How My House Became Jo's House!

It is now 6 weeks until I depart these shores for warm pastures new. Final preparations are under way as my entire life is squeezed into one, medium sized, case.

When I returned from India 10 weeks ago, my main priority was to own and rent out my house. This was completed with minimum fuss (eventually) and a passing comment, to a good friend in work one day, saw the perfect tenants arriving on my door step.

When Jo had first called me to enquire about renting the house, I had had to think for a whole 30 seconds, as to whether I would want her and her brother as my new tenants. She was young, single, unemployed at present, due to the fact that she had two small children, one under school age. She lived with her brother, a self-employed Tent maker and a past boyfriend of mine, who smoked and owned three cats! They were defiantly not the 'Professional Couple' the Estate Agents would offer me, but I could not have dreamed of better people to take over my ramshackle house and organic garden and so the deal was done!!

I had not been actually living in the house for the past few months, as I had moved in with Peter and his two children. Having just returned from the wonderful holiday, I saw no point in returning to the house and set about clearing it out.

Trips were made to the charity shops, bundles were piled into recycle bins. Gifts of books, jewellery, paintings, began to appear on friends doorsteps and yet the house still looked full!! The turning day presented itself when, faced with a large rocking chair that was simply too big to transport to the local charity shop, I manhandled it out of the front gate and left it, in the morning sun, beside the road with a sign pinned to the cushion. It read.....


FREE
PLEASE
TAKE
ME

I piled along side it some books that had been sitting on a top shelf, mainly for show more than actual reading, and went to work.

I returned at lunch time to find everything gone. The note now fluttered on the gate post and on its back someone had written.......

Thank you so so much

Has gone to a very good home
I will rock my new baby to sleep in this tonight
God Bless You

Matt x


Tears of joy welled up in my eyes, not only was my rocking chair safe, but someone had taken the effort to actually write something back. The warmth of humanity filled my heart as I rushed inside and began to empty my house onto the pavement.

There is a convenient pull in just outside the front gate with enough space for three cars, this was soon filled as I piled the bed, settee, arm-chairs and throws into the vacant space. Books, wind-chimes, cool-boxes soon followed.


I emptied the space beneath the stairs, I emptied the kitchen cupboards of tins and pans, the bedroom was stripped of pictures, shoes, books and strange shaped pieces of wood, all went out into the street as the cars began to stop.

Over the next 24 hours I met a wonderful collection of people. People who took the time to stop, people who took only what they wanted, people who had needs for these things that I had loved and made, people who would give my things a good home. One sweet lady loved the huge denim patchwork throw covering the settee that I had made, quickly I ran inside to find the matching cushions! Another loved the wind-chimes and took the one of the strange shaped pieces of wood to decorate her garden.

By the time 48 hours had passed, every little thing had gone, including the settee which, being made of solid wood, weighed a ton!

I now had an empty house in desperate need of cleaning and painting. I called Jo.

“What colour would you like the walls and carpet?” I enquired. If I was going to paint it, I might as well do it in the colours they liked. “Oh we will paint it for you!” she immediately replied. My wonderful new tenants were turning into dream tenants. We arranged to chose the paints the following day and called into the carpet place next door at the same time. Double glazing was installed throughout the house by the end of the week and the decorating began. Old carpets were ripped from the floors to be sliced and laid between the veg patches. Curtains were removed, washed and ironed.

Green bedrooms became brown.




Peach bathrooms became white.




The Mediterranean kitchen disappeared.




Deliveries began to arrive.



The house was changing.

With the final glossing completed, Jo and Mark rested for 24 hours while the new carpets were laid. Then it was the day of the BIG MOVE. Everyone who owned a car with a big boot was drafted into help. Peter called in a favour to get a van for the big stuff and the mission was on.

I, however, was just the Landlady, and so I sat in the garden reading a book, safe in the knowledge that if they needed me, they would ask!!

As beds and chairs were carried indoors, as settees were stood on end by men who scratched their heads to think about how to get them through doorways too small, as Jo busily directed and prepared food for us all, I watched and read. My new tenants were simply PERFECT!!

Later that afternoon the multitude sat around the table. Children tore around the garden in their wonderful new playground.




They played chase and tag, they sat and ate, they tried to rub their tummies and pat their heads, they rubbed each others tummies as it was easier.




Jo, although exhausted, smiled happily. Mark, while still looking at the settee out in the front garden, rolled a cigarette. They were in their new home four weeks after the whole idea had begun. It was done! (Well, once the settee was in!)

Once Jo recovered, she came up with the wonderful idea of the yearly Land-Lady/Tenant meeting! Of course, it wouldn't be seemly of the Land-Lady to be seen running after her Tenants, so the Tenants would simply have to come to Her! On the Island of Moorea!! I told you they were the PERFECT TENANTS!!!