It has been a difficult
year so far. Not long after I had returned from my short trip to
check on the house, my mother died. It was quite sudden. On the
saturday she went with my sister to a garden centre cafe and enjoyed
a cup of coffee and a cake and by the following Saturday she had
slipped away with her three daughters by her side. Although she had
Alzheimers and was physically weak, we thought we had maybe a couple
more years with her. We dreaded the time when she would forget who we
were, but that time never came. It was as good a death as one could
probably wish for. But nevertheless her death was a shock and I am
still feeling it.
As the immediate reason
why I had decided to sell our Czech home had been the need to care
for Mum, and because I didn't feel able to make decisions at that
time, I took the house off the market. Then a few weeks ago I got an
email from my friend, saying there was someone who was seriously
interested in buying the house and was I still interested in selling.
The buyers were willing to pay near the estate agent's estimate. So
what to do?
What these few years of
having to be in the UK for mum have taught me is that unless I can
commit spending some serious time in the house, the old building will
start to deteriorate. So can I make such a commitment? The answer is
probably no. I have started building a life in the UK – growing a
garden, building friendships and committing time to writing and
promoting my poetry. I don't want to give that up. Nor do I feel I
can leave my husband for the long spells of time I used to. So for
these reasons I think I may still sell the house.
From a purely financial
point of view: with the pound down against the Czech Korun (because
of Brexit) selling now means I should get more £s for my house. The
converse is also the case, the cost of running the house is rising,
just as our family income is going down.
So I have decided to
say yes, I am interested in selling, but not so much that I am
putting the house back on the market. I will put the matter “in the
hands of the angels” as my friend Hannah used to say.
