Welcome to Moss Side

Well we finally made it. I have a house of my own. We are settling in to Moss Side, a formerly rather notorious part of south Manchester, but now a perfectly lovely place to live. The long and torturous process began back at the end of January when the landlord at Prestage Street decided not to sell us his house and we were obliged to search further afield. In a very swift decision making process I viewed half a dozen houses over a weekend, and ended up picking this one:
Within four days I had made an offer that was accepted and it should have all gone swimmingly. The best laid plans and all that, complications with the land registry, meant that things dragged on for many more weeks than I anticipated. We lived surrounded by piles of boxes, coming home from work every day expecting ... hoping ... that there would be a message from the solicitor that we were ready to complete. I never want to buy a house again. Yes, I know some work needs doing on that flashing over the bay window ... trust me, it's high up the list. It is small, cosy and has everything we need. We are painting, and more painting, photos of fun stuff coming soon.

Little purple flowers sprouting in the walls around the yard 

conspire to make me smile.