Orna Mulcahy on people we all know
It only seems like yesterday that Nuala and Garret bought the house in Rathgar but, amazingly, 30 years have gone by and it's time to move on, especially as a house around the corner has just sold for 1.7 million, and theirs is much bigger, plus the garden faces the right way.
The children have all found places of their own, and a big clear-out last summer got rid of the things they forgot to take with them - the boxes of college notes, the riding rosettes and the posters and dolls. Since then, the house has been redecorated entirely in beige and is now ready to sell. Garret is project-managing the sale, and has spent many happy hours interrogating estate agents about their fees.
Nuala, in charge of décor, has made several trips to Dunnes to buy cushions and patio furniture and throws for the beds that now look so nice, no one is allowed to sleep in them. It's all been quite stressful and there has hardly been any time to look for a new house. Then it seems that they want quite different things. Nuala says she'd be lost without a garden; Garret wouldn't say no a penthouse. Nuala did look at one apartment, but it was so poky and had a zimmer frame parked in the hall. She is thinking cottage-style, but Garret says he wants high ceilings, underfloor heating and a multi-media room.
They both agree that they need something smaller, preferably on one level in case one of them gets totally doddery, but not so small that they are going to be on top of each other. Ideally with separate bedrooms and bathrooms too, since Garret is an insomniac and watches CNN through the night, while Nuala needs a special bed for her back and plenty of shelves for her creams and contact lenses.
So far they haven't seen anything really suitable, but then bungalows with separate wings and grounds are hard to find in the city centre. And the prices! It's frightening what people are spending on small houses. They'll be lucky to have any change left over when they buy and sell. The bickering continues through the last frenzied days of Getting The House Ready, with Garret throwing the entire contents of the potting shed into the skip, and Nuala, hysterical from not being able to find her good secateurs, making a bonfire of Garret's lifetime collection of Afloat magazines.
There is no going back once the auction board goes up, though Nuala, who is on tablets for her nerves, doesn't really want to move now that it is looking so nice and clutter-free, and at last they have replaced the leaky tap in the downstairs loo. Only problem is they can't find anything as it's all in boxes. Vital, says Garret, that they move now before they become fully paid-up members of the Craft club (Can't Remember A *@!!** Thing) and are carted off to a nursing home.