Morning everyone.
Back home now and I would greatly appreciate your thoughts. This is going to be along post and I hope you can stick with it because I want to give you as much information as I can.
Some of you may remember that last year we considered buying a double lodge and selling our home, which would require drastically downsizing, getting rid of virtually everything we currently own as the lodges are fully furnished.
A couple who were on the site we're on at the moment moved last week to another, owned by the same family so on Tuesday we went to have a look round.
It's as near to our flat as our current home and is open for 12 months of the year so would be our main residence. The lodge overlooks a 9 hole golf course on a newly developed site, not yet completed. There are two lakes (one for fishing) and beautiful country walks in, and around the entire site.
Decking is included and is a larger area then we currently have with glass panels at one end so not to obscure the view of the golf course. There's a brick paved parking area big enough for two cars which will be for our use only.
There is a separate area for touring caravans which is well away from where we will be and as it is where we are now, the lodges and static caravans are owner only.
It's beautiful. Plenty big enough and I would say is actually slightly bigger than a 2 bedroom bungalow we used to own and rent out.
It can't be fenced off but the garden area is large and Mr. S. can do what he wants in terms of flower beds which is something he misses here as we only have a roof terrace, and the garden we have with our current lodge is really rather small.
We will check of course, but are pretty certain that we'll be able to have a patio laid to the front. We've secured the lodge for two weeks with a fee so it's currently off the market.
We know that unlike our house, the vale of the lodge will depreciate but we're not bothered about that as it's the relaxed lifestyle in beautiful surroundings we'll be going for and of course we will still have property with our flat and shop.
The site is 4.6 miles from our favourite old market town which we only go to when we're at our lodge and is less than an hours drive or us to come back here to visit friends, and for friends to come to us.
We're very fortunate that we don't have to rely on selling the house to raise the money, so wont have the usual pressures of buying and selling property.
It does sound great doesn't it, so what if anything is giving us pause for thought. It's a head and heart situation TBH. Our broken hearts led us here 7.5 years ago to a house that we love, so when we returned home yesterday, the doubts crept in.
The situation is ideal, we can walk to shops and restaurants within 5 to 15 minutes depending on where we want to be. We do love living so near to the coast but the weather often lets us down with cold winds and sea frets.
This is far and away the best house we have ever owned but it's huge and that's the problem. 4 bedrooms, large bathroom, shower room, large kitchen diner, separate utility room, 2 living rooms and a study area.
I often hear from people who wished they'd moved earlier and/or when they still had their husband/wife/partner, and it does play on my mind what the one of us who was left would do with such a big house and so much stuff.
I was 63 last month and Mr. S. will be 71 in November. I certainly don't consider him to be old and we are both blessed with good health. We could as we've talked about wait another 5 years but who knows how we'll be then physically.
Between the new lodge and our flat those really precious items including art work can be accommodated, everything else has been nice to have over the years but no tears would be shed to see any of it go.
So dear friends, what would you do? Would you go with your head, securing a lifestyle better suited to getting older or let your heart talk you into staying put?
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