THE LAST DAY WITH MY SISTERS AT OUR FAMILY HOME!!!

Penny, Lucy & Vivien at Heacham Lavender Tea Rooms

HOUSE SALE UPDATE

On Friday 13th September we exchanged contracts for our family home and we complete the sale on Monday 16th September. It has been extremely difficult over the last few weeks and that's putting it mildly! Vivien and I (being the executors of our mother's will), had never sold a house before and we had no idea how stressful that process was going to be. I innocently didn’t realise the ruthless things that can occur when selling your home. After agreeing a price with our buyers, the contracts were drawn up by our solicitors, signed up and signatures witnessed etc, which involved a lot of driving on Vivien’s and my part to speed up the process – we presumed at this stage that we were close to exchanging contracts. The buyers then decided they wanted the property for far less than was originally agreed on and we ended up with a battle on our hands. I won't go into the reasons they wanted a massive amount off, but we were fuming to say the least. Putting it bluntly, they had had the survey done and they fully knew all the work that needed to be carried out to the property, but at the last minute decided that they would push us to our limits.

Eventually through mental exhaustion and exasperated with it all, we ended up with a considerably lower figure than the first contract, but far more than they wanted taken off. We were told they would walk away if we didn't accept their new offer – would they have done? Probably not, but we couldn't take the risk and they more than probably knew that. Another contract was drawn up and the saga continued. Vivien and I had had enough – we all had. The last few years of both our parent's deaths and now the selling of our family home, have drained us completely and to be honest, I don't know how we have got through it all. We've shouted, argued, cried, despaired and gone through every emotion there is! But the three of have survived, well just!


THE LAST DAY WITH MY SISTERS AT OUR FAMILY HOME!!!

Anyway, we arranged to meet up at our family home for the last time today. I picked Lucy up and we met Vivien at the cafe in the Norfolk Lavender shop at Heacham, where we sat and enjoyed a cheese scone and a coffee at one of the picnic tables by the river.

We then went to our mother’s favourite place to go birding in her latter years, which is Holme Marsh Bird Reserve NWT. Parked up our cars and walked to the first and second hide. It was a beautifully warm and sunny day, but not too hot. We saw Marsh Harriers, Common Buzzards, Gadwall, Mallard and best of all a Snipe was feeding right under the hide window of the second hide! We ambled back watching butterflies and insects in the glorious sunshine.

We then picked up fish ’n’ chips up from Eric’s at Thornham and went to our house at Holme. We sat on the lawn with our picnic tables and chairs for our lunch and reminisced about our happy childhood days spent in this glorious garden. So many children’s birthday parties, Christmas’s, Silver, Ruby and Golden Wedding Anniversaries, my Wedding pictures taken under the rose arch, Vivien’s birth here, mother’s death here. Our parents had owned this house since 1968. It was an extremely emotional day for all us and tears were shed several times.

Taken from the bedroom window of our house in April 2004
©Peter Clarke

 The beautiful pond that belongs to the property opposite our house, in its natural state before it was transformed by new owners into a neat and tidy garden pond, more visually suited to a town garden!

When we first arrived at the property this morning we were very angry and saddened to see a building site before us. The house opposite had started work with their house extension and demolition of the beautiful pond area next to our house. I had hoped this work would commence after we completed the sale on Monday, but sadly this was not to be. The biggest shock was the fact that the bulldozers had removed and flattened the private road between them and us and all the buddleia and mullein plants had been removed. I had intended on taking some cuttings of these before we left our property. I was in floods of tears to see this huge area of bare earth, devoid of a single plant that was there last weekend. I couldn’t understand why this had been done to the road!

Penny, Vivien and Lucy

Sitting on the front door step at 4 Aslack Way, Holme-next-Sea

Circa 1973

Penny, Vivien and Lucy

Squeezed onto the front door step at 4 Aslack Way, Holme-next-Sea

14th September 2019

We took a self-timer picture with my SLR on a tripod, of the three of us sitting on the front door step, to replicate a picture my father had taken of us approximately 46 years ago. This was hilarious as our three bottoms only just squeezed onto that step now!!! To be fair, Vivien hasn't expanded much since she was a toddler, but Lucy and I certainly have! We had to do several takes to get a reasonable picture – after pressing the shutter button, I had to run to sit with Vivien so she could put her arm round me (as in my father’s picture) and we all had to pose quickly – I had 10 seconds to get into position! We also asked a kind neighbour 'Diana’ to take a few pictures with my iPhone too. I copied and changed the picture below to black and white in photoshop – see above.

We then went to the Firs house at Holme NWT, where we had a pot of tea for three and chatted to Alison H. for a while. We then went to Holme Bird Observatory to sit and ponder, pay our respects to our parents and enjoyed the glorious evening sunshine.

We returned to the family home for the last time together. I took a couple of videos of the house and garden with an iPad that I borrowed and we cleared the last few items from the house and left. I'm going back tomorrow for a short while, to read the metres and have a final check and will then post our keys into the letterbox at Sowerby’s in Hunstanton, ready for completion at 12pm on Monday.