winterbadger | (no subject)

YAY! an taigh anns na craobhan will be going on the market this weekend! The estate agent contacted

redactrice to say that the sign would be going up today or tomorrow, and the advert would go on Multiple Listing Service tomorrow. Our long national nightmare is reaching its end. Or, as Sir Winston would have said, .... well, you all know that bit.

redactrice and

shy_kat have worked SO hard on getting the house ready. I've done my best to help (most of all by clearing all of my junk out of half the house :-), and

soccer_fox has valiantly hacked down bushes, washed dirty windows, and manhandled heavy furniture, but a heavy part of the burden has been on the grrlz, not only getting things sorted, cleaned, moved, painted, swept, raked, and fixed, but having to live through the upheaval around them and engage in liaison with the nice but sometimes nutty estate agent. Huge props to them!

I truly, truly love this house. I lived there for the better part of, what, nine years? It is idiosyncratic in its design and construction. It has annoying quirks and just plain oddities. But even apart from all the people I've loved and shared it with (and the dearly beloved cat who is buried among its trees), it's a wonderful place--eclectic, attractive, comfortable, in the middle of a beautifully wooded spot, in an incredibly quiet neighborhood, given its supremely convenient location, minutes from the Beltway and right beside three major east-west routes through the county.

I've been there in hurricanes and blizzards and droughts and many, many, hot, wet Virginia summers. I've had big parties and quiet celebrations, huge fights and quiet contemplations there. I've stood in ankle-deep snow on the back deck in dark nights and looked at constellations; I've sat on the screen porch and watched rainstorms pelt water down through an near-tropical canopy of leaves. I've battled bugs, surveyed deer, spotted hawks, admired foxes, and been charmed by chipmunks, all of whom I shared the house or its grounds with. I'm going to miss seeing a Christmas tree, all covered with ornaments and baubles and lit like a beacon, standing in the darkness of the cathedral-ceilinged upstairs living room. I'm going to miss seeing the dining room, filled to bursting with a Thanksgiving table loaded with good food. I'm going to miss lying in my hammock listening to the frogs peeping in the streambed. I'll miss the trees, the ferns, the bushes, and all the flowers (both the ones Chris planted and the ones that Nature decided should be there).

But most of all I'm going to miss the times I've spent there with so many dear and wonderful people. Chris and Melissa, of course. Neta (who, in the warmth of our top-floor home, already misses the quiet coolth of my badger cave). Liz and Steve, Laura, Jennie, and all our friends and relatives who have visited or stayed with us.

They say that life is a journey. This has been a rich and wonderful leg of it, and I'm terrifically glad to have experienced it. I hope that whoever buys the house has even half as much happiness in it as I have had.

(And, of course, the sooner they buy it and begin enjoying that happiness, the better. ;-)

Now, as Reepicheep would say, "Onward and upward!"