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Next month marks a year since I downsized from a six-bedroom home to my honey-stoned cottage in one of the Cotswolds’ prettiest villages.
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I → publish → villages
I’ve spent the summer opening my front door to find American tourists taking photographs of my house and marvelling at our English country gardens.
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tourists → spend → gardens
On hot summer days, the hedgerows were idyllic, overflowing with wafting daisies and endless clouds of cow parsley.
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hedgerows → overflow → parsley
Roses tumbled over the dry-stone walls.
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Roses → tumble → walls
I feel so guilty that I can hardly admit, even to myself, that the answer is no.
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answer → feel → myself
And wouldn’t Kirstie Allsopp say that’s what it’s all about: ‘location, location, location’?
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it → say → what
Well, only to a point, in my case. And not when you’ve made the rather more serious mistake of buying the wrong house.
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you → make → house
The fact I have struggled to admit to myself is I’ve downsized too far, and too soon.
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I → struggle → myself
There were so many factors to consider when I first decided to downsize.
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I → be → ?
The obvious practical issues: How would I manage a large garden in later life?
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I → manage → life
Why did I need six bedrooms?
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I → need → bedrooms
My girls were grown up and grandchildren were arriving.
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grandchildren → grow → ?
Surely it was time for them to host me for lunches, Christmas holidays and high days?
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them → host → lunches
That hasn’t happened.
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That → happen → ?
It is still my kitchen everyone gathers in on Sundays, and there are no prizes for guessing where Christmas lunch is this year.
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lunch → gather → Sundays
Don’t get me wrong, everyone mucks in and, secretly, I love it.
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I → get → it
Nadine Dorries downsized from a six-bedroom home to a honey-stoned cottage in one of the Cotswolds’ prettiest villages last year
On so many other levels, as I headed through my 60s, downsizing did make perfect sense, so I bit the bullet.
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I → downsize → bullet
Finding the right house wasn’t easy – especially in a climate in which people are too nervous to sell.
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people → find → which
So my first piece of advice to anyone considering doing what I have done is this: Don’t feel pressured into buying a property you know isn’t right for you.
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you → do → you
If you have to persuade yourself that it is right, if you have to work out how you can ‘make it fit’, perhaps your instinct is trying to tell you something.
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instinct → have → something
I took all the advice I was given.
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I → take → advice
I decluttered and brought very little with me that wasn’t either useful or beautiful – or so I thought.
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I → decluttere → me
Yet I still found myself surrounded by boxes I couldn’t unpack because there was nowhere to put their contents, and furniture that was too big.
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that → find → contents
Eventually, I had to call in the auctioneers – which was unexpectedly painful.
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which → have → auctioneers
For example, why did I feel such an attachment to my petrol lawn mower when the new house had no lawn?
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house → feel → lawn
Perhaps it was because, at my old house, I got such an enormous sense of satisfaction from mowing the grass and, exhausted, looking back at those perfect green stripes, even if they lasted barely 24 hours.
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they → get → hours
Which brings me to my second piece of advice: Be brutal, take almost nothing with you.
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Which → bring → you
And I mean almost nothing.
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I → mean → nothing
Start from scratch, however painful that feels.
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that → start → scratch
Otherwise, you merely prolong the agony.
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you → prolong → agony
You will either end up offloading it all anyway, as I did, or living with furniture you know belongs to a different house and a bygone period of your life.
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you → end → life
It will always look too big and never quite right.
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It → look → ?
Once I had sold the furniture, I set about trying to make the house fit my needs.
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house → sell → needs
So, I extended and refitted the kitchen, remodelled and refitted the rest of the house.
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I → extend → house
My good friend, the socialite and globally renowned interior designer, Nicky Haslam, took on the sitting room and transformed it into something beautiful.
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friend → renowne → something
I landscaped the courtyard garden and ordered new furniture to replace everything I had just sold for peanuts.
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I → landscape → peanuts
The expense was more than twice what I had budgeted.
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I → budget → what
The cost of materials was eye-watering.
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cost → water → materials
The result is that I have probably spent more on the house than it is worth – a rookie mistake for someone who has owned and developed properties for almost 50 years.
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who → spend → years
I have also discovered the importance of storage.
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I → discover → storage
…and 43 more, not listed.
The Aporia
