the keys from, but fortunately I've had a set in my possession for almost a month now anyway, so I could show builders and plumbers and sparkies around. Not that many have shown any interest in my remodelling plans.

So we're homeowners again, and that means I can dub myself esquire, should I so wish. Somehow that doesn't sit well with an afternoon spent destroying the old kitchen to make way for the new. Nor with the fact that our new home is not, at present, habitable.

what were they thinking?

But the sale didn't fall through, the money arrived on time, the mortgage seems to have been sorted. I can let out half of that long-held breath.

look! It's almost sunny at the back!

Tomorrow I will be destroying more things, pulling up manky old carpet and finding out what lurks beneath the floorboards. Thus begins a fraught month of building work before an even fraughter weekend of moving in.

could be a child's drawing of a house

Only then will I let out the other half of that breath, and perhaps break open a bottle of fizz.