Stressville

The cat has a hyperactive thyroid, the car's being serviced two bus journeys away and will probably come back with a thumbs-down of gargantuan proportions, I have just cancelled a few days away with McMum as I find it difficult to believe that we will manage to empty this house by a week on Monday (that's the John Rebus books off to the charity shop then!).
Offsprog Two's poorly and I am terrified that I've missed something out of the calculations and will end up in the new gaff with a ten grand debt somehow (and that's before I've sorted out the damp!)

In my imagination, though, we live there already, sitting round the table (too big for the kitchen, though) drinking coffee and eating cake, with miniscule fuel bills that a gnat could pay. We don't want or need anything because the house is full already. In fact, all we need to do is get on with our lives. There is practically no housework (eight hours on a Friday here every week to make the house nice for more than 50 viewings) and no gardening (a pity not to have a garden, but there are worse things).

My car's been vandalised three times in the last two years, and crushed fag packets posted through the house door, a full plastic coke bottle thrown at the window and myriad other things. Here, we are a stone's throw (literally) from the estate and the houses our street and the shops at the end are a hobby for the bored post-teenagers who can afford to frequent the boozers on the High Street.

I long for the insignificance of the tiny house to come. There is a high price to be paid for ostentatious-looking lifestyles.