New Beginnings

For bestselling author Penny Vincenzi, selling the family home was an emotional wrench, but then another ‘For Sale’ sign opened the door to a new life…

I’d left my big beautiful house with much sadness after Paul, my husband, died. Anyone who has ever packed up the family home, with all its memories and ghosts, has had to get rid of much-loved furniture and pictures and sentimental treasures, will know how truly heart-wrenching it is, how utterly bereft I felt. How could I be doing this, turning my back on so huge a part of my life? But it had to be done, there was no option, I decided, as I rattled around in it; and having finally made the decision (although I unmade it several times), a certain sense of excitement did begin to creep in, a promise of new beginnings, in moving on…

I settled on an area that was about 15 kilometres down the road – nearer to two daughters and their families, and several friends – and rented a flat there while I looked for a house. The bleakest moment was shutting the front door of the house for the last time, driving away, not looking back. After that, anything would have seemed easy.

I did the round of the estate agents, telling them what I wanted: a house; a pretty, un-smart, small-ish older house, with an equally un-smart, overgrown garden and, in a perfect world, a gravel driveway that I could love and cherish. I added that what I didn’t want was an already modernised and/or done-up house; and promptly received particulars of dozens of already modernised and/or done-up houses. I tried again: I wouldn’t find anything, they said, there were no such houses left in the area. Friends told me the same thing.