Our house

We closed the door of another chapter in our lives this evening. Our very first family home. The house where my twin babies learnt to eat, to walk and to be part of a community. It is the house where my handsome boy put on his whistle, dusted down his shoes, trimmed his beard in a wing mirror, before dashing with his dearest oldest friends, to church, to meet me; his future wife.

It is the house where we conceived our final baby - Betty-Blanche, whose first cries filled the house the very day she was born. As I pushed her out my screams and her cries still hang in the soul of those walls. She curled up and suckled as we lay in bed together and her twin brother and sister raced to meet her for the first time hours after her arrival. Toasted with champagne by her grandmother, and lemonade by the twins.

It is the house in which we have danced and laughed with so many friends, old and new. Within which meals have been lovingly made and shared, drinks toasted, cigarettes smoked under the stars and giggles felt until way into the wee early hours. It is the house we filled with love, family, friends, champagne, and hand-made delicacies in the honour of the christening of our littlest baby girl.

It is the house we left forever tonight, it's slugs in the front garden and unstoppable vine in the back garden. It is the home whose brass door knocker I shone, whose fence I painted, whose windows my husband replaced and I cleaned, whose floors we sanded and walls we painted, whose bathroom we plumbed in and kitchen we designed, shelves we put up and books we filled, and...it is the house, now of someone else.

May they love it as much.