We`re gettin` there...!

The lounge seems to have taken an age to decorate. We like to get on and finish a room once it`s started. But this is still dragging on. The curtain material still hasn`t arrived from India -- and now the gas fire has stopped working.

But we are slowly getting there.

You can Blip back to see how we planned the room from materials... to furniture and wallpaper.

Newly retired we are catching up on all those jobs that we`ve been putting off. Many of the rooms in the house were looking tired so needed redecorating. The problem is:where do you stop!?

When I agreed with `The Boss` that we should decorate the lounge I had NO idea just how much it would all cost. We stripped the room of everything so it all had to be replaced. We have spent thousand just on one room. The furniture came in at twice the cost that I`d expected. But -- hey, ho -- you only live once and we do get a lot of pleasure out of our home, always have.

We moved out of London in `72 after my band broke up. You won`t believe this, but we bought a tiny 300 year-old terraced cottage in a Wiltshire mill town for £900.00 Yes -- that`s right. No nought missing. Nine hundred pounds. We spent the following year renovating the entire house. It was then featured in the style magazine, `Ideal Home.`

We sold it three years later for £9000.00 and invested this in another derilict cottage. This one was in a delightful typically English village with one shop, a pub and a huge church.

It was thatched and almost falling down. It cost us £12000.00. This was also featured in the magazine.

Our family grew to include three wonderful children -- but the house stayed the same size! We sold it for £25000.00

We eventually moved into a nearby market town. We bought a new house for £36000.00. This is our family home where our children grew -- and then left us to begin their own journey through this strange existence...

So -- now there`s just the two of us. Time is disappearing. But our family continues to grow with our beautiful grandsons.

We often talk about moving from this house when we are `older...` The day will come. And when it does my heart will be broken. These walls, these rooms contain my memories.

But that will be a new chapter in the story of our lives. I`m forever looking back. Perhaps because I am too scared to look to the future, the unknown...

... And it`s all gone so fast.

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