Not Long Now

Now that the important document is signed and further preparations are being made, I can reveal that I will be leaving New Holland and returning to Sutton-on-Hull, living in a freshly restored bungalow. I will be living near my closest friends again.

I will have been in New Holland almost exactly sixteen years when I go. The house has been a good one, and the setting good too with a green in front and a field behind. When we came, I travelled on a motorbike and my mother drove the car - taking it over the Humber Bridge and back by mistake. The first week and more here was one of wind, made worse by the open aspect of New Holland along an estuary. It made my mother initially miserable, but it was only one variety of weather. She then set about improving the property and this continued. I was to learn to drive a car while here, and took over all the driving tasks. The idea was a trade off between cheap property and then travelling over the expensive Humber Bridge to Hull. At one point while here my mother, Elena (who came from Russia with the millennium) and I made a serious effort to get into the Hull property market, just missing out on a spacious property over there. My mother and I went to the Unitarians until a point arrived when we stopped; I have since resumed.

Quite early and for a time we were subjected to local anti-social behaviour but in the end we solved it by 'disappearing' locally, and in one sense Barton-on-Humber became the place of my shopping, and also via the church there I built up a good set of friends. The problem there was I'm on or off the edge of what they are supposed to believe, though I'm not alone in that.

Unfortunately in later years dementia set in with my mother, and also we did not keep up with the need to maintain an old property. Despite pleas, she was uninterested in necessary redecoration. There was later on just the chance of major improvement to the back and the garage, but when the deposit became the overpayment for the garage alone, the builder (who'd redone the porch with his sons) stole the money. This then coincided with a major family betrayal that will never be overcome, and it is why when I leave I shall send the keys to my solicitors. Whilst I engaged my solicitor in a double action, nevertheless I had said that I would seek alternative accommodation.

Had I been the inheritor of this property as my mother intended in 2002, once my sister's side received almost all from my father, I would have sued the so-called friendly builder who stole the thousands. But I leave that to the outcome of matters now going ahead.

I like New Holland but it only works if you can afford a car. It is comparatively very cheap to buy property, and yet is 30 minutes almost equidistant between Hull, Scunthorpe and Grimsby with Barton a place of character nearby. This property and this setting, with its three double bedrooms and three living rooms, if maintained, would cost a fortune in most suburbs. It would cost considerably more if in the next villages. Manchester Square is a square of railway terraces from 1851, with one terrace listed, at this end of the line to the defunct ferry whereas Sheffield Square in Grimsby is long gone.

The problem we have had has been a succession of difficult neighbours on one side, only ended by the present very pleasant people. The previous neighbours were a living hell and contributed to my mother's decline. It also contributed to leaving my marriage distant and dysfunctional, if still friendly. A point arrived where I was fed up with New Holland and the strain was growing, only to be topped by a family betrayal that was breathtaking and required careful management thereafter. I even took my mother's funeral: after all, there had been, for good or ill, a continuous relationship until her dementia led to her mental losses and her behaviour changing.

So I am moving on, and in one sense moving back. There are some weeks to go, and then probably a short silent period before I'm fully online again and develop a new pattern of life.