Today

The most exciting thing about this week has been the proposed purchase of a flat in Brighton. Not to move into, but as a "pied a mer", so to speak. This dream that we've had for a while has been made possible by the sale of my business. Last week, in the boiling hot weather, we trekked from flat to flat to town house to flat. We've made up our minds to a Kemptown sea front first floor Georgian flat, scruffy, but with plenty of original features to restore and lots of space.

Our offer's been accepted, and, if all is well, the purchase will be completed by the end of July.

We've had the pleasure of being able to be as choosy as we like, and will be able to have heaps of fun selecting just the right furniture etc for it.

In My Day

I remember our first flat together in Brighton. Not a bad place, on a three year lease, near Seven Dials. It was on the top floor and had a large lounge, one enormous bedroom and two smaller ones. There was an OK bathroom and small kitchen.

When we moved in we had:

A very old sofa bed, lent to us by our friends the Levetts, the oak dining table that we still have, an ancient iron bedstead with flock mattress, courtesy of my brother, 4 very assorted chairs, a folding card table and mismatched hi-fi bits. Oh, and a 2-ring Baby Belling cooker.

I had my sewing machine and I made curtains for the lounge sitting at the card table. Later we carpeted the bathroom, using carpet samples. The flat had very old-fashioned night storage heaters, that looked like tanks lined up against the walls. We just about coped with those until the 3-day week, when power cuts at various times of day prevented the booster re-heating the bricks.

When Lizzie was born I put my maternity allowance towards a spin-dryer and we made our first foray into HP, buying a fridge, lounge carpet and gas fire. How we trembled about the repayments! We never raised enough money to carpet the large bedroom.

We lived there for three years and loved Brighton the town.

I'm so excited about the prospect of Brighton second time around!