They say that history often repeats itself, and this is a story to demonstrate that on this occasion, ‘they’ are right.

Back at the beginning of 1998, we’d sold our house in Halifax and were living out of boxes in the 4 rooms above our rented shop in Sowerby Bridge, whilst house hunting in Lincolnshire. How on earth we did it over the distance, when we were both working and without the advantage of the Internet, I’ll never know, but there we are.

After some time we viewed a property called ‘Abbey Lodge’. We went to see it a couple of times, it definitely had ‘the feeling’ and so negotiations were started.

I can’t really remember the details after so long, but in the end a price was agreed upon, but the lady insisted she would not move out until August. At that stage it was probably about February. Reluctantly we agreed to this condition.

We really wanted to be in much sooner, as the garden perennials we had been keeping down the cellar in pots were beginning to sprout. Long, thin, albino fingers were emerging from the compost searching for light. Rather eerie and spooky if you happened to be down the cellar alone without a proper light on. Dead mens fingers.

I don’t know if the August thing was a ploy to put us off that back fired on her, but it didn’t take long for her to decide that she didn’t want to sell after all. ‘Abbey Lodge’ was off the market, dead in the water. My dream home had been taken away from me at the eleventh hour, I was devastated. ( Beginning to sound familiar?)

In the end we found, and bought ‘Ravendale House’. At the time I was unmoved by it. On paper it had everything I could possibly have wanted, but the thing it didn’t have was ‘the feeling’, and I was still grieving for ‘Abbey Lodge’.

As we know, it didn’t take me long to fall in love with Ravendale House, but now fast forward 15 years. We’ve sold Ravendale House and we’re living out of boxes again, this time in our rented cottage, because for the second time in my life the home of my dreams, this time ‘Ivy Cottage’ was taken away at the eleventh hour.

Anyone who has been following this ‘blog’ will know that ‘Ivy Cottage’ had ‘the feeling’ with knobs on. It was ‘Abbey Lodge’ all over again but this time followed by several zeros

Standing in the front garden one sunny afternoon looking up at the sturdy thatch and the deep eaves gave me a feeling that I can only describe as ‘spiritual’. Even though I knew there were drawbacks, I wanted to live there so bad it hurt.

As we know ‘Ivy Cottage’ is now also dead in the water and so the search for our next home continues. It’s like déjà vu all over again!!