ENTERTAINMENT

We’re thinking of selling our family home –the home we’ve lived in for 22 years. Kate grew up here, Toby the Border collie lived and died here, and among the many parties we’ve hosted, I had my 50th in the backyard. We thought we’d never leave. But … times change. People change. We’ve thought about it before. A few years ago we put a deposit down on a flash new apartment being built in Grey Lynn. It had a high stud (important for the Irishman), three bedrooms, magnificent views, no lawn or garden or swimming pool to take care of –it was perfect. So we rang the bank and got the deposit and signed the contract –and then in the middle of the night, I woke up in a cold sweat. The apartment was ridiculously expensive and it hadn’t even been built. It was a couple of years from completion. And we’d have to sell our house and we had no idea what we’d get for it, and we loved our house really, and we were only flirting with the apartment... I lay awake for the rest of the night, staring at the ceiling like a possum in the headlights, and in the morning, to the husband’s great relief, I rang the lawyer. Thanks to a clause in the contract that allowed a cooling-off period, we were able to get out of the agreement with no harm done. But the seed was sown then, I think, and now I look at our place and think how much better it would be for a family with young children. My friends and their two small children came round recently, on a sweltering Saturday, and it was wonderful to hear the children laughing and splashing in the pool. This house has missed that. If my London-based family was coming home in the near future, we would have tried to find a way for them to move in here while we went elsewhere. But we can’t put

New Zealand Woman’s Weekly our lives on hold for the kids or expect them to move home because it suits us. And so, we’re looking at selling up. Just as so many other baby boomers have done before us. It’s time for a new chapter and who knows where that will take us? But dismantling the household is difficult. Neither of us is what you might call a neat freak. We keep stuff: Kate’s old school reports, medical records, boxes and boxes of paperwork from the accountants, and books –hundreds and hundreds of books. We love the books and see them as old friends. When we renovated, we had custom-made bookshelves put into the office and the lounge, and they are piled high with our favourites, some of which I’ve carried with me since my teens. Kate’s childhood classics are here, and although I’ve taken some to England so she can read them to her children, I can’t bear to part with them all, so they have a dedicated shelf. And I shudder to think how I’m going to sort through my clothes. Thanks to my fluctuating size, three wardrobes are groaning under the weight of all my dresses. There’s also weird stuff I have no idea what to do with –the real detritus of households. Some kind of handle off something long forgotten, nuts and bolts in a dish... I have no idea where they should go. Nothing’s fallen down yet so presumably they’re not needed. And lots of cables and wires that mean absolutely nothing to me. So, yes. I’m relieved we’ve made the decision to have The Great Clearout of 2020. It will be enormously useful whether we sell or not. The only problem? I have absolutely no idea where to begin.